Edit: and... five years later. “There was a mistake in the random number generator, all keys are discoverable”. Like, you know, the Intel Security Module.
Also: as a mathematician, there is lots of value in a counterexample to part of a proof. Just that, even though the final result is true.
Not necessarily. They included in the article that we could use decentralized contact tracing instead; and, an article arguing against a feature doesn't need an alternative.
If a refrigerator were being released with a microwave, do I really need to provide alternatives to where I could put the microwave instead?
Among other arguments, it argues that contact tracing is a source of mass surveillance. That alone, for the appropriate crowd, is enough reason to not use it. There doesn't need to be an alternative because the alternative is _not having it_.
Just because a bunch of developers ended up wasting their resources on a feature that is a net loss for society doesn't mean that the feature needs to be released.
GACT is decentralized. The article is arguing against decentralized contact tracing.
> a feature that is a net loss for society
The article doesn't even try to make that argument, which is why it is not very good.
“but not reduced it enough that contact tracing is likely viable”
For example, NYC has seemingly slowed the spread enough it’s possible to Test for and track new cases. But if you dig into their numbers 4,264 deaths are linked to COVID but where not tested prior to death. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page. They have little idea who’s currently infected and “ Due to delays in reporting, recent data are incomplete.”
Essentially they need a solid 2 weeks of minimal new cases. At which point they can start meaningful contract tracing, but contract tracing does not mean you can just get back to normal. Just slightly reduce the amount of isolation.
Remember, virus still doubles every 2-3 days under normal conditions. Without a vaccine or herd immunity, contact tracing alone does very little. It’s enough to reopen dental offices possibly hair salons, not schools.
Contact tracing is clearly useful, but on it’s one does not change the basic reproduction numbers much. Look at South Korea which still has active infections despite active contact tracing and very successful social distancing.
Contact tracing COVID-19 is suplimental not a solution.
PS: As to my point, if you’re a grocery store employee in NYC you are likely to have been in contact with someone with COVID-19 in the last week. We can’t simply send all of them home, that’s the issue with contact tracing when a meaningful percentage of the population is infected. You need looser restrictions which reduces effectiveness.
Perhaps similar or related, I'd read that Taiwan's using an alert system[1] that uses the absence of cell phone activity as a sign that it may be necessary to check on the owner.
Some places have digital access but in general the temperature measurement of bigger buildings are automated. But most places I went to had a paper form to fill out your details. I assume those are shared with law enforcement and CDC once one person who attended the building has been traced as a positive case and then all people and their contacts will be notified and tested.
There is no centralized government mandated central database that I know of. But I do know that once a crime happens they're quite good at tracing your public movements.
Oh, and maybe this could also be used to avoid certain crimes such as terrorism?
You know where this leads to.
> Oh, and maybe this could also be used to avoid certain crimes such as terrorism?
> You know where this leads to.
Exactly, these capabilities won't go away. Today they are used for good but tomorrow? Not to invoke Godwin's Law but these contact tracing capabilities would have been a Nazi's wet dream.
Full open-source everything isn’t air-tight, but potentially a lot better than what we’ve got.
If you want to live luxuriously, also put a netbook, X1 Carbon, MacBook Air, whatever, in your backpack, then you have Internet, too.
This is not an excuse for the outrageous tracking plans of Apple and Google, I just hope more people will do this as a reaction to those plans.
EDIT: I may have misunderstood the "no alternative", I assumed it was about the need to own a "smart" phone.
This is likely to be untrue in the immediate future. This is probably already true in places like China, where mobile payments are the norm.
As a personal example, and I know this does not yet apply to the US, but where I live it is impossible (or so inconvenient that it might as well be not possible) to do some banking operations without an Android or iOS device, as even accessing my bank's website requires me to have the app installed for token generation. I'm sure if I shopped around I could still find a smaller bank without such a requirement or live with the limitations, maybe finagle a way to use an emulator or something equally inconvenient, but I'm quite certain that this will not last and a smartphone will become essential. A lot of other things are also quite inconvenient without a smartphone around here.
I know the US and Europe have a distinct resistance to the smartphone (or even the computer) becoming required to live as anything but a homeless vagrant because their economies and infrastructure developed before smartphones were even an idea, which gives them the luxury to resist these technologies on moral grounds, or even on the grounds of not wanting to learn the new thing. On the other hand, countries whose economies developed in lockstep with cellular technologies and smartphones (China, India, much of Africa, South-East Asia, much of Latin America, etc.) don't have that particular luxury or simply take a much more pragmatic approach to the whole thing. In these places it is already incredibly inconvenient to get by without a smartphone and will likely become impossible in the near future, if it isn't already.
When smartphones and the internet do become essential to life, I can only hope that the laws of the land have managed to catch up by then. I am not particularly optimistic on this aspect, though, and I suspect it will take some kind of major disaster and/or abuse of human rights (or more likely, a series of them) to happen for another "age of enlightenment"-like period to happen, focused on information technology this time.
EDIT: spelling
Yeah. Because they can run out of power, they are easily damaged, and, generally, bug and exploit ridden.
A bank card is near indestructible.
I've seen this used at Wells Fargo ATMs.
Modern cards disable the magnetic stripe, and the chip is surprisingly secure.
I do think making a smartphone a requirement for living is a genuinely catastrophic idea, not simply an ivory tower exercise nor conservativism. Requiring people to possess and carry with them at all times a computer with a myriad of sensors and an ever-broadcasting beacon not under their control seems terribly fragile, unnatural, caste-creating and cruel. It is worthwhile to fight this, despite it being undeniably convenient for some things.
https://www.cnet.com/news/homeless-not-phoneless-askizzy-app...