Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.malwarebytes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 899 posts

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

#341

Post by themitigating »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #239
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…

> The USA ranks 26th for median wealth Wealth is also a function of age - older people tend to have more - and that ranking is not normalized by such extraneous factors. The US is number 2 by median income, and number 1 for median disposable income, both of which are pretty important, especially to younger people that want cash flow to enjoy life.

Why would you normalize for age?

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

#342

Post by roca »

okamiueru wrote: post #148

My concern seems to be different than that of most expressed here. Companies collecting too much information is a problem, sure, but that's not what deeply worries me when it comes to social media generating/consuming platforms like Facebook, TikTok and YouTube. Especially those that algorithmically decide what to show users. Foreign countries controlling what information a coming generation is exposed to is IMO much…

I strongly agree with this. It's a dangerous tool, and it's easy to imagine the CCP seizing that tool in an emergency.

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

#343

Post by Aeolun »

tuxie_ wrote: post #134
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…

Do you understand that your own government has even more power over you than a foreign one? It's in your best interest that no government collects this kind of data about you.

The country that you reside in has the most power over you simply by virtue of having an active police force and/or military. No need for any data collection whatsoever.

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

#344

Post by roca »

daenz wrote: post #40
jsiaajdsdaa wrote: post #2

However putting this data in the hands of FAANG is no problem at all, and totally can't end up in any nefarious hands.

Help me understand your perspective: are you American or no? I have a hard time understanding why an American wouldn't see FAANG as the lesser of two evils here.

You don't have to be American to see American big-tech companies as the lesser of two evils here.

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

#345

Post by unityByFreedom »

markus_zhang wrote: post #319
nonrandomstring wrote: post #159

This seems an intractable mess. - Our phone hardware and operating systems are intrinsically insecure. - There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation) - All social media companies are doing it, leading to jeers of "hypocrisy!" - All governments play the same games, reducing the arguments to "Whose side are you on?" That's effectiv…

Sadly none of this is doable in the current version of capitalism (and in pretty much every country that is drinking from it). Corporation interests, especially those of large corporations, override pretty much everything else.

Please elaborate on what other "version of capitalism" is necessary.

Hope we are not advocating that everything be owned by the state, as if that would allow more competition.

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

#346

Post by unityByFreedom »

paulv wrote: post #207
unityByFreedom wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your typing cadence may be another bit of identifying personal info. Not to mention they could be lying or "not know" what their tech is really doing. Wouldn't be the first time.

They also have access to a lot of other metadata (IMEI, IP address, OS version, MAC address, email/phone number that you signed up with, etc) that they could combine with data from brokers to identify you as well. I'm not saying that they should be collecting this data, to be clear, just that, from everything I've read, it doesn't seem like they are doing anything uniquely untoward. I'm hoping there's something I'm m…

> it doesn't seem like they are doing anything uniquely untoward.

I think it's best to assume if it can be used against you, it will.

That's why we pushed back on Apple's CSAM plans to scan images on the device.

Does anyone remember how we even know TikTok is tracking keystrokes? It's because Apple updated their security to notify users when the clipboard was activated by the app, and TikTok was doing it for every keystroke.

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

#347

Post by iggldiggl »

Ekaros wrote: post #133
janekm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I feel this is as much a failing of of mobile OSs as anything else. As long as we have an environment where ad networks think it's desirable to collect this kind of information it's going to get collected, whether by TikTok or ad networks. Apple at least attempt to limit what data is accessible by apps, Google is less incentivized to do so. It's not much help to "ban TikTok" while the ad networks run wild.…

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.

Unfortunately that approach pretty easily ends up in a territory where you can't do anything interesting with your phone, either, because it's all too dangerous.

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

#348

Post by Aeolun »

evgen wrote: post #279
RektBoy wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Is this an American thing to always brag something about race, or how much "non-racist we are"? Nobody gives a sh* here. Sure, you have no racial problems of your own to deal with... ( http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/harvard-survey-over-15-yea... ) There is an old saying about people in glass houses that you may want to consider. You may also wish to stop kidding yourself when raising the question of whether or n…

> if you did not see yourself in such a position then it would probably be unnecessary for you to act with such childish hostility

I think OP is aware of this? The US is better to be beholden to than Russia or China, but ideally the EU would be the union it claims to be instead of a bunch of bickering city-states.

I resent that too. I think the US is objectively a worse country, but somehow, everything useful to the world happens there. I’m just sad that such an exploitative way of living is what apparently drives progress.

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

#349

Post by bottled_poe »

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…

No.

This is too simplistic. All systems of government are not equal. It’s disingenuous to claim otherwise.

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

#350

Post by Schroedingersat »

8organicbits wrote: post #308
Schroedingersat wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no practical/effective data gathering regulation (and I'm not sure it's possible to craft any without destroying innovation) Yes there is: Don't Anything that is not fully and obviously intentionally completely public is e2ee and inaccessible outside of the user's device. Information that is provably necessary for providing a paid service can be collected and kept until the second it is no longer necessary…

I think that's far to vague to be workable and sounds incredibly expensive (unless everyone uses those loopholes). Storing data on user's devices isn't great, it takes up storage space (adding cost) and relies on the user to manage the backups (which lots of folks don't do). Users also switch between devices, so you'd need some sort of cross-device syncing or something. e2ee implies that the data can only be decrypte…

For messaging, Matrix has solved almost all of the problems you're claiming are insurmountable. Key management can be assisted with m out of n type secret sharing, or we just treat people like responsible adults, and if they lose their keys, then tough, those messages are gone now.

For loopholes, the solution is to just not believe the bullshit. Have a very high standard of evidence required and/or require fully informing the user of exactly what is stored, where it is stored, who can access it, and publicly sharing all code that touches it.

It's been proven over and over again that the current model does not work and that the people in charge are narcassistic children who cannot be trusted and lie constantly.

The GDPR is a half measure designed as much around enabling surveillance as safeguarding privacy. Anonymisation is a blatant lie. 'Innovation' is just a codeword for doing the same things we did before but worse.

Post reply on HN