Security Researchers Take Advantage of Insecure HTTP to Display Fake Videos on TikTok

The Leslie Nielsen of security researchers.

The Chinese apps have insecure HTTP because the government needs back-doors. I know first hand.

I’ve never downloaded TikTok, I’m not touching that app. Goodness knows what tracking it’s doing.

Oops.
Having seen Vine come and go in what felt like an instant (while I was in high school), the fact that TikTok isn’t dead yet is a MARVEL to me. Especially with how clearly unsafe it is, and how clearly stupid all the teenage influencers on it are.

Vine was the genesis of Jake/Logan Paul, and the most we got out of that was a horribly-poor-taste YouTube video with a hanged corpse in the icon, and Post Malone’s house getting accidentally doxxed. (Yes, Jake Paul is stupid enough to accidentally dox someone.)

With TikTok, I feel like we could get the Chinese government somehow getting into the accounts of EVERY influencer, and every person that follows these influencers, and just…****ing something up majorly. I don’t know what, but if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner.

Here's the real problem. I recently submitted an app and when you want to opt-out, you have to give a very good reason. Privacy-first Apple should have ended backwards-compatibility years ago. For any serious developer, there is no good reason not to use HTTPS, simple SSL certificates (which are fine for encryption) have always been cheap and now they're even free with Let's Encrypt.

There’s no good reason not to use HTTPS just like there’s no good reason to use Flash... but developers and users DO continue to use them and scream bloody murder when things no longer work. macOS still supports Flash even though it’s a pos. And when something doesn’t work on their Apple gear it’s automatically Apple’s fault no matter what. Just look at all the rage at the 32/64 bit change and APFS. If Apple were to stop supporting HTTP many websites would go dead on the platform. It’s a catch-22.

It's really not a big discovery that tiktok uses HTTP. When you embed a video on secure site or post a link on a slack-like service with preview you will get "site partially insecure" warning. In dev tools you can see a bunch of HTTP requests to tiktok servers.

What is surprising is Apple and Google still allowing it in apps. At least on www I can see what's going on and protect myself.

LMAO How can people be so clueless and download these kind of spyware in the first place? How can a Chinese social media app become so popular out of the confined borders of that communist regime in this day and age is beyond ridiculous.