3 ms·

It’s easy to dream up scenarios from something as simple as the way that China treats GPS: in addition to the regular block-google-maps-from-showing-military-ba

It’s easy to dream up scenarios from something as simple as the way that China treats GPS: in addition to the regular block-google-maps-from-showing-military-bases they also use an entirely different system whose purpose is only to occlude real locations (https://medium.com/@anastasia.bizyayeva/every-map-of-china-is-wrong-bc2bce145db2 https://medium.com/@anastasia.bizyayeva/every-map-of-china-i...) TikTok harvests the very thing china occludes.

krapp 2y ago
I don't understand what the implied threat is supposed to be here. That TikTok harvests... American GPS data? That the CCP might use TikTok to find the real world locations of American military bases? How would that even work? Why would China need TikTok to accomplish this? They have spy satellites. If they want to send the ICBMs over they already know where Washington DC is. This is comic book logic, this isn't rational.
- alanwreath 2y ago
  Again, there must be value to China with regard to GPS data if they have spent so much effort in obscuring it for so long. Therefore it would make sense that there is an interest in harvesting it. It shouldn’t be required of me to dream up scenarios that you may or may not agree with. You have no view into their government or our government either. But to play the game, as you’ve already pointed out: anyone can determine military base locations without the thousands of social media accounts in TikTok that would dot those bases. So what could that give them? Correlation. I’m sure that there are plenty of different avenues they have to get intel on who works where, and as a government contractor we received plenty of training to avoid publishing it anywhere (e.g on LinkedIn or Facebook). Would a government, that harvests data for future use, limit itself to a few chosen avenues?

3 ms·

It’s easy to dream up scenarios from something as simple as the way that China treats GPS: in addition to the regular block-google-maps-from-showing-military-ba

by alanwreath 2y ago

krapp 2y ago
I don't understand what the implied threat is supposed to be here. That TikTok harvests... American GPS data? That the CCP might use TikTok to find the real world locations of American military bases? How would that even work? Why would China need TikTok to accomplish this? They have spy satellites. If they want to send the ICBMs over they already know where Washington DC is. This is comic book logic, this isn't rational.
- alanwreath 2y ago
  Again, there must be value to China with regard to GPS data if they have spent so much effort in obscuring it for so long. Therefore it would make sense that there is an interest in harvesting it. It shouldn’t be required of me to dream up scenarios that you may or may not agree with. You have no view into their government or our government either. But to play the game, as you’ve already pointed out: anyone can determine military base locations without the thousands of social media accounts in TikTok that would dot those bases. So what could that give them? Correlation. I’m sure that there are plenty of different avenues they have to get intel on who works where, and as a government contractor we received plenty of training to avoid publishing it anywhere (e.g on LinkedIn or Facebook). Would a government, that harvests data for future use, limit itself to a few chosen avenues?