71–80 of 273 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely this would mostly apply to non-chinese companies, no? This would wipe the market out.
OK. How about “they’re using the app to spy on us for a Foreign Hostile Government ”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people on Hacker News seem to commonly mistake threats to their personal privacy with threats to national security. Facebook having to turn over data to the American government can't be a threat to American national security. This isn't to say the threat to you as a person is any different compared to TikTok handing over data to the CCP, but the concern here is maintaining American strategic military and inte…
Okay, but like, spell it out for me. What are the risks?
1. Tiktok can identify people (in the US, in the government or military) who are in key strategic positions. For example, people with access to interesting information, or who know a lot of people with access to information.
2. Among the group in #1, it can identify people who are vulnerable to recruitment as spies. For example, it can identify any taboo tastes they might have, which are not (necessarily) illegal, but can be used as leverage to recruit a spy. Or identify people with financial problems (another vector for spy recruitment). Or people who are lonely, who would fall for a honey trap, etc.
3. It can spread propaganda I. What happens if the chain of command breaks because someone thinks a war is illegitimate because they've been brainwashed? If Taiwan is and always has been the rightful territory of China, and nearly 100% of Taiwanese and mainland Chinese want them to be united, then why are we fighting a war to keep them apart?
4. It can spread propaganda II. Trade wars are not without downsides. One of them is that it makes imports from China more expensive. Propaganda does not need to be false information. What happens if the public broadly loses support for the trade war because of TikTok propaganda?
5. Remote no-click zero-days for iPhone exist. China has a capable cyber intelligence service. TikTok could be used to spread an exploit to phones of people in key strategic roles.
> "There are real national security risks associated with TikTok, but it’s also an app 150 million Americans use," said Peter Harrell, who served on Biden’s National Security Council until last fall. It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. Banning it on government devices makes sense, but I don't understand why they're trying to ban individuals from using…
> It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. First of all, any company operating out of China can be assumed to be under more or less direct control of the CCP. When the Party comes knocking, there is no non-compliance to whatever they want. That alone is more than enough reason to be more skeptical of anything China. (Yes, I'm aware of FISA, but that's nowh…
Statements like that really make me question people's knowledge of basic history and international politics. Yes, a nation's major commercial actors often work in conjecture with their government. Is this news to anyone? This is not unique to China in the least.
> The second difference/risk comes with looking whom these apps target: kids.
And this argument is so tired that it even has its own Wikipedia page explaining that it is a logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.
Are national security arguments not legal? My understanding was that Chinese Tech companies are required by law to serve as (willing or unwilling) arms of the domestic spy agency in China.
If you decide that "no Chinese social network is allowed", you can create a law for that. But the TikTok ban is not like this.
I haven't heard a good explanation yet for whether this is even legal. It seems like a textbook example of an unconstitutional bill of attainder. You'd have to ban TikTok based on something it does , and any such law would impact a lot of other companies too. Or I guess you could ban all Chinese software using trade laws, but that has even bigger ramifications.
Are national security arguments not legal? My understanding was that Chinese Tech companies are required by law to serve as (willing or unwilling) arms of the domestic spy agency in China.
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> Gather mac addresses that are nearby. Maybe your neighbor is a general and your phone can snoop when they are around. Would this be possible from an app within either iOS or Android?
>Gather mac addresses that are nearby. If an app has "coarse location" permissions, I believe it can already do this, or at least could do this a few years ago. Phones give quick, inaccurate location data based on what WiFi SSIDs are around. Google started their database of those SSIDs by wardriving and logging everything. There was a court case about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely this would mostly apply to non-chinese companies, no? This would wipe the market out.
OK. How about “they’re using the app to spy on us for a Foreign Hostile Government ”
At first, I was all for banning Tiktok, but I'm come around - no social media giant has the users or general public in mind, whether their HQ is in the US or China. Big tech in the US is just upset they didn't come up with Tiktok first and in turn, the intelligence agencies are upset they can't snoop as much as they'd like. This turns off politicians because they're 1) tight with big tech 2) support the federal intel…
To me, the defining difference between US company influence in the US is that they also have to live in whatever country they create for us (via their propaganda). Other countries companies don't, and in fact if they aren't our allies would actually be incentivized to do more harm than our own companies (assuming their influence is equal).
It seems to me that allyship is a meaningful pivot for these decisions, moreso than other concerns.
> "There are real national security risks associated with TikTok, but it’s also an app 150 million Americans use," said Peter Harrell, who served on Biden’s National Security Council until last fall. It would be nice if anyone explained what those risks are, and why they don't apply to Facebook et al. Banning it on government devices makes sense, but I don't understand why they're trying to ban individuals from using…