FINAL COUNTDOWN. US Tik Tok Ban. What To Know.

The US has signed into new law the Ban of Tik Tok effective in January. What does this mean?

We have three segments to share. The first is the latest update from a few months back. The second is an in-depth discussion around the complete Tik Tok Ban saga alongside former FBI agent Darren Mott. Darren shares exclusive behind the scenes information on the Ban and the story you wont find elsewhere. The Last segment we will share is is the distrubing criminal trends, crime tutorials and other insidious findings which gained popularity on the popular video sharing app.
 
The final countdown has begun! And, vey soon, the world of social media may never be the same. Is this good news or bad news? That, my friends, is for you to decide.

Topics: US Tik Tok ban. What to know, online privacy and Tik Tok, national security risks from social media, identity protection in light of TikTok, why social media platforms are national security risks, why social media platform is a national security threat, how social media platforms are security risks,  laws on social media national security, and national security versus social media.

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Chapters

• 0:01 The TikTok Ban: A National Security Concern
• 1:09 The Citizens Lab Report and Its Findings
• 1:12 Long-term Risks of TikTok Usage
• 8:32 Cyberbullying: The Dark Side of Social MediaCyberbullying: The Dark Side of Social Media
• 20:32 Dangerous Trends: The Kia Boys and TikTok Challenges
• 37:32 The Debate: Free Speech vs. National Security
• 47:59 The Ties Between ByteDance and the CCP
• 50:59 Congressional Hearing Insights
• 53:59 The Role of Data and Surveillance
• 56:59 Censorship and Control in China vs. the US
• 58:59 The Implications of Data Access
• 1:03:59 User Privacy and Data Management Claims
• 1:07:59 The Threats Posed by TikTok
• 1:18:59 Comparing TikTok to Other Social Media Platforms
• 1:22:59 The Need for Privacy Legislation
• 1:24:59 Future Considerations for TikTok and Similar Apps

Transcript

FINAL COUNTDOWN. US Tik Tok Ban. What To Know. 

The US has signed into new law the Ban of Tik Tok effective in January. What does this mean?
 
 We have three segments to share. The first is the latest update from a few months back. The second is an in-depth discussion around the complete Tik Tok Ban saga alongside former FBI agent Darren Mott. Darren shares exclusive behind the scenes information on the Ban and the story you wont find elsewhere. The Last segment we will share is is the distrubing criminal trends, crime tutorials and other insidious findings which gained popularity on the popular video sharing app.
 
 The final countdown has begun! And, vey soon, the world of social media may never be the same. Is this good news or bad news? That, my friends, is for you to decide.

Topics: US Tik Tok ban. What to know, online privacy andTik Tok, national security risks from social media, identity protection in light of TikTok, why social media platforms are national security risks, why social media platform is a national security threat, how social media platforms are security risks,  laws on social media national security, and national security versus social media.

Dino Mauro (00:00.088)
Hey there, cybercrime junkies. So today's episode is about the date. The D-Day date that will affect millions in the U.S. is not January 20th. It's actually January 19th. That day, January 19th, is a day that will live in infamy, especially for those following the epic TikTok ban being debated. That is the date set to be the deadline date for TikTok.

to divest itself from any and all ownership by Chinese government-linked bite dance company. The Circuit Court of Appeals this past Friday, December 13th, rejected a temporary pause on the ban of TikTok, calling such a block unwarranted. Why does this matter? It paved the way for the Supreme Court to finally decide the fate of the popular video sharing mobile app.

In April, Joe Biden signed a bill into law that had been debated heavily in Congress and in the public limelight. The law required TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, to be sold to a non-Chinese company. See, one has to remember that while there is free speech in America, it has limits. For example, it is illegal to scream fire in a move theater. It's also illegal to spread hate speech. Similarly,

The First Amendment does not afford any protection to any person or company that is a threat to national security. The latest ruling follows last week's decision by the same appeals court to uphold the TIK Tukban law, is based on national security concerns. So what will happen if it goes to the Supreme Court? Legal experts seem aligned in their view that the conservative court, which

values national security is highly likely to uphold the ban. The Supreme Court could make a quick decision on the case. Both TikTok and the federal government previously asked the appeals court to expedite its ruling so the case could be appealed before the January 19th ban. To understand how truly big a deal this really will be, we have to talk about all the crap that has happened since this app came onto the scene.

Dino Mauro (02:29.112)
There are crazy stories and shady dealing, criminal trends exposed and fun dance trends as well. So let's discuss what happened from the beginning and how this whole thing started. For that check, I'll look at our prior findings and how this unbelievable story played out. We have three segments to share. The first is the latest update from a few months back. The second is an in-depth discussion around the complete tick

The final countdown has

And very soon the world of social media may never be the same. Is this good news or bad news? That, my friends, is for you to decide. And now, the show.

from the creators of Vigilance, the newest global technology newsletter translating cyber news into business language we all understand. So please help us keep this going by subscribing for free to our YouTube channel and downloading our podcast episodes on Apple and Spotify so we can continue to bring you more of what matters. This is Cyber Crime Junkies, and now the show.

Dino Mauro (04:33.646)
269 days. That's how long ByteDance has to sell TikTok on or before January 19th, or it will be banned in the United States like they did in India long ago. So if you haven't heard, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill banning TikTok. And you know, in today's world, you need to verify everything and not believe what you see online. Seeking the truth.

really isn't anything new. in advertising, truth in freedom of speech. You know, with the rise of AI and deep fake, we're always reminded back in 1861, Abraham Lincoln even said, you can't trust everything you see on the internet. The ban on TikTok will be litigated. It will be costly. But my question to you is what is your expectation of privacy when you use apps like

TikTok. When you're alone in your bedroom with your door closed and your windows drawn, do you believe that people can watch you? Do you believe they can read what you type, that they can see the types of products that you use and that you have placed in your bedroom, that they can find out what school you attend, when you're leaving the house, where you're going, how long you were there, what you bought.

on your trip, when you go to the restroom, what medical conditions you have. Do you think that was private? What is your expectation of privacy when using apps like TikTok on a phone or on your laptop? TikTok says that they collect your data to help the app function, operate securely, and improve user experience. Here's the issue. It does a lot more.

than that. And most people do not realize what they've agreed to. And it gets to the heart of the ownership of the company. Because, sure, there's a lot of other social media apps that do and track similar things and that violate people's general expectation of what they think they're doing when they're using these apps. But very little can be

Dino Mauro (06:59.256)
done to them because of the ownership of the organization. See, in the United States when testifying, right? And when giving valid information, you know, when you sign under penalties of perjury, or you testify in front of Congress or in the courtroom, you have to not just say part of the truth. The vow is to say the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That's a big difference.

TikTok has not been telling the United States the whole truth, proponents of the ban argue, right? And nor are other social media apps, but because of the ownership, there's more ability to control, manage, and monitor those other apps. Look, if the application is free to use, then you are the product being sold.

And because TikTok is being is owned by bite dance and bite dance has ownership tied to the Chinese government and the Chinese government has declared that they are on a mission to take control over your life and dominate it for their pleasure. Then what is your expectation of privacy going to be? And does this not go against the very grain?

of a democratic republic society.

Dino Mauro (08:35.118)
Well that wraps this up. Thanks for joining everybody. Hope you got value out of digging deeper behind the scenes of security and cybercrime today. Please don't forget to help keep this going by subscribing free to our YouTube channel at Cybercrime Junkies Podcast and download and enjoy all of our past episodes on Apple and Spotify podcasts so we can continue to bring you more of what matters. This is Cybercrime Junkies and we thank you for joining us.

Dino Mauro (09:06.434)
So welcome everybody to Cybercrime Junkies. In the studio today, I'm your host, David Mauro And in the studio today is my illustrious co-host, Mark Moser. Mark, how are you, sir? great. Thank you, David. Thank you very much. No, I think this is a good episode. I want to get a lot out of it. This is a message that is close and dear to my heart. It means a lot to both David and I as parents, and I think it would mean a lot to you. Even if not a parent, this is very relevant.

