Coronavirus: Better Call Sol - CORONAMANIA (18 Viewers)

[ernesto]

philip nolan explains how NPHET arrived at the latest modelling figures:

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Sorry, you lost me at 'Philip Nolan'

 

[magicbastarder]

sorry, *professor* philip nolan.

 

[flashback]

oh, nice. They just publish the source too?

GitHub - obrienjoey/ireland_covid_modelling: Code associated with A population-level SEIR model for COVID-19 scenarios (updated) by James P. Gleeson, Thomas Brendan Murphy, Joseph D. O'Brien, and David J. P. O'Sullivan.

Code associated with A population-level SEIR model for COVID-19 scenarios (updated) by James P. Gleeson, Thomas Brendan Murphy, Joseph D. O'Brien, and David J. P. O'Sullivan. - GitHub - obr...

github.com

Jaysus. If there was ever a case for named arguments.

ireland_covid_modelling/0_source.R at 30bb366fda86ac8dccf3d0868d9fba9a87a508e6 · obrienjoey/ireland_covid_modelling

Code associated with A population-level SEIR model for COVID-19 scenarios (updated) by James P. Gleeson, Thomas Brendan Murphy, Joseph D. O'Brien, and David J. P. O'Sullivan. - obrienjoey/i...

github.com

Named Arguments

cran.r-project.org

 

[egg_]

The reason I did this is because A: they did and B: there's a bit of a theme emerging here that the reason we can't centrally database things is that we can't trust govt, and I made the point to interrupt that handwashing routine.

And your point is "you can't trust govt because you actually can't trust anyone"? Is that what you mean?

 

[ernesto]

sorry, *professor* philip nolan.

*wanker* Philip Nolan

 

[ann post]

And your point is "you can't trust govt because you actually can't trust anyone"? Is that what you mean?

Nah

I'm saying that when it comes to IT, the discussion should be about IT people. Either they do it right, or they don't - how the govt utilise data it will largely depend on who people vote for in the medium term. But the structure, the vulnerability to ransomware, to a dublin fire type scenario of mass erasing of historical records and lot of other considerations - those are on the IT people. The ransomware thing is being framed as 'the govt didn't pay high enough salaries'. How many IT people went in, had a look, realised it was horrifically outdated and didn't go to the press or make a stand about it even though it's probably thier own bloody health records? Are any on record at all or are we just in the 'oh that's an open secret. type farce'? (open secrets are secrets) - I'm pointing out that stopping the buck at funding, or govt trust is giving a light touch to the IT side. I'm trying to widen the conversation you nerds were having here.

 

[pete]

You weren’t there, man. You don’t know what it’s like. *stares into middle distance*

 

[ann post]

You weren’t there, man. You don’t know what it’s like. *stares into middle distance*

Do tell me about this closed secret you speak of

Anywho here'a test case to try and bring you nerds back into the meatspace.

wether something like this ends up getting across the floor or not is basically about who europe at large put in parliament, wether it becomes part of irish policing people is based on the irish vote, but wether that data is safe and i doesn't for example get ransomlocked, or sold off, or corrupted, or embellished (ranging from surprise parking charges to who knows what depends on who codes it and who maintains it and who set up the AI designs.

Artificial Intelligence in policing: safeguards needed against mass surveillance | News | European Parliament

The use of Artificial Intelligence in law enforcement and the judiciary should be subject to strong safeguards and human oversight, says the Civil Liberties Committee.

www.europarl.europa.eu

 

[egg_]

wether that data is safe and i doesn't for example get ransomlocked, or sold off, or corrupted, or embellished (ranging from surprise parking charges to who knows what) depends on who codes it and who maintains it and who set up the AI designs

Indeed

... and the way civil service procurement works is a project like this will be put out to tender, and a big external contractor like Version One or Accenture will get the job. They'll charge a thousand quid a day per worker, and stick a few great coders/DBAs plus a load of juniors (most of them living in another country) on it, with some "technical solutions architect" running the tech side who wants to do it The Brand New Way so he can beef up his CV. If you're lucky there'll be a decent techie managing the whole project for the civil service, but it could just as easily be someone who's just gotten promoted or moved and who knows nothing at all about tech. Turnover within the contracting companies is high, and at any minute the whole company might get axed

... so 1 year after the project is released nobody really knows how it works. And tech changes all the time, so in 5 years you mightn't even be able hire anyone to work on the system to fix anything that's wrong.

... and also - this shit is hard. The Big Website I work on has world-class people who've been in the organisation for years, and without their constant vigilance the thing would fall over in a matter of days.

So ... you certainly can say "data leaks are the fault of IT people, those nerds need to do better" but while it's true in a very limited sense, it doesn't explain anything, or lead to any solutions. Fixing the IT procurement model would IMO help a lot, but well, once again - if that was easy to fix it'd already be fixed

 

[Lili Marlene]

No. The whole way state IT projects are run - managed by (often non-technical) civil servants and implemented by profit-maximising external contracting firms - is just bad IMO. Basically a workaround for civil servant salary bands not being flexible enough that ends up costing the state probably double what it'd cost if they ran tech projects in-house, and with worse outcomes.

Not trusting the govt to do IT properly is a fair enough reason to object to a citizen's database if that's all there is to it, but it feels like it isn't all there is to it ...


This is the bit I don't get. I honestly don't see how having a database of citizens (assuming it's properly secured and private etc etc) has implications about the very fabric of existence for millions of people. Is there something I'm missing?

