Hacker News Reader

Comment by mr_puzzled | Hacker News Reader

I don't think people realize the gravity of what's being done. While google and apple design nice apis which can do contact tracing while maintaining privacy, that's not how contact tracing will be implemented as shown by this app. It requires :

- a mobile phone number - location and bluetooth, always on - name,profession

The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to contact people but the potential for abuse is there.

Installing this app is mandatory for public and private companies. So if you are an employee, you have no choice in the matter. It's like a surveillance state in the making.

They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

To top it all off, non compliance is a criminal offence. FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India.

Random cops stopping to ensure you have the app installed? Happening. Non complaince? Do situps, get beaten with a lathi. I wish I was joking.

Edit : Manufactures will need to preinstall it on new devices. You can see where this is going.

More reading :

- https://internetfreedom.in/workers-privacy-during-covid-19/

- https://internetfreedom.in/45-organizations-and-105-prominen...

- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/how-to-us...

View on HN

> FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India

Please keep nationalistic flamebait off this site. It leads to much lower-quality discussion. Edit: I'm sure you didn't mean it as a swipe and were just talking the way one does in normal conversation, but unfortunately these throwaway phrases act like bombs in threads, so it's necessary to edit them out of one's comments here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is in no way nationalistic flamebait. On the contrary, it is well known:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India

https://qz.com/india/1826387/indias-coronavirus-lockdown-bri...

It can easily be both. No doubt Wikipedia includes information, but it's a non sequitur to go from that to name-calling ("complete joke").

Come on you guys - this is not hard to see. I chided https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23053698 for taking the thread further into flamewar, but then I saw the provocation in the GP. If I hadn't posted a symmetrical scolding, there would be a different set of complaints saying "why do you moderate this and not that?" "I'm sick of you punishing users just because you disagree with them", "It's been clear for years that the HN mods hate India", etc.

I'm sure the GP didn't mean to include a bomb-throwing swipe and was just talking the way people do in normal conversation, but unfortunately these things have degrading effects on discussion. In addition to flamewars, we get off-topic generic tangents (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23050724), Jeffrey Epstein and Jimmy Saville (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23051067), Gandhi's teenage nieces (you'll find them) and god knows what else. Discussion quality is extremely sensitive to initial conditions and also to which subthread is sitting at the top.

Then, try leaving both alone. They are both legitimate comments. Let the community downvote or flag if they believe otherwise.

Since I'm just doing what I'd do anywhere else, that amounts to asking us not to moderate. If you think this place would be ok without that, I can't agree. From my perspective such a view is a bit of a luxury that is only possible because the janitors work hard every day. But that is what a janitor would say.

Perhaps some setting where you can make it impossible to reply to a comment or thread would help. Some people will never accept that in the end the only right they have on a forum owned by someone else is to leave.

We have such settings, but I'm not sure what you have in mind - how would they have applied here, for example?

Well from the tone of your comments in this thread I would get that it is somewhat frustrating to have endless discussions about tone and moderation with people who don’t understand the cycle of forums. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d just post your message and close the discussion by leaving no reply link.

Then again I like to think I’m pretty patient but I am nowhere near as patient as you are.

Ah I see. We have that ability and use it sometimes, but more to prevent something egregiously off topic from getting going in the first place than to deny anyone their say in an existing exchange. I don't think that would work; the flames would just break out in other places, and with greater resentment. At least here it's all in one spot and we can collapse it to spare readers who aren't interested.

It would be nice if technical tricks could solve these problems, and actually there's still a lot of room for software to make a difference. But I don't think there's much substitute for persuasion: attempting to persuade the users who are breaking the site guidelines and (more importantly) the majority of the community that it's in everyone's interest to follow them.

p.s. you're right that I expressed some frustration, but I actually did that in the hope of persuading the commenter who was making objections. It's easy to feel like the mods are busybodies who make the threads worse with nannying interventions. I understand why it seems that way, because moderation comments are tedious and offtopic. In such cases I sometimes mention that those comments are even more tedious to write than they are to read (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...) - the hope being that maybe they'll see that we have similar values and are not, say, authoritarian spoilsports.

I see you get my point. This site was better when there was no (visible) moderation beyond upvotes, downvotes, and flags from users.

It really was not. 'dang and 'sctb have done yeoman's work in establishing a tone for what's acceptable--and they have put a lot of thought into things; I occasionally email hn@ycombinator.com with a "hey is this actually cool?" and while I don't always agree with their conclusions I'm always struck by how well-considered the results are.

HN is full-stop better than it was.

