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CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

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Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#51

Post by bsuvc »

verdverm wrote: post #43
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #8

Google had a creepy Covid functionality that automatically downloaded without my consent to my phone. Big tech is just chomping at the bit for the government to give them the go ahead to track everyone and enforce a 'papers please' society.

I'm on a Pixel and Google Fi, no such thing happened to me. Are there other entities that might have hand their hand in this? (State, Telco, phone manufacturer)

Maybe they are referring to the “COVID-19 Exposure Notifications” setting.

Im using a Pixel too, and you can see the toggle if you go to Settings, then select Google.

Mine is toggled off, and I don’t really know he details of how it works, but it seems like you need to download some official COVID reporting app to enable it.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#52

Post by Nextgrid »

nickff wrote: post #38
LorenPechtel wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I have no problem with researchers getting anonymized data. CDC, snoop all you want. It's the business guys I don't like having it.

Governments have a long and storied record of data abuse, from the Stasi in East Germany to LoveInt at the CIA.

Yes, but those threats already exist regardless and stopping the sale of carrier data won't stop them.

Ideally you'd want to stop both, but if I had to choose I'd prefer that only the government has access rather than the highest bidder (which can be the government if they so desire, so in the end you're back at square one anyway).

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#54

Post by lkbm »

verdverm wrote: post #43
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #8

Google had a creepy Covid functionality that automatically downloaded without my consent to my phone. Big tech is just chomping at the bit for the government to give them the go ahead to track everyone and enforce a 'papers please' society.

I'm on a Pixel and Google Fi, no such thing happened to me. Are there other entities that might have hand their hand in this? (State, Telco, phone manufacturer)

You probably have it, but it's just a feature. In this case, it's a default-off feature that allows contact tracing in a particular region if you actively choose to enable that.

Google ships features to my phone with every major update. This is just one more--completely opt-in--feature.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#55

Post by Clubber »

0daystock wrote: post #47
native_samples wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? Didn't they somehow unilaterally suspend rent payments for the entire US, even though that is well outside their granted authority? And what social norms did lockdowns involve, exactly?

A federal judge vacated the nationwide freeze on evictions that was put in place and the lockdowns were not merely the result of US health officials conspiring. Your criticism of the CDC is valid but I believe it is misguided; the manufactured moral outrage I'm speaking about distracts us from the real abuses of power happening behind the veil, and they are far more shocking than what is reported here.

I mean maybe. The CDC is just an outlet or a tool that was appropriate at the time. I'm sure they didn't come up with the eviction moratorium on their own, they were told to do that, or at least it was authorized by another group. They also knew it would be overturned because they have legal council.

Just because it's the CDC doesn't mean there aren't strings moving the arms about.

"The principle of a court overruling a public health judgment by a qualified organization like the CDC is disturbing in the precedent that it might send.”

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#56

Post by cmroanirgo »

mywittyname wrote: post #29
dontcare007 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is that once they use it for a benign reason, use of the data will expand into other, less palatable uses.

The problem is that this data is available for anyone to purchase. And anyone includes groups that you don't want to have it. Some people focus their attention on limiting the government's ability to collect this information, but just go about ignoring businesses being legally allowed to keep and sell this data. Now the government is leveraging privatized markets for all of their spying needs and it is neatly kept ou…

The problem could also be said to start with software. Particularly Apple and Google for allowing specific location information to be used in the same app as advertising. The problem is that all apps are granted access to the internet.

Nip those two things in the bud and the problems will slow down, I think. But it's a pipe-dream, I know.

In the early days of Android, I remember reading that Android was Android because you had to jump through all these permission hoops with j2me (Java 2 Mobile Edition). Hence, Android was better and more easy to use than j2me. Here we are, 15 years later with exactly the same set of permissions problems... with one exception, Android still gives out internet access without permission. Many devs here would be aghast at the idea of an app not being internet connected.

I believe Google did it that way because Steve Jobs had done it that way in the iPod and iPhones. (I presume there's some HN'ers here that can refute this?) I remember my colleagues at the time remarking how refreshing it was to not have to deal with permissions (because customers disliked all the modal permissions that popped up in j2me)... and we all jumped on board the iPhone and Android development train, not knowing the problems that we'd have down the line.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#57

Post by JaceLightning »

What's crazy is how far we've changed.

The whole opinion of roe v Wade was predicated on the fact the government had no right to people's health information:

> In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion.

Now we have vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and CDC surveillance.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#58

Post by lkbm »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #26
LorenPechtel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was simply a feature that downloaded. It did nothing if you didn't turn it on.

> It did nothing if you didn't turn it on. How do you know though? Google is constantly tracking your every move by default without you turning anything on. So even if this feature had an on/off it was more by the grace of Google than by any strongly enforced anti-tracking feature.

> Google is constantly tracking your every move by default without you turning anything on.

They are. And you decided to take issue with a default-off feature instead. Of all the tracking features your phone has, this one seems like the least creepy. It's not like they're "asking consent" for every other feature they ship.

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#59

Post by maerF0x0 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #52
nickff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments have a long and storied record of data abuse, from the Stasi in East Germany to LoveInt at the CIA.

Yes, but those threats already exist regardless and stopping the sale of carrier data won't stop them. Ideally you'd want to stop both, but if I had to choose I'd prefer that only the government has access rather than the highest bidder (which can be the government if they so desire, so in the end you're back at square one anyway).

Did you know there are many classes of crime that follow the pattern you spoke of "It already exists out there, and will persist even if I stop, I'm not creating it just propagating it..."

One pretty nasty example would be revenge porn.

a lesser one would be piracy of copyright material

Re: CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders

#60

Post by bob1029 »

teeray wrote: post #53

This data needs to be a liability for companies to hold onto rather than an asset

The only way to make this data a liability would be to create consequences for its possession or dissemination.

In the financial sector, I feel like a lot of really good progress has been made with regard to creating artificial forces that strongly encourage proper behavior around PII and other sensitive data. Just take a look at PCI-DSS for a good example of the lengths you could go to in order to protect a customer's assets and/or identity.

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