North Dakota, Wyoming and Alabama Launching Exposure Notification Apps Soon

[FrankieTDouglas]

First: Yes. A simple google search would able to get you that information. Hell I think they did a story about it here in this very site.

Second, No one is talking about centralized tracking. As I stated in my above post the tracing is completely decentralized and anonymous. The app should be pushed to every phone though and the paranoid people who don't understand how tracing works given a way to opt out. Centralized management of a pandemic is the only way to accomplish the desired results. You seem to be confused about the difference between decentralized anonymous tracking and centralized management and consistent guidelines. If you decentralize the management you get conflicting guidelines and confused citizens. If you centralize tracking there is the potential for abuse. That's why a central management and decentralized anonymous tracing is the optimal way to manage this pandemic. Are we clear now. Or you still fuzzy on the whole good - bad thing?

Finally, Just an FYI, if the government wanted to track you with a phone, they don't need this app to do it. They already can.

Oh, we are perfectly clear that you are someone who supports health tracking and government-issues apps to do so. You even seem to think Apple should force this system on everyone, default opt-in.

Go read the damn spec. And tell all of us how the information that is actually collected could possibly be abused.

Carrying your phone around right now, today, with it constantly checking in with the nearest cell towers, is already giving any government agency that’s sufficiently motivated to care about your whereabouts, all the location and interaction tracking/monitoring information they could possibly want, right now. If you want to prevent this, your only alternative right now, is to get rid of your cellphone.


He’s too busy trying to break the election, trying to damage voting by mail (even though that’s how he and his family vote and there’s no evidence of the widespread fraud he keeps claiming, despite several states already being 100% vote by mail), going beyond the Republican party’s usual efforts at voter suppression, because he feels this is the only way he has a chance at winning the election.

I'm not reading a damn thing from Google. They've proven to be an absolutely invasive and creepy company with data collection. They get no free pass on this, nor any respect or trust in asking to please let them monitor your movements in regards to your health. The very fact that you would even consider trusting them in this instance, is bewildering.

 

[calstanford]

Beyond idiotic to do that on a per state basis. As if Americans didn't regularly cross state lines.
So arbitrary. Why not do it on a county level? That'd be even more stupid.

 

[CarlJ]

Beyond idiotic to do that on a per state basis. As if Americans didn't regularly cross state lines.
So arbitrary. Why not do it on a county level? That'd be even more stupid.

San Diego County is looking at implementing it themselves, because California is dragging their feet for some reason. Yes, it shouldn’t be like this.

 

[DonutHands]

How is this not a national initiative? The state of the country boggles the mind.

 

[Treq]

Oh, we are perfectly clear that you are someone who supports health tracking and government-issues apps to do so. You even seem to think Apple should force this system on everyone, default opt-in.



I'm not reading a damn thing from Google. They've proven to be an absolutely invasive and creepy company with data collection. They get no free pass on this, nor any respect or trust in asking to please let them monitor your movements in regards to your health. The very fact that you would even consider trusting them in this instance, is bewildering.

Wow, then use DuckDuckGo and find out how the system works. There is absolutely no government control or tracking whatsoever. It's called contact tracing, and it is done locally on the phone itself and it is designed to make it so you cant be tracked. I gave you an explanation of how it works. It was developed by apple as well as google, and it is anonymous. Also, I'm not for government issued apps, I for apple and google to put the app out directly.

 

[Treq]

Beyond idiotic to do that on a per state basis. As if Americans didn't regularly cross state lines.
So arbitrary. Why not do it on a county level? That'd be even more stupid.

No it wouldn't be "more stupid" because the system is anonymous. Having 50 separate apps running at once is dumb and inefficient. Imagine having to go through an airport and how many people you might come in contact from all over the country. There should be one app created by apple and work in any state or country. It should be baked into the OS and given an option to shut it off for the paranoid people who don't understand how it works. Remember, you are already caring around a tracking device in your pocket anyway, and at least this system is designed to be anonymous.

 

[Treq]

How is this not a national initiative? The state of the country boggles the mind.

This is what happens when republicans are in charge. They do their damndest to make government incompetent so they can turn around and say, look government is the problem, we should have less of it...

