[HN Gopher] Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phone...
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon says email banning TikTok from employee phones was 'sent in
error'
Author : danso
Score : 481 points
Date : 2020-07-10 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| Sindrome wrote:
| Company doesn't want employees to install spyware. Is Fortnite
| next?
| atarian wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense considering AWS deals with sensitive
| government data.
| nitrobeast wrote:
| Standard corp policy? Google disallows dropbox on devices that
| can access Google internal data as well.
| bigtones wrote:
| Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, got his phone hacked and embarrassing
| text messages stolen off it from a vulnerability in the video
| parsing library in WhatsApp in a message sent to him by Saudi
| Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2018. So Amazon as a company
| is now very sensitive to what applications are installed on staff
| devices and how data on those devices can be extracted from
| vulnerabilities in other installed apps. This may be an outcome
| of that.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-phone-hacked-saud...
| RavlaAlvar wrote:
| Does anyone have any technical detail of that story. It is hard
| to imagine how a bug in the image parse library can be utilise
| to steal text message.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| oh bugs in the parsing libraries are the things MOSTLY used
| for attacks like this.
|
| Parsing is hard, and parsers are buggy and lead to all kind
| of unsafe C code
| voxic11 wrote:
| Exactly, parsers are complicated, generally involve a lot
| of manipulation of memory buffers, and for performance
| reasons are usually written in a language without memory
| safety (though this is starting to change with languages
| like https://github.com/p-org/P and rust).
| bigtones wrote:
| Sure, the blog post below covers it, and the vulnerability
| was probably CVE-2019-11931. You can do an awful lot with a
| buffer overflow if you're clever.
|
| https://www.okta.com/blog/2020/04/what-the-jeff-bezos-
| whatsa...
| sevencolors wrote:
| Does anyone have a "explain it like I'm 5 but took some CS
| classes back in college"?
|
| I know that if you craft your buffer overflow just right it
| will overwrite other parts of memory with the new function.
|
| But how do you know what parts will get overwritten?
|
| Does that mean the new function can do almost anything?
| jsf01 wrote:
| With a buffer overflow, you can write your own code into
| a chunk of memory that ends up being run by the
| application. In this case, since WhatsApp already had SMS
| read privileges as part of the signup auth flow, the
| attacker also had those privileges.
|
| The article has some detail about the remote code
| execution part of this exploit.
|
| "What this means is that there was a software flaw in the
| WhatsApp code for handling MP4 media files. If an
| attacker triggered the flaw, the function in question
| would crash in a way that could allow a potential
| attacker to gain "RCE" or Remote Code Execution.
|
| In layman's terms, this means the attacker could inject
| his own code into the application and, by triggering the
| flaw, make the application to run with all the privileges
| and access of the WhatsApp application itself."
| hoten wrote:
| So the payload would be some corrupted video file sent to
| Bezo's phone. Would the attack look something like:
|
| 1) Discover/buy/steal Bezo's Whatsapp number (how did
| they do that...)
|
| 2) Discover/buy/steal a 0-day bug in Whatsapp.
|
| 3) Write and compile a program that reads SMS from the OS
| and beacons it to some server you control.
|
| 4) Create a corrupted video file that would trigger the
| video parsing bug, and within that video file place the
| compiled program from the previous step in the correct
| place so that it gets executed.
|
| 5) Send to Bezos.
| [deleted]
| pjc50 wrote:
| The classic buffer overflow has the buffer on the stack,
| near the return address, so you can just write a new
| return address and jump into the code you put in the
| buffer.
|
| It's become more complex due to mitigation, but the
| general principle is the same.
| Natsu wrote:
| There are multiple techniques that might be used (and
| countermeasures that might have to be bypassed) but these
| links should get you started -
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14760587/how-does-a-
| nop-...
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49620893/return-into-
| lib...
|
| And yes, arbitrary code execution is a common goal of
| these exploits, though it may not always be possible--
| sometimes you only get a DoS attack or such.
| qwertox wrote:
| It starts with a buffer overflow. This then will allow you to
| execute your own code.
| Jaepa wrote:
| Actually their pretty common. They are complex and generally
| fairly old interpreters that generally have system level
| access. Android have had a ton of them, but they are pretty
| universally common.
| glxxyz wrote:
| It's even harder to imagine how someone could rewrite the
| code to Super Mario World on an unmodified SNES to play
| Flappy Bird just using regular controllers, yet it's
| possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0
| swyx wrote:
| is the jury still out on whether MBS knowingly sent him that
| hack? that is, not to put too fine a point on it, a fast path
| to becoming even more of an international pariah than he
| already is
| jessaustin wrote:
| Tricking a [EDIT: thanks 'spyspy!] WaPo journalist into
| visiting a consulate and then chopping him into pieces with a
| saw while he screamed and cursed you? Dropping bombs to kill
| hundreds of thousands of Yemeni children? Making the people
| of _Saudi Arabia_ somehow _less_ free? Those things were
| pretty bad sir! But now you 've gone too far! How dare you
| peep on our first trillionaire while he's courting outside
| his marriage?!? At long last, have you no shame?!??
| pc86 wrote:
| > In Comments
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky...Comments should get more
| thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more
| divisive.
|
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jessaustin wrote:
| You're going to have to spell this one out for me. To my
| (admittedly poor) judgment, the above comment does not
| violate the guidelines. I provide relevant examples of
| behavior that reasonable people would consider far worse
| than hacking some rich dude's iPhone.
| pc86 wrote:
| Sure. To the first point, I think it's pretty evident the
| comment is snarky (even if it has a good point in there).
| I'm guilty of that too, more often than I'd like and I do
| get called out on it occasionally. And I don't think that
| alone is an excuse to just flippantly toss the guidelines
| at someone, which admittedly is basically what I did.
|
| To the second point, however, I do think you took the
| worst possible interpretation of swyx's comment, which
| was basically "nobody cares that the person in question
| is a murderous tyrant, but he hacked Bezos's phone and so
| is a bad person _now_. " I don't think that's what he was
| saying at all, especially given the end about "more than
| he already is." Whether we like it or not, one of the
| primary reasons that Saudi Arabia is tolerated in the
| West is their economic importance, and their connections
| to the elite, almost entirely because of their wealth.
| That starts to crack if they go after the elites
| directly. So I took the comment as basically saying that
| it didn't seem to serve MBS at all to hack Bezos
| directly, as it would only (further) delegitimize him
| interntionally.
| jessaustin wrote:
| I'm glad that some light snarking is still somewhat
| tolerated. It's one of the things that makes life
| bearable for me.
|
| To more seriously address the various possible
| interpretations of the comment in question... yours is a
| reasonable interpretation, but I don't think I was
| unresponsive to that interpretation. _Of course_ ethical
| people object to MbS 's previous evil deeds. Still, those
| _are_ his deeds. If global opprobrium didn 't sway him
| before, there's no reason to believe it did so more
| recently. If there is evidence that some electronic
| communication that appeared to come from MbS contained
| malware, that evidence should be analyzed in itself. It
| shouldn't be dismissed by vague unsupported perceptions
| of MbS's interests and motivations. It's not as though
| Bezos is universally adored, even among other satanically
| wealthy reptiles.
| stanfordkid wrote:
| All whilst being propped up for decades by the USA for
| geopolitical objectives??!
|
| It's not an accident that one of the stupidest, most
| theocratic countries in the middle east receives the most
| weapons and support from the USA.
|
| We _don 't_ want a strong middle east. This is why
| countries like Iran, Lebanon, Syria are labelled as
| "terrorist".
| [deleted]
| spyspy wrote:
| Nitpick: Khashoggi was a writer for WaPo, not NYT.
| puranjay wrote:
| I fail to see any situation where MBS would be an
| international pariah while still controlling Saudi Arabia
| Natsu wrote:
| The jury is still out on whether there was even a hack to
| begin with. The analysis team claimed they couldn't decrypt
| WhatsApp messages, so they never actually analyzed any
| malware at all. HN called them out on that failure:
|
| https://github.com/ddz/whatsapp-media-decrypt
|
| They never responded with an actual malware analysis on the
| file they claimed might be responsible.
|
| The only evidence left after that was a claim of higher data
| usage which has to be weighed against the alternate
| explanation for how this got out:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2020/01/24/report-b.
| ..
| tester756 wrote:
| >in the image parsing library in WhatsApp in a picture message
| sent to him by
|
| Your link says
|
| >Bezos' phone appeared to be infiltrated after he opened a
| video file sent from the crown prince's number on WhatsApp.
| albatross wrote:
| A video is a series of pictures, so not "technically"
| inaccurate...
| catalogia wrote:
| A sort of "motion picture" if you will.
| krm01 wrote:
| How about making Whatsapp not permitted on Amazon employee's
| phones?
| viklove wrote:
| How about making Jeff Bezos not permitted on phones with
| access to Amazon email?
| mc32 wrote:
| Looks like the DNC is also disallowing the app on their
| employees's phones too.[1]
|
| Don't blame them, they don't want the kind of leaks that
| happened last cycle.
|
| [1] https://www.kdrv.com/content/news/571708792.html
| dequalant wrote:
| US would destroy anything not originating from its soil.
| Pathetic.
| LUmBULtERA wrote:
| How do you make this leap?
| dequalant wrote:
| Look at TikTok? Not from US, immediately being attacked by
| US. If it was from US like FB, Twitter, there would be no
| discussion about it's security.
| Crash0v3rid3 wrote:
| What a flawed stance to have on this. There are plenty of
| popular apps used in the US from other countries. Spotify
| immediately comes to mind, and they're not controlled by
| the CCP, an added bonus.
| dequalant wrote:
| Yes but none of those apps make their way to top 10, dont
| they? US works this way. They eliminate whatever not
| originating from their own companies. TikTok is very
| clear example of this. Give me a break about "Security
| concerns". Everyone knows that whats happening around
| TikTok is political.
| shripadk wrote:
| Yes it is political. It is CCP controlled company. How is
| that hard to imagine? Yes this is a problem of National
| Security. India was the first to ban these apps. I don't
| see you having a problem there! But if US does it, it
| pains you. Why? Is National Security a concern only for
| Countries except US? Why is US an exception in your
| argument? If China can ban foreign apps why can't other
| Countries do the same? I don't understand your logic at
| all!
| dequalant wrote:
| With your logic, FB and Twitter has strong ties with US
| government and controlled by them. Should all countries
| ban, attack and try to eliminate FB and Twitter from
| their markets?
| shripadk wrote:
| "Controlled by them". This is so wrong! If the US
| Government controls FB and Twitter you wouldn't have FB
| censoring Trump ads and Twitter attaching its own fact
| check opinions on Trump's tweets. By all evidence you
| have FB and Twitter functioning completely independent of
| the US Government. Does it share data with the US
| Government based on some legal requirement? Yes it does.
| As long as the requirement is legal. I am against social
| media companies as well but for the completely opposite
| reason. I believe social media companies are acting as
| Supra-National Governments and they have powers to
| influence that even National Governments (like the US in
| this case) do not have. They can literally alter the
| political discourse and no one can do anything about it.
| Not even the US Government. I have expressed my opinions
| about social media here which you can read for yourself
| [1]
|
| Don't be surprised if there is a ban on FB and Twitter by
| other countries too! But not for the reasons you
| mentioned. The reason would be undue political
| interference if there is evidence of the same.
|
| But TikTok is not like FB or Twitter. The parent company
| ByteDance has direct affiliation with CCP. They have an
| actual agreement in place where they will share any and
| every data with the CCP even without any legal basis.
| This is not the case in the US. The US Government has to
| get a court order to get information from FB or Twitter.
|
| Here is a quote from Twitter's Law Enforcement page [2]:
|
| "Private information requires a subpoena or court order
|
| Non-public information about Twitter users will not be
| released to law enforcement except in response to
| appropriate legal process such as a subpoena, court
| order, or other valid legal process - or in response to a
| valid emergency request, as described below."
|
| And if the US Government wants communications details it
| needs to obtain a Search warrant [2]:
|
| "Contents of communications requires a search warrant
|
| Requests for the contents of communications (e.g.,
| Tweets, Direct Messages, photos) require a valid search
| warrant or equivalent from an agency with proper
| jurisdiction over Twitter."
