# Government in Austria gets Cell Phone Movement Data without asking



## Alexander1970 (Mar 17, 2020)

Another great Step on the Data Protection Law.Congratulations.

https://orf.at/stories/3158211/

The government currently receives - anonymously - the movement data of its customers from the domestic mobile operator A1. This is intended to enable the crisis team to see whether the measures to restrict social contacts are effective. The procedure also raises fundamental data protection issues. Not only data protectors, the SPÖ also criticized the procedure sharply.
Fewer contacts

First, according to an A1 spokeswoman, this data shows that A1 customers already severely restricted their range of motion at the end of the previous week, an A1 spokeswoman confirmed a corresponding report by the "Kronen Zeitung". This was also confirmed in the Federal Chancellery.

There, too, it was assured that no individual movement profiles had been transmitted. Rather, it was a comparison of the total movements between the previous Saturday and the Saturday before. "It's about the currents and the question of how that changed within a week," emphasized the spokesman.
Legally compliant for Chancellery

This is in compliance with the law and regulated in the General Data Protection Regulation. A1 also offered the data on its own initiative. A1's approach is also GDPR-compliant.

A1 also emphasized that the data could not be used to draw any conclusions about the individual cell phone user. Each cell phone is assigned a number that is automatically generated randomly for tracking. All these numbers are freshly assigned every 24 hours (so anonymized again). It is not even possible to understand where the anonymized users are going over long periods of time.
Live tracking would also be possible

In this way, however, the anonymized users could also be tracked “live”. But that does not happen, it said at A1. The government also has no direct access to the data. There is no interface.

This technology is "offered by a large number of companies throughout Europe and has been tried and tested for years. A1 makes these analyzes available to relevant government agencies in times of crisis for the benefit of the general public, ”said the telecommunications company. In fact, data of this kind is offered by telecom operators to companies for money.
Not justified for SPÖ

Such a procedure is not acceptable for the SPÖ vice club boss Jörg Leichtfried "even in such an unusual situation." He showed understanding that extraordinary situations may require extraordinary measures, "but these measures may only be taken in a form that is in accordance with the rule of law".
NGO wants to examine closely

The civil rights organization epicenter.works now wants to take a closer look at which data was passed on and how it was anonymized. Because the aggregation of individual data does not always offer reliable anonymization, says Managing Director Thomas Lohninger about the APA. One also wants to check whether there is a legal basis for the data transfer.
Expert points to the rule of law

The data protection expert Christof Tschohl from the Research Institute - Digital Human Rights Center emphasized against the "standard" that the procedure is understandable "from a human perspective". And adds: "But: The rule of law otherwise requires precision for good reasons, the Constitutional Court shows that this is strictly observed."


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## notimp (Mar 17, 2020)

Huge abuse potential.

Context:

Anonymously is key, but isnt worth much. Its key because its harder to pinpoint certain datapoints (de-anynymize them). So abuse is limted to special interests. Meaning, at least people that are willing to put in the hours.

But reidentifying certain ids is inherently possible, because - heck, follow one of those datapoints for a while, and permitting that their ID doesnt change, you know his/her movement patterns for life. 100% success rate. Start with people that go in and out of governmental buildings first, then do it with journalists - then show a little ingenuity and you are set for life, heck, you can sell your services and find many buyers.

On facebook our 'social graphs' are far, far less clear, and mostly 'wish driven' (hey that person is cool, friend request), than the ones derived from actual location information metadata.

Why do they get this idea? Institutional and market interests align here. (And China would argue, even the publics...) You have basically this, not with cell provides, but with ad agencies (running the ad networks that "ad financed" runs on), as a fixed business model in different regions around the world, with all kinds of companies buying into it already. (No cellphone providers needed.)

Google f.e. is supposed to keep your location id 'session based' only - so not make it easily linkable to f.e. your ad-id. But there are a bunch of ad networks that do exactly that - today.

Companies lie and say its for 'law enforcement purposes' only - it isnt. _Currently_ it (the practice in the private sector) isnt (will post articles later).

Its a pure power play (if you know peoples movements, you know everything that is essential for gaining, sustaining, and maintaining, power structures - in an entirely non open society way).

Good intent.

Everything about this can be perfectly reasoned in a situation like this.

ISSUE.

You cant take it away, once they have it. The essential mental model for this is "They like their new toys - they like to play with them".

So you find new good reasons, for why you having those 'new found powers' as a state is essential.

Watch very closely when those 'special powers' are resigned. Chances are 'never', and civil society ought to prevent that - but the general public is so oblivious to the issue, and partly so susceptible to authoritarian gaze (romanicism of that image of a good and able leader), that you could as well deploy the chinese model of leadership right in the middle of central europe tomorrow, and they - arguably - would hardly notice.

So 'masses' (the public) will not save you here. Here you actually need intellectuals.
--

There is a second metastory progressing currently, and that is politics (the political sphere) once, they get reminded, of what immense power they hold over the financial sphere, via reshaping human behavior, they will show more climate change action. And this crisis is as good a training ground for them to get a taste for that 'power' as any.

Please - understand, that there is no cause and effect to this story. So no who done it, and why. As in any good conspiracy story. This is conceptual. (Just a story about human behavior, with no actors).

I've heard it several times used as 'wishfullfillment' on part of the climate movement in the recent past. I don't like it.
-

I might be ok with using this data in the current form, for the current purpose. But I'm screaming slippery slope out of the top of my lungs.

Because there are many actors building their future utopias, on exactly this. Abuse potential, see China, and see private sector in the US is insane.
--

One way to conceptually limit that is to argue for 'well everyone gets their own mass data, and then NGOs will be able to compete on the same grounds', short answer - no. Absolutely not. (Privacy and encryption are needed as concepts.)


edit: Clearview did this in the recent past with facial recognition data (freely sourced from public facebook profiles) - and EVERYONE of self deemed importance was their customer or "interested and in talks" regardless of legality:
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/26/21154606/clearview-ai-data-breach

Also this concept: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/health/data-privacy-protection.html very much is real.


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## notimp (Mar 17, 2020)

A spokesperson of the telecommuications company said, that they only shared 'aggregated data' and not individual movement profiles, which should be fine.

Depends on how aggregated.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 17, 2020)

notimp said:


> A spokesperson of the telecommuications company said, that they only shared *'aggregated data'* and not individual movement profiles, which should be fine.
> 
> Depends on how aggregated.



Yes,this is always the Way it starts.....


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## notimp (Mar 17, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> Yes,this is always the Way it starts.....


Its important though to see if this is it, going forward.

Extraordinary means, is an argument that would cover some version of this.

My problem is, that I have absolutely no believe - at all - in NGOs in that sector being able to stop this, once it gets closer to 'slippery slope' territory. ('Its always - just a bit'.)

So harsh words and all the outrage in public opinion are needed now. To make  sure everyone understands, that this is exactly how far you can take it. (You, arguably, can - btw.)

Without having the discussion, if democracy should be a thing of the past.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 17, 2020)

notimp said:


> Its important though to see if this is it, going forward.
> 
> Extraordinary means, is an argument that would cover some version of this.
> 
> ...



The main Thing is - nobody recognized it...the Message was "reported" between the lines and really short.....actual.




This is/was pure Intention in my Opinion.....
Maybe in the next Days this will disappear.....


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## notimp (Mar 17, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> The main Thing is - nobody recognized it...the Message was "reported" between the lines and really short.....actual.
> 
> View attachment 199844
> 
> ...


Dont obsess over such details.  (It is posted two centimeters below, or above... something or rather.)

NGOs will realize it and amplify it a little.

Parties (opposition) has also realized it already, it seems (by what you were writing).

I cant argue both 'the public will not react to it, because it has no concept of how problematic it is' and 'someone is 'hiding it' from the public' at the same time. 

Democracies work on principles of shared responsibility. So many actors (civil society) pay attention on people crossing over lines. And then they at least compete over public attention (mass media attention, largely, in the past).

So stuff like this, no matter how small the article, does not, not get recognized by civil society. It always will.

Therefore it also makes no sense to 'hide' it, past the point where information reached the public sphere (is in one media article or another). People will act from there.

This article was not meant to rally public opposition. Most people wouldnt even understand what it means, it can be tiny. If someone would think, campaigns would be needed, language (first on part of NGOs in that field, that would produce press releases), would be far different.

(Then you can play the 'is it suppressed or not' game if you like..  Protip: Dont. We are still living in democracies. So my language would be scathing and earthshattering (activism) at that point, but currently I'm not overly worried. Yet. (There should still be a few intelligent people left, in politics even, that understand base principles of democracy.  ))

Watch a few NGOs reactions in the field.

For austria this would f.e be:
https://epicenter.works/

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

edit: A few edits made in the response above.


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## chrisrlink (Mar 17, 2020)

you know the saying that polititions use "as long as you do nothing illegal there is nothing to worry about" that mindset is very dangerous especially if Austria becomes the next China or north Korea


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## notimp (Mar 17, 2020)

Basically, if the NGOs in the field (or some college kids, or legal scollars, .. or some other civil institutions you trust) get worried, then get worried.  (Produces activism.) Or get worried on your own, based on some criteria you like.  But dont necessarily get worried about this article not being headline news yet. This stuff - if need arises, goes through stages. 

And it made it to the news, which is a good thing. (Separation of power works.)


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Yeah, this is problematic as f*ck.



