A coder named augustgl has reverse-engineered TikTokโs Android appโs source code and published it on the GitHub repository. He did this to prove that TikTok is spyware, and even forked it repeatedly and published it repeatedly. While TikTok has used DMCA notices to takedown them across GitHub, itโs unknown whether itโs exploited or not yet.
TikTokโs Source Code Published on GitHub
TikTok has been the target for many in terms of security. The short-video recording platform was accused by many researchers and even the governments of India the US for stealing user data and exporting it to China. Since this is considered an intellectual fraud, many have banned the app in their nations.
Now, another person is calling this app โlegitimate spyware.โ The coder, augustgl from GitHub, claims to have reverse-engineered TikTokโs Android app and found that itโs collecting data from users in several ways. He published the source code retrieved from his GitHub account, which was then forked by some other users!
TikTok has responded immediately and filed DMCA notices to GitHub, asking the code repository to takedown augustglโs posting and others who forked it. TikTok claimed this action on copyright infringement since the source code was belonging to their Android app.
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While GitHub complied with this and took it down effectively, it has informed TikTok later that five more such forked repositories were available, which promoted TikTok to file another notice and pull them down immediately.
The second DMCA notice read, โThe original copyrighted work is source code for the TikTok Android app. Github user [redacted, but almost certainly a reference to โaugustglโ] appears to claim to have reverse-engineered the app. We submitted a DMCA notification to GitHub previously, resulting in a takedown. GitHub subsequently notified us that the user still had forks posted.โ
While it was taken down, the coder augustgl blamed that service is sucking data like location tracking, phone calls, screenshots, WiFi networks, and facial recognition. Itโs unknown where the source code has been shared and how itโs being used.