TikTok's In-App Browser Reportedly Capable of Monitoring Anything You Type

[winxmac]

Haha! The most obvious thing ever has just been confirmed.
This isn’t just Tiktok, it’s all social media.
Delete Twitter Facebook, Instagram. None of it makes us happier and that’s a scientific fact.

Even if you delete your accounts and the apps, you still don't have 100% certainty that whatever data they have stored also goes away for good...

I have created and deleted several FB, Instagram, Twitter accounts and people I know personally repeatedly show up on suggestions on every new account I have created...

 

[1557750]

If you're worried about privacy get an android or linux privacy phone. I got rid of my iphone, iwatch, and ipad because of Apples bluetooth spy network and future on-device file spying.

This is about the app itself, not the phones security. If you agree to the terms, in an app, and they record your keystrokes, that’s on you. It’s on the app company if they never put it in the fine print.

And is the iWatch new? I’ve only heard of the Apple Watch 🤪

 

[jinnj]

This is why I hate in-app browser. Let's face it, Google, Facebook, they all do/did it, which is why they're insistence in forcing users to remain in their app with these in-app browser "experience." This is an issue on Android as well, where Google searches on Google app are sticking with Chrome/in-app browser by default even if I have another browser as my default browser.

There are always shenanigans like this. I wish for Apple to simply disable in-app browsers, and force any links to just use the default browser externally.

I think it will eventually become an option like notifications where you can limit which app can offer in-app browsers and just link directly to Safari.

 

[Haifisch]

Haha! The most obvious thing ever has just been confirmed.
This isn’t just Tiktok, it’s all social media.
Delete Twitter Facebook, Instagram. None of it makes us happier and that’s a scientific fact.

A+. I don't have FB, IG, Twitt, TT, Discord.....none of that crap. And I'm happier than a pig in poo.

 

[jinnj]

I think after reading the article I am less worried about the vulnerability. But I am now more aware of the danger of using inapp browser.

Tiktok and other apps that have this feature should have it turned off unless there is a support case opened and users require assistant. They need to respect users online privacy. They are not privacy conscious when it comes to app design and support.

It’s like saying “oh, i leave the backdoor open so I can debug anytime I want.” That’s insane.

It's not a vulnerability. It's a commonly used feature for in-app browsers but TikTok and FB have been abusing it so next step is to add another level of security options/questions to let the user know and disallow the in-app browser.

 

[jinnj]

If only it were that easy.

TikTok is this generation’s Instagram, which was that gen’s facebook, which was that gen’s facebook, which was that gen’s MySpace, which was that gen’s internet 1.0 chat rooms/forums, which was that gen’s weekend night meetups? Sleepovers? The roller rink? (I don’t know, pick your internet-less fun social activity.)

Social Media has hooked society good, and it would take a massive asteroid or solar flare to shut down electronics for society to stop using TikTok (or whatever the next hip social media app is).

Call me a conspiracist on this, but I believe TikTok was created to collect social behavior information and manipulate behavior/thought. ☹️

How could you forget FourSquare!!!

 

[TonyC28]

It’s ok everyone. As soon as Apple hears about this they’ll remove it from the App Store. What’s everyone worried about????? /s

 

[sw1tcher]

TikTok’s owner is helping China’s campaign of repression in Xinjiang, report finds

The report also implicates Huawei, a Chinese company at the center of national security concerns.

www.washingtonpost.com

Goes much deeper than just having manufacturing plants based over there.

Does Apple having a data center in China that's run by a state-owned Chinese company that will give the CCP access to any data they want count?

Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China (Published 2021)

Apple built the world’s most valuable business on top of China. Now it has to answer to the Chinese government.

www.nytimes.com

On the outskirts of this city in a poor, mountainous province in southwestern China, men in hard hats recently put the finishing touches on a white building a quarter-mile long with few windows and a tall surrounding wall. There was little sign of its purpose, apart from the flags of Apple and China flying out front, side by side.

Inside, Apple was preparing to store the personal data of its Chinese customers on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.

Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure.

 

[tgara]

Tik Tok has been on the iPhone and iPad App Store as an "essential" app for months. Why, why, why? What is so "essential" about an app that is purpose-built to track the user? Essential to who?

 

[JM]

How could you forget FourSquare!!!

Nooooooooooo! 🫣 haha

 

[mejsric]

i wonder whats our government doing?

 

[DHagan4755]

Um...spoken like a person who doesn't have kids.

Next you'll tell me I shouldn't allow those f**king Chromebooks in my house...both of my kids have an M1 MacBook Air, yet some of the school software won't run on the MacOS, even within the Chrome browser. So they have to use those f**king Chromebooks to get their homework done.