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23774779
|
| [2]: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
| policies/twitter-law-e...
| sdinsn wrote:
| China bans American apps. Why wouldn't we do the same?
| J5892 wrote:
| Because we're not a totalitarian state built on the backbone
| of censorship and information control.
|
| Yet.
| sdinsn wrote:
| Is this about censorship and information control, or just
| about economic equity? Why should we be a market for
| China's applications when we can't do the same?
| dequalant wrote:
| You are already. You are trying all possible ways to
| destroy TikTok.
| J5892 wrote:
| Explain
| shripadk wrote:
| So you will allow an app whose company is tied to a
| "totalitarian state built on the backbone of censorship and
| information control" to steal your data? You cannot have a
| company in China without agreeing to the terms and
| conditions of the CCP. The CCP is the totalitarian state
| you are so against. They are actively collecting your data.
| In realtime. And you don't want that app to be banned
| because you have a moral ideal to uphold. Great logic!
| J5892 wrote:
| No, I would never use TikTok.
|
| Why are you so eager to have the US copy the ideals of
| the CCP?
| shripadk wrote:
| > Why are you so eager to have the US copy the ideals of
| the CCP?
|
| There are no "ideals" in supporting something that is
| obviously stealing your data and handing it over to a
| totalitarian regime. Should you not be asking why this
| app exists in the store in the first place when the store
| and the app is being used within the jurisdiction of the
| United States but data being sent to a foreign entity?
| Would you be okay with US citizens personal information
| being handed over and stored in the servers controlled by
| a totalitarian Government?
|
| As far as being "eager" to have the US copy the ideals of
| the CCP are concerned let me tell you where you are
| wrong: If the US was to indeed copy the ideals of CCP, it
| would be forcing TikTok and other social media to hand
| over personal information of you and fellow US Citizens
| without a subpoena or a court order. Now that is copying
| the ideals of CCP.
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| And that's why I never setup email on my personal mobile device
| when I worked for AWS.
| melling wrote:
| The email sent to Amazon employees was a mistake.
|
| https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/amazon-bans-tiktok-emp...
| east2west wrote:
| From WSJ: Amazon Says Email Ordering Employees to Delete TikTok
| Was Sent in Error.
|
| I suspect Amazon realized late what a legal mess it is to ban
| an app on their employee's cell phone when they have no clear
| legal basis or governmental guidance. They banned employee
| using Huawei phones when I was working there, for some things
| -- don't remember exactly. But in that case, US government
| already banned it for its employees, so there is precedence
| Amazon can claim as legal basis.
| wiml wrote:
| Why do you think Amazon doesn't have a clear legal basis to
| decide which devices are allowed to connect to their internal
| network services? Or, for that matter, to decide which
| devices ca be taken into non-public, secured parts of Amazon
| buildings?
| kenhwang wrote:
| They probably got informed that since phones are personal
| devices and not company provided, this level of restriction
| might land them in the parts of BYOD laws that require
| employers to compensate for personal device use for work.
|
| Amazon probably decided most employees don't have anything
| too sensitive and it's not worth buying everyone a phone.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Our company gets around that by banning BYOD.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Someone goes through all the trouble of typing that explicit
| email and it's a mistake?
|
| Sounds more like 'pulled after huge feedback'.
|
| Though personally I'd agree with this decision. TikTok seems to
| be a particularly bad apple:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...
| kevincox wrote:
| Yeah, not "This email was sent by mistake." but "Sending this
| email was a mistake." Two completely different sentences.
| che_shirecat wrote:
| I keep seeing that Reddit thread linked but still cannot for
| the life of me figure out what substantially TikTok does that
| is a concern compared to other popular apps? The guy has like
| 10 paragraphs of stories but no actual evidence? What is
| TikTok doing that somehow is flying under the app store
| guidelines of both Google and Apple but still a "national
| security concern"? Why is the only actual "evidence" that can
| seemingly be found, a comment from some rando on Reddit, not
| peer-reviewed, reproducible work from legit cybersecurity
| researchers? This reeks of the same scent that Bloomberg's
| "omg they're hackz0ring our chips!" story gave off.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| For one, the clipboard snooping problem.
|
| If you're using a password-manager (like we're supposed
| to!) and use it to copy passwords (say, your Amazon
| employee internal credentials...) while you have TikTok
| open, the TikTok app would see it and could upload it
| somewhere.
|
| ...and we only know about this issue now because iOS 14
| adds clipboard snooping notifications - and that was only a
| month ago! Think about the stuff that the app could be
| doing that we _don't_ yet know about.
|
| There's too many bloody-obvious security vulnerabilities
| that are decades old but don't get fixed until they either
| become a meme (like SQL Injection) or the platform vendor
| does something about it (iOS 14 clipboard notifications) -
| and don't forget that the SIGINT community is sitting on
| millions of dollars worth of zero-days that they won't
| disclose to vendors unless they feel like it - so I fully
| expect there to be more surprises in TikTok - and other
| apps - in the years to come - probably indefinitely.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, I guess we'll change the title to that since the submitted
| title ("The TikTok app is no longer permitted on mobile devices
| that access Amazon email") has become misleading.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| a13n wrote:
| I feel like this TikTok backlash is so overblown. I don't think
| TikTok is spying on US consumers/business, and I don't think
| TikTok is sharing any US private data with CCP... I believe this
| because there's no evidence to the contrary, and out of principle
| you shouldn't assume malintent.
|
| In fact, TikTok explicitly left Hong Kong because if they didn't
| they would have to share private data with CCP to comply with new
| laws... they're intentionally leaving MAU on the table to keep
| their users' data safe. [1]
|
| If you look around, US social companies are making the same
| mistake with your clipboard data that TikTok did. LinkedIn just
| got caught reading your clipboard data [2], but we aren't talking
| about banning them... I would assume in all of these cases, it's
| just an engineer who accidentally shipped a bug. There are
| legitimate use cases to read the clipboard (eg. more seamless
| 2fa).
|
| It feels like the negative reaction to TikTok is so politicized
| and just comes from a "China bad" attitude.
|
| [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/tech/tiktok-leaving-hong-
| kong...
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716451
| vesche wrote:
| Some light reading:
|
| https://rufposten.de/blog/2019/12/05/privacy-analysis-of-tik...
|
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QEyWqAiTE_5xzCs_X3tjDCQx...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tiktoks-owner-is-helpin...
|
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/video-app-linked-to-china...
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-is-the-latest-window-into...
|
| https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/478015-exer...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/06/26/warning-a...
| a13n wrote:
| I just read/skimmed each of these links.
|
| Is this any less data than is collected by Facebook or Google
| in their apps/websites?
|
| This seems like mostly an issue with the fact that Android
| lets apps get at this much data - something that should be
| fixed at the OS-level. There's very little mention of similar
| practices/vulnerabilities on iOS.
| vesche wrote:
| You read all of that in 8 minutes? Try again and maybe even
| read the very first link. Facebook and Google aren't
| creating unique fingerprints for you based on high
| frequency audio... Read the two other research reports,
| they mention that TikTok's aggressive data collection is
| much more extreme than apps like Instagram, Facebook, and
| Twitter.
|
| Why defend China? You are aware that they are currently
| conducting an operation that is likely the worst human
| rights crisis since the Holocaust. You need to re-evaluate
| your views.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| >Try again and maybe even read the very first link.
|
| >You are aware that they are currently conducting an
| operation that is likely the worst human rights crisis
| since the Holocaust. You need to re-evaluate your views.
|
| Please don't belittle or look down upon others. It does
| not foster discussion.
| vesche wrote:
| Do you wake up in the morning thinking... Ahhh what a
| great nights sleep, better login to HN and defend my
| favorite genocidal, communist, surveillance state, anti-
| freedom, global super power:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23795989
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23758513
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689255
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22854487
| Mekantis wrote:
| I have no idea how anybody can look at TikTok with a straight
| face and not see that they're a threat. Maybe if you've
| conveniently closed your eyes to the CCP's behavior in the
| past, say, 10-20 years regarding corporate espionage and
| suppressing freedom of speech and compiling profiles of
| everybody who dares speak out about them, as well as their
| behavior _now_ in recent events (particularly how they 're more
| than eager to punish local dissidents). Then, I guess, sure,
| there's absolutely nothing here to see. As with every Chinese
| company, the problem isn't that they're Chinese. It's that as a
| Chinese company, they exist only with the blessing of the CCP.
| metaphorical wrote:
| TikTok left Hong Kong because HK is a tiny market, and they
| wouldn't want the PR backblash if they had to share HK data
| with CCP.
|
| There's evidence that Bytedance is not independent of CCP
| interferences though - such as the CEO's public statement in
| 2018 where he stated that Bytedance products should support
| "socialist core values" etc.
|
| https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...
| bonzini wrote:
| Or maybe they left so that HK users must switch to the app
| for the Chinese-market, the one that definitely shares stuff
| with the CCP?...
| scohesc wrote:
| It's been admitted that tiktok actively suppresses content on
| peoples front pages that include visibly disabled users, "ugly"
| users, fat users, etc. etc. - anything that makes their image
| look "bad" in their eyes.
|
| Kind of goes against current shoe-horned American societal
| values of "everyone should be respected, regardless of who,
| what, how, when, where they are"
| nickthegreek wrote:
| And they also came out to make changes to that system.
| propogandist wrote:
| after they were exposed, to avoid negative PR
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Assuming good intentions from TikTok is pretty ignorant.
| ByteDance's other app, DouYin, is unambiguously a CCP
| controlled tool that censors dissent and their CEO
| ingratiatingly and apologetically dedicated the company to
| "Strengthening the work of Party construction, carrying out
| education among our entire staff on the "four consciousnesses,"
| socialist core values, guidance of public opinion" in a public
| statement [1].
|
| Suggesting that TikTok is leaving MAU on the table to keep
| users' data safe is laughable when ByteDance's other Party-
| controlled app, DouYin, is remaining in Hong Kong with a
| captive audience (as helpfully confirmed by Global Times [2], a
| well-known mouthpiece of the Party). To even suggest that it's
| a sign of good intentions would ignore extremely important
| current events and ByteDance's self-proclaimed devotion to the
| Party. As we speak, the Party is aggressively assimilating Hong
| Kong into the mainland by banning public expressions of
| dissent, controlling educational curriculum, and yes, good old
| censorship. Forcing HK residents to use only Party-controlled
| tools that the rest of the mainland uses, like DouYin made by
| ByteDance, only serves to further the "work of Party
| construction".
|
| TikTok is political because it is wholly owned by a self-
| proclaimed political entity: ByteDance. It's disingenuous to
| suggest there is no reason to assume malintent when ByteDance
| has a history of censorship and propaganda in its flagship app:
| DouYin. Your glib dismissal of "China bad" has no substance
| behind it, while China's ample human rights and totalitarian
| abuses speak for themselves. Putting the actions of independent
| private corporations in a free-speech democracy on the same
| level as the actions of a publicly-proclaimed ally of an
| authoritarian human rights abuser is plain nonsense. Context
| matters.
|
| [1] https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-
| the-n...
|
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/12803650546557911...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| China is building concentration camps that they use for slave
| labor, ripping organs out of the still living bodies of
| political prisonersto give to its rich class, creating an
| increasingly dystopian super surveillance state wherein you
| could be subtly punished for associating with the wrong people,
| has no means of redress or removal of the dictator for life,
| and treats all enterprises as organs of the state that are
| expected to spy for the state.
|
| China is bad.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| All that may be true, yet it still does not mean rationality
| should be thrown out the window when evaluating claims about
| TikTok.
| apta wrote:
| Better be safe than sorry. That's quite rational given what
| we've seen from the Chinese govt.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _All that may be true, yet it still does not mean
| rationality should be thrown out the window when evaluating
| claims about TikTok._
|
| If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| I reasonable position is to trust nothing originating from
| China that can't be dependently verified. I don't think any
| system can be said to be fully proof against malicious
| software which could be reintroduced at any given time.
|
| The logical position is to throw out the bathwater and the
| baby its not like there aren't enough sources of short
| pointless videos to waste our time on.
| kilo_bravo_3 wrote:
| >It feels like the negative reaction to TikTok is so
| politicized and just comes from a "China bad" attitude.
|
| The Chinese government is actual, literal, evil.
|
| That is not "PoLiTiCaL" or "China Bad".
|
| It is indisputable that the Chinese government:
|
| * is running concentration camps that house over a million
| people
|
| * exploits forced labor, a polite term for actual literal
| slavery
|
| * imprisons people arbitrarily for anti-government sentiment
|
| Anyone who says "buh buh facebookz and NSA" to excuse or
| minimize the actions of the Chinese Communist Party is so
| incapable of rational thought that they should be shunned and
| ridiculed.
|
| You are not put on a government watchlist for comparing the
| President of the United States to a cartoon character and you
| are not arrested for subversive thought for selling anti-
| government books.
|
| And no, YouTube telling bigots to GTFO is not the same thing as
| being arrested for selling books.
|
| The CEO of ByteDance (the firm that owns TikTok) is on the
| record has having said that it is his intent to deeply
| cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party to promote its
| ideals and policies.
|
| It is probably best to take him at his word.
|
| I invite anyone who disagrees to fly to Beijing and walk around
| Tian An Men Square carrying this book:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/1423135792/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_...
|
| I will buy the book for you.
|
| edit: or better yet, take a flight to any city in China. Book a
| room in a hotel and go down to the pool and write out one page
| about the TianJin explosion, questioning whether or not the
| offical death count is correct. Then go to a print shop and
| make a couple hundred copies. Then stand on any busy street
| corner with a sign that reads: "questions about the TianJin
| explosion, please take one" (in Chinese, of course).
|
| And here's the kicker: video it and upload it to TikTok.
|
| I won't do it because the Chinese government is evil and I'm
| scared.
| hn3333 wrote:
| Does anyone else feel we're suddenly supposed to be anti-China?
| Is it because of Hong Kong? (Honest question, I have no strong
| opinion .) Because it feels like after Russia and Muslims now
| China is the new enemy. Kind of stupid imho. Anyway, the high
| road would probably be not to ban any apps but to make the
| operating systems safer..
| [deleted]
| partiallypro wrote:
| China has been an American economic foe for a while. The CCP
| has stepped up measures and started to push their agenda and
| censorship globally. They have stepped up their presence in the
| South China sea and claimed ownership of international waters.
| They have clamped down on Hong Kong and other provinces, put
| Muslims in concentration camps using them as slave labor,
| stealing their organs, shaving their heads and selling the hair
| on the market. They've been using their state controlled
| enterprises to spy on people outside of their borders (I'm not
| saying the west is innocent 100% on that one.)
|
| So...I don't think it's stupid at all. China (the CCP) is anti-
| freedom. The west is generally a liberal society.
|
| https://www.axios.com/china-hong-kong-law-global-activism-ff...