These are headlines really taken right out of yesterday's news, literally. So I think it's very important, it's very relevant, and we wanted to get this message out there, and I think it'll ring true to all the listeners and attendees today. Yeah, thanks. I mean, we've done a lot of research and spoken with a lot of people in law enforcement, school resource officers, people in cyber crime units, and there's a massive, always growing concern about cyber bullying.

and some of the trends that social media is happening and parents are just besides themselves. Would you agree, Mark? you know, absolutely. I mean, this is everything from, you know, all social media platforms and really, you know, some of them, some of the more egregious ones that we'll talk about here in just a bit, you know, is TikTok. And I think everybody was familiar with that platform and that service and.

either been on it or has a child that's been, it's very popular, it's in just about every household. And there's some information around that that we felt the need to share today. Yeah, and I mean, the impact of social media, I mean, there's evolutions in social media. Just real briefly, when we think about it, remember when, what was it? 10, 12 years ago, when Facebook first came out, we were all on it, right? Our grandparents weren't on it. But then as the social media grew in popularity, now all of a sudden grandma's on it.

Right. Our parents are on it. Everything else. And now the newer trend, you know, and when you look at certain social media like Snapchat, certain communication apps, right. WhatsApp, Snapchat, things like that. They're they're still used that along with TikTok. Right. That's still at the inception stage. It hasn't evolved yet until a new platform comes forward. And so when it's in that inception stage, there's a lot of risk that happens.

Dino Mauro (11:35.17)
The risk comes from one, it's like the Wild West. There's all these kids communicating in private essentially, or almost like it's a big high school lunchroom, right? Where bullying happens and things like that. The issue is in the old days, right? Or in physical reality in the high school lunchroom, what do you have? You've got some adults in the room. And here we don't have adults in the room, right? A lot of these conversations.

are had or lot of these social media consumption and the views and the pressure that kids have and the jokes that they have, their communications are done without parental observation. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I think that would be a very good example. So when we talk about cyber bullying, what do we mean? Tell me what your thoughts are. How would you define what cyber bullying is? I mean, there's like official law enforcement definitions, but as a parent, right? How would you define

Right. think it really comes in a couple different form factors when it comes to cyber bullying. One, the delivery method is pretty much continuous across all different form factors and the fact that it's done through social networking or through a personal device. You your child could be in the room with you and be on their phone and they could literally be cyber bullied right at that point that they're sitting right next to you and you're in the same room and don't even realize it. know, any personal device, a tablet, laptop,

phone, whatever it may be. But these social media platforms allow for cyber bullies to push and prod and coerce people to either do something that they don't want to do or to make them feel or degraded and into a certain way to change their emotional state just for the fun of it. You know, there's there's a lot of different motivational factors. I think that go behind it. But the delivery method is pretty continuous across across all those different.

motivations. Yeah, right. And I think that it's a lot more prevalent and it's a lot more harmful than physical bullying that happens in the playground or at a physical location. Well, yeah, you don't have to be physically present to be bullied anymore. Before you had to be on the same playground. You had to be in the same gymnasium. You had to be in the same lunchroom. Now you're country and you can get bullied.

Dino Mauro (14:00.948)
Exactly. Because again, it gets back to the fact of when we get online, we're not in our state, town or even country. Right. We enter the global arena with all of the good that's there and all of the bad. And also it can be really prevalent. Right. It transcends time and and function. When we think about it, our children can get bullied at eleven thirty at night.

They can get bullied at two o'clock in the morning while we're sleeping. It can be happening right when we're in the room with them thinking that they're safe, thinking that they're safe. instead they're made to feel so bad that literally one of the second largest risk to youth today is suicide. And so it makes them feel and have like suicidal ideation as a result of this.

And there's lot of things times. mean, you know, we talk about being sitting in the same room and then being bullied. How would you know is is I don't know. I don't know the to that question. Well, there are in the National Crime Prevention Council. There's a lot of there's a lot of free resources available online. And there are some phenomenal mobile apps and platforms that can be used. You know, you and I are huge proponents of the bark app. And that is something that we'll talk about later. But man, that thing really can.

can let a parent know when actual suicidal ideation is happening, when actual bullying is occurring, so that they can go and have a conversation with their child, right? So they can go and parent in the way they want to parent, right? Without having to monitor kids and go through all their texts and over-police them and helicopter parent them. They don't have to do that. But with that app, they're able to see a lot.

Yeah, there's a lot of free resources available online. The National Crime Prevention Council has stuff. There's EndCyberBullying.net, which is great. There's the FBI has information, FBI.gov. But some of the warning signs what you're asking about are these. This is what the National Crime Prevention says are the biggest red flags. They say when you see a child suddenly stop using their computer or their cell phone.

Dino Mauro (16:27.704)
Like immediately, like something you have a feeling that something's right. They call that the biggest red flag. And then if they appear upset after right after using or receiving a call or a text, it's time to have a conversation with them. Ask questions, open ended questions. Start a question with what, how, like how'd that call go? What's going on? What happened today and what new happened today?

Like get them to open up with, you know, and what they suggest is one of the biggest things is to make it a safe place for a conversation. Meaning say, look.

Show me the text because the key is with some of these apps, Snapchat, WhatsApp, a couple of the others, the chats will disappear or they're afraid to ever bring it up to us because they're afraid they're going to get in trouble. That is the biggest reason why parents don't know what's going on. They're always barking at their kids from top down and they're not letting it be a safe place where they can kind of say, look, I kind of made

some stupid comment or I did this or I, you know, I made some, some, some sexist comment or some racist comment or whatever. I feel bad, but now they're really, really threatening me. Right. Like, okay. Great time to teach your kids don't ever say these things, right? Cause cause spewing hate can ricochet right back to you, but also make it safe for them to admit what they did wrong, but then to help them so that

they don't go down a path to getting physically harmed, psychologically harmed or harming themselves through cell phone. One thing they, another red flag that they said is when they're secretive, when they start to be really secretive about what they're doing with their cell phone and what they're doing online or when they don't want to do an event, a hobby or go to a place that they normally wanted to. They said, watch for that.

Dino Mauro (18:39.49)
That is something really, really key. And anything that leads a parent to think that they're emotionally withdrawn or depressed. I you know, the research about depression, as we all know, doesn't mean they're down or they're blue. It means they're apathetic. They don't care about things that they used to care about, right? And so any dramatic changes in attitude or behavior. And what they say is the first thing to do, if you think you're...

kid is being cyberbullied is to speak with them in a supportive and understanding way, right? Let them take steps about what to do, like what to do if you were getting cyberbullied. The National Crime Prevention Council cautions parents against threatening to ban children from the devices. again, no top down, right?

If you feel like your child is being cyberbullied, if you're going to punish them for them bringing you information and for them sharing their fear with you, right? Guess what's going to happen? They're not going tell you. not going to bring any information. They're going to bring any information. They're kids, right? So fear of losing these privileges is the primary reason that kids don't tell their parents about cyberbullying. That's according to the National Crime Prevention.

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Dino Mauro (20:44.93)
That makes sense. there any like examples of, you know, social media trends or current fads that have just gone too far that, you know, kids wanting to participate or are being bullied into participating is anything like that? Well, yeah. So let's talk about this because this just kind of hit the news just a couple of weeks ago. And it's a kind of I didn't believe it at first until I actually saw the videos myself and I've seen over 10 of them. So.

There is a trend and this gets into what we were just talking about because kids are this, it's a little different than cyber bullying per se, right? But kids are actively doing this and this demonstrates the danger of social media. There is a new trend on TikTok where kids, kids, young kids are literally committing grand theft auto. Right, they're stealing, stealing cars. They are stealing cars. So picture this, right?

Thursday morning, sunny, beautiful day, you've got your cup of coffee. You head down from your apartment or outside or coming out from work, coming out from the gym, whatever it is. And you head over to your car. You've got, you know, you've got a kind of a five-year-old Kia, 10-year-old Kia, right? And you go there and you're like, well, I see the Hyundai, I see the Honda, I see a Tesla right there. Where the heck's my car? Right?

And it's gone. And so you're like, all right, well, this is what I get for living in the town I live in. Or this is just the way that that things are. Right. And, you know, but you're still shocked. Why would they have taken my Kia or my Hyundai? Right. Like, why would they have taken that and not the frigging Tesla that's there and not the Mercedes or the BMW? Like, it's just kind of weird. And when you call law enforcement, they're like, yeah, we're well aware of it.

The culprit? TikTok. And you're like, well, this isn't like a dance craze, right? This isn't anything. Actually, yeah, actually there is a whole thing on TikTok that started back on August 2021 in Milwaukee and it is taken the United States by storm. is.

