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Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

reuters.com

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Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#331

Post by anon946 »

crushthecurve wrote: post #263
bjz_ wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Australian who has privacy concerns their government's COVIDSafe app (see https://github.com/vteague/contactTracing ), and hence not installing it, I'm really thankful that Apple and Google are pushing this model of contact tracing. We still don't know if digital contact tracing is effective in practice, but it's still important to try, but we can do this in a way that avoids giving governments with worrying au…

Another consideration that seems to have been obscured by the debate on privacy and the narrow focus on the particular client implementation of the app is the significant problem of false positives and negatives. A lot of voices have spoken out about this issue overseas (particularly in the US) while many local tech voices have skipped considering this at all. See: * Previous FTC CTO / Obama Whitehouse senior adviser…

I assume that the use model is as a way to help human contact tracing, not to replace. Admittedly, the benefit is less then, but maybe it's still worth it?

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#332

Post by rched »

eternalban wrote: post #312
azinman2 wrote: post #239

I have to say, working at Apple and knowing all the hard work that goes into this and making sure your data stays private while also being able to combat this disease, it's very frustrating to read a lot of the comments here. I can understand why the public is skeptical, but I feel like as a society we've swung so far away from institutional trust that now nothing good can actually emerge. The anti-vax movement is a…

[flagged]

I can’t wrap my head around this kind of hate towards the Apple/Google contact tracing. If Apple or Google wanted to track your location they would just do it using the GPS on your phone. Short of getting rid of your phone there would be nothing you could do to stop it. If they wanted to allow specific apps to track your location they would just give those apps access to your location in the background.

It seems like the governments, that you seem to trust, would much rather take that much simpler approach. Instead we have these two companies building a system that is more restrictive than location services in every way.

If you own a phone you are already trusting Apple, Google, or both. Let’s not pretend otherwise. The contact tracing system just means you don’t also need to trust the government or what ever entity is building contact tracing apps.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#333

Post by hyperturtle »

vorpalhex wrote: post #292
azinman2 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this data doesn't exist on Apple servers, and what does exist are a bunch of randomly generated identifiers. Have you read the proposal at all [1]? [1] https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing

It's not clear from these specifications on how the rolling IDs are associated with a single user after a diagnosis is made, and whether those keys are interlinked. While this explains the phone-to-phone model it does not explain the other half of the system from what I can tell.

I think by design they're not meant to be associated with a single user. A hospital would publish all id's of users that have found positive with covid and each other individual user's themselves will see if they have been in contact recently with one since they have saved all id's they've seen recently

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#334

Post by rapsey »

gonehome wrote: post #317
azinman2 wrote: post #239

I have to say, working at Apple and knowing all the hard work that goes into this and making sure your data stays private while also being able to combat this disease, it's very frustrating to read a lot of the comments here. I can understand why the public is skeptical, but I feel like as a society we've swung so far away from institutional trust that now nothing good can actually emerge. The anti-vax movement is a…

Yeah, there’s so little critical thinking going on in general. I wish people really tried to understand rather than just give knee-jerk negative responses to go along with their existing world view. A lot of people are trying to do the right thing and working hard to do good. The cynical HN default response just feels like a lazy way to try and signal intelligence.

Edward snowden, gag laws and the history of FBI/CIA is what any educated critical thinking person needs to understand why these apps should not be trusted.

Apple and Google may have good intentions. But if there is one thing clear from history is that if anything can be abused it will be. Maybe not now but it certainly will eventually.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#335

Post by xvector »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #286
azinman2 wrote: post #239

I have to say, working at Apple and knowing all the hard work that goes into this and making sure your data stays private while also being able to combat this disease, it's very frustrating to read a lot of the comments here. I can understand why the public is skeptical, but I feel like as a society we've swung so far away from institutional trust that now nothing good can actually emerge. The anti-vax movement is a…

> I can understand why the public is skeptical You can understand the skepticism and yet equate the skeptical people to "anti-vax" movement? That's very sneaky of you.

