Tagg: TikTok 26

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/tiktok-editorial-analysis.html

TikTok seems to be skewing things in the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911803/utah-tiktok-child-addiction-china-deception-lawsuit

Utah’s consumer protection division alleges that TikTok misrepresents itself as independent of China and is designed to ‘hook users’ into its endless feed.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/15/tiktok-fined-345m-for-breaking-eu-data-law-on-childrens-accounts

Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/07/communist-party-accessed-hong-kong-protesters-tiktok-data-former-executive-says

A former executive at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has alleged that the Chinese Communist party accessed user data from the social video app belonging to Hong Kong protesters and civil rights activists.

Yintao Yu, a former head of engineering at ByteDance’s US operation, claimed in a legal filing that a committee of Communist party members accessed TikTok data that included the users’ network information, Sim card identifications and IP addresses in a bid to identify the individuals and their locations.

The claims, in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit brought by Yu in a California court and reported by the Wall Street Journal, also allege the party accessed TikTok users’ communications, monitored Hong Kong users who uploaded protest-related content and that Beijing-based ByteDance maintained a “backdoor channel” for the party to access US user data.

Yu alleges in the filing that members of a Communist party committee inside ByteDance had access to a “superuser” credential which was also called a “God credential” and allowed them to view all data collected by ByteDance.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexandralevine/2023/05/30/tiktok-creators-data-security-china/

TikTok has stored the most sensitive financial data of its biggest stars — including those in its “Creator Fund” — on servers in China. Earlier this year, CEO Shou Chew told Congress “American data has always been stored in Virginia and Singapore.”

https://news.yahoo.com/hyundai-kia-thefts-keep-rising-144034139.html

Nearly three months ago, Hyundai and Kia unveiled software that was designed to thwart an epidemic of thefts of their vehicles, caused by a security flaw that was exposed on TikTok and other social media sites.

So far, it hasn’t solved the problem. Across the country, thieves are still driving off with the vehicles at an alarming rate.

…

The companies’ affected cars, many of them lower-cost models from the 2011 to early 2022 model years, were not equipped with a theft immobilizer. Such a device contains a computer chip in the key that must be recognized by another chip in the steering column before the engines will start.

Though most automakers have had the chips for years, Hyundai and Kia have lagged behind the industry as a whole in installing them on many models, thereby allowing thieves to exploit the security gap.

https://www.nrk.no/norge/justisminister-mehl-hadde-tiktok-pa-tjenestetelefonen-1.16280577

Gaute Wangen er førsteamanuensis ved NTNU og ekspert i risikostyring av informasjonssikkerhet. Han forteller at TikTok er verstingen av alle appene nå.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/

An internal investigation by ByteDance, the parent company of video-sharing platform TikTok, found that employees tracked multiple journalists covering the company, improperly gaining access to their IP addresses and user data in an attempt to identify whether they had been in the same locales as ByteDance employees.

According to materials reviewed by Forbes, ByteDance tracked multiple Forbes journalists as part of this covert surveillance campaign, which was designed to unearth the source of leaks inside the company following a drumbeat of stories exposing the company’s ongoing links to China.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/02/tiktok-tells-european-users-its-staff-in-china-get-access-to-their-data

TikTok is spelling out to its European users that their data can be accessed by employees outside the continent, including in China, amid political and regulatory concerns about Chinese access to user information on the platform.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/10/20/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-29/chinese-government-asked-tiktok-for-stealth-propaganda-account

A Chinese government entity responsible for public relations attempted to open a stealth account on TikTok targeting Western audiences with propaganda, according to internal messages seen by Bloomberg.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/25/tiktok-insiders-say-chinese-parent-bytedance-in-control.html

Former TikTok employees say there is cause for concern when it comes to the popular social media app’s Chinese parent company.

They say ByteDance has access to TikTok’s American user data and is closely involved in the Los Angeles company’s decision-making and product development. 

Some cybersecurity experts worry that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spread propaganda or censorship to American audience, or to exercise influence over users who may come to regret what they posted on the service.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-permission-to-collect-biometric-data-on-u-s-users-including-faceprints-and-voiceprints/

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/cheap-chinese-smartphones-malware

Preinstalled malware on low-cost Chinese phones has stolen data and money from some of the world’s poorest people.

Current security concerns about Chinese apps and hardware have largely focused on potential back doors in Huawei’s 5G equipment. More recently, people have focused on how user data collected by TikTok could be abused by the company and the Chinese government. But an overlooked and ongoing threat is the consistent presence of malware on cheap smartphones from Chinese manufacturers and how it exacts a digital tax on people with low incomes.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-indonesia-exclusive-idUSKCN2591ML

local moderators were instructed by a team from ByteDance’s Beijing headquarters to delete articles seen as “negative” about Chinese authorities

https://www.nrk.no/urix/tiktok-_-sa-kan-du-vaere-i-lomma-pa-en-fremmed-makt-1.15105847

Musikk- og danse-appen TikTok lastes ned for uskyldig moro og tidtrøyte. Men kan den bli et redskap for å undergrave demokratiske land?

https://stratechery.com/2020/the-tiktok-war/

https://nrkbeta.no/2020/07/11/forbudt-slettet-og-fjernet-dette-skjer-med-tiktok/

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/26/21304228/tiktok-security-ios-clipboard-access-ios14-beta-feature

A beta feature on iOS 14 showed what the app was up to

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/us/politics/totok-app-uae.html

ToTok, an Emirati messaging app that has been downloaded to millions of phones, is the latest escalation of a digital arms race.

ToTok is a cleverly designed tool for mass surveillance, according to the technical analysis and interviews, in that it functions much like the myriad other Apple and Android apps that track users’ location and contacts.

On the surface, ToTok tracks users’ location by offering an accurate weather forecast. It hunts for new contacts any time a user opens the app, under the pretense that it is helping connect with their friends, much like how Instagram flags Facebook friends. It has access to users’ microphones, cameras, calendar and other phone data. Even its name is an apparent play on the popular Chinese app TikTok.