14 ms·

Showdown looms between Silicon Valley, U.S. states over contact tracing apps

80 points by ckcheng 6y ago

walterbell 6y ago
From https://blog.xot.nl/2020/04/19/google-apple-contact-tracing-gact-a-wolf-in-sheeps-clothes/ https://blog.xot.nl/2020/04/19/google-apple-contact-tracing-... > It is one thing to agree on a few best practices for contact tracing and force app providers to adhere to those standards. It is quite another to bake that standard into the operating system layer, active in the background, ready to be deployed. We have to trust Apple and Google to diligently perform this strict vetting of apps, to resist any coercion by governments There are countless attacks on Bluetooth. GPS is not accurate enough for contact tracing. The data will not be reliable. Imagine the lawsuits when dozens of people are required to mandatory quarantine away from home when someone (who they may not know) tests positive? Proposal for MA use of contact tracing data (MIT is in MA and they have contributed to protocol design), https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/03/contact-tracing-coronavirus-massachusetts-baker https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/03/contact-tracing... > then there’s the question of how to keep people who test positive isolated so that they don’t transmit the coronavirus. Some people will have room to isolate at home. But others who share bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, or who live with someone at increased risk for a severe case of COVID-19, will be given some options. The Baker administration is looking at setting up isolation units in dormitories and hotels. People in isolation will need food delivery, possibly child care and lots of additional help so that they don’t interact with others. Don't most homes share kitchens? Where are the dual-kitchen homes and apartments? This means virtually everyone who was within six feet of a positive contact would be isolated away from their home/family. So that can't scale, because there aren't enough quarantine hotels/dorms to house the entire population. Every other pandemic in the history of pandemics focused on isolating high-risk groups. That is more practical than Tracing Theatre.
- Cpoll 6y ago
  We also had an article today about a Bluetooth RCE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22971863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22971863
  - walterbell 6y ago
    Even Singapore, a virtual police state, barely got 20% of people to use contact tracing apps. As a silver lining, if Apple/Google surrender location privacy on their platforms, it might finally give Purism and the other "libre" phones a chance in the marketplace. And those $1000 flagship "mobile" phones can be replaced by a $300 iPad without a GPS. As for the "kids" who "don't care" about privacy? Ask them that question after their first unnecessary 2 week quarantine-in-isolation-hotel due to glitchy bluetooth.
    - AmericanChopper 6y ago
      > As for the "kids" who "don't care" about privacy? Ask them that question after their first unnecessary 2 week quarantine-in-isolation-hotel due to glitchy bluetooth. People don’t revolt against the tyranny of the state just because it starts affecting their peers. Western democracies all over the world lock up thousands of innocent people every year. It happens all the time, it could happen to you, me, or anybody reading this comment. Very few people care. If it did happen to you, and you wanted to complain about it, you’re unlikely to convince many additional people to care.
      - walterbell 6y ago
        No revolt needed. Economic natural selection will run its course. States can make their own choices. Talent can do the same. This does assume that states will compete to attract the top tier of creative professionals who can work from home, create high-value digital businesses with remote workers and an industrial tax base. Unless there are walls between states, top talent can and will move.
        AmericanChopper 6y ago
        This assumes that people will proactively leave, instead of just not caring, until such a point in time when it may be too late for them personally. It also kinda assumes that even if people were to leave, that the state would realize the error of its ways. Which is quite optimistic, because there’s many cases where it’s rather easy to measure the negative impact of a policy, and then watch the policy makers use those negative impacts as a basis for further negative-impacting policy. It also seems this advice would really only help people who had the economic freedom to arbitrarily choose where they live and work.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> “Some people are completely opposed to an intrusion on privacy but there’s a younger generation sharing their location on dozens of apps,” Burgum said. Funny, when you tell young people that by the time they leave the food court, descend the escalator and exit the mall, 100 companies know what, where and when they bought dinner, they stop using digital payments.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  But do they also turn off their phones while shopping? Just kidding, that would be an absurd overreaction. Surely they at least do the responsible thing and turn off Bluetooth and WiFi? No? If the kids are alright, it’s in an ignorance is bliss kinda way.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Your last sentence is so true. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, retailers sell their purchases info to Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. who can then combine your email inbox and browing history with your purchase data. About as "1984" as you can get.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      We’re part of some Google Business listing navigation program or AdWords conversion tracking program at work. We applied and got a postcard with a two-factor code in our business mailbox. We validated our address in this way. Later we received what appears to be either a Bluvison (now HID) BVBLN5W-IDT or BVBI45W-IDT. The former does BLE beacon functions and motion detection. The latter does even more: Motion, Light, Vibration (3-axis, up to 800 hz), Magnetometer, Temperature -13° to +149° F (-25° to +65° C) I’m guessing for the Google program we are part of, we got the BVBLN5W-IDT. It’s available for $31.20 USD in quantities of 20 or less direct from the vendor HID, “for demo purposes only,” of course. Here’s some info I found about it and the Google programs. FCC info https://fcc.io/SL6-BEEKSIBEEK https://fcc.io/SL6-BEEKSIBEEK Datasheet https://www.hidglobal.com/sites/default/files/resource_files/idt-hid-bluvision-beeks-beacons-ds-en.pdf https://www.hidglobal.com/sites/default/files/resource_files... Google Project Beacon info related to the My Business program https://developers.google.com/beacons/place-visits https://developers.google.com/beacons/place-visits Google My Business program beacon setup guide https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7577917?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7577917?hl=en A video that goes over the pack-in documents and the beacon and what it does https://youtube.com/watch?v=tm2Qr0e_JV8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=tm2Qr0e_JV8 Who made the beacon we got https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201005500/en/HID-Global-Acquires-Bluvision-Expand-Bluetooth-Solutions https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201005500/en/HID...
