When will this shit end?

[Chapple12345]

1 minute ago, Mr.Tease said:

That's been one of the daftest things about the whole covid 19 thing - the near complete absence of international cooperation and planning, feels very much like its everyone for themselves. 

A few vaccine searches are starting to pool resources (eg Oxford has teamed up with researchers in Brazil as it makes more sense to test the vaccine there as the infection rates are currently higher), but can't help but feel if some research companies had done basic stuff like shared control groups they could have sped up some of the research. 

Agreed, for everyone that's been saying 'we're all in this together' there seems to be a lot of countries that are just supporting themselves and no one else, I get its a time of personal crisis for many but a bit of co-operation wouldn't go amiss 

[Mr.Tease]

1 minute ago, Cream Soda said:

Yeah.  Seems weird that only South Korea have an app but no one else has managed it.  Maybe its not all it's cracked up to be? Which would be odd seeing as the success of controlling the virus there has been largely attributed to the app.  Baffles me why they would not share it if its effective as it benefits everyone to sort this situation out asap.  Same goes for vaccines as you say.

This tweet would suggest other countries have working apps:

I know China does, not sure what the score is in Europe 

[Cream Soda]

2 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

This tweet would suggest other countries have working apps:

I know China does, not sure what the score is in Europe 

Even more baffling as to why we don't team up and use one of those then if they are working well.

[dotdash79]

Germany has

[incident]

6 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Do Apple and Google actually have an app, or is it an API?

An API.

Which obviously is a long way short of being an app.

From what I remember, apps that wish to use the API need to meet a whole load of criteria and submit themselves to more rigorous testing than is typical.

I hate to almost seem like I'm defending them, but in terms of what the government actually said today, they're correct. They've run into a brick wall placed there by Apple.

Where they actually do deserve a lot of criticism, is that everything they said today, they knew months ago or certainly should have as nearly every expert out there (and Apple themselves) were telling them they'd hit this exact problem.

[Ozanne]

20 minutes ago, incident said:

An API.

Which obviously is a long way short of being an app.

From what I remember, apps that wish to use the API need to meet a whole load of criteria and submit themselves to more rigorous testing than is typical.

I hate to almost seem like I'm defending them, but in terms of what the government actually said today, they're correct. They've run into a brick wall placed there by Apple.

Where they actually do deserve a lot of criticism, is that everything they said today, they knew months ago or certainly should have as nearly every expert out there (and Apple themselves) were telling them they'd hit this exact problem.

They knew about this more than months ago, they knew about this all the way back in 2018 when they set up the EU Settled Status scheme. So they’ve wasted time on something they knew all about, it’s unfair to then turn around, point the finger at Apple and blame them. iOS will never be an open system like Android so why they thought they could get round it I don’t know. 
 

If we have also backed ‘both horses’ then where is this other app, it isn’t ready because we didn’t back ‘both horses’ as early as they said. This is from the Tech Correspondent at The Times:

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Ozanne

[incident]

Wow, that seems a bit over defensive. But for what it's worth -

NFC and Bluetooth are different things - and so we're talking about an entirely different artificial restriction here. Apple did relent on the use of NFC in the end for what it's worth, so that might be part of the reason they thought they could get around it.

 

Regarding "both horses" - that tweet is wrong. Hancock didn't say they've "always" backed both horses - he outright said they took the decision "in May".

[efcfanwirral]

41 minutes ago, Cream Soda said:

I wonder how well that one works.  If it's good it would make sense to share it with the rest of the world to save wasting more time and money developing something that already exists.

 

33 minutes ago, Cream Soda said:

Yeah.  Seems weird that only South Korea have an app but no one else has managed it.  Maybe its not all it's cracked up to be? Which would be odd seeing as the success of controlling the virus there has been largely attributed to the app.  Baffles me why they would not share it if its effective as it benefits everyone to sort this situation out asap.  Same goes for vaccines as you say.

I doubt our government would have anything to do with an app created by an Asian nation. They seem to be reluctant at the idea of using an American company.

Even if it was offered and perfect, it wouldn't happen. 

I still believe this aversion to masks is unconsciously because the only people we normally see wearing them are "others" 

[Ozanne]

7 minutes ago, incident said:

Wow, that seems a bit over defensive. But for what it's worth -

NFC and Bluetooth are different things - and so we're talking about an entirely different artificial restriction here. Apple did relent on the use of NFC in the end for what it's worth, so that might be part of the reason they thought they could get around it.

 

Regarding "both horses" - that tweet is wrong. Hancock didn't say they've "always" backed both horses - he outright said they took the decision "in May".

Over defensive? Sorry I just don’t like being lied to over and over.

Hancock said ‘After we started work on our app, Google & Apple started work on their own product and as soon as they did this we began working on both.’

 

In their press release on the 10th April, Apple provided links to their draft API Framework documentation, as well as other specifications, which suggests they’d been working on it long before NHSX. Google and Apple were ready with their solution before the U.K. Gov ordered their own, not during. Gov was told of restrictions of iOS, unless they used the ‘Gapple’ solution. They ignored and are now choosing to blame Apple for political reasons, rather than take the blame for choosing the wrong strategy.