Dino Mauro (23:05.998)
And it is called the Kia Boys. There are tutorials. Yeah, there are tutorials where they show you how to break in to a 2011 and newer. So basically any Kia that's on the frigging road, right? 2011 and newer. And I think it's a 2014 or 2015 and later Honda.

And in less than 60 seconds with a screwdriver and a USB drive, that's it. Those are the only tools they show you how to hotwire this car. They literally there's there's videos, how to videos. They have tutorials on how to do it. And what's happening is who's freaking on TikTok? Is grandma on TikTok is Uncle Uncle Tom on TikTok?

Right? Is your uncle Roy or somebody that has a little bit of experience behind them that understands how to drive? Are they on TikTok? No. Eight year olds, 10 year olds, 11 year olds, 13 year olds, 15 year olds are on TikTok. 11 year old would watch a how to video on how to steal a car and then go steal a car. Check this out. Not only has an 11 year olds actually watched it, but they're actually doing it.

like really young kids. In fact, one 11 year old boy in Ohio got caught last month stealing two cars in one week. One week. These are felonies. This is grand theft auto. This is like 10 years in prison or more. Now, is Kia doing anything about this? Is TikTok doing anything about it? Yeah. So the answer is no. But yeah, they've they've been it's been brought to their attention.

TikTok says this adamantly violates our policies. Right? You're not supposed to use TikTok for this. And Kia has said, we have this kill switch that is standard in the industry, but they're getting around it. Again, they're hacking. Right? They're able to do this. And according to most reports, the trend gained traction mostly with boys and girls. It's not just a

Dino Mauro (25:27.874)
God, boy crying between ages 11 and 17. Wow. So the majority of these content creators did not even have driver's licenses. So they are showing people how to get in. And so then what happens is they film the whole thing. So they've been taking the cars. Part of this TikTok challenge is you steal the car. You literally go in, you steal the car less than 60 seconds around the road.

You don't know how to drive. You're 11, 12, 13, 14 years old. You're filming it, right? and your body. they're steering the car, while they're driving the car. they're steering the car with no driving experience and then you're supposed to go do something with it. They go drive on lawns, they go do donuts, they speed down roadways. It's no joke. And it's really, really, really dangerous. The results have been really bad. There've been tons of reckless driving.

There have been several police chases involved because a lot of this is live or a lot of this is caught. And there's tons and tons of property damage and a couple different accidents involved. what's really, really shocking is, and I'll send you these videos and we can even post some of them. They'll probably be taken down.

pretty soon because this just kind of came out. It's been around for over a year, but the videos were still there. I was able to watch over 10 of them. They just grab a USB cord screwdriver and they are done with their very first real life grand theft auto. It is really, really, really shocking. One, they were flying down a freeway at one in the morning. They wound up crashing and one person died.

So they had actually driven the car into oncoming traffic and drove somebody off the road and one person actually died. So in one instance, mean, there's a- It all goes back to this, you know, monitoring and parenting and being informed and being a part of platforms. And you had mentioned a service, I guess, or a software, Bark, to help parents to look out for these very, very type of things. tell me more about Bark.

Dino Mauro (27:51.244)
So, Bark is an app that is really, really phenomenal. It's the best comprehensive parental control for families. It's got this, it's won a bunch of awards. It monitors text messages, YouTube, emails, and over 30 different apps. So, if you think of an app that your kids are gonna use, any app, Discord, Telegram, Snapchat, all that stuff where they're just...

text delete, everything else. It actually monitors it so that the parents don't have to go, well, let me log into your account. Let me see what you're saying, right? Right. If you want to get around that, of course kids are going to get around that. And what what Bork does, I've got it installed on my phone. We've been using it for a while. It's really good. And it uses artificial intelligence and it actually keeps up with with the latest slang that kids use, like the acronyms, which is really key, because when you're texting.

You're not saying I really feel bad. am feeling like that, right? These acronyms and things like that. It populates all of that in real time. And for example, it knows the difference between saying, my God, this biology homework is so bad. I want to kill myself. Right. That's not suicidal. Idiation. That's just a kid talking. Right. But when it sees nobody cares about me, I can't believe he stopped talking to me. I want to end it.

It alerts a parent of suicidal ideation, go have a conversation with your kid. Right. What a great app. What a great friggin thing to have. Right. So we'll get into some of that because we're going to be having a discussion with some people that are tied to that app. And in fact, you are actually presenting at a school on security best practices.

with somebody alongside somebody that works with that. Yeah, one of the keynote speakers. Yeah, it's one of the directors for a four bark. Yeah, I mean, it is it is it is really, really powerful. I think it's it's something, you know, they they have they've just got a lot of good things and it really gets into the ability to help us leverage advances in technology rather than trying to be a parent in this wild west world where technology is all over the place and it's in its.

Dino Mauro (30:15.852)
You know, it's ad hoc, right? It's everywhere kids are using things that try and different apps. This lets you have a little bit of control without invading the child's privacy, right? You're just there to parent and to coach and to help because you love them. And so it's really, really good. If you're worried about your kid being bullied online, you're concerned about the website browsing. Or if let's say you're trying to parent, you know, and be like, you got a gamer or you got kids that just.

You know, she won't get off Instagram. She won't stop taking selfies and it's freaking 11 o'clock at night or it's dinnertime, right? You want to be like, look, stop. It's a really easy way to control the time. You'd be like, Internet is off for those devices during this period of time. You're able to like segment that. And actually, it helps you enforce your stuff. So, yeah, we're we're I mean, we're we're huge proponents of things like this. You know, they're not they're not a sponsor or anything like that. But I'm telling you, they've we've seen them on.

Good Morning America, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, the BBC, CNN, it's been on, I've seen it on Fox, ABC, CBS, and even on Bluebird. And they talk about, they've covered over six million children, 629,000 self-harming or suicidal ideations have been detected, 629,000 just this year, and 2.6 million severe bullying situations have been detected. It's pretty powerful stuff.

That's incredible. Things like that are really, key. Well, this was good stuff, David. This was I hope the attendees, I hope the listeners for the episode find some use in this. Hopefully it opens some eyes and gives you some other options and monitoring and protecting when people are online. Because as David said, once we go online, we're outside of our community. We went global immediately. Well, it's hard to protect our children in the neighborhood.

much less from global threats. this was good stuff. Yeah. And think about what's next. Is there going to be an Erson challenge? Is there going to be the bank heist trend? Don't think that it wouldn't. We wouldn't think that Grand Theft Auto would have been a trend. And it's really, really critical. And the bottom line is the car manufacturers, cannot keep up with

Dino Mauro (32:38.808)
hackers and the ability to do this. We know this from Defcon and Black Hat where that, know, Defcon has the car hacking village where people are, you know, they're able to get in. the ability to get around safety protocols for these things. And so we just wanted to raise awareness and we appreciate everybody's time.

We explore why cybercrime grows daily, how it is funded, productized, and organized, how to protect yourself, and where cybercrime goes to hide. And thanks for being a cybercrime junkie.

Dino Mauro (33:25.848)
Hey, cybercrime jokies. This is your host, David Marl. You pressure is melting from lawmakers and national security leaders to ban TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance, over fears that the app could censor content, influence users, and pass America's personal data over to Beijing. Right? All of these are allegations that the company denies. It's raised a massive debate in the US.

In one corner is the ban TikTok. It's a national security risk due to the Chinese ownership and the potential for data collection and misuse by the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP. In the other corner, you've got, you can't ban TikTok because it violates free speech. And it is a scary thing to start having the government impede on the private sector and start banning specific companies.

That's the argument, right? Social media influencers and libertarian politicians have taken to the streets and Capitol Hill protesting any potential ban. Countless TikTok videos have also been launched crying about free speech violations, but the issue that is obvious to everyone, especially us, is this. Before we go any further, let's tell you our position on this here at Cybercrime Chunkies. You can reject it, you can agree with it, persuade us otherwise because...

We're not married to any one side or the other. Here's our position. This isn't the position of our employers. This is our personal opinion. What strikes us most about this topic is this. People don't seem to value their data. Right. That's the biggest finding in this debate. Right. There are people that are getting out there saying, well, everybody spies on us. Facebook spies on us. Instagram does. Every social media platform takes our data anyway. Well, that's a problem. Right. And that's a bigger problem than just TikTok.

but it's also a problem from the user end and that we're not valuing data. Look, there is a expectation that when you curate your lives, you give what you publish out there, but that there is a massive distinction between doing that and what is actually being taken. Because when you get down into it, there are so much more keystrokes, all of your contacts, there's so much more that is taken.

