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Comment by vasco | Hacker News Reader

Mr. Chew, does TikTok access the home wifi network?

That confused question was asked by representative Richard Hudson, R-NC.

Which is why it is an appropriate response to someone who thinks geriatric politicians are only on one side of the aisle.

Without more context it sounds like you're quoting an old democratic politician. Obviously.

And? Attacking the internal network from the public Internet using a browser as a proxy:

https://www.forcepoint.com/sites/default/files/resources/fil...

It is a totally legitimate question if attacks like this are baked into an app (unless these kinds of permissions are now the default, in which case I am behind the curve).

Not necessarily a bad question. Could be interpreted as "does this app actively scan for other devices in the home network?".

"Could be interpreted" could be interpreted to mean anything at all.

The question asked was not about scanning, and a reasonable person would not answer it as if it had.

The follow up clarification specifically was "is it possible then, that it could access other devices on that home wifi network?".

Listen, I'm not American nor on TikTok. I couldn't care less, I just wanted to point out that this is not the best example for weird questions from that whole ordeal.

I thought that was what was meant by the question. Was it not?

I thought it was a brilliant question. Representative Hudson demonstrated understanding of security boundaries between Internet client-server and local peer-to-peer network use. Who is making fun of him for that question?

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