Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
TikTok Invasion Far Worse Than You Think
Have we become so inured to invasions of our privacy that we just brush each one off as one more annoyance? It seems to be in fashion to criticize TikTok as a Chinese company that continues to invade our privacy. But the degree to which their incursions are a threat to our national security has been understated and largely ignored until recently:
Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Homeland Security Committee that he is ‘extremely concerned’ about the threats posed by TikTok. Wray explained that those concerns ‘include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose, or to control software on millions of devices, which gives the opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices.’
I assume that if Christopher Wray is concerned, the situation is much worse than he suggests, although the military is taking action:
China is of course notorious for stealing American technology, particularly sophisticated military weaponry – which is why the U.S. Department of Defense has banned the use of TikTok on government-owned smartphones and other devices. ‘The other pieces of this are about the nature of the impact beyond just unidimensional cyber theft on several different levels,’ added Dr. Christopher Whyte, professor of cybersecurity and homeland security at Virginia Commonwealth University.
We can’t know for certain how far the TikTok invasion has progressed, but in a recent podcast, What The Hell is Going On?, Klon Kitchen described how invasive and potentially dangerous to national security TikTok can be, particularly because they are beholden to the CCP. He then described the connections that TikTok creates when a person loads up the app:
So it’s not just their dance videos, but there’s layers of problem here. So we’ll start with the individual, but I’m going to build up from there. So from an individual standpoint, it’s not just your dance videos, it’s all of your contacts. It’s your GPS location. It’s your online viewing and shopping habits. It’s even your keyboard swipes and your off app, online habits. So for example, TikTok knows what other websites you go to in your web browser, not just in TikTok but then it’s also tracking the key swipes when you’re on those other websites. So for example, if you log into, say, your bank website and it is able to track your keyboard swipes when you’re on that website, what do they know? Well, they know your username and they know your password, and they know texting content. So they don’t actually have to intercept the text. So even if the text itself is end to end encrypted, the fact that they are able to monitor keyboard swipes means that they can actually put together the content of a message.
Then he went a few steps further by explaining that the infiltration can go far beyond the individual and pose a threat to national security:
But then there’s moving beyond the individual. There’s what the Chinese government ultimately is able to learn about more than a third of the US population. So they’re able to collect this volume, as I said, from approximately 140 million Americans and that gives them deep, deep insight into how a third of the country thinks, how they operate, what they’re economically engaged in, and ultimately how to influence that group. Now, if you can move or shape in some form or fashion, a third of the US population, that is a tool that is incredibly attractive to a government that we know engages in strategic influence operations in the West. And we’ve seen that on everything from Tiananmen Square to … I won’t assert that this is being done, but it’s the kind of thing that could be done.
For the full transcript, a link appears on the podcast page here.
And TikTok is not going to disappear any time soon. In spite of other companies experiencing economic turbulence, TikTok is doing just fine:
Despite the controversy surrounding it, TikTok has seen surging popularity. The app has over one billion active users and has quickly become one of the world’s most popular social media sites, outpacing its competitors in screen time and advertisement sales.
When social media companies like Twitter and Meta are laying off workers, TikTok has been on a hiring surge and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said the company is actively recruiting. TikTok intends to hire 1,000 engineers in its Silicon Valley office to ensure that a U.S.-based team monitors U.S. data. . .
TikTok is expected to make over $10 billion in ad revenue in 2022, according to research company Insider Intelligence, as noted by The New York Times. That number is double the amount it made in 2021.
TikTok is notorious for lying, as is the Chinese government, so denials of monitoring U.S. citizens are not credible. I guess we are supposed to be reassured that they are creating a security deal with the Department of Justice and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Senator Tom Cotton recommends that American citizens delete the TikTok app from their phones and then get a new phone.
Sounds like wise advice to me.
Published in Foreign Policy
So, because TikTok is a Chinese company we care, but we don’t care that US companies are doing the same thing and we know they are using their influence and reach to alter our elections.
Very true, David. Maybe I’m naive, but it seems like the threat by China to our national security is even more serious. We could at least try to stop bad boys in our own companies if we were so inclined. I assume our US companies are not considering attacking us militarily. But maybe I’m wrong there, too.
If you have TikTok on your phone, the Chinese can figure out where you are, and where you are not. And when. If you spend working hours in or near a secure facility, they know that too. One could deduce that you might have a security clearance. Passwords, bank account numbers, your social security number … in the words of Major T. J. “King” Kong: Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.
Apparently being able to detect “keystrokes” gives them access to nearly everything. So you’re right, Percival; we are not just threatened in our personal lives. Our country is in serious peril. For all intents and purposes, TikTok is the CCP.
