[HN Gopher] CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans f... ___________________________________________________________________ CDC tracked millions of phones to see if Americans followed lockdown orders Author : KoftaBob Score : 186 points Date : 2022-05-03 14:14 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.vice.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com) | shawn-butler wrote: | And they wonder why silly conspiracy theories gain traction in | the public? | | Honestly this is the dumbest thing to do in secret. The CDC was | supposed to be apolitical and gave that up entirely during the | pandemic, and now it appears they are quite horrible at politics. | triceratops wrote: | > The CDC was supposed to be apolitical and gave that up | entirely during the pandemic | | If the politicians politicize a pandemic, and the CDC's job is | to fight disease, then anything the CDC does becomes political | by definition. Seems like that's on the politicians. | renewiltord wrote: | It wasn't a secret. It's literally on their website with the | sources listed. What exactly is secret. The dashboard they have | lists the source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data- | tracker/#mobility | | Ctrl-F "the mobility metrics are" | stephbu wrote: | Headline feels a little misleading, they didn't track phones per | se, they bought data from one of the dozens of cellphone data- | brokers that continue to operate despite legislation and | congressional action/in-action. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is ethical. The | CDC was acting unethically here, though I'm sure they feel | everything they do is ethical because they are above question | when performing their mission. | tsol wrote: | Okay but you can't take someone to court for being | unethical-- and the government in my experience doesn't care | much if you complain they're not ethical. So while I don't | disagree I'm not sure what the effect of this actually is, if | any | stephbu wrote: | Pretty much every cellphone/app user dimension is available | for a price on the open market. What you do think Facebook | et.al, sells when an app user allows background tracking? | | Is it unethical to study behavior of the populous? If | anything bringing it into a clinical study probably brought | more oversight in terms of ethical handling, and | aggregation/anonymization of data than the source would | provide. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > What you do think Facebook sells | | Facebook doesn't sell data. They place ads, but the data | stays in-house. | crtasm wrote: | Facebook sells targeted advertising, they don't sell the | underlying data AFAIK? | stephbu wrote: | Ads is just one of their businesses, consider FBLogin and | 3rd party data-access e.g. full-name, date-of-birth, | email address, friends, the list goes on... | caconym_ wrote: | I don't use FB, but don't you typically have to | explicitly opt in to this kind of sharing? | | There is a world of difference between that and companies | you can't really opt out of doing business with if you | want to live in mainstream society (cell providers, | banks, etc.) making you click 'agree' on some 50k line | dump of legalese and then selling granular, non-anonymous | personal data to anyone willing to pay. | | Frankly, the hysteria around "Big Tech" "selling your | data" is misplaced and probably paid for by the lobbying | arms of the real abusers. "Big Tech" is far from | blameless, but it's a teddy bear compared to how other | industries treat us. | TameAntelope wrote: | How is the CDC's behavior here unethical? Every person | involved has consented to everything involved. Just because | you personally don't like it doesn't mean people aren't | allowed to willingly give up their privacy. That's how | freedom works. | mindslight wrote: | Exactly! We need real privacy legislation, with consent framed | similarly to the EU's GDPR. Without some type of general | reform, every little bit of outrage about how our personal | information is being abused is just a surface distraction. | | Furthermore with regards to the misleading headline, apart from | a few counties in California there were no "lockdown orders" in | the US. There were closed businesses [0], and there were | _suggestions_ that individuals stay home. There were no | widespread orders with the force of law telling individuals | that they must stay in their homes. | | [0] who I feel for, especially when things like small hardware | stores had to shut down while Home Depot could remain open. | beej71 wrote: | It's too bad about the headline. When I see something like | that, it's hard to tell what in the article is factual and what | is hyperbole. | space_fountain wrote: | Importantly this didn't give them the easy ability to pinpoint | individuals for not complying with lock down. The point is to | know how impactful policies were | tootie wrote: | I also take issue with the liberal use of the term "lockdown". | As far as I can tell, the only thing close to a lockdown was | issued for a time in San Francisco. Everyplace else just barred | indoor gatherings. You could go outside as much as you pleased. | And even businesses were open for takeout or reduced occupancy. | JaceLightning wrote: | What's crazy is how far we've