[liberationtech] Strength of Political Action, In The Era of COVID-19... More Theatrics & Side-Shows.

[Robert Mathews (OSIA)]

*David & Marc:*  Thank you, for your notes, and the pointers to
resources.  I shall have to review the resources to which you have
pointed, as time will permit.

*LiberationTech:*  If I may, I would like to address a rudimentary
concern WRT to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and to share a few informational
considerations MORE broadly that are foundationally relevant to the
SUBJECT AREA of concern to the members of this LIST.  I solicit your
indulgence in advance.

As a start, with good concern and respect for everyone's time, I shall
aim to condense and concentrate my response appropriately. Before I move
to share the aforementioned considerations, a quick note on the COVID-19
QR-Code app, now being used in China.

On 4/24/20 1:43 PM, David Stodolsky wrote:
> [ .... ]
> A Chinese app allows users to display a Red,Yellow, or Green QR-code
> on their phones, but this has no privacy protection. It does motivate
> users, however, since the inability to display the QR-code makes life
> inconvenient at best. 
> [ .... ]
>
> dss

'Privacy Protection' is one of the many problems of this app. 
Integrally, it is an application that is largely UNINTEROPERABLE.  To
clarify, Chinese Citizen's COVID-19 related information were/are not
accessible in cities outside the city of primary registry (Beijing..
Wuhan, etc.).  And, naturally, from a technical point of view,
Privacy/Security is 'at least' an INTEROPERABILITY and Information
Systems' INTEGRATION problem too.   To design better apps, in this, or
other cases, there MUST be better understanding of the inter-workings of
systems.  It is that point precisely, that will be amplified next.

In the span of a few short paragraphs, the aim is to appreciate the
"root cause" relationships that tie the foundations of perennial and
ubiquitous Privacy violations and Security breaches worldwide to those
foundations of the now obvious - disastrous COVID-19 related global
public health management outcomes.  Very often, many types of failures
that are likely to rise from "the hoodoos" of defective and deficient
policies and processes put into place, generally do not REVEAL
themselves, until it is too late.  In the United States, State and
Federal governments have been involved in preparations to confront a
Pandemic for many, many years.  *So, why has the failure to confront and
contain the enemy - been so devastating, prominent and shameful? * There
is a GOOD DEAL to be learned by mapping and understanding the
similarities between the large-scale failures in our ability to contain
and manage the COVID-19 crisis globally, and how we fail to properly
understand and manage Privacy and Security universes.   I shall begin by
providing an analytically critical piece of information as it relates to
COVID-19, to start. Ignoring the fundamentals - imperils us all.  Again,
I beg your indulgence.

*Very elementally, COVID-19 or SARS-CoV2 "is" a Bio-Safety Level (BSL) 3
organism (respiratory pathogen).*  This means, in the United States, if
you are an accredited medical researcher with a professional need to
handle SARS-CoV2 to fulfill lawful and accredited research requirements,
you will be required and directed to do so in a laboratory, which is a
certified BSL-3 Containment and Handling facility.   BSL-3 has within,
very specific handling and containment protocols, procedures, tools,
services, and command and control systems to protect the people working
within, and more importantly, to withhold/contain and manage ANY and ALL
BSL-3 organisms, from being released to the outside world.   Let us be
firmly reminded at this point that any attempt to capriciously
"re-label" and/or "anoint" a DEADLY PATHOGEN, as *a 'less deadly'
pathogen**, does NOT MAKE it so!  Also, none can turn-back the clock on
ineptitude and incompetence.*

*So far, NOT one major media outlet* (among the hundreds we routinely
monitor) in the world has reported, or discussed, these fine and crucial
points.

For weeks, in the middle of a pandemic, the public-debate in the U.S.
revolved around the stocks and allocations of FLIMSY Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE) "to guard" Frontline medical staff.  Allow me to be very
precise about the technicality here.  Again, SARS-CoV2 is a BSL-3
organism.   *Hospitals are NOT BSL-3 facilities (they are also not BSL-2
facilities),* nor are their STAFF sufficiently ATTUNED TO, TRAINED, and
properly outfitted/instrumented to handle affects and consequences
related to the presence of a pathogenic organisms in their midst;  in
the air, or infecting their patients.   *The proper
concentration/massing of resources and efforts should have continually
and congruously (wholistically) been advanced toward protecting the
public, and frontline medical workers everywhere, 'knowing the enemy'; 
a potent virus.   *Instead, and all throughout this time, at least in
the United States, various policy and media elements have MATERIALLY
been wasting time and energy, day-after-day, *mundanely and obtusely
"gaggling"* on the IRRELEVANT and the INCONSEQUENTIAL;  a historical
trend, and present experience, which has been *MOST exasperating for
those of us who understand* the important CORPOREAL aspects of this
crisis, and the gravity related to inactioned situations surrounding the
crisis!