I don't know if the site was better, but let's say it was; it was also smaller. The same tactics don't keep working as a forum grows, so your argument is actually for letting it destroy itself, be garbage-collected by the big VM in the sky, and get replaced by newer forums which spring up, thrive for a while, and become scorched earth in turn. That's the cycle of life on the internet, but the idea of HN has always been to try to stave that fate off for longer. In 2013-14, the last year before we started moderating the site in the current style, the system was under so much pressure that there were signs of it being about to break—and in fact it did break, because the person who created it couldn't take it any more. It was an awful experience.

I definitely want to find ways to become less visible if possible. I don't much enjoy writing tedious and stupefying moderation comments, getting swarmed by wasps, accused of every bigotry, and reliving the same thing the next day. To be visible in such a role is to be the receptacle for a lot of people's anger about completely unrelated things, and you cannot expect them to treat you with scruples. That's only a tiny minority of the community, of course, but the community is large enough that it's still a lot of people—more, say, than one knows personally in life. On the plus side, one gains appreciation for Samuel Beckett as a spiritual teacher.

I really appreciate your work.

Thanks! That comment sounded like more of a complaint than I meant. The job has its enjoyable aspects as well, and I'm blessed to have it.

It seems to me that one could find 10 similar quotes about the U.S. or European states here any day. They often have an element of truth.

Why would Indians need special protection? For all we know the poster is Indian.

I rely on this site to hear unfiltered opinions. I'm from Europe, until today I did not know about the BJP IT cells, which seem to be a thing.

Flamebait about any country is off topic. Flamebait often does have an element of truth. We don't treat Indians specially. The poster may have been Indian but that is immaterial. Factual comments are indeed helpful, and become more helpful when flamebait is edited out.

Perhaps I'm wrong but this would be contrary to the nationalistic policies of the state.

Personally, primary sources are what I come to the forum for—I understand the resulting discussion might be toxic, but the post itself is certainly valuable.

Fortunately these things are easily separable. If you have a slug in your spinach, the solution is to take out the slug and keep the spinach.

Ah so censorship of political opinions? Even the minor side comments, got it.

That's not the clearest of way of framing it if you want to understand what we do. I've explained this in detail in past comments:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396.

If you or anyone takes a look at those past discussions and has a question that's not answered there, I'd like to know what it is; and if anyone knows a better solution, I'd really like to know what it is. Just make sure you've familiarized yourself with the material first, because if it's something simple like "just ban politics" or "just leave the threads alone", I've answered many times already why it won't work.

I don't know if you are an admin or an admin wannabe, but this is absolutely not nationalistic flamebait. Anyone who knows anything remotely about India will agree with this statement. And no, it does not lead to lower quality discussion. It looks like hacker news admins are about as a power abusive as Indians in power

Yes, I'm a moderator here. I'm sure you have good reasons for holding your view, but I can tell you for a fact that HN has many Indian users who disagree with you and the GP, feel just as strongly as you do, and will respond to that sort of provocation by lashing back and making the thread worse. If you don't believe me, look down the thread. If you don't think we moderate those responses as well, look down the thread again.

Provocations that are likely to lead to flamewar are called flamebait, so that's exactly what that was. Since the topic was national, I referred to it as nationalistic flamebait. Some of you seem to be reacting as if I had called the statement untrue, or sided against it. Of course I didn't. I know nothing about how the Indian justice system compares to that in other countries. You know about India; I know about Hacker News.

It's extremely common for people to assume that the mods must be taking the other side when they moderate a comment. The irony is that both sides think this. It's an illusion, but a strong one, and it makes people feel angry and justified in accusing us of abusing them. Since all sides do this, we get fired on from all angles. We become a sort of proxy for everyone's enemies in all the deep conflicts that exist in the worlds of HN users [1, 2]. Actually, we're simply trying to persuade users here to follow the site guidelines regardless of how right they are on a topic or how wrong someone else is, and regardless of how strongly they feel. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and make a point of practicing these rules in the future? They're designed to prevent this place from destroying itself, the way past internet forums have tended to do. Note this one, for example:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

Had the GP followed that when raising the topic of the Indian justice system, we could not only have avoided a flamewar and a crash into offtopicness, but their own point would have been stronger.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect

"Non complaince? Do situps, get beaten with a lathi. I wish I was joking."

Wait, what ?

The government enforced a lockdown out of the blue, stopping trains and buses from moving.

Migrant workers who were stranded tried to go back home by walking hundreds of miles but cops would see them and punish them. Punishment in this case is beating the crap out of them using batons, bamboo sticks, and making them do situps and bunny hop instead of walking back home.

Doesn't matter why you're outside. Cops have attacked hundreds and even killed many in India for not enforcing the lockdown.

>even killed many

Please support that claim with evidence. This seems ill-informed or malice-driven.

Someone looked into the permissions quickly - https://paste.gg/p/anonymous/b7c95d3967514e78a652840b5b666d5...

