I honestly think spez might let this moderator protest slide. From reddits pov, this just increases user session retention.

Yup. I wish I could overlook it like most people, but when a car makes noise fresh off the line then it really pisses me off.

The proper way to live when it comes to cars

They’re fast, and have good range, but everything else about the car sucks ass. So basically the EV Hellcat.

The enlightened never bought one after test driving and hearing rattles in a car with 20 miles.

You didn’t deserve it regardless. Thank you for the patience.

I edited my comment before I saw you responded. My comment was rude as fuck and I apologize

Edit: this was originally further continuing the argument but it was really rude.

If you’re seeing this I apologize. I get heated easily

I directly addressed what you said, and your source, and your source’s sources. And after checking your source this entire argument feels like a waste of time because the claim about TikTok is a “trust me bro” from a Reddit comment in a deleted post. I however trust him, because every app can pull and execute JavaScript. Hell I even gave you an example of one that does the exact same thing and is targeted at kids (Bloons). You keep framing what TikTok does as a vulnerability even though it is explicitly allowed by Apple.

If you want to choose to be willfully ignorant to how bad app and data privacy is across the entire App Store then that’s your prerogative.

Caring about this obfuscation is comical and directly leans into my point about laymen getting scared by things every app does. Wait until you hear about denuvo and dynamic obfuscation and the execution capabilities every single video game made since the 90s has.

My point isn’t TikTok good, in fact I have it blocked on my network as well as all of China on a region block; my point is that TikTok is not uniquely bad enough to justify a ban for “security and privacy” while still allowing Meta and Twitter to exist. Meta specifically is worse because Messenger does literally everything that redditor claims TikTok does.

Is this a bot response? Where did I mention the US Government buying through a clearing house?

I am not arguing we shouldn’t ban tiktok, I am arguing that they’re not unique and if we’re going to ban them then we should ban Meta too because they are worse. Meta and Twitter have already done the things people are afraid of tiktok maybe doing in the future.

In iOS, sure, just give me the app source code and… oh wait, the compiled apps from the store are also obfuscated, guess I can’t search the code for you.

On Windows though you can look at what process runs when you click “update and restart” in Firefox or Chrome. Both have an updater service that is just there to run an update exe with admin permissions. Both could be used for the same attack vector you’re afraid of. Every {softwarename}_helper.exe is the same thing.

Chrome on iOS can execute javascript and has a history of vulnerabilities using that code execution, so much so that I even had to use the browser to jailbreak once, so I am not sure what point you’re trying to make other than fear mongering. You also still haven’t addressed the fact that the code execution is still sandboxed. Any app that uses electron can download a zipped bundle of code and run it as well. Also any app with a built-in web browser is allowed to do this

But you can also just look at Bloons TD 6 and their “downloading new content” windows when the game starts.

Let’s also look at the comment from the reddit thread you originally linked.

Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)

Yeah that’s pretty normal, even javascript can get that just to render a page. I don’t like that it’s normal, but none-the-less

Other apps you have installed (I’ve even seen some I’ve deleted show up in their analytics payload - maybe using as cached value?)

Yeah this is normal too, and imo a huge issue. On windows there’s even an unprotected API for it. Again, I don’t like it, but it is normal.

Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)

Sketchy as hell, I agree, but every app you give local network access to does the same, so we should ban Messenger too.

Whether or not you’re rooted/jailbroken

Every banking app and Pokemon Go do this. This one can be very dangerous if you’re jailbroken.

Some variants of the app had GPS pinging enabled at the time, roughly once every 30 seconds - this is enabled by default if you ever location-tag a post IIRC

Normal for social media. Shitty, but normal. We should just ban this feature

They set up a local proxy server on your device for “transcoding media”, but that can be abused very easily as it has zero authentication

As does Adobe Premier Pro and Final Cut. Sketchy again, but maybe we should just ban proxying without notifying the user.

Edit: The source your reddit source gave is agreeing with me. https://www.zimperium.com/blog/zimperium-analyzes-tiktoks-security-and-privacy-risks/

Over the last few months, we’ve analyzed top banking apps and top travel apps, related to security and privacy issues. Much like TikTok, some of the results are alarming

Their other source appears to not do anything and gets “suspected phising” warnings on firefox https://penetrum.com/research/

If you can find me a large app that doesn’t have that capability then I’d be shocked. This is extremely common behavior for apps, and every piece of software I have ever been employed for has done this. That code is also still sandboxed by iOS and Android and has to go through the same APIs to interact with the OS, unless Pegasus found a way to infiltrate via app payloads.

This is one of those things that sounds really scary if you go into extreme detail and the other party doesn’t have enough experience to realize that it’s normal; like the way republicans talk about “hyper processed foods” and seed oils.

I know you’re not talking about https, which is why I mentioned DRM too. Nintendo encrypts all of their software, which is why they were able to DMCA Switch emulators.

That’s just AB testing, downloading over https, and having DRM. Every app on your phone does this, but it sure sounds scary when framed that way.

Every video game you have does the same thing too.

You’re doing the same thing Republicans do when they go into great detail about food ingredients to make salt sound scarier than it is.

Edit: You better also remove this foreign controlled app, targetted at children, that can download new code outside of the app store updates

Messenger is worse by far. This is a verifiable fact just from the permissions requested. The Dunning Kruger in this thread is comical.

Redditors just turn their brain off when TikTok is the topic

Because Zuckerberg spent a lot of money bribing Congress into this opinion. And everyone in Congress owns Facebook stock, so TikTok is a security threat to their portfolio balance.

Edit: Another provable fact being downvoted by people who read too much Tom Clancy and don’t understand how vulnerable all apps are.

I think a huge problem for the fediverse is going to be these kinds of coordinated troll campaigns. It will be so easy for them to launder accounts through undermoderated instances that are federated with their targets.