[incident]

Don't get me wrong, the government did fuck up big time on this (and on most other things).

But to try and pretend that Apple are innocent from criticism in this is just bizarre. They could, and should, have done more - the APIs exist (and are used by Apples own apps). It'd be a relatively trivial thing to make them available to National Healthcare organisations.

There's a reason that plenty other countries, including Germany who are often held up as an example of getting it right, also initially started trying for a centralised model. The difference is that those countries realised that they'd have no choice but to switch quicker than we did.

Essentially - the government fucked up by pushing an approach that wasn't going to happen, but Apple certainly could and should have allowed the approach.

[Ozanne]

50 minutes ago, incident said:

Don't get me wrong, the government did fuck up big time on this (and on most other things).

But to try and pretend that Apple are innocent from criticism in this is just bizarre. They could, and should, have done more - the APIs exist (and are used by Apples own apps). It'd be a relatively trivial thing to make them available to National Healthcare organisations.

There's a reason that plenty other countries, including Germany who are often held up as an example of getting it right, also initially started trying for a centralised model. The difference is that those countries realised that they'd have no choice but to switch quicker than we did.

Essentially - the government fucked up by pushing an approach that wasn't going to happen, but Apple certainly could and should have allowed the approach.

They are hardly the ones to blame for this, if we knew that they weren’t going to open up the ecosystem then why press ahead and waste time. If they had changed their tune about it half way through then yes they would be to blame but they didn’t. They have a different offering which could’ve been taken up.

 

Its their own system if they don’t want to open it up then that’s their own choice. I’d rather go with an offering from Apple knowing their privacy and security parameters than a Government one. Either way looks like we won’t have that issue anyway. 

[incident]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

Its their own system if they don’t want to open it up then that’s their own choice.

That's ture, and yes it is their choice - but ultimately it means they've taken a choice to not do everything they can in the midst of a global pandemic.

For me, that's a pretty shitty approach for them to take.

[Radiochicken]

29 minutes ago, incident said:

That's ture, and yes it is their choice - but ultimately it means they've taken a choice to not do everything they can in the midst of a global pandemic.

For me, that's a pretty shitty approach for them to take.

It’s a shitty approach for the two of the biggest technology companies in the world to work together (hard enough) to create a standardised approach for any government to use in a way which would make a solution interoperable, built directing into the operating systems, and address extremely valid privacy concerns. But no, they should “just open everything up”?!

[incident]

12 minutes ago, Radiochicken said:

It’s a shitty approach for the two of the biggest technology companies in the world to work together (hard enough) to create a standardised approach for any government to use in a way which would make a solution interoperable, built directing into the operating systems, and address extremely valid privacy concerns. But no, they should “just open everything up”?!

Nobody said "just open everything up". Or even close to it..

They could, quite easily, allow access to the full APIs just to a specific type of organisation within a defined set of rules - and in the process keep their own privacy policy intact. Instead, they've chosen to offer a heavily watered down version.

[Radiochicken]

16 minutes ago, incident said:

Nobody said "just open everything up". Or even close to it..

They could, quite easily, allow access to the full APIs just to a specific type of organisation within a defined set of rules - and in the process keep their own privacy policy intact. Instead, they've chosen to offer a heavily watered down version.

Sorry you’re right - not quite sure where I got that from other than exaggerating for effect! My bad! 

When you say full APIs, what are you saying they haven’t given governments access to but should’ve (and wouldn’t have resulted in the privacy concerns)? 

[incident]

2 minutes ago, Radiochicken said:

When you say full APIs, what are you saying they haven’t given governments access to but should’ve (and wouldn’t have resulted in the privacy concerns)? 

To start with, Risk Level is where I think Apple could definitely have done a lot more without introducing any further privacy issues. Essentially the Apple/Google API determines a "transmission risk level" of 1, 2, or 3 which is calculated based on length of exposure and relative (bluetooth) signal strength during that time. This is stored in the local app along with an anonymised identifier for the other person.

The big problem I have with that is that because it's a calculated and vastly simplified value, it lacks context and can't subsequently be reassessed. It'd be better if they were using the actual numbers (strength+time), so that as risk becomes better understood then the calculation can be changed - something that's considered minimal risk today might be considered high risk if a new report comes out. Or vica versa. Or it might be determined that a particular area is a hotspot, so an exposure that's considered risk level 1 in Truro might be treated as risk level 3 in Manchester.

[stuartbert two hats]

2 minutes ago, incident said:

To start with, Risk Level is where I think Apple could definitely have done a lot more without introducing any further privacy issues. Essentially the Apple/Google API determines a "transmission risk level" of 1, 2, or 3 which is calculated based on length of exposure and relative (bluetooth) signal strength during that time. This is stored in the local app along with an anonymised identifier for the other person.

The big problem I have with that is that because it's a calculated and vastly simplified value, it lacks context and can't subsequently be reassessed. It'd be better if they were using the actual numbers (strength+time), so that as risk becomes better understood then the calculation can be changed - something that's considered minimal risk today might be considered high risk if a new report comes out. Or vica versa. Or it might be determined that a particular area is a hotspot, so an exposure that's considered risk level 1 in Truro might be treated as risk level 3 in Manchester.