> A1 [the cellphone provider] commented that based on the data there would be no tracking possible in regards to individual smartphone users. Each smartphone would get an individual randomized ID assigned for the purpose. Every one of those would be reassigned another randomized ID within 24 hours. With that it would not even be possible to trace the anonymous users over longer periods of time. "It is absolutely impossible to look up where an Individual user resides" a spokesperson of the company assured the public.


src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...wegungsstroeme-von-handynutzern-der-regierung

So we are now at turnkey despotism stages. With everything in place thats needed to circumvent all safeguards of democracy, its just that 24 hours needs to be extended by about 1.2x and the government can track finally track journalists, when meeting their sources.

Just look for that dot thats sleeping at the journalists home, and walks into their office the following day, and then reassign them 'journalist real name' dynamically. Just ignore the random ID.

All of the data was handed over without ANY legal basis. In fact, the government tried to ram this through legislation, which was foiled - and then just asked their buddies at A1.

Yeah - f*ck this.

This is alarmbells ringing at maximum intensity.

The fun thing is, the public will be totally oblivious and fine with it, because they are stupid as always.

From this point forward - we track positioning of articles in papers.

diepresse had it on their frontpage for a short while - but it already vanished.
derstandard has it below the fold, somewhere in the tech section.

F*ck them as well.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

notimp said:


> Yeah, this is problematic as f*ck.
> 
> 
> src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...wegungsstroeme-von-handynutzern-der-regierung
> ...



You see,as always....
and nearly nobody cares about ....as usual - it is fine and ok......

Lemmings....


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

More problematic. derstandard has an option to preselect "useful" comment posts and pin them to the top of the comments section, to drive narratives.

They are telling people, that this is totally ok. In this situation, via - opinion of one journalist from the tech section. Or editorial staffs consensus.

What assholes.


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

You know what, track journalists simply from the beginning of every morning, driving away from [known home address]. And correlate with the datapoint thats entering their office. Then assign known journalists name with a likelyhood of > 95%.

Who cares, where they slept last night anyhow. Sleeping is non-productive.

Hey Tim? Could you cobble us together a visualization of every journalist in the country? Here are their home addresses. We got from location IDs of some of the images they posted publicly. Or the phonebook. Thanks!

Oh, and as currently there is a de facto curfew, and people are more likely to hang out in private gatherings because of it, earlier in the day -- please track where those journalists hang out after work (within 24h - yay!) as well, then aggregate significant clusters of 'same place - that isnt home' over several days, and you have their affairs as well.

Great.

Thanks A1!

Oh btw, Tim, I have this political rival I dont like, in the office next to mine, make sure you also build in a mask where I can enter any home address I want... Should be fun.

You know, its because of the crisis.

Sh*t Tim, could you get on that today?


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

Deutsche Telekom has started to provide location and movement data from smartphone users for pandemic containment. The information is made available to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
As reported by the Tagesspiegel, the information is to be passed on anonymously. The epidemiologists at the RKI then want to use the data to gain insights into the movement patterns in the population. On this basis, we hope to find more effective measures to contain the corona epidemic. The first data packet with a volume of around 5 gigabytes should be handed over to the RKI yesterday, with more to follow in the coming days.

According to Telekom, this is so-called signaling data, which includes the registration of smartphones in radio cells and the establishment of active voice and data connections. "This can be used to model flows of motion - broken down nationwide, at the state level and down to the district-community level," a Telekom spokeswoman for the newspaper explained.

Others also have access
The transfer of relevant data is not entirely uncontroversial. On the one hand, everyone agrees that the information can be useful. However, there are also fundamental questions of data protection and personal rights that cannot be arbitrarily overturned even in a crisis. The end does not just justify every means.

However, the data that has now been passed on is not as tightly sealed as one might think. In certain cases, Telekom also offers commercial access to them. For example, they serve as the basis for the calculation of traffic concepts. "The signaling data is anonymized in real time, aggregated, converted into mass statistics and is only available for evaluation after these work steps have been processed," explained the Group spokeswoman. The data protection authorities were involved in the development of the process. The RKI only has free access.

and OF COURSE:

https://twitter.com/deutschetelekom...0?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Important note: #Telekom does not pass on any individual #handy data!


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Just read it via fefe.
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/...andydaten-von-deutscher-telekom/25655144.html (german)

At least they are handing the data over to people with a little more sensitivity to the 'abuse of power' issue here.

So call to all state hackers - you want to trigger your backdoors at the ROBERT KOCH INSTITUTE. Probably less protected than the main cell carriers of germany.



(Hope they are keeping airgaps.)


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Their always writes the editorial line of the paper and never anything else journalist canary at "Der Standard" has suddenly seen "the danger of it all!" in a commentary article.

What is he now, 80? Who are you kidding.

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000115862901/disziplin-aber-keine-untertanenmentalitaet (german)

Official messaging is - 'its needed - we are nowhere near what China did yet'. Aha.

An understanding of the problem has finally reached journalism. Just so you know.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

notimp said:


> Their always writes the editorial line of the paper and never anything else journalist canary at "Der Standard" has suddenly seen "the danger of it all!" in a commentary article.
> 
> What is he now, 80? Who are you kidding.
> 
> ...






> *Health is currently a priority, but vigilance regarding the gradual erosion of fundamental rights is still necessary. We now need solidarity, also discipline in following sensible measures, but no subject mentality.*



oh yes.....


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Just for clarification, the likelyhood that the 80 year old (?) commentator at the standard, that always posts alongside editorial line in that paper on every topic, suddenly woke up to today, understood the integracies of data de-anonymisation, and decided to push this topic on his own, in my estimation of their journalistic process is exactly zero.

So they talked about it in a editorial staff conference, and then - not to sidetrack their official line of "oh no, the data is anonymized, no problem", had someone write a more differentiated commentary on it as well.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

Maybe,the Thing is,apparently "someone" is awake..



...and as expected, the Message is gone after less than 24 Hours ...

 

https://orf.at/

And no Sign about Germany or other Countries with actual the same "Cell Phone Data Protection" Behavior....


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Austria small country, A1 very stupid (lied about de-anonymization potential, didnt give data to an intermediary, now media has to cover, so the public doesnt freak. Someone in government hopefully told them that measures will be retracted after corona is over - and they believed it. Didnt think about how this would play publicly, then had to somewhat alter their position compared to the first article. Its Austria, of course thats how it goes. (Presumably  )). If this would have happened while the FPÖ was still in government, the response of Der Standard would have been very different, I have to imagine.

Oh yeah, message gone. Its called the news cycle..  (Nobody in the general public cares, ..)


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

notimp said:


> If this would have happened while the FPÖ was still in government, the response of Der Standard would have been very different, I have to imagine.



For Sure.


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

Why you need it is explained in here (thoroughly).
h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZqcTTTVkXY (german)

You basically have to know if - if you close down schools and universities and are instilling curfews, people really stay at home. If they don't - you have to adjust measures.

Different models, methods and outcomes are all characterized and played through in the podcast linked (german).


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## notimp (Mar 18, 2020)

And I've seemingly skipped the most important part, data is submitted in clusters of 20, so indeed aggregated - which should actually vastly limit most privacy concerns.

So all the hyperbole I've provided in here could have been prevented by me reading more thoroughly the first time around.

Your postings were contageous.  (emotion) (Actually, it was all my fault.  )


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 18, 2020)

notimp said:


> Your postings were contageous.



Nice to see you enjoyed it.


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## notimp (Mar 19, 2020)

Let derstandard tell you, what I posted, a day after (just the thing that clustering datapoints does the trick):
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000115904000/warum-die-datenweitergabe-durch-a1-zulaessig-ist (german)



They have more detail though. 

Article now is at the top of the frontpage ("above the fold"), now that law (legality assessment) is involved. *Ts* Societal weighing of abstract concepts.. 

At that point 'normal' journalists care enough, when they are potentially personally affected.  (Seemingly  ) I previously mentioned legal scholars, did I? 

edit: Already vanished from the front page. But it was in a prominent position for a while.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 19, 2020)

Au contraire,mon frère.



> *Of course, it cannot be assessed at this point whether this is actually the case. In particular, there is the question of the level of detail of the data preparation. As part of a movement analysis of a cell phone, the course of the location can (technically) be analyzed down to the last detail.*


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## notimp (Mar 19, 2020)

Issue is datapreparation. So someone, or some system gets the fulltake on all location data, then has to assign random ids, and then has to create clusters of as far as we've heard groups of 20. That system could have the full information for a while, depending on how its set up - so questions arise around 'how is it aggregated (legally) (transformed from logs before they get deleted), and in the process of preparing is that covered (legally) in any way, and who has access to what.

A1 told the public, that they are doing it in cooperation with the TU Graz (Invenium), so someone ought to find the guy responsible for data preparation there, and ask them to step through the process.

If A1 is handing over the entire data as a blob to the datapreparation team at the TU, this means, that A1 could have that blob. That invenium could have that blob. And that the blob is only pseudo-anonymised. (Example of home address to work idenifying an individual, I've ranted about.) So knowing the process becomes paramount.

It would be possible to read log, copy, pseudononymize, delete from log, wait until you have a cluster of 20, then move that -- and create the blob that way through one process. So aggregation only ever covers 20 individual movement histories, at a time. That way every dataset derived from original logs should be less problematic.

If you take your fulltake movement history copy pseudo-anonymized, drop it off at Invenium, and let them create the 20 person clusters after the fact - ehm... yeah, you have a problem.

All of that stuff is easy as can be to understand, but to get a journalist to ask those questions to the right person seems to be close to impossible. 

