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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

#381

Post by devin »

m12k wrote: post #371
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 think the notion of trusting any company over a certain size is crazy - I wish people would stop anthropomorphizing companies that way. Basically, I can trust specific people if I feel that I know their character, and by proxy I might trust a company that these people have significant control over. Once a company reaches a certain size, any power that individual employees wield will have been diluted to microscopic…

What??? I cannot make any sense out of your comment. No disrespect, but you're jumping around a lot and I do not follow.

ETA: Allow me to explain for the downvoters: The size of the company is irrelevant. There are plenty of large companies that have honest leadership. I can trust a fraction of the size of the company, because I trust those people to not work for horrible companies.

Trusting a human being and trusting an organized group of them are obviously different.

Your personal alignment with a company's goals has nothing to do with whether said company is trustworthy. You can trust a company to meet its goals without becoming best friends with it. The goals here are quite clear. The spec has been published. Apple and Google are well poised to meet the goal at hand. Truly, who else is going to do this right now with the same level of resources, and how long are you willing to wait for it?

Finally, I found the analogy of wild, dangerous animals to companies extremely weird in light of the fact that you started your comment with "I wish people would stop anthropomorphizing".

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

#382

Post by tastroder »

probably_wrong wrote: post #343
bhupy wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A PDF document with a specification is not even close to "open source code". There is no way to know whether the specification actually matches the implementation.

> There is no way to know whether the specification actually matches the implementation.

That would be true even if Apple suddenly decided "oh these folks on HN want to see the code for that tracing component, better open source our complete OS". I've seen assurances that parts of this will be open sourced as far as they can but I honestly don't see how that matters. You have, as is a general tradition, a description of what this system does cryptographically. The rest is a matter of reverse engineering that hardly benefits from having the code. It's not like Play store updates or whatever Apple uses to push this are reproducible builds the end user can verify. And you always have the closed source blob of whatever BTLE chipset your device uses which you can mistrust.

edit: Let me qualify "but I honestly don't see how that matters" for the question of trust in what runs on your phone here. If you read a dig at OSS into this you're generalizing far over what I'm addressing here.

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

#383

Post by spdustin »

the_gipsy wrote: post #376
killjoywashere wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a lifelong public servant, welcome to the ungrateful side of life. If you're providing a service to the public with the hopes of their gratitude, you will be sad. Do it for the same reason you change your baby's diaper: you love them and it needs doing. They might take pleasure in pissing on you while you're doing it, but this thing you love will be better off afterward.

Let's not compare apple to a public institution. What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else.

Perhaps the institutional shareholders have Apple holdings precisely because their privacy-centric practices increase their stability, independence, and profit—without having to sell out their customers.

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

#385

Post by ktpsns »

m12k wrote: post #371
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 think the notion of trusting any company over a certain size is crazy - I wish people would stop anthropomorphizing companies that way. Basically, I can trust specific people if I feel that I know their character, and by proxy I might trust a company that these people have significant control over. Once a company reaches a certain size, any power that individual employees wield will have been diluted to microscopic…

That's a good writeup and a good practice.

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

#386

Post by tastroder »

the_gipsy wrote: post #378
tastroder wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple are the ones pushing for isolating where this data lives and how it can be used/abused here. They are doing this in an effort to curb far more dangerous data collection on the very same devices in architectures that infer location or send off all data that is gathered on central servers. Your comment boils down to "Gapple is evil because Snowden" and seems to be disconnected from the specific issue a…

> They are doing this in an effort to curb far more dangerous data collection Don't be naïve. This is not an NGO or an institution. They are doing this so that they and noone else owns the data.

> Don't be naïve. This is not an NGO or an institution. They are doing this so that they and noone else owns the data.

Even if this "do your research" level talking point would be true, they don't own the data in this proposal, the end user device does. The device you trust and use anyway, the device that has your geolocation and access to far more data Gapple could abuse at all times. Which is better than what the COVIDsafe/NHSX/ROBERT put forward for the specific topic of digital contact tracing.

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

#387

Post by chopin »

riffraff wrote: post #315
choppaface wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti-vax movement challenges science itself; the anti-Google/Apple movement challenges corporate-level ethics and human control over identity. You can independently reproduce experiments demonstrating the efficacy of medicine. You can’t reproduce the faith that you place in your own corporation.

But in this case the mechanics at play are the same: people can read the documentation and arrive at the idea that this protocol is actually good and much better than some alternatives. Instead, they form an opinion based on generic distrust for apple and Google, just like no-vax people do it out of generic mistrust for institutions and big pharma.

While the protocol may be good, the app implementing it may be not. Google and Apple have gone to great length that you cannot control what's running on your device. The next update can be nefarious and you can do only little about it. Just have a look at the Australian assistance laws. The distrust is well earned.

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

#388

Post by a1369209993 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #354
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…

How's anti-vaccination in any way comparable to lack of trust in corporations? We have decades of evidence showing the efficacy of vaccines. Ask any old pediatrician what hospitals were like before vaccines. Can Apple and Google produce equally strong evidence that their new surveillance system will reduce mortality and be resistant to abuse?

More to the point, we have decades of evidence showing the efficacy of vaccines, and we have decades of evidence showing that corporations cannot be trusted with anything and that it's always a matter of when, not if, they back on any promise they've made.

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

#389

Post by JumpCrisscross »

verve_rat wrote: post #355
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…

Apple is not an "institution". A arm of government or a long standing NGO are institutions. Apple is a business, it shouldn't get institutional trust.

> A arm of government or a long standing NGO are institutions

The New York Times is neither of those, yet many people would characterize it, alongside the Fourth Estate, as institutions. The term "institution" codes depth beyond legal form [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution

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

#390

Post by nindalf »

Legogris wrote: post #351
nindalf wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have some evidence that Apple and Google run backdoors to privacy on iOS or Android devices? You speak about the track record of both companies, surely you should be able to point out several examples of this. The spec seems pretty clear - it's not possible. If you feel that you don't trust them to implement the spec correctly due to incompetence or malice on their part - you need to supply the proof. If we're…

There's arguably a lot more evidence against Google than Apple here. But Apple did lie about their involvement, or even knowledge of, the PRISM program. Snowden leaks. I highly recommend Glenn Grennwald's book No Place to Hide if you're not interested in digging though sources yourself. Even against their will, companies with capabilities can and have been compelled by government agencies to go against their promises…

I've read Permanent Record by Edward Snowden. It doesn't get more detailed than that. There is nothing in the book that indicates that Google's implementation of the contact tracing spec would deviate from the spec either through incompetence or malice.

You're making vague, unsubstantiated claims about how this could be compromised. Even if there is a bug that allows such apps to collect location info, that has nothing to do with Snowden leaks.

If a government is keen on collecting such information, they would simply not use Google/Apple's APIs and instead roll their own using bluetooth and location services. This was pointed out in the article. Now could you explain to us why you're promoting a conspiracy theory that the government will lean on Apple and Google to introduce malicious bugs into their APIs when they don't need the APIs at all?

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