Re: Privacy-protecting contact tracer for COVID-19?

On 3/29/20 6:01 AM, Ouri Poupko wrote:
> We are not trying to invent personal tracking. Google already tracks all
> of us. We are trying to change the way we are being tracked to avoid all
> the concerns that you raised. I think we share the same concerns.

+1 to Ouri, and +1 to what Michael and Paola said as well.

No one has said that this is going to be an easy problem to solve.

No one has said that all we need is a technological solution.

No one has said that we should devalue the social and psychological
implications of any technology that we create.

We have a community that is trying their best to explore the problem
space. Yes, some of the solutions are overly complicated. Yes, some of
the proposals could lead to horrendous abuse. That's why we're
discussing them here, out in the open, with 346+ people looking into the
discussion and providing their expertise and feedback where they can.

For those of you that are new to this process -- this is how the next
stage of the Web and the Internet is built. It's built by a community of
individuals, each bringing their expertise to bear on the problem,
debating the problem and solutions, resulting in a consensus position
that we think will scale to global society.

If we fail to come to consensus, there will be no solution proposed by
us and someone else will solve the problems of today.

If history is any indication, the default is to build a solution that is
centralized, privacy-eroding, and eventually compromised resulting in
harm to society. We can either step back and increase the chances of
that happening, or we can try to do something about it.

Remember that this community has created global Internet and Web
standards before, which are currently influencing global governmental
policy, we have a track record of doing that. If we choose to do that
again for COVID-19, I expect that we'll see some level of success *if*
the technology we build is privacy-preserving, socially and
psychologically aware, and technically sound.

So, yes, be concerned, wring your hands in uncertainty, but don't let
that stop you from proposing a half-baked idea that might just turn into
what all of us need right now.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Veres One Decentralized Identifier Blockchain Launches
https://tinyurl.com/veres-one-launches

Received on Sunday, 29 March 2020 14:06:39 UTC