{"id":6393,"date":"2022-07-20T11:38:41","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T09:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/20\/techscape-suspicious-of-tiktok-youre-not-alone\/"},"modified":"2022-07-20T11:38:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T09:38:41","slug":"techscape-suspicious-of-tiktok-youre-not-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/20\/techscape-suspicious-of-tiktok-youre-not-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"TechScape: suspicious of TikTok? You\u2019re not alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese app is known for its aggressive data collection \u2013 but it is a fool\u2019s errand to prove that it is a threat to the west<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ablink.editorial.theguardian.com\/ss\/c\/TBl-lE0k4WbTlFRn6v-lQXxTpTslqnvUsR2ofAkC00vqkHXqakTSxrykj9mrdACFo11SPMvm9ONAti2JcHBqUgcduObToxycReEYHcTAh6nov_u_7l464yKkl5CZpPeg-CqG3ueb-8UiDZ4dOkhK_xu6BZysaGtGOA-w2_0KTqLsMBLqZrcGelEg-7T5C6DRfMSsX1Wcyrv2RlHjbzIGx0ePxMD7meIXmznkqCFxtrflV_YvxDV9cqXgzdq7c2-9qYTW0MyIMCG7p9sc7wIKCg\/3ha\/N7031ZxvS8Cv2AmB8PHP-g\/h27\/towm4HqYM1UtQe3kzAkaoAWT_zh9HyZuTvPyJCk6JeE\">Don\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What\u2019s the problem with TikTok? It\u2019s a harder question to answer than it seems. The social video app, which has joined Facebook\/Instagram, YouTube and Twitter in the list of societally important social networks, is frequently spoken about with an air of suspicion, and it\u2019s not hard to guess why: the app\u2019s Chinese roots loom large in the conversation. (ByteDance, which owns TikTok, insists that it is headquartered in the Cayman Islands, one of the only instances I\u2019ve seen of a company deciding that loudly proclaiming its paper HQ is located in a tax haven is <em>preferable<\/em> to the alternative). But sometimes, it can feel like the cart leading the horse. The app has Chinese roots, therefore it <em>must<\/em> be suspicious \u2013 right?<\/p>\n<p>So I was interested to read a report that attempts to look at the general suspicion of the service. <a href=\"https:\/\/internet2-0.com\/whitepaper\/its-their-word-against-their-source-code-tiktok-report\/\">Published on Monday by the Australian-US cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0<\/a>, it is based on a teardown of TikTok\u2019s Android and iOS apps. The report\u2019s author, Thomas Perkins, writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>In our analysis, the TikTok mobile application does not prioritise privacy. Permissions and device information collection are overly intrusive and not necessary for the application to function.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Also of note is that TikTok IOS 25.1.1 has a server connection to mainland China which is run by a top 100 Chinese cyber security and data company Guizhou Baishan Cloud Technology Co<\/em><em> Ltd.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>For the TikTok application to function properly, most of the access and device data collection is not required. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting. It is also notable that the device only needs to ask the user for permission to perform each of these actions once and then follow the user\u2019s preferences. The application however has a culture of persistent access or continuously asking for a decision reversal by the user. The hourly checking of location is also unnecessary. Finally, device mapping, external storage access, contacts and third-party applications data collection allows TikTok the ability to reimage the phone in the likeness of the original device.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2022\/jul\/20\/tiktoks-privacy-problem-isnt-what-you-think\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/788039dc6c19df33a2b703a6634fb073ddc32cc5\/0_184_5082_3049\/master\/5082.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=65b0d6baaf4f29035ccfb3f09e7655d5\" title=\"TechScape: suspicious of TikTok? You\u2019re not alone\" \/>The Chinese app is known for its aggressive data collection \u2013 but it is a fool\u2019s errand to prove that it is a threat to the west<br \/>\nDon\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s the problem with TikTok? It\u2019s a harder question to answer than it seems. The social video app, which has joined Facebook\/Instagram, YouTube and Twitter in the list of societally important social networks, is frequently spoken about with an air of suspicion, and it\u2019s not hard to guess why: the app\u2019s Chinese roots loom large in the conversation. (ByteDance, which owns TikTok, insists that it is headquartered in the Cayman Islands, one of the only instances I\u2019ve seen of a company deciding that loudly proclaiming its paper HQ is located in a tax haven is preferable to the alternative). But sometimes, it can feel like the cart leading the horse. The app has Chinese roots, therefore it must be suspicious \u2013 right?<br \/>\nSo I was interested to read a report that attempts to look at the general suspicion of the service. Published on Monday by the Australian-US cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, it is based on a teardown of TikTok\u2019s Android and iOS apps. The report\u2019s author, Thomas Perkins, writes:<br \/>\nIn our analysis, the TikTok mobile application does not prioritise privacy. Permissions and device information collection are overly intrusive and not necessary for the application to function.<br \/>\nAlso of note is that TikTok IOS 25.1.1 has a server connection to mainland China which is run by a top 100 Chinese cyber security and data company Guizhou Baishan Cloud Technology Co Ltd.<br \/>\nFor the TikTok application to function properly, most of the access and device data collection is not required. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting. It is also notable that the device only needs to ask the user for permission to perform each of these actions once and then follow the user\u2019s preferences. The application however has a culture of persistent access or continuously asking for a decision reversal by the user. The hourly checking of location is also unnecessary. Finally, device mapping, external storage access, contacts and third-party applications data collection allows TikTok the ability to reimage the phone in the likeness of the original device. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese app is known for its aggressive data collection \u2013 but it is a fool\u2019s errand to prove that it is a threat to the west Don\u2019t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here What\u2019s the problem with TikTok? It\u2019s a harder question to answer than it seems. The social video app, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/20\/techscape-suspicious-of-tiktok-youre-not-alone\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">TechScape: suspicious of TikTok? You\u2019re not alone<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6393"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}