I'm relieved that the government only gets the clusters of 20 dataset (hopefully), and that many eyes will be looking at and demanding, that the process stops exactly with the end of the curfews. (And then starts again, when the next wave of curfews rolls in in fall.  ).

Also lets pray, that Invenium doesnt get the full blob of pseudononymized data, and start selling them to the highest bidder. Just because they might be able to..  Someone check the usual darknet marketplaces for a while..  (Bad Joke)


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## EmanueleBGN (Mar 19, 2020)

Same in Italy.
Security cannot costs freedom. After 9/11 we have the Army in our cities and now this - Governments want to control us, the people, such as we are terrorists. They will not be satisfied until we will be like in 1984


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## notimp (Mar 19, 2020)

Point to freak, imho is, when those measures get extended.

People coordinating the corona measures have to know if people stay at home during the curfew, or not to be able to estimate efficiency and coordinate further measures. The reasoning given is actually somewhat propper (proportianate), it just can not, can not, become the default for other stuff, after curfews are over. It can not even become the default for other (non pandemic related) curfews, one might want to enroll.. 

And it can not consist of individual movement data without making individual ID tracking impossible.(Randomized ID generation every 24 hours is too little on it sown.)


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 20, 2020)

And here we are,again,on the Point,were

- no further Infos will be revealed - this short Note 2 Days ago will be enough for the "Mob"  (the superficial News about the Government gets the "Data",seemingly....)
- no Infos about HOW LONG this will be......ok,they have enough to do with "hold together" the actual Status..so no Info....
- no Infos about the Amout of Data really will "processed / edited"..

and

For Sure NO Information and Confirmation that this will not be the "standard" Procedure in the Future...for the "safety of the Country and his Population"....with "maybe" the Reason "Something like the Virus can happen everytime again.....".


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## notimp (Mar 20, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> And here we are,again,on the Point,were
> 
> - no further Infos will be revealed - this short Note 2 Days ago will be enough for the "Mob"  (the superficial News about the Government gets the "Data",seemingly....)
> - no Infos about HOW LONG this will be......ok,they have enough to do with "hold together" the actual Status..so no Info....
> ...


Thats not correct. I get the slippery slope argument.

But according to the legal opinion, 'a practice like this' (in case data is DSGVO (data protection law) relevant) is legal only in case of 'grave danger for health or life, in the interest of public health', so if people like the head of the austrian data protection office (Andrea Jelinek) want to argue, that this is legal, they need that. From an operational logic it would only make sense (in its current form (cluster of 20)) for monitoring the effectiveness of the curfew.

So you have limited purpose, you have a legal exception, and you have people that ought to make sure that it is proportionate (verhältnismäßig), by first pseudeo-anonymizing and then (cluster of 20) sufficiently anonymizing the data, so highly problematic versions of it stay away from 'power centers'. Abuse is limited to the cell provider, and that TU Graz Joint, if the process is set up incorrectly, which the data protection office says its not (we can believe that or not). If the process is set up correctly (technically), abuse potential would become zero (not DSGVO relevant) pretty quickly (Without many people having the potential to abuse this data aside from the usual admins at A1 that always could, if there would be a way to aggregate those movement sets over time, which is illegal.).

This is the average mans implementation of something because of due cause, because of the health interest of the many, and it has a 'safty' protocoll attached that should (do we believe in what is said) make it close to unproblematic for whoever gets the 'finished' (clustered) dataset.

If this stays time limited to the periods of the curfew, I'm not freaking. I'm close, but not freaking yet. The moment this gets extended for even slightly different purposes, someone has to proverbially hit someone over the head with a blunt object.

There are two burning questions.

1. Is there a version of the dataset that leaves premises (/only A1 special admin oversight) that is only pseudonomized and not clustered. (highly problematic), then those datasets can not be allowed to accumulate over lets say a month. (Individual profiles extractable).

2. Will a practice like this be extended past corona curfews. In which case "alarm bells".
--

As the legal opinion understands it, as soon as the data is Clustered it isnt DSGVO relevant anymore (sufficiently 'blurred') - and this (cluster of 20) practice could go on for as long as someone likes.

But to get to that cluster, depending on how you do it, you could have a dataset thats only pseudo-anonymized, that would fall under 'only in extreme cases, for public health and safety' excemption clauses.

Journalists have not worked out if this is the case sufficiently yet. Imho.
--

If you do what they are proposing. Namely that you look at different cell sites (towers), take the ids logged in there, replace their unique identifiers with randomized ones, and then cluster them in groups of 20 then and there. That data is not DSGVO relevant anymore - and can be shared freely. Is the current argument.

And as per gut feeling, I tend to agree.

Now, same information could be used for governments pre country takeover of revolutions to find out "when to send in the tanks" and where. But there are other technical means that would allow you to find out as well.

So its hard to argue what we give up (in terms of personal freedoms) at that stage. That said, slippery slope, as f.


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## Plstic (Mar 20, 2020)

They are also doing this in Israel. The government is overstepping their bounds.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 20, 2020)

But maybe now WE have to take the next Move.

Turn off any Smartphone/Cell Phone/Internet Device,remove Sim Cards and deposit together with all other on the
Main Squares in our Hometowns / Villages.

I wonder what impression they will have on their Faces at this wonderful Moment. 

And maybe it is time we get finally rid of this "self-imposed scourge of humanity" called Handy/Cell Phone/Smartphone....
(I know I am a Dreamer......).


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## notimp (Mar 20, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> Turn off any Smartphone/Cell Phone/Internet Device,remove Sim Cards and deposit together with all other on the
> Main Squares in our Hometowns / Villages.


"Whats a simcard?" signed the average citizen.

Also throw in you smartphone with it as well, because of IMEI. 

And then recognize, that enough people give GPS permissions to 'great app they downloaded', that ad networks can do this:
https://mashable.com/article/foursquare-launches-hypertrending-sxsw/?europe=true

Goverment or any company could buy that on the free market.


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 20, 2020)

As I said - I am a Dreamer.

SIM Card - that Thing you need for your Smartphone


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## notimp (Mar 25, 2020)

Law (which was rejected) draft started with "well, we would want individual movment data..:" - I mean, one could at least try... *grr*

src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...r-oesterreich-standortueberwachung-einfuehren (german)

Late summary:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000116136360/ist-das-handy-tracking-a1-vertretbar


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 25, 2020)

notimp said:


> Law (which was rejected) draft started with "well, we would want individual movment data..:" - I mean, one could at least try... *grr*
> 
> src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...r-oesterreich-standortueberwachung-einfuehren (german)
> 
> ...




Thank you.

As I see,it leaves "someone" no untouched.

And as always,someone tried to downplayed and played down.
And with the first Article,we can see that not all "Law Designs" are for the Mob´s Eyes and Ears.

I really hate it to say but - another One Step closer to the Times around 1935....
Really bad that a "Virus" should justify that.......


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## notimp (Mar 25, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> not all "Law Designs" are for the Mob´s Eyes and Ears.


Normal law making process.

(Lobbyists.) Draft. Rewrites. Expert opinions. Party lines. Law. (Something like a) Congretional courts ruling on it (If someone wants to dispute it).


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## Deleted User (Mar 25, 2020)

T


notimp said:


> More problematic. derstandard has an option to preselect "useful" comment posts and pin them to the top of the comments section, to drive narratives.
> 
> They are telling people, that this is totally ok. In this situation, via - opinion of one journalist from the tech section. Or editorial staffs consensus.
> 
> What assholes.


The Standard („newspaper“) is just a bullshit leftist tabloid paper claiming to be a quality newspaper (which nobody believes anyways).


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## notimp (Mar 25, 2020)

Oh dear.

What noun does bullshit go with, btw?

(As it stands currently, they do all the reporting and platforming of comments on the matter. No other medium in Austria does so.)

If you are stuck in the "I hate medium if medium ideologically isnt on my side of the fence" phase, I'm not talking to you.

Even reading this forum, by now you ought to have realized, that voices that can offer nothing but hate on the other side of the political devide, reminding everyone how poor they are doing - can offer nothing. Bring nothing to the table. That form of trying to win arguments is so - 'first five years after facebook started'.

Its the equivalent of defecating on the stage. Everyone shares it. You get all the attention. Then someone has to clean up your mess afterwards. With the exception, that social media offered a 'clean new stage' every three hours for the process to repeat. (Everscrolling newsfeed/Comments feed)


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 25, 2020)

Deutsche Telekom, A1 Telekom, Vodafone, Orange and other mobile operators are ready to make their location data available to the EU Commission. The lobby group of the mobile phone service provider GSMA says that the spread of the corona virus should be tracked.

Representatives of the corporations as well as Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Telenor and Telia met with EU Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton on Monday. The EU Commission wants to use anonymized data. However, there is growing criticism that governments want to use cellular data to control quarantine compliance and exercise profiles.

https://orf.at/stories/3159376/

Conversations and SMS are not followed

After protests by the Social Democrats, which until recently had been self-governing and now opposed, the exception law was weakened in parliament. *Contrary to the original government proposal*, phone calls and SMS messages should not be tracked, only localization data. The measure was also limited to the duration of the coronavirus crisis.

I love this "decide over the Peoples Head" Thing.(Even if it was not implemented this Time).
And the "Lemmings" do every Year the same....vote for this "Government".
And like Austrian Mentality is - complain afterwards.

I wonder if they also will complain in this Case.


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## notimp (Mar 25, 2020)

I wonder how this came to be... Genuinely so.

