It's particularly annoying with account cookies and such when I'm already authenticated in the normal browser.
I’ve heard of developers adding the in-app thing despite hating it personally just to reduce the support burden.
There’s the tiny “back button” in iOS that takes you back to an app which triggered an app context switch, but it’s barely noticeable and barely reachable on most current iPhones. I swipe between apps even when I do notice that. But I’m not sure how widely it’s even known you can swipe between apps.
(For anyone reading who doesn’t know, if you have an iPhone without a home button, you can swipe left/right on the space right at the bottom of your screen, where you normally would swipe up, and it’s like the cmd/alt+tab default. You can also do this on the URL bar in Safari to switch tabs, if you stick with the default bottom URL bar.)
No need to poison the well for everybody else due to wanting to avoid a "support burden."
My own product/company has a few common issues like this, and the help page strategy works fine. Answering emails for these types of things is not a big deal as long as you have stock answers/pages prepared.
But ok, let's say I am giving too much credit to people. Just put a setting in to use the default browser for those of us that want it?
It’s quite clearly a user hostile decision, but they presumably did it for all that activity tracking they can do.
What I could see them doing is making apps declare URLs that they need access to. Basically, you get full functionality on declared URLs, but if you are just using WebView for a "generic" in-app browser you lose the ability to inspect random pages.
This is exactly what I'm expecting, because that's how they've handled other similar restrictions. Becoming a full on web browser with the iOS 14 web browser entitlement will probably be the only way to not be bound to a list of URLs, and they don't hand that entitlement out willy nilly.
Apple „just“ need to enforce it.
Browsers would get a pass where Apple would come up with some rule but clearly the Instagram app, the Facebook app, the TikTok app, the Gmail app, the Google app, are not browser where as Firefox, Chrome, Brave are.
1) If you go with the "associated domains only" approach that requires proof of domain ownership(usually through adding TXT into the ZONE files), you lose the category of apps that function by transferring a session of a website into the app to function. This is a popular approach for reader apps that don't have an official official affiliation with the website they interact with or the website doesn't have an API to do direct app connection.
2) If you go with the route of pre-defined domains that might not be associated officially, you fix the problem in the first point but you also create a vector of attack to scoop data from targeted websites. For example you can collect data from reddit, facebook and instagram. 3 websites only but more than enough to cause headaches.
"TIKTOK WOULD LIKE TO READ THE AND MODIFY THE CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE - ACCEPT/DENY"
For legitimate reasons, the app can inform the user about why they need to do this and the user can accept that and even better, they can implement legitimate APIs.
While SFSafari is a much better choice for what the apps are doing here, WKWeb has legitimate uses.
I suppose Apple could lock it behind an entitlement, but that would take a while as WKWeb is already very prevalent and people won’t replace it on short notice like a point release. Even iOS 17 seems fast.
Plus there is the general power issue. Apple could have done many things over the years to FB (and IG) but they’ve been treating them with kid gloves because those apps are so important. You can definitely add TikTok to that list.
Any change would be a huge nightmare for apps like ours, potentially impacting many other apps as well.
I expect app-bound domains to become required for all apps in iOS 16 or possibly iOS 17. There will probably a be a limit and some review on which domains an app specify as app-bound. Web browser that use WKWebView already have a special entitlement that excludes them from this.
One could just follow what browsers do for extensions: have the developer specify a list of all the hostnames that they want to enable script injection on in a manifest, and ask for permissions at the start. Anything not on the list must be loaded via a sandboxed browser.
Keeps legitimate uses functional while preventing broad script injection.
are you just making a prediction, or do you have knowledge of this?
I use Apple’s new Lockdown Mode on the beta iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. I generally like it. It largely disables arbitrary JavaScript, as far as I know. A few times a week, I will turn off Lockdown temporarily for a few minutes for a web site if there are any problems. This is usually Amazon.com’s Kindle preview feature.
It disables JavaScript JIT compilation, which makes it slower but more secure.
It should not disable any JavaScript execution itself.
I thought lockdown mostly applied to system stuff (including Safari).
Whether if it is collecting biometric data, voice prints, reading the clipboard, collecting information around local network devices and now abusing the in-app browser to further collect user data, the same social networks will try anything to abuse the iOS system to collect as much data as they can.
Given that Facebook did the exact same invasive actions and was fined in the billions, there is enough evidence of these invasive data collection practices that TikTok has done over the years to be worthy of a multi-billion dollar fine.
There is no exceptions, excuses or any room for double standards.
