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Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

reuters.com

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Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#561

Post by pdoege »

threeseed wrote: post #62
dkdk8283 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contact tracing is a wet dream for five-eyes. I don't even think it will even be effective given the anticipated number of cases.

Stop spreading FUD. Governments have had access to your location and associates for decades via the mobile phone network. I've worked at a telco where we were analysing customer's behaviours and almost everyone follows a pattern at some point e.g. going from home, via public transport to work. The resolution isn't high but over time you build up enough samples to accurately determine exactly where they live, work etc…

This is exactly correct. I helped create the system used by US telcos to track users. We had GPS precision tracking on all users and used big data to geolocate that data against other users, retail establishments, and road locations. This was not nefarious. We used it to find and fix tower, highway issues and market to companies. Users agreed to it as part of their service contract.

We were required to sell the data to the government on demand due to CALEA and similar legislation.

Those who complain endlessly about AANG largely seem to have no idea of how our communications networks actually work. Your location, activities, banking, etc. are not private, will never be private, have never been private, and it has nothing to do with AANG. The 3 AANG that I have worked are woolly lambs. That F guy is a bit suspicious, but I don't have first hand knowledge.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#562

Post by cratermoon »

londons_explore wrote: post #111
cratermoon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the reasoning they give -- that it might be compromised and used for bad ends. That's already possible, Anyone genuinely thinks that the partitioning of data for different purposes provides any real privacy protections, I've got a LifeLock subscription to sell them.

In terms of technical competence, I trust Google and Apple 10x more than I trust most governments.

Lemme guess, libertarian? Or at least "fiscally conservative, socially liberal"? Blind faith in the Free Market Fairy (https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/The-Free-Market-Fairy) is a big part of how we got here. As Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them".

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#563

Post by etherealG »

the_gipsy wrote: post #376
killjoywashere wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a lifelong public servant, welcome to the ungrateful side of life. If you're providing a service to the public with the hopes of their gratitude, you will be sad. Do it for the same reason you change your baby's diaper: you love them and it needs doing. They might take pleasure in pissing on you while you're doing it, but this thing you love will be better off afterward.

Let's not compare apple to a public institution. What apple does is in the interest of the shareholders and nothing else.

Actually I think the comparison is a good one, but mostly due to governments acting in their own interest rather than the interest of the people :)

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#564

Post by ric2b »

xvector wrote: post #335
dntbnmpls wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can understand why the public is skeptical You can understand the skepticism and yet equate the skeptical people to "anti-vax" movement? That's very sneaky of you.

Both movements disregard evidence and reality to fit their feelings.

What evidence is being disregarded here?

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#565

Post by lern_too_spel »

ngngngng wrote: post #283
lern_too_spel wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people at Facebook who say the same thing, but at the end of the day, both companies only pay lip service to privacy in the way their products and services actually operate.

If we paint privacy as simply black or white, sure. But if there exist shades of grey in privacy than Apple and Facebook are on vastly different sides of the spectrum.

One hands all your data over to the Chinese government if you are Chinese. The other gives your data to Cambridge Analytica. I wouldn't say they're vastly different.

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#566

Post by vertex-four »

taywrobel wrote: post #541
vertex-four wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. That doesn't mean that what Palantir are doing isn't wrong - selling tools to an entity which is going to use them for harm is wrong, even if they might result in slightly less harm than selling them some other tool. If someone comes into a gun shop and tells you they want to shoot up a classroom, selling them a pistol instead of a machine gun doesn't make you immune from judgement.

What makes Palantir different than any other software vendor that sells to the government? Want to know how a lot of that data is generated? Microsoft excel. Arguably without excel there would be less data to act abusively with. If only Microsoft just refused to sell excel to the government. People are happy to accept that excel is general enough that it isn’t made for that one purpose, but refuse to apply the same r…

Palantir develops tools to be better at tasks that are pitched to them in some degree of detail through the RFP process and similar processes. Palantir as a company would not exist if it were not for the less savoury of those tasks.

We do not hear, "Government X purchases a couple thousand Excel licenses to keep a database on people it'd like to kill", and I imagine that Microsoft does not sell Excel to Government X in response to an RFP for tooling to keep track of people it'd like to kill.

(Of course, it'd probably stick its metaphorical fingers in its ears if it did hear about Excel being used for that purpose.)

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#567

Post by conanbatt »

taywrobel wrote: post #210
conanbatt wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rationalization at best. Facilitating an immoral act is active participation.

Do you buy things from amazon? They treat their warehouse employees terribly, so I hope not, lest you facilitate an immoral act. Do you ever use uber? They work to keep their drivers legally declared as contractors, despite treating them employees in all other regards. That’s pretty immoral, so I hope you don’t encourage it by supplying them with business.

I don't think that warehouse employee situation is immoral so I'm good on that. A neither on the UBER case. I'm safe!

Re: Apple, Google ban location tracking in apps using their contact-tracing system

#568

Post by g_p »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #309
g_p wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like you won't have to petition for it. According to https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/NHS-app-security-paper%20V0.1.... , "We intend to open source our codebase once the first release is finalised. The documentation accompanying that release will supersede this paper." and from https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/blog-post/security-behind-nhs-contac... , "The Secretary of State has also committed to making the source code…

Sounds like there is no intention to deliver the source on release , and once the release has been out for a couple of weeks, the benefit of public review of the source code drastically diminishes. The source code should be released before the public release of the binaries, not after, and not doing so means they're trying to hide what the app does from timely public discourse. Releasing a tarball (even if it lacks t…

Just to update for anyone time travellers that arrive here in the future, the source came out on day of the binary "going live" to the public

https://github.com/nhsx/COVID-19-app-Android-BETA

https://github.com/nhsx/COVID-19-app-iOS-BETA

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