big scary monsters posted:

I don't think that's true of Microsoft's offerings. Teams is wank and Skype for Business too, but AFAIK you pay Microsoft for the licenses and that's the product, not your data.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52095331 posted:

A coronavirus app that alerts people if they have recently been in contact with someone testing positive for the virus "could play a critical role" in limiting lockdowns, scientists advising the government have said.

The location-tracking tech would enable a week's worth of manual detective work to be done in an instant, they say.

But the academics say no-one should be forced to enrol - at least initially.

UK health chiefs have confirmed they are exploring the idea.

"NHSX is looking at whether app-based solutions might be helpful in tracking and managing coronavirus, and we have assembled expertise from inside and outside the organisation to do this as rapidly as possible," said the tech-focused division's chief Matthew Gould.

Instant alerts
The study by the team at the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Population Health was published in the journal Science.

It proposes that an app would record people's GPS location data as they move about their daily lives. This would be supplemented by users scanning QR (quick response) codes posted to public amenities in places where a GPS signal is inadequate, as well as Bluetooth signals.

If a person starts feeling ill, it is suggested they use the app to request a home test. And if it comes back positive for Covid-19, then an instant signal would be sent to everyone they had been in close contact with over recent days.

Those people would be advised to self-isolate for a fortnight, but would not be told who had triggered the warning.

In addition, the test subject's workplace and their transport providers could be told to carry out a decontamination clean-up.

"The constrictions that we're currently under place [many people] under severe strain," said the paper's co-lead Prof Christophe Fraser.

"Therefore if you have the ability with a bit more information and the use of an app to relax a lockdown, that could provide very substantial and direct benefits.

"Also I think a substantial number of lives can be saved."

To encourage take-up, it is suggested the app also acts as a hub for coronavirus-related health services and serves as a means to request food and medicine deliveries.

The academics note that similar smartphone software has already been deployed in China. It was also voluntary there, but users were allowed to go into public spaces or on public transport only if they had installed it.

[article continues]

endlessmonotony posted:

Doesn't mean you aren't giving Microsoft access according to their, uh, versatile privacy policy.

Now they're not supposed to use that data and have proper security controls over the access. Which requires you to trust Microsoft has invested significant money into vetting everyone with access and making sure the access controls work properly under all conditions.

blunt posted:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52095331

Looks like it's almost time for a game of "how much is your privacy worth".

willie_dee posted:

Everyone should also tell their loved ones how they feel about them, I get that it feels that stuff will never happen to them, but that's how most people feel, then it does, and then its too late.

JeremoudCorbynejad posted:

I don't wanna sound like an arse but is there some way to disable all the crap that appears under people's avatars without disabling the avatars themselves

It's fine in the app but on my desktop my middle finger is getting tired of mousewheeling

Guavanaut posted:

If you look at that Zoom meeting screenshot they're also using Outlook for all of their emails, so if you don't trust Microsoft they're already hosed.

This is supposed to be why government offices were moving towards open source stuff (as well as meaning that charities could correspond with them without needing to buy Office) but I see that's gone well.

Azza Bamboo posted:

How does the app monitor who you are in contact with? Does it know if you are in regular contact with extremists? Does it measure your speed on roads? Does it have a dead man's switch that checks you haven't put the phone away?

Guavanaut posted:

My phone can't even tell which direction I'm facing on roads, I've driven halfway to Liverpool with the phone saying I was going sideways up the M6.

OwlFancier posted:

Were you doing an extremely long drift?

Munin posted:

What is the Zoom alternative?

Also, what makes Zoom as a company especially lovely compared to the competition?

Munin posted:

What is the Zoom alternative?

Also, what makes Zoom as a company especially lovely compared to the competition?

pumpinglemma posted:

As far as I can tell basically nothing. They pass your data to Google Ads (which isn't great but I'm pretty sure every free service does similar), and they have a feature where the host of a meeting can get an alert if you defocus the window for 30 seconds (which is apparently Unacceptable Spying on Your Data).

pumpinglemma posted:

As far as I can tell basically nothing. They pass your data to Google Ads (which isn't great but I'm pretty sure every free service does similar), and they have a feature where the host of a meeting can get an alert if you defocus the window for 30 seconds (which is apparently Unacceptable Spying on Your Data).

sebzilla posted:

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1244985949534199808

tag urself

Guavanaut posted:

Speaking of Microsoft my loving comfort mouse just fell to bits which is a great start.

Azza Bamboo posted:

How does the app monitor who you are in contact with? Does it know if you are in regular contact with extremists? Does it measure your speed on roads? Does it have a dead man's switch that checks you haven't put the phone away?

Guavanaut posted:

If you look at that Zoom meeting screenshot they're also using Outlook for all of their emails, so if you don't trust Microsoft they're already hosed.

