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Schneier said it best: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-1... "Thi

Schneier said it best: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-1... "This is just something governments want to do for the hell of it. To me, it's just techies doing techie things because they don't know what else to do."

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
I mean, he's not wrong. The world is scary as shit and after making lots of money building technology and being sold on 'making the world a better place' and it turning into making more money for someone else technologists have to feel that they should do something to help out. I've even fallen for that trap, writing a little Android app that can help businesses put up signs about COVID-19 after the 'grand reopening of the US' without realizing that most of those people will go bankrupt and have their live savings and have their future crushed by something we might not be able to stop without burying millions of Americans.
bronzeage 7y ago
Well he's definitely mistaken: for example, in Israel, technological contact tracing (not an app tho) by the Shabak led to more than 500 confirmed cases which might not have been detected otherwise: https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992 https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992 And this was as early as 26 of march, so I bet it continued being significant.
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  No one’s going to deny these apps will find some cases. But to be effective they need to find a majority of all cases.
  - vinay427 7y ago
    Sure, but doing something "for the hell of it" implies it has virtually no practical value, at least to my ears. It's rather unproductive for someone (not you, in this case) to use a sweeping inflammatory statement when they later fall back to what they actually meant: a more reasonable and much weaker statement.
pengaru 7y ago
It also seems likely to serve as clicking another step down the slippery /Big Brother surveillance now using your own property to surveil you/ slope. Establishing this precedent, helping condition people to cooperate with such unnecessary invasions, under the guise of a big doomy crisis, seems like it could serve a variety of erosive purposes.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

I mean, he's not wrong. The world is scary as shit and after making lots of money building technology and being sold on 'making the world a better place' and it turning into making more money for someone else technologists have to feel that they should do something to help out. I've even fallen for that trap, writing a little Android app that can help businesses put up signs about COVID-19 after the 'grand reopening of the US' without realizing that most of those people will go bankrupt and have their live savings and have their future crushed by something we might not be able to stop without burying millions of Americans.

bronzeage 7y ago

Well he's definitely mistaken: for example, in Israel, technological contact tracing (not an app tho) by the Shabak led to more than 500 confirmed cases which might not have been detected otherwise: https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992 https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992 And this was as early as 26 of march, so I bet it continued being significant.

tinus_hn 7y ago
No one’s going to deny these apps will find some cases. But to be effective they need to find a majority of all cases.
- vinay427 7y ago
  Sure, but doing something "for the hell of it" implies it has virtually no practical value, at least to my ears. It's rather unproductive for someone (not you, in this case) to use a sweeping inflammatory statement when they later fall back to what they actually meant: a more reasonable and much weaker statement.

pengaru 7y ago

It also seems likely to serve as clicking another step down the slippery /Big Brother surveillance now using your own property to surveil you/ slope. Establishing this precedent, helping condition people to cooperate with such unnecessary invasions, under the guise of a big doomy crisis, seems like it could serve a variety of erosive purposes.