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The Australian government is not a single monolothic institution. It's a set of hundreds of thousands of people with different agendas and intentions. You canno

The Australian government is not a single monolothic institution. It's a set of hundreds of thousands of people with different agendas and intentions. You cannot assign singular agency to the entire government; rather we have to go case-by-case to understand the implications of programs like these.

cmroanirgo 7y ago
Yes. But it is the government that creates the law. Parent also forgot to mention mandatory data retention laws. All isps must retain history of internet traffic for ¿2 years. That telephone numbers are used in this app should also be regarded as a breach of the referendum we had about the Australia Card back in the 80's. (It is illegal to tie citizens to a number for the sake of tracking, which is exactly what this does...). Which is why scomo (Scott Morrison, the PM) is asking for this app to be voluntary.
- mickotron 7y ago
  This only matters if it's mandatory, which voting is in Australia. This app is voluntary. Whether it has passed or not yet, legislation is planned to make it illegal to force anyone to download or use it. So trying it to a phone number is ok if it's totally voluntary. Also because users are not identified by their phone number under normal circumstances, this is also ok. If someone steals or leaks the key used to encrypt/decrypt all TempIds for all users, or can figure out a pattern in the generation of future TempIds for users, they can possibly tie people to their phone number and identify them. However under normal use there is no way to identify someone, well unless they can snoop the broadcast/encounter json messages and get your device ID and toe that to you
driverdan 7y ago
That makes it worse. A well-intentioned, well-meaning government org could create something with proper privacy controls and then another part of the government with worse intentions could get their hands on the data.
- hilbert42 7y ago
  "A well-intentioned, well-meaning government org<...>" Yuh, has there ever been one? If so where and when? (I've been around quite some years now and I've never seen one anywhere.)
  - godelski 7y ago
    Never attribute to malice what can be just as easily attributed to stupidity. While there are clear bad actors, I do believe that many do think what they are doing is for the best. Few people are actually evil, most are just stupid. I'd consider that a win considering that we're chimps that are barely able to communicate with one another even when we speak the same language.
roenxi 7y ago
That is a little like saying the human body isn't a single organism because, say, the digestive tract operates with its own agency and intention outside of conscious control. It isn't correct; the politicians in the government have a very high level of agency around what ends up being fed into the institutions and what agendas and intentions are allowed to rise to power. This isn't the step that gets us to a dystopian future, but it is so cheap and convenient for government to take programs like this and expand them every single time there is a crisis that it may as well be assumed to be coming if people don't kick up a stink each and every time. We don't need perfect safety. We've can't have perfect safety. Having perfect, technologically enforced safety will create systems that will become corrupted and evil with a high, high likelihood. I don't want the government to have the ability figure out who I'm talking too at all; I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will not.
- hilbert42 7y ago
  "I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will not.". Absolutely damn correct brother! 10/10.
Sophistifunk 7y ago
Bollocks. We can attribute to them the desire to gobble up power to control what we can and can't do on the internet and surveil us, because that's the way they all behave.
hilbert42 7y ago
"The Australian government is not a single monolothic institution. It's a set of hundreds of thousands of people with different agendas and intentions." Correct! Once we had two camps, you either voted for one or the other. That's all gone now, Identity Politics unfortunately killed the simple life off years ago.

cmroanirgo 7y ago

Yes. But it is the government that creates the law. Parent also forgot to mention mandatory data retention laws. All isps must retain history of internet traffic for ¿2 years. That telephone numbers are used in this app should also be regarded as a breach of the referendum we had about the Australia Card back in the 80's. (It is illegal to tie citizens to a number for the sake of tracking, which is exactly what this does...). Which is why scomo (Scott Morrison, the PM) is asking for this app to be voluntary.

mickotron 7y ago
This only matters if it's mandatory, which voting is in Australia. This app is voluntary. Whether it has passed or not yet, legislation is planned to make it illegal to force anyone to download or use it. So trying it to a phone number is ok if it's totally voluntary. Also because users are not identified by their phone number under normal circumstances, this is also ok. If someone steals or leaks the key used to encrypt/decrypt all TempIds for all users, or can figure out a pattern in the generation of future TempIds for users, they can possibly tie people to their phone number and identify them. However under normal use there is no way to identify someone, well unless they can snoop the broadcast/encounter json messages and get your device ID and toe that to you

driverdan 7y ago

That makes it worse. A well-intentioned, well-meaning government org could create something with proper privacy controls and then another part of the government with worse intentions could get their hands on the data.

hilbert42 7y ago
"A well-intentioned, well-meaning government org<...>" Yuh, has there ever been one? If so where and when? (I've been around quite some years now and I've never seen one anywhere.)
- godelski 7y ago
  Never attribute to malice what can be just as easily attributed to stupidity. While there are clear bad actors, I do believe that many do think what they are doing is for the best. Few people are actually evil, most are just stupid. I'd consider that a win considering that we're chimps that are barely able to communicate with one another even when we speak the same language.

roenxi 7y ago

That is a little like saying the human body isn't a single organism because, say, the digestive tract operates with its own agency and intention outside of conscious control. It isn't correct; the politicians in the government have a very high level of agency around what ends up being fed into the institutions and what agendas and intentions are allowed to rise to power. This isn't the step that gets us to a dystopian future, but it is so cheap and convenient for government to take programs like this and expand them every single time there is a crisis that it may as well be assumed to be coming if people don't kick up a stink each and every time. We don't need perfect safety. We've can't have perfect safety. Having perfect, technologically enforced safety will create systems that will become corrupted and evil with a high, high likelihood. I don't want the government to have the ability figure out who I'm talking too at all; I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will not.

hilbert42 7y ago
"I'd rather we went in the exact opposite direction of this app and put legal barriers in place to them even asking. COVID-19 is horrible, but it will pass. This tracking strategy will not.". Absolutely damn correct brother! 10/10.

Sophistifunk 7y ago

Bollocks. We can attribute to them the desire to gobble up power to control what we can and can't do on the internet and surveil us, because that's the way they all behave.

hilbert42 7y ago

"The Australian government is not a single monolothic institution. It's a set of hundreds of thousands of people with different agendas and intentions." Correct! Once we had two camps, you either voted for one or the other. That's all gone now, Identity Politics unfortunately killed the simple life off years ago.