• SendPicsofSandwiches@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I’ll see if I can find the write up, but the app was reverse engineered and it did collect an alarming amount of personal data that an app wouldn’t normally be allowed to. Also their algorithm has been criticized for ways it serves political content

    https://www.boredpanda.com/tik-tok-reverse-engineered-data-information-collecting/

    This is what came up first and had comment from the person who reverse engineered it.

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Random anonymous reddit user who didn’t compile his findings into a report pointing to the places in the app binary where these things happen. OK.

      • lukewarm_ozone@lemmy.today
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        8 hours ago

        I wouldn’t generally require people to “compile their findings into a report”, but in this case the messages are weirdly devoid of any checkable information and then the reddit user in question mysteriously lost a laptop full of findings, so, yeah, these claims are not compelling. I don’t think the reverse engineer in question was lying, per se, but I do think they were very wrong at first by random chance, the story gained traction, and then they were too embarrassed to admit they fucked up.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          If he’s a professional security analyst, his findings would be compiled into a report. Demonstration of where code is in the binary, even network sniffing results - something. An article saying “this guy said so and he knows what he’s talking about” is literally crazy.