I mean you half answered it with your first paragraph, those are philosophical and economic decisions underpinning everything and ruling how we live every aspect of our life, not unalterable rules of nature. I'm not being profound or original here, but it's worth considering when we glibly say it doesn't matter (or work on the assumption that you've already lost, literal panopticon stuff there)

The other bit is the history of the 20th century and what happens when people like the CIA or, well, the Nazis start compiling lists and handing them out. 50 years ago no one could have foreseen (aside from a few sci fi authors, feel free to list them) how much data would be flowing around on everyone, who knows what its gonna be like in another 50, especially when climate change starts to bite.

Its in everyones interests to keep the pressure up and not be complacent. Having the ability to xscoresearch (or whatever the latest cia search database is called) and having the authority to do it without repercussions are completely down to public pressure.

I agree with @flashback that the Irish government isn't run by sinister civil servants but a) we don't know what the future holds and we do know what has happened in the past and B) do a bit of reading into how cavalier the Irish government has attempted to be with privacy and maybe you'll start to doubt how trustworthy they actually are.

Thankfully , by all accounts the next generation take privacy more seriously than millenials or gen x did.

 

[Lili Marlene]

So ... you certainly can say "data leaks are the fault of IT people, those nerds need to do better" but while it's true in a very limited sense, it doesn't explain anything, or lead to any solutions. Fixing the IT procurement model would IMO help a lot, but well, once again - if that was easy to fix it'd already be fixed

I work in cybersecurity (marketing end lol) and my own fatalism comes in here.

You will be hacked, its not the IT guys fault, it's just inevitable in both an unequal world where its a way to make money, and a world of cyber warfare between big nations. For that reason it is important imho to limit the amount of connected data out there wherever possible, because some will inevitably be made public.

 

[magicbastarder]

our crowd are changing the main AV/client endpoint security agent (i'm the company expert in the one we're currently using) and the one we're moving to is amazingly basic in the granularity of the controls. the linux agent in particular. the means of configuring that would remind you of what it was like 25 years ago trying to manage an AV agent.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Do tell me about this closed secret you speak of

Anywho here'a test case to try and bring you nerds back into the meatspace.

wether something like this ends up getting across the floor or not is basically about who europe at large put in parliament, wether it becomes part of irish policing people is based on the irish vote, but wether that data is safe and i doesn't for example get ransomlocked, or sold off, or corrupted, or embellished (ranging from surprise parking charges to who knows what depends on who codes it and who maintains it and who set up the AI designs.

Artificial Intelligence in policing: safeguards needed against mass surveillance | News | European Parliament

The use of Artificial Intelligence in law enforcement and the judiciary should be subject to strong safeguards and human oversight, says the Civil Liberties Committee.

www.europarl.europa.eu

Slight tangent, but on this, consider that both DNA and fingerprint evidence are massively flawed, unscientific in how they are applied, and have been used to wrongly convict many people. Mostly it's just a prosecutor going to someone, "I have this fingerprint, make it fit the guy i want to convict."

Its completely down to public perception, not science, whether or not we accept this kind of evidence as convincing.

I would apply the same logic to the likes of the NSA or AI being used by Police, they want you to think they have all your data, are inside your brain, and can predict crimes before they've even happened. The reality is the more you look into it the more it seems that they have eg. pretty much never managed to prevent a terrorist attack they didn't themselves provoke in the first place.

Its completely down to public perception whether or not we just give up because "they have all our data already" or allow AI policing to become a thing.

 

[egg_]

Hmmm

I don't think "giving up" is really a thing. The govt storing data on its citizens is not a bad thing in itself IMO

All of this stuff is really about risk/reward. I'm happy for the HSE (for example) to store my health records in a database - the risk of someone stealing my information is higher than if it was on paper files, but the reward is my experience of the healthcare system will be better (or, haha, was better until someone actually hacked it). Similar for DNA stuff - the risk is that there's another way for a malicious prosecutor to frame someone, the reward is, I guess, that the chance of being caught is higher which is a disincentive to doing crimes in the first place.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Yah yah, the government is always going to store data on its citizens, the question is what data, and how is it stored, and what are the benefits for the citizens in storing the data, and what well-paid private company salesman is being allowed make the argument for using their systems with no one arguing on the other side, you know? These risk/reward conversations are not held on even playing fields.

As for the DNA stuff, that's definitely arguable, DNA evidence is way dodgy, and has the same private firms barging in as everything else (a point you brought up yourself I recognize)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/

Traces of Crime: How New York’s DNA Techniques Became Tainted (Published 2017)

The city’s medical examiner has been a pioneer in analyzing complex DNA samples. But two methods were recently discontinued, raising questions about thousands of cases.

www.nytimes.com

 

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[magicbastarder]

How Dangerous Is the Delta Variant, and Will It Cause a COVID Surge in the U.S.?

A new, more transmissible form of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly spreading in the country and poses a threat to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated people

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[rettucs]

our crowd are changing the main AV/client endpoint security agent (i'm the company expert in the one we're currently using) and the one we're moving to is amazingly basic in the granularity of the controls. the linux agent in particular. the means of configuring that would remind you of what it was like 25 years ago trying to manage an AV agent.

in my experience, more control/granularity is almost never a good thing.

 

[magicbastarder]

You configure the Linux agent by copying a manually written JSON file onto it. There's no management backend.

 

[pete]

You configure the Linux agent by copying a manually written JSON file onto it. There's no management backend.

It’s the Linux way.