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5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

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Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#32
post #12
post #4

Yet again, the difference between conspiracy theory and reality is 6-12 months.

At this point we can assume that anything technologically feasible for surveillance is implemented or pending implementation. There were some suggestions that the push for 5G comes from the desire to improve location tracking which is much better on 5G.

This has been the conclusion I've been dragged kicking and screaming to over the last couple of years myself.

- If it's not FOSS it's spyware

- If it's got a camera it's probably going to a datacenter to run facial recognition and/or ALPR or similar

- If it requires a login they are modeling your behavior

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#33
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be kidding. This strategy of lockdown, wear a mask, contact trace and wait for vaccines clearly isn't working. Are you suggesting that it would work if the government could track our locations better?

Not saying we should follow their lead, but China managed to do exactly that with stricter lockdowns, masks and contact tracing without regard for privacy. After the initial wave China was covid free, people could travel freely and the economy was booming.

China is still locking cities down this year.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#34
To get the most accurate data, pervasive mmWave would be needed. Which isn't about to be a reality anytime soon.

mmWave deployment proposals have hit my desk from the big US carriers. All in include fiber/microwave backhaul throughout the campus. And that wouldn't even provide full coverage. Pervasive mmWave coverage starts to looks similar in size to 802.11 deployments. Between that and 5G sharing unlicensed spectrum with WiFi6E, it was a hard pass for us.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#35
If you examine ancient (ie. 'pre-COVID') CDC documents for recommended responses to influenza Categories, based on the global CFR of 0.66 COVID is classed a 'category 3' influenza variant.

Go to page 9 and see what was mandated for that: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mit...

It was voluntary isolation of the sick, 'consider' shutting down of schools but only for 4 weeks or less, and to 'consider' social distancing - based only on the age profile of virus deaths.

We've ignored everything previously established for pandemic response.

You'll also note that in this document, there is zero mention of contact tracing. Its basically impossible and fruitless for a respiratory virus. Attempting contact tracing is really just about pushing acceptance of general location tracking onto the population.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#36

If you examine ancient (ie. 'pre-COVID') CDC documents for recommended responses to influenza Categories, based on the global CFR of 0.66 COVID is classed a 'category 3' influenza variant. Go to page 9 and see what was mandated for that: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mit... It was voluntary isolation of the sick, 'consider' shutting down of schools but only for 4 weeks or less, and to 'cons…

Impossible and fruitless? Contact tracing has been quite effective in Taiwan unless I’ve been completely fooled by propaganda. And contact tracing apps don’t require you to accept general location tracking. They anonymously exchange temporary tokens and, when you report yourself as a positive case, the tokens you’ve used in the past two weeks get uploaded to a central authority so that anyone who has received them can see that they represent contact with an infected person.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#37

If you examine ancient (ie. 'pre-COVID') CDC documents for recommended responses to influenza Categories, based on the global CFR of 0.66 COVID is classed a 'category 3' influenza variant. Go to page 9 and see what was mandated for that: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mit... It was voluntary isolation of the sick, 'consider' shutting down of schools but only for 4 weeks or less, and to 'cons…

The document is from 2007. It doesn’t talk about contact tracing because phones were still using rotary dials at the time. It does mention, for example, quarantines for family members and work colleagues, which is just contact tracing by another name.

Contact tracing, as currently implemented in iOS and Android, does not reveal location data to third parties. There are many widespread uses of location data that are far worse for privacy.

For contact tracing to be useful, you need to:

- believe in the germ theory of disease

- believe in the ability to trace contacts at any level than pure randomness

These requirements are so low, it makes contact tracing at least theoretically useful at a level close to a tautology.

I find your document quite interesting in that it seems to recommend a lot of measures that we are using now.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#39

Librem/Pinephone's killer feature is going to be the baseband modem kill-switch. It's going to be the only way to opt out of this category of tracking.

It's more practical at this point to start weaning off carrying a phone at all times. Not necessarily going off grid into the woods, just not carrying it unless you'll need it for something specific that day. I'm not sure more tech is going to solve this issue, we're just digging the hole deeper.

Re: 5G and Beyond for Contact Tracing

#40
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like places that actually did “lockdown, wear a mask, and contact trace” did better. (No place in the US did lock downs as far as I know. Several places in China did. When you’re welding steel together to enforce it, it’s probably a lock down. When you’re politely asking people to try to only go to stores once per day, it’s not a lockdown.)

Ah, the no true scotsman fallacy. If only we had destroyed our health and economy harder , it would have worked!

That's not what a no true Scotsman fallacy is, GP literally claimed that other countries did in fact take the necessary precautions and did better than us, which is would be a true Scotsman.
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