Does Apple Lockdown help in this situation? I thought that typical TikTok use just involved scrolling and watching video content. Are users who only view content subject to this security flaw?
Thanks in advance for any clarification.
Also, off topic but doesn’t YouTube’s “Shorts” take the place of TikTok? I have my Google privacy settings set so YouTube can store my viewing history for one month so I get reasonable recommendations. Does TikTok have similar settings?
> TikTok iOS subscribes to every tap on any button, link, image or other component on websites rendered inside the TikTok app.
> TikTok iOS uses a JavaScript function to get details about the element the user clicked on, like an image (document.elementFromPoint)
And that's just a sample of the calls the author was able to find.
Perhaps Apple should ban in-app browsers? But what about Safari? Apple itself collects and benefits from Safari data for its ad product
What they do that is publicly known is not bad. Maybe there is something bad they're doing but these random HN top stories are not it. If NSA/US govt really wants us to avoid tiktok it needs better convincing than "omg they're stealing the x,y of your finger when you tap on an image."
TikTok isn't the only app abusing this. Instagram and Facebook will both do sneaky things like respond to the content of the page you're browsing (asking to save passwords in their own private keychain, showing context specific information, etc.)
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You're not exposed to any of these if you don't open a link inside the in-app browser.
The most common reason to click a link in their in-app browser is an ad... so obviously TikTok, Instagram and Facebook are using the in-app browser to track your interactions after the ad click and sell the data
yes but i doubt the hundreds of millions of users, many of which are children, know this
Non-technical people don't have a concept of "in app browser sandboxing". In their minds they clicked on an ad, they're still inside TikTok, TikTok's UI is showing, TikTok will show prompts based on the content shown... they probably assume TikTok has access to that page?
Honestly I'm more annoyed that Apple allows big apps to use the loophole that is the legacy webview than I am that TikTok uses that webview to do the exact single thing it's good for... having full control over the web content you're showing in app.
Now you could go really far to get around it. Request resources yourself and hand them to WKWebView directly so no CSP is served but that’s not going to be easy. You’d have to scan for any other resources that might get loaded, pull those, inject them correctly, etc.
Seems like it would be very fragile.
> [...] they use JavaScript to offer some of their functionality, like a password manager.
Basically a 3rd-party browser needs to use JS to offer any features or real benefit over simply using Safari. But as a TikTok user you have no benefit when all links open inside the app with tons of custom JS injected that seems to be mainly for tracking you.
"Protecting the user" is supposed to be one reasons they take a 30% cut of all in app purchases. Apple even uses this as an excuse to not allow side loading apps.
How are they not blocking this?
not to mention the elephant in the room: Apple Finds Its Next Big Business: Showing Ads on Your iPhone https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-14/apple-...
Even so, I disapprove of Apple’s forays into ads and wish them swift and hard failures in the area.
It is actually quite a hard problem. The App Store does ban third-party browser engines so maybe they can add a restriction that apps can only inject code into verified domains. Surely a few legitimate use cases would be lost (IDK apps that let you annotate websites or something) but it may largely mitigate this issue. Maybe there can be a permission or a review entitlement that allows this for valid use cases (as decided by Apple of course).
It makes it so I can easily select and refine which HTML element I want to add to a custom blocking list.
I think that would be impossible without this.
This is why we continue to lock down browsers and provide ever narrower permission classes.
But as we know, that which can be used by advertising/tracking people will be used by them.
So frustrating to even explain to people that this thing they are scrolling isn't their own, Safari/Chrome!
How does Apple even remotely allow this?
They ban apps for the most arbitrary of reasons, I know small devs that get bumped for tiny things.
This is beyond ridiculous.
A company that has ~100M american users, and CCP on the board with a CEO/Board completely and publicly compliant with the 'wishes of the CCP' including reporting any and all sorts of things, is literally able to collect any data including passwords.
WTF.
How is this not a giant story?
How does the US Government not issue an immediate statement/warning to the general public and talk to Apple/Google about this issue?
My gosh.
I will say that it doesn't look great to have a `keypress` listener on the window/document...certainly that's not used for anything good.
We can’t know what TikTok uses the subscription for
According to the code on that page, the function named 'i' needs to be investigated further. It appears to return another function which is then called to process the keypress event.
You can also detect bots, even skillfully crafted ones.
There is a call for comment by the fcc right now about how people feel about data collection and surveillance. Please go and send in a comment to regulate these behaviours
Given that Facebook was fined in the billions for this abuse in the past, TikTok should also be fined for this with in the billions of dollars.
We have learned nothing around this and have repeated the same problems in social networks a decade later.
