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That kind of assumes Oracle is lying about the data they host and control for the US instance of TikTok, or that Oracle is unable to secure said data. A few th

That kind of assumes Oracle is lying about the data they host and control for the US instance of TikTok, or that Oracle is unable to secure said data. A few things are curious to me about all of this, which leads me to believe it’s political posturing. The EU has a similar arrangement to the US in that they have an “auditor partner” and host the entirety of the EU infrastructure and services within the EU. The EU is not taking severe business actions in the shadow of undisclosed national security grounds. There’s frequent statements about “massive data collection”. What data? I can only find IP addresses and volunteered contact information being collected. TikTok doesn’t have access to device location data, so IP addresses are the closest there is to geo location. TikTok has said they scrub that when stored - easy to verify. TikTok has given their auditor (at least in the US) access to the recommendation engine algos. I assume that access comes with some ability to confirm what they audit is what’s actually in use, but haven’t seen reporting that confirms it. And finally I don’t understand why so many politicians, including all presidential candidates and a not insignificant number of congressional members use TikTok. Just some of the reasons I think this is more special interest/politically motivated rather than actual national security issues that would be any different than other socials.

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
> There’s frequent statements about “massive data collection”. What data? That is a good question. Answer: among other data, the very data of the platform itself. Everything nearly every young person has said in a message on the platform, public or private. Everything they view, and how they view it. Same with interactions. Easily enough to build a complete psychographic profile ("who in this list is most vulnerable to coercion?") and a convincing AI clone if one were so inclined. And that's if the mere content viewed or posted or interacted with, wasn't itself enough for blackmail. Which it often is. It could be something as simple as coercing a summer intern to visit a website on a vulnerable computer, if they want to prevent those DMs to Alice or Bob from being leaked. Oops, now all those trade secrets, aren't. > I don’t understand why so many politicians, including all presidential candidates and a not insignificant number of congressional members use TikTok. Most of them, I assume, aren't reaching out to their mistresses or paramours over tiktok. Location data collected by the app obviously is still an issue there. It's not great to think about, and it's not a justification for actions about which the blackmail revolves, but that's how some intelligence ops have historically happened.
stale2002 2y ago
> That kind of assumes Oracle is lying about the data No actually. Tiktok at one point already admitted that they spied on journalists. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by... This is something that Tiktok has already done.

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago

> There’s frequent statements about “massive data collection”. What data? That is a good question. Answer: among other data, the very data of the platform itself. Everything nearly every young person has said in a message on the platform, public or private. Everything they view, and how they view it. Same with interactions. Easily enough to build a complete psychographic profile ("who in this list is most vulnerable to coercion?") and a convincing AI clone if one were so inclined. And that's if the mere content viewed or posted or interacted with, wasn't itself enough for blackmail. Which it often is. It could be something as simple as coercing a summer intern to visit a website on a vulnerable computer, if they want to prevent those DMs to Alice or Bob from being leaked. Oops, now all those trade secrets, aren't. > I don’t understand why so many politicians, including all presidential candidates and a not insignificant number of congressional members use TikTok. Most of them, I assume, aren't reaching out to their mistresses or paramours over tiktok. Location data collected by the app obviously is still an issue there. It's not great to think about, and it's not a justification for actions about which the blackmail revolves, but that's how some intelligence ops have historically happened.

stale2002 2y ago

> That kind of assumes Oracle is lying about the data No actually. Tiktok at one point already admitted that they spied on journalists. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-by... This is something that Tiktok has already done.