Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by ryanobjc » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #53

jefftk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can easily tell whether you're wearing a mask, so social "norm building" factors work.

I wouldn't be shocked if some businesses - movie theaters, malls, etc. - asked people to show their contract tracing status for entry.

I bet there'll be a few different ways to 'prove' yourself to public places, and people who decide to tell them to 'go fuck off' - well they'll become social pariahs.

After all - the first amendment allows for the freedom of assembly, and the freedom of assembling with whom they wish. Property rights also and all of that.

Is it a matter of losing freedom for safety? Yeah. There's been a lot of 'reasonable' losses of freedom in various things. For example, isn't it a loss of freedom to require a drivers license and insurance (or proof of financial responsibility for California)? Or security at airports? And so on. This may become yet another loss of freedom, maybe temporary maybe not.

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

#302

Post by ryanobjc » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #231

ceejayoz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt that. Hell, vast numbers of people have been doing it voluntarily already with loyalty cards.

I’m sorry, I might be misunderstanding how loyalty cards work... do they detect each other and report back to home with what other cards they have been in proximity to?

Kinda at the cash register, right?

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

#303

Post by paul7986 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

Oh those 5G conspiracy theories are now an inch less crazy..still crazy but contact tracing is indeed big brother. Though for now it's only opt in until there's an outbreak in a city or state then the government will recommend then mandate it in those areas. Then as time goes on it becomes the norm and the majority are fine with being monitored and watched by the government. Public health vs. human rights/privacy.

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

#304

Post by usaar333 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #294

FabHK wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contact tracing has a time and place, and it's early in isolated outbreaks. The cat is out of the bag at this point and thinking we're going to contact trace our way to safety is a false promise. It’s quite obvious that more intrusive measures (lockdowns) are needed now, but what do you do once they’ve Had their effect? You can’t just abolish all measures, as you’d be back to square one. That’s where this comes in…

> It’s quite obvious that more intrusive measures (lockdowns) are needed now... Or less intrusive measures. We should shelter in place the vulnerable and let everyone else out like Sweden, and this will sort itself out amicably in a few weeks. Leaving the entire population with lasting immunity, preventing any chance of resurgence. [1] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lock...

> Leaving the entire population with lasting immunity

Based on what we know, I don't see how you could carve a large enough population group out where you have < 1/300 chance of death and < 1/50 chance of being hospitalized. Your timeline is realistically years to not overrun hospitals, if this is even an acceptable death rate [which it won't be in developed countries]

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

#305

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

dickjocke wrote: post #262

antpls wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people. It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu

1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.

1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people.

Yep, and they should shelter in place. Nobody else should.

2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds.

Yep, and they should shelter in place, because they're in a risk category.

3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns.

That's an unfortunate way of looking at this. The reality is everything we do in life involves risk. There's risk of harm in shutting down the economy, and there's risk of harm in opening the doors. The lifetime risk of death being involved in a car accident is 1%. The lifetime risk of dying of an opioid overdose is 2%. COVID is much lower than both. Locked inside domestic violence is up, alcoholism is up -- liquor stores are considered essential so alcoholics won't come in to hospital due to withdrawal.

What we do know is if we lock things down, then one person flies in from a foreign country with the disease the whole thing starts over. Hiding inside is not a sustainable strategy.

Which is why Sweden remains open for business. And you know what? They're doing just fine [1].

4. 10x deadlier than the flu.

It is not. We do not know how deadly it is, all we know is that of people who go to the hospital (implying that they're showing serious symptoms) between 0% and 9% of people, depending on their age and comorbidities, die.

That's adverse selection sampling bias. Studies show there's huge, huge quantities of people who either show no symptoms at all (which is the thing that makes this disease a challenge) or exhibit mild flu-like symptoms.

The numbers we're seeing are an upper-bound, by an order of magnitude. It's likely in line with the flu, although we should consider in line with the flu is bad -- it kills 650,000 people each and every year we've been alive.

It's also much harder to immunize against the flu (19-60% effective) due to its propensity to mutate and the huge number of strains that show up each season, with different ones being dominant each year.

On the other hand, COVID does not mutate -- or has not yet.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/04/04/no-lock...

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

#306

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

dickjocke wrote: post #262

antpls wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people. It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu

1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.

4. And there's no preexisting immunity, unlike with the seasonal flu. Left unchecked, CoVID-19 will infect a much larger share of the population than flu.

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

#307

Post by skaul » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

Confiks wrote: post #218

colmmacc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not the same and I think Google/Apple's is a bit better. In DP3T the infected person shares a single daily key from which all future daily keys can be derived. In Google/Apple's each daily key is HKDF derived from a master key and they are not linkable. Infected people share the relevant daily keys from their infection period. THat's more data to push around, but it is better for privacy. It means that contac…

> It means that contacts with infected persons can't be linked across days, and it means that I can't build an app that alerts me that someone who was previously infected just walked by. Edit: This actually turns out to be correct, but your conclusion: > It means that contacts with infected persons can't be linked across days, and it means that I can't build an app that alerts me that someone who was previously infec…

With the DP3T derivable day keys, you could identify that you were actually in contact with the same infected person multiple days.

If the server ships 14 * (# of people infected) every day to every user, instead of just (# of people infected) and have the client generate the 14 keys for each infected person, you would only be able to identify that you were in contact with an infected person. With the DP3T proposal, it looks like you can identify that you were around the same infected user multiple days, which might be slightly worse for privacy (in the sense that it would help you identify who you got it from).

But in either case, because the secret key is reset after being made public, it would not help you identify who was previously infected.

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

#308

Post by burrows » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

dickjocke wrote: post #262

antpls wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people. It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu

1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.

> 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns.

This guy also brought us, “childfuckers bad, no crypto for you”.

And don’t forget, “Arab scary, we track your emails”

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

#309

Post by im3w1l » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

bosswipe wrote: post #230

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm pretty sure he was referring to cell tower location data, not bluetooth. Though cell tower location data has low resolution, in the order of a few 100 feet to several miles. Not useful for contact tracing.

5g, I have heard, allows more fine-grained positioning.

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

#310

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #306

dickjocke wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It's old people AND people with comorbidities, which is a ton of people. 2. Lots of old people, which for Covid is about 65, still work full time jobs. Some of them fly every week. These aren't 95+ year olds. 3. I'm sure people of all ages think their life is very valuable, and very few people consider themselves candidates for sacrifice. Certainly not for privacy concerns. 4. 10x deadlier than the flu.

4. And there's no preexisting immunity, unlike with the seasonal flu. Left unchecked, CoVID-19 will infect a much larger share of the population than flu.

That's not actually true. The seasonal flu affects 45,000,000 americans every year, and in part because it (a) mutates and (b) there's a huge number of strains, and different ones are dominant in different years. The flu shot is not particularly effective for those reasons (19-60% depending on the year).

COVID however, does not mutate, or has not yet. This means herd immunity is on the table, and so is a ~100% reliable vaccine -- like MMR, not like flu shot.