SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the proximity:-opposite-sides-of-the-same-wall dept.
Ross Anderson, a researcher at the Security Group at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, has written about contact tracing in the real world enumerating in detail some of the many shortcomings with and false assumptions about contact tracing as means of fighting a pandemic.
There are also real systems being built by governments. Singapore has already deployed and open-sourced one that uses contact tracing based on bluetooth beacons. Most of the academic and tech industry proposals follow this strategy, as the “obvious” way to tell who’s been within a few metres of you and for how long. The UK’s National Health Service is working on one too, and I’m one of a group of people being consulted on the privacy and security.
But contact tracing in the real world is not quite as many of the academic and industry proposals assume.
First, it isn’t anonymous. Covid-19 is a notifiable disease so a doctor who diagnoses you must inform the public health authorities, and if they have the bandwidth they call you and ask who you’ve been in contact with. They then call your contacts in turn. It’s not about consent or anonymity, so much as being persuasive and having a good bedside manner.
He is not alone in pointing out that claims of being able to anonymize personal data have largely been proven to be bunk. The rules we set in place now will be with us for a long time and have far-reaching effects. The need to be given an appropriate level of consideration.
Security researcher Bruce Schneier posted his concerns on the same contract tracing story.
Previously:
(2020-04-11) Apple and Google are Launching a Joint COVID-19 Tracing Tool for IOS and Android
(2020-04-08) Senators Raise Privacy Questions About Google's COVID-19 Tracker
(2014-10-16) How Nigeria Stopped Ebola
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @07:04PM
Two by two, hands of blue, did you talk to her?
Tracking COVID is an interesting potential use case for this kind of information, but... it explodes so very very quickly. My family has been 99% isolated for over 30 days now, but every other Friday night we are keeping up one therapy for one of our kids - coming into intentional contact with 4 other kids and 2 adults for a few hours. While doing that, my wife and I also intentionally contact one shop owner (who in turn directly contacts probably 100+ people a night), and we might come within 2 meters of another 25 people unintentionally for at least a few moments - not to mention that junkie that sneezed 50 meters upwind from us... As well behaved as we are, we become a potential vector among that group of ~30 people in just an hour, and those 30 people in all liklihood are potential vectors to many more people, so within 3 contact generations that take place in just a few hours we're up to 30 * 50 * 50 = 75,000 people.
The seven degrees of Kevin Bacon works because the 7th root of 7 billion is only ~26, and people "contact" 26 different people in the relative blink of an eye.
🌻🌻 [google.com]