changed. | | The whole opinion of roe v Wade was predicated on the fact the | government had no right to people's health information: | | > In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in | McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the | Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a | "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to | choose whether to have an abortion. | | Now we have vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and CDC | surveillance. | ChrisLomont wrote: | >The whole opinion of roe v Wade was predicated on the fact the | government had no right to people's health information | | The Due Process violation is not about government right to | health information. It's about the govt not being able to | deprive people of things without due process. | | Here's the full SC ruling [1] | | [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113 | brimble wrote: | > vaccine mandates | | We've had those for decades. | | > vaccine passports | | These must not be a federal thing, because I still don't really | know what people mean by this. Is it a state thing? | | > and CDC surveillance | | Private surveillance that the CDC _and anyone else_ can buy. I | agree that collecting this info in the first place, let alone | selling it, should be very, very illegal. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Now we have vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and CDC | surveillance. | | Not coincidentally, Roe is about to be a memory too. | eddyg wrote: | It would be interesting to see the breakdown of how much of the | location data SafeGraph/Veraset gets is from "free" apps that | commoditize developers when they integrate various advertising | APIs. | EricE wrote: | Time to go back to a non-connected Garmin GPS while in the car | and slip my phone into a mesh bag when not in use :( | | So glad I don't own a newer car with a cellular modem built into | it. Hope I can die and be buried with my current "dumb" cards. | post_break wrote: | You better rip out your TPMS since those can be tracked. Same | with anything that has bluetooth since those are widely tracked | on highways for monitoring traffic flows. Oh and license plate | readers, not sure how you block those. Can you live a cash only | life as well since credit cards are obviously tracked. Do you | own a home? Is it in your name or did you set up an LLC to | purchase it? I'm not trying to be a jerk, just that I've had | the same thoughts as you and just realized it's impossible. | StanislavPetrov wrote: | It's possible, just difficult. License plates happen to be | incredibly susceptible to getting muddy. | h4waii wrote: | "The enemy of good is perfect". | | There are acceptable steps to take in order to remove | yourself and some of your data from the things you disagree | with, but just because you can't reach step 10 right now, | doesn't mean you should take step 1. | starwind wrote: | If you use an android, you can set it so that it does location | just off GPS which is a lot less precise and doesn't seem to | update as often. The other day I went downtown for a ballgame, | sushi after, and then home, and the only place it picked me up | for the day was the light rail station when I bought my ticket | early that afternoon | anonquixey wrote: | I got free academic access to this dataset. The data is | anonymized and aggregated to the census block level (500 people). | It does not allow for the kind of tracking that the article is | fear mongering about. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | The average census block has a population of 30 people. | Millions of census blocks have a population of zero while | millions more have a population of only a couple of people. | Surely it must be at the census tract level or higher? | jtsiskin wrote: | Census block group, not census block | dogleash wrote: | >The data is anonymized | | Anonymized... for you. | djbebs wrote: | No such thing as anonymity data | beej71 wrote: | There is definitely data that can't be worked backwards. | president wrote: | Not full anonymity if you can see where the phones are moving | from-to | rolph wrote: | this only works when people take thier phones everywhere they go | renewiltord wrote: | I was involved with this. SafeGraph data is aggregated to the CBG | level and has differential privacy applied. | | You don't have to guess. The data is self-serve purchasable from | their website so you can go take a look at what it looks like. Go | find a blog post of theirs and you'll get a coupon code so you're | not paying and then you can look at what the data looks like. | empressplay wrote: | In Australia the government freely admitted to using mobile phone | tracking and tower 'pings' to determine lockdown compliance, the | state of Victoria at one point using the data to justify | extending a lockdown in Melbourne. | 0daystock wrote: | Location tracking is a huge business and honestly CDC is probably | the actor we should be least concerned about in that marketplace. | I think the real story is the commodification of our physical | presence and the resulting surveillance capitalism models it | further enables and normalizes. | EricE wrote: | Good point. I think the real value of this story is not that | this data is readily available, but that the government is also | consuming it - which most people (rightly!) have a problem | with. If that's the wake up call it takes to make people pay | attention to just how bad "surveillance capitalism" is, then | I'm all for it. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | It's feasible to be concerned about both corporate and | government surveillance at the same time. | 0daystock wrote: | Definitely true and I'm of the same mind. Which is why I'm | dissuading readers from unnecessary moral outrage over petty, | inconsequential matters like this, and encourage everyone to | think deeper about technology's role in our lives. | mynameishere wrote: | _least concerned about_ | | Why are people saying this sort of thing about the CDC? They | have proven themselves out-of-control, irrational dictators. | 0daystock wrote: | Because they're an organization which is still bound by | public laws and social norms, whereas the real sinister use | of our location data goes entirely unnoticed and is far, far | more insidious than will ever be printed in the subservient | press. | native_samples wrote: | Are they? Didn't they somehow unilaterally suspend rent | payments for the entire US, even though that is well | outside their granted authority? And what social norms did | lockdowns involve, exactly? | 0daystock wrote: | A federal judge vacated the nationwide freeze on | evictions that was put in place and the lockdowns were | not merely the result of US health officials conspiring. | Your criticism of the CDC is valid but I believe it is | misguided; the manufactured moral outrage I'm speaking | about distracts us from the real abuses of power | happening behind the veil, and they are far more shocking | than what is reported here. | Clubber wrote: | I mean maybe. The CDC is just an outlet or a tool that | was appropriate at the time. I'm sure they didn't come up | with the eviction moratorium on their own, they were told | to do that, or at least it was authorized by another | group. They also knew it would be overturned because they | have legal council. | | Just because it's the CDC doesn't mean there aren't | strings moving the arms about. | | "The principle of a court overruling a public health | judgment by a qualified organization like the CDC is | disturbing in the precedent that it might send." | samschooler wrote: | See the issue here is that this data exists at all and it's | purchasable by any group. I feel like the CDC are the least scary | people buying this data. And from the looks of it they used it | for medical research, which if similar in style to other medical | research is bound by boards and ethics committees. | | What we aren't writing about in this article are the groups using | this data Cambridge Analytica style to sway political opinion, | and other less than stellar purposes. | version_five wrote: | > CDC are the least scary people buying this data | | Most buyers probably just want to target advertising at me, or | otherwise grab my attention. The CDC wants a say in how people | live their lives and thinks they know better than individuals | about risk tolerance and decisions. And they seem to think they | can have unchecked power by invoking "science". Can someone | name a scarrier entity that could be tracking you? | | I don't agree with anybody tracking me, but even say insurance | companies which is the other worst thing that comes to mind | have limited purview in what they might be interested in | jancsika wrote: | > Most buyers probably just want to target advertising at me, | or otherwise grab my attention. | | That's not a fair response given the examples provided to | you. | | OP's comment mentioned the Cambridge Analytica case which-- | _if_ true-- is certainly more concerning than someone | advertising at you. | | It's one thing to argue that case was overblown, but it's not | serious to sweep it into the bin of "otherwise grab my | attention." | | Edit: changed the word "satisfactory" to "fair." It's not | that the comment I'm replying to wasn't tasty enough for my | enjoyment or something. It's more that it hand-waved away the | point OP was making. | darkerside wrote: | > Can someone name a scarrier (sp) entity that could be | tracking you? | | ... The Mafia? Any other criminal or terrorist organization | or individual? The police operating under an incorrect | warrant? A creepy ex? | | Unless you buy into conspiracies, the CDC is at worst going | to do what it thinks is best for you, and is constrained by | constitutional checks and balances. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >... The Mafia? Any other criminal or terrorist | organization or individual? The police operating under an | incorrect warrant? A creepy ex? | | The mafia is easy. Pay them and they DGAF what you do. | Creepy ex is more or less a non-issue because any threat of | violence one person can bring can be matched by another. | | It's the police, terrorists and other well resourced but | potentially capricious organizations (like the CDC, or any | other federal bureaucracy) you don't want coming after you. | | >the CDC is at worst going to do what it thinks is best for | you, | | Every horror in history was committed with the best of | intentions. | renewiltord wrote: | Wait, the Nazis put people in gas chambers for their own | good? News to me. | version_five wrote: | Is Godwin still a thing? | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Don't be obtuse. | | The nazis gassed people because they thought that | eliminating the demographics they were gassing would lead | to a better society. | tepitoperrito wrote: | I don't approve of using the term conspiracies as a way to | denounce the questioning of true intentions or possible | problem areas. | | Unless someone can prove that no one involved in the | tuskegee "incident"[0] is no longer employed or influential | at the CDC I will just resign myself to thinking that THEY | are the conspiracy theorist, a conspiracy to seem | infallible or at least incorruptible. Such a concept is of | course ridiculous, don't turn of your brain with an appeal | to authority. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study | jpgvm wrote: | If you are that scared of people that have more knowledge | than you on topics that take decades of study to understand I | can't imagine how scared you should be of politicians. On | average they have close to zero knowledge about anything yet | wield power to change almost any facet of your life. | | Personally I'm sticking with the scientists, atleast they | earnt that power through real excellence rather than winning | some popularity contest. | smt88 wrote: | > _Can someone name a scarrier entity that could be tracking | you?_ | | FBI, CIA, local police, any branch of military, Oathkeepers | (a group that did track me for a while because I organized a | pro-voting event in my city)... it's a very long list. | Basically anyone with a gun and a desire to harm me is a lot | scarier. | | In the past, companies used to assassinate leaders of | unionization efforts, too. | josho wrote: | I know we are getting off track here somewhat. But it's group | A wants this data to better understand society in order to | save lives, while every other group want this data to | increase their profits. | | To your point, yes we shouldn't allow tracking. But, whatever | fix we apply should not be so limited that it only affects | the CDC, it should be generally applied to stop all groups as | well. | version_five wrote: | > group A wants this data to better understand society in | order to save lives | | In principle, I agree with the idea of anonymous data used | exclusively and apolitically to "understand society" as you | say. I just see no evidence that would ever be possible, | either to trust that it will be kept anonymous or that | whatever conclusion get drawn from it and acted upon will | be remotely nonpartisan. It's sad in a sense, but I think | the only viable solution is to reject any notion of | tracking, no matter how much anyone swears they'll only use | it for what they consider good. | | That said, I may be missing something but I still think | it's less worrisome to hear that private companies are | using information didn't actively hide and provided by | voluntarily using their product (I still don't like it, but | I don't think it should be illegal for a company to say | "we're giving you this tracking device", use it and get a | discount). Compared with the government, given the whole | "monopoly of violence" thing or whatever weaker version you | like, and also as the agent of the people, to be using that | data, I think is a whole different think. Same as there is | a difference between an ISP logging your internet traffic, | and one voluntarily giving that information to the | government and effectively becoming a government agency. | | Anyway, this is going too far astray, and getting too long, | you see my point about the distinction | ChrisLomont wrote: | >and thinks they know better than individuals about risk | tolerance and decisions | | Do you think the average American knows more about these | issues than the CDC? If so, how did they go about getting | their knowledge? | tdfx wrote: | You are absolutely correct from a theoretical standpoint. | Completely neutral, independent medical experts should, on | average, make better health decisions than an uninformed | populace. | | The problem is when we transfer those assumptions to the | real world, all of the most important adjectives in that | prior sentence start to fall apart. The managers in the CDC | are not neutral or independent. They are by and large | bureaucrats who have professional reputations, career | trajectory, office politics, and other competing incentives | that compete and often conflict with their stated goal of | making the "best health decisions" for everyone. | | Simply put, the past 2 years have demonstrated that the | structure of these institutions and their methods of public | communication have lost the public trust and we cannot give | them broad, sweeping powers. | KoftaBob wrote: | Agreed. The data broker that the CDC got this data from is | SafeGraph. What we really should be asking is what "partners" | SafeGraph got this data from, and how. | mensetmanusman wrote: | The government having it is the most scary, because they have a | monopoly on violence. | dfee wrote: | The mental gymnastics of this comment. | | > bound by boards and ethics committees | | Is there any evidence an ethics committee was party to this? If | in fact, one was, they found it ethical to consume personally | identifiable data without those persons' authorization? | renewiltord wrote: | I don't think ethics committees are worth the chairs they sit | on, but "personally identifiable data"? How did you conclude | that it was personally identifiable? | cinntaile wrote: | https://www.cdc.gov/os/integrity/hrpo/index.htm | | I assume this classifies as research so it should be subject | to the same ethical requirements. | peyton wrote: | Going off "CDC's Policy on Distinguishing Public Health | Research and Public Health Nonresearch" linked from that | page, I would guess this activity they'd call | "nonresearch." | cm2187 wrote: | Given the virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes | it has, I am not sure I agree with your assessment that it is | the least scary people. But I agree that the problem here is | not that the CDC is buying it so much that this data is | available to be bought. | iaw wrote: | > Given the virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC | believes it has | | Care to elaborate? CDC has historically been an extremely | powerful organization devoted to the safety of the US public. | sidewndr46 wrote: | The event that is being referred to is probably when the | CDC decided it had the authority to suspend evictions in | the entire United States. It did not, as was decided by the | Supreme Court. | cm2187 wrote: | The same happened with mask mandates. | sidewndr46 wrote: | If you are referring to Health Freedom Defense Fund v. | Biden, I don't think that was the Supreme Court. It was a | federal court. I have no idea if anyone has petitioned | the Supreme Court to hear the case. | bluSCALE4 wrote: | I believe that's in regards to Fauci saying the mandate | reversals by the Supreme Court are unfortunate and should | be left to them to decide. | loceng wrote: | robonerd wrote: | > _along with the Milgram experiment that people should | lookup_ | | Don't bother, the experiment was so unethical it cannot be | replicated properly. Furthermore, the way it was presented | to the public was deceptive; only some of the results were | widely reported and some of those suppressed results draw | into question the popular narrative of the experiments | outcomes. | | For instance, it is popularly claimed in undergrad psych | classes that the Milgram experiments showed people comply | with authority. But what is meant by authority is left | unqualified. In the popularly described versions of the | experiments, the authority ('the experimenter') presented | themselves as a scientist and used appeals to the value of | science to persuade the test subjects ('the teachers'.) | What they never deigned to teach me in my undergrad psych | class is the compliance rates fell when the presentation of | the authority was changed, _and also_ fell when the | experiments were performed away from the context of Yale | University in New Haven. This suggests that people _don 't_ | blindly comply with authority; personal value systems play | a role in determining how likely somebody is to comply with | a particular sort of authority. This seems wholly | unsensational to me; somebody who values science is more | likely to comply with a scientist. Somebody who likes cops | is more likely to comply with cops. And nazi war criminal | Adolf Eichmann enthusiastically complied with nazi | authorities because Eichmann was a nazi (contrary to his | claim of merely following any authority blindly.) | evilduck wrote: | Complaining about negative karma, downvotes, or dislikes is | pretty much the best way to receive more of it. | | Going on the attack against your imagined perception of | your downvoters and then the platform itself and all of its | users is also pretty justifiably worth downvoting. | loceng wrote: | I'm well aware that people who love downvotes will | downvote genuine and thoughtful criticism of something | they love doing. | | It also pulls people out of the woodworks to respond with | something that's lazy. | throwaway82652 wrote: | If there is another forum I would hope similar comments are | also downvoted or deleted there because it's completely | unrelated to the discussion, and you're also taking the | opportunity to take cheap political shots at easy targets. | Don't do that. Dr. Fauci doesn't even work for the CDC. | You're better than this, you don't have to set up these | rhetorical traps to have a discussion. | loceng wrote: | You're narrowing the conversation, gatekeeping the | acceptable scope to "the CDC" in order to make Fauci | irrelevant - when I am looking at the scope of US health | and government institutions - which Fauci is party and | frontman for. | | Don't do that. You're better than this. | user_7832 wrote: | > Fauci as the saviour in Stockholme Syndrome... | | Not a downvoter (to your comment, I rarely vote) but does | anybody pro-mask/pro-vaccine/pro-lockdown actually consider | him a saviour? All I see (as a non American) is folks on | the right hating him being considered a saviour... but I | don't find a single post glorifying him even on left- | leaning reddit. | xapata wrote: | No, the language of "savior" tends to come from religious | extremists. | loceng wrote: | It's just the psychological term used as part of | explaining Stockholm Syndrome behaviour. It doesn't mean | it's conscious behave or a conscious