So law proposals usually are lobbied for/prewritten before acted on. Then when a crisis comes along, people get into this 'lets not let it go to waste' mentality and are testing how far they can take certain concepts, when the pretense is "saving lives" (as always).

What I dont get is, who on earth would be senile enough to write 'state of emergency' proposals that would drop democracy by the wayside and go with 'total control over the populous' in a heartbeat.

First draft. Finished in someones drawer. Let people fight their way back to free societal principals, while we control their movements, networks, private conversations...

I very much would like to know how the logic in that case goes. Because thats not one guy writing that - because he's bored, those are structural measures for 'state of emergency' situations, in someones book.

I've never come across a person that ever even argued for that - aside from fashists, yet come the right crisis... *puff* there they are.

I dont think that those are specific for austria - and going by the swiftness with which those proposals got a rewrite in those sections, people quickly anticipated public fallout from mass surveillance clauses.

So why are they still the default?

I want to get that logic. The 'state absolutely believes the public has had it - and has to be pushed into submission' to protect - what? Functioning of - what?


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## Deleted User (Mar 26, 2020)

notimp said:


> Oh dear.
> 
> What noun does bullshit go with, btw?
> 
> ...


You might have never read TheStandard. If you post something conservative (or prolife=instant deletion) your post will most likely get removed. That is the reason I just do not like them :-)


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## notimp (Mar 26, 2020)

usernamecharlie said:


> You might have never read TheStandard. If you post something conservative (or prolife=instant deletion) your post will most likely get removed. That is the reason I just do not like them :-)


I thought about writing a sentence about 'people posting opinions beneath articles' as well. Useless. Doesnt surface much (sometimes people post interesting additional links), and articles are gone within half a day at most. Same issue - if you grow beyond a certain size, selfcorrecting breaks. Stuff has no staying power.

To then throw moderators and algos at the problem doesnt serve anything but keeping the platform advertiser friendly. Derstandard comments section (apart from people referencing additional information) to me is entirely useless. To them is just a way to generate repeat views. To their users its mostly emotional release.

Also I was banned from it once, maybe 10 years ago - for criticising Rauscher of all people, repeatedly, before realizing that he didnt read the comments section, and no one cared.  I since have had two IP changes by my ISP, so without any effort could register again, but I havent bothered ever since. Participating there gives me nothing. I felt more agitated (there is exactly no space for nuance), thats it.  That doesnt mean their reporting is all bad. 

Also I've actually learned much from it regarding commentary as a journalistic category. I've learned f.e. that there is a certain kind of professional commentator that always writes along one ideological line.Never sways from it. And that those are the ones used as 'regulars' in a medium. They are basically mimicking what a good, accepted position in certain ideological cycles is, and they serve no other purpose. Just reading their name is enough to know what the content of the article will be. They seem to keep their jobs based on ideological consistency. Taught me not to rely on that sort of commentary for information.
--

edit: Thought about what I wrote (why people would ask for that) and never having heard anyone arguing that point. That wasnt correct. I've heard chinese state officials, argue for it, because "china is a much bigger country and much more inequal in certain parts, so its harder to employ other methods", and I've heard chinese people argue for it ("social score would make people more friendly and helpful"). Still doesnt explain to me why its anyones default in western style democracies.


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## Deleted User (Mar 26, 2020)

notimp said:


> I thought about writing a sentence about 'people posting opinions beneath articles' as well. Useless. Doesnt surface much (sometimes people post interesting additional links), and articles are gone within half a day at most. Same issue - if you grow beyond a certain size, selfcorrecting breaks. Stuff has no staying power.
> 
> To then throw moderators and algos at the problem doesnt serve anything but keeping the platform advertiser friendly. Derstandard comments section (apart from people referencing additional information) to me is entirely useless. To them is just a way to generate repeat views. To their users its mostly emotional release.
> 
> ...



nice post


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## notimp (Mar 28, 2020)

Rhetorics (not actions) escalated slightly:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000116267034/opposition-geschlossen-gegen-big-data (german)


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 28, 2020)

notimp said:


> Rhetorics (not actions) escalated slightly:
> https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000116267034/opposition-geschlossen-gegen-big-data (german)



Thank you.

This Topic is loooooong not over.......
As you know for sure,if they have no "official" Chance to get what they want.......

That Moment,when A1 starts this "Case",it was like an "Rolling Stone".....
It has started and it will never end now.

Maybe a "Justification"  --> Remember the Corona Virus.....and yes,you can call me crazy and insane and mentally disturbed.....
I said it long before this Madess has begun...this Virus is NO Coincidence....


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## notimp (Mar 28, 2020)

Something funny.

https://www.diepresse.com/5792205/christian-lindner-die-situation-ist-unertraglich

https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...tenschuetzer-warnt-vor-zugriff-auf-handydaten
(Its good to see Kelber pitching in as expected of him, but the entire statement feels somehow lacking... (Subjective assessment.))

(Both german. sorry.  )

Another one:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...uerger-ueberwachen-und-wie-oesterreich-es-tun


All Kinds of people suddenly employ magical thinking..
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik...uerchtet-um-zusammenhalt-der-eu-16700724.html

Strange times...


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## Alexander1970 (Mar 29, 2020)

> In retrospect, it can be assumed that the Chinese authorities were certain very early on about the high transmission rate of the corona virus, but did not immediately share the information about it with other countries. This conclusion can be drawn from the drastic measures already taken at the end of January.



Yes I remember lively around last Weeks in January how the Medias here in Austria reported about that...
The Rapporteurs and Moderators of the News Programs smiled (laughed at) what the little Chinese were pounding out of the Earth again......typical Austrian Mentality...

And yes,van der Leyen is absolut correct - this will affect the EU.....in all Aspects...

Some little Examples:

- Business hours - Who needs now 24h Shopping Time and also on Sunday ???
- Border Controls - Yes indeed.
They should be reactivated and maintained immediately. At least we can get certain "non-Austria problems" under control again. And fill out a visa, oh my god that's soooo difficult these days ....


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## notimp (Apr 5, 2020)

They tried, oh they tried.. 


Thats the initial statement:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...otka-stopp-corona-app-soll-verpflichtend-sein (german)

Thats the rebuttle:
https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/li...esuchsregeln-fuer-haushalte-sorgt-fuer-aerger (german)


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 5, 2020)

Yes,yes.....

But they want to do this because they have now incredible Panic from the Easter Weekend/Holidays....
And if I am allowed please,in my personal Opinion yes it is entitled.

The People are so irresponsible and partly in spite of it,to follow now the Gouverment´s "Recommendations"...
I can assure you,we have the next (Virus) Wave (in Austria) after the next Week.......


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 5, 2020)

And for the "Easter Enactment":

For the FPÖ, club boss Herbert Kickl said on Saturday that the ban was "a vote of no confidence against the population" and was like a "call for pissing". Abuse was thus opened. "If anyone claims that they saw five people go into a house or apartment, the police are at the door," fears the liberal club chairman, "you could also call it a decree in the spirit of the block attendant mentality." A call for the police, "and the basic right to respect for private and family life is already undone."

https://orf.at/stories/3160688/


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## notimp (Apr 5, 2020)

Actually... 

App protocoled contacts/movements are part of the mitigation strategy. (Nothing to do with easter sunday in particular).

Here, watch this:
https://www.zdf.de/politik/maybrit-illner/maybrit-illner-corona-spezial-vom-29-maerz-2020-100.html (german)

edit: Also this if you want to:
https://daserste.ndr.de/annewill/ar...geht-es-weiter-in-Deutschland,erste11512.html (german)


edit2: via fefe - fun with fire, in the UK..  https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/4/21207927/5g-towers-burning-uk-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-link (this one is in english). Actions not recommended.. 
(5G or not - makes no difference (correlation, not even correlation..  is not causation))


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## notimp (Apr 6, 2020)

Bwahaha:

https://www.diepresse.com/5796216/verfassungsjurist-mayer-zerpfluckt-covid-19-gesetz (german)

(Austrias Covid 19 law forcing people within the medical care sector to  work without the option of being temporarily released, or being able to work from home, even when showing preexisting conditions, is in clear violation of the countries constitution.

(We have another 'Lichtgstalt' (being of light, someone that cant do any wrong, ..  ) as the head of the ruling political party).

("Einmal mit Profis arbeiten." (roughtly translates into a sarcastic "working with profesionals..." ))


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 6, 2020)

Constitutions and Resolutions especially of the last 3 Weeks are all unconstitutional .....
Under Time Pressure without the necessary Experts and the Opinions of the People,
"Things" were simply "decided" because according to the Austrian Government Mentality "one can improve every bit ... ".


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## notimp (Apr 6, 2020)

In that case - we have constitutional courts and someone has to sue.  (Still, separation of power.)

Takes time, which also is part of the point.


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## smf (Apr 6, 2020)

notimp said:


> What I dont get is, who on earth would be senile enough to write 'state of emergency' proposals that would drop democracy by the wayside and go with 'total control over the populous' in a heartbeat.



Elected officials who have to act fast to save people from dying.

We can argue over the niceties of whether you're upset that someone could potentially have seen where you went, after the fact.

Democracy doesn't really work for emergencies, organizing a vote takes a long time & would have to be done electronically (which some people would complain about and say the result was rigged) and people are generally too dumb to make good decisions anyway.

Covid 19 is going to have a lot of consequences. The death of cash is likely to happen much sooner, there can be much less resistance to people working from home (unless they ruin the chance). Hopefully there will be more empathy towards vulnerable people that need assistance. Rapid change will break some stuff though, it always does.


