Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

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> - Turn the HN angry mob mode off - it’s not helpful. We’re all in this together.

I actually believe this is helpful. Just in any democratic setting you want different types of players. You want the "burn the system down" people, because they provide harsh critiques and don't hold back. You want the "okay, but I have reservations" people, because they will push forward but also consider what they are doing (and will likely whistleblow if things get out of hand). You want the loyalists because they will push forward despite criticism. The trick is that you need a balance of these people (and the unmentioned players).

Specifically here I don't think we've even answered the question of "should we have contact tracing apps?" Because of this, I do think having that angry mob is helpful. They loyalists will push forward building it but the mob will help us decide if we even want that technology in our society. If we decide we do, we'll have it. If we decide we don't, well we'll know better how they would be designed.

__Being critical of those in power is a keystone to democracy.__

The Australian governments track record is bad and we should be critical of that. But I have yet to see important problems with this particular app identified. Lets stick with the facts here rather than 'it must be bad'. People have decompiled the kotlin code and so far I haven't seen anyone report anything bad. Am I missing something?

If we have zero other information about the app other than the creator, that’s the only reasonable thing to base our options on. Aka, if all you know is the software is written by a malware company, would you run it?

I am perfectly willing to change my opinion if given more information, but until then...

That’s a massive understatement. More accurate words describing the government’s track record would be “screwup, coverup, deceit, malicious”.

At every single point in the past where they have had the chance to deal with technology they have done one or more of the following: 1. Screwed up, and then tried to cover it up. 2. Outright lied. 3. Created malicious laws that mandate violating privacy and makes it illegal to tell the truth about it.

Basically they have proven numerous times that they can’t be trusted with technology or privacy.

My feeling is that they are getting it right this time, as science and medicine is still trumping politics in Australia's COVID response. (Though that's beginning to change.)

Getting it right this time means the Government doesn't have any excuses going forward.

Overall Australia is genuinely doing a great job in relation to COVID, mainly because the Government had the good sense to put the experts center stage and give them real authority. Most Australians have spotted this break with the past and have unified to contain COVID. Going forward, maybe the nation can keep sanity in government and avoid the political parties again taking over the asylum?

I agree that the government’s handling of covid-19 has mostly been surprisingly competent in a pleasant way.

It has certainly changed my opinion of them. I used to think that they were out of touch and incompetent, but now I think they can be competent and highly effective when they care, I just don’t think they care about privacy one bit.

My hope is that now Australians have seen what is possible there will be no going back to the old ways.

Requiring a phone number may be in breach of existing legislation, particularly that which resulted from the No vote to the Australia Card in the 80's. Those anti-id laws were ratified in 2005/2006.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

This tech can and should be using crypto random hashes rather than phone numbers. The authorities don't need to call anyone, let the app and the fully anonymous central db do it's job to notify others that they need to get tested.

Particularly when we can't (easily) have disposable or non-identifying phone numbers in Australia: https://www.acma.gov.au/acmas-rules-id-checks-prepaid-mobile...

See s477(5) of the Biosecurity Act 2015.

"Being critical of those in power is a keystone to democracy."

That may be so for an ideal democracy but with our far-from-perfect ones where the power imbalance inevitably favors the incumbents, precious little ever changes.

I think this is because people lost sight. Right now parties are often associated with peoples' identities. So being critical to a member of a party is seen as being critical to the identity of that person. We forgot that no single representative can ever capture our beliefs 100%. Which I don't understand, because it would be insane to believe that any other human being understands you perfectly. I don't care if you've been married for 50 years.

But forgetting this is a tactic of divide and rule. My team vs your team. I can tell you as someone that is pretty vocal about my distaste for parties that I am still frequently lumped into the opposing team of whoever I'm talking to as soon as I disagree.

Critique is a keystone to democracy, but it isn't the only one. Unity is as well. But unity doesn't mean we have to agree. Unity means that we recognize that we're on the same team and trying to make our country better, even if we disagree with the methods. It is recognizing that we can't hold all the answers, we're human after all, and that to get closer to the objective reality we need to consider many positions. But that's divide and rule's bread and butter.

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