If China-based engineers have access to TikTok's US-based servers, they can still hand over data to the CCP (or be forced to do so).
The only way out is to move engineering, SRE, and testing out of China and hard-fork the codebase.
The only way out is to move engineering, SRE, and testing out of China and hard-fork the codebase.
1. That is illegal.
2. Theoretically this also currently applies to Google, Microsoft, Google (any company which has devs in China) and is a solved problem. Almost all people don't have physical access to data, and those who do need to go through access reviews to do anything.
> Two pieces of legislation are of particular concern to governments — the 2017 National Intelligence Law and the 2014 Counter-Espionage Law. Article 7 of the first law states that "any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law," adding that the the state "protects" any individual and organization that aids it.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/huawei-would-have-to-give-da...
I see. That's a fair point.