If someone tests positive for Covid-19, health officials have to trace back the patients movements to determine who they’ve been in contact with, so they can contain and test these people too, in order to prevent further spreading of the virus. And, the thinking goes, why not just use the GPS in your smartphone to track all your movements, so in case you get infected, it’s easy to see where you’ve been.

It’s also easy to see why this approach is a privacy nightmare. Mind you, some companies are already doing this exact same thing. Facebook pretty much knows where you are all the time even without resorting to GPS thanks to their pervasive tracking on the web and in apps (see also issue #122). But health care officials and data scientists cannot access that data — and so they want to create their own tracking system.

But Google and Apple have their own approach. Tracking your GPS location all the time is not only inefficient, it’s also not necessary. Instead, they’ve developed a system that securely and anonymously tracks who you’ve been in contact with. Unless you test positive, no one else can track your whereabouts through this system, including Google and Apple themselves

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But neither health care officials nor scientists are fans of this approach. They want data, because they can do a lot of different and interesting things with that data. And you can make an argument that in this case, giving them that data would be sensible. But what they forget is that there’s not much difference between spies and scientists: Both want to get to the truth, and both need data — ideally a lot of it — to do so. And once such a tracking infrastructure is in place, it will be abused by others, legally and illegally.

Unlike spies, scientists are supposed to act ethically. But this situation is bringing out their worst impulses, without considering the privacy trade-offs of what they’re asking. Their intentions are good, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Shaken and Stirred

Information is power. And few have more information than social networks, making them prime targets for intelligence services. And the easiest way to get at the information is to infiltrate them by bribing or placing employees. BuzzFeed on how Saudi Arabia infiltrated Twitter.

Solitary Stress

There are a lot of reasons for being stressed. But recent events have introduced an unlikely new source: Being alone. In theory, staying at home all the time should reduce stress. So why is it that you’re feeling even more stressed? ‘Allostatic Load’ is the reason.

Deep Space Home Office

Space is vast. So big, that even the Curiosity rover on Mars cannot be controlled directly from earth. By the time the team on earth sees that it’s about to drive into a ditch, it’s too late

. But even then, engineers on earth sends Curiosity — and every other robotic spacecraft exploring our solar system — instructions. They are relayed through the appropriately named Deep Space Network, a network of giant antennas with enough power to reach beyond Pluto. But they too are locked down: How engineers are operating space missions from their homes.

Upscaling Kills the Music Video

The launch of MTV in 1981 introduced a new era for music videos. Now bands needed to have a video ready if they wanted to make it to the top of the charts. Some bands (and their studios) invested a lot of money to create small works of art. But nowadays, these videos look, well, crappy. So recently studios have started to put up remastered versions online, like a 4k remaster of Wham’s Last Christmas, or Freddy Mercury’s Living On My Own showcasing the possible quality upgrades. But not all remastered videos look better. Tom Scott explains why (YouTube).

📖 Weekly Longread 📚

“The Asia-Pacific region is awash in crystal meth. A multinational task force is on the trail of a China-born Canadian national who, police tell Reuters, is the suspected kingpin of a vast drug network that is raking in up to $17 billion a year.” The hunt for Asia’s El Chapo.

🦄 Unicorn Chaser 🦄

The Winners of the 2020 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition