Senate Bill Seeks To Ban Chinese App TikTok From Government Work Phones (techcrunch.com) 45
On Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced legislation to further restrict the use of the popular viral video app TikTok on government devices. TechCrunch reports: The bill seeks to expand existing federal guidance prohibiting use of TikTok to encompass any U.S. government-issued device. The legislation is the most recent effort by U.S. lawmakers to limit Chinese-built tech software, devices and components for fear that those products have the potential to be leveraged by the Chinese government. While other Asia-based social apps have struggled to gain a global foothold, TikTok quickly amassed more than a billion users worldwide and became a household name alongside American social media stalwarts like Facebook and YouTube. The app is owned by Beijing-based tech startup ByteDance.
Growth does appear to be slowing for ByteDance, but the app's ubiquity raises alarms among China hawks like Hawley, who warns that the app could be compelled to share data with the Chinese government. In a release with the bill's text, Sen. Scott called TikTok a "risk to our networks and a threat to our national security." "As many of our federal agencies have already recognized, TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on government devices," Hawley said.
Growth does appear to be slowing for ByteDance, but the app's ubiquity raises alarms among China hawks like Hawley, who warns that the app could be compelled to share data with the Chinese government. In a release with the bill's text, Sen. Scott called TikTok a "risk to our networks and a threat to our national security." "As many of our federal agencies have already recognized, TikTok is a major security risk to the United States, and it has no place on government devices," Hawley said.
Nah (Score:3, Interesting)
TikTok is great. It's endless entertainment and the app is fast, doesn't crash, has like zero load times, and you can deny whatever permissions you want.
Further, if you care about spying, why are you using an Apple or Google phone, or Twitter, Facebook, etc.??
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Isn't TikTok just a bunch of girls dancing to music? As a Boomer I don't get it.
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No. I mostly get videos of aminals doing shit with the "don't be suspicious" sound or situations on a job site with the "in a world of OSHA violations" sound.
Re: Nah (Score:2)
It's ok. As a millennial I dont get it either.
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Don't get me started on haptics, of what's physc
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Keep your "U.S. government-issued device" for gov work only and always expect a random FOIA request for any chat, images, use.
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This has to be all sorts of crazy story. You would think a government issued phone would come will all the allowed apps pre-installed and the ability for the user to install apps removed, you would think they would have to go to the office to have a new approved app installed and all updates would be done in office. Sounds like a bit of a wacked out free for all on US government phones.
Government issue phone, all allowed apps pre-installed and the ability for the user to update or install apps removed.
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Not necessarily all apps pre-installed, but the phones should be limited to a government (NSA?) managed app store instead of Google Play, with no ability to install another app store or sideload apps.
Attempted sideloading or rooting should be an immediate firing offence.
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You forget, bribery is now ignored, so whoever gets the attention of the department head is now the "official" supplier of phones. Standards are obstructions to free-dumb, as is consulting with anyone even vaguely technically qualified since they're part of the "reality-based community".
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and you can deny whatever permissions you want.
Hah! That doesn't even work for Facebook. You only think you turned tracking off.
Further, if you care about spying, why are you using an Apple or Google phone, or Twitter, Facebook, etc.??
Because we can put our hands on some people and get them to stop. Or spend time in Club Fed. Good luck serving a subpoena in the Chinese Pentagon.
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The "Chinese Pentagon" doesn't have any power over me, and TikTok can't fucking read your shit on your phone unless you let it.
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The "Chinese Pentagon" doesn't have any power over me
And you are probably not a US government worker. And you certainly don't use your government phone to watch underage "girls" dancing around.
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And you certainly don't use your government phone to watch underage "girls" dancing around.
Only because I didn't realize this was an option :P
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STFU chinese shill
What do the NSA and GCHQ fear? (Score:1)
Fitness apps used by US special forces globally?
Fitness apps used by the US navy globally?
Quality Russian anti virus services that actually work as designed and find all kinds of new malware?
VOIP, chat and other communications products, services?
Back to paperwork getting moved on a trolly around US gov buildings?
What have the NSA and GCHQ seen on their global internet?
No dancing skillz (Score:2)
The NSA/GCHQ don't want everyone to know that their agents have no dancing skillz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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> Fitness Apps
Already about two years late [theguardian.com] on that one
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So maybe they are all back in use on US mil ports, forts again on "any U.S. government-issued device"
Also recall the term "any U.S. government-issued device"... vs what could have been troops and UK/US special forces own very private "exercise regimes"...in 2018...
ie the NSA and GCHQ did not think to consider private network use in 2018.
