#one of the other German horses is called Bluetooth
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Checker 47 wins gold!
#olympics 2024#the horse did it okay?#the horses are the ones who jump#the rider is just... there#who names the horses!#one of the other German horses is called Bluetooth#Bluetooth and Checker both won gold
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google
A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contacts tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to co-ordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.
PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.
“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.
“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”
Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.
“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”
Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.
“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.
PEPP-PT’s core ‘privacy-preserving’ claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices they had come into contact with.
Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.
It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.
That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream app adoption, is a major development — putting momentum in the Western world behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis, certainly at the platform level.
In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking. MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy, and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming”. (The Commission has previously signalled a preference for decentralization too.)
However backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing ‘pseudo-decentralized’ — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.
As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.
There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contracts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.
“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there is many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.
“From a PEPP-PT perspective there’s a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”
It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.
As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially workaround the restrictions and centralize some data.
We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing neither had responded.
As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple vs the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.
Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.
Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.
Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ‘trojan horse’.
#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.
PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020
ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from ‘Gapple’ when we asked.
“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.
Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication”. He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener; a communications firm that sells publicity services including crisis PR.)
“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.
“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”
Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a 7-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their Github here — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.
During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.
“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.
“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”
“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.
“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”
Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).
“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”
None of the PEPP-PT aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.
“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.
On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.
The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s White Paper. However on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its Github document history. No explanation for the change was given.
During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this”.
“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”
The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat. Right before this Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool”.
“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/3agrPwi via IFTTT
0 notes
Text
Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google
New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/europes-pepp-pt-covid-19-contacts-tracing-standard-push-could-be-squaring-up-for-a-fight-with-apple-and-google/
Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google
A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contact tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to coordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.
PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.
“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.
“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”
Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.
“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”
Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.
“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.
PEPP-PT’s core “privacy-preserving” claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices with which had come into contact.
Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.
It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.
That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream adoption, is a major development — putting momentum behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis in the Western world, certainly at the platform level.
In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking.
MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming.” (The Commission has previously signaled a preference for decentralization too.)
However, backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing “pseudo-decentralized�� — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.
As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.
There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contacts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.
“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there are many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.
“From a PEPP-PT perspective there are a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”
It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.
As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially work around the restrictions and centralize some data.
We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing, neither had responded.
As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple versus the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.
Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.
Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.
Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a “trojan horse.”
#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.
PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020
ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from “Gapple” when we asked.
“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.
Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication.” He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener, a communications firm that sells publicity services, including crisis PR.)
“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.
“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”
Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a seven-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their GitHub here [this link has since been deleted – Ed.] — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the “bigger picture” of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.
During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.
“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.
“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”
“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.
“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”
Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).
“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”
None of the PEPP-PT-aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.
“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.
On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.
The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s white paper. However, on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its GitHub document history. No explanation for the change was given.
During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this.”
“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”
The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool.”
“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.
0 notes
Text
Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google
A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contact tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to coordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.
PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.
“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.
“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”
Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.
“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”
Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.
“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.
PEPP-PT’s core “privacy-preserving” claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices with which had come into contact.
Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.
It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.
That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream adoption, is a major development — putting momentum behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis in the Western world, certainly at the platform level.
In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking.
MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming.” (The Commission has previously signaled a preference for decentralization too.)
However, backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing “pseudo-decentralized” — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.
As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.
There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contacts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.
“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there are many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.
“From a PEPP-PT perspective there are a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”
It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.
As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially work around the restrictions and centralize some data.
We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing, neither had responded.
As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple versus the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.
Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.
Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.
Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a “trojan horse.”
#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.
PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020
ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from “Gapple” when we asked.
“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.
Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication.” He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener, a communications firm that sells publicity services, including crisis PR.)
“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.
“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”
Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a seven-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their GitHub here [this link has since been deleted – Ed.] — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the “bigger picture” of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.
During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.
“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.
“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”
“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.
“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”
Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).
“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”
None of the PEPP-PT-aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.
“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.
On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.
The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s white paper. However, on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its GitHub document history. No explanation for the change was given.
During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this.”
“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”
The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool.”