I've never examined a permissions dump for android before, but I see:

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.c2dm.permission.RECEIVE"/>
 
    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.finsky.permission.BIND_GET_INSTALL_REFERRER_SERVICE"/>

... and I am surprised to not see carte blanche access to photos, contacts, SMS messages, etc.

Which is to say, the granted permissions seems surprisingly restrained...

Why would they need Bluetooth permission for?

Huh?

The contact tracing is 100% Bluetooth.

You post a beacon periodically, other people post beacons, everyone is listening for that UUID and records and instances of it. This is how the whole thing works.

GPS would be a privacy disaster, if it it did work for this. Random rotates beacons are a privacy issue if you don’t trust your phone mfg, which you should not, but as long as it’s an optional thing is O.K. in the way AppleGoogle are proposing.

That's how it can tell you were very close to someone -- all of the other tracking apps do it that way, too.

I'm not familiar with app engineering, but wouldn't the location access be enough for that?

It's not app engineering, it's a comparison of GPS accuracy (especially indoors) vs a bluetooth beacon. Beacons work great no matter where you go.

I'm currently on the 11th floor of a building. GPS accuracy in the vertical dimension is much worse than horizontal. A bluetooth beacon will tell you if I'm in the same room with someone else.

yes, this is standard affair permissions

I don't see an advantage of such an app over carrier level tracking (for the purposes of enforcing quarantine or social distancing). It has loads of advantages if you want this to also serve unrelated population surveillance purposes.

> I don't see an advantage of such an app over carrier level tracking (for the purposes of enforcing quarantine or social distancing)

Carrier location data doesn't have the resolution necessary for this to be effective. The carrier may be able to tell, for example, that you and I were in the same mall for 15 minutes, but there'd be no way to know how likely it is that one of us may have infected the other - we may never have come within 10 meters of each other.

Using the app-based approach (assuming universal penetration and, you know, proper implementation) you could infer with a relatively high degree of confidence whether we were near enough to each other (or a common third contact) to require quarantine.

That's an important distinction if your goal is to isolate as few people as possible so that the rest of life can go on.

Even the carrier level of detail makes manual contact tracing much easier, while simultaneously preserving some sort of privacy.

You might be right. I hadn't considered that they could be checking for contact at such a fine resolution.

I may be out of date with the tech, but doesn’t carrier-level tracking only give you the cell tower that you are closest to? And even then, not always?

You can triangulate based on cells. In urban areas the accuracy is around 25m or was 14 years ago.

Triangulation is not the only option available to carriers, it is just the easiest/cheapest.

I would really really try and understand the need of such app before making sweeping generalised statements like this. It's even more despicable for me since you know the govt officials are working their asses off for me and my family round the clock with no respite in sight. I have nothing but a new found respect for all the real corona warriors out there in the field.

Don't you think you're laying it on a bit thick?

Probably yes, but I mean the people out there serving us are people too. Let's stop demonising every move. Now is the time to stand together.

> Now is the time to stand together.

Historically this phrase has always been used by people who organize and consume other people's economic output. And they most decisively do not "serve you". That is a euphemism like the slogans written on the barn wall in "Animal Farm".

I've literally never heard this phrase from a work horse.

Why do these people pretend that law enforcement excess, homelessness, government overreach, racism poverty and power abuse is just limited to certain countries ???

I live in America and I have donated to homeless causes here over the years.

So every time someone brings poverty in India as a trope - I ask them to politely look in the mirror.

Poverty is everywhere - just the color of skin is different!

For starters, I don't see any indication that the parent comment pretends that these things are limited to certain countries. They're simply adding their perspective on India, and we can agree or disagree with the points but most people on HN are not intimately familiar with the country so it may have some value.

It also remains the case that the things they claim seem especially pronounced in India compared to in the US or certainly other developed countries. Is there no way to indicate this in a discussion about India without someone responding with a list of problems they see in the US?

> They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

From Bill Gates notes [0]: "Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it."

IMO most (if not all) of steps being taken by India have been guided by world experts opinion on tackling this pandemic and it's too early to be panic about such measures. Let this virus problem be gone and we can then talk if government continues to keep such tracking in-place

Btw, Indian legal system is no joke when it comes to higher courts - often courts have struck down laws not according to the fundamental spirit of the constitution. In a landmark judgement in August, 2017, India's Supreme Court Upholds Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right [1]:

> The right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

0: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/A-coronavirus-AMA

1: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/08/indias-supreme-court-u...

You are giving too much credit to Google and Apple, I think...

I have seen how Google and Apple do things and I have seen how government do things. I would any day trust my data to something made by Google or Apple than something made or managed by the government. Yeah yeah sure the government is 'accountable' but the accountability barn door is pointless when the privacy horse has long fled, as is much likely to happen with the government's cavalier approach and practices.

