Bruce Schneier: Contact Tracing Covid-19 Infections via Smartphone Apps

schneier.com

12 points·tony-allan··4 comments

Schneier makes an excellent point about the usefulness of the contact tracing apps that I (personally) haven't seen much elsewhere.

> As long as 1) every contact does not result in an infection, and 2) a large percentage of people with the disease are asymptomatic and don't realize they have it, I can't see how this sort of app is valuable. If we had cheap, fast, and accurate testing for everyone on demand...maybe. But I still don't think so.

> So I agree [...] that this is primarily an exercise in that false syllogism: Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do it. It's techies proposing tech solutions to what is primarily a social problem.

You're absolutely right. 10X for point 1. Millions of people are carrying this virus by now. Most (probably 99.99% of "contacts" do not result in transmission), and the virus is airborne ffs, it could easily blow down wind and somebody could catch it. Are these apps accounting for this too?

Honestly how accurate do they expect these apps to be?

Absolute waste of time. Nerds with too much time on their hands.

This is absolutely dumb. You can't solve every problem with an app.

Contact tracing apps (especially those that respect privacy) are just one tool, even given the limitation that a Bluetooth LE ping by itself does not prove a person to person contact.

I will be interested to see if they ultimately are of any benefit. Perhaps not, but we don't have effective testing, treatment or a vaccine yet.

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