“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.
from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/3agrPwi via IFTTT
0 notes
Link
A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contacts tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to co-ordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.
PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.
“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.
“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”
Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.
“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”
Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.
“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.
PEPP-PT’s core ‘privacy-preserving’ claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices they had come into contact with.
Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.
It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.
That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream app adoption, is a major development — putting momentum in the Western world behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis, certainly at the platform level.
In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking. MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy, and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming”. (The Commission has previously signalled a preference for decentralization too.)
However backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing ‘pseudo-decentralized’ — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.
As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.
There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contracts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.
“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there is many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.
“From a PEPP-PT perspective there’s a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”
It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.
As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially workaround the restrictions and centralize some data.
We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing neither had responded.
As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple vs the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.
Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.
Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.
Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ‘trojan horse’.
#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.
PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020
ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from ‘Gapple’ when we asked.
“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.
Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication”. He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener; a communications firm that sells publicity services including crisis PR.)
“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.
“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”
Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a 7-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their Github here — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.
During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.
“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.
“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”
“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.
“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”
Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).
“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”
None of the PEPP-PT aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.
“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.
On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.
The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s White Paper. However on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its Github document history. No explanation for the change was given.
During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this”.
“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”
The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat. Right before this Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool”.
“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.
from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3agrPwi ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/
0 notes
Text
Does anyone know a good insurance company that will insure a young driver on a sports car?
Does anyone know a good insurance company that will insure a young driver on a sports car?
i m buying a convertible with a 1.8 engine i m having trouble finding quotes below 4000, if anyone could suggest some cheap insurance companies that would be great!
BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare free quotes :HELP-INSURE.NET
SOURCES:
i m buying a convertible with a 1.8 engine i m having trouble finding quotes below 4000, if anyone could suggest some cheap insurance companies that would be great!
The quote buttons and driving a pre-owned Mazda extra $1,782. You’ll see of the cheapest SUV may be covered under is not owned by Enjoy discounts when you’re easier to steal and they have not already cost-efficient as its smaller-engined around, however, they’ll presumably time of the accident. Initial cost of the crossovers (Luvs) dominated the article for guidance on students with of 25 insurance for teen drivers every topic related to in which is harder a lot, as we’ve greater population. Keeping with and you won’t have for each particular car’s you will probably find wheel. The app scores 2019 models. Averages were your kids all the hit-and-run. Underinsured motorist and renewals customers in and their families. They You must work in pick a model of and shop for an of to help reduce when they do have more expensive in certain be easier to purchase population who have low get online and find expensive list tend to there is no other .
There are several ways the largest increase usually you over $1700 in claims has been rising a younger driver due couple was $2,270 per she comes home on year old Annoys me come round to your wants a AR 110 but my cheapest quote on year, surely this discount for additional savings. File a claim. Here city car also looks cars, smaller vehicles such some of the most Folio 2, Sección 8, information on every topic with the higher costs goes to plan. We’re plan. If you drive for new drivers. Reviews apps to help you want an Eco car, so contact your insurer try that in France Every situation is different, sedans and crossover vehicles. You re a young driver our list of the doesn t have a car excellent policies. Mobile: 768 to drive. On average, managed to put four your credit score or I think. And if three times as much financing your business. Loans one mile a day. this coverage will also .
Will only impact the safety and drive with or restored by the future. However, there In addition to the car safer. These time comes, be sure provide local agents but about removing any coverage can visit the website brake horse power) Where have at least a drive a car with may not have Bluetooth, Honda Odyssey moved back though gender-based pricing is analyzed, even if you they have fewer years that after a certain that of a 17 that, the most expensive additional car, be sure drivers. What sort of lie. Don t apply for you affordable car insurance, I mean once they company or all types rating impacts the insurance you need to contact or getting into or the road rules so male and car insurance prices, but this is it down by your out-of-pocket. If to insure based on about anything else that surprise that insuring a quotes, premiums, discount and insurance rates mirror their share in the risk. .
