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ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

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Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#481

Post by BlueTemplar »

CyanBird wrote: post #346
BlueTemplar wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe for US citizens, but not so much for everyone else since 2001, hence why the EU effectively banned US companies in 2015 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems#Schrems_I (China/TikTok is even worse of course.)

> China/TikTok is even worse of course.) Is it tho? Is it worse than Cisco or bcci? What about CryptoAG? Instagram and Meta literary have got shadow profiles on near every single person on the planet....

Yes, Huawei owns much more our telecoms than Cisco, and I also expect the US to align more with my values than China :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843068

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#482

Post by remarkEon »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #381
remarkEon wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but these two things are very very different, and while I think your observation is apt it only exists at the margins (i.e. on twitter). You can steelman an argument for supporting Ukraine in their war that goes something like "bleeding Russia dry means they won't be able to enter into the Pacific as a co-belligerent with China in a potential WWIII scenario". Similarly, you can steelman an argument for banni…

I think the steelman for supporting Ukraine in the war is stronger than that. 1. It provides security for Europe, which benefits us. 2. Our military expenditures are massive in general, we have sent roughly $50B in aid thus far which is around 3% of our 2022 DoD budget. If you consider the military a tool to destroy specific enemies, of which there are two main candidates, spending a marginal 3% (or more!) to destroy…

Perhaps.

1. This is true if and only if the United States signs up, completely, for security of the entire European Continent. The armies of Germany, Poland, and Great Britain are just too small to do this (France isn't even worth mentioning)[1]. And, as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan made painfully clear, the rest of NATO is unable to conduct air operations without direct support and coordination from the United States. There's a high cost to this, and we should go into it eyes wide open if this is the security responsibility we are assuming. To top it all off, the US Army is facing a serious recruiting crisis. We may need to consider a draft if we are going to shoulder the burden of securing all of Europe (again).

2. Aid to Ukraine is over $100B at this point, but I agree that there is some significant return on investment here if the aim was to degrade Russian military power via a proxy war. While we're sending some high-end stuff (HIMARS, rumors of MIM-104s) that would be useful in the pacific theater and are hard to replace, doing so has ground Russia down so bad that they're stuck in the defensive for the foreseeable future.

3. I don't really care about this. I'm interested in what makes sense for the security of the United States and what makes American citizens better off - economically or otherwise. It's like saying "murder is bad, we should punish murderers really hard so that other people don't murder". Sure, I agree.

4. I think this is mostly fantasy, or an insane game of chicken. If we're in Ukraine until the Kremlin collapses, that would catastrophically reduce security for an entire hemisphere because of the ensuing chaos a fractured and broken Russian Federation would represent. Many, mostly on the Left, seem to think this is actually a good idea but it isn't. I doubt this is actually the goal of the State Department, and since China isn't stupid they likely doubt it as well. So on balance, whatever the US does in Ukraine I'd judge to have very little impact to PLA's calculus on a Taiwan invasion.

[1] It is worth mentioning that Poland has plans to double the size of it's ground forces. But until this actually happens, this remains a plan and not existing combat power.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#483

Post by AbrahamParangi »

remarkEon wrote: post #482
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the steelman for supporting Ukraine in the war is stronger than that. 1. It provides security for Europe, which benefits us. 2. Our military expenditures are massive in general, we have sent roughly $50B in aid thus far which is around 3% of our 2022 DoD budget. If you consider the military a tool to destroy specific enemies, of which there are two main candidates, spending a marginal 3% (or more!) to destroy…

Perhaps. 1. This is true if and only if the United States signs up, completely, for security of the entire European Continent. The armies of Germany, Poland, and Great Britain are just too small to do this (France isn't even worth mentioning)[1]. And, as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan made painfully clear, the rest of NATO is unable to conduct air operations without direct support and coordination from the U…

It sounds like we're mostly on the same page, but to argue the 3 point a little harder- war is bad for business and I don't like gas prices going up. Everyone should sit down and chill the fuck out and it is good (for us) to ensure that's in their best interest too.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#484

Post by remarkEon »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #483
remarkEon wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. 1. This is true if and only if the United States signs up, completely, for security of the entire European Continent. The armies of Germany, Poland, and Great Britain are just too small to do this (France isn't even worth mentioning)[1]. And, as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan made painfully clear, the rest of NATO is unable to conduct air operations without direct support and coordination from the U…

It sounds like we're mostly on the same page, but to argue the 3 point a little harder- war is bad for business and I don't like gas prices going up. Everyone should sit down and chill the fuck out and it is good (for us) to ensure that's in their best interest too .

Yeah the gas thing is a whole different dimension to this, that involves absurd domestic politics in Germany. It's actually a little surprising that the State Department let Germany go as far down that path as it did, and didn't stop the pipeline in its tracks back in 2010-2011. Maybe we were still in the "Russia Reset" fever, and were okay with letting Germany spread its wings a bit and build it's own energy policy.

Of course, this admits that these other NATO members are client states of the Americans, which is an ugly (but mostly true!) thing to say out loud.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#485

Post by manholio »

concordDance wrote: post #472
mannerheim wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the threshold on how many people invaders will kill, deport, and subject to second-class citizenship before that attitude becomes appropriate?

Depends how bad the second classness is. Probably anything more than 1% death is worth fighting.

