Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps • Hacker News Board

Re: Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps

#51

Post by Freak_NL » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 1:19 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #33

Freak_NL wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory how? How will you address people without suitable devices? Not everyone has a (suitable) smartphone. Making owning and carrying a smartphone with required app mandatory won't fly in any healthy democracy.

You don't need everyone to have it installed. Just getting a large proportion of people to use it would likely have quite a significant effect in reducing infection spread. One compromise in making it semi-mandatory could be to reduce lockdown requirements for people using and carrying the app, because they'd be less dangerous.

That would be discriminatory, and run afoul of many constitutions and treaties. It could really only happen if anyone could get the device and required data bundle subsidized. “Less dangerous” is not enough to warrant such a huge breach in citizen's rights.

Re: Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps

#52

Post by shmel » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #29

shmel wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? 6 months ago I'd have said that putting the entire nation under house arrest won't fly in any healthy democracy, but here we are. Turns out no country is more democratic than China.

In increasing degrees of difficulty, how does a government get: * people who own an Android or IOS smartphone to install a required app? (Might work if Google or Apple pushes the software, but does this outlaw non-stock-Android and IOS operating systems on a smartphone? Will Apple/Google do this for every country with an app?) * people who don't own a smartphone to buy one? (Subsidized? Black-box devices that only ne…

Gradually. It will be used to provide your freedom back. Lockdown is still in place, but if you agree to use the app, you can go outside and chill in a park, maybe even meet up with family members (groups fewer than N). Then you can introduce checkpoints in public places (just like China did btw): wanna go to malls, cinemas or airports? Install the app. But no, you are not forced to do this. You can just sit at home if you'd like until the lockdown is fully lifted. But we can't tell you when it happens, nobody knows. Perhaps after everybody is vaccinated.

Surely, they can also add a smartphone-free version that is a huge pain in the ass to use. It checks the box "you can survive without smartphone", but makes it practically unreasonable.

It will be the same situation as with CCTV and bag searches nowadays. The vast majority of people will accept this as reality and perhaps even support this. London is full of CCTV and mostly people are okay with this because they believe it is for their own safety. Sure, you are not forced into this, feel free to live in mountains off-grid.

The bottom line is you just wait until the lockdown is normalized in people's minds and then reward them with freedoms if they agree to use the app. And 99% will be okay with this.

Re: Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps

#53

Post by black_puppydog » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

chimprich wrote: post #31

y7 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an all-or-nothing scenario. The choice is not between an app that saves lives and compromises privacy, or no app and lives lost. Privacy preserving technologies exist, and now is the time to use them. There is an additional technological cost, but that's what we should weigh the privacy costs against. The choice is between an app that doesn't care about privacy versus one that does.

> There is an additional technological cost Time is of the essence here. I agree that, all else being equal, privacy should be respected. However, if it takes multiple weeks to iron out all the potential privacy issues, this approach becomes much less effective.

We don't have enough runway to care about privacy, we'll just un-collect all that data once we raised!

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I buy this now as little as I buy it in other situations.

Re: Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps

#54

Post by GordonS » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #22

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, even if it only does exactly what it says it does, the data gathered is more valuable than anything else. Complete movement profiles of an entire nation. Can you put a price tsg on that? From that perspective whether it is open source is a secondary consideration.

The app does not use GPS or other location data, contacts are established only by Bluetooth pairing.

Call me a cynic, but if apps like these became popular, I'd expect to see a creeping escalation. Reel in a large user base, then slowly capture and send more data. The possibility of being able to track a nation in real-time would have the security services blowing a load in their proverbial pants.

Re: Corona App – 10 requirements for the evaluation of “Contact Tracing” apps

#55

Post by usrusr » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

jklhwtoy wrote: post #7

majewsky wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few cases where more privacy might literally save lives, because people will be more inclined to install the app if the privacy is taken more seriously. There was a poll where Germans were asked if they would install a contact tracing app. Some 40% sayed yes outright. Another 40% said "only if privacy concerns are addressed". So you're looking at a potential 40% market penetration without proper pr…

This is one of the few cases where mandatory installation of apps will save lives, as seen in China/SK. For those "40% only if privacy concerns are addressed" there is a gradient of privacy. How many of them will still have concerns no matter what? And how many will not install anything out of laziness/comfort? Meanwhile, Google and Facebook are installed in 90%+ of phones and happily scoop up location data every day…

If we'd want to go all in on mandatory apps it would be possible to create much friendlier lockdown controls than what we have now. For example instead of flat out forbidding access to recreation hotspots like parks it would be possible to ration access so that everybody can enjoy them occasionally but they never get too crowded. This would be completely unfeasible in a paper bureaucracy even outside a pandemic situation, but computers could easily do it. The missing "technology" to do that without also enabling police state is not so much crypto and blockchain (though something along those lines might certainly be part of it) but social achievements like data protection laws and how to enforce them, processes to build trustworthy organisations and so on.