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From personal experience in this industry, the issues are mostly pragmatic, i.e. legal, and then about authoritarian regimes. There are some ideological issues

by jariel 6y ago

From personal experience in this industry, the issues are mostly pragmatic, i.e. legal, and then about authoritarian regimes. There are some ideological issues concerning 'personal information' that varies from company to company and we linger a lot about that in the Western press and on HN, but that's really not it. It's very simple: if your ABC company has the ability to 'trace' people, and you allow 'friendly country' XYZ to use it - then 100% of 'baddie countries' will immediately full court press for access as well, with the possibility of banning your tech if you don't. And then the political/power haggling ensues: dictators actually do have to worry about popularity, so what would it mean to invalidate all the iPhones in Saudia Arabia ... probably not good, so there's that. On the other hand, being able to 'trace everyone', especially my political enemies is also exetentiayly powerful so ... I don't know what would happen if this were not the case - if this were 40 years ago, we were not as technically globalised and Apple was just selling to US/Canada, we may see different outcomes. But as it stands, most governments in the world are 'completely untrustable' with the tech, and so it's almost like it renders moot the question of whether Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, or the US can have it and 'play well'.

xorcist 6y ago
Yes, this is likely the hard problem here. If one were to be cynical, one would say that it is also the strategy that makes the most economical sense for everyone. It's just a bit comical from a certain viewpoint. And to be clear, this is not just a problem of the Apples and Googles of the world. Many more face similar issues, starting with the telcos themselves. The point is that location tracing is something that is routinely done for other legitimate reasons, but the recent pandemic suddenly forces everyone to be specific about how and why we allow it.
- jariel 6y ago
  A better term than 'economics' is just power, where money is one factor. Putin wants more power vis-a-vis his proles and if he can strong-arm a company into doing something, he will. Apple and Google have a certain kind of power, governments do, but most companies have very little flex. Specifically 'up and comers' i.e. startups must have to face some weird challenges there, certainly in the area of 'content filtering' and government access we are only scratching the surface. I can only imagine what kind of deals FB has made with various regimes, and he lengths they will have done through to obfuscate it.

by jariel 6y ago

xorcist 6y ago

Yes, this is likely the hard problem here. If one were to be cynical, one would say that it is also the strategy that makes the most economical sense for everyone. It's just a bit comical from a certain viewpoint. And to be clear, this is not just a problem of the Apples and Googles of the world. Many more face similar issues, starting with the telcos themselves. The point is that location tracing is something that is routinely done for other legitimate reasons, but the recent pandemic suddenly forces everyone to be specific about how and why we allow it.

jariel 6y ago
A better term than 'economics' is just power, where money is one factor. Putin wants more power vis-a-vis his proles and if he can strong-arm a company into doing something, he will. Apple and Google have a certain kind of power, governments do, but most companies have very little flex. Specifically 'up and comers' i.e. startups must have to face some weird challenges there, certainly in the area of 'content filtering' and government access we are only scratching the surface. I can only imagine what kind of deals FB has made with various regimes, and he lengths they will have done through to obfuscate it.