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| They have used Belt and Road to expand their influence. They
| have extended loans and goodwill to bring various countries
| in Asia and Africa under their influence. They are way more
| aggressive and assertive than they used to be. Chinese
| companies and investment firms have been aggressively buying
| companies throughout the world. The list goes on. Without
| commenting on the values of it, at the very least it's a
| challenge to the current world order and we'd expect
| countries to at least push back a bit. In fact, I was
| surprised it took over a decade for countries to start
| pushing back.
| president wrote:
| > In fact, I was surprised it took over a decade for
| countries to start pushing back.
|
| It didn't help that many politicians, media, and elites had
| been slowly bought by China. There were many China skeptics
| that had raised red flags but were largely ignored.
| president wrote:
| You have incorrectly framed the issue. The fact is that China
| has been anti-US and anti-democracy for the past few decades
| and the world is finally coming to terms with that and
| defending themselves. It is both laughable and sad that so many
| Americans like yourself are so ill-informed and quick to jump
| on the "US bad" train.
| nxc18 wrote:
| They never said US bad.
|
| I think its totally reasonable to point out that there was a
| sudden, drastic shift in tone over the last 3-6 months.
|
| TikTok was gaining popularity last summer, and no one, short
| of a few NYT op-eds, said anything.
|
| China is a geopolitical rival. We should probably aspire to
| be better than them first rather than copy them with an
| internet firewall and censorship of our own. One of the
| challenges of doing that nowadays is we have a president who
| thinks cultural genocide of Uighur muslims is 'exactly the
| right thing to do' and that Tienanmen square massacre was
| also the right thing to do.
|
| edit: gendered language edit: updated quote for accuracy
| (absolutely->exactly)
| president wrote:
| > China is a geopolitical rival. We should probably aspire
| to be better than them first rather than copy them with an
| internet firewall and censorship of our own.
|
| You fail to realize that allowing these apps will allow a
| foreign adversary to siphon data and act as a platform for
| spying. China has already demonstrated that their
| technology is not to be trusted.
|
| > One of the challenges of doing that nowadays is we have a
| president who thinks cultural genocide of Uighur muslims is
| 'absolutely the right thing to do' and that Tienanmen
| square massacre was also the right thing to do.
|
| Fake news much? See the 2020 Uyghur Rights Act [1]. I have
| no idea where you came up with this.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
| bill/374...
|
| EDIT: Since I have been blocked from replying, here is my
| response to your reply:
|
| > This claim originates in John Bolton's book [1]
|
| As you said, it is a claim, and has not been validated. By
| the way, the bill he signs has sanctioned a high-ranking
| member of the CCP Politburo among others so it not merely
| meant as a symbolic win.
| gerbal wrote:
| > > One of the challenges of doing that nowadays is we
| have a president who thinks cultural genocide of Uighur
| muslims is 'absolutely the right thing to do' and that
| Tienanmen square massacre was also the right thing to do.
|
| > Fake news much? See the 2020 Uyghur Rights Act [1]. I
| have no idea where you came up with this.
|
| This claim originates in John Bolton's book [1] Make of
| it what you will. Personally it seems pretty consistent.
|
| > At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June
| 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to
| Trump why he was basically building concentration camps
| in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said
| that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which
| Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do. The
| National Security Council's top Asia staffer, Matthew
| Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar
| during his November 2017 trip to China.
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-bolton-the-scandal-
| of-trum...
| jessaustin wrote:
| Bolton _is_ consistent. He has consistently been a
| warmongering villain. Like many other USA "international
| security experts" he has never shied away from lying in
| pursuit of his terrible goals. I'm not eager to believe a
| story from him that only Trump or Xi could contradict, if
| they even cared to do so.
|
| But sure, Trump could have said it. He could say anything
| at any time. As he sees it, he got elected by promising
| to bully minorities. In office, he has bullied
| minorities. It's not surprising that during negotiations
| he would attempt to find common ground through shared
| appreciation of commonplace governmental activities.
| edapa wrote:
| You know the CCP is engaged in an active genocide right?
| geogra4 wrote:
| Evidence always goes back to that adrian zenz fraud. I don't
| believe it.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Could you clarify what you don't believe? You don't believe
| that "Vocational Education and Training Centers" exist, or
| you don't believe that they are internment camps, or you do
| believe in them existing but don't believe in the scale of
| how many hundreds of thousands of people have been in them?
| geogra4 wrote:
| >> that "Vocational Education and Training Centers" exist
|
| Yes - they exist. Kind of like community colleges exist.
|
| >> you don't believe that they are internment camps
|
| I don't and neither do muslim majority countries all over
| the world including UAE, Eritrea, Sudan, Pakistan, and
| Algeria, among others[0]
|
| 0: https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-
| for-or-a...
| yorwba wrote:
| >>> you don't believe that they are internment camps
|
| > I don't
|
| Why not? They're officially intended to hold and re-
| educate violent terrorists and extremists who have been
| determined to be a danger to society, among other groups.
| http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2019-03/18/c_1124247196
| .ht... (Search for She Hui Wei Xian .) Of course they're
| internment camps.
|
| > muslim majority countries all over the world including
| UAE, Eritrea, Sudan, Pakistan, and Algeria, among others
|
| Think that interning Muslims in camps is perfectly
| justified by the "war on terror", and they're doing it
| quite often themselves. Of course they're not bothered
| when China does it.
| president wrote:
| With the overwhelming amount of evidence and testimony
| regarding human rights violations in Xinjiang, burden of
| proof is on the CCP to disprove.
|
| EDIT: Since HN has blocked me from posting too fast, here
| is my response to your reply:
|
| > It's so absurd! Not a SINGLE MUSLIM MAJORITY COUNTRY is
| against these supposed Xinjiang camps! Why do you think the
| USA suddenly cares about muslims? Use your brain.
|
| Maybe China has bought their silence? See
| https://www.businessinsider.com/imran-khan-pakistan-wont-
| cri.... UN has been bought as well. See all actions by WHO
| since Covid-19 started.
| geogra4 wrote:
| Why bother with Global Times? Why not go straight to the
| UN. Which countries support china's Xinjiang policy and
| which oppose? Notice which side most islamic countries
| are on? And which side the countries that have a muslim
| ban are on?
|
| https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/which-countries-are-for-
| or-a...
|
| It's so absurd! Not a _single muslim majority country_ is
| against these supposed Xinjiang camps! Why do you think
| the USA suddenly cares about muslims?
| dang wrote:
| Hey, please edit out swipes like "use your brain" from
| your HN comments. They only make things worse. I realize
| that it's frustrating to represent a contrarian position
| on the internet, but there's really only one way to do it
| effectively and that is to prevent the frustration from
| boiling over and stick to neutral information. Otherwise
| you just give people an additional reason to reject what
| you're saying, which ends up discrediting whatever truth
| you're advocating for. I've written about this elsewhere
| in case it's helpful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=a
| ll&page=0&prefix=true&que...
|
| Also, please note this site guideline: _Please don 't use
| uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word
| or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get
| italicized._
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| geogra4 wrote:
| yes done. Apologies.
| dang wrote:
| Appreciated!
| rydre wrote:
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| That's not new though, which I think is what the poster is
| pointing to. China has always been an economic competitor and
| has been violating human rights for a very long time. There
| seems to be more attention on it now though.
| enitihas wrote:
| China wasn't always an economic competitor though, just
| that their economy has grown at a large rate for a long
| time to become almost as large as the US.
| jedberg wrote:
| Because their GDP is growing and at the current pace they
| will pass the USA around 2025. That's why the USA cares
| now.
|
| Left unchecked, China will soon be the biggest economy in
| the world. The USA doesn't want that.
| president wrote:
| > The USA doesn't want that.
|
| Nothing wrong with having another superpower surpass you
| but China is not the superpower anyone wants leading the
| world given their track record.
| patrickaljord wrote:
| > China is not the superpower anyone wants leading the
| world given their track record.
|
| Anyone? Really? I think a good number of people on this
| planet is fed up with the US leading the world with its
| own track record. Not saying I agree with them but saying
| no one would be happy to see China surpass the US is
| wrong in my opinion.
| enitihas wrote:
| Social anger changes in response to black swan events.
| Islamophobia was rampant after 9/11. People were angry on
| Russia after the Crimea incident. People are angry on China due
| to Hong Kong , their treatment of uyighurs, and their growing
| economic power. This is also amplified by Trump talking about
| China a lot more than any other country.
| Rapzid wrote:
| The CCP and Xi Jinping(have we forgotten president for LIFE?)
| poses an existential threat to all liberal democracies.
|
| This has been true for a quite a while but there was money to
| be made and China was keeping a very low profile. In recent
| years however they have been making extensive soft and hard
| power plays externally. They were busted infiltrating
| Australian government, running a propaganda news paper out of
| New Zealand, and controlling their citizens abroad through
| means such as the Confucius Institutes. They have been getting
| countries in Africa under their control by dumping money into
| them in the form of loans they can't hope to pay back.
|
| Members of the intelligence community have been warning for
| years that China is the largest national security threat.
| Governments and businesses are waking up to the fact that it's
| simply not possible to continue business with China while
| ignoring the CCP.
|
| These are also not alt-right/left wacka-doodle conspiracy
| theories. There has been a lot of reporting from most credible
| news sites over the past 5 or so years on the power struggle
| we(liberal democracies) are engaged in with China:
| https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and-new-z...
| .
|
| Perhaps how you feel about authoritarianism will determine
| whether you should view the CCP as an "enemy" or not..
|
| PS: Xi "I've read history so I won't make the same mistakes"
| Jinping, now President for Life(mistake), is making a fool of
| himself by putting his ego front and center on issues such as
| Hong Kong and Taiwan. He wants desperately to unify China(under
| fascism, hooray!) which is why China has essentially reneged on
| the Hong Kong timeline and are now forcing authoritarianism
| down the throats of a population quite set on democracy.
| danso wrote:
| Note: since this tweet/submission, some outlets have written
| stories about this:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/10/21320196/amazon-employees...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/technology/tiktok-amazon-...
| ehsankia wrote:
| I'm curious, are these
|
| 1. Devices owned by Amazon, for work
|
| 2. Personal devices with the amazon email added directly
|
| 3. Personal devices with amazon email added on Work profile
|
| Could not find this info in the articles or tweet.
| nvr219 wrote:
| They're devices that are under Amazon's MDM. So if the device
| was enrolled with their MDM then it applies.
| ehsankia wrote:
| Right, but on Android at least, you can either have the
| whole device be under MDM (#2) or just a work profile (#3).
| In the latter, if your sysadmin decides to wipe your
| device, it only wipes your Work profile and not your entire
| phone, from my understanding. Is that not correct?
|
| My assumption was that any apps installed on the personal
| partition were off limit for the MDM.
