Live data from Hacker News

Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

apple.com

161–170 of 484 posts

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#161
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can track the detailed movements of voters and connect that to party affiliation you would have complete visibility into meetings, social networks, and up-and-coming politicians, such that you can prioritize suppression efforts on those regions. Similar as a whole to gerrymandering, but imagine key political opponents being shut down "as the data shows a cluster of CV-19 may appear here at this exact date and…

I feel like Facebook is basically already doing this?

It's mentioned elsewhere on this thread, but this project likely will take things further to more accurately measure the distance between individuals in small spaces in order to better track the contagion. This project may also have more liberal visualization tools, search tools, etc., geared for a task other then advertising.

No doubt much of this data is already collected in one form or another. But it is a big step from collecting data, to analyzing it in new contexts, to visualizing it well, to making it highly accessible to federal non-technical agencies.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#162

Earlier 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…

It's much worse because it won't have judicial oversight.

Unfortunately neither does existing location data collecting.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#164

That combination Apple-Google logogram is scary! It’s like an image from some corporate future dystopian sci-fi.

The logogram in OP suppresses Google’s four colors, and so did the one on Google’s blog: https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/appl... Also, the Apple logo is first. I wonder how this was decided?

Alphabetically and/or birthdate

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#165
post #64
post #49

It says this is opt-in - is this just the sending of covid information, or is it the entire contact-tracing key-exchange enterprise?

If I understand correctly, it's up to every infected person to manually click "upload" (edit: here was "who I was close to", but it's not correct, see note 1 here) once he gets diagnosed, i.e. completely voluntary. That is so that once one is diagnosed others can check if they were close to that one (and when?). And even these lists aren't supposed to be any typical metadata but something that stays local and the thi…

As I read it, the specification doesn't enforce whether upload is voluntary. local custom and laws can be implemented to vary degrees of freedom on this aspect.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#167

That combination Apple-Google logogram is scary! It’s like an image from some corporate future dystopian sci-fi.

The logogram in OP suppresses Google’s four colors, and so did the one on Google’s blog: https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/appl... Also, the Apple logo is first. I wonder how this was decided?

Alphabetically maybe.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#168

Promising 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…

This functionality is already live in Find My iPhone. iPhones are performing these associations already. The bigger change is Android joining and sharing the data with researchers.

The proposed technology is quite different from a service that located located devices. Rather, it would track what devices have been in proximity of each other, and not necessarily where.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#169
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, it's up to every infected person to manually click "upload" (edit: here was "who I was close to", but it's not correct, see note 1 here) once he gets diagnosed, i.e. completely voluntary. That is so that once one is diagnosed others can check if they were close to that one (and when?). And even these lists aren't supposed to be any typical metadata but something that stays local and the thi…

You can’t upload who you were close to because you only have a set of pieces of data that can’t be traced back to people without their key. Only if infected, you upload your key to the server which distributes it to the others who can then tell if they’ve been close to you.

> Only if infected, you upload your key to the server

You are more right than I was initially, thanks!

Actually, to be even more precise: only if infected, you upload the set of your own derived keys, and apparently only for the days you could have transmitted the virus to other people.

From the documentation:

"Upon a user testing positive, the Daily Tracing Keys for days where the user could have been affected are derived on the device from the Tracing Key. We refer to that subset of keys as the Diagnosis Keys. If a user remains healthy and never tests positive, these Daily Tracing Keys never leave the device."

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#170

Promising 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, but also what they typically do is to purchase from them the data. That way they don't even need warrants. We tally need stronger regulations about sensitive information like that.
Post reply on HN