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1. The article briefly discusses the impact of COVID, highlighting China's implementation of supplementary measures and limitations during this period. It is ev

1. The article briefly discusses the impact of COVID, highlighting China's implementation of supplementary measures and limitations during this period. It is evident that having knowledge of individuals' travel destinations would undoubtedly assist in contact tracing efforts. However, as the article states it can also be used for malicious exploitation. 2. If your question is about why they go to Thailand instead of stopping in Laos: Thailand is reluctant to repatriate individuals back to North Korea, while Laos does not share the same reluctance. For the more general question: It is understandable that South Korea would scrutinize refugees to some extent to prevent the infiltration of espionage agents and similar threats.

mardifoufs 3y ago
>It is evident that having knowledge of individuals' travel destinations would undoubtedly assist in contact tracing efforts. Any evidence for that? Actually, any evidence that contact tracing has actually had any benefits wherever it has been tried? I'm sure it helps at very, very early stages of a pandemic, and even then depending on which virus we are trying to trace... But I'd like to see actual proof that it helps for pandemics like COVID. Otherwise it is such an easy way to implement mass surveillance, that requiring very very thorough proof that it actually helps is the bare minimum. This story is proof of that.
- BoxFour 3y ago
  Are you asking for evidence that knowing everyone’s locations and travel itineraries would assist in contact tracing? Because I think that one is obvious. Otherwise, I’m not particularly interested in having a COVID conversation.
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    It's not a conversation about COVID. It's one about contact tracing. And yes I think that evidence should always be required when talking about potential tools for such mass surveillance. "It makes sense" isn't really proof for anything, as the last pandemic has proven times and times again. For example here in Quebec, contact tracing apps and tracking location of everyone with covid has had pretty much no measurable effect. Even fundamental questions like "what is a contact" are hard to answer, so actual studies might be helpful for this conversation. And again, even tracing infectious contacts was much easier with mass tracking of every single citizens location, that still doesn't mean it is actually useful to stop a pandemic. It might be! Which is why I was asking for good evidence.
    - BoxFour 3y ago
      > that still doesn't mean it is actually useful to stop a pandemic You're arguing against ghosts. That is not what I said, or even implied. I wrote: > It is evident that having knowledge of individuals' travel destinations would undoubtedly assist in contact tracing efforts. Tracking movement is obviously helpful for contact tracing, because you can track the proximity of individuals to each other and warn those who were near a confirmed case. I wrote absolutely nothing on whether contact tracing is impactful, and I wrote nothing about whether you could accomplish the same result in a different way. The usefulness of contract tracing is not a conversation I wish to engage in.
      - mardifoufs 3y ago
        Ok, how do you define a contact then? How can it be evident that tracking locations is obviously helpful for contact tracing without defining what it means to trace a contact? That's why evidence would be helpful here. How does knowing a location helps with determining a contact, especially for coarser tracking like know where someone is travelling. You keep repeating that it is obvious and again, saying that something is just... obvious is not enough when discussing dangerous, almost "dual use" methods like contact tracing using mass tracking.
        BoxFour 3y ago
        > Ok, how do you define a contact then? You'll have to ask the Chinese CDC, I'm sure they have an answer for you much like our own CDCs do. It's usually some combination of time and distance proximity to a confirmed COVID case.
        mardifoufs 3y ago
        I'll actually look into it, it sounds more interesting now that I started reading about it. Sorry if my comments sounded antagonistic, I was genuinely wondering. I'll dive into the rabbit hole now!
    - classichasclass 3y ago
  - FormerBandmate 3y ago
    Contact tracing is also phenomenal cover for increasing surveillance on people, and China’s a dictatorship so no one can really complain that much. You can do things like spend more on cameras, use Bluetooth beacons to determine people’s locations even when they’re not sharing them, monitor highway traffic more, crack down on people traveling with strangers, so much surveillance tech has contact tracing related uses and unlike America, the loss of privacy is a positive for the government
  - Our_Benefactors 3y ago
    > Are you asking for evidence that knowing everyone’s locations and travel itineraries would assist in contact tracing? Because I think that one is obvious. Ok, I don’t think it’s obvious so let’s have that conversation. Do you have any examples you can share where contact tracing lead to less restrictions compared to another area that did not engage in contact tracing? My intuition is that no such example can be proven, which relegates contract tracing to nothing more than a faithkeeping exercise.