 

[bsolar]

I'm not reading a damn thing from Google. They've proven to be an absolutely invasive and creepy company with data collection. They get no free pass on this, nor any respect or trust in asking to please let them monitor your movements in regards to your health. The very fact that you would even consider trusting them in this instance, is bewildering.

The Apple-Google implementation is based on the DP-3T protocol developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. You can learn how it works from their documentation and source code.

 

[Solomani]

yes.this.
a federal level provided app would be incredibly useful.

Well, the President of the United States is the highest-ranking Federal official in the country. How effective and pro-active has he been since the COVID crisis started?

The States are not stupid. They know that the Federal response is a crippled mess. The States are taking initiative themselves to protect their own citizens.

It's not the ideal solution, but it's better than nothing.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

The Apple-Google implementation is based on the DP-3T protocol developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. You can learn how it works from their documentation and source code.

Look. I don't give one single **** about the intended implementation. I have absolutely zero trust in Google doing something with tracking data that will not end up abused.

 

[ian87w]

How is this not a national initiative? The state of the country boggles the mind.

You have to first understand the way the USA is run. Each state in the US have their own jurisdictions and sets of laws, separate from the federal government. Unlike in other centralized power countries where the provinces almost have no power and everything must come from the central government, in the US, each state has pretty much their own rights and power to do things as they see fit. The lack of national initiative is simply because it is not in the power of the federal government to mandate certain things on a state level. There are things that the states have to do it themselves.

In fact, if there were a federal initiative of an app of this sort, there will be states protesting how the federal government is "forcing" them and how it's unconstitutional.

At least that's the way I understand it. Each states in the US is almost like their own "small countries" in a sense.

 

[C DM]

Look. I don't give one single **** about the intended implementation. I have absolutely zero trust in Google doing something with tracking data that will not end up abused.

The underlying point there is that there really isn't something to abuse. But, if perception is really all that is in consideration, then it's all fairly moot (since going by perception it can easily be said that the Sun revolves around the Earth and that's that).

 

[ghanwani]

No app, no test, no service.

(Shirt and shoes optional.)

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

No app, no test, no service.

(Shirt and shoes optional.)

Annnnnd there it is. You've decided to skip the slip and just nose dive over the slope.

 

[amartinez1660]

We’re the United States of America and we’re being run like a third world country. State apps are like gun control laws. They don’t work well unless they are uniform across all states since we’re all free to cross state lines whenever we want.

Where’s the app from the federal government developed with input from the states? We don’t have one. Trump is apparently too busy doing who knows what to give the order for the CDC, the NIH or both to work together to do even basic things like this. That’s not a political statement, that’s a fact. What a disaster...

As a non American I’m really curious why in this case it is such a hassle? Is it because it’s a health related thing?

Does any other app in any other field (engineering CAD modeler, productivity like calendar or note taking apps, photoshop-like, bank apps, messenger apps, etc etc) has to go through or decides to go through (depending if it is mandated or by choice) any related sort of “per state” scrutiny or green lighting?

Because if not, why any of those didn’t just launch country-wide and positioned itself as the one to catch up to?

 

[bsolar]

Look. I don't give one single **** about the intended implementation. I have absolutely zero trust in Google doing something with tracking data that will not end up abused.

Then use Apple instead: if you don't trust Google I assume you have an iPhone already. I still don't see the problem.

Note that the issue you raise goes far beyond exposure tracing apps though: exposure tracing apps implemented with the above-mentioned technology actually collect far less tracing data than many other commonly used apps like maps or social networks.

 

[jpn]

You have to first understand the way the USA is run. Each state in the US have their own jurisdictions and sets of laws, separate from the federal government. Unlike in other centralized power countries where the provinces almost have no power and everything must come from the central government, in the US, each state has pretty much their own rights and power to do things as they see fit. The lack of national initiative is simply because it is not in the power of the federal government to mandate certain things on a state level. There are things that the states have to do it themselves.

In fact, if there were a federal initiative of an app of this sort, there will be states protesting how the federal government is "forcing" them and how it's unconstitutional.