Look we get the anti-big-tech angst but when it starts ignoring on-ground facts it just sounds like angry rambling.

You are forgetting that the government already has your data.

You already use you most confidential data to pay taxes and divulge all income sources. So you want to give that data to private entities as well?

God.

but Google and Apple have all that information already and the big pipe to the government is still open... just stop ignoring facts?

All the more reason to not give that data to the government, right, if they don't already have it?

Why would you recommend to use company "A" just because it doesn't need to have data "D" to provide feature "X" if it has access to data "D" through other means anyways and they share it anyways with the other entity Government "G" that you are so much against using secret laws...

> FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India

Exactly what is a "complete joke" about the legal system ? The whole in its entirety ?

> They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a flight/metro

Wasn't this the future everyone imagined ? or we all want to carry more X number of cards ?

>Exactly what is a "complete joke" about the legal system ? The whole in its entirety ?

As a share of GDP, India spends less than almost any other country on criminal justice. The legal system is plagued with almost absurd delays, with many cases taking over a decade to come to trial. India is the most corrupt country in Asia and one of the most corrupt in the world; bribing police officers is the norm rather than the exception. Extrajudicial killings by police are organised, commonplace and are ignored or condoned by politicians and the judiciary.

I can't think of any part of the Indian criminal justice system that isn't severely dysfunctional.

https://www.firstpost.com/long-reads/indias-criminal-justice...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suparnagoswami/2017/03/08/study...

https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/08/18/the-shortcomings-o...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_killings_by_police

There are several countries in Asia with higher levels of corruption.

This is just the most negative take you can have on the system.

> The legal system is plagued with almost absurd delays

Explained in other sibling comment.

> India is the most corrupt country in Asia

but not the most corrupt in the world right ? not even in top 10. And you choose to say "a complete joke".

> Extrajudicial killings by police are organised, commonplace and are ignored or condoned by politicians and the judiciary

Law doesn't work like that. It would be a major problem if judiciary was just able to do what it "thinks" is correct.

> I can't think of any part of the Indian criminal justice system that isn't severely dysfunctional.

Don't even know how to respond to that. Maybe become a judge in a court ?

Your justification for extra-judicial stuff is nonsense. Do you know what happened in hyderabad recently?

There are any number of lacunae in the Indian system:

- No codified tort law.

- Most things are done through Criminal Law, even many of which are better dealt with through Civil Law.

- Ineffective perjury provisions.

- Lack of Jury system with requirement of unanimous verdict.

- Lack of recourse against wrongful imprisonment.

- No Miranda act like right to remain silent. That is the right against self incrimimation is weak and ineffictual in India.

- Death Penalty still remains.

- The police does not operate as per the Peelian Principles.

- Lower courts are rubber stamps, they never refuse prosecution.

> Exactly what is a "complete joke" about the legal system ? The whole in its entirety ?

Court cases can take 6 to 10 years for a judge to make a decision.

India needs more courts and judges but for some reason does not build more courts.

> India needs more courts and judges but for some reason does not build more courts.

You do know why. Because its a low pay job and private jobs are paying higher.

Becoming a lawyer will earn you 10x more than any judge. And so we have no shortage of lawyers.

But then I assume you would counter this with "so govt should pay them higher" ?

Why would I say that?

Judges can still make money via plain old corruption, incase you didnt know Indian judicial system is pretty corrupt.

What is your solution?

Every judicial system is corrupt. Indian judicial system works and people have faith in it. Could it be made better? Hell yes.

How can it work when you yourself admit that its corrupt?

Simple, softwares work even though they can have bugs. The judicial system is not perfect with a lot that can be improved. It works because people haven't lost faith in it and almost all disputes reach courts instead of streets.

> It works because people haven't lost faith in it

You clearly have not dealt with the Indian Judicial system, there are some things in life you need to experience yourself to understand it, Indian Judicial system is one of them.

> almost all disputes reach courts instead of streets.

No, lot of people just give up because they know there is no point in wasting 10 years for the court case to finish. Isn't that the definition of people losing faith?

If maby people dont use your software because its buggy then its really an issue not a feature.

You shouldn't make such assumptions without knowing about somebody. I have dealt with the judicial system.

> No, lot of people just give up because they know there is no point in wasting 10 years for the court case to finish. Isn't that the definition of people losing faith?

Where are these "lots of people" if the system is drowning in new cases all over the place? The definition of people losing faith in a "corrupt judiciary" would be mass protests, street judgments.

Please don't misunderstand that I am saying the system is without issues (huge problems, time being the biggest like you say) but to insinuate that Indian judicial system is pretty corrupt and/or dysfunctional is hyperbolic.

