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

blog.malwarebytes.com

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

#651

Post by glenstein »

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…

>The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government.

I disagree, because this is a "both things can be true" situation. It's true that data collection is a problem inherently and it's true that China's unprecedented scale of use and abuse of data escalates the urgency of Tiktok's case in particular.

I also think as a practical matter, "we should apply this to all apps" has the functional effect of being a poison pill ensuring nothing gets done. I think we should accept imperfect forward iterations to improve security over poison pills.

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

#652

Post by dontblink »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #624
Ajedi32 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China did ban Facebook, as did Russia and North Korea. Countries where Facebook is not banned are largely allies of the US.

What does the fact that we are allies change? This is espionnage in any case and the US has shown that they do not miss a beat when it comes to stealing information from us. We would be doing the same of course if we were not much weaker and if our products were actually used over there.

Well, allies can ask friendly governments for information on their own citizens without violating and of their own privacy laws. So it can be useful as a circumvention tool for them.

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

#653

Post by coliveira »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #535
coliveira wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these statistics suffer from the inequality in the US. I guess that if you take total disposable income the number 1 is correct. But if you go look at the reality, it is a minority that controls that total disposable income, while most of the population lives paycheck to paycheck and increasingly don't have money even to buy food.

That's why I cited median values - so your complaint does not apply, since by mathematical fact a tiny minority cannot change the median appreciably.

People don't seem to understand that median is not a measure that is much better than mean, especially in the case of high inequality. For example, if I take all the money from the 40% poorer population and distribute it to the 40% richer population, the median is still the same. If you don't believe, just compute the mean and median of these two sequences:

[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

[0,0,0,0,5,6,11,11,11,11]

Another example that I know fully well is Brazil: the mean is 8,560 BRL and the median is 8,220 BRL for monthly salaries, that is, very close. But these monthly salaries are known to vary widely from 2,170 BRL (USD 417) to 38,200 BRL (USD 7349), so hardly anyone is really making 8220 or close to that.

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

#654

Post by glenstein »

thiagoharry wrote: post #518
tablespoon wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government. We had this discussion after the Snowden leaks and nothing changed whatsoever. Back then it was the US government and the US gov had the chance to change the rules so this could not happen. Now they're up in arms because other governments do the exact same thing. It's really…

> The differentiator here is national security, Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook, and most US companies. As Snowden showed, most of them have a history of wire fraud.

>Which means that all countries other than the US also should be banning Facebook, and most US companies. As Snowden showed, most of them have a history of wire fraud.

If you assume equivalence between (1) Facebook and Tiktok and (2) the U.S. and China's data collection practices.

And I don't think those are equivalent, and therefore it's not necessary to treat the dissimilar cases the same.

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

#655

Post by hammerheadtech »

tablespoon wrote: post #474
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…

> The problem should be that the data is collected and provided to the government whenever they want - not that it's not the Chinese government. We had this discussion after the Snowden leaks and nothing changed whatsoever. Back then it was the US government and the US gov had the chance to change the rules so this could not happen. Now they're up in arms because other governments do the exact same thing. It's really…

Rubbish. China is less of a threat to anyone outside the US than the government inside the US.

If the FCC clarified their stance and highlighted very specific threats, I might be swayed but only if it was demonstrated that the US government isn't doing exactly the same thing.

All opaque data harvesting of public platforms, no matter who collects it, is bad.

Your example is garbage as well. In both situations you highlighted you have something that you don't have in face of data harvesting...choice. You can decide whether or not to give your banking password to a stranger or your wife. You usually have no choice when it comes to data harvesting...because usually the data is harvested out of the backdoor of a platform by selling it on.

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

#656

Post by _-david-_ »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #624
Ajedi32 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China did ban Facebook, as did Russia and North Korea. Countries where Facebook is not banned are largely allies of the US.

What does the fact that we are allies change? This is espionnage in any case and the US has shown that they do not miss a beat when it comes to stealing information from us. We would be doing the same of course if we were not much weaker and if our products were actually used over there.

If a major war occurs in the near future it won't be between the EU and the US. This lowers the risk of US companies hold EU data.

Also, don't be one sided on this. The EU countries also spy on the US.

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

#657

Post by andruby »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #426
andruby wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't want your rival to have a backdoor into influencing/manipulating/discovering how people in your nation are behaving And yet, Russia heavily used Facebook to influence/manipulate American behaviour during the election.

Do you distinguish between private companies that are homed in Russian and the Russian government? If not, do you distinguish between companies that are homed in the US and the US government?

I do distinguish between both. How does that relates to my comment?

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

#658

Post by ok123456 »

fsflover wrote: post #645
ok123456 wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the FBI backdoored skype to silently shut off encryption, back when it was truly peer-to-peer. China never did that to me.

So you think fair elections are less important than your own security? You may have a problem after your country turns authoritarian, even if your computer is secure.

We don't have "fair" elections after Citizen's United.

We don't have "fair" elections after the FCC scrapped the Fairness Doctrine in the 80s under Regan.

We don't have "fair" elections for the president since we don't directly elect the president.

The scenario where china somehow designs a dastardly TikTok video that convinces---I'm sorry "manipulates"---young people to vote en mass in a way that somehow advances the national interests of China and against their own material concerns is remote. But, I'm not sure how that's worse than any other garden variety Super PAC, or billionaire debutante like Mike Bloomberg or Howard Schultz.

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

#660

Post by sp332 »

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…

I disagree with weakening trademarks. It's important for people to know who made the stuff they're getting.
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