nytesky 6y ago
I know my phone and location is tracked heavily for advertising and such. If I care to be anonymous I leave phone home and carry cash. Even then there are cameras everywhere. So i expect this location data likely tracked either way, so might as well go to help the greater good.
- taneq 6y ago
  While I'm generally one to rail against this kind of tracking, you're right. There are so many entities already getting our precise location data, would it be so bad if we add one more that will actually save lives instead of just selling us useless shit?
- rlt 6y ago
  Sigh. This is exactly the attitude that leads to the erosion of civil liberties.‘ 2010: "It's just a private company doing it for advertising, why not?" 2020: "Eh, private companies are already doing it, might as well let government have access for contact tracing, just temporarily." 2022: "The government has had access to my location data for the past 2 years, nothing bad has happened to me yet, and they say it's necessary to continue fighting future outbreaks. Might as well keep giving them access".
jariel 6y ago
A roundabout solution might be to only allow people out of quarantine if they have an acceptable contact tracing solution so that if they become infected they can notify others - and - others can notify them. Then see how supply and demand work that out ... (although it would, of course, take too long). If the draft can exist, so can contract-tracing, it's a matter of context and proportionality. Right now the greater good favours contact tracing though probably not after the pandemic dies down.
- foota 6y ago
  Orgs like the ACLU have come out requiring it for things.
  - jariel 6y ago
    It's absurd to think the ACLU is 'totally cool' with forcing an entire nation to stay in their homes, or wear masks, but 'livid' about contract tracing. I can understand why you might immediately think that because we are so concerned about 'privacy' these days, but just consider what is going on for a moment. 'Stay at home' -> OK 'You must wear a mask in public' -> OK 'Contact tracing' -> Controversy! No, the fact we are in a la-la land existential crisis changes everything. If universal contact-tracing is a viable solution to get things moving, then it's exceedingly rational to require it. And without a vaccine, it's absolutely viable - we know this because it works in S. Korea. Everyone gest the app, or something approximating it, testing should be relatively widespread and effectively focused on 'contacts' - and we can keep Covid at bay so long as we follow the rules and a bunch of other precautions are taken. It's been demonstrated to work.
- xenonite 6y ago
  No, the contact tracing only works as an additional measure, not as a replacement for the quarantine measures. Don’t forget that the airflow provides a major infection vector, which can’t be traced via Bluetooth or location.
  - jariel 6y ago
tempsy 6y ago
The only way something like this would even be useful is if the majority of the population voluntarily downloaded this and opted-in to it. Does anyone think that’s actually realistic? I’m not optimistic.
- ojbyrne 6y ago
  If it becomes a condition of employment people will opt in. Just like peeing in a cup.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    Some would. Some would choose different jobs or jurisdictions.
    - pmontra 6y ago
      I won't bet on that for more than a few people. What if they live in a country mandating an app like that to be able to get out of home? And even if that's going to be voluntary, I don't expect many people to move to another state or country or be jobless for more time because of privacy concerns. I mean, they'll be concerned but they'll still install the app when they have to.
      - walterbell 6y ago
        Americans have the option of filing lawsuits. The US attorney general said that the federal government may join lawsuits filed by businesses against states, for constitutional issues. It's not about "privacy" or an "app". It's about core principles upon which countries and states were founded. These principles and laws are not optional. History has many lessons for those who surrender principles. People lost their jobs and much much more.
        cinquemb 6y ago
        As an american that has avoided jobs, people and now living abroad, I'm willing to subvert, corrupt, and exploit technology by these tech companies against their own employees, owners, useds and teach others around me how to go about doing it if got out of hand (which I think it will eventually). This might diverge from the current tech group think zigiest, and I'm ok with that, because I think these tools should ultimately empower everyone to be able to work together if they chose to do so and accept the fact that some people may not, as apposed to levered by the few against the masses. Because of the asymmetric reach of tech, I think the few like me, have an advantage that most aren't willing to explore the ramifications of. "Freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way"
devonproctor 6y ago
We're taking an approach that empowers individuals to take their data out of big tech companies and contribute it directly to their local healthcare providers and public health agencies: https://www.covidcontacttracing.com/ https://www.covidcontacttracing.com/. This approach is highly practical -- the penetration (location history in Android, Google Maps) is already there, and we've already built out a set of tools around it to deliver insights to first-responders, epidemiologists and doctors, while ensuring individual privacy. I think the only way to do effective contact tracing while respecting individual privacy and agency is to put the user in control of the data, and make sure that any data transfer is done with consent and deliberation.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  ,,the only way to do effective contact tracing while respecting individual privacy and agency'' The problem is that the government wants to achieve just the opposite. They see the current crisis as a way to extend their power over people, and intend to do that as much as they can get away with.
  - devonproctor 6y ago
    Well let's not let them get away with it then :) Right now, everyone in public health is 100% focused on solutions that can deliver results. If we can demonstrate effectiveness with a system that is privacy-first, it'll be all the more difficult to push a system that's collecting data just for the sake of it.
  - jariel 6y ago
    "They see the current crisis as a way to extend their power over people, and intend to do that as much as they can get away with." Where is your evidence for this? While it's always a risk, I see people trying to mitigate a crisis the likes of which none of us have ever seen. There are literally billions of people locked in their homes and there is no feasible plan to get out. 'Contact tracing' Korea style is the only proven option on the table. There's no reason to believe reasonable operational elements can't be put in place.
corporateslave5 6y ago
Seems like all I read about on hacker news is big techs negative effect on society. When did this website become so negative about all this? The google bashing was one thing, but now it’s all surveillance and censorship. Where’s the startup talk? Programming language talk? Open source code?
- partiallypro 6y ago
  Because in start-ups, the tech world, and programming we have to weigh morality and society benefits sometimes.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    You're replying to someone with the user name "corporateslave5" who is asking why everybody is so negative about tech corporations.
ratsmack 6y ago
Many people don't have smart phones and, like me, many people don't always take their phone with them everywhere they go.
- partiallypro 6y ago
  You're still in the vast minority of people in the US. Even my 65+ year old parents have smart phones.
slowdog 6y ago
This is one of the great parts of America, personal liberties. But simultaneously one of the downsides of the individual > whole scheme, sometimes sacrifices hurt the individual but are good for the whole. Quite the conundrum, once you go down the whole > individual route, where do you stop?
- taneq 6y ago
  Hopefully some point where the commons aren't tragic.
- zaroth 6y ago
  The Constitution actually has a framework for this. For individual liberties, any limits must pass “strict scrutiny”. Warrants must not be general, but must be particular in the persons and places to be searched. So in short, IANAL, but I doubt the government could ever require such an app be built. However, there’s nothing short of market forces stopping the major tech companies from building the dragnet and deploying it in an OS update to billions of devices completely voluntarily. ...Unless, perhaps, there’s a privacy or data protection framework that might happen to apply but which doesn’t get immediately waived for this application?
  - swasheck 6y ago
    If market forces demand some sort of contact tracing application, but it largely violates Constitutional ethos, can the “business” be declared Unconstitutional? Is that even in the purview of the Constitution? I wouldn’t imagine so, but I’m just musing on the topic. When our foundational ethic runs in direct conflict with our economic ethic, which takes priority?
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      > can the “business” be declared Unconstitutional? Strictly speaking the business would be criminal (like a protection racket or slave market), but noone ever enforces that, so it's a bit of moot point.
    - 6y ago
xenonite 6y ago
And for what? Bluetooth does not help to sufficiently trace airflow. It doesn’t recognize walls. The data will be highly unreliable. Nonetheless, people will be forced to use it because social and work pressure let’s them do so. Infections will rise again though because people and politicians assume it is safe enough. So it’s only use is for the Big Brother watching you. If Apple and Google can’t manage to keep their platform privacy conscious, this may even set an the end to the smartphone era. An old Nokia is waiting in the drawer already.
- iso947 6y ago
  It will be of some use - at least as a placebo if nothing else.
zaroth 6y ago
Are there any studies, or even computer models, which attempt to estimate the efficacy of contact tracing in a pandemic which already has double-digit prevalence? > Some public health leaders and infectious disease doctors are questioning the timing of this launch. Galea said contact tracing is usually more effective at the beginning of an epidemic, before a disease like the coronavirus has spread. > “I don’t know that it’s too late, it’s certainly late,” he says. “Had we had the tests and were we organized enough to do contact tracing right up front, it would have potentially taken us down a very different path in this epidemic.” While we roll out the red carpet for the most invasive dragnet ever created, do we have any scientific reason to think it will be effective?
- walterbell 6y ago
  As Naval said, https://twitter.com/naval/status/1252185901087592448 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1252185901087592448 > Recent serology studies may be wrong. But if wrong, they‘re all wrong _in the same direction_. Finnish: 20-50x undercount Scottish: 27-55x Stanford: 50-85x Italian: 30x Mass: 17x Germany: 0.37% CFR Denmark: 0.21% > If true, COVID19 has much more spread and much lower fatality. So we have consistent data showing that the risk is much lower. Could we update our now-incorrect models that were used to justify contact tracing and Palantir social network analysis? If we don't trust these expensive studies that all point in the same direction, why should we trust Bluetooth? If we don't trust the tests used in the above studies, how can we use those exact tests to forcibly quarantine not only the people who "test positive" but their entire Palantir contact chain? It would be helpful if we can pick one mathematical dystopia and stick with it. The math-rhetoric dissonance is deafening.
  - zucker42 6y ago
    The Stanford study does not tell us 50-85x. The results they provided "have no known statistical provenance as of now". https://twitter.com/wfithian/status/1252692365967384576 https://twitter.com/wfithian/status/1252692365967384576
    - walterbell 6y ago
gundmc 6y ago
My understanding of the proposal was that no third party including Google and Apple could access any real information from this. It honestly seemed like privacy was the primary consideration in the design. I realize that's a losing perception battle to fight.
- creato 6y ago
  If anything, the approach has prioritized privacy to such a degree that it probably won't be very helpful. The design seems to require a very high rate of adoption to be useful, and that probably isn't going to happen unless it is opt out, which seems unlikely to be the case.
  - beefield 6y ago
    I assume these are going to be branded as completely voluntary. Like, completely voluntary until you want to have health insurance, buy a flight ticket or maybe be employed in certain/most industries. In those cases someone is going to tell you that, you must to be running the app or whatever tool is invented to track your contacts.
    - encom 6y ago