> I have dealt with the judicial system.

Then you would be familiar with how corrupt it is.

> Where are these "lots of people" if the system is drowning in new cases all over the place?

They are everywhere, probably some in your family as well who would have told you its better to avoid the justice system.

> The definition of people losing faith in a "corrupt judiciary" would be mass protests, street judgments.

An alternative definition would be people just avoiding the justice system by not going to the court or settle the case themselves using money and muscle.

I dont really understand why you are trying to defend a corrupt system, I get it you are an Indian on HN and you dont like people telling the truth about India but you cannot put your head in the sand.

> I dont really understand why you are trying to defend a corrupt system, I get it you are an Indian on HN and you dont like people telling the truth about India but you cannot put your head in the sand.

Hmm, ok, I don't to keep on hashing this out. If this is what you understood from my comments, it's unfortunate. India has a corrupt judicial system like anywhere else and trying to paint it like some anomaly in the pool of democratic nations is what I don't understand. Just feeds to the misconception of "shithole country" many seem to hold.

> Just feeds to the misconception of "shithole country" many seem to hold.

Please dont do this, there is really no need to hide your head in the sand, we literally have people shitting on the streets, why not simply accept that instead of saving face in front of foreigners?

  > The definition of people losing faith in a "corrupt   
  > judiciary" would be mass protests, street judgments.

Absence of "mass protests" isn't gauge of things are normal. To take an example there weren't any mass protests during Stalin's reign in Russia. Also it is not that there aren't "street judgements" in India, there are many incidences which don't reach the courts. For example despite illegal still there still exists "Khap Panchayats" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khap)

> Wasn't this the future everyone imagined ? or we all want to carry more X number of cards ?

I think you're referring to the future where all tickets are digital, which is fine. This is in addition to the ticket, id checks etc. You will need to show the aarogya setu e pass to prove that you're low risk, don't have a history of coming in contact with a person having covid 19. In theory it sounds fine, the devil is in the details : having to link phone number, have all location history stored etc. If its like how apple and google designed it, I would be fine with it. Privacy is preserved. And this should never be mandatory in the first place. Reading : https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

You really thing the google-apple way is preserving privacy ? People have problems with that too.

I am sure the devil is in the details, but its easier to slam the govt doing anything.

Reading: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe...

Just like how valiantly the govt has prevented the Aadhar database from leaking again (and again, all the while claiming Aadhar is completely optional), I am sure they will be able to make a completely secure application this time too.

I don't even need to go to point that the government will have intentions to abuse it, it's the incompetence of those fucking morons that will doom us all.

More privacy friendly than setu. It upfront asks you about more information than it needs and also the tracking system seems to use more than bluetooth.

Never Attribute to Malice That Which Is Adequately Explained by Stupidity

Sufficiently advanced malice often pretends to be stupidity, to deliberately exploit the tendency people have to view the world as you describe.

> > - a mobile phone number - location and bluetooth, always on - name,profession

> The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to contact people but the potential for abuse is there.

As opposed to all the above mentioned data that is already there with every government in the world for years. Do you really think that the government doesn't have your mobile no, name and profession? It's on your tax data for god's sake. And any government can already track your location with existing cell infrastructure with enough precision to term you an enemy of the state and whisk you away.

The potential for abuse is there in everything. Everything. Technology used to make fertilizers by Fritz Haber was used to make explosives. Fire can be used to give warmth as well as burn witches at the stake. So should we just all die and be done with it all to stop the abuse of anything?

> They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

Even without the pandemic, boarding flights and travel was already dystopian across the world. So no changes there really.

> To top it all off, non compliance is a criminal offence. FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India.

And it is better in the US, UK or Europe? How many years did Nixon get? How many did Clinton get for his sexual assault? What happened to Epstien? What about Sir Jimmy Saville? What about Guantanamo Bay? What about.... you get the point, right?

Predicting the future is hard. If there is a dictatorship after this has been dealt with, the people can and will rise to stop any abuses of power. After all, India has a lot of experience with revolutions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)

If what you say is true, theb why build it at all? Why spend money when existing infrastructure if government can already do it? Neither answer results in happy conclusions.

Scale and legal issues.

Existing tracking measures are used on limited suspected criminals and requires paperwork to cover legal aspects of it. Some kind of approvals are required by magistrate, police etc. And these measures are not built to track thousands of people real time.

You know that the app can be removed at any instant, once the lockdown is over?

Contact tracing in India, which has one of the lowest Police / People ratios in the world, is extremely difficult. There are a billion+ people and simply not enough personnel to do any contact tracing.

Sections of the society are hostile towards medical and police personnel.

What alternative do you suggest? One that can be implemented immediately.

