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My Daughter: "Dad let me install TikTok!" Me: "No. It is Chinese spyware." My Daughter: "<so and so from school> has TikTok!" Me: "<so and so> is a Chinese a

My Daughter: "Dad let me install TikTok!" Me: "No. It is Chinese spyware." My Daughter: "<so and so from school> has TikTok!" Me: "<so and so> is a Chinese asset!" My Daughter: "No she's not!" Every day.

vulcan01 6y ago
In my experience it is a lot easier to tell your friends that you don't have any social media, rather than saying that you don't have a specific social media app/account/thing. Why? It's harder to understand why someone wouldn't install TikTok when they already have Snapchat/Instagram/everything else. (I'm a high school student, abstaining from social media other than HN.) Edit: Have you tried explaining to your daughter why TikTok is Chinese spyware?
- Gatsky 6y ago
  HN is social media?
  - criddell 6y ago
    I think it is, at least as much as Reddit is as well. And before that Digg and Slashdot.
justicezyx 6y ago
> My Daughter: "<so and so from school> has TikTok!" > Me: "<so and so> is a Chinese asset!" I cannot believe this is allowed on this forum. IIRC, you are suggesting some individual in your daughter's school, presumably a Chinese ethnic, is a "Chinese asset"? What do you mean by "Chinese asset"? Edit: It seems I read the asset wrong. See replies below.
- grillvogel 6y ago
  if you accept the premise that tiktok is collecting data for the chinese government, then anyone using the app would indeed be an asset
  - pinkfoot 6y ago
    I cannot begin to imagine how my adolescenct daughter could be of any possible use to the middle kingdom. Remotely, via a dance app.
    - cosmie 6y ago
      Incidental and unintended data leakage. TikTok is a virally popular video app used globally by a generation of adolescence that have normalized the behavior of recording inane happenings in their life multiple times a day, with an undeveloped sense of propriety and limited ability to fully comprehend the significance of their actions. Not that I have much of an opinion on TikTok's usage as an intelligence gathering source, I certainly appreciate its potential as one. My daughters are constantly taking videos all over the place, with little regard to what is in the video beyond themselves. Even though they've been hounded on what is and isn't appropriate to capture in a video, I'm sure they have an under-developed sense of security/concern in that regard, particularly for "private" or deleted videos. Access to the full corpus of video data uploaded to Tiktok would be a gold mine, least of which would actually be my adolescent daughters. Unrelated conversations picked up in the background, where/when they took the video, compromising/confidential artifacts exposed incidentally in the background, facial recognition on individuals in the video (whether the subject of the video or otherwise), etc. There are an immeasurable number of ways such a rich data source could be mined for signal intelligence. Note that TikTok is far from the only app that fits this definition. There are plenty of other platforms that create a similarly useful corpus of video data. But anecdotally from my kids and their friends, TikTok is the flavor of the moment. Especially so for those young enough for the above concerns (or lack thereof) to be most valid.
      - pinkfoot 6y ago
        This is not how spies work in the real world. Kompromat, bribery, and threats. Not watching kids videos.
        cosmie 6y ago
        The intelligence apparatus of a nation-state is far more encompassing than just spies. And no one has to actually watch any videos for the above-mentioned use cases. It's an engineering assignment for data science and tech teams, not spies. As well, there's a very hazy line between government and industry interests in China, greatly expanding the potential use cases of sigint derived from such incidental data leakage beyond just what would be useful for kompromat, bribery, and threat. purposes.
- gruez 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)
- RyanGoosling 6y ago
  get outta here

vulcan01 6y ago

In my experience it is a lot easier to tell your friends that you don't have any social media, rather than saying that you don't have a specific social media app/account/thing. Why? It's harder to understand why someone wouldn't install TikTok when they already have Snapchat/Instagram/everything else. (I'm a high school student, abstaining from social media other than HN.) Edit: Have you tried explaining to your daughter why TikTok is Chinese spyware?

Gatsky 6y ago
HN is social media?
- criddell 6y ago
  I think it is, at least as much as Reddit is as well. And before that Digg and Slashdot.

justicezyx 6y ago

> My Daughter: "<so and so from school> has TikTok!" > Me: "<so and so> is a Chinese asset!" I cannot believe this is allowed on this forum. IIRC, you are suggesting some individual in your daughter's school, presumably a Chinese ethnic, is a "Chinese asset"? What do you mean by "Chinese asset"? Edit: It seems I read the asset wrong. See replies below.

grillvogel 6y ago
if you accept the premise that tiktok is collecting data for the chinese government, then anyone using the app would indeed be an asset
- pinkfoot 6y ago
  I cannot begin to imagine how my adolescenct daughter could be of any possible use to the middle kingdom. Remotely, via a dance app.
  - cosmie 6y ago
    Incidental and unintended data leakage. TikTok is a virally popular video app used globally by a generation of adolescence that have normalized the behavior of recording inane happenings in their life multiple times a day, with an undeveloped sense of propriety and limited ability to fully comprehend the significance of their actions. Not that I have much of an opinion on TikTok's usage as an intelligence gathering source, I certainly appreciate its potential as one. My daughters are constantly taking videos all over the place, with little regard to what is in the video beyond themselves. Even though they've been hounded on what is and isn't appropriate to capture in a video, I'm sure they have an under-developed sense of security/concern in that regard, particularly for "private" or deleted videos. Access to the full corpus of video data uploaded to Tiktok would be a gold mine, least of which would actually be my adolescent daughters. Unrelated conversations picked up in the background, where/when they took the video, compromising/confidential artifacts exposed incidentally in the background, facial recognition on individuals in the video (whether the subject of the video or otherwise), etc. There are an immeasurable number of ways such a rich data source could be mined for signal intelligence. Note that TikTok is far from the only app that fits this definition. There are plenty of other platforms that create a similarly useful corpus of video data. But anecdotally from my kids and their friends, TikTok is the flavor of the moment. Especially so for those young enough for the above concerns (or lack thereof) to be most valid.
    - pinkfoot 6y ago
      This is not how spies work in the real world. Kompromat, bribery, and threats. Not watching kids videos.
      - cosmie 6y ago
        The intelligence apparatus of a nation-state is far more encompassing than just spies. And no one has to actually watch any videos for the above-mentioned use cases. It's an engineering assignment for data science and tech teams, not spies. As well, there's a very hazy line between government and industry interests in China, greatly expanding the potential use cases of sigint derived from such incidental data leakage beyond just what would be useful for kompromat, bribery, and threat. purposes.
gruez 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)
RyanGoosling 6y ago
get outta here