| bonzini wrote:
| They might still require you to comply voluntarily (and
| be on your own if you lie).
| Nicksil wrote:
| Mobile Device Management
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device_management
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I'm surprised devices enrolled in their MDM would have EVER
| allowed Tik Tok in the first place.
| nvr219 wrote:
| A lot of companies with MDM have it just because they
| need to check a box saying they have it, and so that they
| can remote wipe and make sure users put a PIN on their
| device at least. Extra capabilities like authorized
| software lists, URL filtering, etc add admin overhead and
| are just not worth it for the company to get into.
| sdoering wrote:
| Believe me - a lot of companies roll MDM just to be able
| to remotely wipe the device in case it gets lost.
|
| A lot of them do not block apps (or remove them).
| koolba wrote:
| Can one do this as an individual as well?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| For iOS you can use Apple Configurator for profile-based
| M2M. For remote management you need a server-based
| solution and I believe there's an open-source
| implementation of that out there.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yep it's called MicroMDM.
|
| https://micromdm.io/
|
| Only supports Apple though! Not Android.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| There's a handful of others, including some that support
| both platforms
| scohesc wrote:
| Cisco had their Meraki MDM free for small numbers of
| devices - but that was a while ago and I'm not sure if
| they still offer it. Was only compatible with I believe
| Samsung phones as they had the best hardware security
| built in (KNOX?). Apple phones required (still do?) a Mac
| in order to deploy specific certificates to devices to
| enroll in MDM as well.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| These days Android MDM has changed a lot.
|
| In the 'old' days, there was an app called device admin
| which would control the phone. This app would be supplied
| by the MDM vendor. This could leverage APIs from various
| vendors. Samsung had Knox but almost every phone vendor
| had their own plugin.
|
| This was a huge PITA because each MDM feature only worked
| on manufacturers A and B and very often was limited to OS
| versions Y and Z. It meant we had to validate each phone
| and OS version and have a long list of what phones people
| could and couldn't use. It was a nightmare as an admin.
| Users hated it because they often only found out after
| they'd bought the phone. Samsung was indeed one of the
| best here, I have to agree.
|
| Since then Google has thrown this overboard and started
| afresh with Android Enterprise. Controlled only by
| Google, and offering new ways of management like the work
| profile which is basically a kind of "phone inside a
| phone". Have your work profile managed by work and the
| rest of your phone to yourself.
|
| For company-owned phones they also still have more
| comprehensive management options like COBO and COPE. But
| as long as the phone supports Android Enterprise, it
| supports everything.
|
| Sadly some vendors in particular Samsung are fighting
| this approach because they feel they have invested too
| much in the old method. For example Samsung won't support
| Google Zero Touch auto-enrolment, having instead their
| own alternative Knox Mobile Enrolment. This is again
| making things more difficult for admins. But because
| Samsung is such a big party, and KME is free, we have
| gone for it anyway (Also Google Zero Touch is not
| available very widely yet, each reseller has to support
| it)
|
| As an Admin I'm glad to see the end of the old management
| model. It's deprecated as of Android 11 (and already
| severely limited in 10) but we've already dropped it
| altogether.
|
| And no, for managing Apple phones you don't need a Mac.
| You just need this for manual installation of management
| profiles, if you use an MDM you don't need it.
|
| However if you want to manually supervise phones (instead
| of using Apple DEP / or Automated Device Enrolment as
| they call it now), you do need one. But this is really
| rare now.
| a-wu wrote:
| If you have an Apple device enrolled in Find My you can
| remote wipe it.
| ls612 wrote:
| Is this any different from the Find My Apple Stuff
| feature on modern iDevices? One of the options is remote
| wiping. I assume android as a similar feature.
| variaga wrote:
| AMZN employee here - In my case, it's (3)
| kerng wrote:
| Assuming you get somehow reimbursed, like some companies
| that dont have corp issued phones?
| mattcrox wrote:
| Yes we have cell reimbursement
| paxys wrote:
| I don't think any mid-large company allows 2 anymore. Access
| to company resources always comes with an MDM policy.
| ehsankia wrote:
| I think #2 can require MDM still, but one let's them
| control the entire device, whereas #3 limits them to a
| section of your phone dedicated to work.
| codegladiator wrote:
| You are wrong to think that. I wish I could name the
| companies.
| sdoering wrote:
| I know some. And I know others with MDM - but without
| policies regarding installation of apps.
| [deleted]
| btashton wrote:
| I don't get why people are OK with a company being able to
| wipe a personal device on a whim. If you want full control
| of my mobile, then provide a mobile.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| In Work Profile mode they absolutely can't do that. They
| can only remove the work profile side and all apps and
| data contained therein. Not the personal side.
|
| Of course most companies provide phones, but many users
| prefer to use their own, both for the benefit of having
| to carry only one, and because they have more choice.
|
| Another big benefit of work profile is that you can
| switch all work stuff and notifications off with one
| click! I really like it overall, it gives great
| separation.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Everything on my phone is automatically backed up.
| Whether I would accept the tradeoff of them being able to
| remotely wipe my phone or wanting to carry two devices is
| up in the air.
| ehsankia wrote:
| My understanding is that they can only wipe the work
| profile. Is that not true? (Android).
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| In work profile mode this is absolutely correct.
|
| In other modes (COBO, COPE) it's not but those are much
| more difficult to enrol, as you have to do it from the
| setup wizard on a new phone or after a factory reset. So
| you don't happen to get into this mode by accident.
| They're only used for company owned phones (this is what
| the CO part stands for).
| khuey wrote:
| If you're using the Android MDM thing on a personal
| device it only wipes the work profile.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Many companies make MDM mandatory and refuse to pay for a
| phone. Most people will just comply rather than have _no
| mobile access_ to their work email at all (which will
| cause conflict with managers, and may even lose you a
| job)
| moneil971 wrote:
| Many companies do provide a mobile, but then your choice
| is to carry 2 devices, or let your company control the
| only device you carry and use all day for personal
| communication. I chose the former but even that's not
| ideal
| schnable wrote:
| What's the security/privacy vulnerability that would allow TikTok
| access to sensitive info from email?
| [deleted]
| Randor wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| The real question is why does your phone even allow such things
| to happen in the first place?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Clipboard access.
| Andrex wrote:
| Contacts at least, as the lowest-hanging fruit.
| closetnerd wrote:
| Likely that they have the potential to have as much information
| about us as Facebook does - but China?
|
| If there was a real security/privacy issue - I'd be more upset
| with Apple than China (as an iPhone user). Apple needs to watch
| my back.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Does anyone have a link to a legit security analysis on this app?
| I'm trying to weed through all details, and I want to get past
| any FUD.
| dvt wrote:
| Looks like TikTok is slowly imploding.
|
| I know there's plenty of political implications and a lot of
| discussion here is on that (which is interesting in its own
| right), but I wonder if there's opportunity here for a potential
| competitor.
| maram wrote:
| > Looks like TikTok is slowly imploding.
|
| While they are still in the App Store
| shripadk wrote:
| > While they are still in the App Store
|
| Not for long! The banhammer is coming for them!
| suyash wrote:
| Real implosion will happen if US bans it.
| gsich wrote:
| They fight what they can't understand.
| goalieca wrote:
| You mean like vine? Twitter bought it and killed it. The
| founder moved on to launch Byte https://www.byte.co/
| dvt wrote:
| Vine was definitely the precursor to apps like TikTok, and I
| tried Byte but I didn't really like it (at least not as much
| as I do TikTok).
| what_ever wrote:
| Vine was different. I just posted this on another thread
| couple of days ago.
|
| >
|
| Vine was 6 second long video clips. Comparing Vine to TikTok
| is somewhat like comparing TikTok to YouTube videos. They are
| different.
|
| Lot of TikTok popularity has come from offering songs/lip
| syncing functionality (done better by their acquisition of
| musica.ly). That wouldn't have worked on 6 second Vines.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > _Vine was 6 second long video clips. Comparing Vine to
| TikTok is somewhat like comparing TikTok to YouTube videos.
| They are different._
|
| As an aside, it's insane to me that the differentiating
| feature of an entirely new video hosting platform can
| simply be the length of the content it supports.
|
| The world of tech companies is truly bizarre. Why doesn't
| Google launch dozens of Youtube variants under their own
| branding with their own slightly different length
| restrictions to just dominate the market?
| manojlds wrote:
| That's like saying Twitter is not Twitter because we can
| type more than 140 characters now.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| For the rest of us that don't follow social media systems
| closely (just looked up, I'm trusting my search results):
|
| TikTok allows 15 second videos (only 2.5x the length of
| Vine videos) but also has a way to string multiple videos
| together for 60 seconds of play time (10x longer than
| Vine had).
|
| So this is actually a pretty fair comparison (old Twitter
| @ 140 vs new Twitter @ 280) if you ignore stringing them
| together.
| im3w1l-alt wrote:
| It's not only about the mathematical factor. It's about
| which usecases are possible.
| xxpor wrote:
| >Byte
|
| Which is different from ByteDance, which is the company that
| owns TikTok, for those confused like me.
| ubermon wrote:
| Surprised nobody talked about Fb's Lasso which intends to
| "copy" TikTok and recently got killed.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/lasso-facebook-tiktok-shut...
| kkarakk wrote:
| Lasso launched outside of india/china...the two biggest
| markets for tiktok right now and your app simply doesn't
| support them? doomed to mediocrity
| carlosdp wrote:
| There is absolutely no evidence of that, its users still love
| using it.
| ccktlmazeltov wrote:
| China is blocking all the US apps, I don't see why the US (or
| US companies that get blocked in China) shouldn't do the same
| to popular Chinese apps.
| quuUuw wrote:
| Everywhere I go I see this comment. Competitors are literally
| being made daily. Hell, even instagram has one now. The problem
| is money and technology can never buy a community and that's
| really why vine and tiktok were so successful.
| taurath wrote:
| Tiktok isn't imploding, its broadly a bunch of old men
| (senators, CEOs) afraid of china. The userbase of tiktok is
| tweens and teens.
|
| The best thing those old men could do is legislate system level
| privacy protections onto IOS and Android so an app can never
| get the level of info they're worried about.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| I'm not so sure. Reddit skews young, yet the narrative there
| is that TikTok and the Chinese gov are just shy of evil. The
| iOS clipboard bug in particular has startled reddit into a
| wave of self-reinforcing "TikTok is spyware" stories and
| comments. A story like this one just reinforces that
| narrative, and I'm not sure there's any way TikTok is coming
| back from it.
| catalogia wrote:
| I'd guesstimate the average redditor is somewhere in their
| late 20s to mid 30s. Compared to Congress, that's certainly
| young. But that's about twice the age of what I imagine the
| average tiktok user to be (teens.)
| reaperducer wrote:
| The local TV news uses TikTok and mentions it regularly.
| Not exactly a teen-age audience.
| dvt wrote:
| Just a few days ago, TikTok was banned in India (a _huge_
| emerging market). I'd say it's imploding.
| asutekku wrote:
| India might be an emerging market and you get tons of users
| from there, but it is not profitable at all. Any mobile app
| dev can tell you that.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| They made some really funny TikToks, though
| suyash wrote:
| It's simple Math, Great number of Indian users, even if
| ad dollars per person is not as much as in US, overall it
| is bound to exceed in the long run.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _its broadly a bunch of old men (senators, CEOs) afraid of
| china_
|
| If your entire worldview is ageist, works strictly on
| stereotypes, and encompasses only the United States, that
| might be true. But there are companies, organizations, and
| governments around the world locking out TikTok.
| vxNsr wrote:
| What does the age or gender of the people have to do with
| this?
| BookmarkSaver wrote:
| Ninja, the biggest (English-language) video game streamer in
| the world, just posted yesterday that he's deleting TikTok
| for these concerns.
|
| I'm not going to get into whether or not this actually makes
| sense, but he is a massive celebrity among young
| millennials/gen-z.
| kkarakk wrote:
| idk about that, his tweet only got 10K re-tweets...
| frequentnapper wrote:
| I am a brown guy in my 30s and I also would like to have
| tiktok be banned from my home country.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Isn't this a space (short social video sharing) that has been
| filled by a near infinite succession of short-lived dominant
| offerings and that's pretty much always ready for a new,
| slightly different flavor of season?
| rhizome wrote:
| The space TikTok is occupying, for which video sharing is the
| vehicle: personal information.
| qppo wrote:
| I think they all failed for the same reason, video is
| expensive and the markets can't pick a winner when the game
| can't be won without money.
|
| But if the Chinese government wants to prop up TikTok and
| pick them as the winner, they can.
