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Contact tracing is a severe invasion of privacy and just another tool to increase surveillance. I will never submit to such measures.

shalmanese 7y ago
Just so we're clear, can you explain succinctly the key details of how contact tracing has been implemented in the various countries that have rolled it out and which parts you object to? There's a lot of parameters in the "design space" of contact tracing. If you're objecting to simply the most extreme version of it, then duh, anyone would, including the Chinese.
- pastage 7y ago
  That is hard to answer can you anser what kind of contact tracing are you missing in "the West", and what level of privacy invasion are you comparing it against. In the first stages of Corona we did a lot of old school contact tracing.
  - shalmanese 7y ago
    But this is what I mean when I say "shocking degree of arrogance from the West to refuse to learn even the most basic things from Asia about this." There's many different ways of doing contact tracing that involve myriad tradeoffs. Every Asian country that has rolled it out has had negotiations between the citizens and the government over the various dimensions and how to balance between competing concerns (yes, even China). Every country has landed in a slightly different form of contact tracing based on existing resources, societal norms and degree of urgency. It's shockingly arrogant to assume that Asian citizens haven't grappled seriously with these issues and, even if they have landed in a different position than you would prefer, that the conversations they're having don't have any value. I've yet to read a single English language piece on Asian contact tracing that has accurately described how contact tracing works on the ground in a nuts and bolts way across multiple countries. Instead, all I read are exoticised, fetishized pieces that focus on technological bells and whistles or highlights a bunch of theoretical privacy violations that either aren't a big deal in practice or easily gotten around with some simple design tweaks. Then, you get people who go off half cocked and make sweeping statements about an entire category of methods while having done literally no research on how it actually works in a real world context.
    - pastage 7y ago
      FWIW that is not my picture, but you are too unspecfic, you do not give any accurate description either, and if there is no such info in "the west" how can I be arrogant, ignorant maybe? The people who care about privacy do not care about how things seem to work for the masses, what is important is the edge cases of privacy. That does not mean there are other voices in the West. But I do not know what you are looking for, and what you think is bad information.
      - shalmanese 7y ago
        Just as a simple example, how do you enforce home quarantine? In Hong Kong, they use a bluetooth bracelet, in Taiwan, they're using a combo of a cell phone tower gate + requiring you to answer the phone and police checking on you if you don't. In China, they have a hardware door sensor that will alert authorities if it's opened. In South Korea, I think they're also using cell phone tower gates. Each approach has different pros & cons when it comes to privacy and effectiveness. Which one specifically do people think is acceptable and unacceptable?
Gibbon1 7y ago
You can spend a years under full quarantine then. Just like Mary Mallon did.

shalmanese 7y ago

Just so we're clear, can you explain succinctly the key details of how contact tracing has been implemented in the various countries that have rolled it out and which parts you object to? There's a lot of parameters in the "design space" of contact tracing. If you're objecting to simply the most extreme version of it, then duh, anyone would, including the Chinese.

pastage 7y ago
That is hard to answer can you anser what kind of contact tracing are you missing in "the West", and what level of privacy invasion are you comparing it against. In the first stages of Corona we did a lot of old school contact tracing.
- shalmanese 7y ago
  But this is what I mean when I say "shocking degree of arrogance from the West to refuse to learn even the most basic things from Asia about this." There's many different ways of doing contact tracing that involve myriad tradeoffs. Every Asian country that has rolled it out has had negotiations between the citizens and the government over the various dimensions and how to balance between competing concerns (yes, even China). Every country has landed in a slightly different form of contact tracing based on existing resources, societal norms and degree of urgency. It's shockingly arrogant to assume that Asian citizens haven't grappled seriously with these issues and, even if they have landed in a different position than you would prefer, that the conversations they're having don't have any value. I've yet to read a single English language piece on Asian contact tracing that has accurately described how contact tracing works on the ground in a nuts and bolts way across multiple countries. Instead, all I read are exoticised, fetishized pieces that focus on technological bells and whistles or highlights a bunch of theoretical privacy violations that either aren't a big deal in practice or easily gotten around with some simple design tweaks. Then, you get people who go off half cocked and make sweeping statements about an entire category of methods while having done literally no research on how it actually works in a real world context.
  - pastage 7y ago
    FWIW that is not my picture, but you are too unspecfic, you do not give any accurate description either, and if there is no such info in "the west" how can I be arrogant, ignorant maybe? The people who care about privacy do not care about how things seem to work for the masses, what is important is the edge cases of privacy. That does not mean there are other voices in the West. But I do not know what you are looking for, and what you think is bad information.
    - shalmanese 7y ago
      Just as a simple example, how do you enforce home quarantine? In Hong Kong, they use a bluetooth bracelet, in Taiwan, they're using a combo of a cell phone tower gate + requiring you to answer the phone and police checking on you if you don't. In China, they have a hardware door sensor that will alert authorities if it's opened. In South Korea, I think they're also using cell phone tower gates. Each approach has different pros & cons when it comes to privacy and effectiveness. Which one specifically do people think is acceptable and unacceptable?

Gibbon1 7y ago

You can spend a years under full quarantine then. Just like Mary Mallon did.