On a technical level, how is TikTok being blocked/banned in the US?

Can I still sideload the app to my phone? Is it only being banned from the two big app stores? Is there a penalty for being found in possession of the software on US soil?

  • Steve@communick.news
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    22 hours ago

    I believe Google and Apple are to be fined if they don’t remove the app from their stores.

    We don’t have the ability to nationally block the domains and IPs, so current users will still be able to access it. So you shouldn’t need a VPN.

    Android users could side load the app if they want.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        13 hours ago

        On Android you can download apps (.APK files) from the web, and install them without any app store.

        • Steve@communick.news
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          10 hours ago

          Not quite. You don’t need any app store at all.
          You literally download an APK file from a website or anywhere, then install it directly. Could even be a friend with a thumb drive. Doesn’t matter how you get it, it’s just a file.

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nl
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            10 hours ago

            Yeah. Dont do that. Its how you install viruses.

            Install through another app store like fdroid. Its the secure way to get APKs

            • Steve@communick.news
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              3 hours ago

              That’s got nothing to do with what sideloading means.

              And the risks are very overblown.
              While it’s possible, it’s extremely rare.

              Mostly because the potent target pool is so small. Bigger potentials for bad guys if they trick app stores into approving trojan horse apps, because everyone thinks app stores are safer.

    • lurch (he/him)@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      We don’t have the ability to nationally block the domains and IPs

      I disagree. It may be able to circumvent it, but US ISPs could configure their DNS servers to not resolve the domains and their routers to drop packages from and to these IPs. It will affect everyone who uses their ISPs default config for DNS and not uses VPN/Tor, which is a lot of people.

      The question is: Is there a legal procedure to do that? For malware they are sometimes doing things like that (seizing botnet control domains etc), but tiktok isn’t officially malware, AFAIK.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        10 hours ago

        This isn’t North Korea.
        Even China and Russia can’t fully block things.
        Our networks aren’t nearly as controlled as theirs.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      22 hours ago

      Public DNS servers hosted in the US will get notified to delist the domain or direct it to an alternate IP. ISPs will get notified to route IP traffic elsewhere.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
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          21 hours ago

          To be fair, it wouldn’t be every ISP that would reroute, just backbone ones. Their routing tables would filter down to regional and last mile networks.