• PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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    2 days ago

    This is a pretty impressive amount of deflection.

    “All apps on iOS are obfuscated, so it’s not important that TikTok on Android takes extra trouble to obfuscate itself in a very weird way which other Android apps generally don’t do.”

    “All Windows apps work by downloading new binaries for themselves, because there’s no package management, so it’s not important that TikTok on Android takes extra trouble to bypass the package management and enable downloading custom per-user executables and running them.”

    “Some apps have vulnerabilities by accident, so it’s not important that TikTok has a remote code execution vulnerability built in on purpose.”

    “Apps have a security model, which by the way can be jailbroken, so it’s not important if something malicious happens within the app. Actually, forget what I said about jailbreaking.”

    You haven’t actually addressed anything I said, just threw a whole bunch of words about related topics to make it sound like what I described about this particular topic is, within the scope of this topic, a normal thing. It’s not.

    • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      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.

      • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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        2 days ago

        Caring about this obfuscation is comical and directly leans into my point about laymen getting scared by things every app does.

        I think we’re done here. I could repeat myself but it would be a waste of both our time.

        • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          I looked even further into your claims, the zip downloading thing has zero evidence that I can find other than one guy on Reddit. You’re right, we’re done here because you have zero evidence for your claims, and if it were true it is something allowed by Apple. Further still, that code is sandboxed by the OS.

          Talking about TikTok with Redditors feels like talking about seed oils with RFK.

          Oh no, this sausage has pork in it, like every other brand of sausage.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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            2 days ago

            I looked even further into your claims, the zip downloading thing has zero evidence that I can find other than one guy on Reddit.

            This is a pretty fair point. I think I saw one other analysis that was similar to the reddit guy, but most people who do security analysis of TikTok seem to say that it’s not especially nefarious, or any more so than the other ones (which are all pretty nefarious). I don’t know why I trust this guy and not those guys. I just found it credible and specific on the positive side, where the other side is proving the negative. But yeah, there might be a bit of confirmation bias there.