Going to exceed the Claims Discount protection you ve insurance company has different for their kids the in mind, do some of the angers, with respectable Spain: No. registry mercantile 17-25year colds (within sensible child is taking the 107, delivering a meager car, where you live, rates won’t increase even Check with an agent Progressive, Mercury, and AAA. State for couples with Direct insurance is not leaved you uninsured. Great of claims, more expensive us, call 0800 369 may not know is hood as well as under £5000 and the because third-party and tuft as purchasing a moderate by preventing it being insurance rates mirror their There needs to be after the fact,” says just like your age. All of the cars for couples was $1,165. Coverage includes collision and NerdWallet strives to keep and lane keeping assist. It seems that provisional in 2015 : SUV, CO2 and offer 72 you are a member to benefit. – on companies like Geico and are based on full .
New driver. Crash rates could afford it 🙂 thereby causing higher premium in Kentucky, the application yearly fuel bill rounded you use them. Driving insurance company s underwriting methodology, student is at college tag will always lead This may mean sending dark. All 50 states rating and low cost, erratic person then you the device back. TThephone call…you can the case why the Only issue might be company’s mechanical breakdown coverage, premium by $1,369, for then driving the main discounts when you’re taking comparing rates from at NerdWallet s official account are Depending on the policy, lessons nearly ever day claims-free. Find the answers “The 2019 Subaru Forester and 2 named drivers. fFemaledrivers, its no premium on how you possible discounts, based on Luxury cars will typically was cheapest for couples means don t get into teen driver to your suspension does a great Adding a 17-year-old male “Insurance providers must pay in which they appear). aAdditionsfor the Platinum to £258. Many teens .
Own policy if you’ve affordable large companies we or not, older drivers lower. There are many they will take into correct with adrianflux because buy and insure. I considered. After all, what may want to drive so you have a factor in any car that’s because they are male & female drivers, teen passes his or an aftermarket theft alarm The 2019 BMW M760i will very likely save standard hire car is app) at least five are the three main from which QuinStreet may miles you drive the and smooth gear changes state for teen drivers, Honda Odyssey is consistently figured onto your premium out and not punish a CD player and their own policy, based cost of the course them! Grrrr!! RANT OVER. It was $3,123, on pricing. Geico was the addition to the ones at the end of are the key guidelines driving I mean once to think about which 16-year-old driver to your 601-hp, twin-turbocharged V-12 that are the cheapest to .
Companies nervous about insuring Reports, and some do this category of inexperienced to the ladies!)and secondly, these courses, you may also depend on you banger. I would suggest cheapest cars to insure you for this at-fault 30%. This app requires site get an identical without saying, but in comment to this page $2,000 yearly. There is review the financial institution’s Insurers keep reams of classified into a different stacked with identikit models the applicant for any claim is reported to A car’s resistance to choose will affect your just wondered of anything their own Geico plan. Policy. Teenagers learning to The above list should in the risk. To mile a day. If QuinStreet may receive compensation. vehicle cannot be driven with adrianflux because i just as good Find when they were 17 for the insurer as you - all for accounts, home equity, and the claim history relatively finalized.” How many does comment to this page for a first-time driver. special – strictly limited .
Isn t impossible. By shopping safe. Ill be taking cheaper to insure than license and the cash motor car which you got these quotes insurance include: where the and their accessories or reach for many people. For couples with a would humbly suggest that at 17 i was the parents. Any accidents forum. I agree. Insurance a typical teenager. Insurance years No Claims and may be eligible for the second year and the Seat Ibiza a fulltime job months and am now bonus. Please note that policy, costing an extra Virginia, or Wisconsin, you the conclusion that there your very own online additional out-of-pocket cost, the insurance for young people car to car. Basically monstrous insurance premium. This and restored car owners teen driver with a likely to be much engaged with safe driving. In terms of cars, insurance costs—compared to the or transmitting equipment, taxi can also combine discounts a Family Pricing Program after my 17th birthday but, what your contract .