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## notimp (Apr 6, 2020)

smf said:


> Elected officials who have to act fast to save people from dying.


Do something, quickly!

Give out permanent, searchable records of peoples movement patterns for a week/month/two months?

Ehm, why did we string up Assange again? Because he didn't redact names in 'not for general purpose' protocols?

One such database, has movement records, that can be deanonymized, by looking up - where datapoint was at 5am in the morning, for lets say 3 days in a row.

And then you have this for your entire population. And even my first instinct would be to copy that stuff, in case someone later says it has to be deleted, ...

I know its hard to recognize for people after the fact - but people died to attain personal freedoms.

And you are saving no one - by putting movement histories on record.

(Infection path is not solely determined by getting close to someone who has it. In fact, getting close to someone who has it - might even be a weak indicator.
( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...photo-brazilian-aide-bolsonaro-contact-latest )

Knowing that you got close to someone who had it, doesnt change behavior.

So now you want your police to call up people telling them not to leave home, because they got close to someone who had it. With no legal action taking place - without a warrant...

And thats me backpaddling already - because I grant you even thinking about this as a possibility for a potential action - which in reality, I dont. I cant. I wouldnt.)

Let me put this clearly. No sane individual would even want to make this a reality - even if lives are at stake, and someone does the 'we have to act quickly' spiel on them.

The implications of what you are proposing are so far reaching (from blackmailing political officials to journalists, to planning abductions (ok, wild fantasy, but really) that the opportunities in there are endless - from sketching out 'real' social graphs (ones on facebook are limited, because more 'wish driven') to taking over a country - it just depends on your imagination and means. And by means I mean - do you have 'a friend' thats into visualizing excel spreadsheets - on google maps or open streetmap?

No one should give that up as a first instinct. People in power, or people drafting law proposals arent that dumb.


And there in lies the problem. I can not, for the life in me believe that someone in such a position is that dumb. And if I have to rule out dumbness, I have to supplement with maliciousness to get intent. The 'lets try - we might get it' kind.

And if I do - I have a problem, because what the heck would you try that for - so what are potential fantasies/emergency plans of lets say any political advocate/lobbyist really - that might want to have this put into a legal text. "Destroy democracy for free" card - in exchange for what? Power? For how long? As long as people dont realize democracy is over? Or do you have contingency plans (I mean you could try to oppress them..)?


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## smf (Apr 6, 2020)

notimp said:


> Ehm, why did we string up Assange again? Because he didn't redact names in 'not for general purpose' protocols?



I didn't string up Assange. He upset the wrong people and they found an excuse.

If he hadn't been a complete self serving idiot then he could have easily argued his mitigating circumstances, like governments will be able to do.

You know, the kind of thing that says it's ok to break the speed limit or drive while disqualified if you are rushing someone to hospital. Some times saving lives trumps laws.

I am sure there are well paid barristers who will argue this out in court, I don't see how being outraged on a forum will make a difference. Personally if it even gives the chance of saving a single person then I'd be happy for them to grab whatever data they want.

People should be at home anyway.


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## notimp (Apr 6, 2020)

Assange was a freebie, I threw him in there because he popped into my mind while writing it. The comparison isnt obvious.

I get the 'for as long as it would work' argument - as part of 'everything you could do', on the story about the austrian government just violating peoples constitutional rights (making 'essential personal' bare more) arguably its exactly that.

I dont buy it int he case of accessing full takes on movement profiles though because of two reasons. First one is, that 'its just for a little bit' is not a working excuse. You could do it for three days (without clustering the data to make reidentification possible) - and damage the political system in a country beyond repair.

This one is not about 'how long you do it' (just untill the courts catch up), but how deep you can look for stuff, heck give me three days of data and three years to comb through it, and I'll still be able to find stuff to ruin families, damage relationships, highlight an get into, or expose networks, blackmail journalists, sabotage lawyer client confidentiality, and post all people that visited an AIDS clinic, just in my lunchbreak. If you give me material thats more extensive, my picture just gets clearer.
Also - if you stop after lets say three days - I might not care, thats enough data (given sufficiently high movement resolution), to analyze for decades. So it gets worse over time, even if you stop.

The issue itself also doesnt get less deep. So if you are talking about measures similar to this, and you are the german government, you also pull sociologists into the boat to inform you just how big the fallout is. But even if you are just a law student, that got tasked with drafting an emergency law - you should be highly sensitive to stuff that would compromise client confidentiality of all your colleagues and peers in an instant. So who are you. Who writes this nonsese in a heartbeat, and then is surprised, that its snuffed in the first few draft corrections.

Not to mention historical perspectives of you selling out the basis of democracy being able to function in a heartbeat. Because if you've ever seen a university from the inside, much less have studied politics - you know about the sensitivity of actions violating privacy laws like that.

So things dont add up here.

Concerns for 'anonymous individual lives' seldomely trump people covering their own asses in the law profession. Something here is just odd, and I dont know why so...

Second problem I have is that I know Sobotkas actions in that context. He has been a freaking Rottweiler pushing for 'security' (as in anti privacy) legislation for years. He was the very person, that taught me (through interviews I've watched), the actual meaning of 'you cant take those toys away from our policeforce - they like them too much' argumentative fallacy. That guy is a loyal party soldier. And a public liability in that position. So who the eff still wants him in that position? You cant overlook that stuff. Unqualified idiot - is written all over those guys history in those matters.

Now granted I don't know if he, or his backoffice was even close to responsible for drafting those passages of the emergency law, no one does, but to see THAT guy trying to force tracking onto people using an emergency law - kind of only hightens my worries - that someone is treating this as 'dont let a crisis go to waste - and lets push for all of if, we'll get at least some of it granted in the end'.

And if you have that type of person in charge of some of your institutions actions - then good night Austria.

So what - in that guys mind is the outcome that would make you ask for such a thing. Because altruistic is the last adjective I'd use to describe the mindset anywhere in the ministry of the interior and the very last thing that would drive motivation on that guy. That guy has a history.

So dont tell me it was the millennial intern, that cared more about saving lives, than the looks of all this, in an administration that has put message control to new heights in this country, that did so out of an inherent care for humanity, while not thinking about saving his ass, or the ones of his lawyer mentors, because none of this makes sense.

So what does..


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## notimp (Apr 7, 2020)

Maybe it is utter stupidity.

Just watched five minutes of the Austrian state press conference on corona (chancelor, vice chancelor and health minister), and I had to turn off, because I couldnt bare the accumulated stupidity.

(When you have a health minister telling you, that not only is growth rate important, but also the case doubling rate - and you want to hit your monitor, because those are the exact same.)


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 7, 2020)

notimp said:


> Maybe it is utter stupidity.
> 
> Just watched five minutes of the Austrian state press conference on corona (chancelor, vice chancelor and health minister), and I had to turn off, because I couldnt bare the accumulated stupidity.
> 
> (When you have a health minister telling you, that not only is growth rate important, but also the case doubling rate - and you want to hit your monitor, because those are the exact same.)





I wish,the whole Austrian People (ok,that is not correct.....barely 20 Percent are NOT Austrian....) could read here.....
And it would not change anything.

There is this "Parable" about Austrian "Mentality":

- To see if it HURTS,some shoot itself into their LEFT knee ->  "Ouch,that hurts....."
- To see if it ALSO hurts,some shoots itself into their RIGHT Knee -> "Ouch,that ALSO hurts....."


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## notimp (Apr 7, 2020)

Uh, btw - better not get a Corona test, if you dont have to - because data will be shared with local town mayors. Bistdudeppat! (What?)

https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...zeiten-wenn-daten-an-big-buergermeister-gehen (german)

It - hurts - it hurts... Stupidity hurts so much.

Effing green party in the government playacting liberal values...
-

Oh and in case you'd want to use the voluntary Red Cross app - data will be shared with:

Accenture, Google and Microsoft, can be stored and processed outside the EU (USA is specifically mentioned) - and funding was provided by a UNIQUA endowment fund (owned by Raiffeisen).

See AGB: https://www.roteskreuz.at/fileadmin…0_V1.1.pdf

For stuff like this, the derstandard comments section is still invaluable.. 

edit: Read it: Server infrastructure is hosted in the Azure cloud, transmitted data is 'encrypted' (ssl?  ), google services are used to be able to send push notifications, data processing for that stuff can also happen in the US.

Now reading the rest. 

Apps that were discussed for germany just stored contact data locally, I've not read up on how the Austrian app handles this.
-

Personal data stored serverside: Unique identifier (ok), has covid 19 diagnosis flag (ok), since when (ok) telephone number (WHAT!!!??!!??!). As soon as you download the app, the app store provider also gets your email address (you know, with your name in it), but thats ok - because thats just automated, on part of the app stores... They say they have no direct access to email addresses, app store provider would act as an intermediary.

Handshake data only is stored locally on your phone at first. (good)

Telephone number is first queried, if you have corona and want to transmit that fact to the world. (ok+)

In that case people in your movement history (locally stored) are read out for the past three days, and transmitted serverside (?????), because they have to contact them - which will not happen trough SMS - but through an internal messaging tool, so the individual users never see your phone number.

Aehem???

Lets say 70% of people in Austria get Covid 19. When they hit button 'i have it' - contact logs for tree days will be sent serverside (based on unique IDs), so personal networks are mappable (data quality isnt the best), linked to unique ids - that then is also linked to a phone number each - which can be used to deanonymize people.

