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Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

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Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#51

Post by Barrin92 »

bad_user wrote: post #17
andybak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over lives?

It's a false choice. But even if it were true, yes, over lives. People already died fighting for my liberal rights, I'm not willing to trade any of that for some temporary safety. I'm from a Warsaw pact country. Seeing westerners so willing to give up their rights these days is so deeply disappointing.

The false choice here is actually that you can sacrifice lives and still expect to have freedom.

The alternative to not giving up privacy for contact tracing or similar measures is to be locked into your home medieval style while the plague runs wild in the streets, which is a significantly stronger limitation of freedoms.

The choice isn't between liberty or safety, just as it isn't between economic health and lockdown, it's between intelligent and proactive measures or carnage. Without public health there's no liberty. If our systems fail to protect the health of our populations those rights will go out the door sooner or later because it proves that those values are useless.

It's completely paradoxical to argue that I'm free although I can't go to work, I can't safely go to the restaurant, I can't meet my friends without being afraid of contracting a deadly disease, but I'm free because I have privacy.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#52

Post by read_if_gay_ »

closeparen wrote: post #35
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument as justifying the NSA's mass surveillance with terrorism. Because lives are involved, it's propagated like a killer argument. Fact is, you don't know if even worse things aren't going to be enabled with this technology.

An important part of the NSA problem is that terrorist conspiracies are a largely imaginary boogeyman. The vast majority of its collection is unwarranted. But the pandemic is real, we know that the damage it does is directly related to the effectiveness of contact tracing, and we know that anyone having contacts outside the household is doing an unusual and extremely dangerous thing. This is more like tailing people…

You are not only surveilling those that do "unusual and extremely dangerous things" as in they get within a few meters of other people, you are surveilling everyone. This is not just tailing people who buy bombs.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#53

Post by Wowfunhappy »

bad_user wrote: post #17
andybak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over lives?

It's a false choice. But even if it were true, yes, over lives. People already died fighting for my liberal rights, I'm not willing to trade any of that for some temporary safety. I'm from a Warsaw pact country. Seeing westerners so willing to give up their rights these days is so deeply disappointing.

Why is it a false choice? The article mentions the success of South Korea’s system, and China has also had a lot more success controlling COVID-19 than most western countries.

I very much do not want to become China—yes, even at the cost of lives—but it’s worth looking seriously at what we’re giving up, and where we might (!) meet in the middle in times of extraordinary crisis.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#54

Post by strogonoff »

neuronic wrote: post #43
sanxiyn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea already solved this problem: https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-korea-to-use-qr-codes-to... There is QR code provider and QR code scanner. QR code provider includes Naver (Google in South Korea) and Kakao (WhatsApp in South Korea). QR code scanner is mandatory at venues. QR code is a random UUID. Venues keep UUID (but do not know real world identity), providers keep UUID-to-identity mapping (but do not k…

Asia has solved a lot of the issues surrounding the pandemic months ago. While American and European economies will be crushed by Corona (it's I bet it's not even half time) due to conspiracy theories, ignorance and egoists and adult babies crying about wearing a mask, Asia is getting back to ramp up their economies. They are far more capable of shutting new clusters down AND CONTROL IT. When we send people into quar…

> …had no "official" global way to tell the rest of the world. They did, but were dismissed due to the massive hubris in the West and the geopolitical game China is playing.

What did they tell? It is frequently said that Taiwan sent an early email warning WHO about human-to-human transmission of what became known as SARS-CoV-2, and that the warning was ignored. This has been debunked and denied by Taiwan themselves[0]. On December 31, Taiwan and Wuhan Municipal Health Commission[1] both notified WHO about cases of pneumonia of unknown etymology[2], neither claiming human-to-human transmission.

That aside, I agree that a number of countries in East Asia, Taiwan included, fared much better than elsewhere in the world in terms of containing the spread of the virus.

[0] https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2020/04/12/2...

[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-04-2020-who-timeline...

[2] Since WHO was contacted by both on the same day, it’s imaginable that Taiwan privately reached out to China first with “what’s that coming from Wuhan? we’re going international on this tomorrow”, putting the latter under pressure to report in order to save face. That would place Taiwan in good light even if human-to-human was not mentioned; unlikely to be substantiated though.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#55

Post by sassypotato »

neuronic wrote: post #43
sanxiyn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea already solved this problem: https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-korea-to-use-qr-codes-to... There is QR code provider and QR code scanner. QR code provider includes Naver (Google in South Korea) and Kakao (WhatsApp in South Korea). QR code scanner is mandatory at venues. QR code is a random UUID. Venues keep UUID (but do not know real world identity), providers keep UUID-to-identity mapping (but do not k…

Asia has solved a lot of the issues surrounding the pandemic months ago. While American and European economies will be crushed by Corona (it's I bet it's not even half time) due to conspiracy theories, ignorance and egoists and adult babies crying about wearing a mask, Asia is getting back to ramp up their economies. They are far more capable of shutting new clusters down AND CONTROL IT. When we send people into quar…