belief. | pstuart wrote: | meh. not the best explanation or even use of the term. | dekhn wrote: | I'm a democrat who finds fauci completely uninteresting. | He's a skillful bureaucrat with health experience but not | an effective communicator. I don't think that listening | to him and doing exactly what he suggests is the wisest | course of action, but it's certainly not the least wise. | pstuart wrote: | Pro-vax, pro-science here. I _respect_ him for trying to | help our society in dealing with infectious disease but | do not worship him (that 's saved only for David Bowie). | | My take on anti-vaxxers is that they have a "religious" | relationship to their belief system and therefor project | their personal assumptions onto others. | pstuart wrote: | I've yet to find any compelling evidence that says that | vaccines do not work (in fact quite the contrary). | | Conversations with anti-vaxxers in my circle are no | different than those of deep religious conviction -- they | believe it because they believe it and nothing can change | their mind. | | Conversely, I'm more than happy to change my mind if | compelling evidence/reasoning presents itself. That's not | happened yet. Now its your turn: explain why vaccines do | not work and how the immune system cannot be trained by | exposure to vaccines. | colinmhayes wrote: | They don't even have the power to study gun violence. | ChrisLomont wrote: | They do, they choose not to. That they cannot by some law | is a myth. Obama even called them out on it. | | Obama also had them author a massive study on all aspects | of gun violence, but the results went quite against what | the Dems wanted to claim, so it got pretty quiet again. | | What happened is they did publish some studies, and one was | quite bad (to this day the author will not release the | dataset, for example), but was invoked for a lot of policy. | Congress chastised them for it, banned them from advocating | public policy, but they did not ban the CDC from studies | (and they still do studies, very few - if you search you | can find them). | Wohlf wrote: | Probably because gun violence isn't a disease, and there's | already several agencies under the DoJ for that. | smt88 wrote: | The DoJ is not a research institution, and the CDC | doesn't only study disease. They study all threats to | public health, including smoking, heat waves, and bicycle | accidents. | colinmhayes wrote: | sure, just saying that | | >virtually unlimited executive powers the CDC believes it | has | | is not true | giantg2 wrote: | Actually they do. They have performed some firearms | research in recent years. The restriction is just that the | money cannot be spent on studies looking to support gun | control. They choose to err on the side of caution and | limit the studies rather than seek clarification through | the courts on what would constitute supporting a policy. | | https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/funded- | resea... | chaps wrote: | What does this have to do with anything? | Geonode wrote: | The CDC declared gun violence a public health crisis and | started butting into the issue with their "We are | science" attitude. | dontcare007 wrote: | Problem is that once they use it for a benign reason, use of | the data will expand into other, less palatable uses. | mywittyname wrote: | The _problem_ is that this data is available for anyone to | purchase. And _anyone_ includes groups that you don 't want | to have it. | | Some people focus their attention on limiting the | government's ability to collect this information, but just go | about ignoring businesses being legally allowed to keep and | sell this data. Now the government is leveraging privatized | markets for all of their spying needs and it is neatly kept | out of the courts. | | As the article points out, it wasn't just the CDC performing | these kinds of analysis. News organizations were doing the | same thing. | | If we want to curb government surveillance, we need to curb | _corporate_ surveillance by legally enshrining a right to | privacy that limits the information that companies can | collect and sell. Which, ironically, will mean government | regulation and enforcement. | TheCoelacanth wrote: | How could you even prevent the government from accessing | the data if any random company with a few bucks can get it? | | If you had really strong safeguards, maybe you can stop the | government from accessing it directly but what kind of | safeguards are going to stop contractors of contractors of | contractors from doing what every other private company | does? | cmroanirgo wrote: | The _problem_ could also be said to start with software. | Particularly Apple and Google for allowing specific | location information to be used in the same app as | advertising. The _problem_ is that all apps are granted | access to the internet. | | Nip those two things in the bud and the problems will slow | down, I think. But it's a pipe-dream, I know. | | In the early days of Android, I remember reading that | Android was Android because you had to jump through all | these permission hoops with j2me (Java 2 Mobile Edition). | Hence, Android was better and more easy to use than j2me. | Here we are, 15 years later with exactly the same set of | permissions problems... with one exception, Android