> The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to contact people but the potential for abuse is there

What abuse are you talking about?

> Installing this app is mandatory for public and private companies. So if you are an employee, you have no choice in the matter. It's like a surveillance state in the making.

These are the ones who are travelling. What better method is there to execute contact tracing?

> They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

The virus is in India due to international travelers. You would want to know where an international traveler has been during his travel. Once someone is out of India, the govt. can't do anything.

> Random cops stopping to ensure you have the app installed? Happening. Non complaince? Do situps, get beaten with a lathi. I wish I was joking.

If you are roaming out when there is a lockdown, the cops ought to check the app. The app is meant for contact tracing. About getting beaten or made to do situps, in my view, a far lesser punishment rather than charging and going the legal route. Than would be draconian.

Also, this requirement for app installation is because the lockdown is being considerably relaxed in majority of the country.

I would agree about privacy issues if the govt. asks citizens to use it even after this pandemic is done. In that case, I myself will go to the streets to fight.

But, in the current situation, this is absolutely required and the only cost-effective, efficient way for contact tracing in a country like India.

> If you are roaming out when there is a lockdown, the cops ought to check the app. The app is meant for contact tracing. About getting beaten or made to do situps, in my view, a far lesser punishment rather than charging and going the legal route. Than would be draconian.

Was watching the news channel yesterday. Some guy had spit on the road. The police made him take off his shirt, and wipe it on the road thoroughly. If this wasn't enough, they made him do squats, while holding his ears, in the middle of the road in everyone's view. At some point, it turned from a punishment to simply humiliating someone just because you have that power.

> I would agree about privacy issues if the govt. asks citizens to use it even after this pandemic is done. In that case, I myself will go to the streets to fight.

This is just a guess of mine since I don't think we have seen any new devices coming with this app pre-installed, cause who's buying phones now. The app won't be easy to uninstall, and even if you can uninstall with adb or disable, how many people do you think will do that?

Even if the app is easy to uninstall, most people will forget to uninstall until specifically asked to do so. I have seen so many Indians still content with the Cheetah bloatware that often comes pre-installed, oblivious to the fact that they are utterly useless.

> The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to contact people but the potential for abuse is there

>What abuse are you talking about?

Do you remember the adhaar database leak? How much confidence do you have in our government's security measures?

> Do you remember the adhaar database leak?

A minor nitpick. It’s “leaks”, not leak. There have been many over the years.

I've read several quotes from the Indian government about Adhaar, and their attitude towards security stinks - they continually claimed that it's 100% secure and that leaks and abuses are impossible.

No system is 100% secure, and talking about it like that makes them look like clowns.

> You know that the app can be removed at any instant, once the lockdown is over?

But the data is with the government already, and as per their terms of service can be stored forever, and for any purpose they wish (as long as its a "legal requirement").

"“The personal information collected will not be used for any purpose other than those mentioned in this Clause 2 save as required in order to comply with a legal requirement.”

"All personal information collected from you under Clause 1(a) provided at the time of registration will be retained for as long as your account remains in existence and for such period thereafter as required for the purposes for which the information may lawfully be used or is otherwise required under any other law for the time being in force"

https://www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Aarogya-Setu-Pr...

The government has already changed the privacy policy without notification, and for sure they can change it again and nobody - especially not a compliant judiciary - will stop them.

They are government employee, not a usual citizen. What is the relevance of that data after the lockdown? (They will be coming to the office every day like before)

Apart from historical location data, the govt already has much info about citizens. This app will not add anything new.

Then, there’s no need for the app. The government can use the data which it “already has”.

> You know that the app can be removed at any instant, once the lockdown is over?

Not according to this article : https://www.news18.com/news/tech/aarogya-setu-registration-w...

> According to officials with knowledge of the matter, the government of India is making it mandatory for all new smartphones to be sold in India post lifting of the lockdown to not just have the app as a pre-installed service, but also ensure that individuals register on it and set it up, before beginning to use their new smartphones. [...] This will make the Aarogya Setu app an inbuilt feature on all new smartphones, that will be sold in India going forward.

> Sections of the society are hostile towards medical and police personnel.

> About getting beaten or made to do situps, in my view, a far lesser punishment rather than charging and going the legal route. Than would be draconian.

I wonder why they are hostile? Could it maybe be because their civil liberties get massively infringed on a regular basis?

> their civil liberties get massively infringed on a regular basis?

^This in addition with rumors spread among these sections,

There is a fear that medical personnel might spread the disease.

Yeah, police force is a complex beast in India. Just like anywhere in the world.

Regarding civil liberties, can you specify why you have come to such a conclusion?

There are countless instances where police have infringed civil liberties, as well as countless instances where the police were ineffective.