    - BoxFour 3y ago
      > Do you have any examples you can share where contact tracing lead to less restrictions compared to another area that did not engage in contact tracing? I recommend thoroughly reviewing what I wrote that you quoted, and then contemplating the relevance of your question to the topic at hand. If it helps, the effectiveness of contact tracing is not relevant to the discussion.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    We would also have to track all the animals that could carry Covid to be accurate. That's hard to do...
    - Timon3 3y ago
      Why? Do you have any proof that humans were infected by animals in more than a few cases?
      - mensetmanusman 3y ago
        Covid has been carried by multiple domestic creatures and supposedly 'started' with a single animal to human contact. Because you only need one, and the R0 is so high, missing animals is a huge hole in tracking.
        Timon3 3y ago
        > Covid has been carried by multiple domestic creatures and supposedly 'started' with a single animal to human contact. That wasn't my question. > Because you only need one, and the R0 is so high, missing animals is a huge hole in tracking. You only "need one" for what? To infect a person? Obviously if you don't track animal to human contacts you will miss an animal to human contact if an animal to human infection occurred. But there are thousands of infections per day. Contact tracing is unlikely to be 100% reliable over all cases. So what do you "only need one" for? To increase case load by one? I genuinely don't know what you're trying to get at. If over all of Corona let's say 10 people got infected by animals, and you miss them. What happens then? Should we also track rock to human infections? Maybe they could happen, and we only need to miss one...
- elliekelly 3y ago
  I think monkey pox was mostly contained through contact tracing and then vaccinating those who were potentially exposed.
  - doktorhladnjak 3y ago
    It's more meaningful for monkey pox too because vaccination up to 2 weeks _after_ exposure still reduces the chances of getting symptomatic disease
- KronisLV 3y ago
  > Any evidence for that? Actually, any evidence that contact tracing has actually had any benefits wherever it has been tried? I'm sure it helps at very, very early stages of a pandemic, and even then depending on which virus we are trying to trace... But I'd like to see actual proof that it helps for pandemics like COVID. > Otherwise it is such an easy way to implement mass surveillance, that requiring very very thorough proof that it actually helps is the bare minimum. This story is proof of that. I guess it depends on the type of technologies used. For example, Google's and Apple's Exposure Notifications API that many of the contact tracing application used didn't actually allow accessing locations directly: https://developers.google.com/android/exposure-notifications/exposure-notifications-api https://developers.google.com/android/exposure-notifications... > Your app must have the BLUETOOTH and INTERNET permission in its manifest, but your app doesn't require and can't include ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, nor BLUETOOTH_ADMIN. For more information about restrictions on your app, see the API’s Terms of Service. In particular, in the section 3c: > i. Your App may not request the Location, Bluetooth_Admin, Special Access, Privileged, or Signature permissions, or collect any device information to identify or track the precise location of end users How it worked was that you gathered more or less randomly generated identifiers through Bluetooth of devices that were nearby and whose users had also turned on the app functionality. When you were less than 2 meters or so away for around 15 minutes, a contact would be registered. If that person later got sick, the identifier (without PII) would be published and your app could alert you, along the lines of: "Hey, you were in contact with a person that was infected. You probably should self-isolate." Source: worked on the Apturi Covid project in my country as a volunteer, though mostly developed the webpage: https://web.archive.org/web/20230530141239/https://apturicovid.lv/#en https://web.archive.org/web/20230530141239/https://apturicov... (was nice to see ~100 volunteers coming together to make it happen in my country, personally got a notification about possible exposure as well and self-isolated for a bit, though didn't get sick) Actually wrote a blog post ages ago about how one might actually try to aggregate GPS data while preserving privacy, though obviously that sort of approach is a ticking time bomb because of the nature of the information: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/covid-19-contact-tracing-with-gps-versus-bluetooth-and-the-unexplored-potential-for-the-apps https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/covid-19-contact-tracing-wi...