This is supposed to be why government offices were moving towards open source stuff (as well as meaning that charities could correspond with them without needing to buy Office) but I see that's gone well.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

It's an interesting thought experiment in secure/anonymous app design. The worst way (so the way it's *definitely* going to be designed) would be to have it upload realtime location data to a centralised server, which then just backtracks your journey and snags all of the people who had the same location at the same time as you. The reason (other than privacy) this is the worst way of doing it is that GPS data has a *way* bigger margin of error than safe social distance so you'll end up snagging a thousand people on a train going past 200 yards away, not to mention the additional strain on battery and data it'll take.

Off the top of my head, a way to do it with decent privacy (although possibly with worse battery use and *potentially* some individualised security issues) would be to assign each user a unique ID which is then broadcast via the bluetooth radio (almost all modern phones should be capable of keeping up a connection to headphones etc. while doing this), with each phone keeping a two-week log of all of the IDs it came within range of. If you test positive, they grab all of those IDs and then look them up to contact people who've been within range of you. Still not ideal in that in good conditions that could still be someone 20 or so metres away but should at least mostly avoid people just driving past. This would also be heavily hardware-dependent (and could end up taking up a lot of storage space) so is also less-than-optimal.

Another way could be to keep your own location data private on the phone. If you test positive, HMG get the mobile phone companies to push out a notification to every handset that had been on the same tower as you at the same time with your location data on it, and the handsets then report back if they have a match. This is (to my very much unqualified thinking) compatible with both privacy and accuracy and should be doable with just about any smartphone.

I'm certain there are clever people who could come up with much better ways of doing this, but I'm even more certain it'll be dumped on BT or Capita and will work in that first way because of course it will.

knox_harrington posted:

Particularly laughable as the MOD/Army working-from-home memo demands that all laptops are connected to monitors using VGA cables for security reasons. No HDMI, Displayport, DVI allowed. And then the cunts just discuss highest level issues over Zoom.

forkboy84 posted:

It's more spying than I like. Sorry but the whole good thing with conference calls is you can sit on it barely paying attention to bores droing on until someone says something relevant to you. Idea I have to look at your stupid face while you drone on defeats the point.

Things that force you to do your work at your meaningless job are bad.

Danger - Octopus! posted:

What's smartphone usage like in the UK anyway? Are there enough people without smartphones that it would be a problem for an app based solution?

I assume it'd be a short step anyway before over-enthusiastic police started fining people if they take the bins out but don't carry their smartphone with them...

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Why is VGA more secure than HDMI?

Danger - Octopus! posted:

What's smartphone usage like in the UK anyway? Are there enough people without smartphones that it would be a problem for an app based solution?

I assume it'd be a short step anyway before over-enthusiastic police started fining people if they take the bins out but don't carry their smartphone with them...

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Why is VGA more secure than HDMI?

pumpinglemma posted:

As of last year, a literal majority of people aged 75 or over didn't use the internet at all over a span of three months. Smartphones aren't going to work for us by themselves.

moostaffa posted:

It's not. Just paranoid army rules

e: Well. not necessarily paranoid. Military generally works on the principle that only things that are specifically approved can be used. HDMI has only been a thing for 18 years so they haven't had time to add it to the list yet.

knox_harrington posted:

Particularly laughable as the MOD/Army working-from-home memo demands that all laptops are connected to monitors using VGA cables for security reasons. No HDMI, Displayport, DVI allowed. And then the cunts just discuss highest level issues over Zoom.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

FWIW HMG Infosec Standard 4 has allowed HDMI (with HDCP) for stuff up to TS for *years* now, but frankly if you're working on that sort of stuff at home there's way bigger problems than what cable you have to hand, especially - like you say - if you just then use Zoom, lol.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

It's not*. However that's the last thing they bothered to check and they'll presumably get round to authorising HDMI around the time we all just start beaming stuff directly into our ocular inputs.

* Actually it could go either way. Properly-implemented HDMI *should* make it impossible to implant a device in the middle of the signal path to read the screen, and even badly-implemented HDMI is much more secure against TEMPEST** than VGA. However VGA has the advantage of not requiring additional processing steps between the GPU and the VDU, so if both of those components are certified then keeping the signal chain as simple as possible definitely has some advantages. VGA is also grounded and shielded while standard HDMI isn't, which clears up the TEMPEST problem.

** Getting the contents of an electronic system through the incidental electromagnetic noise it generates, or other emanations. Theoretically you can read the signal passing over the monitor cable without tapping into it because of course it's a bit of wire with electric running through it, it unavoidably radiates an electromagnetic signal. In theory you could reconstruct that to get the contents of the screen. HDMI can encrypted on the wire (although not very securely) via HDCP so should be more secure - although by no means completely so - than the unencrypted VGA/SVGA signal.

knox_harrington posted:

Danger - Octopus! posted:

What's smartphone usage like in the UK anyway? Are there enough people without smartphones that it would be a problem for an app based solution?

I assume it'd be a short step anyway before over-enthusiastic police started fining people if they take the bins out but don't carry their smartphone with them...

big scary monsters posted:

Doesn't (published, non-TLA) Van Eck phreaking read off the screen? Does the cable make a difference in that case? I'm not up on the latest, I can imagine higher resolutions and better power efficiency might make that kind of attack more difficult, but last I saw it worked fine on relatively modern monitors.