To affirm this point another way, I draw your attention to the GRAND
government supported video productions of the 1950's that attempted to
shape the /"prophylactic actions"/ of U.S. citizens against harms caused
by a nuclear blast, in the event that a nuclear weapon was dropped upon
the United States by the Soviet Union.  In this select (1 min) video
segment
[https://www.youtube.com/embed/IKqXu-5jw60?start=456&end=517&version=3],
the narrator highlights that in the event of a proximal nuclear blast,
it was crucial for Americans to /"duck and cover" /oneself;  that
covering oneself, even with a thin sheet of paper, or a cloth sheet was
very important, to not be a victim to severe burns.  All in all, such
instructions defied the realities impressioned by Science, and was
largely *intended to mollify the masses, while also imparting a
broad-stroked general impression (varnish) to all that government
entities were thoughtful, well-meaning, and well-configured to protect
the masses.*  Consider that a 'flash-burn' from a nuclear blast the size
and ferocity of a Hiroshima weapon is able to strip away and char all
surfaces within a 10,000 feet blast radius.  So, if you were JUST
outside this radius when an atomic weapon exploded, you may have been
able to cheat "death-by-charring", but c/would have succumbed later to
nuclear radiation/various cancers.  In any event, a veil of paper or
cloth is no protection at all in such a case.  Those public service
announcements were frightfully disingenuous, and DID sidestep the vastly
obvious!

Again, fact remains that *SARS-CoV2 is a potent contagion and pathogen,
and that it requires 'BSL-3 handling'* cannot be diminished by any
national leader's acts of pandering, or tidy 'vote-getting' words of
placation.   The virus is an opportunist.  Fundamentally therefore, All
MEDICAL staff, EVERYWHERE, NEED, and should be APPROPRIATED the
"required grade and range" of tools and services to protect - when
required to confront the likes of SARS-CoV2, so that our professional
medical staff will stand empowered to protect those of us who become
ILL, and the same staff will also be able to subsequently GO ON to treat
others who would follow us in sickness.

In the United States, the composition and emplacement of plans and
instruments to confront Pandemics having been a running part of
'National Security' agenda, since at least the early 90's;  and in some
cases, much earlier than that.  Despite this history of expending huge
sums of monies on planning, organizing, exercising and reporting, what
we have been able to witness recently is nothing short of a utter
disintegration of those plans, services and orchestrations, failing to
both protect, and to reconstitute functions of society.  What we have
been witnessing is an entire failure of systems, and *of
'system-of-systems'.*  Lessons from societal confrontations with
COVID-19 can be instructive on how we tackle 'Privacy and Security' as
large-scale problems if we pay attention to details.    At the moment
though, to say that we are NOT properly devoted, constructed or
orchestrated to attend to crucial problems related to Privacy or
Security of information, particularly for the "Information Age", would
simply be a gross understatement!

Lastly, there are at least two IMPORTANT, adjacent points to be noted
here WRT COVID-19.  They are: *1)* large-scale COVID-19 failures have
been blatantly visible across nations (large and small) from the East to
the West, cultures, languages, ethnicity, socio-economic stratification,
wide demographic ranges, etc.  And, *2),* COVID-19 is a *'SINGLE' enemy,
a virus. * Now, in COVID-19 cases, WE KNOW (more than less), "what"
manifests the "illness", and "how" the "illness" takes hold and
advances.  And again, despite the billions we spent on constructing
plans and the means to "effectively confront pandemics", and for
decades, in the face of "clear and present danger", our modern systems,
their capacities and their capabilities - have been over-run, and have
even been out-stripped of utility in cases.  Moreover, beyond the
failure of organizational components and systems, COVID-19 has also
shown the frailties of our command and control enterprises.

Allow me to stress that, *'Privacy' and 'Security' violations/breaches
are multimodal* in their origins, in their types, locations, size,
impact, value etc.   NO "APP of the Month" is going to solve the
increasingly gargantuan problem.   After decades of big budget
expenditures toward ensuring the 'Security of information', 'SECURITY"
has remained elusive.

Therefore, unless significantly greater and newer insight and
comprehension of 'privacy' and 'security' elements are uncovered for the
"digital life", we will surely not be able to confront the rising levels
and the various types of threats that are foreseeable.   If conditions
do not remarkably improve, and swiftly, our defenses will be akin to
mounting a challenge against an artillery barrage with a pitch-fork!

I present my apologies for the delay associated with my response.  The
work-load has been prohibitive.
--
/Dr. Robert Mathews, D.Phil.
Principal Technologist &
//Distinguished Senior Research Scholar//
//Office of Scientific Inquiry & Applications (OSIA)//
//University of Hawai'i/
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