      I'll be honest, this virus situation has me super scared. Governments everywhere are giving themselves powers they should not have, and I doubt they are going to relinquish them once this blows over. Police are acting gestapo-ish in a lot of places. Meanwhile, Big Tech are developing even creepier ways to track everyone while pretending to save the world. In fact, every time some tech company involves themselves with this covid situation, it rubs me completely the wrong way. Apple, just go back to making overpriced computers. Twitter, Facebook and Google wants to have the final say of what is and isn't the ultimate truth, like the goddamn thought police. On the whole, people are capable of sniffing out bullshit for themselves, and if they're not, Facebook can't save them from themselves, and convince them that 5G does not cause bat flu. Just stay out of it, and let the medical professionals sort out this mess. I think the world has broken, and it won't go together again properly.
alfiedotwtf 6y ago
Remember when the CIA did fake swab tests in Pakistan to promote vaccinations, but it was just a smokescreen to catch Osama Bin Laden? Yeah, no... I’m not trusting PRISM Partners to enable this on any of my devices
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  Not commenting on the underlying issue, but regarding the comparison, it's a little bit unreasonable to think they're trying to pull the same thing here.
pocket 6y ago
Cause data has never leaked from cloud server storage rented by individuals or companies before… oh, wait… (but trust him, it’s just him and a buddy who have access, what could possibly go wrong).
KCUOJJQJ 6y ago
The C virus is as severe as a severe flu. It makes no sense to turn devices into surveillance devices a little bit / a lot / completely. Google and Apple will also lose trust if they do it. Edit: The C virus is a deadly disease and the flu is a deadly disease. Google and Apple must be sure that it's useful to have this tracking in this situation. If it was not useful in this situation the 2 companies would lose trust. From [1], which is a good article again and again because it demands decisions based on data: If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...
tlrobinson 6y ago
> said location data is stored on a Microsoft Azure server that he rents and to which only he and one other person have the keys Sorry, not good enough. There are privacy-preserving cryptographic solutions to contract tracing. Anything less is unacceptable.
mirimir 6y ago
I agree 100% with the Alphabet/Apple approach. There's no additional absolute location tracking. But it's easy to get the contact histories for all those infected. If health authorities want to identify infection hotspots, they can request location histories from infected people and their contacts. That's no more than health authorities have requested in the past. It's just easier to produce, and more accurate.
russli1993 6y ago
For me, my argument is this: yes the contact tracing apps could infringe on my privacy rights as an individual. But app could be effective in notifying potential exposed individuals. If that individual knows this information, he/she can take the right action to protect him/herself and his/her family. Thus the app protects people's right to live and right to good health. I know people always talk about right to free speech and movement etc, but I believe right to live is another human right, in fact, its the most important human right. Rights to free speech is useless if you are dead. Second, when the virus is not growing exponentially, this contact tracing capability would allows us to quickly stop emerging outbreaks, then we can feel comfortable to stop stay at home orders and open up the economy. Therefore, the app also protects right to movement. So its a trade off, would you want to trade privacy rights to right to live and right to move? For me, it is yes. In addition, we know that we can reduce the risk of privacy infringement by designing the system properly, as they are doing it here. We could also use block chain technology to implement the database so that no central authority can know which exact individual has been to where. The database could also not store personally identifiable information. We could use cryptographic computing techniques so that no one, not even the software engineers working the project can know which person has been to where. I know people are scared about the potential privacy infringement here. But if we don't try to come up with effective ways to stop the spread of the virus, there are people dying due to getting sick. And there are families who could not feed themselves because we shut down the economy.
- fg6hr 6y ago
  That's the good old choice between safety and freedom.
  - gremlinsinc 6y ago
    It's more like which type of freedom do you want...right now we're anything but free. I mean you can freely move about w/ a privacy sucking app, or you can stay home in quarantine indefinitely but keep your privacy - but we know where you're at - you're at home, duh. They need to tie these w/ an UBI at least then people are getting something for their privacy unlike FB which basically steals your data and sells it.
tinus_hn 6y ago
This is feature creep, now instead of knowing who has been close to infected people, they ‘need’ to know who has been close to whom and where many people have been close to each other. Hardly surprising governments can’t stop talking about this once in a lifetime opportunity of peeking inside everyones private lives. Surely this information would never become available to secret services..
rkagerer 6y ago
The long term ramifications scare me. Even if you use rolling ID's as suggested, someone with enough data points could infer identity from the patterns. This might be more palatable if it were approached in an "old school" fashion. Start by clarifying your customer is not any public health authority; it's individual users. I could walk around with a notebook and keep track of everyone I interact with - even if some strangers aren't recorded by name (e.g. Cashier working aisle 6 at 3pm on Thursday). Design the app to mimic that task and make it easier for me. I keep sovereignty over my records. If some agency wants them, they have to request them through me. Bake in meaningful, plausible deniability so I can simply say "sorry, I don't have any" if I don't like the name of the agency. Better yet, use encryption such that both parties need to consent before any particular contact link can be inferred. Make it so secure that you could broadcast the scrambled bits on a blockchain which any user can view through the lens of their private keys to check if they might have had contact. In a sense, this problem shares some characteristics with zero-knowledge proofs or anonymized financial transactions (all I need to know is I might have been exposed; not any details of how Covid found its way to me). Consider lessons learned hardening against crypto tracing efforts. If people feel it's safe, effective and anonymous, enough may even opt-in organically of their own accord.