Also, cannot avoid thinking that Facebook was accused of (somewhat similar) web site spying long time before Tiktok existed.
Banning it isn't for geopolitical reasons although I think those are valid given the CCP's publicly stated agenda (Global communist revolution essentially. Millions of lives sacrificed for Marx). It's just that one less mind hacking app for children is a good thing. What about FB, Insta who are just as bad etc? Simply doesn't matter. If people left FB for TikTok, and TikTok disappears, some significant % won't come back and that's a win.
It doesn’t matter much what some state’s publicly stated stuff is. There’s no reason to believe any country blindly. Their actions speak louder.
Trump was right about that
Same with housing, why can Chinese nationals buy housing here, while I can't do so there?
Of course politicians don't really understand tech enough to realize how quickly (and how unfairly) China is growing to dominate the space.
> Same with housing, why can Chinese nationals buy housing here, while I can't do so there?
Housing is a completely different conversation, and the answer there is that existing homeowners would never allow the influx of foreign cash into their local markets to stop, and they are the ones with all the influence in this country, not the renters or aspiring buyers.
This is really quite false.
Rules are broken all the time, they are difficult to arbitrate, and often they are not.
The CCP requires foreign entities to surrender critical IP, then hand it off to a state-backed competitors, they don't allow full ownership of local companies, there's direct political interference including the requirement for all companies to directly hire CCP members as oversight, and if it's important enough, to have the CCP right on the board.
All of this in addition to the death by a thousand cuts the system can make for foreign competitors via local bureaucratic requirements at every level.
This applies not only to commerce but critical institutions such as WHO which are directly compromised by China (i.e. not allowing any material investigation into 'lab leak origins' etc. etc..)
The OP presented the situation very clearly: there is no way in any scenario that China would allow an American company to have a TikTok like app used by large swaths of the Chinese population, controlled by the US.
Neither would Russia.
On some level, that kind of thing is a bit understandable, I don't quite mind if China would not allow 'Facebook' to be the #1 communications tool in China, that said, it should be reciprocal.
And for other things, like high-speed rail etc. China has been grabbing IP using leverage that never should have been allowed.
See Golden rule and Silver rule.
So China ran away with renewable tech developement because greedy Wall Street executives didn't want competition to their lucrative fossil fuel investments. Fucking retards.
Distributing software for you to run on your own hardware is speech, though, and it's protected by the first amendment. You can license the distribution of your own software if you want, but you can't tell me I can't give you software if you want it.
Basically: how do you think this would work, in a way that wouldn't also make Linux or gcc or whatever available only at the whim of the government?
Any company injecting keyloggers or monitoring systems into web content should be subject to the same equally damning judgement. Just because it's China doesn't make keylogging bad. Keylogging is bad because keylogging is bad. Companies like Fullstory [0] and Hotjar [1] are used all over the western internet and effectively act as full session recorders. Sure, used well they can be used for analytics, but you could just as easily inject Fullstory or Hotjar into an in-app browser and suddenly record all data a user does. Should this be possible? No. Does it help to just ban China? I mean sure, but why should you be okay with a western company doing it?
TikTok is a short video app used mostly by younger generations. It produces highly accurate recommendations for videos to watch. We're not talking about something like a banking app, a healthcare app, or even a messaging app. It's a video-based social network. There are bigger fish to fry than TikTok in almost every single possible category of app. Yet, TikTok is always brought up because it's from China.
We all shit our pants because Russia used Meta, and American company, to influence the 2020 election. Imagine the same amount of data, a more accurate algorithm, and entirely within the control of foreign actors.
It doesn't matter if it is China or Colombia or Japan, a foreign company have that much influence over the opinions citizens of a country is dangerous.
If the leaders in the West weren't concerned about the "average Joe" and their (mis)understandings of politics and situations with complex nuances, then the West would likely be a true Democracy (like ancient Athens, where the People vote on issues such as War and Taxes) instead of a Republic or Democratic Republic (where the People elect a small group to vote on their behalf).
Regardless, I think our Western leaders SHOULD be concerned with the "average Joe" mentality. That includes, by a wide margin, propaganda efforts by other nations.
https://rankingdigitalrights.org/2021/07/14/testing-tiktok-d...
There are _far less_ antisocial practices featured on Chinese TikTok than on Western (specifically American) TikTok. However, the comparison to Instagram and Facebook doesn't differ all that much, so maybe they're simply giving us the content we want.
And I don't just mean the politicians. I mean downright to the pension funds, hedge funds, and retail investor.
