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Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

ccc.de

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Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#61

Post by g_p »

metanonsense wrote: post #54
andrew_v4 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually "accountability" that's a big part of the problem. Government procurement is so focused on the appearance of fairness and money saving that all other goals, like actually getting something that works, take a back seat. You end up with over-specified requirements that remove the possibility of innovative or creative solutions. Providers are treated like a commodity, where it is assumed that all will do t…

Last week we lost a bid for a government contract. That's nothing unusual but I almost laughed when they described how they reached that conclusion. They weighted price against quality at a ratio of 80 to 20. I mean: really?

This is fairly standard, sadly, and is why Government struggles to deliver, especially on IT and similar "intangibles" type contracts.

The same issues happen in any other procurement activity that is required to rigorously follow a specific process due to spending public money, or bill-payer money of a regulated monopoly etc.

In short, you need large numbers of people involved to avoid "corruption" (irrespective of the actual level of such risk), and this means you end up less flexible and less able to buy what's needed. Weighting price by 80% is common, as nobody wants to be seen to deliver "poor value for money to the tax-payer". Hence the cheapest bid almost always wins, as nobody wants to have to stand up and explain why they didn't pick the cheapest bid.

There's a whole separate issue in how to handle "too cheap" bids (i.e. where you under-bid on the initial work, knowing you can get technical lock-in and be able to win future contracts uncontested, and turn those lucrative), but this is still an issue - see how the large outsourcers or consultancies do this regularly, and end up winning renewals on basis of "necessity".

There's an art to writing a winning (cheap) tender, then staffing it with people who rigorously enforce the scope back onto the Government client, and force every single change through an expensive change process. That's the business model many follow, and it delivers far poorer value for money in the long run. But the headline price was cheaper, so they'll still get selected...

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#62

Post by dathinab »

simfoo wrote: post #11
seesawtron wrote: post #3

Is this one of the many examples of German government wasting taxpayer's money?

Yes. This is what you get when incompetent officials jump on any offered solution that promises to make their awful track record of "digitalization" projects look better. Of course without listening to actual experts and instead looking for buzzwords.

The absurd thing is like CCC mentioned the german covid app (state payed, kinda decentralized, very privacy respecting contact tracing app) does not only potentially cover some of the cases (if people are close to each other and the phone can detect it using Bluetooth tokens) but also seem to be getting a feature "to handle meetings" in a privacy friendly way.

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#63

Post by catdog »

271828182846 wrote: post #30
tazjin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying exactly the same thing as me: There are very few independent hacker spaces (in most cities, none), unlike in Germany and Norway where that is the norm.

CCC isn't a hacker space as I understand the term. CCC is a club of security experts. hacker spaces are communal spaces where you can tinker with peers using provided tools.

> CCC is a club of security experts

No. It happens that a lot of members are security experts but it is far far broader than that.

The CCC is a very decentralized organization. A lot of hacker spaces are in fact operated by local subdivisions or are completely independent organizations but with a lot of overlap in membership.

In general the CCC likes define itself more by those who share its values and less by the legal entity with that name.

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#66

Post by qwertox »

This is a privacy issue, in the country which thinks so highly of the GDPR. So it's not something which they should be able to sweep under the rug as if nothing happened. As the article explains, the issue is far bigger than just vulnerabilities, it's about how politics supported this app.

If this would be some other thing, like the implementation of a video surveillance system in the political center of Berlin, or any other important place, they would have taken care to at least adhere to the basics in how to give whom the job to do this, how it will be licensed/owned, how it will be run, what happens with the data. A thorough check of the company would have been made.

But in this case? It's a small startup with no expertise whatsoever in data protection, expecting the silliest terms and conditions, and the politicians are just glad to throw the money at them, and even expecting citizens to install this app if they want to take part in public life.

This is as crazy as it gets and shows how incapable they are of controlling this pandemic, even how little they care to seriously work on it, and I wonder how much this represents what they have been doing over the last decade in general.

I was glad to install the Corona-Warn-App and am a bit sad that there are so few people using it, but it was implemented correctly. Not only from a technical point of view.

But should any of these apps become a requirement to participate in public life, I'd take it as far as going to jail for not installing or uninstalling it.

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#67

Post by thinkberg »

pantalaimon wrote: post #26
simfoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. This is what you get when incompetent officials jump on any offered solution that promises to make their awful track record of "digitalization" projects look better. Of course without listening to actual experts and instead looking for buzzwords.

Exhibit B: Ubirch and their 5 Blockchains https://www.heise.de/news/Digitaler-Corona-Impfpass-IBM-Ubir...

An issue with the reporting is that the ubirch standard solution is confused all the time with the actual project. Especially since it is mostly guessing, not knowledge of the actual technology behind it.

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#69

Post by perlgeek »

ndom91 wrote: post #57

What's the difference between this Luca app and the "official" German covid tracing app (Corona-Warn)? Or are they the same thing?

The official app stores all its data decentralized, only cryptographic hashes are stored centrally that each device then can check locally for potential risks.

In the Luca app, the user's location data is stored centrally, and the states can then purchase a license to access data of potentially risky contacts.

(BTW the public health offices are notoriously overworked during the pandemic, so it's not clear to me if they'd even manage to do anything with this data).

Re: Luca App: CCC calls for a moratorium

#70

Post by perlgeek »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #36

What was wrong with Corona-Warn-App? Looked amazing compared to ‎TousAntiCovid last year yet I'm learning here that it isn't improved anymore and I haven't seen ads for it anywhere. The differences between German states and the way news are communicated is so complicated, and it's been more than a year that it's like that now. As a French citizen living in Germany I can get vaccinated if I go back to France soon (the…

Nothing really.

Luca app just had more hype/better marketing.

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