Dino Mauro (35:44.33)
and that can be used. And we have to think long term, right? We have to think what is the reason behind this. So as a general principle, we don't believe the government should interfere with anybody's protected free speech whatsoever. We're just not certain yet whether this is a free speech issue and or whether there is a true national security risk. If and the key is if there is evidence that the CCP accesses data that is found to be and

Like that's a national security risk. If you don't understand that, then you have to understand international relations, right? There's the 1990s mandate that the Chinese Communist Party has stated publicly that they will infiltrate the West slowly for a generational control over the West. This is their belief. They don't have the similar values and mission that the US does or that the Western culture

There's also the 2017 law that mandates any Chinese company, and I think it's a Chinese company, any Chinese company shall give access to the CCP. And this is developed right there. So there is no way of actually knowing what is done and what isn't. But we did see the congressional hearings last week and we do know this.

there wasn't anything remarkable in those hearings that came out that showed that there was a CCP accessing data, right? But let's consider reality and the fact that we don't have access to what the congressional leaders have access to. There are security clearance information investigations, findings, and reports that the public doesn't know about. And so if there is information there,

then in our opinion, is a national security risk. And there are plenty of other platforms we can exercise free speech on, right? It is not unusual for any government to ban technology that violates national security. We do it all the time. We have a long history of it. So does the Eastern cultures and Eastern countries, as well as several European countries, as well as North American countries. Banning of technologies that are of national security risk is a...

Dino Mauro (38:06.958)
practice. It's nothing new. But the real issue is, is there evidence of it? And I think that that, you know, as we continue to research, we're not done with it with our opinion. It's an ongoing live view of this. But why it's so important is it gets to the very heart of security, right? It gets to the very heart of our duty to serve and protect the users. And is this matching the expectation? And is there actual access that can be used against

Young people today, right, when they move up and go into government positions later, and they go up into leadership positions in the private or public sector later, that's our concern, right? We open and welcome your opinions on this. Reach out to us at cybercrimejunkies.com and let's get right down to it. Today we're joined by Darren Mott, former FBI agent, head of what is now the Cyber

Division of the FBI and he's got his take but we Invite you to to have your own and to care about this topic because this is Good bad positive constructive. Thanks and now the show

Dino Mauro (39:28.438)
It's always in the news, cyber criminals attacking great organizations wreaking havoc on the trust of their brand. We socialize cybersecurity for you to raise awareness. Interviewing leaders who built and protect great brands. We help talented people enter into this incredible field and we share our research at Blockbuster True Cybercrime Stories. This is Cybercrime Junkies.

And now the show.

Dino Mauro (40:06.56)
All right, well, welcome everybody to Cybercrime Junkies. I am your host, David Mauro And today we're going to talk about how social media can be a national security risk. going to talk about identity protection in light of TikTok and explore potential TikTok connection to the Chinese government. As we know, TikTok today has over 150 active monthly users.

that CEO Xiao Qu confirmed last week at the congressional hearing. And it's there to highlight the platform's kind of vast and growing reach in the country amid renewed calls for its banning. So we're joined today by Darren Mott, former FBI agent in what is now considered the cyber division. And he's an experienced cyber crime expert, a host of the Cyber Guy.

podcast and we're excited to have him here. Darren, welcome, sir. Dave, thanks so much. I throw counterintelligence in there too, because I did both cyber and counterintelligence. And this is where TikTok really hits both of those angles. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you've been very vocal about national security dangers posed by TikTok. And there's several social media influencers out there that are, you

stateside and they're claiming there's a violation of free speech and banning it will either do no good or it violates first amendment rights or they'll be harmed economically by the ban. Let's get right into it and let's address some of this. I'll take the third prong and that's will they be harmed by the ban? Maybe temporarily, but there's a lot of other platforms out there, right? There's Instagram, Facebook, there's YouTube Shorts, YouTube does a great job.

And the shorts program is growing rapidly as well as I mean, there used to be Vine, right? I remember Vine, which was like the precursor to TikTok. So the platform personally, in my opinion, is dispensable for sure. But and it's definitely replaceable. But more importantly, let's address the free speech aspect of.

Dino Mauro (42:23.352)
Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Text us direct at 904-867-4466.

Dino Mauro (43:02.444)
Right. I don't know what the free speech issue is really. I mean, sir. So you're going to get rid of TikTok. Okay. Let's let's let's say that we ban TikTok and it is content eliminated from everybody's devices. Are you telling me that there will not be another application? The capitalism will rise up and fill that void and allow people to get in front of their cameras and pitch their bakeries and talk about their art and do their dance. Something will fill that void. Like you even said, Instagram reels. I mean, it's sure it's all by Facebook. I don't want to give my stuff to Facebook. Well,

There is a huge, I think here is the biggest problem. There's a huge difference between a US based company and a China based company. hopefully we'll into think that is the difference. And people make light of that, don't they? They say, yeah, but China, like it's a joke, right? But when you think about it, do they not understand international relations? Like, do they not understand the trade war and espionage and things that are really happening in real life? Like that's the...

the issue that I think a lot of people are just kind of glossing over and saying, all these people are just too uptight. They're upset that they're posting dance videos. No, that's not what's going on at all. Like there's nothing wrong with posting everything that is on TikTok, but posted on YouTube, YouTube shorts or Instagram reels or whatever. Right. And most people that post on TikTok are also doing that anyway. Like a lot of people will upload to multiple different platforms simultaneously.

Go ahead. mean, you've been, call yourself like the town crier, which I always find entertaining about this. But what is your position on TikTok and why do you feel that way? You've got decades of experience in this, so share that with us. Right. This isn't really just TikTok. This is China. mean, let's put those things are in the same bucket. Regardless of what anyone wants to say, they are the same thing. And in 1999, two Chinese generals wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare. You can go download it and read it.

today if you want. And it will list out that China has a plan to become the hegemonic leader in the world. And they will do it by means that don't have to do with shooting guns and flying airplanes and dropping bombs. They're looking to use political and social influence mechanisms to kind of, I mean, honestly take over the world. And, you know, in 2003 Time Magazine listed, wrote an article called Titan Rain. Had to do with Chinese state sponsored actors hacking into companies and stealing source code and electric property, all that stuff.

Dino Mauro (45:28.43)
It's all part of what they're trying to do. And this is just another extension of that. And those people who refuse to think that this is not an extension of that methodology, I can't convince them otherwise, but they've got their head in the sand and they need to get it out. China is not our friends. Now we'd like them to be, sure, we'd like to be friendly with everybody, let's be honest, but that's just not the way of the world. Exactly, because everybody wants to rule the world, right?

And because of those motivations and those desires, we can't be who we are and have them do what they want. Right? I mean, there's just inherent conflict. me make a point to that real quick. So, and this is a similar point that they make with the Israelis and the Palestinians. Let's say China got rid of all their guns, all their missiles, all of their bad activity. Would we go in and take over China or would we just let China be China? You'll let China be China, I would like to think. Yes.

But if we got rid of all of our stuff, is China going to let the US be the US or is China going to come in and say, okay, we can now take this over? They've already started to do that again, not through warfare, but by buying up media companies and influencing people through TikTok and things like that. is just an international trade, right? Like violating copyright infringement, the knockoff products. mean, it's an inherent multi-trillion dollar issue that the US faces.

And not just the US, the UK as well as Canada. All of mass production companies are facing this. Right. And we're not their only target, but we do have technology that rivals their own, which is why we're having this discussion with, well, it's not as bad as it's just the same as Facebook and all this other stuff. It is not the same. I mean, if China misuses your data and

we could get into a whole thing on how they're using it to collate it with other data breaches like Equifax and the OPM Office of Personnel Management and Blue Cross Blue Shield and Marriott. All of those are attributed to Chinese actors stealing that information. Why do they care who's staying at the Marriott? Well, I think we've even had this conversation before in previous streams where they can collate that information. I said, John works for Raytheon and I can go target him and get him to spy for me. this is part of that.