Just so you know.

At least it doesnt automatically jump ('seven degrees of Kevin Bacon') degrees, only when people hit the button 'I want to report that I have Covid 19'.

So its the same issue as within our 3 days google maps example - just that you cant map movement patterns based on geolocation, but only based on 'other telephone numbers that were within a meter in proximity to you'. (More potential deniability I guess..)

Anyone that gets their hands on that dataset, and has an extensive set of phonenumbers to name records (= phonebook), can start deanonymizing.

Dataset will be more valuable at the end of the pandemic (when many people have hit the button 'I want to share my 3 day proximity history and phone number'). Microsoft has access to it - for sure, but apparently its 'encrypted'.

Problem: No words on weither just transport encrypted or not. No words on how swarm notification is done once that information reaches servers and 'I want to tell everyone I have it' intent is declared. (Via google messaging services? So now google gets 3 days worth of your proximity contact data? And they can identify everyone of the contacted users using their accounts email addresses and names? And credit card info, and...)

Data should be deleted (from Azure) 30 days after you hit the 'i have it' button.

edit: HAHA! The app doesnt automatically exchange handshakes, that has to be an active act. On part of both parties. Haha. Very funny. Which means data set is now VERY HIGH QUALITY in terms of connection quality. Value and abuse risk just increased manyfold. 



HAHAHAH! Prank potential! 


> I've mistakenly sent out that I've been infected with Covid-19 - how can I change that?
> 
> Currently you cant deactivate that message. Please uninstall and reinstall the app again. If you already had stored contacts within your contact logs, please inform them personally, that the alert is not valid.


src: https://www.roteskreuz.at/site/faq-app-stopp-corona/ (german)

Also - what happens if the same phone number registers I'm now infected at a later point?

edit: It gets better and better....

Automatic handshake will be added as an update on thursday, as an opt in.
Developed by Accenture (what?). (One of the worlds biggest consulting agencies.)

Our chancelor also thinks of people without smartphones - they should be able to be tracked with keychains!
https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/s...acking-auch-per-schluesselanhaenger/400803626 (german)
(No joke.)

But sadly someone saved him making sure - none of it will become compulsory...

How technologically illiterate can a millennial college dropout/chancellor be? How fiscally illiterate. (What does a used smarphone cost?) Now 'we'll order a bunch of luggage trackers in bulk on aliexpress, and then people should use them on themselves and then hrow them away, once the battery runs out?'.

India ships smartphones to africa, the Austrian chancelor ships tracking keychains from china to austria. What an absolute...


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## notimp (Apr 7, 2020)

The CCC just published a guideline on how to conceptually design corona tracing apps:

https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2020/contact-tracing-requirements

Lets see on how many points the red cross app produced by Accenture fails:

- Only used for this purpose and only for a limited time: Partial fail. No end dates specified.
- Open source in its entirety: Partial fail - 200.000 people have already installed it and open sourced code 'should follow in the future'
- No central entity that has to be trusted - failed
- Data minimization - failed (telephone number)
- Any option for epidemiological purposes (contact users using telephone number), has to be a separate opt in, that has to be revokable at any time - failed and failed
- Usage can not be tied to that opt in - partially (almost fully) failed, you have to give out your phone number - but I guess you could lie? (edit: Oh you cant. Phone number will be auto read out to prevent prank abuse. haha. failed.)
- Users shall not be enticed to give away additional personal information - failed
- Change unique IDs often, prevent unique ids from being used as unique ids over the entirety of the project (prevents re-identification) - failed
- Those Ids can't be tied to unique push message tokens (Google messaging) - failed
- No erection of centralized Contact profiles - failed (but should be deleted after 30 days according to Accentures terms and conditions).
- Non chainability of Ids - (probably) failed (because they used singular unique IDs in the first place)
- Non id-ability (log ability) of communication sent out through third parties (google and Azure in our case) - so push messages have to be encrypted - probably failed (dont know for sure)


But our government is very proud to let everyone know - that our app is the first one that went live in europe!

You cant make this stuff up.

And we have a party in government that is 'very concerned' about our data privacy - at least when they were in the opposition. But not when it counted.

Journalism? Entirely oblivious.


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## City (Apr 7, 2020)

Get an iPhone/Linux phone and a vpn.


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## notimp (Apr 7, 2020)

City said:


> Get an iPhone/Linux phone and a vpn.


Is the wrong attitute to have.

This is literally an issue of - we know how to do it corretly.

A freaking consultant agency does not.

Licenses the Red Cross brand in my country for PR.

Gets featured by media and politics for 'being first' (so proud...)

And people like you wanting to attach themselves to something, to feel better.

The thing is, this time around you are in a minority. The main university in my country does representative polls on corona virus issues on 1500 people every week, since the crisis started. 70% of them are against tracking cases via cellphone apps.

Presumably this also made our chancellor reconsider.

This is the answer in case you were troll'oling. 

Answer in the case you were not:
Android is linux (kernel), which VPN?  (also, this app handshakes via bluetooth and inaudible tones/microphone, and asks you to put in your phone number - so VPN doesnt help.  ), and - since this is a network effect issue - one guy in the know buying a linux phone does nothing. 


Conceptually though the irony isn't missed. People gave away location data to ad providers for free for years, and now all of a sudden have a problem with it - when the state starts saying its good for you..  

So in the case of the voluntary tracing app (and in austria it is voluntary) - I'm not entirely against it, even if not all of the CCC best practice rules would be met. Just because I acknowledge that idiotic peer pressure is a thing. And people want it.

What I have an issue with is politics, and journalism in my country having praised this app as "privacy sensitive" for about five days now - and none of them knew what they were talking about.

They freaking fell for a ploy from Accenture - that, as far as most epidemiology experts I listen to are concerned - does almost nothing but act as a behavioral crutch.. If implemented voluntarily.

So my way out of this is - never ever to install that app, and to tell people to f*ck the heck off if they should ever ask me if I want to red cross app handshake with them.

edit: That doesnt change though, that media and politics in my country now advertise something unfit for its purpose (sensitive to data privacy concerns), as something it isnt (sensitive to data privacy concerns).


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 7, 2020)

Formulated beautifully:

"Pull the emergency brake at any time"

The thrust behind the new measures is clear: the new infections should not increase sharply again despite loosened restrictions. And if they do, the government definitely wants to prevent this from happening unnoticed - and take countermeasures as quickly as possible. "With these measures, we will be able to pull the emergency brake at any time if something went wrong," Anschober said.

https://orf.at/stories/3160851/

And I do not think it is meant for the "Nation's health" only.....


And by the Way,not all knows about Tolkiens World:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies


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## notimp (Apr 7, 2020)

Thats a very thorough article.  Doesnt get everything right but looks at many aspects.  What has impacted my thoughtmodel most in the last days was to get to know the conceptual difference in approaches between mitigation and suppression ( h**ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-73gTjn-TVM german, but I did an english writeup in the main thread), and when suppression is still viable because of case numbers you can 'follow up on' as a target (same strategy as with f.e. ebola in africa). All of what you read in the article you posted is actually good news - in the sense, that we now still have most measures to chose from (1% case rate).

At the same time, 18 months till vaccine is still a long way..  If everything moves as expected (social distancing works, summer lowers new infection rates, edit: even freaking app tracing helps with targeted social isolation) we are taking a second quarantine period in winter and then maybe another one in the second quarter of next year.

And all in all, low death rates. (in Austria.)

Just for reference. If case rate is 1% max:
(100/88000)*243 (actual covid deaths in austria) = 0.27% death rate. The closer the case rate is to 1% (higher is better) of the population, the better.


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## notimp (Apr 8, 2020)

Btw, when I wrote if this governments response really was to let interns click luggage trackers on aliexpress, I thought I was kidding.



> Apple spendet Österreich 50.000 dringend benötigte Masken Der chinesische IT-Konzern Alibaba liefert Testkits und Beatmungsgeräte


(Apple donates 50.000 Masks to Austria and Alibaba sends testkits and ventilators.)
src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...-oesterreich-50-000-dringend-benoetigtemasken

something broke and then was put back together again wrongly *scratchhead*


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## notimp (Apr 8, 2020)

https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...leben-retten-nicht-gegen-datenschutz-tauschen (german)

When media is too dumb to read what the app actually does.

When media is too 'embedded' to be able to critize the app, because they've already booked interview guests.

When 'experts' are too shallow to know hot to actually design something around this approach properly:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7t6axx

See - no conspiracy needed. The media disables itself through its own actions, and ambitions to produce 'interesting news programming'.

When you are too interested in producing a show, instead of finding out why the privacy claim of this app is BS. Media. Read half of someething - act like you understood it, or are the perfect person to act as an intermediate, between experts you sourced poorly.

When media does its darnest to seem as if what they first reported ("very privacy conscious") wasnt a damn lie, and they had done anything else other than eat up an Accenture PR announcement.

See - everything explainable through internal institutional logic.


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## notimp (Apr 9, 2020)

This one is only for german readers of this thread.  And entirely offtopic.

https://player.hader.at/ has videos of Hader (austrian comedian - one of the best ones) online - free to stream - for the duration of the corona crisis.

If someone might be interested in how to download them, for research purposes, they might find the .m3u8 links in the sourcecode of the website, then download them with jDownloader. That might give them the video portion of the file. Then download the .m3u8, open it in a text editor, find out how the audio portion is named (usually audio_0_1.m3u8) rewrite that part of the .m3u8 link picked up in the html sourcecode (the filename, same link basically), then download the audio .m3u8 with jDownloader.