Yes such a shame we can't focus on our economy, just because of outdated things like liberty and human rights.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#56

Post by sanxiyn »

strogonoff wrote: post #49
sanxiyn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea already solved this problem: https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-korea-to-use-qr-codes-to... There is QR code provider and QR code scanner. QR code provider includes Naver (Google in South Korea) and Kakao (WhatsApp in South Korea). QR code scanner is mandatory at venues. QR code is a random UUID. Venues keep UUID (but do not know real world identity), providers keep UUID-to-identity mapping (but do not k…

Privacy issues aside (it’ll only take so long for any pile of PII to leak), this looks like an effective and quick to implement make-shift solution (smartphones are widespread enough and venue employees can enforce the scan), though I’m not sure of how much benefit these QR codes are in Korea. In Seoul—among highest in the country in terms of new infection cases—coffeeshops, study cafes and restaurants are routinely…

PII is to be deleted after four weeks. KCDC has no need to contact trace after four weeks.

I agree with everything you said about Seoul, but that needs to be put in context (which we know, but HN mostly don't). Confirmed case numbers of Seoul in last 7 days (7/19 to 7/25) are 10, 2, 18, 16, 11, 19, 11 (total 77). Since total over South Korea in the same period is 168, it does make Seoul hotspot. But it is also far better compared to other countries.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#57

Post by sanxiyn »

euix wrote: post #50

If you have google maps installed on your phone and location turned on, every time you visit a restaurant you already get the message of "how did you like xyz, please rate and help other visitors" You are already living in a surveillance state. The difference is unlike in other places in the world you can complain and shout about it.

Another difference is that you aren't using this data (which are collected anyway) to contain the epidemic. I can't figure out why.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#58

Post by jt2190 »

Ignoring the headline, it seems like the article equates quick, widespread adoption of these apps as “success”, and anything else as “failure”. Although it does note:

> Conventional contact tracing methods also haven’t been faring well.

Despite this, it doesn’t even bother to identify the many reasons tracing apps might not be widely adopted yet, in particular privacy concerns (although it does mention that “draconian” approaches are the only ones proven to work so far, as if that proves that privacy respecting approaches can’t be useful at all.)

Even more fundamental than privacy, though, is do people even know that these apps exist? Personally I’ve only heard some rumblings about the Google/Apple api, and not much more, and I’m guessing I’m far more aware of the existence of these apps than many people.

Ultimately, it’s far too early to declare “failure” on this front.

Edit: According to 9to5 Mac, there are still no apps in the U.S. using the Apple/Google API as of June 18. https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/19/how-to-turn-on-off-covid-19-c...

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#59

Post by strogonoff »

sanxiyn wrote: post #56
strogonoff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy issues aside (it’ll only take so long for any pile of PII to leak), this looks like an effective and quick to implement make-shift solution (smartphones are widespread enough and venue employees can enforce the scan), though I’m not sure of how much benefit these QR codes are in Korea. In Seoul—among highest in the country in terms of new infection cases—coffeeshops, study cafes and restaurants are routinely…

PII is to be deleted after four weeks. KCDC has no need to contact trace after four weeks. I agree with everything you said about Seoul, but that needs to be put in context (which we know, but HN mostly don't). Confirmed case numbers of Seoul in last 7 days (7/19 to 7/25) are 10, 2, 18, 16, 11, 19, 11 (total 77). Since total over South Korea in the same period is 168, it does make Seoul hotspot. But it is also far be…

Thanks, this was worth pointing out.

I should rephrase: it is not that the issue is “not solved”, but rather that it is difficult to measure whether these QR codes make much of a difference considering apparently lax enforcement and the already-low infection rates.

It’d be interesting to see if, implemented in a stricter manner, they could make a difference in a country like the US; the concept does seem sound.

Re: Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere

#60

Post by makomk »

DangitBobby wrote: post #45
starbugs wrote: post #41

Did I miss something or are low adoption rates and bluetooth issues the only indicators that decentralized tracking has failed, as pointed out in the article? The lack of statistics about success/failure otherwise seems to imply more of a "we don't know for sure"?

Specifically, it seems that adoption rates are so low as to render the application nearly useless.

Yeah, the overall conclusion is that smartphone contact tracing probably isn't working, but we can't know for sure because the megacorps who designed it did so in such a way that makes it almost impossible to measure if it's actually working. The only app we know has definitely been ineffective is Australia's centralized solution, in large part because they do actually have the ability to collect statistics on its effectiveness.

We do also know that Germany's app was just outright failing to send alerts to users of many common, popular devices due to limitations on background tasks: https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-coronavirus-tracing-app-criti... Obviously there's no way to know exactly how many people should've been sent a warning and weren't either, by design.

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