Dino Mauro (47:48.962)
That's exactly right, because it's not just about that individual data breach, right? When we look at some of the past data breaches, you and I have had that conversation before, and it's listed in a prior episode of ours. And that is, was it the Anthem breach, or which one was it? Anthem, right? Anthem breach was not about the data. It was about being able to take those data points and correlate them so that they can identify who was working for

the US Secret Service and who is working for the US government. Right. And why is that? Right. So they can target these people, offer them, identify who they are, and then get to them to get them to spy. You know, knowledge is power. Like when we think about TikTok, it's not a North American or European company that was formed. Right. It's it's owned by ByteDance.

And let's talk about bike dance for a little bit. What do we know about bike dance? From what I understand, there's several from various reports, there's several people at the head of bike dance that have a lot of ties to the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. Yeah, I would say most companies have that anyway, because they are all somehow interlinked with the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe that's like, know, you could argue Kaspersky is linked with the Russian FSB. Same thing. But

you know, in China, it's everything is linked to the CCP in some way, shape or form, and they are mandated. And I will give the CEO of TikTok credit for this, because he did answer this in the affirmative, that TikTok and ByteDance are have to follow the 2017 Chinese national intelligence data collection law that says if they ask you for data, you have to give it to them. He said, yeah, we we we fall under that law. So

You know, you sure you can say, look, the US can request data from your personal data from Facebook as well. Sure, they can, but they have to go through a court process to do it. And you can argue the NSA, Steele and all that, whatever. That's a different conversation. But if the US misuses your personal data, the US government, you have legal or Facebook or whoever, you have legal redress. There checks and balances. There's an entire legal system here to address that. You have.

Dino Mauro (50:11.522)
Yep. You have attorneys, have organizations, you have civil rights groups, you have all of these organizations. You can't do that with China. Right. So if they do that, what is your recourse? There's there is a proclamation by them that, they're mandated by law to comply with the CCP. But there's a proclamation by the CCP that dates back more than years that says our aim is to take over control. And so

people forget about that, or they just don't know about it. Right? And that's why I think these conversations are really, really important to have. Let's talk about the congressional hearing a bit. What was your, what's your initial take on the hearing overall? Well, okay, so, and this is, probably say this for all congressional hearings. I didn't watch every minute of the Hymn Talk, and I was at work, but I had it on while I was doing some other stuff, so I listened to a whole lot of it.

The problem is it's the format in which Congress does these things. Yeah, that five minute format is really lousy, isn't it? It's very deep. As soon as you make your point and then you start to go, then you have to yield and somebody else gets to take over. Right. And let's be honest, this is going to be an unpopular opinion to stay on LinkedIn, but we do not send our best and brightest to Washington. Let's just start there. So, but so they are not really necessarily skilled to be able to dig deep into the questions that need to be asked for.

for what it does. Now, well, some of them did have some good questions, but like you said, in five minutes, they spent three and a half minutes pontificating on why TikTok was bad. Now, the problem is after the first four people said it, you could probably just say, agree with my esteemed colleague and we're gonna go with that, but here's my question. But they all had to say the same thing over again. Should be, you you're harming our kids and you should be changing. I don't think they got to, I think they got a few zingers in, but I will say thumbs up to ByteDance, because he is a very charismatic person.

or Xiao Chen, whatever name it is. he, but, and you know, Harvard educated speaks well. But he, he was not very well prepared either because he let some zingers go. The one part about, about them spine, he goes, I don't think spine is the right word. Right. Okay. Well, what's the right word for you then? We just do surveillance. We do, we do unauthorized surveillance. Is that a better word for you? Right. mean, so they got a few things came out that I think were interesting, not enough to sway anybody's minds clearly. If you had a, if you had a set up, a set up,

Dino Mauro (52:34.286)
idea of what TikTok was, it wasn't being changed through that particular series of discussions. And nor do I think the media is poised to respond to report to it accurately or follow up with it. Yeah, I mean, if he lied, if he lied, what are they gonna do? Let's say he did lie. Let's say every he lied to every question. He said everything they wanted to hear. I mean, I heard Project Texas enough time. It's a good thing there wasn't a drinking game going on. Because if you had to drink every time he said Project Texas, you'd have been drunk by the first hour.

and passed out. you know, I think it's, it was an exercise that had to be had. It created a day's worth of conversation, but are we talking about it today? mean, you and I are. Anybody else talking about today? Really? It's kind of, you know, they're moving on until probably the next steps toward toward a potential ban, right? I mean, that's, that's the whole key is, is what will actually come of it. And for those that may not recall, there was an, and in

an initiative to ban TikTok under the Trump administration. And a lot of the restrictions that were put in place were not released under the new administration. And now the new administration has clearly has the same agenda, which is kind of interesting to see because it doesn't seem to be partisan at all. sure. And that was also that was the one thing about that particular hearing is they were all pretty unanimous on where they came down on it. No one said, hey,

we support your right to operate and we don't have any fear for what you're doing. They all had issues. So, so good on them. I mean, there were some Congress folks that came out afterwards that weren't in that hearing that said stupid stuff, but I mean, that's, I mean, and, and the way that I look at it is what if roles were reversed? Like what if the U S had created this app that was able to, without your knowledge, right in China, capture all of this data and we could see it.

and the US government can see it and all of this. Would China ban it? Of course they would. They would never allow it in the first place. Right. Absolutely. And what if a US company created a app that did all of these things and had the potential for censorship and that had two versions of it. Right. There's there's the clean educational stem oriented version.

Dino Mauro (54:57.694)
And then for the masses, they have the soft porn dance video dangerous challenge version. You know, there's there's there's so many red flags that it's it's it's it's quite it's it's it's quite obvious. Right. To me, anyway, that if the if the roles were reversed, there's no way that that.

we would tolerate it if it were American company, there's no way that we would tolerate it that China would tolerate it over there. And he didn't have a good answer to that one either when they said, why is there a different application? He really didn't have a good answer to that. No, he didn't. And let's let's talk about that for those that may not be aware of this. Right. But there is a different version. The Chinese do not see TikTok in the method that we do. There's actually different codes. There's a different app. It's called something different there.

Yeah, now way, right? But now when I go you. Yeah, that would. OK. And in there, it's it's nothing like our tick tock. is STEM education focused. It's it's motivating. It's it's it's got a lot of social benefit. It's it's it's got a lot of professional development tied to it.

Why do you think that is?

Dino Mauro (56:28.334)
Stay with us. We'll be right

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Dino Mauro (58:00.966)
because well, part of it is they don't want Western based influences to their kids because if you are under 18, think, or 16, I forget the age group, you only get to use it 40 minutes a day anyway. You have a 40 minute time limit on it for the whole day. And you can't use it after 10 PM at night. I mean, like all their stuff, they restrict a lot of activity there. So, part of that is to control their, they're using that to control, that's how they control their populace. Absolutely. So, during the hearing that happened last week,

there was a lot of discussion about what access the CCP has to our data. And one of the congressmen talked about how there's various codes, right? There's the source code and then there's the bytecode and that on certain parts of the code, there are on the Chinese version, strict censorship devices and tools in place, right?

where they can control, can spread misinformation, they can control the levels of information that are being disseminated. And that same code is in the US version. It's just turned off. Is that your understanding? I'll be honest, I did not see that part. So I can't answer that one for you, but I'm sure that is exactly the case.

because if you are in a certain age group, if you're under 16 and you sign up and you put your true age in within like 20 minutes, they've done research on this, you automatically start getting images and videos that are drug related or related to transgenderism, all that kind of stuff that is socially driving, I guess, in our particular society. So they start forcing those things on that age group. And part of that is, I think, honestly, it's to...

influence that generation as they grow older, they will become, you why is China such a such a bad thing we need to worry about? And so he was asked several times about what evidence is there that China has accessed the user data now. And he was he was pretty evasive. He his his version was in him being the CEO of TikTok. His version was they've never requested it formally requested of me. I haven't personally given it over to them.

Dino Mauro (01:00:21.798)
And so what's the challenge with answering a question like that? I mean, it's probably true in the sense that there's no document that would ever come forward in the public that says, please remit all personal, private, geographical location, GPS location, other information of all US users, right? Of course, there's not going to be that. But whether their access happens or not, that's not something we would ever even know.

Right. Let's think about how he answered it. I have not been asked that. I have not been asked that. He didn't say we have not been asked that. He said, I have not been asked that. That's a lawyer answer right there. So certainly I would wager my salary that they have sought for, gotten, and are using information from those TikTok servers for whatever reason they want. I guarantee you they've gotten, I guarantee you they have gotten data from ByteDance because maybe they didn't ask TikTok.

