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Apple and Google Strengthen Privacy of COVID-19 Exposure Notification System, Targeting Next Week for Beta Release
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Taken out of context to what my response was to.
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Not even in the least. But I expect nothing less from “50 cent army” members (chucker23n1, cmaier and maybe more) posting on MR forum voicing your support for citizens civil liberties to be encroached upon by government and big tech offering a solution. On one side of the spectrum people condone Tim Cook for working with an authoritative regime and on the other when they are co-developing a system that may and possibly can (looking at history) be used for authoritative purposes, the “50 cent army” rears full support, I wonder why?
As mentioned if you are all for this hide in the wood due to your fear or a virus or immigrate to an authoritative regime and live the “contact tracing” life you so please.
Interesting observation that chucker23n1 and cmaier work on getting each others back. Just an observation on MR forum.
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Taken out of context to what my response was to.
Interesting. What was the context?
Who’s advocating for that? Quite a stretch.
Wait… last I checked, he was working with the EU. Are they a “regime” now?
Yeah, that’s possible, but so far, you’ve only thrown stochastic attacks at it. You probably haven’t tried to read or understood the spec at all, with strange comparisons like AirDrop.
Attacks are possible. A lion eating your dinner is also possible. It’s always about how likely something is, and so far, the spec seems rather safe to me.
Oh, we’re supporting China?
I… um. Where on earth do you get that from?
Yes yes. We’ll probably cohabitate some time next year.
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Cmaier didn’t say any of those things.
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Wtf is “50 cent army?”Taken out of context to what my response was to.
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Not even in the least. But I expect nothing less from “50 cent army” members (chucker23n1, cmaier and maybe more) posting on MR forum voicing your support for citizens civil liberties to be encroached upon by government and big tech offering a solution. On one side of the spectrum people condone Tim Cook for working with an authoritative regime and on the other when they are co-developing a system that may and possibly can (looking at history) be used for authoritative purposes, the “50 cent army” rears full support, I wonder why?
As mentioned if you are all for this hide in the wood due to your fear or a virus or immigrate to an authoritative regime and live the “contact tracing” life you so please.
Interesting observation that chucker23n1 and cmaier work on getting each others back. Just an observation on MR forum.
is that something they are babbling about in the conspiracy forums?
I was just about to commend one of your earlier posts for being a reasonable and non-judgemental position from someone on your side of the debate, and I respected you for that, but then you fell into the same trap and accusatory tone that many others on your side have toward those on the other.
It seems to me that most of those who aren’t respecting the other side are those who are satisfied with and/or don’t care about privacy not respecting those that aren’t and/or do. Some go so far as to suggest people who choose not to use it have something to hide or are failing in their civic duty (as you have) and these comments are not only unhelpful, but undermine your own argument. I argue that I’m upholding my civic duty by pushing back against use of technology in this way. It is wholly unnecessary and relatively ineffective for the stated purposes compared to many other measures, including basic hygiene.
While Apple and Google claim that they will turn the functionality off eventually, it is relatively simple for governments to mandate that they don’t, and to include the software in a compulsory or always-on fashion in the operating system itself. In the case of the US at least, they need not even tell you if or when this occurs.
What we’re seeing now is a trial of the technology. It’s unlikely to help that much and some are already cautioning against the idea of using the app to justify relaxing other measures, which is one of the commonly stated aims and justifications for those on your side; or to become complacent and give false confidence if you have it enabled.
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Again, I am a staunch defender of my own privacy and respect the rights of others to do the same.
Yet I’ve seen absolutely no post on this thread that explains how this system implicates anybody’s privacy IN ANY WAY.
As for whether you should be allowed to choose to use it or not, of course you should be. But your choice NOT to use does not override the rights of people who own businesses, schools, etc. to say you can’t come in if you choose not to. They have rights, too.
And I stand by my point that if you are potentially a carrier of a communicable deadly disease, and you choose to congregate with other people (who aren’t willingly choosing to congregate with a carrier), then you are a scumbag.
Your understanding of the situation and potential effectiveness of this app is very poor; and now you’re resulting to insults. Says it all really.
Existing measures including traditional contact tracing (which is sill required even if you use the app) have proven very effective. Use of this app cannot and will not protect you from infection, or from giving it to others. By definition it only works after the fact. Current infection rates in Australia and NZ are already very low and petering out, but ongoing high testing rates are the best strategy to identify potential future outbreaks and locations of concern early; including “sentinel” testing of healthy individuals.
What you’re suggesting (mandatory tracking technology to access services like education) is a very dangerous and slippery slope that many, many people will reject. It’s an alarming precedent you’re suggesting.
Not everybody even has a smartphone (especially kids) and what if your phone goes flat? It’s not helping then is it? What next? Keep your phone charged and Bluetooth on or cop an on-the-spot fine? Or do you just want people who don’t have or want advanced technology (the elderly for instance) to be shut out from society?
Your arguments (and those from others on your side) unravel at every point when held up to scrutiny.
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1) My understanding is not poor. I’ve read the spec. I have a ph.d. in electrical engineering. I designed microprocessors for 10 years. I’ve been coding for almost 40 years. I get the spec. Nothing in the spec. risks privacy, and you are still not telling me why you think it does.
2) instead of telling me what privacy is supposedly risked, you are instead telling me that contact tracing using this app might not be 100% effective. Granted. But that’s not a reason not to use it. And the shortcomings you refer to all result in false negatives, not false positives. So if a notification comes up, I know I have been in contact with someone who has been tested positive for the virus. You are simply lying when you say that such a system “cannot protect you from giving it to other.” Of course it can. Because, if I am feeling fine, but I receive a notification that I may have been infected, I will quarantine myself and seek medical guidance, and, in the mean time, I will not be transmitting the disease to others. This isn’t rocket science.
