Why is TikTok different?

glatt wrote:

I don;t access TikTok in a browser

If using a phone, same thing just has a different name.  They still connect many web sites to that phone.  Or what you think are only cookies.  Phone is just a computer. With the browser integrated into its OS.

BTW, that is what Bill Gates originally planned to do with Windows.  Turn it into one big browser.  You have zero reasons to believe software does anything different on phones.  A web site outputs different commands - still doing same thing.

Numerous concerns with Tik Tok.  Similar concerns are found in China.  They so fear some American web sites as to block them.  Called the Great Firewall of China.

UT once proclaimed the internet is virtual.  It cannot be stopped.  China and Russia have both proved that wrong.  American did something similar to Al Jazeera during the Mission Accomplished war.  Since Al Jazeera was reporting so accurately, exposing administration lies.   Al Jazeera offices then were missiled in both Afghanistan and Baghdad.

Anything one might think is secure is either not.  Or may no longer be.  People do not realize how enough innocuous information means significant harm can be done.  As one professional recently told me, he suspects all private medical records have been compromised. The unknown is by who.

We obstruct more obvious threats - such as Tik Tok.  The soft unbelly of Tik Tok security is top management.  And, as we all know, 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management.
 

tw wrote:

glatt wrote:

I don;t access TikTok in a browser

If using a phone, same thing just has a different name.  
 

on my iPhone, I can select "off" from the "Allow Tracking" option for any mobile application.  Apple gives its users this power. The screenshot below shows my settings for the mobile TikTok app on my phone.  How are cookies tracking me if I have this turned off?  TikTok knows my identity and what I do within the app.  But I figure my identity is already in the white pages.  It's already available. And who cares if I'm watching videos from "Steve the Guardrail guy?"

You never did answer how TikTok can drain my bank account.  (Other than enticing me to buy shit from their shop.)

I appreciate that you're making a joke, but I truly do not understand what this means.

 

I think TikTok will not be sold.  It will shut down.  TikTok values its algorithm too much to let anyone else have it, and they use it in other products.

If I'm wrong, and it is sold, TikTok will sell the app only and not the algorithm, so the new owner's TikTok will be inferior.

So many only use speculation to assume they have secured their phone - by blocking cookies.  Many web sites, when no longer accessed, still leave processes operating on the system.  Long after an IP port (connection) is closed.

One need only learn about Pegasus.  And how MS13 (apparently) uses it to protect their corruption.  Pegasus is an Israeli product.  They say they only sell it to governments and other secure (approved) customers.  So why is MS13 using it for more than 5 years?

News medias remove Pegasus from phones.  Then watched it automatically reload on those phones - without connecting to any internet sites.  Even after erasing everything.

Some reporters did not even use a phone.  MS13 even got their addresses and family names by simply hacking phones of other unrelated people.  But somehow some know they are secure by even blocking all cookies.

Tik Tok  provides a highway into people's confidential information.  But then is this major tradeoff between being vulnerable, becoming a hermit, obtaining knowledge, and basic human security.  Reporters would discover pictures taken for a news story were (suspected) released by MS13 on the internet before they could get back to the office.

Pegasus (an Israeli company) refused to comment on who their customers are.  They just say, "Trust us".  We only provide this software to vetted customers.  Somehow Tik Tok can be trusted?
 

tw wrote:

glatt wrote:

  If I'm wrong, and it is sold, TikTok will sell the app only and not the algorithm, so the new owner's TikTok will be inferior.

Can new Tik Tok owners know their site is secure without source code?

 

I don't know how to answer that.  I don't pretend to be a software engineer, but I figure TikTok's current owner can sell off the branding for TikTok, all the data surrounding the users of TikTok, and all the content of the users of TikTok, and hold back the secret sauce that makes the promotion of videos so perfect.  I'm sure it would be relatively easy for them to write code that would make it all work seamlessly, so that the user wouldn't see an obvious difference in the interface, but the suggested videos are basically random instead of the addictive crack cocaine they are now.

glatt wrote:

   I don't pretend to be a software engineer, but I figure TikTok's current owner can sell off the branding for TikTok, all the data surrounding the users of TikTok, and all the content of the users of TikTok, and hold back the secret sauce that makes the promotion of videos so perfect.

The secret sauce for spyware would be back doors. That remains unknown if source code is withheld.

New Tik Tok owners will not rewrite all code from scratch.  Otherwise anyone else can create a same thing from scratch.  Taking away all Tik Tok customers.  Question remains - who controls the source code?  What is in there?

Other major media web sites are not under control of a suspected adversary.

In that same topic is another question.  How did a potential friend become a potential adversary?  Those answers found in events even back in 2000.
 

Last edited by tw (4/30/2024 10:08 am)

glatt wrote:

   ...do you, tw, think other social media applications also take user's data and share it

Not limited to social media.  It is common even in income tax programs that file your returns electronically.

Why must you file through their web site?  Why can you not file directly to the IRS?  They cannot sell data such as social security numbers.  They profit by selling other data that is legal to sell.  They cannot have you file your return directly with the IRS - electronically.  That would hurt profits.

What does Facebook, et all market?  Don't know specifically.

But recently I gave my alma mater an email address for the first time.  Suddenly junk mail on that email account at least doubled.  So much for integrity in a non-profit operation.

Again, this is fundamental to what the EU is demanding of American based social media.  They are demanding privacy concerns.  Some not found in American law.  Since right wing Republicans have said - some quite publically.  The public has no right to privacy.  It is not written in the Constitution.

