Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus

[EEVblog]

Yet another point - by the time someone would be tested infected, they may already have been for a little while, without anyone being able to know.

That's the entire point about this thing. You could have been spreading it for up to two weeks before you got symptoms, tested, and then alerted(panic) everyone though the app.
The infected person almost certainly potentially spread it more by touching stuff than just being near people.
Heck, many people get triggered and have breakdowns because they saw a tweet that offended them, imagine what will happen to these poor souls if they are alerted they have came into contact with someone positive...

[paulca]

Heck, many people get triggered and have breakdowns because they saw a tweet that offended them, imagine what will happen to these poor souls if they are alerted they have came into contact with someone positive...

They get an unceremonious slap in the face by reality and there is no-one to bitch to about it?

[SilverSolder]

Perhaps these kinds of apps are best seen in the same light as security theater?   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

One of the big problems once the pandemic cools off will be to get people to feel comfortable about interacting with the world again,  just like people have to be made comfortable to use planes again after a major terrorist incident.

[thinkfat]

Yet another point - by the time someone would be tested infected, they may already have been for a little while, without anyone being able to know.

That's the entire point about this thing. You could have been spreading it for up to two weeks before you got symptoms, tested, and then alerted(panic) everyone though the app.
The infected person almost certainly potentially spread it more by touching stuff than just being near people.
Heck, many people get triggered and have breakdowns because they saw a tweet that offended them, imagine what will happen to these poor souls if they are alerted they have came into contact with someone positive...

The jury is still out on that one... Person-to-person transmission still seems the predominant and most likely source of infections.

[PlainName]

There were a number of things that changed regarding boarding planes after that, and that are here to stay.

That's a good point. Nowadays we are limited to 100ml of liquid (is it? Been a while since I flew) and check-in 2 hours before boarding. The cynic in me says the airports love this since it boosts sales of drinks gate-side, and the extra hours of waiting has to be worth a lot of coffee and shop browsing. Indeed, you're forced to walk the gauntlet of a shopping mall in many airports to get from outside to your gate.

I would be suspicious that any measure brought in now that can be monetized is likely to stick around long after the current pandemic 'just to be safe'.
 

[SiliconWizard]

Yet another point - by the time someone would be tested infected, they may already have been for a little while, without anyone being able to know.

That's the entire point about this thing. You could have been spreading it for up to two weeks before you got symptoms, tested, and then alerted(panic) everyone though the app.
The infected person almost certainly potentially spread it more by touching stuff than just being near people.
Heck, many people get triggered and have breakdowns because they saw a tweet that offended them, imagine what will happen to these poor souls if they are alerted they have came into contact with someone positive...

Exactly.

[SiliconWizard]

There were a number of things that changed regarding boarding planes after that, and that are here to stay.

That's a good point. Nowadays we are limited to 100ml of liquid (is it? Been a while since I flew) and check-in 2 hours before boarding. The cynic in me says the airports love this since it boosts sales of drinks gate-side, and the extra hours of waiting has to be worth a lot of coffee and shop browsing. Indeed, you're forced to walk the gauntlet of a shopping mall in many airports to get from outside to your gate.

I would be suspicious that any measure brought in now that can be monetized is likely to stick around long after the current pandemic 'just to be safe'.

Yup.

[paulca]

So it seems the UK government thinks it will choose what people actually install.

They want the full centralized contact matching service.  I'm probably going to say, no to this one.  I've worked in big data.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52441428

The risk here is that a lot of people will reject this, then some people will install and begin using Google's offering instead, dividing the data and watering down it's effectiveness.

[coppice]

So it seems the UK government thinks it will choose what people actually install.

They want the full centralized contact matching service.  I'm probably going to say, no to this one.  I've worked in big data.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52441428

The risk here is that a lot of people will reject this, then some people will install and begin using Google's offering instead, dividing the data and watering down it's effectiveness.

Oh, great. So we have to decide which scum bags we distrust the least.

[bd139]

LOL UK gov can get to fuck. I hope Apple bans their app 

“ Experts from GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre have aided the effort “

Translated. Using a previously unreported iOS vulnerability....

[themadhippy]

Glad i no longer use or own any type of mobile phone.

[PlainName]

Same here: zero chance that's going to be installed on anything I access, or my partner's kit.

The benefit to the NHS is having centralised data in order to do Big Numbers analysis of spread shouldn't be underestimated, but there is no trust there - they've already sold medical data to Google without a by-your-leave and despite many people explicitly opting out several times. And the "give notifications to people who are most at risk of having got infected, and not to people who are much lower risk" should kill it stone dead - who decides which participant is worthy or being notified?

[paulca]

https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_a_global_pandemic_calls_for_global_solutions?language=en

[SiliconWizard]

It's interesting to see that despite this crisis showing the limits and risks of our overly globalized world, some people still want more of that as a solution.

[paulca]

It's interesting to see that despite this crisis showing the limits and risks of our overly globalized world, some people still want more of that as a solution.

Globalised capitalism != global cooperation.  It's more global exploitation.  They even use that word.

[nctnico]

It's interesting to see that despite this crisis showing the limits and risks of our overly globalized world, some people still want more of that as a solution.

First of all this isn't the first pandemic ever so there is no real relation between the current crisis and a globalized world. Quite the opposite; because sharing information is much easier nowadays there is much more details on how the pandemic spreads before it hits.

The longer I think about the Corona apps the more I'm convinced Google & Apple should come up with something. These companies have experience dealing with the various privacy laws and the technical implications. Governments usually suck at IT solutions and suffer from the not-invented-here-syndrom too; let the governments just handle the legal side of it. At least in the EU there is a good privacy protection framework in place already. Also it would be good when Corona apps work universally so they can be used across borders as well.

[paulca]

It would be a bit shit to open up and let Google/Apple run the show and then fine them later for 5 Billion for a technicality GDPR violation. 

I think we should campaign strongly for a fully open sourced solution regardless of where it comes from.

[bd139]

I think we should just put the stupid idea where it belongs.

Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. Smartphone apps are a shitty hammer for most problems.

Edit: What really happened was:

1. Sick people
2. Can we contact trace?
3. Someone public sector saw opportunity to leverage it for citizen tracking data
4. Private sector said no because they didn’t want to be responsible for the shit show.
5. Peer pressure
6. Tech companies provide a solution which is balanced
7. Public sector throws shit around and calls Murdoch.
8. Google and Apple are cancer suddenly

[SiliconWizard]

I think we should just put the stupid idea where it belongs.

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Smartphone apps are a shitty hammer for most problems.

Agreed.

And, as I said above, we are just trying to mimick a solution that's now believed to have worked for others, but without getting the whole picture, including WHY it worked (as part of a bigger solution.)
Meanwhile, it just looks like the usual political stuff. Let's just do something so we can sell people we did something, and move on.

[paulca]

So why be told what to do.  Why not grass roots it?

[nctnico]

I think we should campaign strongly for a fully open sourced solution regardless of where it comes from.

That seems to be the general idea anyway.

And people who are worried about governments sharing information: this already happens on a large scale. There are many treaties in place for this already. A Corona app is not going to add any new ability for governments.

[PlainName]

campaign strongly for a fully open sourced solution

The issues surrounding this have nothing to do with the source, open or closed. Being open source yet still having a central repository is still no-go. Closed source with no central would be OK if you didn't distrust the author.

[bd139]

Open source doesn't make one shit of a difference for stuff deployed to a closed binary only app store. There's no guarantee that what is in the source repo wasn't patched before it got to the app store and you can't use reproducible builds in a closed source app store either AFAIK as the signing key would have to be disclosed.

[nctnico]

Open source doesn't make one shit of a difference for stuff deployed to a closed binary only app store. There's no guarantee that what is in the source repo wasn't patched before it got to the app store and you can't use reproducible builds in a closed source app store either AFAIK as the signing key would have to be disclosed.

Not true. You can do a compare between a build from an open source repository and the binary provided in the app-store. These have to be identical.

[bd139]

In theory. It's not that easy though.

The problem is mostly however that the binaries are signed at Apple's end so you can't side load them. To do that you require access to the signing key that apple hold. You don't have access to that signing key so you can't actually determine if what arrived at the app store and what is downloaded from the app store are the same build because of the nature of the distribution of keys in the keyspace.