3) I didn’t suggest “mandatory tracking to access services like education.” What I said is that property owners (including, e.g. businesses and private schools) have every right to control who comes onto their property. Are you suggesting we take away people’s rights to control who enters their own property now?
4) I didn’t insult you. I insulted people who are told they may have the virus and who, despite that, go out in public and risk infecting others. Other than the risk percentages, it’s no different than having unprotected sex with someone when you have HIV. And, for hundreds of years, legal systems that base themselves off of British common law have held people criminally liable for that sort of behavior. So yes, they are asshats.
I think it’s a good idea. There is no current method to track those that have come in contact with infected indiv.
And your rebuttal is in part a slippery slope as well.
And there were no insults. OP was rightfully calling out a group of people who may be knowingly infected who interacts with others.
Obviously a hot button topic that has different options.
My problem with this thread is one "side" of the debate has actually skimmed the spec and informed itself how Apple and Google are approaching this, and the other side apparently hasn't, and instead conjures up what-if scenarios.
Which, yes, there are potential privacy issues that can't be dismissed, but it also can't be dismissed that Apple and Google thought of them in advance. Simply brushing it off with "a-ha! but AirDrop has a server!" (yes, but this isn't AirDrop??) isn't useful.
Huh. Starting to wonder if there's an obscure bug in the forum software where it copies the wrong quote tags.
I had to look it up as well. Seems like a strange accusation.
I mean, I’m in the 7-line army, sure, but I never even heard of the 50 cent army. (Ich wette Sie muessen das auch googeln)
Honestly thought it was something about the rapper, but apparently, it's somehow even stupider.
So, you see, China engineered this virus to create a global crisis where China winds up gaining economical power. Then they bribe Tim Cook, who's clearly in need of money, to create an API that on the surface looks privacy-friendly but really makes everyone dependent on the authoritarian regime of China, even if they don't live there. Finally, something about lizard people.
I think we’re both in the same boat of trying to convince each other that we‘re not one of ”those people”. I haven’t taken you as someone who is naive about security or privacy. I hope you haven’t taken me as someone who thinks the government is using 5G to control me through my fillings.
Cell localization is much less accurate than this appears to be and requires court approval in a lot of jurisdictions. In many places it doesn’t require a warrant to collect publicly available information (such as intentional radio broadcasts). In this case, I’m using government as an example of a bad actor. Given where I live, and how I live, I’m not terribly concerned about the direct impact on me, beyond the annoyance of having private information used in creepy ways, but I do worry about how this can be used against others and the indirect impacts that has on me.
And there’s the questions about where it goes from here. If this is being built around frameworks and API’s, this doesn‘t sound like a one-off application. After the pandemic passes, this technology is going to be out there being used for other purposes.
I agree that the two best features of this system are that it is decentralized, and that the information seems inert until someone chooses (correctly) to share that they’ve tested positive.
I’m still not sure it will take a lot of effort to sift through the data though and de-anonymize it. Looking at the spec, it seems like the identifier rolls every 15min or so (I misremembered it as 5), and is broadcast at between 4 and 5 Hz. BLE has a range of 100m, longer if you employ directional antennas.
I chose street corners as an example, because we already install a ton of infrastructure at street corners and I easily walk from corner to corner in less than the 5min period (and certainly within 15min), so there’s a high likelihood that my ID will be observed at both corners. The 4Hz broadcast rate makes it likely that the same station will see your original ID multiple times, then see it discontinue and be replaced with a new one, allowing the system to connect together a string of IDs. The 100m range means that stations at every corner provide complete, or nearly complete coverage along the entire block.
If you happen to be out of range occasionally when the ID rolls over, the system will have a bunch of partial trajectories. The gap can be bridged either by using other data (direction, rate of travel, etc) or by using redundancies in people’s daily routines similar to how full genomes can be reconstructed by assembling lots of redundant bits though shotgun sequencing. You may not get 100% of the information about 100% of the people, but I think it’s possible to pull together a pretty good picture of a significant percentage of the traffic and to tie that back to personal identities through other sources. I can’t remember the exact number, but I think it was that if you had three location fixes on someone, you could figure out who it is.
Both Apple and google have said they are removing the API after the pandemic is over.
I hadn’t seen that. Good to know.
Your source doesn’t say what you think it does. First, it has nothing to do with what health care professionals are advocating for, it is about how to reduce the risk of transmission from healthcare workers to patients, other workers, and visitors.
The section you are quoting simply says that because the virus is widespread in the community, treating health care settings differently and implementing special tracing methods only for healthcare workers doesn’t make sense any more, so they recommend direct testing of everyone at the start of each shift.
The general guidelines for community exposure still refer to actions to take if exposed to someone with symptoms of if you’ve been in contact with someone up to 48 hours before symptoms— ie. If you can trace your contact to someone who’s sick.
The CDC has extensive resources related to contact tracing that state “is a key strategy for preventing further spread of COVID-19”, dated April 22.
Apple and Google pledge to shut down coronavirus tracker when pandemic ends
New changes to the ambitious contact tracing effort from the two largest tech companies in the world
www.theverge.com
FYI
By all means, let businesses and private schools (as if I would ever go to one of those anyway) turn away whomever they like including the most vulnerable (not well off enough to own a smart phone) and the elderly. This cohort even included myself until recently.
They won’t though. The vast majority won’t even entertain the thought of doing such a thing—and I’d be more than happy to reject those businesses if they did ...permanently
Don’t try to weasel around your other implied insults.
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