They went to bite dance. Hey, bite dance. Give us your tick tock data. And they're required by law, by Chinese law, by the 2017 Chinese law to to hand it to them. Mm hmm. Right. So so interesting. So let's let's look at one of the highlights of the of the before you get there. So Alexander posted a question. I have your chat open. It says, yeah, absolutely. So, yes. First, have Scott Agenbaum, former FBI agent who said, come on.

He doesn't like my answer to I'm sure the sending the breast and brightest to government. anyway. OK, fair enough. OK. And then Alexandria said, I mean, if you think about it, aren't some of our US American businesses in China, too, right? Where are those servers located? And that was something that was addressed in the hearing. So let's get to that. And could the location of those servers allow

potential for the CCP to access their data that communicates between the US and China. Yes. say yes. Facebook is required if China says we want data from your servers that is here in China that you have to give it to us. Now, think they can get around it where if the server is not based in China, I'm sure there's a way around. I'm sure Facebook has to have thought about how do we isolate some of this data. So maybe they...

Dino Mauro (01:02:43.298)
don't give it to, they don't give us based information. So I don't know the exact answer to that, but they are still beholding to that particular requirement. If you were doing business in China, you have to give them data if they ask for it. So what about their claim? Tic Tac's claim that we will move Project Texas. Let's talk about Project Texas. We will move the servers for Tic Tac to Texas, right? To the US, it'll be managed by Oracle or

several other third party monitoring companies, all based in the US. How will that alleviate the concerns? mean, the US is mandated, the administration is mandated that China change ownership of it. And if they do, then they wouldn't have to comply with the 2017 law. China has refused, right? So they will still have that mandated Chinese law that if we ask, you still have to give us everything. But if the servers are located here in the US,

To me, that makes no difference. But what are your thoughts? What are the listeners' thoughts? For me, it's going to depend on what the requirements that are in the CFIUS documents say. So CFIUS is the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US or something like that. So if you want to purchase a US-based company and you're a foreign company, have to go through this CFIUS process that gets a bunch of federal agencies involved and there has to be an approval by DOJ and all that kind of stuff.

My guess is on the other side, if they're going into this particular aspect, especially with TikTok, there would be a CFIUS review as well, and there'd be requirements placed on it. The problem really gets down to, you know, are they really going to give up 100 % interest in everything and move everything and not have back doors over? Who's monitoring that? No one has time for it. Is the US going to place designees?

at this new company 100 % of the time watching all the data bits flow through, can't, they're never going to do that. so China will figure it away how to get through it. and then what will happen, what will happen is once it's determined that, ooh, information from this project, Texas ended up in Beijing, the answer is going to be, we got hacked. Someone hacked us. Now that happened. Yeah. shocking. Right. mean, that's right. Or, or, or they, they, I mean, they have the code written the way that it's written too with

Dino Mauro (01:05:02.7)
with the censorship devices and with other aspects of it. I mean, all of those back doors would still be implemented even if the server sat on US soil. Right? Right. mean, so... I'm not... I'm not... not as concerned with that part of the code, the restriction stuff, because that... Honestly, that's a parental requirement. If the parents aren't paying attention to what the kids are doing, you know, that's on the parents. That's not on any country necessarily. Not to say that, you know...

China's obviously making it easier for that to happen. I just, you know, that's, they've got some responsibility there, but at the end of the day, there's still parental responsibility. Even if, if everything goes to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube short, some of these same issues are going to arise there. So, but you know, parents have to be involved, but that's a, that's a different, different stream altogether. What about the claims that they would be able to manage the user privacy?

and that they would be able to handle and protect the US users. I TikTok made a whole point of that and the Oracle representatives were there as legal counsel was there. What do we, what's your take on that? Like that they'll be able to manage the user privacy. I mean, are they making a claim like they wouldn't be breached that they're gonna be able to manage their own content well, because they don't seem to be doing that

of a job so far. right. don't know. Again, I don't know how they how they manage it. Are you going to how often are you going to audit that for compliance? Right. I mean, I mean, compliance audits are hard to do in just in general cybersecurity terms and able to prevent how a company may or may not be sending user data to a foreign adversary. Yeah, who's trained to do that? I mean, there people that train to do it. But are you going to send them okay, every this month, you're going over to TikTok and then

Are they going to show you what you need to see? mean, it's not like it's going to be company specific. What if like how many companies are out there that we would have to have federal officers involved in this? Right. Yeah, exactly. Right. mean, so let me let me give you a quick now. Jim, sorry, David, a quick analogy to this. Remember when IBM sold Lenovo? Yes.

Dino Mauro (01:07:20.652)
Okay, so that was in North Carolina. I was working in North Carolina for the Bureau at the time and we had conversations with them about selling about the sale of Lenovo. And they said, well, you know, sure, there will be Chinese engineers here once we sell this this laptop part to Lenovo, but they won't have access to this part of the building. No one ever checked that that was the case. And how many Lenovo computers are currently allowed in the US government?

I don't think the US government's allowed to use Lenovo computers. Why not? If everything's up on board, what's the problem? Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, and we've seen that with certain brands of TVs, right, and certain other devices that are built in China and that have certain monitoring devices in there, right? Now, they may say that those devices or those modules aren't turned on, but they can be remotely and therefore they can be

used as a mechanism to either siphon off information, monitor or disseminate false information. I mean, Forbes had a great article about a year, year and a half ago that had to do with the super micro, the little thumbnail chip that was on the super micro boards that were periodically transmitting allegedly information back to China. So, I mean, it's not that hard to set up a system within a US based server room that, you if you flick a switch,

these encrypted servers that is actually transmitting data back to China gets turned off and you don't know they're there, you can't see them, you can't run a scan to find them. But when the auditors leave, we flick it back on and the data flows back. So it's not hard to get around. If a 14 year old kid can figure out how to get around the TikTok age restrictions, I'm pretty sure the country of China can figure out how to get around US based data passage restrictions through their server farm. Right. So there were a couple of zingers that kind of

in the hearing that kind of got passed. And I think that while they were prepared pretty much for his testimony on the Tic Tac side, I don't think they were fully prepared for some of it. And this was one that I thought was pretty emotionally charged and pretty good. So I just want to play it and then let's kind of break it down and take a look at it. Mr. Show, I'd like to direct your attention to the screen for a short video if you don't mind.

Dino Mauro (01:09:51.745)
Mr. Sho, that video was posted 41 days ago. As you can see, it is captioned me as F at the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23rd of this year. This video was posted before this hearing was publicly noticed. I think that's a very interesting point to raise. But more concerning is the fact that it names this chairwoman by name. Your own community guidelines state that you

have a firm stance against enabling violence on or off TikTok. We do not allow people to use our platform to threaten or incite violence or to promote violent extremist organizations, individuals or acts. When there is a threat to public safety or an account is used to promote or glorify off platform violence, we ban the account. This video has been up for 41 days. It is a direct threat to the chairwoman of this committee, the people in this room.

and yet it still remains on the platform. And you expect us to believe that you are capable of maintaining the data security, privacy and security of 150 million Americans where you can't even protect the people in this room? I think that is a blatant display of how vulnerable people who use TikTok are. You couldn't take action after 41 days when a clear threat, a very violent threat,

to the chairwoman of this committee and the members of this committee was posted on your platform. You damn well know that you cannot protect the data and security of this committee or the 150 million users of your app because it is an extension of the CCP. And with that, I yield back. Can I respond? Chair? No, we're gonna move on. Talk about posts on TikTok, right?

whether they are dance videos or whether they are socially like your bakery that's opening up, whatever. But this is clearly naming somebody at that hearing. And it's a clear threat, right, to people at the hearing. And it was up there for 41 days. And they didn't take it down. And it named the chairperson of the hearing itself.

Dino Mauro (01:12:16.566)
I mean, that was pretty powerful cross-exam in my opinion. saw that one live. That was great. Yeah. saw her do that. Yeah. Because in, and she did say it well, like when, when I think about, some of the, elected officials that were trying to cross-examine, they weren't doing a very dynamic job. It didn't seem very effective, right? Some of it is the structure of the five minutes.

