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U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#141

Post by state_less »

indigochill wrote: post #86
bscphil wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe the politics of our world simply are that cynical and won't allow for such a thing to exist. But I guess I'm hoping it isn't. I'm trying to imagine how a non-authoritarian institution would work; it wouldn't have the "authority" to compel anyone to turn over their data, but just about everyone would have enough trust in the community and its decision making process to be okay with it.…

What if information could be revoked? Imagine the government suspects me in some investigation. I give them a key that gives them all information about me and my recent activities. Then once some period elapses, I revoke that key and they no longer have any of that information. Nor, of course, were they able to copy or independently distribute it in any way when they had it. This is probably pure fantasy, but if ther…

> What if information could be revoked?

What if information can't be revoked on systems outside your control? That's the reality, however many secret handshakes you do, blockchain, etc, eventually some person or process knows something and can do something with it (e.g. copy it).

You could pull a gmail and say, there is no human in the loop, it's just a process of personal data ingestion and ads come out the other end. That might be more comforting if it was open source, but even open systems have things can be hidden in obscure technical details.

The truth is, we are all human, including our leaders. Your average human is weak and susceptible to trading a vast privilege like having control of everyone's whereabouts for favors (e.g. money, position, control, sex, etc...).

I'm a sucker for an open source process (e.g. robot) that would look at the data and tell us who needs to be quarantined, but again, you still have human technical people, with all their failings, controlling the system (e.g. source code). How much do you trust the open source process is a matter open for debate.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#142

Post by nathan_compton »

viraptor wrote: post #118
throwaway97777 wrote: post #80

Well, buckle up folks. Android's GLS service has an absolute insane data ingestion pipeline consisting of sensor fusion from GPS, Wifi, accelerometer, barometric data, and cell tower locations. It's accurate to within meters, can locate you inside buildings, can count your footsteps, and even knows what floor you've been on. It's been used by Google to tune its indoor WiFi maps and improve location accuracy for years…

> has already been unwittingly uploading Majority have been doing it unwittingly, true. But you do get services in return. I actually know about the collection, and in case of Google, in my opinion I get compensated in a reasonable way. I'm contributing to wigle and osm as well to counteract the monopoly, but in practice - it's worth it. We could attach some risk to everything and consider what would happen if gov ab…

I don't want to call you out personally, but I absolutely hate how servile this attitude is.

Its as if you can't even imagine a world where you get some of these benefits but where your privacy is protected either legally or technically. Both are totally possible, but your lazy attitude about it is part of the problem.

One of these days all this data we've just been casually giving out is going to be used for a pogrom or some other terrible thing and then it will be too late for this facile "the benefits outweigh the costs" bullshit.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#143

Post by cbayram »

tsukurimashou wrote: post #112

Even if the US had real-time data about every citizen movement, what would they do with it, they cannot move huge populations of people like China can

Potentially narrow down and identify asymptomatic spreaders of the virus in early forming geo clusters. This information could lead to more effective quarantine measures early on or post containment to avoid further outbreak eruptions.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#144

Post by vsareto »

ddmma wrote: post #21

‘in moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure—whether the crisis is a financial meltdown or, as the Bush administration would later show, a terrorist attack’ (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine)

If the government asked for constant location data in exchange for $1k / month "UBI", most people would take that, and they'd be silly not to because that's likely the highest price their data will ever fetch.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#145

Post by trevyn »

jessaustin wrote: post #106
angry_octet wrote: post #19

They already have a mechanism to do this -- it's called a John Doe (wiretap) warrant. What they really want is full take -- the complete location movements of the US population. This would be useful for COVID-19 tracking ... and authoritarian control.

When they pass the laws that require us to keep our powered-on phones on our persons at all times, we'll know that they've perfected the Angel Teeth.

Angel Teeth?

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#147

Post by tomlagier »

bscphil wrote: post #42
guscost wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve regressed to my cynical default in the past few days, but “a large institution that I would trust with this authority” sounds like pure fantasy.

I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe the politics of our world simply are that cynical and won't allow for such a thing to exist. But I guess I'm hoping it isn't. I'm trying to imagine how a non-authoritarian institution would work; it wouldn't have the "authority" to compel anyone to turn over their data, but just about everyone would have enough trust in the community and its decision making process to be okay with it.…

I think you just described Facebook.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#148

Post by cbayram »

We are in a pandemic and this won’t be the last. Gov’ts and society are scrambling to contain the virus, save lives, economy and society. Pandemics sow seeds of mistrust among neighbors, xenophobia and society starts falling apart. Be kind, compassionate and constructive if you can help it. This is about self-preservation. If there was ever a case for “move fast, break things”, this is it. Your location data is already whored out to target you in every which way. We have tremendous data and tech capabilities. We should absolutely use them to effectively track and quarantine the contagion. For me the threat of terrorism and Patriot act was bullshit reason to erode our rights and liberties, but this is different. We should absolutely revisit these encroachments on privacy by out gov’t in a post-mortem and legislate accordingly.

When it comes to gov’t, I share a healthy dosage of mistrust. This is one of the reasons I support the second amendment. But remember that the gov’t are of the people and for the people. It is THE institution to defend our individual selves against threats we can’t individually battle. As Michael Lewis puts it, we have got to stop gutting the gov’t due to reactionary fear-mongering and mistrust. We are only robbing ourselves and our children of their future. This is a reason to feel patriotic for me.

Re: U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus

#150

Post by snarf21 »

throwaway97777 wrote: post #80

Well, buckle up folks. Android's GLS service has an absolute insane data ingestion pipeline consisting of sensor fusion from GPS, Wifi, accelerometer, barometric data, and cell tower locations. It's accurate to within meters, can locate you inside buildings, can count your footsteps, and even knows what floor you've been on. It's been used by Google to tune its indoor WiFi maps and improve location accuracy for years…

The internet presents a unique challenge to privacy. You have to physically connect somewhere. Normally that connection is also tied to your account. This means you they know who and where you are at all times. VPNs can help but are a single point of failure if the government ever shuts them down or installs backdoors.

If you go for the free Starbucks Wi-Fi plan on a tablet, you have some chance but you need to always have access to this kind of proxied connection. Additionally, you are likely to get fingerprinted fairly quickly based on services used and how the ad networks cross target. At the very least, they will know when and where you are at that Starbucks. I really think we have lost. The best we can hope for is E2EE baked into secure chips on our devices to at least protect our messaging.

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