> There are a billion+ people

> simply not enough personnel to do any contact tracing.

Those seem a bit contradictory, no? China also has over a billion people and managed to find the labor to perform contact tracing.

China is already a surveillance state though, so it's not really a good example.

China has made QR readers checkpoints across city to track people's each and every movement.

When the pandemic started, they hired thousands of people to do the old-fashioned, labor intensive version of contact tracing. Technology and preexisting state powers certainly played a part, but the manual contact tracing is very transferrable everywhere.

China is already a police that tracks every bit of data on their part of the internet. They don't need manual labor or new apps for contact tracing because they already had the infrastructure built.

But why are they using this instead of any other protocol or spec released by anyone else that offers more privacy than this crap.

Are those protocols available for potentially any cell phone in the world and devices that could be years old?

For examples has Nokia releases a protocol?

You know the current procotol that setu app uses is way more battery consuming than apple-google's bluetooth only approach.

I wonder how those poor old phones will survive with it.

(I don't wish to engage more because I don't think you are looking for a good faith argument here because android app released by the government won't work on those Nokias and I don't see why you can't have two different appS with different level of efficiency because you will need two different apps regardless?)

Yes, those protocols would be available to any cell phone in the world and old devices to the same extent as any other legally-mandated protocol would be.

For example, if government can order than Nokia release a privacy-harming contract-tracing feature, then the government can instead order that Nokia release a privacy-enhanced version based on the Google-Apple protocols instead (or any other better protocols people have developed).

It would be more effective for the pandemic too, because you want maximum interoperability.

And it would be more effective for the pandemic because you will get better compliance too. If people know they are 100% tracked with full transparency they are more motivated to find ways to cheat, especially when doing something "disapproved" (like seeing your secret lover), which is not good for countering the pandemic. People will definitely find ways to cheat the tracing if they are motivated.

The exact reason why there are lockdowns the world over instead of everyone doing nothing while waiting for a vaccine. Or why the human history is filled with flawed and working solutions for everything instead of perfect and imaginary solutions.

There might be better protocols or specs available. But no one other that a doomsday cultist can afford the bodies to start piling up while doing nothing instead of doing something.

Why exactly it is "crap"? And which other protocol would be better than this?

Govt hasn't mentioned anywhere that this is temporary. If it is just for contact tracing they could have atleast mentioned it in terms and conditions

Why is contact tracing even relevant at this point? Especially for india? The data we have on the virus shows that a lot of people are asymptomatic, we also have some serotyping testing data possibly indicating much higher infection numbers than previously thought.

That wouldn't be much of a problem if the outbreak would've just started now (which is the reason contact tracing made sense for South Korea) but why would India, with it's huge population and probably similar real spread timeline benefit from it at this point? To me most of the world missed the small window of time when contact tracing makes sense and it is now a complete red herring.

By the way, why would you assume they would pull out the app after the lockdown? I mean, you could always argue that it will still be needed to make sure there's no second, or third outbreak. And then needed to make sure everyone got the vaccine (everyone should absolutely get the vaccine when it eventually comes out, my point here is that there will always be more reasons to extend the usage of surveillance tools like this), and then maybe keep the app to prevent future outbreaks. Where do you eventually draw the line? Who decides when the pandemic is over especially considering how likely it is that it will become a seasonal disease? There is literally no incentive for governments to eventually stop.

They don't even need to have malicious intentions, it can be to avoid a future outbreak of a new disease that is this severe. But that's the whole point, there's always a seemingly good reason to increase surveillance and the excuse is often that there is no alternative. Which may be true, but all governments, even the most dictatorial ones, don't directly say that they are taking your rights for no reason. It's always because of foreign spies, to fight terrorism, to protect the nation or the most often used excuse: to keep people safe.

https://twitter.com/pokershash/status/1251452345994510336?s=...

Check at 50 secs. There is police commissioner there. And the guys still got killed over bunch of rumours.

Don't believe that the government or law enforcement is there to protect you.

> What alternative do you suggest? One that can be implemented immediately.

Let's say the same one but put some privacy in place. Let's have full transparency about how the information is used. Maybe put a more privacy friendly law in place like GDPR. Something that keeps the govn in check.

Or another alternative: Use the Apple-Google approach and their APIs.

> What abuse are you talking about? With a first name and last name direct identification is a bit hard. With a unique number that is tied directly to an individual like the phone number... IDK... What can you do when you know exactly where everyone SPECIFICALLY has been or is right now. Maybe know that who lives with who? Maybe be able to deduce when ppl are cheating? Maybe be able to use this location data for extortion?

for burglary - detecting when no one is at home; for rape - detecting when a girl is alone or in a secluded location; for blackmail - detecting who sleeps with whom; for stealing trade secrets - detecting clients/suppliers a businessmen meets with; for insider trading; for contract killings; .......................

