semking

>Characterizing device information and IP addresses as "privacy violations" is a stretch.

I agree: this is a characterization I never made. FYI, I also collect this type of data about you when you visit my website. That said, telemetry + totalitarianism = bad combo.

>Irrelevant. The data collection is done by first parties. Encryption doesn't do anything.

Even if data is collected by first parties, encryption is still highly relevant because it ensures that the data remains secure in transit and at rest. It does a lot.

>What does this have to do with privacy? Again, it's fine to be against "blatant algorithmic manipulation of social platforms" or whatever, but dragging seemingly unrelated topics in an attempt to amass as big pile of greviances as possible is disingenuous.

You are aggressive for no reason whatsoever. There's nothing disingenuous: when users are shadow-banned by platforms under dictatorships, they end up flagged, and their private data is often analyzed for nefarious reasons. There's a link with privacy but I'll stop at this stage if we cannot have a civilized discussion.

>Where's the keylogging? I skimmed the article and the only thing I could find was a passing mention about an article that you "was advised not to publish it and I didn’t". How much keylogging could possibly going on in a short video app? Is the "keylogging" just a way to make "we measure how engaged someone is with a video" as sinister as possible?

“TikTok iOS subscribes to every keystroke (text inputs) happening on third party websites rendered inside the TikTok app. This can include passwords, credit card information and other sensitive user data. (keypress and keydown). We can’t know what TikTok uses the subscription for, but from a technical perspective, this is the equivalent of installing a keylogger on third party websites.”

https://krausefx.com/blog/announcing-inappbrowsercom-see-wha...

Please note that this article is outdated (August 2022). Importantly, the article does not claim that any data logging or transmission is actively occurring. Instead, it highlights the potential technical capabilities of in-app browsers to inject JavaScript code, which could theoretically be used to monitor user interactions.

I don't want to get into politics but I'll gladly admit human beings are biased.

"We Don't See Things As They Are, We See Them As We Are"

— Samuel b. Nahmani

I don't disagree with you either and like you, I'm entirely against privacy violations in any way, shape or form.

I admit I am concerned when I see blatant algorithmic manipulation of social platforms to favor any narrative that aligns with geopolitical objectives.

I also wrote about the TikTok algo a few days ago. You'll see what I think of user privacy violations (closed ecosystem + basically a keylogger in this case):

https://semking.com/likes-lies-untold-story-tiktok-algorithm...

I cannot stand when dissenting voices or opinions are shadow-banned.

And I have the same opinion regarding U.S. or EU companies.

Our privacy should be respected.

In the meantime: strong encryption at every corner, please!

Thank you for this balanced and essential comment which is entirely true!

One of my core followers named Bruno basically said the same thing under my Linkedin post yesterday:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/organic-growth_deepseek-the-o...

I welcome friction, so I'll be blunt: I disagree with you, not because what you are saying is wrong but because you only consider systematic data collection.

That's not the issue here.

There's a difference between democracies like the United States or European countries, no matter how IMPERFECT they are, and a dictatorship that does not allow dissenting opinions.

There's a difference in how the data collected will be used.

Freedom of speech, even when it is relative, is better than totalitarianism.

I never said they are just a clone! There's an actual tech breakthrough!

Read the two following sections of my blog post:

1. "Distilled language models"

2. "DeepSeek: Less supervision"

This is absolutely hilarious! :)

ClosedAI scraped human content without asking and they explained why this was acceptable... but when the outputs of their training corpus is scraped, it is THEIR dataset and this is NOT acceptable!

Oh, the irony! :D

I shared a few screenshots of DeepSeek answering using ChatGPT's output in yesterday's article!

https://semking.com/deepseek-china-ai-model-breakthrough-sec...

Man you did a great job! :D

This HN user is a passionate advocate for ethical AI and SEO practices, with a keen eye for cybersecurity threats. They regularly share insightful stories and comments, often sparking deep discussions on the intersection of technology and ethics.

I loved the positive roast:

This user loves Google so much, they even forgive it for shadow banning their content!

If SEO were a sport, this user would be the champion, but their articles are so long, they need a table of contents!

Go to the bottom, you'll find my comment with the links: my name is Elie Berreby.

Just my personal opinion.

You are right! I commented here and on their substack to give the credit to the OPs!

I just left a comment on their Substack to give the credit to the OPs.

I just added the links here since the substack failed to do it. And I left them a note on the sub to add the credits!

Thank you for pointing this out!

Guys I'm sorry but it appears the substack did NOT link to the original authors which is NOT acceptable!

Credit

GitHub: https://github.com/Jiayi-Pan/TinyZero

Source on X: https://x.com/jiayi_pirate/status/1882839370505621655

Thanks, I just commented on their sub to give credit!

The title is click-baity if you ask me. I didn't change it.

I sincerely do not understand this comment so please clarify: are you saying I'm spamming? Is there an issue with the source?

I believe 2025 is going to be a fantastic year for Search superstars. Short hiking video :)

Discover how a trojanized version of the XWorm RAT builder exploited novice cybersecurity enthusiasts, spreading malware through GitHub, Telegram, and file-sharing platforms to compromise over 18,000 devices globally. This malicious tool exfiltrates sensitive data, employs advanced virtualization and registry techniques, and operates via Telegram-based command-and-control servers. Learn about the identified threat actors, their operational methods, and the disruption efforts that leveraged the malware's "kill switch" to mitigate its impact. Stay informed on proactive measures to protect against evolving cybersecurity threats.

Hiking video included :)

I enjoyed the boldness with which Arman, who quit his $330k engineering job at TikTok, replied to great questions! So much so that I selected the best technical and social answers and wrote a short article to cover key technical and social aspects.

Since many AI crawlers do not render JavaScript, what will happen to your Structured Data written in JSON-LD and implemented using Google Tag Manager without a server-side rendering strategy?

I simply cannot believe what I'm reading... :(

I strongly recommend watching this video on the effect of potassium on cardiovascular disease (like stroke)!

Re-Balancing One Essential Nutrient to Protect against Stroke:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liW9F6gLwgQ

I also find it hard to believe! :(

By the way, Google has reacted and I do not know if I'm allowed to post a new URL or if this will be FLAGGED! I'm new here but I think it would be insightful.

"So they charged us $400k knowing full well we didn't use the resources and the resources used only cost them a small fraction of this amount."

Good job, Google!

Yes, the "trick" is ultra-simple: to fool Google, the scammers host the initial malicious code on the sites.google.com subdomain, allowing them to display the official ads.google.com subdomain... peek irony if you ask me! :)

Google didn't care until now. We reported hundreds of ads. I hope this content will push them to react. But there's another problem we've noticed in the past 24 hours: major legit ad accounts are being compromised.

The great Google Ads heist: criminals ransack advertiser accounts via fake Google ads

You knew Google Search had issues? Meet Google Ads' evil twin :D

The past article discussed in this case study is available here:

"Google, the search engine that’s forgotten how to search"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42446995

https://semking.com/google-search-real-user-feedback/

Someone at Mozilla apparently created links to my PREVIOUS article after reading today's case study demonstrating how Google and Bing shadow-banned the content!

Thank you, whoever you are and I cannot wait to see if this will lead to major SERP changes in the coming weeks ;)