3 ms·

They could data-mine for the kids of generals and colonels, see when daddy (or mommy) wasn't home until 2am, and infer that something big's happening. They coul

They could data-mine for the kids of generals and colonels, see when daddy (or mommy) wasn't home until 2am, and infer that something big's happening. They could see on some nobody's kid that lives one town over from the base that traffic has been heavier or lighter at a certain date, just from watching the kid dance down the sidewalk. Tiktok's like having a spy camera that floats around randomly, taking pictures. 99% of the time those pictures are worthless... in the wrong place, at the wrong time, etc. But once in awhile they have gold. I still freak out about the Japanese pop star whose stalker managed to see the reflection in her high-res eye photo that had a street sign, found her home address from it. In a war situation, would China ever allow anyone in the US to see a photo of anything inside their country? Would they even allow those to be taken for viewing by other Chinese (for fear it'd somehow leak out to us)?

croes 3y ago
And all of a sudden privacy and data protection are important. Maybe the USA and China should sign a data protection agreement and call it Safe Harbor or so.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The US government wanting privacy but only from foreign nations is a perfectly logical and consistent policy from a government that thinks it has a right to it's citizen's data but also understands that privacy is valuable. It's no different from a US court having a right to sign a warrant for your data while China has no right to obtain a US citizen's data through a chinese equivalent of a warrant.
  - croes 3y ago
    That's not how they reacted when the EU asked about data protection for its citizens' data on European servers of US companies.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Yep. Everything that is physically possible becomes a possibility, limited only by their creativity.
- voisin 3y ago
  > Gather mac addresses that are nearby. Maybe your neighbor is a general and your phone can snoop when they are around. Would this be possible from an app within either iOS or Android?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
    Sorry, I removed the quote because I thought my reply was getting too long. To answer- It must be possible, for it to be impossible there would have to be no more vulnerabilities for both platforms and we know that's not the case.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >Gather mac addresses that are nearby. If an app has "coarse location" permissions, I believe it can already do this, or at least could do this a few years ago. Phones give quick, inaccurate location data based on what WiFi SSIDs are around. Google started their database of those SSIDs by wardriving and logging everything. There was a court case about it.
    - izacus 3y ago
      App can't collect MAC addresses with those permissions on Android though. It can only ask for the location.
graypegg 3y ago
I guess the other side of the coin is asking if they even need TikTok to do that. Yes, TikTok incentivizes self-surveillance but if we weren’t using TikTok, there would be another competitor to fill that niche. Just because the data isn’t housed within your jurisdiction, doesn’t mean it isn’t accessible to you given enough effort. There’s entire companies who have products solely used to process data off public social media and create dossiers on people. [0] No row level access required. [0] https://cellebrite.com/en/cellebrite-smart-search https://cellebrite.com/en/cellebrite-smart-search Not to say it doesn’t obviously make things easier, but the issue is more complex than what some politicians seem to think it is. “Ban TikTok = stop china doing bad things with foreign data”

croes 3y ago

And all of a sudden privacy and data protection are important. Maybe the USA and China should sign a data protection agreement and call it Safe Harbor or so.

mrguyorama 3y ago
The US government wanting privacy but only from foreign nations is a perfectly logical and consistent policy from a government that thinks it has a right to it's citizen's data but also understands that privacy is valuable. It's no different from a US court having a right to sign a warrant for your data while China has no right to obtain a US citizen's data through a chinese equivalent of a warrant.
- croes 3y ago
  That's not how they reacted when the EU asked about data protection for its citizens' data on European servers of US companies.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Yep. Everything that is physically possible becomes a possibility, limited only by their creativity.

voisin 3y ago
> Gather mac addresses that are nearby. Maybe your neighbor is a general and your phone can snoop when they are around. Would this be possible from an app within either iOS or Android?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  Sorry, I removed the quote because I thought my reply was getting too long. To answer- It must be possible, for it to be impossible there would have to be no more vulnerabilities for both platforms and we know that's not the case.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >Gather mac addresses that are nearby. If an app has "coarse location" permissions, I believe it can already do this, or at least could do this a few years ago. Phones give quick, inaccurate location data based on what WiFi SSIDs are around. Google started their database of those SSIDs by wardriving and logging everything. There was a court case about it.
  - izacus 3y ago
    App can't collect MAC addresses with those permissions on Android though. It can only ask for the location.

graypegg 3y ago

I guess the other side of the coin is asking if they even need TikTok to do that. Yes, TikTok incentivizes self-surveillance but if we weren’t using TikTok, there would be another competitor to fill that niche. Just because the data isn’t housed within your jurisdiction, doesn’t mean it isn’t accessible to you given enough effort. There’s entire companies who have products solely used to process data off public social media and create dossiers on people. [0] No row level access required. [0] https://cellebrite.com/en/cellebrite-smart-search https://cellebrite.com/en/cellebrite-smart-search Not to say it doesn’t obviously make things easier, but the issue is more complex than what some politicians seem to think it is. “Ban TikTok = stop china doing bad things with foreign data”