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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

#821

Post by DangitBobby »

hnlmorg wrote: post #638
DangitBobby wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see very few (zero?) people groaning about data restrictions set by the EU.

That doesn't mean it hasn't happened on threads you haven't seen. Anecdotally I've seen it happen a lot. Which, uncoincidentally, is also the reason why I mentioned it.

I thought you were saying it's a popular or majority opinion, which I don't believe to be the case. Otherwise, why would it be relevant?

Edit: I guess we can just see if any research has been done. If you trust this source, Americans seem to support (60% supporting versus 10% against) GDPR style data regulations [1].

1. https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/americans-say-br...

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

#822

Post by staticassertion »

moralestapia wrote: post #805
staticassertion wrote: post #775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be extremely easy, and it isn't extremely easy at every company. Twitter's security was bad, worse than it should have been for their size/ data footprint. I do agree that data collection is at the core of the problem, but Twitter really should have done a better job.

Read the article, No amount of "security" is enough for an actor who wants to do this and has privileged to the data. This is almost impossible to out-engineer, if you think a company like Twitter cannot solve "such an easy problem" you're being naive.

Not really sure what your point is. I did read the article. I didn't comment on TikTok, which would be legally required (and I am sure compliant, although they deny that in the article) to hand data over to the Chinese government. I commented on Twitter, which was hacked by amateurs, and absolutely could have been considerably harder as a target.

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

#823

Post by Clubber »

yucky wrote: post #764
Clubber wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s. I'm amazed that it is still repeated 20 year later. Saying the US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic is like saying a car is not an automobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

>A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s. What? No, this is not a recent talking point, it's the core philosophical difference in this country since day 1. The names of the parties Republican & Democrat aren't just random words, they represent the philosophical differences in where the bulk of the power in government should rest (the republi…

>where the bulk of the power in government should rest

You are thinking federalism vs anti-federalism. That was Jefferson and Hamilton. The federalists won a long time ago, mainly through the interpretation of the commerce clause. Recent decisions by the SCOTUS is pulling back on that a little bit.

>Republicans generally believe direct democracy

Nowhere did I say the US was a direct democracy, I think that's what's tripping everyone up. I'm arguing against when people say the US is a republic and not a democracy. That is incorrect. If they had said direct democracy, I would agree with them. To say the US is a republic and not a democracy when every position of power in government was either elected, or appointed by someone who was elected, is incorrect. The democratic process is obvious.

>Democrats generally believe all power and decision making should come directly from the people, and the systems should be more fluid. They don't see them as guiderails they see them as unnecessary constraints on the people. The people get their say, and their will is done.

I don't see any evidence of this in modern politics. Which democrat has mentioned implementing a direct democracy?

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

#824

Post by trasz »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #711
trasz wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that Europe stopped doing most of this a century ago, and US didn’t.

Europe stopped doing most of this a century ago, mainly because they couldn’t anymore. It is like the bully who broke both legs and then goes around on crutches and tells everyone how great he is in that he doesn’t beat people up anymore. Do you think the UK would have given up India if it were not for the devastation of two world wars? Look at how France fought to keep its colonies in Algeria and Vietnam? Look at ho…

Yes, but it doesn’t change the fact that Europe doesn’t do that anymore. The fact the past vices went unpunished doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

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

#825

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #643
ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Tesla case the Chinese government astroturfed a scandal as soon as the cars were available for sale, and people who had bought Teslas were being singled out for harrassment by police. So it's a very interesting case of rules being relaxed...

Are you talking about banning Teslas for government use or on government ground? That's not a scandal at all, that's just taking security precautions. These precautions may or may not be right, but nothing about these precautions were about kicking Tesla out of the country, nor banning Tesla use under the general public. In complete contrast to how Huawei was handled in the west.

No, I was talking about the incidents discussed in this article:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/09/teslas-struggle-in-chin...

First the PRC government made an exception for Tesla:

> To entice Tesla to China, the Chinese government agreed to let Tesla become the first non-Chinese auto company with a solely owned subsidiary in China.

Once Tesla was established in China, there was a faked scandal to discredit the company, supported by state media:

> In April, a Chinese Tesla owner’s video claiming “Tesla brakes fail” went viral in China and was viewed more than 200 million times. It is essential to know that sometimes the Chinese government pushes for or encourages such online outcries to achieve its political goals.

While the story was pushed by Xinhua, it turned out the actual brake failure was faked:

> https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/owner-fabricating-china-bra...