At least that's the way I underst it. Each states in the US is almost like their own "small countries" in a sense.

except yr wrong.

all powers that are not expressly mentioned in the constitution are of course left to the states.

that's not in question.

the federal government is there to provide for the common good.
equal protection under the 14th amendment and interstate commerce related laws give the ability for the federal government to issue a public health app.

the individual states would then elect (or not), to provide the useful info to its residents so that the positive result state resident could elect or not to provide their positive test case number to the covid app.

give me a break. its not waco. 🙄

its a virus that is affecting everything. and unfortunately many people in USAmerica would rather die then wear masks and social distance. a mask certainly is such an imposition on yr freedom. 🙄

its seemingly beyond many Americans to show compassion and humanity for their fellow citizens by letting them know you were unfortunately around them at the Walmart while you had COVID. 🙄

 

[tny]

As a non American I’m really curious why in this case it is such a hassle? Is it because it’s a health related thing?

Because it shouldn't be. There are no regulations that would require a health app to be approved by the states - the activities of the CDC and the NIH are already authorized by the commerce clause (the Federal government is responsible for interstate activities that can affect interstate commerce, which includes pandemic disease) - and have been challenged and upheld in the courts many times.

The real issue is that the current administration took office without any help from anyone experienced - the former Bush administration officials who would have served in say a Romney administration shied away from working with this president because he was seen as fundamentally flawed from the standpoint of the long-term survival of the Republican Party (that's what Lindsey Graham meant when he said that electing Trump would be the end of the party, though he's since accommodated Trump like the good little Vichy soldier he is).

Anyway, extremists and griefers filled the vacuum. In particular, Steve Bannon, who argued for "the deconstruction of the administrative state," set the ideological tone for the administration - cut everything in the executive branch that regulated commerce, or projected diplomatic power, or provided equal services to all citizens regardless of their state.

It plays on anti-government sentiment built up by Federal intervention against segregation, the Vietnam draft (which has been over since the 1970s), the drug war, the big-industry anti regulation propaganda of the Bush years, and decades of conspiracy theories; and also on paranoia and xenophobia resulting from the kind of national PTSD the US has suffered from since 9/11/2001.

So no, it's not a real thing - any time between 1932 and 2016, if this kind of pandemic had hit, there would have been a coordinated Federal response. But the current faction in charge is ideologically opposed to simple competence.

 

[bearda]

Beyond idiotic to do that on a per state basis. As if Americans didn't regularly cross state lines.
So arbitrary. Why not do it on a county level? That'd be even more stupid.

Given the federal response (or lack thereof) to the pandemic I think it's pretty clear why this isn't being done country-wide. Yes, it would make way more sense to have one system and I think most people would agree. No, unfortunately it isn't going to happen any time soon.

The horse is dead. We can stop beating it.

 

[Yr Blues]

We downloaded our own prison panopticon and didn't even know it. Welcome to Black Mirror 2020.

 

[Treq]

We downloaded our own prison panopticon and didn't even know it. Welcome to Black Mirror 2020.

Once again, if the government wants to spy on you, or, track you, they don't need one more app. They can do it now. This app has at least been designed to not allow it's use for that purpose. But if you're worried, throw away your smart phone and put another layer of tinfoil your head.

 

[TheColtr]

Most tech companies are in CALIFORNIA, how is a state like Wyoming more on the ball with the app than freaking California where Google and Apple are located.

it shows the inefficiency and bureaucracy in the California government.

 

[C DM]

Most tech companies are in CALIFORNIA, how is a state like Wyoming more on the ball with the app than freaking California where Google and Apple are located.

it shows the inefficiency and bureaucracy in the California government.

Is the reasoning actually known?

 

[Treq]

Is the reasoning actually known?

No, they are just making an assumption based on their own bias.

 

[CarlJ]

Most tech companies are in CALIFORNIA, how is a state like Wyoming more on the ball with the app than freaking California where Google and Apple are located.

it shows the inefficiency and bureaucracy in the California government.

Nope, Gov. Newsom has been pretty on-the-ball with his administration’s response to the pandemic. There’s been a bit of herding cats going on at the lower levels to get everyone pointed in the right direction. It’s not clear why they haven’t done an app as an adjunct to the contact tracer program. I don’t see it as an indicator of inefficiency or bureaucracy - that’s painting with a pretty broad brush. I heard rumblings the other day that researchers here in San Diego are working on their own app and looking to get state approval to implement it locally (necessary since Apple is dealing with countries and states, so the state will have to coordinate, even if it’s only used in SoCal).