And some of it was just maybe their personal delivery. But when I saw this, I was like, that's a really good point, isn't it? Like, this is exactly about this hearing about the chairperson of this hearing. And for 41 days, it was public and they couldn't even, they didn't even know it because if they knew it, they would have taken it down and they didn't even take it down. Like how, like, what does that say about their

filtering and their monitoring of content. mean, it's really challenging, isn't it? Right. My guess is if it had been a similar type of video regarding the People's Liberation Army and how they were bad. Exactly right. That particular thing doesn't negatively impact China's needs or desires or goals. But so why take it out? ironically, after they showed it, they did take it down.

Right. So someone was watching the hearing and said, we should probably get rid of that one. Well, yeah, they found it. Right. They manually went and found it. Right. Yeah. So, know, I thought that was interesting. The other one, because we're maybe having some issues when we go and we replay these, there was the one congressman that talked about the Citizens Lab report. So are you aware of what that report was about? Was that the one about the journalists?

Yeah. Yeah. The, the citizens lab report took a look at, Tik Tok and Tik Tok cited the citizens lab report. Basically they brought it to the committee's attention basically to say that, we've been exonerated, right? Like there's, there's, there's nothing about our code or our platform that actually shows that. And the head of citizens lab actually came out and said, that's not what our report says at all.

Dino Mauro (01:14:39.17)
Right? They restricted access to citizens labs so that they couldn't complete the entire assessment. Secondly, what they did find is the code. Right? What they did find is the code has the censorship components in it, like we talked about earlier, but that they're just not turned on the US version. Right? And in China, they actually have them turned on. So having that capacity, I think, is evidence of the potential for

in national security risk, clearly. But here's my question. What is the risk? Like, what is it that China could do with if they turn on some of these censorship devices on the US version of TikTok? Like if things don't change, what could China do? Like, I don't think anybody, I don't see any discussion of that in the media. Like I don't see people

really talking about it. I see people reacting, claiming free speech and that things shouldn't get banned because generally, like I don't think anybody's in favor of banning things, right? Like just for the sake of banning them. Nobody's trying to ban Facebook or YouTube or anything like that, right? And they're saying you can't post about your bakery or about dance videos. just saying don't don't leverage a application developed and owned by a group that's owned by

affiliates of the CCP to do that, right? Use a different platform. What is the risk? Meaning, isn't there real risk here? China has made no qualms about it that they are going after Taiwan, right? And so, there's a whole element of what could be spread, what misinformation could be shared in the US over that.

isn't that a national security risk right there? Well, I'll give you a host of other issues. let's say that, let's say we say, anybody can use TikTok anywhere they want to. So let's say servicemen, you know, our young 18 year old, 19 year old. Okay. So servicemen have it on their phone. They're deployed to an active theater of war and they have their phones with them. There are trackers that TikTok places on those devices, along with the app that you can track location. So now we know where we can do, they can do troop movement checks. let's say that Congress people,

Dino Mauro (01:17:04.286)
Let me you there. Does YouTube have that? No. Does Instagram have that? No. Right. Does does Facebook have that? No. So like the Chinese government can't like our adversary in international relations can't leverage that data to to have a military advantage. But with this app, it does. Is that not a national security risk? To me, it's that

element itself is why there needs to be the discussion of a band. I'll give you another example. So let's say you have all of these teenagers now, like, I don't care, take all my data, take all you want. Well, we know how good facial recognition obviously is now and how easy it is to predict what people will look like in the future. Well, there's going to be a percentage of these teenagers that are using TikTok that are ultimately going to be in our US intelligence community in some way down the line. You when they're in their mid-20s, early 30s, when they...

realize they're not teenagers anymore and they want to have meaningful lives. And they join the government and they're working, let's say, as a CIA covert officer overseas. China has this data from now. They know who these people are. So you can't travel in covert name, a different name. They're going to know that, this person is actually this person. And we know that they work for the CIA or whatever, so the names don't match. So it creates an intelligence gap there that we'll have down the road.

Let's say they want to target. Now, let me stop you there. That's assuming that our international adversary is playing a long game, right? They're doing things now for the future. Hasn't China expressly said that they're playing a long game? They have. It's exactly what they've said. Right. And so everybody's Americans are so immediate gratification here and now this quarter, this month. What are we doing? Right.

The other parts of the world don't think like that. They think my next generation will be able to achieve this greater value, this greater level of control over the world by the data that we're mining now. And that data helps support their intelligence collection platform on the human side. So human intelligence is still big with China. They obviously have the use and need for human spies to steal information as

Dino Mauro (01:19:26.382)
several FBI cases over the last year or so have shown when they've arrested actual people trading intellectual property to or providing it to the Chinese. But think about, say we know that there's the newest and best missile system is being developed by Lockheed. Let's use that as an example. but the China doesn't know where it's being processed, but they know by scraping LinkedIn profiles and stuff that John Smith is working on this super secret.

new missile system because he gave up too much information or his wife or his kids say, my dad's working on the secret project for Lockheed again, because they're scraping all this data and collecting it. And he's got TikTok on his phone and he's taken his phone to work. They now may know the location of where that secret secret program is being run and they can send human assets to try to get information, break into a whatever. mean, these are extreme examples, granted. But again, like you said, it's a long game. are looking how to use this data.

and weaponize it for their intelligence collection down the line. So that raises a good question. And that is when you download TikTok and one of the counter arguments to suggesting a ban is, well, all everybody's doing it, right? Facebook is doing it. YouTube is doing it. All the social media platforms are gathering up all this data. Right. And there's the movie social.

you know, social dilemma, et cetera. Okay, so understood that, but.

How does when you download and you install TikTok on your phone, how is that different than downloading or installing Facebook, let's say? Right. Well, I think most of Facebook and Instagram, they're trackers and they've come out and said, we do install third party trackers that are used for advertising purposes for the most part, if not for all parts. There are at least 13 documented trackers that download with TikTok and there's some of them that just don't know what they do. Why they don't know what they do, I don't know. Maybe they can't figure out.

Dino Mauro (01:21:24.866)
exactly what it's on there for. But no one asked that question. Hey, can you please provide me with a listing of all the trackers and associated third party apps that download with TikTok and exactly what they do? He would never have responded. I mean, there are plenty of things I'll get back to you on that answer. Sure, I bet you there's I'm sure he's gonna get right back to them with all these answers. But I would like to know that information. And now they can come out and say, well, this is exactly what they do. And maybe they're no big deal. Who knows? I don't know. But I'm not going to trust them to say that they're harmless and meaningless and

just exactly the same as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And again, the same question has arisen is if Facebook loads a third party tracker on your device that does something that violates your personal privacy without your consent, you have a legal recourse to deal with that. You have legal recourse. You have the ability to bring suit. And trust me, there's a million lawyers that do and would love your case, right? But you can't do that with TikTok, right?

I mean, that's one of the issues. If they choose to gather up, which we believe they probably are, but in common sense would probably dictate the theory. But let's just say you find out.

evidentially that they have done these things. What are you going to do? There's nothing you can do to TikTok. mean, there's nothing you can do. You have no jurisdiction over bike dance. And that is one. And perhaps their thought that Project Texas could alleviate that, but it won't be if there's still Chinese ownership. So if there's still Chinese ownership, then...

Project Chactus is really kind of still meaningless, right? If they completely relinquish everything, they would basically have to start from scratch, right? Which is no different than any other, which is really, in my opinion, no different than a ban at that point, right? Right, let's say, where's MySpace today? It's gone. Something will fill the void. Something always fills the void. Yeah, exactly. So, and that-

Dino Mauro (01:23:33.57)
The one Senator that talked about the Citizens Labs report, they talked about in those trackers and in those data collection, third party trackers, that the findings by Citizens Lab is that it violated GDPR. Okay. Which, which that's an issue. Okay. Yeah. And that gets to the point of at what point do you think the U S needs something like GDPR?

I mean, it's a different issue than what we're... It's a different separate issue. It's a whole separate episode and discussion, but that's really what we're getting to, isn't it? Like where we need protections, we don't have... And I think one of the frustrations with people that watched that hearing was these are people that are bashing one CEO when there's several other bad social media companies that still track as well, albeit differently. But...

They're really deflecting from the issue of we don't have a good privacy law in place yet.