I thought that President Trump had banned TikTok. Just another knock on Trump I guess. The next thing we will see is some major conservative, like John Hinderaker at Powerline, claiming Trump to be some kind of embarrassing maniacal traitor trying to abolish the Constitution.
The cybersecurity situation is appalling. The privacy situation is appalling. Yet no matter how bad it is in general, TikTok is *still* worth singling out for destruction. No matter how bad you think it is, it’s worse.
We don’t appear to be so inclined.
I wonder why …
The idea that they are negotiating with our government to establish rules they can follow is a joke (CFIUS). Why would they follow anything that is “agreed to”? They will go through the motions of discussing “tough issues,” and then they will do whatever they like. And our government seems to shrug.
I wonder if Joe has even more agreements with China than we can imagine, Annefy.
I doubt it’s just Joe. I think it’s a significant number of people on both sides of the aisle. And I think it’s been going on since long before my cell phone was analog
Cyber-everything is an utter horror right now because our government is completely co-opted by its dependence on the companies they should be regulating. Citizens, consumers, users have absolutely no voice in any of this.
That dependence is not just about above-board services — the tech companies are the government’s unconstitutional monitoring and enforcement arm.
Trump advanced the idea to ban Tik Tok. The fact that the Biden administration AGREES should tell us what a threat this is!
Actually, text messages are not encrypted.
And what makes anyone think that Apple and Google cannot/are not collecting the same information?
If anyone missed it, Massachusetts is being sued for installing their contact tracing app without asking users. And contact tracing without asking is flat out spying.
We should be terrified of cellphones.
I guess if I was on Tik Tok it would be just an update on me for the CCP. Years ago they stole my security files entrusted to the Office of Personnel Management.
This was a quotation from Klon Kitchen. Would there be a way for a person to encode texts? He seemed pretty informed, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t wrong.
Has TikTok been around for a while?
I noticed that too when it happened here in Massachusetts. I wondered how the state got around that barrier. Good for the people bringing that lawsuit!
Mad Gerald (View Comment):
I was 100 percent behind Trump on that. I have never opened a TikTok anything. The CCP scares me. But Facebook and Instagram promote TikTok posts constantly. I canceled my Facebook account about two years ago, but I kept Instagram so I could see pictures of my grandson. In the last three months, I have suddenly started seeing TikTok videos. It’s alarming. I will have to cancel Instagram as well now.
So many young people are using TikTok now. They do not realize how dangerous it is to invite the CCP into their life.
Signal.
??
Search (DuckDuckGo!) for OPM breach. This was 100% a failure of the USG to secure its systems and OUR data.
If both ends of the conversation use an encryption app they can be reasonably sure of privacy. Although not all are as secure as they claim. I am fond of Wire. It also does encrypted voice calls. And is free.
Good grief. I’d forgotten about that.
Signal is the one which is as secure as it can be.
Signal is a respected secure communication app. It does need your phone number to work which I think degrades the level of privacy. I prefer Wire which can be used with just a made up username and password. And works on a PC.
Yes! Even fingerprints were taken. The government did me the courtesy of sending a notification after it happened.
Wikipedia: In June 2015, the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that it had been the target of a data breach targeting personnel records.[1] Approximately 22.1 million records were affected, including records related to government employees, other people who had undergone background checks, and their friends and family.
Well, if Biden actually does it, that might finally get him impeached and removed.
Yes, the messages can be encrypted, but if your “keystrokes” are being captured and reported, they already know what the messages are.
So you’re saying that Biden finds a way to ban TikTok (which I don’t think he’ll do), he could be impeached for that?
Signal uses phone numbers to ensure that the person *you are speaking to* is still the person you expect to speak to. Each Signal ID actually depends upon the phone number. Messages must come from that phone number or from a SINGLE PC which you have associated with that phone number by snapping a QR code (one-time) with the correct phone. There is a PIN with Signal, which is to keep miscreant users off your phone’s Signal account — not to validate you to the server. Also, in order to add a contact in Signal, that person must be in your no-kidding “Contacts” roster in your phone. Finally, if you ever change phones/SIMs/numbers, it triggers a wave of alarming notifications which EACH contact of yours must validate and accept independently. It’s a real pain in the butt, because that’s what real security is. Anything which is handy is not secure.
Signal was the first messaging app to do true end-to-end encryption (Signal servers never see your messages and never get your encryption key) to gain any traction.
I’m not familiar with Wire. Sounds handy.
Even so, there is a problem with Signal, which is a problem throughout all of computing — no application can defeat the OS which runs it, and no OS can defeat the hardware it runs on. This is an existential problem, and will never be solved. The best you can do is treat the symptoms.
Apple is a lying bag of jerks, but they do make the most secure OS which is ALSO ready for prime time.
Obviously, minimize the number of apps on your phone. Unintended problems are the least of our concerns.
Heh.