Tag: Federal Communications Commission

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

One, the bans are generally designed to agitate a xenophobic base and give the impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” But the party that couldn’t care less about rampant corruption or privacy violations isn’t doing much of anything meaningful to thwart China. In fact, letting adtech, telecom, and app companies run rampant with little oversight runs contrary to any such goal.

Two, the bans distract the public and press from our ongoing failure on consumer privacy and security issues. Banning TikTok, but doing nothing about the accountability optional free for all that is the adtech and data-hoovering space, doesn’t actually fix anything. China can just obtain the same data from a universe of other international companies facing little real oversight on data collection.

Three, the ban is really just about money. Trump gave the game away with his proposal that TikTok be chopped up and sold to Oracle and Walmart. That cronyistic deal fell through, but it’s pretty clear that this moral panic is designed to either help TikTok’s competitors (Facebook lobbyists are very active on this front), or force the sale of the most popular app in modern history to GOP-allies. At which point they’ll engage in all the surveillance and influence efforts they pretend to be mad about.

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State TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance And Don’t Fix The Actual Underlying Problem

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

For decades, U.S. politicians leaders utterly refused to support most meaningful privacy protections for consumers. They opposed any nationwide privacy law, however straightforward. They opposed privacy rules for broadband ISPs. They also fought tooth and nail to ensure the nation’s top privacy enforcement agency, the FTC, lacked the authority, staff, funds, or resources to actually do its job.

State TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance And Don’t Fix The Actual Underlying Problem

South Dakota Bans Government Employees From Using TikTok. The Countless Other Apps And Services That Hoover Up And Sell Sensitive Data Are Fine, Though

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem put on a bit of a performance this week by announcing that the state would be banning government employees from installing TikTok on their phones. The effort, according to the Governor, is supposed to counter the national security risk of TikTok sharing consumer data with the Chinese government:

South Dakota Bans Government Employees From Using TikTok. The Countless Other Apps And Services That Hoover Up And Sell Sensitive Data Are Fine, Though

Related:

Oracle Cloud Data Center Locations

Oracle’s coziness with [US] government goes back to its founding

TikTok is such a danger, to national security, that US politicians have used it for campaigning, a tool of war propaganda, and former NATO employees work for them! Besides, TikTok stores user data with Oracle! This moral panic, over TikTok, is all about competition!

A tiny company with a UPS Store address could help the government get around browser security

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A report from The Washington Post has raised doubts about a root certificate authority used by Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and other tech companies with ties to US intelligence. The company in question, called TrustCor, works as a root certificate authority to validate the trustworthiness of websites — and while the report found no concrete evidence of wrongdoing, it raised significant questions about the company’s trustworthiness.

A tiny company with a UPS Store address could help the government get around browser security

Related:

[04-27-2021] Shadowy DARPA-Linked Company Took Over ‘Chunk’ Of Pentagon’s Internet

DHS advises companies to avoid Chinese hardware and software services

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

DHS advises companies to avoid Chinese hardware and software services

The DHS urged U.S. companies to take care when sharing data with Chinese firms; using equipment produced or maintained by Chinese companies; and even when working with companies that have Chinese citizens in “key leadership and security-focused roles.”

Good luck with that!

Related:

A Brief History of the U.S. Trying to Add Backdoors Into Encrypted Data

NSA hacked into servers at Huawei headquarters, reports say

NSA remains silent on secret backdoors in popular tech

Billionaires’ ‘pandemic profits’ alone could pay for $3K stimulus checks to EVERY American – report

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

RT | December 9, 2020

American billionaires made so much money during the Covid-19 pandemic that their profits since March are enough to give every US resident a $3,000 check without cutting into their pre-virus wealth, a new report shows.

Billionaires’ ‘pandemic profits’ alone could pay for $3K stimulus checks to EVERY American – report