See the latest news here:
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-trump-executive-order-1e95d9836bf6f8c0c245ed1c3234d968
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| The AP article saying Biden will not take action in his term. Finally a bit of common sense. |
What good is a country that censors what citizens see? Doesn't one side claim to be a bastion of freedom? It goes both ways. Let's see how it plays out. Starting to feel like more of a "we can't lose big tech" or "we don't want to lose our political positions" than anything else. 🤷
If there were real security concerns, then our government should work with Alphabet (Google) and Apple to have their mobile operating systems prevent various forms of information from being gathered and transferred through *all* apps on their platforms.
I'll be talking about Android because I have pretty much no experience using Apple devices.
Ever have an Android app literally harass you asking to share your contacts? At least on Android phones, you literally can't prevent apps from asking for that information continuously. That's one clear thing that needs fixed. If I have it off by default and I say no once, then no should be no forever. Also, if they insist on allowing this type of data to be shared then have double confirmations or force visiting a system level app to toggle it on with a confirmation there. This should be common sense interface design with private data, but it isn't. Google and the government don't actually care. Again, no idea on how Apple devices work.
In my opinion, contacts should never be a transferable thing into anything besides system apps. If security is actually a care of our government then actually protect us where it matters. Not limit what we can see. There needs to be mutual trust between elected officials and average citizens that elected you.
I have a background in computer science, but no security specialty. Even so, I see clear flaws in logic and systems in their current state. Android has a lot of interface issues. Apps should be walled with specifically approved conduits to storage and other facilities of the device, which is supposed to be their design anyways. Besides contacts, there are other pieces of data like GPS, screen capture, copy/paste buffer, and other sensors that should be highly walled off to apps by default and should be allowed in specific contexts only if it really is that important.
Not to mention how cameras and microphones are used and served by the OS of a phone to an app could be managed better. Never allow, for lack of a better word... silent monitoring of audio. Never allow silent video capture, etc. Make it extremely clear to the user that they are being recorded.
Again, if data being generated and transferred by citizens is really a problem then I blame a mix of technology companies in the USA and failings of elected officials in our government for not having proper knowledge to figure out what can be done without damaging the rights of citizens in the process.
All of these things could be hardened from a security standpoint if it was an actual concern of the government by way of some legal mandate to US tech companies. No, they'd rather try to limit what people see and claim it's for other reasons. 🤷
This doesn't go into the discussion of false manufactured news and other data, but it also comes down to educating citizens of a country to have better discernment and learn ways to validate information. I don't think turning into what we claim not to be is an answer.
Disappointed to see our elected people thought this could be an option.