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Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

bluetrace.io

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Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#91

Post by seph-reed »

throwanem wrote: post #38
Proziam wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm not sure what to tell you. If the result is (another) permanent loss of privacy and freedom akin to the PATRIOT act, then yes. Technology has immense power to do good for people, but only if those who deploy it do so ethically. How many governments around the world can we honestly predict…

I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying. I regret that - assuming my own ongoing case of COVID-19 resolves without fatal complication - I'm quite likely, I think, to have that curiosity satisfied. I regret it because this isn't a cause for change of perspec…

> I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying.

The weak ones we shouldn't be prioritizing over the strong. Harboring weakness is just asking to be taken advantage of. It may seem empathetic at first, but all you end up doing is undermining the individuals growth and selling out the security of future generations. If you're an adult, you need to come to terms with death, and recognize that extending your life isn't worth stealing from future generations. They deserve more freedom than we've had. Not less.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#92

Post by [deleted] »

groby_b wrote: post #64
tomcooks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cynical for sure, don't know about that "needlessly" given it's an endless fight where everytime you give up a right it's taken away forever. This time they give you the opensource bit, next time it's "a matter of emergency", then they stop asking and just punish you if you don't comply. >Would you suggest that we not have public health departments engage in contact tracing at all to combat the pandemic? If so, I'm n…

"The only method that works is quarantine" Literally nobody in the epi community believes that. Would you please state your credentials, or cite a credible source for that statement? (For the opposite, please do read takes from Trevor Bedford, Mark Lipsitch, Carl Bergstrom, Andy Slavitt or really pretty much anybody in the field) We (the US) are currently in a state were suppression is the only prudent tool. As SK ha…

[deleted]

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#93

Post by GordonS »

shadowgovt wrote: post #83
GordonS wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Business as usual has come after Snowden I can't disagree with that; honestly, it felt like the media and politicians conspired to bury it. Revelation after revelation was made after outlets like The Intercept went through the evidence, yet hardly anything made the mainstream news, and when it did, it was fleeting. The CIA destroyed evidence and lied to congress, but there was little impact. > The question isn't ho…

I don't think the issue went away because anyone conspired to bury it. I think the issue went away because, on average, Americans are comfortable with the arrangement that the intelligence agencies have broad power to dragnet data. They either don't get that these tools could be used against them by unethical government agents or they know that possibility exists but they trust the checks and balances against it and…

> I think the issue went away because, on average, Americans are comfortable with the arrangement that the intelligence agencies have broad power to dragnet data

It's not just the US, it's the whole of the Western world. The UK in particular has been very complicit with the US in their joint mass surveillance.

The threat of terrorist activity in the west is vanishingly low, and IMO, is partially driven by western foreign policy. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the disgusting, utterly horrifying organised torture program the CIA has undertaken at "black sites" has certainly not helped (I doubt since an organised horror has taken place since the Nazis).

> 9/11 was an avoidable attack and a failure of information analysis; the information needed to stop it existed but had not been consolidated. A lot of Americans are extremely disinterested in bring attacked that way again, even 20 years later.

I don't want to get deep in 9/11 in particular, but mass surveillance wasn't the solution - the 5-eyes' toxic, oil-driven relationship with Saudi Arabia was a big factor, and the CIA not hiding information from the FBI would very likely have stopped it.

We've seen similar failings on a smaller scale with incidents in Europe, where the perpetrators were known to the authorities beforehand. Even where they communicated with each other "openly" using SMS, politicians called for a ban on encryption - these parasites take every opportunity to spread FUD and use it to their advantage.

I think where we at least agree is a belief that many people simply don't care; they don't understand the risks with the current government, let alone future ones.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#94

Post by throwanem »

seph-reed wrote: post #91
throwanem wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying. I regret that - assuming my own ongoing case of COVID-19 resolves without fatal complication - I'm quite likely, I think, to have that curiosity satisfied. I regret it because this isn't a cause for change of perspec…

> I'm curious how many people who now say "give me privacy or give me death!" will change their tune in a hurry once they are themselves, perhaps for the first time in their lives, in real danger of dying. The weak ones we shouldn't be prioritizing over the strong. Harboring weakness is just asking to be taken advantage of. It may seem empathetic at first, but all you end up doing is undermining the individuals growt…

It's a mercy you won't be held to this when you get sick, and find it's somewhat easier to talk in the abstract about coming to terms with death than to face the imminent possibility.

edit: Well, you won't be held to it assuming we haven't reached a need for sufficiently severe triage, I suppose. Otherwise, you might get a chance to quite literally put your life on the line for the principle you've just espoused! I wish you joy of it.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#95

Post by lern_too_spel »

mardifoufs wrote: post #43
lern_too_spel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everytime you give up a right it's taken away forever. This is tin foil hat nonsense. The US has implemented martial law before. Those rights weren't taken away forever.