80 points by ckcheng 6y ago

From https://blog.xot.nl/2020/04/19/google-apple-contact-tracing-gact-a-wolf-in-sheeps-clothes/ https://blog.xot.nl/2020/04/19/google-apple-contact-tracing-... > It is one thing to agree on a few best practices for contact tracing and force app providers to adhere to those standards. It is quite another to bake that standard into the operating system layer, active in the background, ready to be deployed. We have to trust Apple and Google to diligently perform this strict vetting of apps, to resist any coercion by governments There are countless attacks on Bluetooth. GPS is not accurate enough for contact tracing. The data will not be reliable. Imagine the lawsuits when dozens of people are required to mandatory quarantine away from home when someone (who they may not know) tests positive? Proposal for MA use of contact tracing data (MIT is in MA and they have contributed to protocol design), https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/03/contact-tracing-coronavirus-massachusetts-baker https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/04/03/contact-tracing... > then there’s the question of how to keep people who test positive isolated so that they don’t transmit the coronavirus. Some people will have room to isolate at home. But others who share bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, or who live with someone at increased risk for a severe case of COVID-19, will be given some options. The Baker administration is looking at setting up isolation units in dormitories and hotels. People in isolation will need food delivery, possibly child care and lots of additional help so that they don’t interact with others. Don't most homes share kitchens? Where are the dual-kitchen homes and apartments? This means virtually everyone who was within six feet of a positive contact would be isolated away from their home/family. So that can't scale, because there aren't enough quarantine hotels/dorms to house the entire population. Every other pandemic in the history of pandemics focused on isolating high-risk groups. That is more practical than Tracing Theatre.

Cpoll 6y ago
We also had an article today about a Bluetooth RCE: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22971863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22971863
- walterbell 6y ago
  Even Singapore, a virtual police state, barely got 20% of people to use contact tracing apps. As a silver lining, if Apple/Google surrender location privacy on their platforms, it might finally give Purism and the other "libre" phones a chance in the marketplace. And those $1000 flagship "mobile" phones can be replaced by a $300 iPad without a GPS. As for the "kids" who "don't care" about privacy? Ask them that question after their first unnecessary 2 week quarantine-in-isolation-hotel due to glitchy bluetooth.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    > As for the "kids" who "don't care" about privacy? Ask them that question after their first unnecessary 2 week quarantine-in-isolation-hotel due to glitchy bluetooth. People don’t revolt against the tyranny of the state just because it starts affecting their peers. Western democracies all over the world lock up thousands of innocent people every year. It happens all the time, it could happen to you, me, or anybody reading this comment. Very few people care. If it did happen to you, and you wanted to complain about it, you’re unlikely to convince many additional people to care.
    - walterbell 6y ago
      No revolt needed. Economic natural selection will run its course. States can make their own choices. Talent can do the same. This does assume that states will compete to attract the top tier of creative professionals who can work from home, create high-value digital businesses with remote workers and an industrial tax base. Unless there are walls between states, top talent can and will move.
      - AmericanChopper 6y ago
        This assumes that people will proactively leave, instead of just not caring, until such a point in time when it may be too late for them personally. It also kinda assumes that even if people were to leave, that the state would realize the error of its ways. Which is quite optimistic, because there’s many cases where it’s rather easy to measure the negative impact of a policy, and then watch the policy makers use those negative impacts as a basis for further negative-impacting policy. It also seems this advice would really only help people who had the economic freedom to arbitrarily choose where they live and work.

redis_mlc 6y ago

> “Some people are completely opposed to an intrusion on privacy but there’s a younger generation sharing their location on dozens of apps,” Burgum said. Funny, when you tell young people that by the time they leave the food court, descend the escalator and exit the mall, 100 companies know what, where and when they bought dinner, they stop using digital payments.

aspenmayer 6y ago
But do they also turn off their phones while shopping? Just kidding, that would be an absurd overreaction. Surely they at least do the responsible thing and turn off Bluetooth and WiFi? No? If the kids are alright, it’s in an ignorance is bliss kinda way.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  Your last sentence is so true. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, retailers sell their purchases info to Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. who can then combine your email inbox and browing history with your purchase data. About as "1984" as you can get.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    We’re part of some Google Business listing navigation program or AdWords conversion tracking program at work. We applied and got a postcard with a two-factor code in our business mailbox. We validated our address in this way. Later we received what appears to be either a Bluvison (now HID) BVBLN5W-IDT or BVBI45W-IDT. The former does BLE beacon functions and motion detection. The latter does even more: Motion, Light, Vibration (3-axis, up to 800 hz), Magnetometer, Temperature -13° to +149° F (-25° to +65° C) I’m guessing for the Google program we are part of, we got the BVBLN5W-IDT. It’s available for $31.20 USD in quantities of 20 or less direct from the vendor HID, “for demo purposes only,” of course. Here’s some info I found about it and the Google programs. FCC info https://fcc.io/SL6-BEEKSIBEEK https://fcc.io/SL6-BEEKSIBEEK Datasheet https://www.hidglobal.com/sites/default/files/resource_files/idt-hid-bluvision-beeks-beacons-ds-en.pdf https://www.hidglobal.com/sites/default/files/resource_files... Google Project Beacon info related to the My Business program https://developers.google.com/beacons/place-visits https://developers.google.com/beacons/place-visits Google My Business program beacon setup guide https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7577917?hl=en https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7577917?hl=en A video that goes over the pack-in documents and the beacon and what it does https://youtube.com/watch?v=tm2Qr0e_JV8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=tm2Qr0e_JV8 Who made the beacon we got https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201005500/en/HID-Global-Acquires-Bluvision-Expand-Bluetooth-Solutions https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201005500/en/HID...