Around the same time, Chinese police were preferentially pulling over Teslas:

https://electrek.co/2021/04/23/tesla-owners-stopped-going-on...

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

#826

Post by moralestapia »

staticassertion wrote: post #822
moralestapia wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article, No amount of "security" is enough for an actor who wants to do this and has privileged to the data. This is almost impossible to out-engineer, if you think a company like Twitter cannot solve "such an easy problem" you're being naive.

Not really sure what your point is. I did read the article. I didn't comment on TikTok, which would be legally required (and I am sure compliant, although they deny that in the article) to hand data over to the Chinese government. I commented on Twitter, which was hacked by amateurs, and absolutely could have been considerably harder as a target.

My point is, you only need a rogue CTO (most of which have no actual idea of how technology works, i.e. an amateur) and it's over; or you know, any of the 10,000s of engineers currently employed on your favorite FAANG company.

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

#827

Post by SkyMarshal »

theplumber wrote: post #792
SkyMarshal wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only a democracy, but a constitutional republic with an independent court and military, both of which are sworn to uphold that constitution and all the human rights it enumerates. We don't always succeed at that, but at least we have that as our society and government's guidestar, and legal and political processes for self-correcting. The Communist Party has exactly zero of any of that, and an ideology entirely o…

It looks like you've missed the past 10-20 years of history. You are a "party" supporter not a human rights(i.e privacy) supporter

> You are a "party" supporter

How do you mean exactly? I'm not sure how you can draw that conclusion from what I said. Politically I'm an independent, there's no real home for me any US political party.

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

#828

Post by dragonwriter »

yucky wrote: post #764
Clubber wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s. I'm amazed that it is still repeated 20 year later. Saying the US is not a democracy but a constitutional republic is like saying a car is not an automobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic

>A republic is a form of democracy. This strange differentiation came about as a GOP talking point in the early 2000s. What? No, this is not a recent talking point, it's the core philosophical difference in this country since day 1. The names of the parties Republican & Democrat aren't just random words, they represent the philosophical differences in where the bulk of the power in government should rest (the republi…

> The names of the parties Republican & Democrat aren't just random words, they represent the philosophical differences in where the bulk of the power in government should rest

No, they don't. Also, the two original parties were the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson, Madison, et al., and the Federalist Party of Hamilton, Adams, etc al.

Both, BTW, favored what is, I modern terms, a democratic republic and a representative democracy, though the Federalists initially favored a stronger central seat of power and the Democratic-Republicans favored a weaker central seat of power, though the bigger divide quickly became over foreign policy.

The Republicans weren't a major party until after the Federalist Party collapsed leaving a brief period of unstable one-party domination, then the D-Rs fractured, leaving the Democrats and Whigs in the Second Party system, then the Whigs later collapsed and the Republicans and the Democrats formed the Third Party system with the most critical initial issue being over not abstract form of government but slavery. While the identity of the two major parties has been the same since, their political alignment has changed several times; we’re now in what is generally regarded as the Sixth Party system.

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

#829

Post by least »

trasz wrote: post #812
least wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The methodology used in this list is deeply flawed. It depends on US Census Bureau data which does not make distinctions between subgroups of ethnicities, despite them being culturally and racially distinct from each other. Indians (which could be broken down into further subgroups), Afghani (which could be further broken down into Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, etc.), Japanese and Laotians are not the same peopl…

But of course you don’t have any data to support it, how surprising.

The United States Census Bureau's official population counts, as I've said, use very broad groups to categorize ethnicities which is not reflective of just how many groups of people live in the United States. Korea has an idea of how many Koreans are living in the United States currently [1] and you can probably type just about any sort of ethnicity, nationality, or race, and find some estimates or information about their presence in the United States. The Census Bureau does perform (unofficial) surveys that can give you a glimpse of the demographics in the US [2] [3] as well.

We have the largest population of immigrants in the world [4] and the nation is comprised almost entirely of non-indigenous people. The fact that the US is incredibly diverse is not controversial to anyone that is even modestly informed.

[1] https://www.mofa.go.kr/www/wpge/m_21509/contents.do

[2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2000/dec/phc-t-43.html

[3] https://archive.ph/20200212212204/http://factfinder.census.g...

[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-finding...

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

#830

Post by sensanaty »

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…

As someone who despises companies like Google, Facebook etc, I can easily and confidently say if my choice was between them harvesting all the data about me that exists in the world and TikTok (or anything else that's China-related in any way, shape or form) doing the same, I'll pick the former 11 out of 10 times.
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