China Doesn’t Want to Watch You Dance

But it does want your data, and here’s how it’s getting it.

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Last week, I spoke at Arizona State University on “Cybersecurity and the Future.” I was a panelist with the state’s director of homeland security, the CEO of a cybersecurity company, and the CEO of a health care company (an industry with significant cybersecurity challenges). It was a great event and I really love engaging with college students because they’re just the right mix of curious, skeptical, and impressionable. 

Whenever I do an event like this, one of my main goals is to raise awareness about how protecting our personal data is about more than credit scores and embarrassing texts. It really is about national security.  

Inevitably I’ll get the question, “Why would China want my data? So what if they have my social media videos—I don’t care if they see me flossing.” This is when I launch into my spiel about how it’s about more than just one person’s data, it’s about the comprehensive insights a nation like China can derive when it’s getting troves of personal information from hundreds of millions of Americans. I then typically use my go-to metaphor, where I ask the person to imagine waking up to a news story reporting China has secretly deployed 100 million sensors around the United States and has been clandestinely collecting our personal contacts, photos, GPS locations, online purchasing and viewing habits, and even our keyboard swipes and patterns. I tell them this would obviously cause an uproar and then, feeling very pleased with myself, I lower the boom by telling them this is exactly what is happening every day with the more than 130 million American users of TikTok. Typically, this causes the person I’m chatting with to pause, to admit that my scenario sounds bad, and then, at least half of the time, they say something like, “Well, I mean, everyone else has my data too so I might as well keep having fun.” At this point I thank them for coming to the event and I start thinking about which near-by bar is likely to serve the best old-fashioned. 

It’s not that I don’t understand—I do. The challenge of cybersecurity can feel like a battle that’s already lost. Like we’re all so far down the rabbit hole that the only thing we can really do is sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s a type of helplessness that’s made even more unattractive by the seemingly high cost of having to “miss out” on apps, games, and other things that can be genuinely enjoyable and even helpful.  

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  1. Avatar photo
    David Gottfried

    This MAY be a very important article

    At the outset, I must say that either a) my techno backwardness is so severe that it has impeded my ability to comprehend articles on cyber security or b) this has just a little bit of yellow journalism in it.

    Of course, I can see how China's techno power makes it a more powerful and ruthless opponent of its people's autonomy and liberty, a richer country and I can see how they can undermine our security if they hacked into Pentagon weapons systems.

    But you started off talking about Tik Tok

    Please finish what you said about Tik Tok

    Please finish this hypothetical: If I indicate, on Tik Tok, that I am sexually aroused by women in bee hive hairdos , how may that set in motion a chain of events that may harm our national security.

    Please answer. I want to take your side. But I need clearer arguments

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    Ben Connelly

    This was a very important and useful piece. I will be sharing it widely.

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  3. Seth Kramer

    My greatest fear is that China knows which team each football fan roots for. That knowledge alone would provide insight into their travel pattern, television viewing pattern, whereabouts every Sunday in the fall, happiness level, food and drink consumption, and work attendance the following Monday.

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  4. David A

    How does the Washington Post article concerning Facebook organizing opposition to TikTok come into play with our concerns about TikTok?

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      Klon Kitchen

      It doesn’t change any of the facts but does confuse the conversation. It’s possible to pursue the right course for the wrong reasons.

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    Jerry Masters

    All the people I love are too busy (or otherwise focused, primarily because of age) to read The Dispatch. Nevertheless, I might be able to convince some of the less distracted of them to read this piece, if it was unlocked (and I knew how to share it via email; I've no cell phone).

    I can't promise that any of those readers would subscribe, but Mr. Kitchen's work is the only Dispatch content that might encourage them.

    IF TD's editor unlocks this piece, I promise to share and shill.

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  6. Brian M.

    So what do we make of the Trump administration attempt to force the sale of Tik Tok (which was supposedly cooperating with CFIUS) to an American company? Misguided? Or one of those examples where thoughtful policy is undermined by the imperfect messenger?

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  7. Mrobertchase1

    Nobody wants to watch me dance.

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    Steve Gordon

    Great wake up call Klon. Outlines the various threats in an accessible manner. Probably can't get my kids to kick the Tik Tok habit, but I have some friends who are very politically active and conservative who I've warned previously. Good to have someone with experience and insight like yours that I can point to and say, see, you're not helping us vs. the CCP!

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  9. Stephen Nielson

    So I'm trying to figure out how you stop the flow of information to china outside of wholesale blocking of all technology interactions with China. I mean I guess you could get Level3 and other main interhubs for the internet to just stop all traffic to China but otherwise I just don't see how the game is won here.

    Private companies are incentivized to make money. Entry into China makes tons of money and unless these executives are threatened with jail sentences they will continue to capitalize on the market. So it seems to me that this requires a legislative solution with a strong enforcement mechanism rather than a public awareness campaign to stop tik-tok and its ilk.

    I remember providing software consulting to our CEO once on their desire to enter into the chinese market and teach the chinese skills needed for their commercial airline pilots. I strongly recommended against it as the chinese were demanding access to all of our codebase, intellectual property, etc in order for us to operate in China. I told this CEO, don't you realize that Chinas endgame is to take the tech and in 5 years they will have replaced you with their own homegrown competitor? CEO&owner's answer: by that time we will have made tens to possibly hundreds of millions of dollars and at that point I will have so much money I just won't care.

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      Dona Dunsmore

      Reminds me of the fact that Apple was making puh-lenty of money but they still moved to China.

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    Synchronize Your Dogmas (Bill B)

    My own thoughts are that if someone wants any of our data they're going to get it. If they don't already have it it's because they're simply uninterested or haven't got around to it yet. Making yourself as uninteresting as possible(security through obscurity) helps a bit.

    I suspect that between organized crime, script kiddies and hackers, digital anarchists, corporations and governments the notion that any of our data is secure or actually secret is a comfortable illusion. While complex passwords and authentication are important it still seems to me equivalent to locking the screen door. That's just the world we live in.

    If we really wanted to be secure we would get a landline; use the Post Office; shop at brick and mortar stores; use cash and unplug our TV.

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