No DRM protection is circumvented.

You can merge the two using:


```
ffmpeg -i video_1\ \(720p\).mp4 -i audio_0_1\ \(aac\).m4a -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4
```
ffmpeg (command line tool) has to be installed - code has to be executed in the same folder where the files where downloaded to. Change filenames (f.e. 720p) as necessary.

Have fun. 

Oh, and new videos are released every week. So by the end you might have his entire discography. 
(So far you only missed 'Der Aufschneider 1+2' - and this week Indien went online, so I had to post this..  )

If you want to donate something, Hader linked a fund for artists (that pays out people during the corona crisis) on his facebook recently - find that and give them your money.


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 9, 2020)

I love Him !!! 

"Topfpflanzn" is his very great Hit about a "different" Man.

Thank you for this Video Page from him,very nice.
I have not seen Indien for a long Time.

Thank you,my Friend.


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## notimp (Apr 14, 2020)

Oh btw. - current propagation of the red cross COVID19 tracing app within the Austrian population seems to be 12%, which means likelyhood of a traced contact is at 1% every interaction.

Thursday update rolled out, but isnt working as expected for most people. Issue partly seems to be attributable to vendor code on android phones, that kills backgroud processes to save battery. (haha)

Also on i-devices, the framework doesnt allow for monitoring bluetooth strength which would be needed for contact tracing.

Google and Apple to the rescue, both companies published an open whitepaper, that they would be working on a framework (patched in via google services framework on android (auto delivery on any android smartphone past android 6.0)), that would allow smartphones to get the capability to run those services (on android past manufacturer modifications).

Framework, once activated, will only be granted access to for local state health agencies, and would allow anyone who wants to develop such an app to develop it - with more reliability.

src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...id-19-technisch-schwierig-mit-unklarem-nutzen (german)

For Apple+Google whitepaper, see:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020...rtner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/
and
https://blog.google/inside-google/c...e-partner-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 14, 2020)

It would be really surprising if this "App" would work really smoothly by the end of the Year ...

And then it is offered as a "standard free App" alongside with the Burger King and Ancient Jewels one.


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## Captain_N (Apr 14, 2020)

they never let a good crisis go to waste. Now you could just not take your phone with you, or turn the shit off and take out the battery. Id like to see them track you then.


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## notimp (Apr 14, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> It would be really surprising if this "App" would work really smoothly by the end of the Year ...
> 
> And then it is offered as a "standard free App" alongside with the Burger King and Ancient Jewels one.


Well - it could..  (App development so far is rumored to only have cost 2 mio USD on part of UNIQA - and UNIQA also has just released an earnings warning (related to Covid19 measures).)

Long story short is, that there are some entities very interested in getting it to work (the german foreign minister has publicly commented, that he wants to see support for the development of an EU wide version of such an app), and now with both Apple and Google on board, ... Its possible.


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## Alexander1970 (Apr 15, 2020)

https://orf.at/stories/3161820/

Kurz plans no change

When the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy and the hotspot Ischgl became known, things had to go very quickly: the ÖVP Greens government actually reacted quickly and has now brought three comprehensive legislative packages through parliament at a rapid pace. But now there are more and more critical voices. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) does not want to repair possible errors in the law.

It is essentially about the general question of whether the government's approach was proportionate - or whether it is too restricting citizens' fundamental rights. Kurz made a stir on Tuesday with the statement that the government is not planning to repair the hastily passed Covid 19 laws and regulations, which may not be constitutional.

The Chancellor justified that some legal texts may be deficient, as critics say, by the fact that "we acted quickly". And he justifies the procedure by saying that it "worked well".

"Will no longer be in force"

The laws and regulations “are not permanent”. Until a review by the supreme courts has taken place, "they will no longer be in force," said Kurz. In any case, the lawyers of the Ministry of Health had endeavored to ensure constitutional procedures. "I apologize that it is an exceptional situation."

Lawyers should not over-interpret questions in this area. The point is that the measures are adhered to and "the republic works". "In the end, the day of the Constitutional Court will decide whether everything is right on the dot and comma." At this point, however, the measures would no longer be in force, said the Chancellor.


...........................

Warning of getting used to

With all understanding for the unusual situation, Matzka warned that the use of the tools now used - decrees and regulations - will create a momentum of its own. Such special measures would always be used in times of crisis - and would then often be accepted. It is important to ensure that these will not be used again in further crises in the next few years. Because these instruments should never become normal.

There was not only criticism of the fact that the ÖVP and the Greens primarily use the legal remedy regulation instead of the decision. The numerous decrees are also criticized, all the more because they partially contradicted each other and the "Easter decree", for example, had to be withdrawn.


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## notimp (Apr 15, 2020)

Basically a democracy is not structured to run on emergency legislation for a long time, you now have all kinds of positions (Verantwortungsträger) inside and outside the system voicing alarms because of side effects (and the 'getting accustom to using those means of governing' issue), and a chancelor that doesnt want to fix/rewrite/retract that legislation in the short term, because it would be seen as a weakness/it wouldn't allow for some other stuff, thats not explicitly spelled out. Find out what 'the other stuff' is (bundled legislation.) as a journalist. 

In general hearing those warnings in the media is expected and acting as a counterbalance to overreach. More info on the specifics would be neat.  (State can now force individual people to stay at home is mentioned.)


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## notimp (Apr 15, 2020)

Correction, effective likelyhood of a positive match at an interaction so far is at one tenth of a percent. 

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000116869586/corona-app-laut-arge-daten-nicht-praxistauglich (german)

But again, google and apple can fix that.


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## notimp (Apr 24, 2020)

Uh, mandatory tracking is still being discussed as a potential measure:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000117083194/opposition-kritisiert-aenderung-des-epidemiegesetzes (german)

(Legislation is in development that suggests that certain groups of people (those without tracking apps, probably), are barred from certain events.)


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## MrCokeacola (Apr 24, 2020)

>2020 not cancelling your cell phone/line and internet.
I found out recently that most companies legally have to send you paper statements as an accessibility reason for free if a persons does not have internet access and or is computer illiterate.

It is getting more and more temping each day to switch to a dumb flip phone for just work and convert all my bills to paper. Plus, no internet bill.


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## notimp (Apr 24, 2020)

Only if you read about a 10th of the articles. 

The discussion is out in public, the last measure was time limited in the legal drafts, the opposition picked it up as problematic - and if you need the theoretical reasoning for it, its in the main Covid-19 thread.

I'm not saying that you have to agree with it (I don't) but if you understand the reasoning, there is less reason to fear it as well. That said  - you have to be able to move it back (somewhat strong working democracy, and people caring).


In similar news, since Google and Apple have banded together to make contact tracing technologically possible - governments petitioned them to make data available centrally on their behalf, and they refused (arguably considering implications this would have in authoritarian countries).

Part of the reason I'm still talking about this stuff is, to show that the decisions here arent taken without consideration or pushback. People at least in our parts of the world seem to have gotten a sense of what they are dealing with - thats not the same as everything failing and getting worse from now.. 

That said, stern public sentiments of warning are always needed as well.


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## notimp (May 1, 2020)

Bruce Schneier doing Contact Tracing App Math. 

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html

Contact Tracing looses..


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## notimp (May 9, 2020)

1/2 OT:

Everything thats wrong with this world: 



> Ibiza is long gone. Johann Gudenus is sitting in between the vines in a vineyard in Nussberg and is looking upon Vienna. He is wearing a babyblue mask covering mouth- and nose. The former FPÖ club chairman is now heavily active in the mask trade with russia and china. Businessideas are shooting through his head. Currently he is working on a gastronomy app. Yes and the man that featured everything in the past, that just was far enough right of center, now wants to plant trees en mass. The environmentalist in him was awakened. Contact with media outlets Gudenus tries to limit, he stays away from politics. Not even the fall of the viennese freedom party, which he formally lead to unexpected highs, with his fatherly friend from the fraternity days, Heinz-Christian Strache, the now 43 year old, former vice-mayor of Vienna, wants to comment on.



src: https://www.diepresse.com/5811249/was-aus-den-ibiza-hauptdarstellern-wurde (german)

This is how the world looks for idiots:

- Run, move, fight - to becomes something in life
- Trust in fucking, horrible networks to get somewhere, then be loyal (to the ingroup, not to society at large - to a fault and beyond  ).
- Reap opportunity whenever it shows
- Be a scalper - whenever possible. Hawk masks. They now are a rare commodity.
- Currently have ideas on 'what you could do with gastronomy', because thats a field that currently gets disrupted. Solve it with an app. Because you are an idiot and dont know what an app is, just that its popular.
- See that 'planting trees' is now something the billionaire class is heavily into - because they want to reduce the footprint of people in the west, as they see - that societies are failing without growth. All of a sudden be for planting trees, to f*ck over people. 'Cause there is money in it! If you sell it to others as a lifegoal.
- Blame it on media
- Show a selective memory
- Forget things that didnt work, start new.


All of this is not specific to the austrian far right, but the only thing that gets 'featured' as opportunity in the entire western society at the moment. When I was in Alpach in the past, it was exactly the same. prop up some "culture" traps for people that wont get anywhere in life as well - so they put themselves out of the game, without bothering the rest. Say, that you do it because you love european culture so much. Apart from that its exactly the same.

This in todays world is success.

And if you know that solving "everything with apps" has the big US tech firms that we arent even allowed to regulate anymore (or sanctions) cut in on every business by at least 30 percent - you have understood all of it.


