no thanks
Good luck with living in modern society
Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
111–120 of 484 posts
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#112Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#113That combination Apple-Google logogram is scary! It’s like an image from some corporate future dystopian sci-fi.
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Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#114See https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance... for why this is really important
> But for the moment, we are united by fear and have some latitude to act. We're literally still fighting the wars that arose out of the last time we acted in a moment where we were "united by fear."
And living with the erosion of Constitutional protections that seem all too easy to push through in times like these, but impossible to roll back afterward.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#115Promising opt-in is a bit disingenuous. These tech giants are creating a technological capability. Whether or not it is opt-in, opt-out or mandatory is then decided by governments, now and in the future. This is of course nothing new. But it's worth noting considering how high the tolerance for extremely intrusive government action currently is and how extremely weak any resistance is bound to be. I'm not saying I'm…
They already have the shiny button. They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already, without you knowing about it.
At least this way you will get some control of the info and you'll know what was collected and have control of it's disclosure (for now).
In other words, this is no worse than what the government is already capable of, it just makes it easier for you to share the data with health care providers.
The government already has all these abilities.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#116Promising opt-in is a bit disingenuous. These tech giants are creating a technological capability. Whether or not it is opt-in, opt-out or mandatory is then decided by governments, now and in the future. This is of course nothing new. But it's worth noting considering how high the tolerance for extremely intrusive government action currently is and how extremely weak any resistance is bound to be. I'm not saying I'm…
They already have the shiny button. They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already, without you knowing about it. At least this way you will get some control of the info and you'll know what was collected and have control of it's disclosure (for now). In other words, this is no worse than what the government is already capable of, it just makes it easier for you to share the data wit…
> They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already
Bluetooth has a quite small range, which may give higher tracking precision (to anyone receiving the signal) than the data cell phone companies have.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#117This is huge. A limiting factor has been iOS not being able to (on purpose, for privacy, and battery life) do BLE scanning (edit: or advertising, thanks Slartie) in the background. I imagine this will enable that for specific apps, and I have high confidence privacy will be well-implemented by Apple's involvement (edit: see tastroder's comment for technical docs). Having a single, well-designed spec for Bluetooth adv…
You can, in fact, do BLE scans in the background on iOS. It's tricky and requires some workarounds, like basically everything related to background tasks in iOS.
Source: Providing apps with that functionality.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#118Promising opt-in is a bit disingenuous. These tech giants are creating a technological capability. Whether or not it is opt-in, opt-out or mandatory is then decided by governments, now and in the future. This is of course nothing new. But it's worth noting considering how high the tolerance for extremely intrusive government action currently is and how extremely weak any resistance is bound to be. I'm not saying I'm…
> But that shiny new button that governments get to press will never go away.
I think that framing is slightly counterproductive to be honest. The alternative are efforts that, from what I see so far, seem to fall on one of two sides:
a) sensible privacy defaults like the proposal by Google/Apple, open development, limited traction in the community and not well connected to political decision makers
b) company initiatives, closed developments and promises of openness while working on centralized solutions
I feel like your scenario would be more worrying in terms of privacy if Google/Apple didn't introduce this protocol extension. They are essentially forcing the b) group to adapt something sensible. Another positive is that this seems limited to the OS level, whereas both have more extensive infrastructure they could have pushed for but intentionally did not.
tl;dr: I think it is a beneficial proposal and well placed, the alternative would likely be worse for the user base.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
They already have the shiny button. They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already, without you knowing about it. At least this way you will get some control of the info and you'll know what was collected and have control of it's disclosure (for now). In other words, this is no worse than what the government is already capable of, it just makes it easier for you to share the data wit…
> They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already Bluetooth has a quite small range, which may give higher tracking precision (to anyone receiving the signal) than the data cell phone companies have.
The capability of using the Bluetooth stack for tracking is not new, this proposal limits the way that data can be used. See the cryptographic specification linked below.
Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology
#120This has a very serious potential to be misused to target an individual for nefarious purposes.
By "apps from public health authorities", that you have to install yourself?
We could be discriminated (by public and private actors) for not having this app installed. We should be able to convincingly deny the opt out...