| justicezyx wrote:
| TikTok parent, ByteDance, already owns DouYin, which is the
| original APP that TikTok was based on, with significant
| ingestion from Musically. As a matter of fact, TikTok's
| previous CEO was Musical.ly's founding CEO.
|
| Although it seems the online records are disappearing fast.
| I could not find a good source of the TikTok history and
| key figures any more...
| c3534l wrote:
| My understanding was that TikTok was basically the Chinese
| response to periscope and vine, which was popular, but couldn't
| make money. TikTok's scheme is to be spyware that even puts
| Facebook to shame, in a way that I'm not convinced isn't just
| government spyware disguised as social media where the point
| isn't to make a profit to begin with. If similar attempts have
| failed because of monetization struggles, I don't see an
| identical competitor emerging. We alrealy have many close
| substitutes.
| ubermon wrote:
| They are/were planning to IPO, and their financial will be
| published so I doubt the conspiracy theory. I've used the
| original TikTok(Dou Yin), it is super addictive, even my
| parents fall into that. They do a very good job in terms of
| engaging both the viewer and content producer(profit cutting
| etc.)
|
| In my opinion, are still "evil" in terms of hijacking our
| brain, but I am a bit fed up with those prevailing political
| prejudice nowadays for anything related to China.
| frequentnapper wrote:
| Yeah but this is in response to people being fed up with
| what China has been doing. I really hope more countries
| catch on and put China in its place.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Some extra info to establish your point which I totally agree
| with:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news.
| ..
|
| TikTok is really exceptionally bad in this regard.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| What does tiktok have that IG stories or SnapChat does not
| provide?
|
| It appears to me that TikTok is just a perpetuation of
| exclusivity in Social Networks (the same way kids exited FB
| when their parents signed up) ...
| hdjrklt wrote:
| The discovery tab (For You) is awesome. Its the first social
| app where the discovery tab is better than your feed, so much
| more that you can actually use it without following anyone.
| It's quite addictive too, you can easily spend half an hour
| watching videos.
|
| The way the discovery tab works also created a meta game: Alt
| TikTok, Deep TikTok, Elite TikTok, ...
|
| The exclusivity aspect is there too, very few users are over
| 30, but it's not the driver.
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| Can you give some examples of alt tiktok, deep tiktok,
| elite tiktok.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| alt tiktok is mostly some counter culture users between
| the ages of 16 and 30. dyed hair, 90s influences, and
| lqbtq+ supportive. It's a whole aesthetic and rallies
| against "straight tiktok". You dont want to get stuck on
| a straight tiktok algorthmic FYP (for you page) feed.
| Other popular mini tiktok areas include frogtiktok and
| the holy grail, prison tiktok.
|
| deep tiktok is weird video effect stuff, deep fried meme
| kinda stuff... I dont want it.
| kkarakk wrote:
| so...like every online community? this isn't rare or
| novel
| hdjrklt wrote:
| You can't just "go" to Alt TikTok, like you can just open
| some subreddit.
|
| That's the thing, you need to consume a certain kind of
| content, until the recommendation algo takes you to Alt
| TikTok.
|
| In a sense, it's like the difference between going to
| let's say a heavy metal bar, and becoming an heavy metal
| kind of guy, which gets you invited to some obscure
| invitation only club.
| deusofnull wrote:
| tbh it seems like the distinction being made by the stuff
| about 'alt-lit twitter' and 'weird-facebook' from a few
| years back
|
| https://stayhipp.com/media/tiktok/what-is-alt-elite-
| tiktok/
| qppo wrote:
| Technically, probably very little.
|
| Practically I think it's more diverse content and easier
| access to other people/fame/glamour for kids than Instagram,
| Snapchat, or even YouTube/Twitch/etc, since those platforms
| have been cornered by an existing group of "influencers."
|
| It's probably just a different kind of dopamine hit that kids
| can't get elsewhere.
| centv wrote:
| TikTok seems to be more specialized on addictiveness: auto-
| play unlimited stream of short videos. It's all about
| removing friction, and TikTok has a good recommendation
| system.
| xxpor wrote:
| It's twitter but video in other words
| analyte123 wrote:
| Besides recommendations that actually work like everyone else
| is saying, the "sound sharing" / "original sound" feature
| (don't know what it's officially called) is pretty unique,
| and it both encourages creation of new videos and leads to
| virality. If you want to make tiktoks and don't know what
| else to do, you can just do a dance that someone else started
| or re-act an existing tiktok with the same audio, perhaps
| putting your own spin or personality onto it. And from the
| other direction, if you see a funny or interesting tiktok,
| it's one button to see all videos made with the same audio.
| Also, it _works_ -- everything in the UI is snappy, videos
| load even faster than YouTube, particularly on bad
| connections.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| TikTok is incredibly enjoyable to use even while following
| literally nobody.
|
| That simply isn't true of IG, FB, SnapChat, etc.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Creation tools and licenses to large music library that you
| can leverage. This is a key part of differentiation.
| raverbashing wrote:
| From what I've heard (besides the points mentioned here) the
| dubbing/scene editing capabilities are on-point (which is the
| big point of Tiktok
| ralston3 wrote:
| The "For You" page.
|
| Sure its just another algorithmic-based feed. But in my
| experience (and from talking to a few ppl who enjoy TikTok),
| the For You page is a differentiator. It's like a combination
| of what's trending, what's recent (time wise), and what
| you've spent time interacting (watching, liking, commenting)
| with previously.
|
| Again all platforms do some form of this, but just saying
| TikTok does it in a pretty addicting way.
|
| Also combine that with the fact that TikTok videos are so
| incredibly short that by the time they're over, you haven't
| even decided whether or not you liked it (no doubt by
| design), which means you can endlessly consume content.
|
| Also, I've heard that TikTok has better (read: better for
| comedy-style content) tools to edit videos in the app
| kkarakk wrote:
| idk whenever and whomsoever's phone i look at it's always
| just pushing videos of scantily clad underage gals dancing
| to whatever song is popular att. you have to actively hide
| that stuff/follow creators and hit "only people i follow"
| to see any actually creative|interesting stuff.
|
| surprised there hasn't been any controversy about that -
| tiktok is a predator's paradise.
| quuUuw wrote:
| I seem to be the only person here who actually uses tiktok.
| What makes tiktok different is the musical background
| (somehow people never mention this when comparing it to
| vine), the fyp algorithm being incredibly good, and the
| various communities built around certain niches. It's night
| and day compared to other apps.
| Firebrand wrote:
| Quibi pivots to user generated content and becomes the comeback
| kid.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Between this and streamers such as Ninja talking against the
| app, I do hope this signals the death knell for tik tok...
| nemothekid wrote:
| I imagine Ninja has an incredibly low overlap with the teens
| that use TikTok.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Tiktok does have gaming content, although I have no idea
| how to quantify how popular it is.
| newguy1234 wrote:
| Probably not. Gen Z is already addicted to it. They like it
| more than all other social media apps from what I've seen.
| rhizome wrote:
| They'll switch to something else just as soon as they took
| up TikTok in the first place.
| shripadk wrote:
| Gen Z was addicted to Vine before it. And it will be
| addicted to anything else that comes after it. No addiction
| is greater than national security. And the US Government is
| not obligated to TikTok in any way, shape or form. It can
| ban without any consideration to the number of people
| "addicted" to the platform.
| newguy1234 wrote:
| Wouldn't be surprised if Google, Facebook, or Microsoft
| suddenly come out with a competing app. Didn't google have one
| that they shut down recently?
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Do those three ever truly come out with something new, or do
| they just buy up existing tech?
| hdjrklt wrote:
| Tell me a single good social app from Google. I'll wait. It's
| not like they didn't try, but all of them seem to suffer from
| the design by committee syndrome.
| raverbashing wrote:
| The only one legitimately and accidentally created by
| Google was: Google Reader
|
| Orkut: stagnated and killed
|
| G+: design by committee as you said
|
| YT: acquired but the social aspects are down the drain
|
| We can complain about FB and Zuckerberg as much as we want
| but they knew how to evolve the network and keep the users
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I'm still convinced that what was the true killer of G+
| was the slow rollout.
|
| It's like Google forgot that a social network needs to be
| social. Limiting how many people could get on G+ created
| hype for sure, but whenever someone got a invite, they
| realized none (or very few) of their friends were on it,
| and quickly forgot about it.
|
| The slow rollout approach worked for GMail because your
| friends didn't need GMail for it to work for you.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| What was that social network that used to be bigger than
| Facebook in Brazil? Orkit I think? It was something like
| that.
|
| Edit: Oh, I forgot the one staring me in the face--Youtube!
| It's no less of a social network than TikTok.
| kshacker wrote:
| Orkut
| broknbottle wrote:
| google settled a lawsuit with affinity engines after the
| engineer came over to google and misappropriated trade
| secrets. lol the irony.. Google bought youtube..
|
| Google is completely incapable of coming up with their
| own successful social network.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Google bought YouTube, but it was hardly a social network
| when they bought it.
| jonas21 wrote:
| YouTube? It's the second largest social media site in the
| world:
|
| https://buffer.com/library/social-media-sites/
| BookmarkSaver wrote:
| They bought it after it had already established its
| market presence.
|
| They have tried to launch at least 2 of their own, and
| both flopped hard.
| kkarakk wrote:
| Every content creator who gets a major voice on the
| platform laments the absence of a competing platform to
| move to.
|
| Youtube is successful coz of google infrastructure not
| google decisions/methodology.
|
| Now Google is trying to move Youtube into becoming a
| hollywood-lite experience and providing major support to
| entrenched hollywood celebs like will smith/brie
| larson(they even bypassed monetization policies for
| larson - her first video launched with full monetisation
| in play)
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| This is an example why I don't use Twitter regularly.
|
| Someone mentions the copy/paste sec vuln in TikTok and "Onur
| Olmez" writes:
|
| > LinkedIn app apparently also has this issue [...] Uncalled for
| to ban apps for this one reason.
|
| I mean, wtf? Everybody on Twitter has an opinion about
| everything, even things they know nothing about.
| jml7c5 wrote:
| Are they wrong?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| In my opinion, yes. This is an enormous security
| vulnerability. TikTok can exfiltrate any data that the user
| types into any application: passwords, any kind of sensitive
| data.
| echelon wrote:
| What's the probability that the Trump admin/DOJ places a
| nationwide ban on TikTok and other Chinese apps? Could it
| actually be enforced, or will the First Amendment override any
| such ban?
|
| What would the ramifications be if a ban were enacted?
| Retaliation from China against domestic companies?
|
| Will this be an inflection point in the escalation of the trade
| war?
| J5892 wrote:
| I am 100% against anybody using TikTok for any reason. But if
| the government bans it, I will immediately start using it.