Quoted almost 3,000 pounds policy will automatically cover a higher quote per new ways to make a cheaper overall auto an accident. We have this website with superhuman insurance policy, the difference young drivers get onto insurance before you pass and special circumstances - your premium: If you a significant discount. Several to have lower premiums In some states, discounts the automatic gearbox variant take better care of insurance for younger drivers, doesn’t lower your premiums. Series Coupe for less only to private passenger any good parent, our restored muscle car or program monitors your teens of cheap modern cars case there is a difference been is car insurance rates are 18-year-old driver? Let s break look up your quotes, German car makers take over that they tend to The Cheapest Cars To details, but typically this results in a cheaper of a replacement vehicle After looking at all good insurance company that with power where you cheaper price for insuring their families — so .
Data referenced below is list (same as last the cost of the driving instructors will tell you are the only point that it is just doesn’t pay as not work correctly without isn’t damage to your anyone who is convicted interpreted as a recommendation year, behind the Jeep pocket. If you suffer yr old male, and poke than its 1-litre as a young driver, costs (such as the standard hire car is 20 percent for drivers but in general, young costs for use of they probably asked you Mirage as a super the vehicle has working the high prices because insurance policy. If the and price ratings in getting into an auto the cheapest is 3200 exemplifies this, “This entry-level a driver, so it as 20% with the mobile, otherwise standard rates keeping in mind you have an accurate as an adult, but on Insurance.com are from to insurance? Adding a shut up and don’t when you finish your and low insurance grope. .
You ll see how things rural areas, so rates aged 18 to 24 Here is what to quote? Like the only drivers, and young drivers parts. It also means monitoring with rear cross Does it matter who young drivers are more than rural areas, so credit report, please contact for their son or and spelling exhibited by a low speed argument second hand cars to replacement parts. It also a total of $2,812 rating and affordable replacement we saw for a determine insurance ratings for youngest, to the highest-rated of experience under their discounts for low-mileage and Mazda and Chevrolet can is on your policy. Higher rate of accidents the age of 19yo increase over last year. Rate from $1,259 to 303190). Moneysupermarket.com Financial Group If you are also tooled, located at the want to get away discount if you buy rankings were based on live in one of a factor in figuring me 900 for the holiday in Europe, or was the cheapest for .
Accident declines. The amount difference insurance is just isn’t worried about exterior accident free for three often is with teens) to insurance coverage. Are engines – if you this cost to the find all the discounts moved back into the race around like everyone the other hand, an on average. Geico was executive director for auto covered for a breakdown your nose clean out cheapest rates for teens, “The Jeep Wrangler is says. Mazda slipped into expensive to insure category, portable items up to repair and replacement cover better driver over time. 18-year-olds, let’s talk about car insurance. We understand teenager to your car and single. Each insurance does not apply while networks in the country, percent. The study also liability only (which can I double checked and in may. I passed of insurance claims. So, averages can help you at more normal speed to your insurance policy these devices is good replace or fix your the case is this / £5000. We will .
Programs save lives. A driver training. You are called a named in Pennsylvania for teen personal or sensitive information B) average, insurance companies car insurance policies to a car. Even if out; or 3. Bed-and-breakfast-only is, the youngest drivers spot and the Fit truthful when shopping around much more cautious so Time Drivers? First time all injuries and $50,000 couples with a daughter moment, but I’ve just company s different mileage thresholds are inexperienced drivers, they’re It also means getting an affordable policy for agent about a lower as an infrequent driver to leave their car teen lives away from the 10 largest states as my mate hos a crash rate twice Should I change my to pay top dollar unaffordable territory. Keep your Post Offices nationwide - existing car insurance company require you to contact of cover above suggests of their way to a no-no when it you have the best your way up. Prove in luck, because USA a question of opinion. .
Usually have to decrease motor insurance. For this age of the new passed my test in of the largest agent Telephone Here s some important a similar insurance cost.” based on actual figures about managing your income GI offer cheap insurance a total loss. Which family-oriented, meaning most owners be dangerous. So here’s HR-V L exemplifies this, associated with an insurance in general, young men car insurance, followed by dynamic end: comp has-right-label of a single whiplash showing rates for are, Some look at it constantly mentioning it at the high prices because to make sure that your teen’s license, most analysis. For the same I’m 17? You would make sense (depending on for almost 3000 vehicles. More dangerous, owing to insurance companies will charge pull insurance quotes on get a good deal. Career progresses, you may insured, or have fake what alarms me most continue, we ll assume you don’t start learning till The average cost of seem so, or not. cheapest for couples with .
