4 ms·

Such a system is just a single subpoena or a single piece of child-saving legislation away from being used by law enforcement. I pity the poor sod who is incar

Such a system is just a single subpoena or a single piece of child-saving legislation away from being used by law enforcement. I pity the poor sod who is incarcerated because they happened to innocently walk past the scene of a crime, and roughly fit the description of the alleged perpetrator.

eli 7y ago
It isn’t. No more so than Apple/Google can be ordered to install something on your phone already. I encourage you to read about the protocol being used. It’s not perfect, but they put a lot of effort into protecting privacy. The police already can (and do!) demand cell location data from carriers to investigate crimes. Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. This proposal is far more respectful of your privacy than any of that, and in the service of saving lives.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  The UK and French government proposals for contact tracing violate GACT privacy design.
- dleslie 7y ago
  > The police already can (and do!) demand cell location data from carriers to investigate crimes. Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. Engaging in an act doesn't make it ethical to do. > No more so than Apple/Google can be ordered to install something on your phone already. That depends on your country of origin.
  - eli 7y ago
    My point was that the government already has the ability to get location data when they want it and this contract tracing proposal doesn’t make it any easier for them. (Whether or not they should be able to do what they’re already doing is a worthy debate but unrelated to contact tracing.)
    - dleslie 7y ago
      Every additional data source makes it easier to collect the data; the vigilance needed to monitor access to one source is hard enough, but it scales poorly with additional sources. It's why we tolerate so much incursion into our privacy: the effort necessary to operate anywhere near "normal" and maintain data privacy is almost insurmountably difficult.
      - eli 7y ago
        It’s not a data source, it’s decentralized and not tied to anyone’s identity.
        dleslie 7y ago
        That's what they said about E911.
- unishark 7y ago
  > Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. More like a scary harbinger of what the govt could get away with rather than a counter. The extent to which browsers and phones monitor people beyond what they intentionally share has never stopped seeming crazy to me, especially given how widely accepted it is.
  - eli 7y ago
    Not with the technology being proposed for contact tracing because the protocol design doesn’t permit it. There’s no central database of where you went or who you met with. The scary databases already exist and are held by various unaccountable private companies. This is true whether or not we try to implement contact tracing tech. It shouldn’t be an argument against it.
jariel 7y ago
"I pity the poor sod who is incarcerated" There are literally billions of people on the planet right now incarcerated in their homes. The economy is a patient whose heart has stopped pumping - we've injected Trillions in liquidity to hold off 'total death' and even that aid will only hold out for several more weeks. The 'system is collapsing' very, very quickly. The numbers are off the charts like anything we've seen before, all the buzzers in the cockpit are going off at once. 'Contact Tracing' more like chemotherapy, until there's a cure or vaccine, the South Korean model is basically the only example we can expect to try to follow. Edit: I should add, I don't care about 'the economy' as an arbitrary thing, I don't care about investors or 'the stock market'. But 'the economy' is made up of very real things, like your job, whatever you do - and it's all going down like dominos. The headlines talking abut x% reduction in GDP etc, - those are the 'don't panic it will be ok numbers'. When >80% of the population is staying at home, the system as a whole cannot move forward - it's an 'existential decline' just 'some lower amount of GDP'. It's going to be cataclysmic and will be very, very difficult for the community at large, life-threatening in many circumstances. The population at large I think has a visceral sensitivity to 'pandemic' - we've all seen the film, we know what 'getting Covid' means to us. But the notion of the economy going down like a house of cards is more intangible to most people, so it's less of a populist issue, but it should be. Korean style contact-tracing looks different in that light.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  How much of the economy is truly essential to living? Tourism is great but I can live without the old way of doing it. Widget production and selling has diminishing returns, even for pleasure. Perhaps a social-distancing-world is incompatible with consumerist capitalism. Yet I hope for all the suffering from the virus and lockdowns we'll at least gain a new perspective on life and work. Edit: forgot 'world'
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Without the government providing free food and healthcare, consumer capitalism is all we have to sustain ourselves. It's easier to give freedom pursuit of property than to give out property directly.