The sad fact is that, for many, the choice isn't simple. Don't want your kids on Twitter? Teachers post assignments on it. Don't want your kids on SnapChat? That's where their friends communicate. I hate social media platforms...but without them, you might as well send your kids to a leper colony and hope they learn to appreciate solo basket-weaving.

And by the time the regulators catch up to these shenanigans, millions will be compromised.

Today, we read about how early industrial companies unapologetically polluted our water and air and think "wow, how could they have let that happen!?!". In 20 years, historians will not be kind when describing a society that glorified unregulated unicorns and exponentially scalable platforms without guardrails.

We are a silly little species. We learn very, very slowly.

Sounds like your kids control you — instead of the other way around.

Tell your kid's teacher that Twitter/Facebook/social media platforms is an inappropriate platform to post classwork. Talk your school board about adopting a learning managing system, like Schoology or Canvas, for the district that the school has control over. You have to insist the school adopt a social media policy, and that they not allow teachers to post assignments on social media sites like Twitter. Having students visit these platforms for official school business opens a few cans of worms.

You have to start leading & stop being passive.

 

[Shasterball]

Lol -- have fun folks. These apps are cesspools.

 

[JippaLippa]

I understand not everyone has to be as paranoid as me, however I don't understand how a user could willingly use an app knowing it tracks you in such a creepy manner...
And I'm not talking about cookies and targeted ads...
Tiktok goes beyond...

 

[T Coma]

This sounds like new information- a new concern even! Too bad no one in a position of power ever tried to fight it, or even warn us about it.

 

[ghostface147]

Yah really had to twist that knife with the VPN reference, didn’t you? lol 🤣

I know right?

 

[indychris]

Haha! The most obvious thing ever has just been confirmed.
This isn’t just Tiktok, it’s all social media.
Delete Twitter Facebook, Instagram. None of it makes us happier and that’s a scientific fact.

Ummm, isn’t THIS social media?

 

[contacos]

And what does Apple do about it? NOTHING because if big players do it, it’s fine yet small developer get their app rejected for random reasons all the time

 

[jz0309]

And it took this long to figure this out???

 

[Radeon85]

Should be pulled from the store ASAP, along with Facebook and Instagram.

 

[smoking monkey]

Ummm, isn’t THIS social media?

MR has no app that is installed on your phone is the first significant difference, but...
I guess you could call forums a type of social media, but they predated the term social media and many consider forums to be a separate entity.
For sure some people use this forum for social reasons, but most use it for Apple products and information. They got rid of a lot of the controversial social forums on here last year and it was the best thing MR has ever done. It's also anonymous if you so desire. If you use your proper email for sites like this though, it's probably best to stop. Throwaway names and emails are always the best. Better yet, use the new Hide My Email from Apple to stop any possible issues with getting your info sold.

 

[NLLV]

What classifies as ties to the CCP? Don’t you think Apple has them? With all of their factories and contractors in China, surely it is so. CCP has ties with every major corporation you deal with on the daily. TikTok is probably just one of the more blatant because it involves surveillance and sucking up your information.

Simply stated, the law in China is that all companies need to report data on users to the CCP. The data is technically property of the CCP because the company is ordered that they do not really own it, and need to surrender it. Since the company that owns TikTok (ByteDance) is Chinese, it means that the CCP has dibs on information.

That information is "stored in the USA" but it is available to ByteDance employees whenever they are called to take it, and is in the hands of the CCP whenever they want it.

 

[Naraxus]

Trump was right. This app should have been banned years ago.

 

[Nermal]

MR has no app that is installed on your phone is the first significant difference, but...
I guess you could call forums a type of social media, but they predated the term social media and many consider forums to be a separate entity.
For sure some people use this forum for social reasons, but most use it for Apple products and information. They got rid of a lot of the controversial social forums on here last year and it was the best thing MR has ever done. It's also anonymous if you so desire. If you use your proper email for sites like this though, it's probably best to stop. Throwaway names and emails are always the best. Better yet, use the new Hide My Email from Apple to stop any possible issues with getting your info sold.

It's an interesting line. I wouldn't consider a forum to be "social media"; I've been using them since the 90s and I don't believe the term had even been coined back then.

One of my most frequently-used phone apps lets me send one-on-one textual messages to friends, with the occasional image/video attachment. It's effectively MMS. Yet the iOS Screen Time feature categorises it as "social media" rather than something like "communication".

 

[_Spinn_]

Linux phone?? 🫢 be still my heart.

Long live webOS.

Loved webOS and my Palm PDAs before it.