ncase

Contact Tracing Without Mass Surveillance (With 3Blue1Brown!) (Patreon)

Published:

2020-06-03 12:00:05

Imported:

2026-06

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This video actually came out 3 weeks ago, and I totally forgot to share it with you. For the five of you who know about me but not Grant Sanderson (3Blue1Brown), he makes friggin' amazing math videos, both detailed and accessible – showing the true elegant beauty of mathematics.

So I've no idea why he wanted to video-ify my non-math COVID-19 comics (made in collab with an epidemiologist & a privacy researcher), but I said yes!

🎬 Does contact tracing necessarily sacrifice privacy? 🎬 (7 min video)

I feel awkward about sharing this video now, coz it's been weeks & I'm pretty sure my audience is mostly a subset of Grant's. But, 3 reasons why I'm sharing this, in descending order of importance:

1) Now that there's USA-wide protests against a brutal abuse of power, it's important the people in power don't have increased mass surveillance to target journalists & peaceful activists. This isn't tinfoil hattery – the FBI's used its powers before to suppress Dr. King & the non-violent Civil Rights Movement.

(Also, I know he's increased mass surveillance, but I was moved by Obama's recent post – on how to take this justified anger, divert it from people burning their own marginalized communities, and transform that anger into specific, sustainable local action. There's also a collection of resources: Anguish & Action.)

2) The first decentralized, privacy-first COVID-19 contact tracing app is live! Went live last week, in Switzerland. Hopefully other national & international orgs follow suit. (Again: of course apps can't solve the pandemic alone, but neither does handwashing, so I've no idea why people keep bringing up "it can't solve COVID-19 alone" as a critique. Every bit to lower R < 1 counts.)

3) Grant just finished his Lockdown Math series, and it's really good! It's very different from his usual stuff, which is also really good. Seriously go check out his YouTube channel & Patreon.

Again, stay safe, y'all.

💖,
~ Nicky

P.S: Will be taking it slow & easy in June. As detailed in yesterday's post, I'm still feeling a bit burnt out from the month of continuous late-night crunch I did to get the COVID-19 explorable out in time. Of course, will keep you updated on what's next, and how it's coming along! Thanks for your patience and kind words~

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Previews only

Does contact tracing necessarily sacrifice privacy? (via Nicky Case)

Though many contact tracing apps involve location tracking, they don’t have to. This is a video adaptation of a post by Nicky Case: https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/ New post by Nicky on COVID-19: https://ncase.me/covid-19/ Consider supporting his work: https://www.patreon.com/ncase/ Supporters of this video: https://3b1b.co/ctracing-thanks DP-3T Whitepaper: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%20Paper.pdf Full repo: https://github.com/DP-3T Where did the number 60% come from? https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/09/science.abb6936 The specific figure is Figure 3, the last panel showing instant contact tracing (with an app). It shows what combination of % (symptomatic) cases isolated & % (pre/a-symptomatic) contacts quarantined would contain the virus or not. Mental health resources (copied form a John Green video, since he knows what he's doing): National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) I know it can be scary to make a phone call, but people are nice, I promise. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) The Trevor Project: 866-488-7386 International helplines: https://togetherweare-strong.tumblr.com/helpline Mental Health Resource list and links: http://activeminds.org/ The Anxiety and Depression Association of America: http://www.adaa.org/ Mental Health screening tools: https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools Mind: http://mind.org.uk/information-support/ ------------------ Music by Vincent Rubinetti. Download the music on Bandcamp: https://vincerubinetti.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-3blue1brown Stream the music on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1dVyjwS8FBqXhRunaG5W5u If you want to contribute translated subtitles or to help review those that have already been made by others and need approval, you can click the gear icon in the video and go to subtitles/cc, then "add subtitles/cc". I really appreciate those who do this, as it helps make the lessons accessible to more people. ------------------ 3blue1brown is a channel about animating math, in all senses of the word animate. And you know the drill with YouTube, if you want to stay posted on new videos, subscribe: http://3b1b.co/subscribe Various social media stuffs: Website: https://www.3blue1brown.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/3blue1brown Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/3blue1brown Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3blue1brown_animations/ Patreon: https://patreon.com/3blue1brown Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/3blue1brown