Wasn't the same said after 9/11 and the patriot act? I'd guess it was just a tin foil hat conspiracy to think several three letter agencies would use the provisions from the patriot act to track pretty much all communications? You can't just accuse people of being conspiracy theorists over and over again and tell them that this time would be different because... Reasons? Also, who needs martial law when you can just…

> I'd guess it was just a tin foil hat conspiracy to think several three letter agencies would use the provisions from the patriot act to track pretty much all communications?

It was and still is. How do you believe this nonsense?

Also, several provisions from the Patriot Act haven't been renewed, so your example proves my point.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#96

Post by lern_too_spel »

GordonS wrote: post #57
lern_too_spel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everytime you give up a right it's taken away forever. This is tin foil hat nonsense. The US has implemented martial law before. Those rights weren't taken away forever.

Sorry, but we are long past the point of calling out privacy advocates as "tinfoil hat wearers" - just look at everything that came out after Snowden. Beforehand, most people would have derided others for mentioning "such conspiracy nonsense" (I likely would have myself), and yet the truth was wilder than even hard-core, paranoid conspiracy theorists could have dreamt up. Since 9/11 in particular, the Western world h…

> yet the truth was wilder than even hard-core, paranoid conspiracy theorists could have dreamt up.

What do you believe the truth was? I replied to somebody else in this thread who believed the truth was far wilder than anything in Snowden's leaks.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#97

Post by GordonS »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #88
GordonS wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Business as usual has come after Snowden I can't disagree with that; honestly, it felt like the media and politicians conspired to bury it. Revelation after revelation was made after outlets like The Intercept went through the evidence, yet hardly anything made the mainstream news, and when it did, it was fleeting. The CIA destroyed evidence and lied to congress, but there was little impact. > The question isn't ho…

How do you propose a XXI-century technologically advanced society can do to ensure its biosafety? The current pandemic is force majeure, the next one might be accidental, the one after that purposeful. Advancement of science and technology in large parts means making more and more potentially destructive power available to individuals and small groups. Society needs a defense to compensate. Biology is particularly na…

> The current pandemic is force majeure, the next one might be accidental, the one after that purposeful

Being honest, I don't think there is any need for such alarmism. If anything, this pandemic has demonstrated that a viral bioweapen could ensure MAD just as well as the nuclear variety.

> Advancement of science and technology in large parts means making more and more potentially destructive power available to individuals and small groups

You are implying that individuals could release a bioweapon upon the world - sorry, but again I think this is pure alarmism, and absolutely not what we need right now. I don't doubt that politicians will soon be making similar arguments in a grab for more power, but please, don't give them ideas!

> How do you propose...

I'm not in the medical field, so I don't have a proposal. But as a human being, I personally don't see how mass surveillance is the answer, especially so given we can't trust our governments with such tools.

I don't doubt that the WHO and experts from across the globe will be making plans to more rapidly contain future outbreaks. I'm certainly interested to learn more about such plans when they exist though.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#98

Post by smoe »

nailer wrote: post #63

What is contact tracking? The article does not tell us.

Once you have an identified case, you trace who they have been in close contact with recently and start contacting/testing/isolating them and trace it further from there

E.g. In Switzerland this was done manually (by medical staff mostly i think) in the very beginning, but they gave up very quickly on it because of lack of resources.

Re: Singapore to Open Source Bluetooth Contact Tracing

#99

Post by ryukafalz »

raynr wrote: post #36
tomcooks wrote: post #12

Can't wait to be tracked by tech developed by a governmental team in the name of safety. Opensource or not a leash is a leash.

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste" - Rahm Emanuel. I agree with this and your sentiment, but I think it is misplaced in this instance. As I understand it, the TraceTogether app collects (and stores locally), information on other users running the TraceTogether app nearby. If our government's contact tracers contact us, we can provide the information, and it can help in contact tracing. This seems to me to be at…

Honestly, as both a free software and privacy advocate... yeah. If contact tracing significantly improves our ability to eliminate the epidemic, and my current understanding is that it does, this seems like a pretty good implementation. So long as the data collection is explicitly voluntary, I'm asked for my permission first, and it's for an important cause like this one... I really don't mind!

I would much rather have a system like this than to be indiscriminately tracked and lose more privacy potentially indefinitely. The tracking can't be indefinite if I'm asked for permission, because if I don't think there's good reason for it I'll just say no. And if I'm worried the app's privacy measures aren't good enough and it'll be abused, I'll just uninstall it.

Consent is the key!

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