still | gives out internet access without permission. Many devs | here would be aghast at the idea of an app not being | internet connected. | | I believe Google did it that way because Steve Jobs had | done it that way in the iPod and iPhones. (I presume | there's some HN'ers here that can refute this?) I remember | my colleagues at the time remarking how refreshing it was | to not have to deal with permissions (because customers | disliked all the modal permissions that popped up in | j2me)... and we all jumped on board the iPhone and Android | development train, not knowing the problems that we'd have | down the line. | landemva wrote: | More than one facet to the problem and potential solutions. | How about... | | The problem is this data is not owned by the individual. | | Which will mean government guidelines and optional private | enforcement via lawsuit with meaningful minimum penalties. | Proven wrote: | LorenPechtel wrote: | Yeah. I have no problem with researchers getting anonymized | data. CDC, snoop all you want. It's the business guys I don't | like having it. | chrisco255 wrote: | Right, because governments have never done anything wrong in | the history of the world. It's all those evil business guys. | nickff wrote: | Governments have a long and storied record of data abuse, | from the Stasi in East Germany to LoveInt at the CIA. | tablespoon wrote: | >> Yeah. I have no problem with researchers getting | anonymized data. CDC, snoop all you want. It's the business | guys I don't like having it. | | > Governments have a long and storied record of data abuse, | from the Stasi in East Germany to LoveInt at the CIA. | | "Governments" is far too coarse-grained of a category; it | invites sloppy thinking. | ChrisLomont wrote: | They also have a long and storied history of helping the | public avoid widespread disasters and preventing larger | outbreaks of disease through using data. | | Which of these is more common and useful? | lucb1e wrote: | Of course one has to keep government( agencie)s in check, | but to compare the CDC to the Stasi.... I don't know if | that's really an apt or appropriate comparison | modriano wrote: | Humans have a long and storied record of using tools and | information to do malicious things. But we also have a long | and storied record of using tools and information to | produce the incredible advances of the past few centuries, | where the median life expectancy has nearly doubled from | the baseline over the past 50k years. | | Personally, I would really prefer a system where health | information was centralized and easily transferrable to | healthcare providers, as I think it would be massively | better if we could learn from the bad outcomes of others | rather than creating thousands of information silos that | have to learn these expensive lessons in parallel, and it | would also allow us to know the prices of healthcare | services thereby enabling efficient markets to develop. | chaps wrote: | Are you suggesting that this location information is | "health" data and is okay for them to use and store? | jonathankoren wrote: | Yes. Location data is health data. It has been since | 1854. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_o | utb... | arcticbull wrote: | Right, because businesses have never done anything bad with | data, it's all those government guys. The government of | course being the one tasked with improving the health and | welfare of the population, not with turning a profit. | bendbro wrote: | pirate787 wrote: | The U.S. Govt used individuals' Census data to round up | Japanese-Americans for FDR's World War II internment camps. | They also lied about it and claimed that they were only | using anonymized data. | | https://exhibits.lib.berkeley.edu/spotlight/census/feature/ | j... | Nextgrid wrote: | Yes, but those threats already exist regardless and | stopping the sale of carrier data won't stop them. | | Ideally you'd want to stop both, but if I had to choose I'd | prefer that only the government has access rather than the | highest bidder (which can be the government if they so | desire, so in the end you're back at square one anyway). | maerF0x0 wrote: | Did you know there are many classes of crime that follow | the pattern you spoke of "It already exists out there, | and will persist even if I stop, I'm not creating it just | propagating it..." | | One pretty nasty example would be revenge porn. | | a lesser one would be piracy of copyright material | alephxyz wrote: | OC's point is that the data was _already_ being used for other | less palatable uses. | vmception wrote: | > perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of | people visiting K-12 schools, _and specifically monitor the | effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation_ | | what? one of these is not like the other | prepend wrote: | I'm not sure how this is a story as mobility data has been shown | on the cdc COVID data tracker web site for over a year [0] that | lists the source. | | (disclosure, I did not work on these data) | | [0] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#mobility | teeray wrote: | This data needs to be a liability for companies to hold onto | rather than an asset | bob1029 wrote: | The only way to make this data a liability would be to create | consequences for its possession or dissemination. | | In the financial sector, I feel like a lot of really good | progress has been made with regard to creating artificial | forces that strongly encourage proper behavior around PII and | other sensitive data. Just take a look at PCI-DSS for a good | example of the lengths you _could_ go to in order to protect a | customer 's assets and/or identity. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | Google had a creepy Covid functionality that automatically | downloaded without my consent to my phone. | | Big tech is just chomping at the bit for the government to give | them the go ahead to track everyone and enforce a 'papers please' | society. | verdverm wrote: | I'm on a Pixel and Google Fi, no such thing happened to me. Are | there other entities that might have hand their hand in this? | (State, Telco, phone manufacturer) | bsuvc wrote: | Maybe they are referring to the "COVID-19 Exposure | Notifications" setting. | | Im using a Pixel too, and you can see the toggle if you go to | Settings, then select Google. | | Mine is toggled off, and I don't really know he details of | how it works, but it seems like you need to download some | official COVID reporting app to enable it. | lkbm wrote: | You probably have it, but it's just a feature. In this case, | it's a default-off feature that allows contact tracing in a | particular region if you actively choose to enable that. | | Google ships features to my phone with every major update. | This is just one more--completely opt-in--feature. | newbamboo wrote: | On the other hand, we could have a zero Covid planet. A place | without pandemics. Bill Gates is the hero we need. | JacobThreeThree wrote: | >we could have a zero Covid planet | | No we couldn't have. It's never been done in history and is | probably impossible to do. | muzika wrote: | OP was being sarcastic. | newbamboo wrote: | Will you read his new book?[0] | | If anyone were in a position to know whether it's | possible, and how to do it, he'd be on the list. | | I think, regardless of his history regarding open source, | water under the bridge long ago, he is worth taking | seriously if we want to be prepared for the next one, | which may come soon. | | [0] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704751/how- | to-preve... | _Microft wrote: | What about SARS-Cov? The first one, not SARS-Cov-2. | LorenPechtel wrote: | There are animal hosts, we can't get rid of it. | jerkstate wrote: | Of course we can, the question is, at what cost? | giantg2 wrote: | That seems to be theoretical. Are there any examples of | eradicating a zoonotic disease that caused a pandemic | (without it going away naturally)? | spookthesunset wrote: | Zero Covid was and always will be a scam. | Enginerrrd wrote: | There was probably a window in time when cases were less | than a few thousand or so when such a thing could have been | possible. That's the real game in fighting emerging | diseases. Early detection, identification of reservoirs and | rapid vaccine development and aggressive isolation and ring | vaccination if possible. | | But I agree, it's absolutely laughable to think enforced | social distancing could ever control a fully airborne | disease, already so widespread, and with an R_0 over 4, | especially now with the current rate of emergence of | immunity escaping variants. Check out BA.4 and BA.5 in | south africa right now, both of which seem to elude | immunity from BA.1 just 6 months after Omicron's emergence. | KerrAvon wrote: | Sure, it would have originally been rational to try to | contain it until widespread vaccination could happen. | That was no longer an option as soon as: | | (a) Trump decided that his followers should treat it by | injecting bleach, fish tank cleaner, and horse dewormer | (b) the WHO and the CDC decided it wasn't an airborne | disease because apparently they were still relying on | research from 1949 C.E. (c) the CDC decided not to tell | Americans that masks were effective (because they didn't | want panic buying) (d) Biden's COVID czar decided to | ostrich the whole thing | | Now we're just fucked; everyone will get it, the question | is how many times and how bad the next variants. And | whether we'll ever develop effective treatment for long | covid. | LorenPechtel wrote: | It was simply a feature that downloaded. It did nothing if you | didn't turn it on. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | > It did nothing if you didn't turn it on. | | How do you know though? Google is constantly tracking your | every move by default without you turning anything on. | | So even if this feature had an on/off it was more by the | grace of Google than by any strongly enforced anti-tracking | feature. | lkbm wrote: | > Google is constantly tracking your every move by default | without you turning anything on. | | They are. And you decided to take issue with a default-off | feature instead. Of all the tracking features your phone | has, this one seems like the least creepy. It's not like | they're "asking consent" for every other feature they ship. | kurupt213 wrote: | Time to go back to leaving the phone at home, like when it was | wired to the house | StanislavPetrov wrote: | Faraday bags are quite inexpensive. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-03 23:00 UTC)