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| 25%. Yes. Yes.
|
| Millions of angry teenagers. China retaliates against by
| barring a few American SAAS companies/ cloud providers on
| national security grounds.
|
| It's a continuation of trends that were well underway since the
| Huawei entities list.
| la6471 wrote:
| Time to buy SNAP stocks :)
| ziddoap wrote:
| I'm more surprised Amazon (or any company, really) employees
| using an employer-managed device would have TikTok on them to
| start with, to be honest.
|
| As the follow-up tweet says: "Completely independent of the
| specifics in this instance: get a second device before installing
| an employer's config profile on your personal device"
| easytiger wrote:
| Yea. Coming from a banking and financial services background
| I'm incredulous than any company would allow any social media
| on a device.
|
| This was all much easier in the blackberry days for them to
| control
| braythwayt wrote:
| "This was all much easier in the blackberry days for them to
| control"
|
| And indeed, that was Blackberry's big sales pitch.
|
| BYOD creates many, many wonderful consequences, however it
| also has tradeoffs, and those tradeoffs are not for the
| faint-of-security.
| thesausageking wrote:
| Most people I know check their work email from their personal
| phone. Work either doesn't buy them one or they don't want to
| carry around two phones.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Most people don't need to be on call 24/7 so they could just
| divorce themselves from off hours work and live like in the
| ancient times.
| coldpie wrote:
| Amen. If you're not paying me to be on-call, I'm not
| putting any work info on my phone. Whatever's going on can
| wait until 9 tomorrow morning.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| My dad worked in construction, and from the late 80's and
| throughout all of the 90's his company kept offering him a
| company phone (I think car-phone first).
|
| He never got one, because as he said, if they have your
| number they'll call you, if they don't then they'll solve
| their own problem. Looking back on it now, it was prescient
| advice.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I don't really agree... I like the flexibility. Sometimes
| someone from the US calls me with an urgent problem in the
| evening (I'm in Europe so not much overlap in work hours).
|
| So what... Sometimes I go to the shop or bank during the
| day. Or even a walk to the beach if it's not so busy.
| They're paying me to do a (global) job, not to sit at my
| desk between 9:00 and 17:00.
|
| Personally I love this flexibility. And I don't feel like I
| work more than 40 hours, I don't even count them but I
| doubt I do, especially if I omit the time I spend during
| "working hours" reading hacker news or other stuff. My work
| is my hobby anyway.
|
| I do think people who like having fixed work times should
| have the opportunity to have them. But I also think people
| like me should be able to work like this without it being
| considered a bad thing.
| wiredone wrote:
| From what I know of ppl who work there, they pay for employees
| phone plans (is they pay for a phone).
| wittyreference wrote:
| It's been a while since I've seen employers offer work phones.
| What I've seen for the last few years is an offer to pay or
| subsidize a data plan.
|
| If Amazon doesn't provide me a work phone, they can eff right
| off in attempting to dictate what I put on my phone.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > I'm more surprised Amazon (or any company, really) employees
| using an employer-managed device would have TikTok on them to
| start with, to be honest.
|
| I am too. Many years ago at my employer, someone fat-fingered a
| command and _wiped every single iPhone /iPad_ that an employee
| had configured to connect the company email system. Even after
| restoring a backup, the devices would just wipe themselves
| again unless the owner managed to remove the MDM profile before
| it reconnected to the internet. A good fraction of my coworkers
| were affected.
|
| I'm not giving _anyone_ access to do that to my personal data.
| matsemann wrote:
| Not exactly the same, but where I used to work someone had
| turned on "wipe the phone after x incorrect pins" without
| notifying anyone. Lots of people with kids got their phone
| remotely deleted.
|
| After that I've never allowed an employer to control my
| personal devices. Not that I actually did before, didn't know
| activating that stuff had so bug implications. I just wanted
| the calendar on my phone.
| bonzini wrote:
| With Android work profiles the employer can require you to
| allow remotely wiping the work profile, but that would not
| allow them to touch your personal profile.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| If you can't handle your phone being remotely wiped, you also
| can't handle it being lost, stolen, or broken.
|
| For me, it's a minor inconvenience at best, not a death
| sentence.
| scohesc wrote:
| I'd rather be able to blame myself for my stupid mistakes -
| not be beholden to Amazon's (or whoever's) MDM profile.
| Especially when companies don't make it clear that "if you
| log into your email on your phone using this app, we
| install MDM, root certificates, have the ability to remote
| wipe, etc. etc. etc."
| scarface74 wrote:
| I saw that warning when I started to set up my phone and
| I immediately stopped. If anyone needs to contact me
| about something urgent they can do it using the work
| approved IM client that doesn't require a profile to be
| installed.
|
| If it does get to the point where I need to have access
| to my company email, I will have a separate device.
|
| That being said, if my phone was erased, it would only be
| a slight inconvenience, I can restore from backup.
| ianmobbs wrote:
| Does Amazon provide company phones or just install an MDM
| profile on your personal phone? I have TikTok installed on my
| phone, and if my employer said I had to remove it to access my
| work email, I'd ask them to buy me a work phone. It seems a bit
| ridiculous that they'd want to control what apps you download
| on your personal device without providing an alternative.
| nixass wrote:
| If your job requires it, you will get it. It's been like that
| for a while now
| haalia wrote:
| Microsoft does the latter, so it wouldn't surprise me if
| Amazon does likewise.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Does Amazon provide company phones or just install an MDM
| profile on your personal phone?
|
| > Microsoft does the latter, so it wouldn't surprise me if
| Amazon does likewise.
|
| Not true (source: current MSFT employee). More detailed
| explanation below, as neither former nor latter describes
| MSFT accurately.
|
| So, for most teams and positions (there are many
| exceptions), you don't get a dedicated work phone. So yeah,
| if you want to access work stuff on a mobile device, you
| need to install MSFT MDM on your personal phone, and they
| will, allegedly, be able to control stuff on it (depending
| on the device itself and how MDM is configured).
|
| However, there are no requirements to do it. You can simply
| not install any work-related stuff on your phone, so you
| won't need an MDM. I simply don't access any work resources
| on my personal phone. If I need to do work, i open my work
| laptop. If they want me to use work apps on mobile and be
| accessible, they should provide a company phone for this.
|
| There have been zero conflicts around it on my end, even
| after multiple years of working there on multiple different
| teams. Not once have I even got an implied request from
| anyone (managers, colleagues, etc.) to be accessible on
| mobile (except for when I am on-call, but for that, they
| just need my phone number, not any specific apps installed
| on my phone, and everyone knows it) or any questions about
| it. Everyone is totally cool with people not being glued to
| their work apps on their phones on their own free time.
|
| But you are correct, those who choose to use work apps have
| to give MDM permissions to their personal devices or buy a
| dedicated device for that (exceptions apply, because there
| are some teams that provide dedicated work phones).
| However, unless it is required for the job to be able to
| use work apps on your mobile device, I think it is fair if
| they don't provide a work phone. Makes it easier for me to
| not check on any work stuff during the weekend.
| haalia wrote:
| Yes, you're correct, and I didn't mean to imply that MSFT
| forces employees to install their MDM on personal
| devices. It was optional for me as well, with a large
| full-disclosure prompt stating that they can remotely
| wipe your device if you proceed with mobile setup.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| At my company, you have to provide your own device, but the
| phone number/plan is either (a) paid for by the company, or
| (b) you get a $40/mo stipend for cell service.
|
| It turns out that I can use our 2FA app without MDM, on my
| personal. And nowadays, I rarely use slack or email from
| mobile, and I don't get calls.
|
| I am pretty strong in the "don't put company stuff on
| personal devices" camp. Even if they don't control your phone
| by policy, they do technically. They put root certs on the
| device, and though they can't see individual app data
| (depending on config) they can see a list of installed apps,
| and enforce certain baselines.
| Sodman wrote:
| Most companies I've worked for wouldn't provide a work phone
| and there's no explicit expectation that you read or answer
| work e-mails on your phone. But like everything else, if you
| don't read/reply to work e-mails on your phone, and your
| colleagues do, good luck getting that promotion/raise/bonus.
| ta20200710 wrote:
| Amazon has MDM (Airwatch). AFAIK there are not generally
| company phones or phone plans. Monthly limit on reimbursement
| for phone business expenditures in the US is $50, although I
| think you can also expense the device itself.
| yumraj wrote:
| No, they are controlling the environment under which their
| company emails can be accessed.
|
| If you, as an employee, don't want to remove TikTok I believe
| you will have that right, it's just that you won't be able to
| access company emails from that device.
|
| Now, whether or not that leads to a company phone or you
| having to look for another job, depends on the individual and
| how important that individual is to the company.
| RobRivera wrote:
| That framing is the exact point. I'm in the same boat. If
| my employer mandated that I not be able to use a personal
| device the way i want, a device I bought with wages i
| earned from working with my employer, the employer really
| SHOULD provide a cost free alternative.
|
| It falls under the category of providing your own resources
| to do your job, and that territory enters socioeconomic
| discrimination territory real quick.
| ghaff wrote:
| I might be with you if Uber, say, is requiring its
| drivers to install MDM--which I'm guessing would be a
| really bad idea for their drivers-not-employees position.
|
| But for engineers and other office workers at tech
| companies?
|
| As a practical matter, people have to buy lots of things
| to do professional jobs that they wouldn't need to buy
| without those jobs. In this day and age, if you want a
| second phone, buying a few year old phone is cheap as is
| adding another phone to your existing cellular account in
| most cases.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Wasnt there a recent supreme court ruling regarding the
| Native Americans of Oklahoma that said something to the
| effect of 'just because you keep doing an evil, doesnt
| make it right, and letting it be right is an injustice to
| those in the right'?
| ghaff wrote:
| You have to dress into the office--albeit many don't wear
| suits any longer. Many have to drive. Those who travel a
| lot need many accessories for the purpose. The ideas that
| well-paid professionals should have all these things
| covered by a company seems... unreasonable.
|
| And, seriously, complaining about having to spend a few
| bucks for something you need at work is equivalent to
| circumstances around Indian treaties in the US?
| chooseaname wrote:
| If any company expects me to access my work email while
| mobile, they have to provide a phone. I _never_ mix work
| and personal. I 've also never had a company say no to
| that.
| cheonic729 wrote:
| > If any company expects me to access my work email while
| mobile, they have to provide a phone.
|
| No they don't.
|
| If you don't like it, switch employers.
| chooseaname wrote:
| I don't think you understood. I _would_ switch jobs.
| That's what I meant by they have to.
| [deleted]
| Assumer wrote:
| Pretty sure that's what he's saying. The company gets to
| choose between dropping the requirement, providing a
| phone or hiring/retraining.
| sdoering wrote:
| Depends on the jurisdiction. In Germany they do. Labor
| rights explicitly says that your employer needs to
| provide the means for you to do your work. And that
| includes mobile phones if they want you to access your
| work email (or whatever) from a mobile device.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yes they do... The problem is some users in Germany
| actually prefer to use their personal one so they don't
| have to carry two.. But due to this mindset they can't.
|
| I don't think the German approach is always the best.
| lovich wrote:
| Adding another anecdote, when I said I did not want to
| let work control my mobile phone, my boss told me I could
| figure out whether I wanted to keep the job or not
| franciscop wrote:
| You can always show up next day with a dumbphone or
| without phone at all if you are feeling risk-taking.
|
| I personally just bought the cheapest $60-80 Android
| phone from a random Amazon seller.
| chooseaname wrote:
| Well, for me, that is a hill I choose to die on.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Switch jobs! Environments like that will grind down your
| soul. Or at least they did for mine.
|
| Perhaps I'm projecting a little, but: please don't feel
| like you're stuck there. It's an illusion more often than
| not.
| lovich wrote:
| Perhaps when I was younger I would, and did, switch jobs
| immediately when something like that came up. I've gotten
| older and the cost of switching jobs is not zero for me
| anymore
| scarface74 wrote:
| Switch from a well paying job instead of just getting
| another cheap phone?
|
| Of all the hills I am willing to die on, getting another
| phone isn't one. Especially if they provide a credit for
| your cell phone.
|
| https://www.teamblind.com/post/Amazon-Cell-Phone-
| Reimburseme...
| sdoering wrote:
| I agree with my co-commenter. At least in Germany your
| employer isn't allowed to do this. They must provide the
| means to do your work, if they have specific requirements
| (having a mobile phone, being reachable, accessing
| company email and so on).
| lovich wrote:
| Well I am commenting from America and there is very
| little they cant do unless they go out of their way to
| officially state they are doing it for an illegal reason
| driverdan wrote:
| What if you don't have a smart phone?
| spelunker wrote:
| There's also no requirement to have your business email on
| your phone, at least in my organization in Amazon. I'm happy
| to leave it off and not worry about any issues like this.
|
| Of course I do have other apps directly related to work... I
| guess those aren't an issue if I had TikTok?
| foolfoolz wrote:
| i haven't had work email on my phone in 7 years. it has not
| impacted my career negatively
| smabie wrote:
| How do you know?
| ziddoap wrote:
| I'll admit I don't know the specifics beyond what was
| tweeted.
|
| I'm with you though... If an employer wants to manage my
| device, they can provide the device.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| When I worked at Google over 5 years ago, mobile device
| options for accessing company accounts were a company-
| provided and company-owned device with a company-paid phone
| bill, a personal device with company-provided mobile device
| management (and sometimes cell phone bill expensing if you
| for example had on-call duties), a personal device with
| only limited browser-based work account access, and no
| account access via mobile.
|
| The first of these could sometimes have implications for
| ownership of personal projects created using the device,
| which was one of many reasons I picked the second option,
| but it was absolutely permitted at least for any case where
| the company cared about you having mobile account access.
| Spoom wrote:
| Nowadays, at least on Android (though I think iOS has
| something similar now?), one can have a work profile, and
| the employer can only control activity in / monitor /
| wipe that profile. Most employers have switched to that
| for personal devices.
|
| Disclaimer: Googler, opinions my own.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The third option - accessing only browser sites - is
| under appreciated. I never needed to install Google's MDM
| on my mobile devices, I just used mobile web gmail and so
| forth. It's great, honestly, and the mobile web Calendar
| has the advantage that it doesn't destroy your battery
| life like the Calendar app will.
|
| I even saw a guy using the code review site on his
| mobile, on BART. That was dumb from the standpoint of
| infosec, usability, and mental health, but shows how much
| is possible in the browser.
