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I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

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Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#41

Post by sgtnoodle »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #29
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems…nothing has had a meaningful impact on coronavirus spread Not sure if trolling, but in case not, vaccination has had “a substantial impact on mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks” in America [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/

The link you provided describes a simulation based on assumed vaccine effectiveness. It's also from 1 year ago. It doesn't seem to reflect any statistically backed insights into what's actually happened over the past year. Or am I missing something?

Trying to find some actual data, I googled "covid deaths by month" and I stumbled upon this: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...

Notably, the "Growth Factor" plot looks qualitatively very similar from April 2020 until now. Before then, the data looks more noisy to me but not necessarily different on average. I believe folk started getting vaccinated in December 2020? Based on that plot, it doesn't look like the vaccine is helping much for the death rate. Maybe that data source is not legitimate, or maybe "growth factor" isn't the right metric to look at?

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#42

Post by 0xTJ »

coolso wrote: post #21

Good! Keep it up. Let things be, enough of this vaccine pass comrade BS. We who are vaccinated should be at peace and trust this vaccine will reduce the likelihood of severe illness. Those who aren’t, I wish them the best, but that’s their choice. Hopefully this will finally encourage smokers to quit and the obese to cut out a few sodas per day.

Choosing not to be vaccinated is a harm to society. Being vaccinated isn't just about protecting yourself. It is people's choice not to be vaccinated, and they're responsible for the consequences of that choice, including not being allowed in spaces where they're a hazard to others.

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#43

Post by boc »

cik2e wrote: post #37
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems…nothing has had a meaningful impact on coronavirus spread Not sure if trolling, but in case not, vaccination has had “a substantial impact on mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks” in America [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/

I like this site for COVID data: https://covidactnow.org/ At a glance, infection rates and vaccination rates seem to be uncorrelated at best.

Current vaccines are non-sterilizing and therefore do not effectively stop the spread/transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) but is very effective at preventing the disease the virus causes (COVID-19). Initially the vaccines were able to keep viral loads low enough to meaningfully stop the spread, but the Delta variant resulting in far higher viral loads and removed that advantage compared to the original virus.

Arguing that the infection rates are uncorrelated is one thing, but serious illness and death is what we really need to care about with this virus. And for those metrics, vaccination is highly-correlated to better outcomes.

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#44

Post by maigret »

cik2e wrote: post #37
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems…nothing has had a meaningful impact on coronavirus spread Not sure if trolling, but in case not, vaccination has had “a substantial impact on mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks” in America [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7709178/

I like this site for COVID data: https://covidactnow.org/ At a glance, infection rates and vaccination rates seem to be uncorrelated at best.

That’s a common error, reused by antivaxxers. They are indeed because even what we consider relatively high infection levels are just enough to get 15-20% of the population infected per year. This is less than the part of unvaccinated people. That’s why having a very high vaccination rate is critical to kill COVID. Above this threshold you’d see the infection rate affected. Still, vaccinations are good strategies because they still reduce infections, or at least severe forms of it. Without it in many countries would have been totally saturated by Delta.

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#45

Post by Ambolia »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #41
sgtnoodle wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The link you provided describes a simulation based on assumed vaccine effectiveness. It's also from 1 year ago. It doesn't seem to reflect any statistically backed insights into what's actually happened over the past year. Or am I missing something?

Trying to find some actual data, I googled "covid deaths by month" and I stumbled upon this: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-... Notably, the "Growth Factor" plot looks qualitatively very similar from April 2020 until now. Before then, the data looks more noisy to me but not necessarily different on average. I believe folk started getting vaccinated in December 2020? Based on that plot, it…

"Covid deaths" are also a very meaningless metric where every country or region does whatever it wants. Excess deaths would be a better metric, but also hard to remove from there all the damage done by lockdowns, stress generated on the population, and by hospitals stopping attending other diseases in some places.

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#46

Post by akomtu »

slownews45 wrote: post #3

Short version if they get taken down: The validation apps used a 512 bit RSA public key. They used a factoring app and spend $200 on amazon to factor the private key from the public key. They were then able to generate the COVID passes. This is for the Honai Police Dept.

Why would anyone use RSA when we have X25519?

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#48

Post by jokethrowaway »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #19
jinpa_zangpo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The private keys for the European Green Pass have been leaked and fake passes signed with the keys are being sold on the dark web. https://threatpost.com/eus-green-pass-vaccination-id-private...

>UPDATE: French & Polish authorities found no sign of cryptographic compromise in the leak of the private key used to sign the vaccine passports and to create fake passes for Mickey Mouse and Adolf Hitler, et al. Afaik it was a leaked login, not a leak of the keys.

Shouldn't they have a record of all the things they signed?

I would expect them to know where and when that Adolf pass was generated

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#49

Post by jokethrowaway »

0xTJ wrote: post #42
coolso wrote: post #21

Good! Keep it up. Let things be, enough of this vaccine pass comrade BS. We who are vaccinated should be at peace and trust this vaccine will reduce the likelihood of severe illness. Those who aren’t, I wish them the best, but that’s their choice. Hopefully this will finally encourage smokers to quit and the obese to cut out a few sodas per day.

Choosing not to be vaccinated is a harm to society. Being vaccinated isn't just about protecting yourself. It is people's choice not to be vaccinated, and they're responsible for the consequences of that choice, including not being allowed in spaces where they're a hazard to others.

That's a ridiculous narrative for covid where vaccinated people are marginally less contagious than unvaccinated people.

The main benefit of the covid vaccine is reducing symptoms when you get covid and reducing hospitalisations.

If you are worried about getting covid, vaccinate yourself. That's it, you don't need anyone else to be vaccinated.

Re: I faked tons of Covid passes – “Weak Key Cryptography in real world”

#50

Post by sgtnoodle »

Ambolia wrote: post #45
sgtnoodle wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to find some actual data, I googled "covid deaths by month" and I stumbled upon this: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-... Notably, the "Growth Factor" plot looks qualitatively very similar from April 2020 until now. Before then, the data looks more noisy to me but not necessarily different on average. I believe folk started getting vaccinated in December 2020? Based on that plot, it…

"Covid deaths" are also a very meaningless metric where every country or region does whatever it wants. Excess deaths would be a better metric, but also hard to remove from there all the damage done by lockdowns, stress generated on the population, and by hospitals stopping attending other diseases in some places.

So what's the right available metric to look at that statistically quantifies the effectiveness of the vaccines? Or does one not exist?
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