Any assumption that Tik Tok could be trusted is, well, Facebook is sometimes required to protect some people.  Since Americans in their organization can become whistleblowers.    Tik Tok need not have such people.

Especially view many Chinese corporate leaders forced to work directly for the government. View what has happened to many Chinese  entrepreneurs (ie Jack Ma) in the past fifteen years.  Jailed because they tried to protect their company's integrity from government takeover.

What changed in China could have been averted (if only partially) had some idiot not destroyed the TPP.  But then people with fascist attitudes are not only in China.  They also praise the KKK, white supremacists, and Nazis.  We really need more moderates.  Which is always people who learn facts long before having an opinion.

Obviously simple answers are not honest answers.  Even an octopus could not keep trace of so many tangent to this question.
 

Anon wrote:

Trump withdrew the US from the TPP and Biden doesn't support it as it was then either. Biden is willing to rejoin; but, only after renegotiation. 

Biden was trying to restore the TPP.  But we have a major problem now with allies.  Why should they make a deal only to have Trump (or some other extremists such as the George Jr administration) slap them in the face - again.  Thanks to extremist regimes, that even condon torture and Nazi style concentration camps, America needs 20 years to restore credibility.  Those nations will not sign onto another TPP knowing they can be harmed by a Trump style despot.  Who even praises Putin.  And is currently trying to throw Ukraine under the bus.

Extremists even walked away from a nuclear non-proliferation treaty - arbitrarily.  As a result, at least a third and as many as half the nations of Africa now find China a better friend than American.  At least China is consistent.  Even South Africa refused to condemn Russia for that invasion of Ukraine.  And has now conducted naval exercises with with the Chinese and Russian navies.  They know which friends are more trustworthy.

IRS: they made a deal with all Tax Software companies to not process any taxes electronically.  Even the Adobe forms for manually filing taxes cannot add columns.

Fed form 1040 says "Add lines 12 and 13".  Adobe can do that automatically.  But even that would violate a deal made with third party tax processing companies.

Do not know if their agreement has a time limit.  But we do know that filing electronically must be through third parties.  Who then use and can sell your data.

In other nations, a tax authority's computer fills out your forms.  Sends it to you for approval or change.  Vastly simplifies tax processing.  Eliminates a massive bureaucracy.  Increasing a nation's economic wealth and productivity by eliminating useless (unproductive) jobs.    But that means profits created by selling your data would be harmed.

No problem.  Most have no idea how much personal data is for sale by these third parties.  Keep the majority naive.  Privacy rights do not exist - according to right wing extremists.  Despite what Supreme Court justices said before Congress while awaiting confirmation.

Article Seven did not exist long before 2017.  When China was working towards a friendly relationship with the US.  What changes?  Missoin Accomplished.  The massive world wide recesssion created by business school graudates and investment banks enriching themselves (legally), the "Pearl Harboring" of Iraq, and Trump's almost successful "Pearl Harboring" of Iran.

TPP was an ideal soluton into bring China back to the table in a peaceful and productive relationship.  Problem is that so many Ameicans are now so anti-American extremist.  Even approve of  ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

China must consider such threats to their own security.  Article Seven is just a small part of a larger program to protect China from a nation that, for example, almost nuked North Vietnam.  Because Nixon did not want to become the first American president to lose a war.  Another right wing anti-American extremist.  Who was threatened with impeachment.  Then the world knew America could still be trusted.
 

Last edited by tw (5/01/2024 8:07 am)

I strongly suspect that you are much more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, but unfortunately my efforts to digest the information you are presenting has failed. I don't know whether the failure is due to a deficiency of the speaker or the listener. I legitimately want to understand this subject, and I'm requesting the information in good faith.

I gather that one of the points is-- Facebook, as an American-owned corporation, is more subject to American laws, and/or American whistleblowers. You also mentioned that Facebook is under investigation by the EU, which is not an American institution, so I guess I would ask, is the EU is capable of investigating TikTok?

You mentioned, "Tik Tok  provides a highway into people's confidential information." which is a valid concern that is true of all social media applications. US lawmakers are taking extraordinary action against one single vendor of a product provided by many different vendors. Each implementation of a social media app, by any maker, carries an information security threat. I am assuming that there is an extraordinary differentiating factor that singles out the one single vendor that they are passing laws about. But what is it?

Perhaps this? "Especially view many Chinese corporate leaders forced to work directly for the government."

Combining the above two factors, we have the double threat that TikTok could siphon off personal information and that the Chinese government could get that data, right? Well, they can do that with or without TikTok. Anyone in the world can purchase all of your personal data from data brokers, and use it for whatever nefarious means they have in mind. I am positively convinced that any bad actor could purchase this data in a completely untraceable and consequence-free manner, and that they are already doing this.

So TikTok is, I agree without reservation, one small part of a big problem. But what necessitates singling them out for extraordinary measures by the US congress? If we completely eradicated TikTok, the very same threat would continue, unimpeded. The threat would not be affected at all! Eliminating TikTok actually does nothing to address the concerns.

So again, I have to wonder, what is the motivation to take TikTok off of the free market of information? Because TikTok represents the same exact threat that every other social media app (that we are NOT passing laws against) also represents..?? This literally accomplishes nothing towards the stated goals.

There would have to be a really clear, irrefultable reason for this. What is it?

Last edited by Flint (5/01/2024 6:08 pm)

Is it possible that both Huawei and TikTok are facing opposition with the U.S. Government because the US Government wishes to protect the business of American companies Apple and Meta, respectively?