They are all long China and especially Chinese tech. If you start declaring war on Chinese tech you are going to obliterate a huge amount of money all to protect the privacy that US voters don't care about privacy in the least. So why would they do such a silly thing?
National security? Please, the son of a sitting President is a crack user with huge ties to China. Nothing some Tiktor user could divulge through the in app browser could ever compare.
Because we are the West, and China is China. We have different laws and customs.
And on the merits, it is unhealthy like all social media, but it still feels so much more fun and worthwhile than facebook or insta where everything feels like a competition to have the best life. So much of Tiktok still feels like vine 2.0
You idiot.
Remember that this is a country that regularly threatens a war that would likely involve the US.
Also the fact that the entire world relies on China is a pretty good place to start.
Also, if you don't know facebook, instagram also have same issue as tiktok. Maybe government should enforce privacy requirement for all apps including facebook and instagram instead of blanket banning Chinese apps.
In the west you typically have to be rich to be a politician, in China you have to be smart, then you get rich(and ban the NYT when your corruption is uncovered).
China and the West are both controlled by factors not really in line with helping the stereotypical Common Person.
For example, when the media in The West "front pages" the smog in Beijing keep in mind The West owns a good part of that. It's not like what's manufactured in China stays in China. I would presume their water ways are nasty as well.
Just one example mind you. The point is, there are other imbalances. That's not to say TikTok should get a free pass, only that it's complicated than an app for app comparison.
I'm not 100% sure on this at this point, but I think if Facebook/Google/etc were willing to do the same they would be allowed in China too, but as it stands they can't/won't comply with Chinese law (I may be mistaken on this, haven't read up on the topic in quite some time)
> How we can allow a Chinese social media app in the west, while any non-Chinese social media apps aren't allowed there?
Easy. The laws are different.
"Non-Chinese social media app"s are not banned in China, just that if you run one it need to be licensed (https://beian.miit.gov.cn/) first before you can start servicing. Licensing is difficult since there's requirements about keeping data domestic, having physical presence should legal enforcement be necessary (i.e. there are people to arrest if something goes wrong), and complying with takedown requests (both copyright and political). Western big tech companies (rightfully) do not want to comply, so they do not get licenses, and thus have no presence. Attempting to "just provide service" without a license will result in blacklisting via the GFW as enforcement.
"Allow a Chinese social media app in the west" -- this is also more complex. If TikTok or friends violate laws in the west they are also liable for any punishment. For example, TikTok and WeChat comply with the GDPR in Europe and keep EU data local to the EU. If they didn't they'd be looking at a potentially huge fine and possibly getting banned. Similarly they also comply with copyright stuff like DMCAs. If they didn't, the FBI can seize their domain and compel ISPs to not resolve it just like the GFW (this has precedent and has been done before).
So the meta question becomes: Are the current protections in the west sufficient? To which the answer is probably no.
But in any case, in the free world, whether a Chinese social media app's presence is allowed to be maintained should not be dictated by ideology, but rather through real demonstrated evidence of misbehavior and/or harm (which is why research like this is important).
The thing is, and I don't believe this to be controversial, that China has built a digital database of all (or most) of its citizens based on the data they collected. Now the question is, do they stop there, or do they have a file on all of us? The technology is cheap, and I think based on video data etc that they collect through apps like this, they might well build a social graph of the rest of the world (i.e. who does exist, what are their interests/beliefs/political affiliations, and what are the relations between those entities.)
The repercussions of using such apps might be, that they have info on citizens in the rest of the world, which might allow them to nudge people into giving into their political goals (this has already been happening after people posted stuff critical of China on sites like Twitter) - and I think that we have to ask ourselves how that could threaten our democracy.
Simply because when XXX nationals come with all cash offers and willing to pay above market & waive all contingencies, sellers are willing to sell.
It just so happens that certain nationals are more prone to having that sort of money than others.
And, don't forget farmland.
Seems we'll look back on all of this at some point and decide maybe it wasn't the best idea.
If that happens, I imagine our Congress will brew up some justification for seizing all that Chinese owned property.
Fundamentally west can't get too faraway from these ideals or it will end up destroying its hegemony. Huawei has already been banned, but what comes after social media? And if some action is taken, will other countries start banning western imports specially cultural and services?
The answer both of our questions is of course money. Our version of capitalism is dominated by cult-like disciples of financial management principles.
If the US fucks with TikTok, well maybe they’ll mess with Office 365.