nytesky 6y ago

I know my phone and location is tracked heavily for advertising and such. If I care to be anonymous I leave phone home and carry cash. Even then there are cameras everywhere. So i expect this location data likely tracked either way, so might as well go to help the greater good.

taneq 6y ago
While I'm generally one to rail against this kind of tracking, you're right. There are so many entities already getting our precise location data, would it be so bad if we add one more that will actually save lives instead of just selling us useless shit?
rlt 6y ago
Sigh. This is exactly the attitude that leads to the erosion of civil liberties.‘ 2010: "It's just a private company doing it for advertising, why not?" 2020: "Eh, private companies are already doing it, might as well let government have access for contact tracing, just temporarily." 2022: "The government has had access to my location data for the past 2 years, nothing bad has happened to me yet, and they say it's necessary to continue fighting future outbreaks. Might as well keep giving them access".

jariel 6y ago

A roundabout solution might be to only allow people out of quarantine if they have an acceptable contact tracing solution so that if they become infected they can notify others - and - others can notify them. Then see how supply and demand work that out ... (although it would, of course, take too long). If the draft can exist, so can contract-tracing, it's a matter of context and proportionality. Right now the greater good favours contact tracing though probably not after the pandemic dies down.

foota 6y ago
Orgs like the ACLU have come out requiring it for things.
- jariel 6y ago
  It's absurd to think the ACLU is 'totally cool' with forcing an entire nation to stay in their homes, or wear masks, but 'livid' about contract tracing. I can understand why you might immediately think that because we are so concerned about 'privacy' these days, but just consider what is going on for a moment. 'Stay at home' -> OK 'You must wear a mask in public' -> OK 'Contact tracing' -> Controversy! No, the fact we are in a la-la land existential crisis changes everything. If universal contact-tracing is a viable solution to get things moving, then it's exceedingly rational to require it. And without a vaccine, it's absolutely viable - we know this because it works in S. Korea. Everyone gest the app, or something approximating it, testing should be relatively widespread and effectively focused on 'contacts' - and we can keep Covid at bay so long as we follow the rules and a bunch of other precautions are taken. It's been demonstrated to work.
xenonite 6y ago
No, the contact tracing only works as an additional measure, not as a replacement for the quarantine measures. Don’t forget that the airflow provides a major infection vector, which can’t be traced via Bluetooth or location.
- jariel 6y ago

tempsy 6y ago

The only way something like this would even be useful is if the majority of the population voluntarily downloaded this and opted-in to it. Does anyone think that’s actually realistic? I’m not optimistic.

ojbyrne 6y ago
If it becomes a condition of employment people will opt in. Just like peeing in a cup.
- walterbell 6y ago
  Some would. Some would choose different jobs or jurisdictions.
  - pmontra 6y ago
    I won't bet on that for more than a few people. What if they live in a country mandating an app like that to be able to get out of home? And even if that's going to be voluntary, I don't expect many people to move to another state or country or be jobless for more time because of privacy concerns. I mean, they'll be concerned but they'll still install the app when they have to.
    - walterbell 6y ago
      Americans have the option of filing lawsuits. The US attorney general said that the federal government may join lawsuits filed by businesses against states, for constitutional issues. It's not about "privacy" or an "app". It's about core principles upon which countries and states were founded. These principles and laws are not optional. History has many lessons for those who surrender principles. People lost their jobs and much much more.
      - cinquemb 6y ago
        As an american that has avoided jobs, people and now living abroad, I'm willing to subvert, corrupt, and exploit technology by these tech companies against their own employees, owners, useds and teach others around me how to go about doing it if got out of hand (which I think it will eventually). This might diverge from the current tech group think zigiest, and I'm ok with that, because I think these tools should ultimately empower everyone to be able to work together if they chose to do so and accept the fact that some people may not, as apposed to levered by the few against the masses. Because of the asymmetric reach of tech, I think the few like me, have an advantage that most aren't willing to explore the ramifications of. "Freedom ain't free, especially 'round my way"

devonproctor 6y ago

We're taking an approach that empowers individuals to take their data out of big tech companies and contribute it directly to their local healthcare providers and public health agencies: https://www.covidcontacttracing.com/ https://www.covidcontacttracing.com/. This approach is highly practical -- the penetration (location history in Android, Google Maps) is already there, and we've already built out a set of tools around it to deliver insights to first-responders, epidemiologists and doctors, while ensuring individual privacy. I think the only way to do effective contact tracing while respecting individual privacy and agency is to put the user in control of the data, and make sure that any data transfer is done with consent and deliberation.

xiphias2 6y ago
,,the only way to do effective contact tracing while respecting individual privacy and agency'' The problem is that the government wants to achieve just the opposite. They see the current crisis as a way to extend their power over people, and intend to do that as much as they can get away with.
- devonproctor 6y ago
  Well let's not let them get away with it then :) Right now, everyone in public health is 100% focused on solutions that can deliver results. If we can demonstrate effectiveness with a system that is privacy-first, it'll be all the more difficult to push a system that's collecting data just for the sake of it.
- jariel 6y ago
  "They see the current crisis as a way to extend their power over people, and intend to do that as much as they can get away with." Where is your evidence for this? While it's always a risk, I see people trying to mitigate a crisis the likes of which none of us have ever seen. There are literally billions of people locked in their homes and there is no feasible plan to get out. 'Contact tracing' Korea style is the only proven option on the table. There's no reason to believe reasonable operational elements can't be put in place.

