TikTok and the Children

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

TikTok and the Children

Earlier I mentioned TikTok.

AOC used it to mobilize a bunch of teenagers to sabotage a Trump rally.

Here is the post--including her crowing--where I talked about it.

On 6/21/2020 at 6:04 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Apparently this is what happened.

... a new social media platform called TikTok, which, incidentally, is Chinese. And it looks like they set this up though video-conferences on Zoom, which is also Chinese.

...

I even have a bot software for TikTok (which is basically a video clip social media platform, a kind of Twitter for videos). It's called TikVideoCyborg. During the launch it was only 17 bucks for a lifetime account, so I got it to see what it was about, but I haven't messed with it a lot. I know it is great for spamming the hell out of TikTok.

The reason I didn't mess with it yet is time, but also, this is a platform for kids and teens (and pedophiles). Also, there were a lot of rumors swirling around about how much user data TikTok sucks in.

That has been born out in a comment at Reddit by a user named bangorlol to a video now removed by user tobrown05. I am copying the bangorlol text here, even though it has been altered several times before now. It will likely be altered drastically or even deleted from Reddit before too long. This post is being referenced all over the place right now in the political world. I bolded the creepy pedo stuff.

 

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Edit: Please read to avoid confusion:

I'm getting a lot of DM's asking me to prove the majority of this with a paper and snippets of the offending code. I have a decent amount of my notes on my other laptop that recently had a motherboard failure and the majority of that data is on the laptop's SSD. It's a macbook pro, so recovering the data isn't exactly super simple. I have some frida scripts that I pushed to my git server as well as some markdown files + conversation logs I've had with exploit devs, but not much else. In order to get everyone the proof they require, I'll likely need to reverse the app all over again which isn't something I have time for right now.

I'm planning on putting up a simple site/blog with what I have and will be updating this comment with the link when it's done. Thank you all for giving this issue your attention, and thank you to everyone who is scrutinizing my claims. We need more of that in this current age of disinformation.

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So I can personally weigh in on this. I reverse-engineered the app, and feel confident in stating that I have a very strong understanding for how the app operates (or at least operated as of a few months ago).

TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device... well, they're using it.

• Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)

• Other apps you have installed (I've even seen some I've deleted show up in their analytics payload - maybe using as cached value?)

• Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)

• Whether or not you're rooted/jailbroken

• Some variants of the app had GPS pinging enabled at the time, roughly once every 30 seconds - this is enabled by default if you ever location-tag a post IIRC

• They set up a local proxy server on your device for "transcoding media", but that can be abused very easily as it has zero authentication

The scariest part of all of this is that much of the logging they're doing is remotely configurable, and unless you reverse every single one of their native libraries (have fun reading all of that assembly, assuming you can get past their customized fork of OLLVM!!!) and manually inspect every single obfuscated function. They have several different protections in place to prevent you from reversing or debugging the app as well. App behavior changes slightly if they know you're trying to figure out what they're doing. There's also a few snippets of code on the Android version that allows for the downloading of a remote zip file, unzipping it, and executing said binary. There is zero reason a mobile app would need this functionality legitimately.

On top of all of the above, they weren't even using HTTPS for the longest time. They leaked users' email addresses in their HTTP REST API, as well as their secondary emails used for password resets. Don't forget about users' real names and birthdays, too. It was allllll publicly viewable a few months ago if you MITM'd the application.

They provide users with a taste of "virality" to entice them to stay on the platform. Your first TikTok post will likely garner quite a bit of likes, regardless of how good it is.. assuming you get past the initial moderation queue if thats still a thing. Most users end up chasing the dragon. Oh, there's also a ton of creepy old men who have direct access to children on the app, and I've personally seen (and reported) some really suspect stuff. 40-50 year old men getting 8-10 year old girls to do "duets" with them with sexually suggestive songs. Those videos are posted publicly. TikTok has direct messaging functionality.

Here's the thing though.. they don't want you to know how much information they're collecting on you, and the security implications of all of that data in one place, en masse, are fucking huge. They encrypt all of the analytics requests with an algorithm that changes with every update (at the very least the keys change) just so you can't see what they're doing. They also made it so you cannot use the app at all if you block communication to their analytics host off at the DNS-level.

For what it's worth I've reversed the Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps. They don't collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does, and they sure as hell aren't outright trying to hide exactly whats being sent like TikTok is. It's like comparing a cup of water to the ocean - they just don't compare.

tl;dr; I'm a nerd who figures out how apps work for a job. Calling it an advertising platform is an understatement. TikTok is essentially malware that is targeting children. Don't use TikTok. Don't let your friends and family use it.

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Edit: Well this blew up - sorry for the typos, I wrote this comment pretty quick. I appreciate the gold/rewards/etc people, but I'm honestly just glad I'm finally able to put this information in front of people (even if it may outdated by a few months).

If you're a security researcher and want to take a look at the most recent versions of the app, send me a PM and I'll give you all of the information I have as a jumping point for you to do your thing.

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Edit 2: More research..

/u/kisuka left the following comment here:

Piggy-backing on this. Penetrum just put out their TikTok research: https://penetrum.com/research/tiktok/

Edit 2: Damn people. You necromanced the hell out of this comment.

Edit 3: Updated the Penetrum link + added Zimperium's report (requires you request it manually)

The above Penetrum link appears to be gone. Someone else linked the paper here: https://penetrum.com/research

Zimperium put out a report awhile ago too: https://blog.zimperium.com/zimperium-analyzes-tiktoks-security-and-privacy-risks/

Edit 4: Messages

So this post blew up for the third time. I've responded to over 200 replies and messages in the last 24 hours, but haven't gotten to the 80 or so DM's via the chat app. I intend on getting to them soon, though. I'm going to be throwing together a blog or something very soon and publishing some info. I'll update this post as soon as I have it up.

 

Leave it to the Chinese.

They get all the info they could ever want about the pedophiles who go there--and there should be a lot of them since the platform is huge and the restrictions are lax, Unfortunately, this info-gathering also applies to their victims. How useful do you think that info will be in about 20 or 30 years if a victim becomes prominent?

I don't think that is their main interest or anywhere near it, but I do think they will use this information if they come across something that can be used politically to further their interests.

For example, there is a swarm of teenagers around AOC--including her--that they now have a ton of information on. Don't forget, she is a member of Congress.

Michael