Now, banned in India along with 58 other apps.
China Related
More on TikTok…
I found this on slashdot. If you don’t read slashdot, you are missing out. The comments have been known to make my coffee flow out of my nose. The original article was posted on reddit.
So I can personally weigh in on this. I reverse-engineered the app, and feel confident in stating that I have a very strong understanding for how the app operates (or at least operated as of a few months ago).
TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device… well, they’re using it.
Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)
Other apps you have installed (I’ve even seen some I’ve deleted show up in their analytics payload – maybe using as cached value?)
Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)
Whether or not you’re rooted/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
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
If true, this is damning evidence.
Using Chinese applications can be dangerous. Android users have it worse than Apple users. Apple is actively working on security. They also care about it. In Android’s case, having a platform that is more open to do what you want on it may sound great. You also leave yourself wide open for security breaches.
Chinese Apps
Great short article about TikTok misbehaving. I didn’t know this was a Chinese company but after discovering that, the article makes sense.
I recently signed up for a webinar for Postman. When I got the invite, I noticed it was a Zoom link. I did NOT attend. I don’t care how secure they say they are. The TikTok story just reinforces the reasons why you cannot trust Chinese based apps. Especially, the apps that have been “state sanctioned.”
From John Gruber at Daring Fireball…
TikTok, I probably don’t need to remind you, is a Chinese company whose popularity algorithm is a black box. If you use TikTok you should assume they’ve stored a copy of anything and everything you’ve had on your clipboard while using the app. Their slogan might as well be “Chinese state-sanctioned social media” — which to me says don’t use them, but maybe that’s just me.
Daring Fireball
Here are some known Chinese based apps via IndiaTVNews…
| Kwai |
| LiveMe |
| Bigo Live |
| Vigo Video |
| BeautyPlus |
| CamScanner |
| Clash of Kings |
| Mobile Legends |
| ClubFactory |
| Shein |
| Romwe |
| AppLock |
| Club Factory |
| VMate |
| Game of Sultans |
| Mafia City |
| Battle of Empires |