corporateslave5 6y ago

Seems like all I read about on hacker news is big techs negative effect on society. When did this website become so negative about all this? The google bashing was one thing, but now it’s all surveillance and censorship. Where’s the startup talk? Programming language talk? Open source code?

partiallypro 6y ago
Because in start-ups, the tech world, and programming we have to weigh morality and society benefits sometimes.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  You're replying to someone with the user name "corporateslave5" who is asking why everybody is so negative about tech corporations.

ratsmack 6y ago

Many people don't have smart phones and, like me, many people don't always take their phone with them everywhere they go.

partiallypro 6y ago
You're still in the vast minority of people in the US. Even my 65+ year old parents have smart phones.

slowdog 6y ago

This is one of the great parts of America, personal liberties. But simultaneously one of the downsides of the individual > whole scheme, sometimes sacrifices hurt the individual but are good for the whole. Quite the conundrum, once you go down the whole > individual route, where do you stop?

taneq 6y ago
Hopefully some point where the commons aren't tragic.
zaroth 6y ago
The Constitution actually has a framework for this. For individual liberties, any limits must pass “strict scrutiny”. Warrants must not be general, but must be particular in the persons and places to be searched. So in short, IANAL, but I doubt the government could ever require such an app be built. However, there’s nothing short of market forces stopping the major tech companies from building the dragnet and deploying it in an OS update to billions of devices completely voluntarily. ...Unless, perhaps, there’s a privacy or data protection framework that might happen to apply but which doesn’t get immediately waived for this application?
- swasheck 6y ago
  If market forces demand some sort of contact tracing application, but it largely violates Constitutional ethos, can the “business” be declared Unconstitutional? Is that even in the purview of the Constitution? I wouldn’t imagine so, but I’m just musing on the topic. When our foundational ethic runs in direct conflict with our economic ethic, which takes priority?
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > can the “business” be declared Unconstitutional? Strictly speaking the business would be criminal (like a protection racket or slave market), but noone ever enforces that, so it's a bit of moot point.
  - 6y ago

xenonite 6y ago

And for what? Bluetooth does not help to sufficiently trace airflow. It doesn’t recognize walls. The data will be highly unreliable. Nonetheless, people will be forced to use it because social and work pressure let’s them do so. Infections will rise again though because people and politicians assume it is safe enough. So it’s only use is for the Big Brother watching you. If Apple and Google can’t manage to keep their platform privacy conscious, this may even set an the end to the smartphone era. An old Nokia is waiting in the drawer already.

iso947 6y ago
It will be of some use - at least as a placebo if nothing else.

zaroth 6y ago

Are there any studies, or even computer models, which attempt to estimate the efficacy of contact tracing in a pandemic which already has double-digit prevalence? > Some public health leaders and infectious disease doctors are questioning the timing of this launch. Galea said contact tracing is usually more effective at the beginning of an epidemic, before a disease like the coronavirus has spread. > “I don’t know that it’s too late, it’s certainly late,” he says. “Had we had the tests and were we organized enough to do contact tracing right up front, it would have potentially taken us down a very different path in this epidemic.” While we roll out the red carpet for the most invasive dragnet ever created, do we have any scientific reason to think it will be effective?

walterbell 6y ago
As Naval said, https://twitter.com/naval/status/1252185901087592448 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1252185901087592448 > Recent serology studies may be wrong. But if wrong, they‘re all wrong _in the same direction_. Finnish: 20-50x undercount Scottish: 27-55x Stanford: 50-85x Italian: 30x Mass: 17x Germany: 0.37% CFR Denmark: 0.21% > If true, COVID19 has much more spread and much lower fatality. So we have consistent data showing that the risk is much lower. Could we update our now-incorrect models that were used to justify contact tracing and Palantir social network analysis? If we don't trust these expensive studies that all point in the same direction, why should we trust Bluetooth? If we don't trust the tests used in the above studies, how can we use those exact tests to forcibly quarantine not only the people who "test positive" but their entire Palantir contact chain? It would be helpful if we can pick one mathematical dystopia and stick with it. The math-rhetoric dissonance is deafening.
- zucker42 6y ago
  The Stanford study does not tell us 50-85x. The results they provided "have no known statistical provenance as of now". https://twitter.com/wfithian/status/1252692365967384576 https://twitter.com/wfithian/status/1252692365967384576
  - walterbell 6y ago

gundmc 6y ago

My understanding of the proposal was that no third party including Google and Apple could access any real information from this. It honestly seemed like privacy was the primary consideration in the design. I realize that's a losing perception battle to fight.

