5 ms·

Using fiddler I briefly looked and didn't see tiktok sending my clipboard contents anywhere. Edit: However, tiktok is one of the chattiest apps I've looked at.

Using fiddler I briefly looked and didn't see tiktok sending my clipboard contents anywhere. Edit: However, tiktok is one of the chattiest apps I've looked at. They have a huge number of tracking/logging/collection endpoints constantly slurping data in the background. See my hosts list which aims to block this: https://github.com/llacb47/mischosts/blob/master/tiktok-hosts https://github.com/llacb47/mischosts/blob/master/tiktok-host...

throw03172019 6y ago
Wow...I can’t imagine managing all of those.
xvector 6y ago
Genuine question, why don't companies proxy tracker data through a single host that the app also depends on to serve data? That way it wouldn't be possible for users to block individual hosts to prevent tracking. I guess it's not worth the effort though because laypeople won't care either way?
- cleverpebble 6y ago
  Most trackers are 3rd parties that require you to go through their hosts. Additionally, these trackers are usually picked out by business analysts / product managers on different teams - so marketing my have their own tracking solution, sales might have their own, and engineering might have their own. Tends to be faster/easier to plop javascript on a page than engineering your own tracking/analytics pipeline at early stage startups
  - Xorlev 6y ago
    > Additionally, these trackers are usually picked out by business analysts / product managers on different teams This. I remember at my last company, we ended up with 8 or 9 different analytics tools all getting different data and showing one or two "cool views" the PM had put together. It's such a big problem that solutions like segment.io exist to broker your events to N different downstream solutions. Truly, this is the darkest timeline.
- gitgud 6y ago
  They aren't proxy'd because advertisers want to ensure they control the domain and can verify requests are going to it, without having to trust the content provider. Some content providers don't allow you to view content if you block the advertising hosts. Then it becomes a matter how you want to deal with failure, do you want the site to break if your ads don't load?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Using fiddler I briefly looked and didn't see tiktok sending my clipboard contents anywhere. Maybe you just didn't copy anything TikTok was interested in keeping track of. I can think of a lot of really obnoxious things you can do with clipboard data, everything from scanning the contents to collect interests, scanning for URLs, collecting information about what applications are installed. A lot of this could be analyzed on device and it would only update infrequently.
- masklinn 6y ago
  > Maybe you just didn't copy anything TikTok was interested in keeping track of. Odds are, like almost every other application it cares about website URLs to deep-link. Pretty much every reddit client does that for instance.
antpls 6y ago
If I had to design it, I would not directly send the data to the central server. I would first store it for a period of time, then compress everything and then send it while the phone is inactive and plugged to the sector. Or I would build a model with the data on the phone, then send that to the central server. Both ways would be asynchronous.

throw03172019 6y ago

Wow...I can’t imagine managing all of those.

xvector 6y ago

Genuine question, why don't companies proxy tracker data through a single host that the app also depends on to serve data? That way it wouldn't be possible for users to block individual hosts to prevent tracking. I guess it's not worth the effort though because laypeople won't care either way?

cleverpebble 6y ago
Most trackers are 3rd parties that require you to go through their hosts. Additionally, these trackers are usually picked out by business analysts / product managers on different teams - so marketing my have their own tracking solution, sales might have their own, and engineering might have their own. Tends to be faster/easier to plop javascript on a page than engineering your own tracking/analytics pipeline at early stage startups
- Xorlev 6y ago
  > Additionally, these trackers are usually picked out by business analysts / product managers on different teams This. I remember at my last company, we ended up with 8 or 9 different analytics tools all getting different data and showing one or two "cool views" the PM had put together. It's such a big problem that solutions like segment.io exist to broker your events to N different downstream solutions. Truly, this is the darkest timeline.
gitgud 6y ago
They aren't proxy'd because advertisers want to ensure they control the domain and can verify requests are going to it, without having to trust the content provider. Some content providers don't allow you to view content if you block the advertising hosts. Then it becomes a matter how you want to deal with failure, do you want the site to break if your ads don't load?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Using fiddler I briefly looked and didn't see tiktok sending my clipboard contents anywhere. Maybe you just didn't copy anything TikTok was interested in keeping track of. I can think of a lot of really obnoxious things you can do with clipboard data, everything from scanning the contents to collect interests, scanning for URLs, collecting information about what applications are installed. A lot of this could be analyzed on device and it would only update infrequently.

masklinn 6y ago
> Maybe you just didn't copy anything TikTok was interested in keeping track of. Odds are, like almost every other application it cares about website URLs to deep-link. Pretty much every reddit client does that for instance.

antpls 6y ago

If I had to design it, I would not directly send the data to the central server. I would first store it for a period of time, then compress everything and then send it while the phone is inactive and plugged to the sector. Or I would build a model with the data on the phone, then send that to the central server. Both ways would be asynchronous.