Right. And I think, you know, do we need a as restrictive as GDPR? Probably not. But we need something that at least shows we're serious about it and taking some actions to try to go down whatever that road is. Now, whether you can get enough, you know, get bipartisan support for that, I don't see why you couldn't. But if it depends on who brings the legislation up, if it's the wrong legislator who supports who, who signs on to it, then all these other ones won't sign on to it because that person signed on to and that's where our

our legal quagmire or legislative quagmire is, but certainly we need some kind of privacy protection act. And there are some, there's the CCPA, the Child Child Protection Act and things like that, that you could expand off of from a, a, from a, you know, individual privacy perspective. But you make an interesting point. If it violates GDPR, how come there's been no fine? I haven't seen a fine for TikTok for violation of GDPR. Right. I mean, I think it was, was being brought up based on the,

Dino Mauro (01:25:35.808)
the movement over in the UK to ban TikTok. So I think as we monitor that movement. What about other countries? There've been other countries that have banned TikTok, aren't there? Isn't India most famously? Yeah, I was going to say India is like a billion people there. Like, isn't that a pretty significant ban? Yeah. How they get their dance videos out. Right. Like, what are they doing? Like, I'm right.

There's there's a there's I'm sure Bollywood was up in arms when this happened, but they still found a platform to to have it resonate. I mean, we see a lot of it on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram, et cetera. Right. So it's not like it's not replaceable. So I don't understand how it's a free speech argument. I know exactly. You are correct. Would you give us this, though? Like, would you acknowledge that?

the drastic method of banning anything is it needs to be taken seriously because we don't want to go down a slippery slope where Congress now believes that they are the moral police of society, even though they already are. And there's a thousand examples of how they do that. But it is something that needs a lot of research and negotiation before an absolute

ban. Right. And yes, but I don't think they'll I'm not sure if they'll get to an absolute ban. If they do, it'd be interesting to see. But again, once you create that precedent, what stops what stops them from banning something else? Yeah. Hopefully there's the right people in place to say, well, look, this was a sub. This was a special, special, they'd have to almost come up with a finding that says, look, we have to we have done enough research to determine. And part of this would require well, here's what here's what here's how I would tell ByteDance.

If you don't want us to ban your application, this is what we need. We need full access to your entire source code from line A to line Z. We need full access to all of the trackers that you install on a device. Plus we need the ability to very easily disable those trackers if a user determines they don't want that tracker going on or whatever, or, you know, do those settings. So they have to come up with certain things that do this, this, and this. If they don't do it.

Dino Mauro (01:27:58.99)
then okay, we're gonna not allow that to be used domestically. Now, mean, we've gotten to where states and local governments have banned it from those devices. So we've kind of started that easily, which is a lot easier to do. it's not affecting the private sector, right? It's not affecting the general public. so it really will take a technical analysis and a technical assessment, right, to actually

look at this and say, need to determine this. Because if they do look at it and they find this is how China would have accessed in the past and we see no logs, no evidence of it, et cetera, then at least they've gone through that process. Right? But based on what some of the people that have been looking at it have found is there's so many ties and there's so many

threads linking back to the CCP that there's issues. And at least then they would have a technical basis for it, right? We're not banning a company. We're not banning your individual right to free speech. We're banning this technology, just like we do other technologies, right? I mean, there are a whole host of things that this country bans on a regular basis because there are corruption within the device, for lack of a better phrase.

Yeah. And I think we need to look looking forward. We need to be a little more, do a little more due diligence on because China is going to come up with another way to do something similar to what tick tock is so that we need to be able to, someone needs to be looking, okay, what is this app? Who owns it? Who's the ownership? What's it doing? And, you know, it creates, maybe that's, you know, it's more of a regulatory state that maybe we don't want as much as that either. But for this perspective, it's coming from, if it's us based,

follow these rules and you're good to go. But if it's coming from a foreign entity that has hostile intent towards us, maybe we need to look at that a little more diligently than we did TikTok. I TikTok just kind of showed up. It was a cool app. You're able to do dances with it and no one really paid much attention and then it infiltrated like it has infiltrated. And so I think- And one of the worst things I think they did is they didn't moderate it enough on a moral basis.

Dino Mauro (01:30:21.208)
where you had like the Kia boys, like taking cars, had kids dying, you had some suicides, you had all these things that got a lot of bad press. And then people started to really look at it. I mean, had they just kind of kept a little restriction on it and kept it cleaner, it might've continued on as this huge social spying experiment. And I think at the end of the day, let's say it did get banned.

Someone something's going to fill the spot and within six months, no one's going to care. No one's going to care that Tick Tock got banned. Remember Tick Tock? Yeah, it was cool. But I can do the same thing over here. Where was the public outcry when Vine? I mean, the whole thing is everybody was doing exactly what they're doing on Tick Tock on Vine. And when Vine ended, right, where was the public outcry and the free speech and the people marching on Washington? I didn't see that then. And I mean, why such support for a for a Chinese based app? don't.

I don't get it. Not apples to apples comparison to Facebook and Apple and Meta and all that stuff. It's not the same kind of. that's another discussion too, right? Like the way that Meta handled things with Cambridge Analytica, the way that some of these other third party tracking and access to your device that when you click that user permission, you're not aware of, right? Like there's, that's a bigger discussion.

Right? When we're just talking about this one technology, this one application, that's that discussion. But you can't justify keeping that one technology because other bad actors are out there. I mean, that's kind of what Chu was doing as CEO. He's like, well, it's an industry standard. Well, it's an industry standard that we corrupt children. It's an industry standard that

we allow suicides from our technology. It's an industry standard. That's a different issue. Clearly, Congress was not prepared to deal with that today. That's why they kept drawing it back to, we're just talking about this technology, right? This Chinese-based, owned and with ownership through the CCP, So where do we go from here? I think the best approach, here's the approach I take. We get Elon Musk.

Dino Mauro (01:32:44.608)
trade Twitter for TikTok with China. Let's just do that. How about that? That's my suggestion. my gosh. So, mean, look, when people accept the user agreements and they accept the terms and conditions to download an app, nobody knows what that's doing in the background, right? Like nobody knows. Nobody knows. mean, you know,

An infamous engineer hacker, Chris Roberts, went and actually looked at some of the coding and some of the connections and some of the things. He probably knows a lot more than most people, but most people will just install things and go about their day. And the point is, when it's found to expose people that they were not expecting, there is still a general sense of privacy.

even though we're using some of these apps, right? People believe that when I share something publicly online, that that's public, right? You can't complain. Once you post it, it's out there, right? But I don't think many people know that once you install TikTok, they have a copy of all of your contacts. They have a copy of all of your, the keystrokes, everything that you're doing on your phone, they have a copy of.

And I don't think people really realize that. I don't think they really think that it can do that because I don't think they understand the technology. Right. When you copy and paste your password from your password keeper into your log in screen, they're getting that capture in that too. Right. And again, playing the long game, China correlates data. There's information that they're getting from Tic Tac. There's information they're getting from other data breaches that you've been involved in. Go to have ibeenpon.com.

plug in your emails, you'll find out several of the breaches. And what's always shocking when people do that is they find out that they're involved in these massive data breaches with groups they've never had an app for, they've never signed up with because their data was previously sold, right? And so that's the risk that is directly related to this. Well, good conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. It's always fun.

Dino Mauro (01:35:09.69)
I'm almost, I've almost run out of TikTok things to say, I think. I think I've said about everything I can to everybody who wants to listen, but I'll continue to, I'll continue to be that town cryer. I'm there'll be some things that pop up, right? I'm sure there's going to be some followup to this and the, the, the new national security cybersecurity strategy that the administration issued. saw today that they plan on implementing that by June, which will be interesting to see what that means.

Right. And what else is going to be coming of that? So you and I will have a lot more to. Yeah. You and I will have a little. Yeah. The executive order yesterday about spyware on government computers came out yesterday. Yeah. So there will be a lot of things for you and I to always banter about. So thank you so much for joining and thanks everybody for chiming in and watching and listening as well. So we will.

Catch you on the next episode and thank you so much everybody. Appreciate it.

Dino Mauro (01:36:12.258)
Hey, well that's a wrap. Thank you for listening. Our next episode starts right now. Please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's free and download the podcast episodes available everywhere you get podcasts. To support our show and get exclusive pre-release episodes and bonus content, please subscribe to Cybercrime Junkies Prime. Link in the description and show notes. And thanks for being a Cybercrime Junkie.