  - 3y ago
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  Here's one study that found the highly flawed, partial, and abandoned contact tracing in the UK nevertheless saved around 10,000 lives. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36495-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36495-z
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bee_rider 3y ago
> It is understandable that South Korea would scrutinize refugees to some extent to prevent the infiltration of espionage agents and similar threats. That makes sense. It does seem to point to an obvious maligned behavior NK could engage in: send inept spies, let it seem like a problem, and suddenly SK will have to apply extra scrutiny to any refugees. Hopefully the extra scrutiny won’t bump anyone from the “defect” to “don’t defect” camp. I guess it must be a secondary concern, I mean defecting is already a huge decision.

mardifoufs 3y ago

>It is evident that having knowledge of individuals' travel destinations would undoubtedly assist in contact tracing efforts. Any evidence for that? Actually, any evidence that contact tracing has actually had any benefits wherever it has been tried? I'm sure it helps at very, very early stages of a pandemic, and even then depending on which virus we are trying to trace... But I'd like to see actual proof that it helps for pandemics like COVID. Otherwise it is such an easy way to implement mass surveillance, that requiring very very thorough proof that it actually helps is the bare minimum. This story is proof of that.

BoxFour 3y ago
Are you asking for evidence that knowing everyone’s locations and travel itineraries would assist in contact tracing? Because I think that one is obvious. Otherwise, I’m not particularly interested in having a COVID conversation.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  It's not a conversation about COVID. It's one about contact tracing. And yes I think that evidence should always be required when talking about potential tools for such mass surveillance. "It makes sense" isn't really proof for anything, as the last pandemic has proven times and times again. For example here in Quebec, contact tracing apps and tracking location of everyone with covid has had pretty much no measurable effect. Even fundamental questions like "what is a contact" are hard to answer, so actual studies might be helpful for this conversation. And again, even tracing infectious contacts was much easier with mass tracking of every single citizens location, that still doesn't mean it is actually useful to stop a pandemic. It might be! Which is why I was asking for good evidence.
  - BoxFour 3y ago
    > that still doesn't mean it is actually useful to stop a pandemic You're arguing against ghosts. That is not what I said, or even implied. I wrote: > It is evident that having knowledge of individuals' travel destinations would undoubtedly assist in contact tracing efforts. Tracking movement is obviously helpful for contact tracing, because you can track the proximity of individuals to each other and warn those who were near a confirmed case. I wrote absolutely nothing on whether contact tracing is impactful, and I wrote nothing about whether you could accomplish the same result in a different way. The usefulness of contract tracing is not a conversation I wish to engage in.
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      Ok, how do you define a contact then? How can it be evident that tracking locations is obviously helpful for contact tracing without defining what it means to trace a contact? That's why evidence would be helpful here. How does knowing a location helps with determining a contact, especially for coarser tracking like know where someone is travelling. You keep repeating that it is obvious and again, saying that something is just... obvious is not enough when discussing dangerous, almost "dual use" methods like contact tracing using mass tracking.
      - BoxFour 3y ago
        > Ok, how do you define a contact then? You'll have to ask the Chinese CDC, I'm sure they have an answer for you much like our own CDCs do. It's usually some combination of time and distance proximity to a confirmed COVID case.
        mardifoufs 3y ago
        I'll actually look into it, it sounds more interesting now that I started reading about it. Sorry if my comments sounded antagonistic, I was genuinely wondering. I'll dive into the rabbit hole now!
  - classichasclass 3y ago
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Contact tracing is also phenomenal cover for increasing surveillance on people, and China’s a dictatorship so no one can really complain that much. You can do things like spend more on cameras, use Bluetooth beacons to determine people’s locations even when they’re not sharing them, monitor highway traffic more, crack down on people traveling with strangers, so much surveillance tech has contact tracing related uses and unlike America, the loss of privacy is a positive for the government
- Our_Benefactors 3y ago
  > Are you asking for evidence that knowing everyone’s locations and travel itineraries would assist in contact tracing? Because I think that one is obvious. Ok, I don’t think it’s obvious so let’s have that conversation. Do you have any examples you can share where contact tracing lead to less restrictions compared to another area that did not engage in contact tracing? My intuition is that no such example can be proven, which relegates contract tracing to nothing more than a faithkeeping exercise.
  - BoxFour 3y ago
    > Do you have any examples you can share where contact tracing lead to less restrictions compared to another area that did not engage in contact tracing? I recommend thoroughly reviewing what I wrote that you quoted, and then contemplating the relevance of your question to the topic at hand. If it helps, the effectiveness of contact tracing is not relevant to the discussion.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  We would also have to track all the animals that could carry Covid to be accurate. That's hard to do...
