I would love for anybody to show me a single reason to legitimately fear TikTok beyond "china bad" sinophobia. I see lots of unsubstantiated claims coming from #infosec people, but nothing concrete in terms of what the app is allegedly doing, or how it's a threat.
@awarham lots of similar claims by experts sharing knowledge is an expert consensus. folks that do it professionally wont give it away for free so do your own research here's my first result eg : https://www.androidpolice.com/fcc-commissioner-labels-tiktok-spyware-app-store-removal/
@tonic That's the thing though. Nobody has shared any of these alleged issues with the app. Normally the infosec community is very loud when there's a vulnerability, or new threat, and they share it widely. (Sometimes you'll even find 0-days dropped right on twitter 😅) In this case there hasn't been a single concrete example brought forward. Every article I've come across boils down to a variation of "trust me bro" and it's not passing the sniff test.
@awarham it's not a vulnerability , it's by design. it's much the same with the wechat network. The same folks that do this : https://www.xinjiangpolicefiles.org/ run the parent companies, if that passes your "snif test" , what wouldn't ?
@awarham yes because we're talking about tiktok? twitter and facebook have their own issues, partly because china is constantly abusing them ... https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4373z3.html
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in fact you're basically repeating these now
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@tonic okay so your argument is that TikTok is a threat based on its potential for the Chinese government to project soft power and manipulate public opinion?
@awarham not the potential lol i'm saying dont be naive, we dont live in mickey mouse land. you really think china doesn't have active (and often times violent) measures a little bit everywhere ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations
it's bizarre trying to twist something so straightforward : the ccp is not your friend and actively uses any and every electronic means at its disposal to spy , subvert or steal ...
@tonic All you've brought here is evidence that the Chinese government does bad things. I'll accept that. I could also link you to evidence of American war crime and abusive practices across the country, but that doesn't prove any kind of threat from, Twitter or Facebook for example.