creato 6y ago
If anything, the approach has prioritized privacy to such a degree that it probably won't be very helpful. The design seems to require a very high rate of adoption to be useful, and that probably isn't going to happen unless it is opt out, which seems unlikely to be the case.
- beefield 6y ago
  I assume these are going to be branded as completely voluntary. Like, completely voluntary until you want to have health insurance, buy a flight ticket or maybe be employed in certain/most industries. In those cases someone is going to tell you that, you must to be running the app or whatever tool is invented to track your contacts.
  - encom 6y ago
    I'll be honest, this virus situation has me super scared. Governments everywhere are giving themselves powers they should not have, and I doubt they are going to relinquish them once this blows over. Police are acting gestapo-ish in a lot of places. Meanwhile, Big Tech are developing even creepier ways to track everyone while pretending to save the world. In fact, every time some tech company involves themselves with this covid situation, it rubs me completely the wrong way. Apple, just go back to making overpriced computers. Twitter, Facebook and Google wants to have the final say of what is and isn't the ultimate truth, like the goddamn thought police. On the whole, people are capable of sniffing out bullshit for themselves, and if they're not, Facebook can't save them from themselves, and convince them that 5G does not cause bat flu. Just stay out of it, and let the medical professionals sort out this mess. I think the world has broken, and it won't go together again properly.

alfiedotwtf 6y ago

Remember when the CIA did fake swab tests in Pakistan to promote vaccinations, but it was just a smokescreen to catch Osama Bin Laden? Yeah, no... I’m not trusting PRISM Partners to enable this on any of my devices

mehrdadn 6y ago
Not commenting on the underlying issue, but regarding the comparison, it's a little bit unreasonable to think they're trying to pull the same thing here.

pocket 6y ago

Cause data has never leaked from cloud server storage rented by individuals or companies before… oh, wait… (but trust him, it’s just him and a buddy who have access, what could possibly go wrong).

KCUOJJQJ 6y ago

The C virus is as severe as a severe flu. It makes no sense to turn devices into surveillance devices a little bit / a lot / completely. Google and Apple will also lose trust if they do it. Edit: The C virus is a deadly disease and the flu is a deadly disease. Google and Apple must be sure that it's useful to have this tracking in this situation. If it was not useful in this situation the 2 companies would lose trust. From [1], which is a good article again and again because it demands decisions based on data: If we decide to jump off the cliff, we need some data to inform us about the rationale of such an action and the chances of landing somewhere safe. [1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/ https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-a...

tlrobinson 6y ago

> said location data is stored on a Microsoft Azure server that he rents and to which only he and one other person have the keys Sorry, not good enough. There are privacy-preserving cryptographic solutions to contract tracing. Anything less is unacceptable.

mirimir 6y ago

I agree 100% with the Alphabet/Apple approach. There's no additional absolute location tracking. But it's easy to get the contact histories for all those infected. If health authorities want to identify infection hotspots, they can request location histories from infected people and their contacts. That's no more than health authorities have requested in the past. It's just easier to produce, and more accurate.

russli1993 6y ago

For me, my argument is this: yes the contact tracing apps could infringe on my privacy rights as an individual. But app could be effective in notifying potential exposed individuals. If that individual knows this information, he/she can take the right action to protect him/herself and his/her family. Thus the app protects people's right to live and right to good health. I know people always talk about right to free speech and movement etc, but I believe right to live is another human right, in fact, its the most important human right. Rights to free speech is useless if you are dead. Second, when the virus is not growing exponentially, this contact tracing capability would allows us to quickly stop emerging outbreaks, then we can feel comfortable to stop stay at home orders and open up the economy. Therefore, the app also protects right to movement. So its a trade off, would you want to trade privacy rights to right to live and right to move? For me, it is yes. In addition, we know that we can reduce the risk of privacy infringement by designing the system properly, as they are doing it here. We could also use block chain technology to implement the database so that no central authority can know which exact individual has been to where. The database could also not store personally identifiable information. We could use cryptographic computing techniques so that no one, not even the software engineers working the project can know which person has been to where. I know people are scared about the potential privacy infringement here. But if we don't try to come up with effective ways to stop the spread of the virus, there are people dying due to getting sick. And there are families who could not feed themselves because we shut down the economy.

fg6hr 6y ago
That's the good old choice between safety and freedom.
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  It's more like which type of freedom do you want...right now we're anything but free. I mean you can freely move about w/ a privacy sucking app, or you can stay home in quarantine indefinitely but keep your privacy - but we know where you're at - you're at home, duh. They need to tie these w/ an UBI at least then people are getting something for their privacy unlike FB which basically steals your data and sells it.

tinus_hn 6y ago

This is feature creep, now instead of knowing who has been close to infected people, they ‘need’ to know who has been close to whom and where many people have been close to each other. Hardly surprising governments can’t stop talking about this once in a lifetime opportunity of peeking inside everyones private lives. Surely this information would never become available to secret services..

rkagerer 6y ago

The long term ramifications scare me. Even if you use rolling ID's as suggested, someone with enough data points could infer identity from the patterns. This might be more palatable if it were approached in an "old school" fashion. Start by clarifying your customer is not any public health authority; it's individual users. I could walk around with a notebook and keep track of everyone I interact with - even if some strangers aren't recorded by name (e.g. Cashier working aisle 6 at 3pm on Thursday). Design the app to mimic that task and make it easier for me. I keep sovereignty over my records. If some agency wants them, they have to request them through me. Bake in meaningful, plausible deniability so I can simply say "sorry, I don't have any" if I don't like the name of the agency. Better yet, use encryption such that both parties need to consent before any particular contact link can be inferred. Make it so secure that you could broadcast the scrambled bits on a blockchain which any user can view through the lens of their private keys to check if they might have had contact. In a sense, this problem shares some characteristics with zero-knowledge proofs or anonymized financial transactions (all I need to know is I might have been exposed; not any details of how Covid found its way to me). Consider lessons learned hardening against crypto tracing efforts. If people feel it's safe, effective and anonymous, enough may even opt-in organically of their own accord.