  - Timon3 3y ago
    Why? Do you have any proof that humans were infected by animals in more than a few cases?
    - mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Covid has been carried by multiple domestic creatures and supposedly 'started' with a single animal to human contact. Because you only need one, and the R0 is so high, missing animals is a huge hole in tracking.
      - Timon3 3y ago
        > Covid has been carried by multiple domestic creatures and supposedly 'started' with a single animal to human contact. That wasn't my question. > Because you only need one, and the R0 is so high, missing animals is a huge hole in tracking. You only "need one" for what? To infect a person? Obviously if you don't track animal to human contacts you will miss an animal to human contact if an animal to human infection occurred. But there are thousands of infections per day. Contact tracing is unlikely to be 100% reliable over all cases. So what do you "only need one" for? To increase case load by one? I genuinely don't know what you're trying to get at. If over all of Corona let's say 10 people got infected by animals, and you miss them. What happens then? Should we also track rock to human infections? Maybe they could happen, and we only need to miss one...
elliekelly 3y ago
I think monkey pox was mostly contained through contact tracing and then vaccinating those who were potentially exposed.
- doktorhladnjak 3y ago
  It's more meaningful for monkey pox too because vaccination up to 2 weeks _after_ exposure still reduces the chances of getting symptomatic disease
KronisLV 3y ago
> Any evidence for that? Actually, any evidence that contact tracing has actually had any benefits wherever it has been tried? I'm sure it helps at very, very early stages of a pandemic, and even then depending on which virus we are trying to trace... But I'd like to see actual proof that it helps for pandemics like COVID. > Otherwise it is such an easy way to implement mass surveillance, that requiring very very thorough proof that it actually helps is the bare minimum. This story is proof of that. I guess it depends on the type of technologies used. For example, Google's and Apple's Exposure Notifications API that many of the contact tracing application used didn't actually allow accessing locations directly: https://developers.google.com/android/exposure-notifications/exposure-notifications-api https://developers.google.com/android/exposure-notifications... > Your app must have the BLUETOOTH and INTERNET permission in its manifest, but your app doesn't require and can't include ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, nor BLUETOOTH_ADMIN. For more information about restrictions on your app, see the API’s Terms of Service. In particular, in the section 3c: > i. Your App may not request the Location, Bluetooth_Admin, Special Access, Privileged, or Signature permissions, or collect any device information to identify or track the precise location of end users How it worked was that you gathered more or less randomly generated identifiers through Bluetooth of devices that were nearby and whose users had also turned on the app functionality. When you were less than 2 meters or so away for around 15 minutes, a contact would be registered. If that person later got sick, the identifier (without PII) would be published and your app could alert you, along the lines of: "Hey, you were in contact with a person that was infected. You probably should self-isolate." Source: worked on the Apturi Covid project in my country as a volunteer, though mostly developed the webpage: https://web.archive.org/web/20230530141239/https://apturicovid.lv/#en https://web.archive.org/web/20230530141239/https://apturicov... (was nice to see ~100 volunteers coming together to make it happen in my country, personally got a notification about possible exposure as well and self-isolated for a bit, though didn't get sick) Actually wrote a blog post ages ago about how one might actually try to aggregate GPS data while preserving privacy, though obviously that sort of approach is a ticking time bomb because of the nature of the information: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/covid-19-contact-tracing-with-gps-versus-bluetooth-and-the-unexplored-potential-for-the-apps https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/covid-19-contact-tracing-wi...
- 3y ago
iudqnolq 3y ago
Here's one study that found the highly flawed, partial, and abandoned contact tracing in the UK nevertheless saved around 10,000 lives. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36495-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36495-z
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bee_rider 3y ago

> It is understandable that South Korea would scrutinize refugees to some extent to prevent the infiltration of espionage agents and similar threats. That makes sense. It does seem to point to an obvious maligned behavior NK could engage in: send inept spies, let it seem like a problem, and suddenly SK will have to apply extra scrutiny to any refugees. Hopefully the extra scrutiny won’t bump anyone from the “defect” to “don’t defect” camp. I guess it must be a secondary concern, I mean defecting is already a huge decision.