Any links to further reading on this?

[dingbat2]

I am probably on my own here, but I dont give a shit about my privacy at the moment, I am more worried about doing everything I can to reduce the risk to me, my family and my mother to survive this thing. If any government organisation or conglomerate wants to harvest information from  me then go for it, as long as me and my family are alive if and when this ends. You can feed me with targeted advertising as much as you want, you can steal my identity if you want , at least my family and I will be alive to have a living identity to steal when this ends

Edited June 18, 2020 by dingbat2

[incident]

7 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Any links to further reading on this?

Google have a fairly extensive page on it here. Apple have a page here but with less background information, it just dives straight into the nuts and bolts. It works the essentially same way on both platforms so what's stated on one can be assumed correct for the other.

[incident]

2 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

I am probably on my own here, but I dont give a shit about my privacy at the moment, I am more worried about doing everything we can to reduce the risk to for me, my family and my mother to survive this thing. If any government organisation or conglomerate wants to harvest information from  me then go for it, as long as me and my family are alive if and when this ends. You can feed me with targeted advertising as much as you want, you can steal my identity if you want , at least my family and I will be alive to have a live identity to steal. 

I wouldn't say I agree with that, but I do have some sympathy with the perspective.

However, where that approach falls down, is that a contact tracing app is only useful if it achieves a decent level of penetration, and so privacy does have to be an important factor. If someone doesn't trust the app, then they'll probably refuse to install it (a certain number will refuse anyway because they're paranoid fucks). If enough people refuse to install it, then you're not going to get the risk reduction you want.

[DeanoL]

3 hours ago, incident said:

Don't get me wrong, the government did fuck up big time on this (and on most other things).

But to try and pretend that Apple are innocent from criticism in this is just bizarre. They could, and should, have done more - the APIs exist (and are used by Apples own apps). It'd be a relatively trivial thing to make them available to National Healthcare organisations.

There's a reason that plenty other countries, including Germany who are often held up as an example of getting it right, also initially started trying for a centralised model. The difference is that those countries realised that they'd have no choice but to switch quicker than we did.

Essentially - the government fucked up by pushing an approach that wasn't going to happen, but Apple certainly could and should have allowed the approach.

Out of interest, would you say access to all of that data should be made available to all governments in all countries where iPhones exist? Or just the governments that we think can be trusted?

Because there's some very good reasons Apple might not want to say "yes" to the UK and "no" to Russia.

[incident]

1 minute ago, DeanoL said:

Out of interest, would you say access to all of that data should be made available to all governments in all countries where iPhones exist? Or just the governments that we think can be trusted?

Because there's some very good reasons Apple might not want to say "yes" to the UK and "no" to Russia.

You'll probably work through the thread and see this, but I'm absolutely not saying that all data should be available. Just that more could be done without affecting the privacy implications.

[Cream Soda]

14 minutes ago, dingbat2 said:

I am probably on my own here, but I dont give a shit about my privacy at the moment, I am more worried about doing everything I can to reduce the risk to me, my family and my mother to survive this thing. If any government organisation or conglomerate wants to harvest information from  me then go for it, as long as me and my family are alive if and when this ends. You can feed me with targeted advertising as much as you want, you can steal my identity if you want , at least my family and I will be alive to have a living identity to steal when this ends

 It would be disgusting and wrong of any company or government to exploit a crisis to do anything nefarious like that. We are all concerned about the virus of course, but I won't let fear consume me to the point where I let these basic standards go out the window. Plus as incident points out, it wouldn't work anyway as many simply wouldn't download something that overstepped the line unnecessarily. 

[dingbat2]

21 minutes ago, incident said:

I wouldn't say I agree with that, but I do have some sympathy with the perspective.

However, where that approach falls down, is that a contact tracing app is only useful if it achieves a decent level of penetration, and so privacy does have to be an important factor. If someone doesn't trust the app, then they'll probably refuse to install it (a certain number will refuse anyway because they're paranoid fucks). If enough people refuse to install it, then you're not going to get the risk reduction you want.

Absolutely, its all about privacy v effectiveness, I would happily forfeit a lot of my privacy if it would improve the effectiveness of any app and improve me and my families chances of getting over this. The drivr for me is all about maximising effectiveness rather than maintaining my rights to privacy

[Ozanne]

3 hours ago, incident said:

That's ture, and yes it is their choice - but ultimately it means they've taken a choice to not do everything they can in the midst of a global pandemic.

For me, that's a pretty shitty approach for them to take.

Sorry I don’t agree with this at all. Gapple are working together in the midst of this crises when normally they wouldn’t. They are working to put together a piece of software that can uniformly be used around the word. But because it’s not perfectly for what the Tories want it’s a ‘shitty approach’. You know they could’ve done nothing and left it to the governments round the world but they aren’t. 
 

If today Hancock had just said that they tried to build their own but couldn’t quite get it to work after extensive testing so they are going to look at Gapples one. Then fair enough. But they had to go for the route where they blame others just so they don’t take any blame at all.