Now its all about "any U.S. government-issued device".
Wonder what other apps are in use during the work day on "U.S
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Fitness apps used by US special forces globally? Fitness apps used by the US navy globally?
Fitness apps transmit location and can count number of users, something the military usually doesn't want anyone without the need to know to know.
Quality Russian anti virus services that actually work as designed and find all kinds of new malware?
Are you fucking serious? You think the Russians, knowing U.S. military personnel are using any of there "services", won't track and/or spy on them?
VOIP, chat and other communications products, services?
Again, tracking, counting and eavesdropping possibilities
Back to paperwork getting moved on a trolly around US gov buildings?
So, without fitness apps, the government has to go back to paper on EVERYTHING?
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Recall https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re 'the government has to go back"...
Yet the US gov is now taking a look at what is on their
Time to go back over a lot of digital things it seems... things the NSA missed and GCHQ did not tell the NSA about?
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Yet the use of fitness app was a thing to find US special forces doing their own sports in the past.. Recall https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] Re 'the government has to go back"... Yet the US gov is now taking a look at what is on their ... "U.S. government-issued" devices.
Time to go back over a lot of digital things it seems... things the NSA missed and GCHQ did not tell the NSA about?
The fitness app wasn't something the military used, it was something the military members used on their own. There's a big difference there, and it shows just how vulnerable any group can be to tracking and counting numbers with apps like this. The government is realizing (perhaps way later than they should have) that apps it's members install on both their personal and government issued devices can have a negative impact on security, and they're truing to eliminate that on the issued devices.
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What the GCHQ did to support the US gov and the NSA...
Re "something the military used" a network in some distant part of the world thats part of a US/Uk mil base?
Was that a US mil network connecting all that "military members used on their own" app?
The US mil allowed its own to use some new local UN/NGO/city/town/regional setup ISP on base with their own apps?
The NSA and GCHQ t
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This is what comes of letting conservatives set the budget priorities, technical staff that are overworked and underpaid being mismanaged by political appointees with absolutely no competence in the profession that they're supervising. I worked with a guy who had been deployed to Iraq to support comms for the troops, he almost got fired for reporting traffic from a couple of HQ computers to a notorious kiddie porn site. He said that the managerial incompetence among the technical contractors was truly a m
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Leaking data. A foreign government can see where potentially important people spend time and how long they meet with other important people. That or blackmail when they see someone spending time at a rub and tug.
WTF! (Score:2)
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Enjoying your two 15-minute breaks and lunch hour?
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Thanks but I'm an adult and not a teenage girl.
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The thing that surprised me is why on earth do they need a law to have what sounds like an entirely reasonable IT policy on government owned devices. It's been a while since I worked for the man, but isn't this the domain if the executive branch? Can't they just tell them to enact this new policy?
Have I missed something here?
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Its a symptom of having an entire branch of government whose sole job is to create new laws.
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Policies? Who's going to enforce policies? Technical staff have absolutely no power against political appointees, and those are the only people who fill all the upper echelons of the US gov't any more. We've had at least three Secretaries of State who ran their own email servers so that they could hide evidence and continue to use their absolutely-insecure and prohibited Blackberry phones, there are governors and congresscritters using Yahoo mail for official correspondence, at least one senator who unti
Sensible precaution (Score:2)
Work Phone? Trump should have already done this (Score:2)
Why can't Trump/DHS mandate that government systems are for official use only. If you put toys on the phone/laptop you are fired.
If you want to use a non-business app put it on your personal phone.
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That works fine until you get the guy who has a job because he donated (or daddy donated) $25,000 to the reelection campaign. You can't touch those guys.
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It's probably best if you get off the Internet entirely, then.
WTF? we don't need another law (Score:2)
This should be nothing more than a policy change.
The HR department or IT dept has jurisdiction here.
No senatorial intervention needed.
Next will be some joker claiming that since (insert stupid slimey app name here) was not prohibited by congress it must have been OK to install in on a Government device.
This is real simple, if the app is not on the approved list you may not use it on a government device.
Or better yet lock down the devices so the users are only able to install apps from the gov's play store (
Why only government? (Score:1)
It is cancer. And needs to be banned *completely*. :)
Together with the fully 100% equivalent Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook aka WhatsApp aka Instagram Reddit, anything and all by Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and most of all Twitter.
Uninstall it tomorrow or physically destroy your phone if you can't, ... or leave civilized society. Or, of you refuse to do either, get gibbed on sight.