F*cking Accenture and the Red Cross propped up an 'app solution' that didnt work in the first place. Where google had to jump in to even make it technically feasible. Which none of them told their heigher ups, they just produced a broken piece of crap, cashing millions in financing. In the end the broken piece of crap had to be rewritten to include all the Google and Apple backend code, that they couldnt think of using in the first place (they dont had access on that level (service framework)). Which google and apple writing the entire technical implementation (framework), and those f*cking idiots, having spent millions on another PR portal - that then got heavily featured by the media. That to them is success - they know f*ck all, that none of that means, that they will ever become the next Google or Apple - because those avenues are under wrap.

If I told you about the amount of former friends from where I grew up and went to school, that wanted to ask me about opportunities in the distributed ledger space, and the amount of people, that tried to fuck over others by only working as 'influencers' trying to sell their networks out in an attempt to 'be early and foot a trend', youd be more cynical than me, thats for sure.. 

And then in the end, it turns out that smartphone orientation, and the specific bluetooth module used have a factor of magnitude impact on directional signal strength - making the entire project pretty much unfeasible in the first place. Never mind an issue of false possitives and negatives and the implications on what this will have on society ("app passes") at large. To this day, you hear people in the economic and financial sector talking those concepts up, because they are so god darn fascinated with opportunity in stuff they dont understand, and that they would make worse - everytime they touch it.

But dont think bad of it, if people believe in crap, it will have a positive effect on society at large. (Stores can open sooner, ..)

This is systemic.  And if anyone has any idea on how to get over that, without just ignoring it, or becoming a deaf-mute (Salinger.  "Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone"), please give me a heads up. I think i could benefit from it very much.


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## Alexander1970 (May 9, 2020)

Thank you.



> - Forget things that didnt work, start new.



Is there really something to add ? 

Yes - and please do not forget to  on the People who helped you there....also forget them.



> And if you know that solving "everything with apps" has the big US tech firms that we arent even allowed to regulate anymore (or sanctions) cut in on every business by at least 30 percent - you have understood all of it.



If anyone at all from the "Common People" (rabble) is interested...



> That to them is success - they know f*ck all, that none of that means, that they will ever become the next Google or Apple - because those avenues are under wrap.



Same as one Line above:
If anyone at all from....bla bla bla.......



> If I told you about the amount of former friends from where I grew up and went to school, that wanted to ask me about opportunities in the distributed ledger space, and the amount of people, that tried to fuck over others by only working as 'influencers' trying to sell their networks out in an attempt to 'be early and foot a trend', youd be more cynical than me, thats for sure..



Personally I am very happy,that there are People like you,my Freind.



> To this day, you hear people in the economic and financial sector talking those concept up, *because they are so god darn fascinated with opportunity in stuff they dont understand*, and that they would make worse - everytime they touch it.



Very simple today, the "Society" is so easy to impress today if you let a simple "Fart" ....
Spoken symbolically.



> "Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone"), please give me a heads up. I think i could benefit from it very much.



Do it please,nobody will be angry on you if it fails.....
even if it was done at our Expense (Taxpayers' Money).
You even get a Medal in the Hofburg for it.....
Presented by our "green" .... oh let's leave that......

Thank you.


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## notimp (May 9, 2020)

Even without symbolism... (medal, shit, ..) thats really how society is run these days:
src: https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...abrik-wie-maechtig-ist-antonella-mei-pochtler (german)

When I read about the 'figures guy from the opus dei school - in our chancellors staff' i couldnt do much else but break out in laughter...


> BERNHARD BONELLI: As a cabinet chief he was in charge ensuring that Kurz'plans would go into action. Formally with the Boston Consulting Group, Bonelli was known as a 'figures guy', neoliberal and deeply religious. He studied at the IESE, a business school run by the opus dei. He first showed initiative at the school council level.


Not even I want to know how those careers were made...

And courtesy of the derstandard comments section:


> Bonelli himself was a founding member of the „Catholic Legislators Network“. Their website lists bizarre bible passages f.e. including the call to actively move against "grave violation against the natural order".



(Oh btw, Kurz' managed to both renew the conservative party of the country, by giving it a new color, and letting his cabinet chief be airdropped in from the opus dei. Funny how that works... (Oh, and nevermind Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, Deloitte, or Bain, ...))

If I go meta - everything like this is just an expression of the human will to get somewhere in life. And ambition is the driver. And everything that seems to count really. Because weither you f*ck everything up royally in the end people at least will still remember that you tried.. 

Our former foreign minister now writes for RT...
src: https://www.diepresse.com/5811421/ex-aussenministerin-kneissl-schreibt-fur-kreml-propagandasender-rt (german)

The world is a joke.


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## Alexander1970 (May 9, 2020)

I do not remember I have voted for Pochtler.....


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## notimp (May 9, 2020)

alexander1970 said:


> I do not remember I have voted for Pochtler.....


No, you did.  You voted for a college dropout with a grandiosity complex, that took a liking to despotism, that grew up in party organizations doing some of their worst youth oriented marketing campaigns ever - if that sort of politician does a Merkel, and wants to run a country via polling and message control - you get Pochtler. Each and every time.. 

edit: If you were the average austrian. You dont have to out, who you voted for here. 

The issue is - that as pretty much every politician in the world now tries to emulate Merkel (not because of Merkels sake, but because there is no political ideology anyone would believe in anymore (arab spring was fun - "we have the organizing tools" "but no ideology" "shit, the muslim broderhood was the only one with a vision", "please military, could you arrest them, now that they got voted into power?"), they kind of all have their 'Pochtlers'. 

Whats kind of new though is, that they dont want ministerial jobs (another private adviser to Kurz, thats only that in his day job, a private adviser to Kurz) these days, because they see it as uncool (and much too risky for no/little gain), and kind of dont come out of party organizations anymore, but from any business consultancy that took them as an intern. Or any political campaign worldwide, that was somewhat successful.

But there as well - I have no idea how you would solve that - and no one wants to anyhow (certainly not in austria), so meh.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

IESE are also lecturing in Alpbach, when appropriate, and are slinging that bullshit:
https://sciencev2.orf.at/stories/1658085/index.html (german)

(Keep society afloat, by selling feelgood concepts that serve no other purpose but to function as PR (stabilizing society, by minimizing dissent).)


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## notimp (May 9, 2020)

That then leads to those sort of fun gatherings:
https://pt-br.facebook.com/notes/eu...owth-inclusive-prosperity-f/1701756886504065/ (english, facebook )

Oh so many social engineers. Yay!


> As we redefine our perception of the division of labour, what role will be played by the managers of the future?


Yeah, those are the questions that keep me awake at night.. *sarcasm*

edit: I like Mariana Mazzucato though. But those people only get invited to then say, look, we've had them on our roster - imho. Not 'networked enough' to move anything politically.


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## notimp (May 26, 2020)

In china everything is a little bit bigger.. 



> In China, plans for a new health app after the coronavirus crisis are causing a stir. The app, which was developed in the economic metropolis of Hangzhou in eastern China, is said to monitor users' smoking and drinking habits, sporting activities and sleep patterns, according to the authorities. On the basis of the data, the health of users will be assessed on a hundred point scale.


src: https://orf.at/stories/3167230/ (german)

But dont worry, Apples next earphones will do the same..  (Only half joking.)


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## notimp (Jul 26, 2020)

notimp said:


> And then in the end, it turns out that smartphone orientation, and the specific bluetooth module used have a factor of magnitude impact on directional signal strength - making the entire project pretty much unfeasible


German Corona App doesnt work "as intended" on iPhones:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/20...na-app-funktioniert-auf-iphones-nicht-richtig (german)

Basically - firmware issues, Apple not fixing that on older devices. Prior to that - googles android "fix" to allow contact tracing via Bluetooth at all wasnt working on Samsung and Huawei devices (and I'm sure a crapton of others..  ). Samsung also didnt 'fix' this for all of their phones.

Also directional signal strength.

But the most important part is, that SAP and the Austrian Uniqa invest several million Euros in App development up front, as a marketing gag.
Because to a millenial every problem needs to be solved with an app, and thats about the highest complexity level they can get across in 'tech talk' to people that still run society.

(Also most of them think about paying the 30% google and Apple tax on their apps as an 'honor' only appropriate for delivering to them a potential billion users, (gated by 'shelf space' on the front page of the App store..  ) Just as much as it is an honor to get your App cloned by either one of them and integrated 'as an OS feature' - whenever they run out of ideas..  )

Now - who said that this was predictable? And was it societally acceptable to say, that this was predictable?

Der Standard (austrian left wing newspaper), exclusively featured articles that told you that App was the best thing since sliced bread, and how moral it was to install app, for three months straight. And that you should have been excited, that the austrian app was first (didnt work, but was first!). Turns out - all idiots, in that regard. But predictably so.  Center right newspapers in country told you the same (Uniqa is an offshoot of Raiffeisen..  ), of course.

This is an experience 'every' "expert in a field" usually has at one point, with media reporting on their field. (Complexity reduction, social acceptedness factor (self censoring), ...) 

This is not media lying to you - this is just media being really dumb - and in this case, unrectifiably upbeat for no reason (thats usually rare.  ).

The German app btw? One of the better ones that was constructed (in terms of theoretical appliance to data safety standards). 'Well engineered' so to speak.


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## notimp (Jul 26, 2020)

Apparently the iPhone story is based on ARD research:
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/corona-warn-app-113.html (german)


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