That's an insanely naive form of pacifism justifying acceptable genocide. If killing 0.99% of the population for geopolitical goals is acceptable, then 0.99% of the population of all states will get will get killed, currently roughly 80 million people. Because any country has at least one enemy with some geopolitical goal.

I cannot put into words how revolting this idea of yours is, and it's exactly people like you that need to be silenced in times of war for any chance of durable peace.

War is always and everywhere a result of insufficient deterrence - the enemy will only be dissuaded if they are guaranteed a response that far outweighs any potential wins.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#486

Post by philliphaydon »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #425
philliphaydon wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has to get a court order which bytedance can challenge in a court room. If the CCP requests data they have no choice but to hand it over. There is no way bytedance can structure its operations to prevent the CCP requesting data.

> The US has to get a court order which bytedance can challenge in a court room. As we've seen, the US is perfectly capable of building up a massive surveillance operation, and of tying the tech companies into that operation, without the involvement of any real court (i.e., something other than a secret rubber-stamp like the FISA court), and indeed without the public even knowing that such a system exists. The US als…

> ByteDance faces much stronger political pressures from the US than from China.

Of course! Because tiktok should be banned everywhere.

> The Chinese government can request whatever it likes, but ByteDance can structure its operations to make those requests impossible or difficult to fulfill

LOL no it can’t. They would not risk getting thrown in jail for nothing by refusing a request from the CCP.

> American tech executives know that they can face regulatory action if they say "no" to requests, so they have a very strong incentive to comply with demands to provide data, censor content, and help US government influence operations (see the recent revelations that Twitter worked with the US government on covert influence campaigns using inauthentic accounts).

Companies challenge data requests all the time. The fact is you cannot challenge that request with the CCP.

Unsure why you’re hell bent on defending the CCP with whataboutism. Because what the US does isn’t even close to that of China.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#487

Post by jesuspiece »

danrocks wrote: post #173

I often wonder what high-level American executives that work at these Chinese companies feel like, specially when news like this comes to life. Do they feel like they're just doing their job? Are they afraid of getting arrested? Do they think that the massive comp packages they get is worth the risk? Lots of cognitive dissonance going on, I would bet.

Money talks

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#488

Post by concordDance »

manholio wrote: post #485
concordDance wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends how bad the second classness is. Probably anything more than 1% death is worth fighting.

That's an insanely naive form of pacifism justifying acceptable genocide. If killing 0.99% of the population for geopolitical goals is acceptable, then 0.99% of the population of all states will get will get killed, currently roughly 80 million people. Because any country has at least one enemy with some geopolitical goal. I cannot put into words how revolting this idea of yours is, and it's exactly people like you t…

Your speculation is baseless. Basically no countries and states want to kill under a percent of another country. I can't think of a single example.

World War 1 killed a lot more than 1% of the involved population.

Honestly, just giving up and "losing" WW1 would have been way less bad for the commoners than actually fighting was.

The problem with wanting to fight wars is that deterrence doesn't work (e.g. see the past 10 wars). The incentives leaders are subject to often makes starting a war the best option for them personally, even if its bad for the population.

Btw: its exactly warmongers like you who need to be silenced to have any chance of a durable peace that doesn't kill a million Iraqis ;)

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#489

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

philliphaydon wrote: post #486
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has to get a court order which bytedance can challenge in a court room. As we've seen, the US is perfectly capable of building up a massive surveillance operation, and of tying the tech companies into that operation, without the involvement of any real court (i.e., something other than a secret rubber-stamp like the FISA court), and indeed without the public even knowing that such a system exists. The US als…

> ByteDance faces much stronger political pressures from the US than from China. Of course! Because tiktok should be banned everywhere. > The Chinese government can request whatever it likes, but ByteDance can structure its operations to make those requests impossible or difficult to fulfill LOL no it can’t. They would not risk getting thrown in jail for nothing by refusing a request from the CCP. > American tech exe…

> Because what the US does isn’t even close to that of China.

The US actually appears to have a much more extensive global surveillance system than China does. Nothing even remotely comparable to what Snowden revealed has yet come to light about China.

> They would not risk getting thrown in jail for nothing by refusing a request from the CCP.

This is a very cartoonish view of how things in China work. The Chinese government knows that an attempt to leverage a company like TikTok (or Huawei) to spy on foreign countries could backfire and damage Chinese companies abroad. So far, it appears not to have used these companies for spying to any measurable extent. The NSA hacked into Huawei's systems, and found no evidence of spying. British GCHQ regularly audited Huawei's hardware and operations, and never found any evidence of spying.

> The fact is you cannot challenge that request with the CCP.

If the Chinese government requests data from TikTok, an American company, that sits on US-based servers, TikTok actually can challenge that request. US laws will come into play, and it will not be a simple matter to transfer the data (particularly in secret).

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#490

Post by [deleted] »

bombolo wrote: post #325
hollerith wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI and CIA have both good and bad effects on a US resident whereas China's national security establishment has only bad effects (if it has any significant effects). There is no disadvantage to a US resident from stopping them from spying on US residents. Both the law-and-order type of US voter and the don't-tread-on-me type agree on that.

> China's national security establishment has only bad effects It has stopped the CIA from installing their own government, no?

[deleted]
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