> What alternative do you suggest? One that can be implemented immediately.

Make India a British colony again as of today? Seriously, do you think Gandhi would approve of this app?

Why do you think it's overkill? What alternative do you propose? Do you not think touting the horn of privacy in this crisis where everybody is unprepared is doing us any good? Why do you think it will remain once this is all over?

> FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India.

That's just garbage.

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, even when another comment was provocative. It just makes the thread even worse.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note this one:

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

> Do you not think touting the horn of privacy in this crisis where everybody is unprepared is doing us any good?

That's a false equivalence, there are much more private contact tracing approaches that exist today, backed by device manufacturers. Governments that aren't using those approaches should justify with actual evidence why they're not appropriate, rather than asking if we won't just think of the children.

> Why do you think it will remain once this is all over?

Because there is a large body of evidence throughout history that suggests exactly this.

So we should give all this data to the foreign companies instead of our own elected govt? Because surely they would never abuse it?

> Because there is a large body of evidence throughout history that suggests exactly this.

Yeah, one govt tried that, people didn't like it and people won. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)

> So we should give all this data to the foreign companies instead of our own elected govt?

Or give the data to no one and do contact tracing in a privacy preserving way like the one apple and google designed? https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

I might be misunderstand it but reading the document I couldn't see that this doesn't involve providing any data. I don't see a way how this could work without sharing data with authorities. The document seems to imply that the data WILL be shared with public health authorities (govt). So I don't see how this is better.

> • Each user will have to make an explicit choice to turn on the technology. It can also be turned off by the user at any time.

Ok, I can give you this one, for people who are mandated by law to have this installed, uninstalling is not an option.

> • This system does not collect location data from your device, and does not share the identities of other users to each other, Google or Apple. The user controls all data they want to share, and the decision to share it.

Yeah, but they have to share it to get any meaningful data, right?

> • Bluetooth privacy-preserving beacons rotate every 10-20 minutes, to help prevent tracking.

Don't know whether the app has this one.

> • Exposure notification is only done on device and under the user's control. In addition people who test positive are not identified by the system to other users, or to Apple or Google.

I would be damned if the govt app was exposing identities either.

> • The system is only used for contact tracing by public health authorities apps.

Sure, that's the whole purpose of the govt app too.

> • Google and Apple can disable the exposure notification system on a regional basis when it is no longer needed.

Not related to privacy I think.

There has been questions to apple-google ct too, but I always take any country's gov's actions with skeptism. Especially, when they are not making the details/specs public.

Also, have a read: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

Read section "Where is the data stored and who has access to it?"

All data is stored on phone only, till the point someone is marked as Covid+. Then only the beacon tokens are uploaded to a central whitelist, wherein every phone can download and verify if they came in contact. In case of the contact data only for that day is shared.

Primary difference govt. can know only limited data of people who are +ve or came in contact not a perpetual continuous tracking of every mobile.

>So we should give all this data to the foreign companies instead of our own elected govt? Because surely they would never abuse it?

If you want an honest answer, I would rather give it to Apple/Google.

At least they will not send their officially hired goons to my house to beat me up due to some perceived slight that I might have committed.

Just don't do this kind of tracing at all then.

>Yeah, one govt tried that, people didn't like it and people won.

After 21 months. Almost two years. From your own link:

>For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. Several other human rights violations were reported from the time, including a forced mass-sterilization campaign spearheaded by Sanjay Gandhi, the Prime Minister's son.

> So we should give all this data to the foreign companies instead of our own elected govt?

Seems like you haven’t read about the contact tracing technology and the policies of Apple and Google in what they’re developing. There is no data taken off the device by those companies through the APIs they provide. Apps developed by the government healthcare administration can take the data and push it anywhere though.

> should justify with actual evidence why they're not appropriate

The justification is incompetent (not trying to insult govt workers here but you know only people who got no private jobs in engineering look towards govt jobs) because the smart people wont join govt jobs because govt jobs don't pay as much.

I don't think govt needs to say it out loud because it would change nothing and helps no one.

This is a matter of public health in a very serious pandemic. There cannot be privacy for this to work and a little bit less privacy is a very little inconvenience in comparison of the effect of the pandemic.

The people who tested positive must be known, the people who came in close contact with them must be known. Testing, quarantines, and self-isolation must be enforced.

For tracing apps to work they must also be running on the vast majority of smartphones so this also cannot be left to the good will of people.

This is common sense. Countries and people that have understood that, e.g. Korea, Taiwan, have crushed the virus. The sooner the virus is crushed the sooner we can forget about tracing apps.

Ridiculous. There are plenty of proposals for privacy oriented contact tracing apps.

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