AS HEARD ON - The Jim Polito Show - WTAG 580 AM: TikTok and Chinese Technology and more

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and we talked about TikTok and Chinese Technology Companies Spying and Monitoring through apps. So, here we go with Mr. Polito.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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National Security and the Chinese-based Social App TikTok

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Here he is folks, the man with the plan, the Tech Talk guru. He's got it all covered. Our friend Craig Peterson. Good morning, Craig.

Hey, good morning, Jim. How are you today, buddy? I'm doing great. I enjoyed your Veterans Day show yesterday, by the way, for taking the time.

Yeah, a lot of people calling in.

I have two kids who were in the military as well in the Navy and my father in law. He was on a submarine in Hawaii, right there when the Japanese started shelling Pearl Harbor. My father in law passed many years ago. But, you know, we've all been touched by this, whether it's a more recent conflict or the older ones, so thanks to everybody. Sorry, I couldn't say anything yesterday.

No, but Craig, thank you. I really, I really appreciate that. And I appreciate the service of all. And really, it's, we can't do anything else and no need to thank us because it's Veterans Day, you do that.

So let me let me let you in on a secret here. There's the social media app TikTok. And I guess it's for the younger kids, like they all start being for younger kids, and then we take over the baby boomers, so like with Instagram and Facebook and all of that, so I joined TikTok, only so I could get the name, Jim Polito, you know on it like, and maybe someday. young folks will be using it who are my age or others but TikTok has some very serious issues surrounding it. Kind of a lot of controversy, right?

Yeah, it absolutely does. And what we're talking about here is an app spelled TIKTOK T-I-K-T-O-K. And it is very popular. It uses little videos that as you mentioned, it's mainly kids are using 15 seconds that allows you to put music on them. You can do some really fancy little video where you can and even Tom Brady who apparently Oh, yeah, Gronkowski. I'm sorry, Brady. Correct me here.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So even though he's using it now. So I don't maybe it's already started to transition to older people like those celebrities. Like Will Smith on it all the time, you know and he's up there in age but he's trying to appeal to younger people so he wants to be there on that platform.

Yeah, he has a very cute little video in fact about TikTok and kind of getting pulled into it. And it's a lot of fun. A lot of people are doing that, you know, kind of like the old SnapChats and old its children use this very popular, but within the last two years, TikTok is really gained a lot of notoriety and a lot of popularity. However, it is owned by a company called ByteDance, which is a Chinese owned company which is the reason for the controversy.

There we go. Okay, now I get it.

A Congressional Committee called the Committee on Foreign investment in the United States. And they review for acquisitions of US businesses that could threaten national security. I don't know how Will Smith nows fear, national security. But when you get right down to it even if you take a photograph and you post it online on a website or a blog, etc. Remember nowadays that photograph has built right into it. GPS coordinates of where it was taken, what the picture that was that you took what it was about now using visual recognition software. And there's been some amazing things done so for instance, over in France, Notre Dame, the cathedral, Of course, burned down.

Yeah.

And that they're trying to figure out okay, so how can we rebuild it? What should we do? Should we stay true with what it was? They ended up taking the photographs that people had just posted online, just you know, hey, look at me, I'm on vacation at Notre Dame in Paris. And they were able to come completely stitch them together. So every inch of that Cathedral that was visible by these cameras, that was stitched together and they had a whole three-dimensional view of it.

Wow.

Now, they've done that with some other things before for instance, over in Iraq and, and other places in the Middle East with some of these thousand 2000 even older monuments are over there, those buildings that were destroyed by the Taliban. Again they were able to take the pictures that people had taken and posted online so and reconstruct the things visually. Technology has made that possible to do quite easily now, and that's part of the reason, Jim, why they say you know, you cannot take pictures in New York City inside of certain areas that are considered to be security threats. Because our enemies can go stitch them together and have a very detailed visual picture of everything with GPS coordinates that get them right down to the last yard. Right? That you're taking in, you know the meter. So with things like TikTok that are in control under control of the Chinese government, and of course, their socialist government is
exactly, you know,
Do we want them to have that kind of information that could be embedded in the videos or taking, maybe even in some cases tracking us when we're not using the application or writing videos, but now they've got more information on us here in the US.

It's a similar problem, of you, know when IBM sold Lenovo to China, I freaked out because here Lenovo is a company that makes laptops Some people love them the birth of laptops. But now they have a company which doesn't mean just the hardware. But they've got the names and addresses and phone numbers of everyone, including people in government NSA security risk. So let's think about our deployed soldiers. You know, you and I have talked a little bit about the Fitbit. And our soldiers are using these Fitbit when they run around our military bases overseas as well as here in the US. And they are uploading the information from the Fitbit to the internet so they can compete with each other right and have some fun.

Well, Jim, they put together heat maps using the Fitbit information, and you were able to go online and find our secret military bases.

Not good.

So we've gotten Soldiers using TikTok to talk to their friends back home. We've got people here doing the same thing. And we are leaking all kinds of information everywhere, really might not want to show and now the Feds are getting involved. They're going to look at this more. they may halt some sales of some of this technology.

But previously they this is what it's called that committee in the government here. They focused on companies with military intellectual concerns. Right. But now, this has triggered investigation of TikTok.

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, we're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech Talk Guru, the thing is, Craig, in the past, the stuff that people posted, legitimately and openly online on a social media platform, you know, you could I guess mine, you could go in and search and look for, but to actually control the platform. On the platform, you know, isn't that like the same issue we had with them selling us electronics and we find out all these electronics are constructed or assembled with a back door that the Chinese can use?

Yeah. And who knows what's in it right when these back doors are already existing in our security cameras that we put in, in not only businesses, but it turns out on our military bases, 90 plus percent of them are made in China, even if it's a US brand. And they have back doors. And I've been in small businesses where those cameras security cameras made in China have been used to break into the point of sale equipment to steal credit card and banking info.

Oh, boy. Yeah. See, that's just not good.

Right. Yeah. And so that's what we're looking at here. And then frankly, this is a real problem.

All right, Craig, where can folks get more information on this? I imagine if they text my name to this number

855-385-5563. So just text Jim to 855-385-5563.

All right, standard data and tax rates apply. You'll get all of this fascinating information, plus more from Craig and you won't have to worry about Craig, treating your data like the Chinese would, the Chinese Communist. Craig, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next week.

All right, thanks. Take care, Jim.

 

Transcription by otter.ai

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