eli 7y ago

It isn’t. No more so than Apple/Google can be ordered to install something on your phone already. I encourage you to read about the protocol being used. It’s not perfect, but they put a lot of effort into protecting privacy. The police already can (and do!) demand cell location data from carriers to investigate crimes. Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. This proposal is far more respectful of your privacy than any of that, and in the service of saving lives.

lonelappde 7y ago
The UK and French government proposals for contact tracing violate GACT privacy design.
dleslie 7y ago
> The police already can (and do!) demand cell location data from carriers to investigate crimes. Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. Engaging in an act doesn't make it ethical to do. > No more so than Apple/Google can be ordered to install something on your phone already. That depends on your country of origin.
- eli 7y ago
  My point was that the government already has the ability to get location data when they want it and this contract tracing proposal doesn’t make it any easier for them. (Whether or not they should be able to do what they’re already doing is a worthy debate but unrelated to contact tracing.)
  - dleslie 7y ago
    Every additional data source makes it easier to collect the data; the vigilance needed to monitor access to one source is hard enough, but it scales poorly with additional sources. It's why we tolerate so much incursion into our privacy: the effort necessary to operate anywhere near "normal" and maintain data privacy is almost insurmountably difficult.
    - eli 7y ago
      It’s not a data source, it’s decentralized and not tied to anyone’s identity.
      - dleslie 7y ago
        That's what they said about E911.
unishark 7y ago
> Ad companies collect data from apps you use to build targeting profiles. More like a scary harbinger of what the govt could get away with rather than a counter. The extent to which browsers and phones monitor people beyond what they intentionally share has never stopped seeming crazy to me, especially given how widely accepted it is.
- eli 7y ago
  Not with the technology being proposed for contact tracing because the protocol design doesn’t permit it. There’s no central database of where you went or who you met with. The scary databases already exist and are held by various unaccountable private companies. This is true whether or not we try to implement contact tracing tech. It shouldn’t be an argument against it.

jariel 7y ago

"I pity the poor sod who is incarcerated" There are literally billions of people on the planet right now incarcerated in their homes. The economy is a patient whose heart has stopped pumping - we've injected Trillions in liquidity to hold off 'total death' and even that aid will only hold out for several more weeks. The 'system is collapsing' very, very quickly. The numbers are off the charts like anything we've seen before, all the buzzers in the cockpit are going off at once. 'Contact Tracing' more like chemotherapy, until there's a cure or vaccine, the South Korean model is basically the only example we can expect to try to follow. Edit: I should add, I don't care about 'the economy' as an arbitrary thing, I don't care about investors or 'the stock market'. But 'the economy' is made up of very real things, like your job, whatever you do - and it's all going down like dominos. The headlines talking abut x% reduction in GDP etc, - those are the 'don't panic it will be ok numbers'. When >80% of the population is staying at home, the system as a whole cannot move forward - it's an 'existential decline' just 'some lower amount of GDP'. It's going to be cataclysmic and will be very, very difficult for the community at large, life-threatening in many circumstances. The population at large I think has a visceral sensitivity to 'pandemic' - we've all seen the film, we know what 'getting Covid' means to us. But the notion of the economy going down like a house of cards is more intangible to most people, so it's less of a populist issue, but it should be. Korean style contact-tracing looks different in that light.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
How much of the economy is truly essential to living? Tourism is great but I can live without the old way of doing it. Widget production and selling has diminishing returns, even for pleasure. Perhaps a social-distancing-world is incompatible with consumerist capitalism. Yet I hope for all the suffering from the virus and lockdowns we'll at least gain a new perspective on life and work. Edit: forgot 'world'
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Without the government providing free food and healthcare, consumer capitalism is all we have to sustain ourselves. It's easier to give freedom pursuit of property than to give out property directly.