Both movements disregard evidence and reality to fit their feelings.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#336

Post by uluyol »

coliveira wrote: post #321
bjz_ wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Australian who has privacy concerns their government's COVIDSafe app (see https://github.com/vteague/contactTracing ), and hence not installing it, I'm really thankful that Apple and Google are pushing this model of contact tracing. We still don't know if digital contact tracing is effective in practice, but it's still important to try, but we can do this in a way that avoids giving governments with worrying au…

Having Google/Apple develop a tracking technology is the same as the US government having it. If you don't believe, read again what Snowden revealed several years ago.

What? I don't think this is accurate.

From what I recall, the US was/is spying on the major tech companies and would regularly demand data and place gag orders on those companies.

Neither actions are willful forms of data transfer. The first is actually an eternal game of cat and mouse. NSA finds a leak for some data, Google fixes it, new leak, etc. The second is targeted handover of data, and only affects a few individuals.

Equating these with the US government having full access to everyone's data is misleading. If you think otherwise, please provide more detail.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#337

Post by PeterStuer »

azinman2 wrote: post #239

I have to say, working at Apple and knowing all the hard work that goes into this and making sure your data stays private while also being able to combat this disease, it's very frustrating to read a lot of the comments here. I can understand why the public is skeptical, but I feel like as a society we've swung so far away from institutional trust that now nothing good can actually emerge. The anti-vax movement is a…

I find it disingenuous that u use antivax in your argument. First of all the tech industry has been thriving on selling out and exploiting personal data for decades, and this 'business model' has become in practice unavoidable on the online world. And while big pharma has many deep flaws, making people deliberately ill through vaxination programs isn't it.

Secondly, everyone that understands low powered radio wave signals and keeps abrest of covid-19 infection vectors can plainly see that any correlation between those two are going to be extremely weak at best, and extremely easy to game.

No vaxine with such poor results would be allowed on the market, let alone prescribed.

This is a bad case of tech utopist solutioning gone awry.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#338

Post by gonehome »

rapsey wrote: post #334
gonehome wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there’s so little critical thinking going on in general. I wish people really tried to understand rather than just give knee-jerk negative responses to go along with their existing world view. A lot of people are trying to do the right thing and working hard to do good. The cynical HN default response just feels like a lazy way to try and signal intelligence.

Edward snowden, gag laws and the history of FBI/CIA is what any educated critical thinking person needs to understand why these apps should not be trusted. Apple and Google may have good intentions. But if there is one thing clear from history is that if anything can be abused it will be. Maybe not now but it certainly will eventually.

Sure - and there are nuanced/interesting discussions that can happen about the risks, but that’s not what most of this commentary is.

Most of the comments are empty of any actual content from people who haven’t even tried to read about the protocol they’re working on.

The protocol is designed by people aware and concerned about these risks (which is why the way it works is pretty interesting).

A lot of interesting work happens in the challenging areas where it’s critical to get things right, there are real risks, and the answers aren’t obvious. Engaging in those areas where things are complex is important.

It's easy to just remove yourself from the problem, say something can't be trusted, and then feel good about your moral purity, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It does, and there is real value in putting work in to solve it.

If you care about these issues then you're the type of person that should be involved in solving it exactly because you're concerned about the risks.

Jeff Hammerbacher's quote from working at Facebook reminds me of this, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.” I think he's right, and working on these bigger non-ad software problems is where the effort should be, because they are hard, and because the outcome is important.

The governments of the west need to be capable, but still protect the privacy of their people - that isn't an easy problem.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#339

Post by sneak »

bhupy wrote: post #306
colordrops wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is their code open source? How do you know this?

Yes. https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing/

There is no code available at that link, and no indication whatsoever that Google and Apple’s implementation of the algorithms and protocols described in those documents will be open source.

I believe your claim is false.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#340

Post by mongrol-smush »

godelski wrote: post #227
munificent wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it is unethical to work on weapons technology any more than I believe it is unethical to be member of the armed forces. We live in a world with bad actors, so some amount of work on defense is necessary for survival. However, I also believe you are responsible for the consequences of the technology you create. If you decide to work on smart bombs and because of a bad government those end up killing in…

> However, I also believe you are responsible for the consequences of the technology you create. I agree with this to an extent, but at the same time, technologies you develop can go well beyond what you intended them to be. Do you think Ritchie knew C would be used the way it is today? It is used in UAVs, smart missiles, and more. Building faster algorithms also means faster weapons. Everyone working at SpaceX is di…

Not to mention https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fertilizer-runoff...
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