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FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

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Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#281

Post by janekm »

roberttod wrote: post #246
janekm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it's naive. Sure if military personnel or state department use TikTok that can create security risks, but the same is true with any other social media network. The additional data that TikTok tries to gather from the mobile OSs is insignificant compared to what you can get from videos that people take willingly. Russian soldiers use VK, that doesn't stop OSINT researchers tracking them down on there.

Military personnel is not what this is about, it's about the data of all the citizens in the US. It's about manipulating public opinion, sowing divide or a thousand other options.

But shouldn't that concern go the other way? If the Chinese government is dictating content policies of TikTok, that should obviously be a concern, but I have not seen this alleged.

Granted collecting say interest data based on viewing figures would be a precursor (I suppose it's likely that TikTok could figure out if a customer leaned left or right politically). But again that's not what the complaint is about.

It's also hard to ignore that TikTok's responses are at face value reasonable (such as evaluating touch patterns to identify bots... that's obviously something they have to do given the predominance of bots on social media platforms).

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#282

Post by Santosh83 »

roberttod wrote: post #222
olalonde wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, this ignores that the USA benefits tremendously from trading with other countries, most of all with China. If this mindset was applied universally, the USA (and the world) would be worse off. It also ignores that treating countries as though they are enemies can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It can increase the threat rather than decrease it. Second, it's not necessarily in one's best interest to live in…

Your first argument sounds like appeasement, didn't work so well in WW2. Sounds like burying your head in the sand hoping no one will do anything bad. I think the parent post means top dog in military and power sense, not welfare of citizens which is all well and good until another nation is trying to undermine your core values. > Your successor will be judged by the standard you set What successor are we thinking of…

Yes indeed. Two out of those three countries have never invaded outside countries, whether for freedom, WMD or some other crap excuse. One of them is actually a functioning democracy. On the other hand a citizen of a country that has invaded almost a dozen sovereign nations, conducted almost an equal number of proxy wars and even used nuclear weapons twice, thinks we are scary. And lumps Russia, China and India all into one ill defined category of "scary regimes"...

All this ignoring for the moment the general Western enterprise of erstwhile colonialism and current economic neocolonialism that makes the destruction wrought upon developing nations by direct war/attacks pale in comparison.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#283

Post by Cederfjard »

saiya-jin wrote: post #191
Cederfjard wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it stop, as long as nations continue to pose threats to each other and their populations? I support both the US and the EU putting these restrictions in place (until such a time when everyone can be trusted, if ever).

Well first of all with this approach you will lose a lot of friends like EU (and australia, new zealand, south africa and gazillion more allies). US is not such trusty ally as it thinks it is already (ie all the spying on top european leaders, and thats just tip of iceberg). US needs friends just like everybody else, alone it can project only so much influence. You don't keep friends by screwing them over continuousl…

I'm in Europe, so I'm writing this as someone who likes our governments protecting people from American (and Chinese) companies. Very happy to be a big happy family again if things improve.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#284

Post by gzer0 »

hulitu wrote: post #276
Ekaros wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the governments should force mobile OS to provide absolute zero information about anything to apps. If the apps can't get anything they can't leak anything.

The governments are the direct beneficiaries of this data collection either directly or indirectly.

Exactly right. As can be seen via the purchases of large swaths of private location data by the Department of Homeland Security and other government entities, essentially side stepping US citizens’ 4th amendment rights [1].

[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/new-records-det...

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#286

Post by scrollaway »

blacklion wrote: post #277
moomoo11 wrote: post #42

Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China. From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people…

> I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player Are you sure? Several months ago I've woke up to learn, that my country start to kill civilians of other country with bombs, missiles and shelling, to become "top player". And, what is even worse, many of my fellow citizens support it. Now I'm trying to leave this country for some other, which don't have ambitions to be top-player but don't kill civilians and…

Good luck from Belgium. Reach out if you need help; I’ve assisted in the expatriation of people like you and wish to keep doing so.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#287

Post by SiempreViernes »

dubswithus wrote: post #52
p1necone wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could argue that a data hoarder in a jurisdiction other than your own is even less significant for personal data security. I kinda feel this way. On a national security level, China having everyone's data is absolutely a disaster. But on a personal level - if I lived in the United States, I would rather the Chinese government surveil me than the US government.

They aren’t just going to surveil you though. They will actively work to promote disinformation to you.

And the only time they'll be any good at it is when they parrot your local sources of disinformation, so at most they can amplify the entirely domestic problems that already exist.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#289

Post by kebman »

Grimburger wrote: post #137
moomoo11 wrote: post #42

Of course not. Every government is going to look out for themselves. Following your reasoning, look at China. They have their own playbook for operating within China, and it is quite restrictive. They make it harder for foreign entities to do business within China. From a geopolitical viewpoint this makes complete sense. You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people…

> I want USA to do whatever it needs to be the top player Good for you, but try imagine hearing this from a Chinese national. "Whatever it needs" to do...

Whatever it needs to do becomes different based on how your country is governed.

China has unelected* leaders that at least in theory holds only Communist ideals.

While flawed, in a republic at least you get to vote for your leaders, and thus choose what ideals you like the best.

Of course republicanism or democracy does not preclude a country from committing horrible acts, but they are cleaned up much sooner, and those who are responsible for it are thrown out of office (and sometimes even into jail). Not so in authoritarian countries like China.

* You can technically vote in China, but due to its authoritarian nature only one party is allowed and you're expected to uphold the party line.

Re: FCC: TikTok is unacceptable security risk and should be removed from app stores

#290

Post by RandomLensman »

snehk wrote: post #10

I don't have a horse in this race at all, but the annoying part is that the same rules don't get applied across the board. Everything they're accusing TikTok of - from data harvesting to the government having access to said data - is true for western companies as well and that should be the problem. Not the fact that the data is now in the hands of the Chinese but that the data is being collected at all provided to t…

That might be a reason to generally block more data collection, but not to allow the Chinese government to continue to collect data - unless the argument is that collection is kind of "indivisible", i.e., as soon as anyone collects anything everything is "lost".
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