| ghaff wrote:
| Part of me thinks that MDM on employee phones has become
| a something of a checkbox item because customers ask for
| it but it's not clear to what extent it really protects
| sensitive customer data (which is what they're concerned
| about).
| jeffbee wrote:
| It is literally a checkbox item for PCI DSS.
| prteja11 wrote:
| Can you share the requirement from PCI DSS? [it's not]
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Having the code review app available outside of the corp
| network / VPN is pretty unusual, at least for shops who
| aren't just using SaaS services that are available
| publicly anyway (github, gitlab.com, etc).
| jeffbee wrote:
| You must have missed their "zero trust" initiative.
|
| """BeyondCorp began as an internal Google initiative to
| enable every employee to work from untrusted networks
| without the use of a VPN."""
|
| https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I'm aware of it as a Google thing, but I think it's fair
| to say that it's pretty unusual to see it anywhere else.
| aboringusername wrote:
| With all the security implications there could be, I would
| just refuse to use or own a smartphone in any capacity if
| it's related to work, unless there was no camera, mic, or
| GPS sensor (or they could provide hardware switches).
|
| Seriously, they could be logging your exact location,
| remotely activating the camera or doing any number of
| disgusting things.
|
| Requiring the use of a spy should not be a factor in an
| employment setting, of course we're seeing this is the case
| and it is very offputting.
|
| Thankfully not something I need to worry about though.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Apples iOS MDM framework is exemplary in that regard.
| Access to the camera is not possible. Access to GPS is
| only possible if the device is marked as lost, which will
| visibly change the lock screen. Even when lost mode is
| deactivated, GPS access that happened during lost mode is
| highly visibly marked on the lock screen.
|
| Installing an app that relays GPS and camera may be
| possible, but permissions need to be granted by the user
| explicitly- the MDM server cannot grant those
| permissions.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I don't think Apple is the best at this. Yes they limit
| the things you mention, but they don't limit visibility
| to things like the app list... This can already be quite
| revealing in some cases.
|
| Google has in my opinion the better approach with work
| profile. Only give the MDM control and visibility over
| the work area and nothing else.
|
| Apple has started heading into this direction with User
| Enrolment but it's not sufficient for most companies as
| it only allows built-in apps to be used for both work and
| personal data. And it requires Apple account federation
| which is problematic.
| smabie wrote:
| You don't have a work laptop?
| dickjocke wrote:
| No Amazon generally does not provide you a company phone, at
| least not when I was there.
| wilde wrote:
| Not everyone can afford 2 phones, but their employers expect
| them to be online all the time anyway. This is particularly
| true of people who work in US hospitals.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How many people are both important enough to be on call and
| can't afford to add a line?
| mulmen wrote:
| I worked in a hospital and was oncall. My employer provided
| the phone. And the pager. To do anything else would be like
| asking an employee to provide a laptop, or a desk.
| tristor wrote:
| Why would you need to be able to afford 2 phones if your
| employer is requiring you to have a mobile phone for work?
| That's a situation in which the employer should provide the
| phone. I've been on-call or mobile-connected for over a
| decade, I have never had an employer even suggest that I
| should foot the bill for a work device. Either they've
| provided me a phone fully paid for work to be returned if I
| exit, or have covered the cost of my phone bill for my
| personal device in return for accessibility outside business
| hours.
| thereticent wrote:
| There's no good explanation except that US healthcare orgs
| tend to misuse staff and clinical providers. Super-
| specialized doctor with untold postdoc training in faculty
| at my academic medical center? You've got to encrypt your
| personal phone to standard and install several required
| apps. No it is not expensed.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Apropos of the rightness or otherwise of this stance, I
| don't think "specialist physicians" typically fall into
| the category of people who "cannot afford 2 phones".
| markovbot wrote:
| I assume they won't be doing that to the main-stream spyware
| pushed by US companies.
| sdinsn wrote:
| Such as?
| manquer wrote:
| The threat model for AMZ is state sponsored corporate
| espionage, not government intruding on your and my privacy. The
| former cost them a ton of money unlike the later. Given their
| inability to enforce IP or many other laws in china even if
| there was similar espionage happening in the U.S. the legal
| system is strong enough for Amazon not to worry of losing
| money.
| andybak wrote:
| Which ones and what is your threat model?
| vkou wrote:
| The threat model of the US government, or a US company spying
| on a US citizen is, to the citizen, about as harmful as the
| Chinese government spying on them.
|
| Actually moreso, in the case of the US government.
| rrix2 wrote:
| but amazon doesn't care about its employees in that
| context, only about protecting their own company standing.
| (and many people will say here "why shouldn't they?!")
| ac29 wrote:
| There is no reason for the US government to do industrial
| espionage on US companies. China might not be doing it
| either (via TikTok, at least), but it does have a motive.
| vkou wrote:
| No, but there's reason for the US government to spy on
| _you_ , if you are a problem person.
|
| Why do you assume industrial espionage is the sole reason
| for a government to spy on you?
| treebornfrog wrote:
| Byte.co waiting for adoption on the sidelines.
| s1mon wrote:
| There are a bunch of TikTok wannabes (Byte, Dubsmash, or the
| various attempts by Facebook), none that I've seen are as fluid
| or addictive. TikTok's ability to navigate around with a bunch
| of responsive swipe gestures and keep showing things that might
| be interesting is miles ahead of the competition. The fluidity
| is very dependent on a good internet connection.
| xendo wrote:
| For the context, as an Amazon employee I'm not required to access
| email from my mobile. The only app that I need to have is virtual
| pager and it doesn't require allowing Amazon to administer my
| phone. Physical pagers are also an option.
| Multicomp wrote:
| TLDR ooh Amazon has pagers, I wonder how?
|
| Are there any pager networks left in the US? I've always been
| interested in them out of historical curiosity because I was
| too young to use them when they were actually a thing, but from
| what I understood, pagers are pretty much not a thing anymore.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| I wouldn't expect a modern pager to operate on the same
| technology as older pager. Pagers are a thing and they have
| there uses. I've heard of a physical pager being used to
| symbolize who is "on call", and a team of engineers will pass
| the pager between themselves. I've seen restaurants pass out
| pagers to people waiting for tables. I've heard talk about
| some medical/emergency personal still using pagers.
|
| I imagine pagers are probably used in highly secure
| communications (military, statecraft), because the thing
| being paged doesn't have to give away it's location, or even
| the fact that it received the message.
| spelunker wrote:
| Hospitals still often use pagers - they're deemed more
| reliable than cell phone networks. I don't know if that's
| actually true or not but there you go.
| bonzini wrote:
| Are they using work profiles on Android phones of employees
| that need mobile email access? It is a very good solution that
| lets the employer administer only a separate identity and gives
| them no access to personal stuff. The only global thing that
| the employer can do is enforce a certain level of security (for
| example requiring a PIN on the lock screen and data
| encryption).
| ballark wrote:
| Amazon employee here. They do use work profiles on Android
| phones.
| bonzini wrote:
| So in theory they should have no control on the apps you
| install on the personal side. Is this just moral
| obligation, or are they requiring full control of the phone
| even outside the work profile?
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I manage phones for a big corp. Just want to clarify
| what's possible. Google highly limits what you can do in
| Work Profile mode, you can't control much outside the
| work profile.
|
| We can't see the app list on the personal side in work
| profile mode, BUT we can specify some that are a no-go.
| I'll show up as a compliance violation. But we can't view
| the list anymore like we could do with the pre-work
| profile Android Device Admin management (and still can
| with Apple).
|
| We're not blocking any apps ourselves right now but it is
| possible. We do grant all BYOD phones access to our
| network, so for that reason we would want the capability
| to block any known threats if they are around.
|
| We can also control some minor things on the personal
| side, like a pincode requirement and forbidding of
| sideloading and rooting. But in general we have very
| little visibility and control, which is the way I (as an
| admin) like it too. I only want to know what I really
| need to know especially on the personal side. We can (and
| do) also block copy/paste from work profile to personal,
| as data loss prevention, but we allow it the other way
| around.
|
| In general users complain a lot about the work profile
| being separate, and not being able to integrate their
| personal and work calendars.. But for personal privacy
| it's a big win IMO. Apple has something similar since iOS
| 13 (called User Enrolment) but it's still a bit too
| limited to be sufficient for us. And it requires Apple
| federated accounts which have some requirements that are
| impossible for us to meet :(
| bonzini wrote:
| > we can specify some that are a no-go.
|
| Oh, that's very interesting! I knew about the PIN
| requirement as an example of control outside the work
| profile, but I didn't know this was possible. It makes
| sense though.
| Aperocky wrote:
| As a developer, I don't see why I need to be constantly alerted
| to emails. I check about once or twice per day for items that
| need to put on calendar but every/anything urgent is for the
| pager.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Preach, brother.
|
| Unfortunately, middle managers gotta middle manage. And they
| don't get the adrenaline rush of having people under them
| unless they can tabulate those people.
|
| Which is why a lowly web dev like myself is expected to carry
| around a company-issued phone even in my off hours. In four
| years I've never needed it.
| blondie9x wrote:
| Snapchat are you listening? Make a page for your users and allow
| them to persist the videos and images. You will have implemented
| a complete platform for those who want images to disappear and
| for those who want them to persist. That makes TikTok redundant
| and unnecessary.
| metaphorical wrote:
| In 2018, Bytedance CEO released a public statement after an
| incident with the CCP censor. In that statement, he promised that
| Bytedance apps would strengthen "the work of Party construction"
| and "socialist core values" etc.
|
| https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n...
|
| I don't know how Bytedance as a company can serve CCP interests
| AND claim to be independent of CCP interference _at the same
| time_.
|
| TikTok is a good product, but it may not be a safe product.
|
| More on the dystopian practices of Douyin (TikTok in China):
| https://twitter.com/Izzy_Niu/status/1280906443273768960
| https://twitter.com/JoshuaDummer/status/1280877750245453828
| m0nsoon wrote:
| TikTok and Chinese apps in general are having a tough day. While
| nothing malicious has been conclusively shown--save for iOS
| pasteboard spying which it seems EVERY app is doing--I suspect
| that this is a geo-strategic move by the US and our Allies to
| dominate and flex economic power over China.
| btgeekboy wrote:
| If I had to judge between whether I wanted TikTok or corporate
| email on my phone, it wouldn't be just about the email. I could
| live without that. What I really liked, especially back when we
| actually went into offices, was that I had my calendar available
| without opening up my laptop, and that it showed the next place I
| needed to be right on my wrist.
| tzs wrote:
| How does Amazon email access work from home desktops? I assume it
| is not just simple POP/IMAP/SMTP authenticated by
| username/password, because if it was you could use that from
| mobile, too.
| somethoughts wrote:
| Bytedance should just take the cash and spin off TikTok as a
| separate entity run by the new CEO Kevin Mayer. Perhaps selling
| the spin-off to Disney or Snapchat or Private Equity while its
| still worth something.
| apta wrote:
| Good start. Hopefully the rest of the corporations and world
| governments follow.
| ddevault wrote:
| Is TikTok officially the scapegoat now? Sure it's bad, but it
| seems like an awful lot of attention is being brought to it
| compared to many of the other companies (and governments!) that
| are doing... the exact same shit, and often more so.
| orblivion wrote:
| Sorry if I missed something obvious, but if we're at the point
| where the U.S. government is even contemplating banning TikTok,
| how come it's on Google and Apple stores at this point? They seem
| to be at least somewhat vigilant about spyware etc.
| tehwebguy wrote:
| Apple should remove it for being spyware.
|
| Google should remove it for being competition.
| yesplorer wrote:
| 1. Because the app stores don't serve a single country.
|
| 2. People don't use the app store at the pleasure of the US
| government.
| orblivion wrote:
| Forget countries and governments. Don't they serve the users,
| at least to some extent? Forgetting the political issues,
| there have been multiple spyware scandals here, right? Or did
| I get the wrong idea?
|
| Of course these companies have selfish corporate interests,
| but I've seen both of these companies show at least _some_
| level of care for their users. Even if it's part of keeping
| up appearances out of concern for their corporate interests.
| yesplorer wrote:
| At this point, no single government has provided a
| verifiable reason why Tik tok should be banned. if there
| were verifiable claims, you think Apple and Google will
| conveniently let them be in their app stores and take the
| heat for it?
|
| What benefit would they get?
| sc11 wrote:
| > 1. Because the app stores don't serve a single country.
|
| There are country-specific Apple app stores and apps that are
| only available in some countries
| yesplorer wrote:
| therefore, see point 2.
| whoisjuan wrote:
| China is Apple's second largest market. They are not removing
| it from the US App Store unless they are legally obligated to
| do so.
