General > General Technical Chat
Working From Home - Impacts of Coronavirus
<< < (185/447) > >>
Someone:

--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on April 26, 2020, 11:34:14 pm ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on April 26, 2020, 11:30:59 pm ---The only thing is... as long as the phone queries a server, the server will get your phone's IP address... right? And can associate it with the queried hashes. And from your IP it should be possible to know who's the phone owner (but of course that would require the phone provider to cooperate.) Just a thought about it being completely anonymous.
--- End quote ---
No. The phone sends nothing. The server sends the hash of the infected phone, your phone just uses that to see if it matches any hash stored only on the phone. All the server can tell is that you have the app installed, nothing else (until or unless you get infected and elect to let people know that).
--- End quote ---
SiliconWizard,
In the most private option being suggested (please read the explanation I provided above) the centralised store is sending out the lists of identifiers associated with infections to everyone equally, an excellent privacy standpoint as there is no difference between any of the users doing this part. The only identification would be choosing to "announce" as infected and uploading your recent identifiers, which indeed could be linked to the user/location back through the network connections. It would be possible to improve that step but I've not seen any proposals for an air gap/sneaker net in that part.

But the key difference in ideologies here is the being forced to do announce or not, particularly being forced to announce links constantly when you aren't infected.
nctnico:
Actually the list with infected hashes can also be distributed using a decentralised system like in a peer-to-peer network. That way it is very hard to trace an 'I'm infected' hash back to it's origin.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: EEVblog on April 27, 2020, 12:28:28 am ---
--- Quote from: Bud on April 26, 2020, 10:22:31 pm ---This shit may quickly become weaponized... Say, airlines may deny you boarding the flight if you do not have the app installed.
--- End quote ---
The free market will ultimately take care of that. But they already know who sat next to who, so no need for that.

--- End quote ---
At that point it is too late. There is a delay between getting infected and becoming contagious. One of the points of using an app is to get an announcement you have been in touch with an infected person a couple of days ago. Maybe the level of contacts has to be more than one level deep though to get an early warning (but that is something to figure out by virologists). Anyway, with an app we can literally get ahead of the virus.
Someone:

--- Quote from: nctnico on April 27, 2020, 01:25:03 am ---Actually the list with infected hashes can also be distributed using a decentralised system like in a peer-to-peer network. That way it is very hard to trace an 'I'm infected' hash back to it's origin.
--- End quote ---
The verification still poses a bottleneck, anonymising test results etc.

The main point is to separate out identification and/or tracking of someone who is known to be infected and choosing to co-operate, vs just tracking everyone all the time.
PlainName:

--- Quote ---And government and businesses are slowly losing the ability to capitalise on people's fear, all this stuff isn't going to last too much longer, people's patience is already starting to wear thin.
--- End quote ---

Maybe. I mean, you're right that people are getting restless and if it all blew over right now we'd be back to where we were pretty soon. But that assumes it will blow over. Suppose we all start going back to work and it blows up again, like it's doing in Singapore - people will start to get the message that it's not an easy fix and that social distancing is actually pretty important. It wouldn't take too long for there to be new norms if we can just stick it out long enough to get over the 'strangeness' speed bump. If you look at, say, Hong Kong where masks are a normal part of life, that essentially came about through SARS, which was only 7 years ago.

There are other examples, both pretty significant (like sewers and flush loos) and not so much. Bidets are apparently all the rage in the US now, which they previously definitely weren't, and where they're being installed I reckon they'll be still be used when the novelty has worn off, and gradually permeate the rest of the country. It could also be a while before one allows one's stock of toilet paper to dwindle to one roll before seeking more.

So there are two new minor norms that could easily continue. It will no doubt massively depend on what happens next, and no-one really knows that at this point.
Navigation
Message Index
Next page
Previous page
There was an error while thanking
Thanking...

Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod