Live data from Hacker News

TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

pandasecurity.com

251–260 of 342 posts

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there stories of red counties applying for the money and not getting it? Or perhaps it was only marketed towards Dems? What’s the argument as to what happened here?

From zucks own form 990 IRS filing. CTCL awarded all larger grants – on both an absolute and per capita basis to deeply Democratic urban areas. E.g. https://capitalresearch.org/article/shining-a-light-on-zuck-...

That’s not an answer though.

The parent to your comment is asking what caused CTCL to give more to Democratically aligned counties. Everyone agrees it happened - I am just unconvinced it has a strictly partisan explanation. They are asking for proof it’s malicious. Just stating there is a difference in funding isn’t proof the CTCL acted with partisanship.

There are many latent variables besides GOP/Dem, Urban/Rural that could cause the difference. For example when examining barriers to voting, time spent in line or number of polling places/capita are easy KPIs. Urban areas tend to score poorly on these metrics. If the funding was allocated by these metrics urban areas will win more funding.

There are many reasons a totally non partisan group would prioritize grants to urban areas. Chief among them might be that partisans have deliberately underfunded urban locations and sometimes been caught saying the reason was for their partisan gain.

Or the simplest explanation: a party that discourages voter turnout is in charge or rural areas. Officials in those counties are less likely to ask for funding that makes voting easier.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess that the purpose is to use the data to eventually build life-like, AI-generated social media influencers. The data will show what kind of faces, voices, inflections, word choice, etc. is most influential. I don't think the technology is quite there yet, but very soon it will be possible, with a little hand tweaking, to fake "cool" people — video bots. It will be used as a psy-op.

Already starting to happen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huqNdRj16FQ

Yes. I wasn't aware of that, so thank you. The Uncanny Valley is still there — right now. That won't last forever though.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#253

Half the comments here suffer from a bad case of whataboutism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I though "whataboutism" was when the USSR points out that you're an apartheid state when you criticize them about their economic system, not when your own citizens wonder out loud why you're criticizing another country for doing something that you also do.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately regulating tech companies is politically untenable since he was nominated by the previous administration. They will replace him with someone who will toe the line. > Commissioner Carr was nominated to the FCC by President Trump and confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate. https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/brendan-carr > His term runs from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.…

The Senate did something unanimously under Trump?

Multiple things were done unanimously. In 2020, several nominations along with H.R. 748. Some senators did abstain from voting, but every senator who voted did vote yes.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending the CLOUD act, but it is definitely a substantively different type of a situation than having your company completely nationalized as it was with GCBD.

GCBD didn't nationalize Apple in PRC, it's data soverignty requirement same way TikTok was coerced/pressured to moved US data to Oracle US servers. Legal minutiae matterse less and less when outcomes consistently comparable. In terms of differing market environment, TikTok/Bytedance was one Trump EO away from being force sold to US companies (actual nationalization), which is more aggregious than PRC joint venture sc…

GCBD is nationalized iCloud. It was founded by the Guizhou government and is wholly state owned and operated.

Apple "chose" to agree to this deal with a gun to their head, the only other "option" being that they would be banned from the Chinese market. This isn't just because they have a data sovereignty requirement, but also because they have requirements regarding the sovereignty of a company's corporate governance structure.

>TikTok/Bytedance was one Trump EO away from being force sold to US companies (actual nationalization)

I'm not defending that idea, but a forced sale is categorically not nationalization. The whole impetus for the idea was that Trump's "eye for an eye" approach regarding what he saw as unfair practices against other US companies that tried to operate there. And in the end, Bytedance challenged it, and it never came to fruition.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#256

Great news. The fact that a company from the unfriendly country collects biometrical data may finally provoke enough outrage that such data collection gets forbidden for everyone .

I wish this was the case, but sadly people seem to have a massive blind spot when it comes to their own government having the same powers as the totalitarian CCP. One would think the implications are obvious and striking, impossible to miss, and yet I continually have to explain to people why these systems of surveillance are terrifying and inherently damaging to free societies.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#257

It’s incredible that the US allowed TikTok (which is by all measures a chinese spy tool) to become such a dominant social network. India got it right from the beggining by banning TikTok. They saw the immense threat and didn’t hesitate. China, by principle, has always banned all foreign information technology companies. What seemed hostile for us, it’s a reasonable play if you understand the unmeasurable power of mas…

The fact that India would consider TikTok a threat but not Meta leads me to believe that it wasn't done on a purely espionage basis. The threat of TikTok, today, it still theoretical, while Facebook has done measurable harm to India's neighbors.

By theoretical, do you mean TikTok doesn't collect data that is made available to the Chinese government? In my mind, that's the practical use of an espionage tool. If not that, then what else do you mean?

There was an allegation earlier this month, with what appears to be strong evidence to support it, that engineers in China have access to data from U.S. users: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...

Even if you ignore how suspicious that is, once the data is in China you have to assume it's made available to the government, since that's the official policy as far as I am aware.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#258
post #36

A security researcher wrote an article while back and it was shocking to see how much data TikTok was collecting: - biometrics - what words are mentioned in the video, popularity - surrounding wifi, location data - your contacts (presumably to cross link to social media platforms) I just can't believe that a powerful country like America is letting a not-so-friendly military/civilian complex infiltrate it for somewha…

Is this collection different from, say, Meta? I believe they collect all the same information via Instagram. And before someone says Meta is an American company, not controlled by an adversary, let me recall that it’s controlled by Zuckerberg who spent $419 million to influence US election administration in a seemingly partisan way (“democracy hacking” as another commenter said). Meta may not be YOUR adversary, but t…

Meta, Google and the USG are all much more relevant to my personal threat model than the CCP.

CCP has little power (or motive) to imprison me as long as I don't travel there.

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there stories of red counties applying for the money and not getting it? Or perhaps it was only marketed towards Dems? What’s the argument as to what happened here?

From zucks own form 990 IRS filing. CTCL awarded all larger grants – on both an absolute and per capita basis to deeply Democratic urban areas. E.g. https://capitalresearch.org/article/shining-a-light-on-zuck-...

Ok so… who asked for the funding and didn’t get it? Did Republicans apply for large grants in equal numbers and not get any? What happened to result in Democratic areas getting most of the money?

You’d think that for all this is, there’d be a sob story somewhere of the Republican counties that wanted better access to voting and didn’t get it. So… what happened?

Re: TikTok updated privacy policy to collect faceprints and voiceprints (2021)

#260

I will repeat my comment: Stop generalizing the "country of origin" as if it does not matter like the Chinese Comunist Party isn't a threat to the world. - There will always be a ruler, and which ruler is killing, slaving, censoring and selling it's own people as meat tools for foreign companies? - China will kill, torture it's own people and their families if they think they are a thread (even if remote) to their go…

US kills and tortures its own citizens if they are labeled 'criminals' or 'terrorists', or just lets cops murder activists without being charged.

US has heavy surveillance infrastructure, and a kafkaesque 'private' credit system that I have no doubt the TLAs can manipulate with their banking partners.

US politicians are currently working to ban the histories of racism and genocide from public schools when they make the country look bad. US media frequently participates in disinformation campaigns coordinated with state intelligence.

US has done more successful election manipulation/coups than any other country on the planet.

As a US citizen, I am vastly more afraid of of the US government than I am the CCP.

Post reply on HN