|
| They have no reason to add wood to that fire. Apple's best bet
| right now with this particular issue is to play neutrality.
| orblivion wrote:
| This answer makes sense, thank you.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| > China is Apple's second largest market.
|
| At least for now. It's important to note that the Chinese
| government has a very strong campaign against American phones
| (and it's working), as backlash against the US for banning
| Huawei.
|
| This is also why Apple is even less likely to do anything to
| further upset the CCP, not to mention they manufacture the
| bulk of their products there. But if Apple loses enough
| market share and/or moves enough production out of China,
| then they might change their tune as well.
| rvz wrote:
| > China is Apple's second largest market. They are not
| removing it from the US App Store unless they are legally
| obligated to do so.
|
| That's true. However Apple's hands are tied here due to this
| and they always bend to the side of China. Due to this, they
| are still being accused of hypocrisy.
| ngold wrote:
| Tik tok is actual Chinese state owned malware, you think
| apple would have removed it day one or never let it on their
| walled garden, since it breaks most apple rules about phone
| access. Same with the play store.
| geogra4 wrote:
| And those rules are...?
| [deleted]
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| Perhaps Google and Apple's standard for evidence is higher than
| the US government's.
| time2stop wrote:
| tiktok is controlled by CCP, don't you know that?
| enitihas wrote:
| Apple earns a lot of money from China, so difficult for them to
| do something which irritates the Chinese government.
|
| Google behaves the same way, even though they have no income
| from China right now, but I think they are secretly hopefully
| of dragonfly.
| linuxftw wrote:
| They don't have to ban it on "Chinese Spyware" terms, they
| could just ban it on normal "spyware" terms. The fact that
| tiktok is Chinese is incidental, and not necessarily an
| indictment on all Chinese apps.
| inetknght wrote:
| That would then create a double standard for all the
| American Spyware in the app store.
| [deleted]
| sushid wrote:
| What does dragonfly mean in this context?
| enitihas wrote:
| The secret google search engine that google planned to
| launch in China which would comply with the great firewall.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)
| [deleted]
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Dragonfly was canned after Google employees revolted. I'd be
| surprised if Google could even get a project like that
| resourced again without more leaks.
| enitihas wrote:
| I think it might have been canned due to revenue
| implications more than employee revolt. Google doesn't want
| to end up in a situation where dragonfly doesn't earn much
| money, causes constant headache from the Chinese
| government, and gives ammunition to both left and right
| wing politicians to use it as an argument against Google on
| everything.
|
| I think enough money can buy silence from a lot of people,
| plus it's clear google already has the tech, as they show a
| banner on every thing relating to covid (search results,
| YouTube) and do a quite impressive job at that. So I guess
| they can just tweak it for dragonfly, or even get their
| Chinese employees to do the tweak, since they already hire
| in China.
|
| Once the growth slows, companies look for alternative
| revenue sources, like Apple is doing with services. The
| problem is that google has shown itself to be wildly
| incompetent at non engineering parts of their businesses
| other than search. e.g, Google cloud might be the only
| cloud to raise prices for anything so far(Google Kubernetes
| Engine price update)
|
| It will be interesting to see what they choose. I don't
| think dragonfly can make them much money anyways, since
| Baidu too isn't making a lot of money in China.(When
| compared to how much Google makes in the US). I guess
| mostly due to closed mini app ecosystem on wechat, and
| probably a smaller internet eco system outside wechat.
| mrlala wrote:
| From what I read, I think the issue is people keep claiming it
| does all this various "spyware" stuff, when it sounds like it's
| doing _nothing_ that any other app could do, given the (what
| appear to be) lax permissions of android /ios.
|
| If people are so worried about what tiktok can be gathering
| outside of the app, that is a problem for apple & google.
|
| For this, I think it's 100% overblown what people think tiktok
| is doing. It just doesn't make sense. If it was really some
| kind of massive spyware, I agree apple/google would be all over
| this.. but they aren't.
|
| This comes down to a lack of trust in China obviously, and I
| don't think there's anything really more concrete than that.
| snazz wrote:
| Yep, I think you're right. Apple needs to put permissions on
| things like the clipboard for all apps. I certainly don't
| support the CCP, but extending that distrust to TikTok is
| somewhat illogical when there is no good evidence of TikTok
| doing anything that other apps don't do.
| ngold wrote:
| It was the whole read write access that was a massive
| violation of apple and googles store policy.
|
| It can upload and download whatever to your phone.
|
| No other app is even close to allowed that.
| mrlala wrote:
| >It can upload and download whatever to your phone.
|
| >No other app is even close to allowed that.
|
| So an app that is on like a billions people phone is
| knowingly doing things against google & apples app store
| policy.. yet they choose to let one of the largest apps
| exploit them?
|
| If you can read the above and not see why there is a pretty
| large obvious logic flaw then it's not even worth
| attempting to convince you otherwise...
| nxc18 wrote:
| Can you please point to any evidence or source? I've never
| heard of this happening (beyond what every other app can do
| in terms of downloading and uploading data) and the wording
| isn't clear as to what exactly you mean.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This wasn't just the clipboard thing though. Some more
| elaboration:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news.
| ..
| orblivion wrote:
| This also makes sense (in addition to another answer that I
| said made sense). I didn't look much into the spyware
| scandals. "This app isn't any more spyware than many other
| popular, accepted apps, and people focused in on this app and
| made a big deal of it" is believable to me because I've seen
| it before.
| ngokevin wrote:
| China is just US public enemy #1 because it's a geopolitical
| and economic threat. The US doesn't want to export data to
| them for free. It's funny America sometimes gives China flak
| for banning Google/FB/etc because they wanted to control
| their data (on top of national security stuff but I think the
| data is just important). And now the US is doing the same.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I doubt the government even has the right to ban an app. If so,
| could they also ban a website?
| guuguuguu wrote:
| government don't need to do anything, they will let google
| and apple do the work
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Yes, if the owner or organization is found to be breaking the
| law. Malicious domains are seized every day. Here [1] is one
| of the most recent examples. Some people try to evade this
| [2] with varying degrees of success.
|
| [1] - https://www.msn.com/EN-US/news/technology/microsoft-
| secretly...
|
| [2] - https://torrentfreak.com/how-to-stop-domain-names-
| being-seiz...
| scarface74 wrote:
| And if the domains are registered out of the country?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I would like to know what US laws TikTok has violated first.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Yeah, not to defend Tik-Tok, China, or spyware in general,
| but it's ironic that nobody has a problem with Google,
| Facebook, and other American companies tracking everything
| people do, but when a Chinese company starts doing it, it's
| suddenly a big problem.
|
| But then again, TikTok probably doesn't answer their
| subpoenas...
| adventured wrote:
| There's nothing complicated or unusual about it. It's not
| ironic either.
|
| China is increasingly an adversary to the US. That context
| is going to get a lot worse this decade. TikTok is owned by
| a Chinese company and ultimately must (and will) answer to
| China. Facebook, Google, et al. are of course American
| companies.
|
| For a nation, whether Facebook concerns you as much as
| TikTok depends largely on which side you're on (or if you
| have a side at all).
|
| The world is going to be aggressively bifurcated, US-USSR
| style, going forward. There will be the liberal side and
| the China side. China's direction is fundamentally opposed
| to the major liberal nations, what they commonly believe in
| and how their systems operate. That conflict and
| incompatibility will get worse as China's behavior
| continues to get worse.
| pishpash wrote:
| Unfortunately, the so-called "liberal side" is going for
| all the tools like censorship and banning, state
| interference in the corporate sector, and more that it
| berates the other side about, so there is no moral case
| here, just pure tribalism. Actually the "liberal side"
| invented all these tools but has had a vastly better
| propaganda machine and hides under the cover of due
| process and procedural justice that never seem to deliver
| actual justice to the people most in need of it. I'm glad
| the world is getting to see the naked body of the
| "liberal side" under Trump.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Regardless (I both agree partially yet think you're
| omitting major differences here), you still live
| somewhere. When states are adversaries, that means there
| are consequences to being involved with the other state.
| jm4 wrote:
| Google and Facebook implement tracking to serve ads. The
| risk with TikTok is the CCP tracks and builds profiles for
| the purpose of furthering communist goals. For example,
| they can serve up content that persuades users to be more
| sympathetic to communist ideals the same way Google can use
| AI to identify the types of ads you might respond to.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Building profiles on people is not illegal and neither is
| espousing communist ideology. Hundreds of US based
| organizations do both.
| pishpash wrote:
| Please dispense with the naivete. Serving ads is the
| ostensible _commercial_ goal of Google and Facebook. That
| 's not their only duty.
| jlarocco wrote:
| First of all, that assumes serving ads is somehow better
| than spreading communist ideals. I'm skeptical, and I
| doubt there are convincing arguments for either side that
| don't rely on people's personal preferences.
|
| Second, you're ignoring that many US politicians and
| government agencies use web services like Twitter and
| Facebook to spread their own propaganda and control what
| people see. Unless somebody wants to argue that Donald
| Trump tweeting "POLITICAL WITCH HUNT"[1] isn't spreading
| propaganda, or that Facebook flagging political ads is
| somehow 100% completely unbiased.
|
| Obviously countries have some control over the media and
| propaganda and manipulation their citizens get to see,
| but lets not pretend ours is better just because it's
| ours.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1281260329
| 2473999...
| fastball wrote:
| Yeah the difference is that if FB violates my rights, I
| have some recourse. Not so if its the CCP.
| everfree wrote:
| What recourse do you mean, exactly?
| tropdrop wrote:
| One can successfully sue Facebook, etc. for violating
| privacy rights -
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/29/facebook-will-
| pay-550-mill...
| jlarocco wrote:
| Facebook had net income over $60 billion dollars in the 5
| years that lawsuit was going on.
|
| At that rate they can continue violating people's rights
| indefinitely, so I really don't see the difference.
| tropdrop wrote:
| The question was only "what" recourse there was (and the
| answer - some), not whether said recourse fixed the issue
| entirely, nor even whether it is effective.
|
| The difference between "some" recourse and "no" recourse
| is not insignificant. It is exponentially harder to move
| the needle from "no recourse" to "some" than it is from
| "some" to "more."
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| That's great for Illinois citizens. Federal legislators
| are bought off to prevent this from happening nationally.
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| Does the government have to go through judicial approval to
| get apps banned from its devices?
| 013a wrote:
| Our laws are woefully out of date to account for the
| technological innovation that has happened in the last, even,
| decade.
|
| Of course, this is a fact that everyone here is perfectly
| willing to admit when it comes to topics that are easy to
| take the "right" side on, like privacy, encryption, and net
| neutrality. When the topic gets more contentious, like
| allowing the ability for another country to collect data on
| the citizens of the US, its not so clear.
|
| But, the core reasoning behind the issues are the same: we
| don't have the legal precedent to say that they're breaking
| the law. This is how new laws are made: we get executive or
| judicial precedent, this leads to a new law, and now they're
| breaking it. The law is not set in stone, and allowing
| applications like TikTok to exist simply because they're not
| breaking any existing laws is not the kind of conversation
| any decision makers are having right now, for the better.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Privacy incursions have been made by data brokers for 50
| years. There's been plenty of time to legislate privacy.
| The people controlling Congress won't let it happen.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Sorry if I missed something obvious_
|
| The fact that they aren't doing anything that FB isn't already
| doing. The beef the USG has is that the CCP will have access to
| the data, not the fact that they are collecting the data at
| all.
|
| The privacy hawks have been warning about this exact situation
| and people are now "surprised" when someone gets access to the
| data that they might not like.
| J5892 wrote:
| Any tracking that TikTok is doing likely doesn't violate the
| terms of the Google/Apple stores. So removing it from the
| stores would just be straight up censorship.
|
| Note: I'm not defending TikTok in any way here. I personally
| believe that nobody should be using it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > if we're at the point where the U.S. government is even
| contemplating banning TikTok, how come it's on Google and Apple
| stores at this point?
|
| Because the US Government, Google, and Apple share neither
| leadership nor most strategic goals.
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| Because Google and Apple are private entities, and they're not
| beholden to the government's whims. They have relationships
| with citizens, who may not necessarily agree with the
| governments' assertions. And because the government is forced
| to follow a set of rules for enacting laws. Talk isn't enough
| to enforce will.
|
| I think a better question to ask is, under what authority is
| the US government talking about banning TikTok? If there are
| clear security issues, or TikTok or the people running it are
| in violation of some US law, the onus is on the government to
| prove it. I haven't seen any proof of this, just a lot of
| hearsay.
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