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https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/02/banning-tiktok.html
Congress is currently debating bills that would ban TikTok in the United States. We are here as technologists to tell you that this is a terrible idea and the side effects would be intolerable. Details matter. There are several ways Congress might ban TikTok, each with different efficacies and side effects. In the end, all the effective ones would destroy the free Internet as we know it:
There's no doubt that TikTok and ByteDance, the company that owns it, are shady. They, like most large corporations in China, operate at the pleasure of the Chinese government. They collect extreme levels of information about users. But they're not alone: Many apps you use do the same, including Facebook and Instagram, along with seemingly innocuous apps that have no need for the data. Your data is bought and sold by data brokers you've never heard of who have few scruples about where the data ends up. They have digital dossiers on most people in the United States.
If we want to address the real problem, we need to enact serious privacy laws, not security theater, to stop our data from being collected, analyzed, and sold—by anyone. Such laws would protect us in the long term, and not just from the app of the week. They would also prevent data breaches and ransomware attacks from spilling our data out into the digital underworld, including hacker message boards and chat servers, hostile state actors, and outside hacker groups. And, most importantly, they would be compatible with our bedrock values of free speech and commerce, which Congress's current strategies are not.
The essay goes on to list reasons why a TikTok ban by Congress would be ineffective, pointing out:
Right now, there's nothing to stop Americans' data from ending up overseas. We've seen plenty of instances—from Zoom to Clubhouse to others—where data about Americans collected by US companies ends up in China, not by accident but because of how those companies managed their data. And the Chinese government regularly steals data from US organizations for its own use: Equifax, Marriott Hotels, and the Office of Personnel Management are examples.
If we want to get serious about protecting national security, we have to get serious about data privacy. Today, data surveillance is the business model of the Internet. Our personal lives have turned into data; it's not possible to block it at our national borders. Our data has no nationality, no cost to copy, and, currently, little legal protection. Like water, it finds every crack and flows to every low place. TikTok won't be the last app or service from abroad that becomes popular, and it is distressingly ordinary in terms of how much it spies on us. Personal privacy is now a matter of national security. That needs to be part of any debate about banning TikTok.
Previously:
- Decades-old Law Forms Biggest Obstacle to Nationwide TikTok Ban, Lawmaker Says
- TikTok Would be Banned From US "for Good" Under Bipartisan Bill
- South Dakota Bans Government Employees From Using TikTok
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 02 2023, @08:42PM (2 children)
I wanted Jolla to succeed. Actually, I wanted Qt/Nokia to succeed but after that dumpster fire Jolla was a potential worthy successor.
I have a theory based on observations such as: In 2006 I coded a Qt app which would play back .mp4 video stop and start under software control, I took (a ripped copy of) Monsters Incorporated, would show a 5-10 second clip, then put a math or multiple choice or missing letter or whatever puzzle on the bottom of the screen, when the correct answer was input the video would play another 5-10 seconds and then pause again with another question. Sometimes the questions would correlate with what was happening on the screen. That video taught my non-verbal profoundly autistic six year old to type on a standard keyboard in less than 2 hours, maybe it didn't teach him but it certainly got him to demonstrate he could do it when the best school had managed to get him to demonstrate was use of a touch screen with their lame Starfall software. So, that software I wrote worked on iOS in 2006,7 and maybe 8, then it mysteriously wouldn't work anymore on the next iOS update.
Similarly, I wrote an .mp3 auto-dj application on Qt5/Ubuntu 18.04 in early 2020. It worked fine there, and in Raspbian, when I wrote it, but by Ubuntu 20.04 the way I was using the API broke - I managed to trace it down to a codec problem, the new default .mp3 codec in 22.04 was incompatible with the direct data reading I was doing (so I can start in the middle of big .mp3 files, cross-fade from one song to the next, etc.)
Those are just my experiences, but I'm fairly certain that attempting to work in the world of audio/video software, particularly software that _might_ be used to play content which the industry is still trying to claw revenue out of, is being intentionally manipulated in to a whack-a-mole game of: "oh, did you make an app? Isn't that cute, let me break it for you as often as possible so you have to employ a big team of developers to keep it working even on one platform." I see it happening with music player apps written by others in the app stores too. And in the Android and iOS app store environment, it isn't just entertainment oriented apps, it's freakin' everything. Sure, little developers can come up with cool ideas, but you've got to be a big player to keep up with the changes - this way the big players can reap ideas from the little guys, but the little guys never get anywhere without becoming a big potential lawsuit target.
The point of this rant? A true Linux phone? One that you can write an app for and that app will continue working for the next 20 years? Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "powers that be" are doing everything possible to kneecap those efforts and protect their "walled gardens" where they can pick out the little weeds and nurture relationships with the bigger producers of mutual income.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 04 2023, @12:32AM (1 child)
The phone, once it works, will continue to work until the spectrum gets allocated to an incompatible protocol.
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 04 2023, @01:15PM
Or the phone is no longer manufactured and the non replaceable battery dies.
Or the service providers no longer support it for their various reasons (lack of security updates?)
What still works after 30 years? My handheld HAM radios and repeaters.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]