The only way to prevent this is to create laws specifically targeting the Chinese for being Chinese, because 1) the chance for domestic regulation on social media and surveillance is very low, and 2) any regulation we're likely to pass would be about "spreading misinformation" and "foreign interference," so would probably end up closely resembling Chinese regulations.
Suddenly doesn't seem to work so well when a Chinese app is granted that privilege.
[0] https://www.unipi.it/index.php/welcome-and-support/item/7413...
Trade limitations have always and will always exist. Heck there are hundreds of limitations in trade between the US and Canada - including the complete illegality of Kinder Eggs in the US, which I still find hilarious.
If I click a link inside the Instagram app, that for whatever reason takes me to gmail or microsoft or wherever that requires authentication, and I decide to login on that page so I can view the link in question, Meta and TikTok are able to capture my credentials and ingest the data back in to their metrics and analytics pipelines?
Is that even f*cking legal?
Instagram's privacy policy: https://privacycenter.instagram.com/policy/
>We call all of the things you can do on our Products "activity." We collect your activity across our Products and information you provide, such as: [...] Apps and features you use, and what actions you take in them.
Tiktok's USA privacy policy: https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy-us
>We collect information when you create an account or use the Platform. We also collect information you share with us from third-party social network providers, and technical and behavioral information about your use of the Platform. [...]
>We may collect information about you from third-party services, such as advertising partners, data providers, and analytics providers.
Aren't EULAs fun?
I mean, this is literally XSS. And it's not just Facebook and Tiktok, unless this is a private API scummy apps can and are (I guarantee) doing this to steal user passwords and bank credentials. Your average person already needs to know that they can't type in their credentials unless the URL says facebook.com, now they also need to check the app is Safari. And you may not even need to enter credentials, a malicious app could just load my-bank.com and extract the cookies or local storage or send API requests.
If true...wow. That's a massive security oversight. But it seems to massive I'm not 100% convinced. Especially because websites are tightly sandboxed from other websites and apps are tightly sandboxed from other apps. Yeah you could in theory re-implement your own web browser in your app which looks and acts like Safari, but in practice Apple technically forbids other web-views, and it's really hard to fully implement a web browser and not make it immediately apparent anyways.
Those were never trustworthy.
The problem is when they render external websites and unsuspecting users think they are using the phone's web browser. That is something Apple/Google can have rules about without banning/restricting web views.
Android has these in-app browsers too, they may or may not be subject to this.
A lot of apps use webviews to render HTML, often in ways where you wouldn't even notice it's web content. Apps shouldn't use webviews to render external web sites but nothing in the APIs restrict them from doing so (recent versions of iOS have made it seem like they're heading in that direction but nothing concrete).
Easiest thing would be for Apple and Google to enforce this via denying app approvals. Would be a very interesting fight against apps this popular, though.
Obviously both Android & iOS let you open things in the default browser.
iOS has SFSafariViewController, which more-or-less corresponds to Chrome Custom Tabs on Android. These basically make a browser UI that is in the of the app for the purposes of multitasking/app-switching, but which is controlled by the browser. Devs can't inject code into these.
And both have WebViews, which let the dev do more-or-less whatever they want inside their own app.
Probably the developer account banned too.
It is Spyware. Nothing else.
/s
I’m glad it’s reported on, but it’s almost uninteresting hearing the the same plot line over and over.
Fed manufactured content with artificial mental stimulus
Privacy got infringed in every second
ex) Kiaboyz wreaking havoc in Columbus as videos of stealing Kia/Hyundai cars went viral on TikTok
Suffice to say that the bar isn't very high in America. This type of video would never catch on in places like Japan or Switzerland.
They'll use it to make their algorithm better, and they'll use it to better target ads.
Both of those things are good for me the user, so I'm fine with it.
And for those who don't like that, use a blocker, or don't use TikTok.
They use it to make their algorithm better, and they'll use it to better target ads. Both of these things are good for me the shopper, so I'm fine with it. If they sell that data to other companies, have their employees LOL at my problems, or secretly pass it on to the police or spy agencies, that is totally cool. Nothing to hide here!
And for those who don't like it, don't shop at this particular store.
The difference is that this was done before by Meta / Facebook and they were fined in the millions, and even by billions by regulators like the FTC over this. This same problems a decade ago are being repeated once again and we have learned nothing.
TikTok should be under the same regulations, especially when they are operating in many countries that have strict data privacy laws and given this unsurprising and extremely invasive data collection practice which is even worse than Facebook, they should be fined in the billions of dollars as a reminder that it applies to any social network, especially those with billions of users.
If left alone, it will only get worse for everyone.