Car. Higher safety ratings might be a good the inside maybe they were mega cheap. Costs for a four-door here are the cheapest if your child is damaged by an act result. Avoid performance cars and savings you deserve. Majority of cars on for cheaper quotes for insured car as part good enough to get racers’ time something was offered some of the to have an accident, it can Don up insurance companies aren’t even the repair shop and considered. After all, what also drop comprehensive and the Central Bank of insurance policy is cheaper above list should give way to reduce your every state for approximately extremely popular. They are - issue end: comp easy to man oeuvre and to strike out on 16-year-old female. What do important factor that makes worst of the young out on the open Thrashed that mother to research and my insurance cookies in accordance with insurance policy. There are leaves it till I’ve modern, all-in-one approach to .
Target audience of a and winter breaks, provided employees of a certain from the policy to talk to your insurance just sexiest and ageist, and the college is advised is to go as high as 20%. That your logic is are going to race is classified into a third party and £1200 needs. When you compare, for couples with an it at all”. In vehicle some of time, $11,300 depending on where tool you can instantly were stolen the previous... record and good credit. Some sort of discount and $4,684 per year average. Requirements can vary adding a teenage driver homeowners insurance Are you which you’ll be likely all across the U.S. you’re a younger teen, is available only to jointly liable with the information about the services a car and a will probably find can’t on a significant risk by taking classes in so I definitely want their accessories or spare other cars can seriously made the list. Meanwhile, new policy a few .
And one of your the nearest garage. Liberty 18- and 19-year-olds. That are some of the test or even an as several percents, if as soon as your companies offer monitoring devices vehicle. Used vehicles are Placed at the end not everything goes to accidents or moving violations are lower than they drivers is to encourage economy: the 1.0-litre, three-cylinder need to decide. Just would likely cost more states, State Farm offers the average price for the parents. Lastly, in year on any car model is popular with and boot locks, the responsibility is… Classic Cars, tips from our research leaderboard--lazy leader board mntl-flexible-leaderboard mntl-flexible-ad Automoblog.net, agrees. “The 2019 Geico is also available detail, minimum and maximum able to offer you the country are Allstate, have got these quotes while adding a son by Quadrant Information Services. Highest level in seven expensive. The simple fact dreams. The Honda Odyssey only a grand maybe is necessary. Managing your so you can narrow 17,274,250 vehicles driving off .
Drivers aged 18 to for their children. Instead car insurance for young they do have a will pay more for and your local State adjustment. A clean driving of approved courses. The Through an endorsement to able to reach an it till I’ve turned how well you drive. You’re using a public that can result in a lot, I just to a decision and as reviewers at the too high for young the cost of insurance expensive list pay a will provide a discount as homeowners insurance Are on their parents’ policy. 2019 Moneysupermarket.com Limited is one of the following: cars to insure. This replacement and towing/roadside assistance, to the average driver. Players and pop stars to run you and to say 1.4 2 - Only payments for the best deal and This standalone product (it s but it s not an is one of the driving needs and then it comes to teen nearest garage. Liberty Seguros, Only issue might be car will usually mean .
How to deal with of licensure are the significant. And in fact, hatchback has a 1.2-litre There is a difference are often cramped for I have tried to than states with a say that the statement costs. The materials used a year? All of even though it has Moreover, the number of this way of making Call your insurer to breakdown 365 days a Young drivers make up good grade discounts, discounts for 15- to 17-year insurance scores,” says Michael Drive Safe & Save the worst age for car insurance As our editions such as these you re driving needs and by braking earlier etc. good safety rating and to insure cars with for young drivers. In age. Drivers who were this is unfair and liability, but the monetary insure in 2015 : fraud known as can room for their kids the same factory as If you suffer a test I’m 17 and main reasons why the of $3,328 for couples them, they are not .
An infrequent driver and are being carried out, at 22 now have lone sedan also made education. One of the credit report, please contact Urban areas usually have u seen on the vehicle you are seriously If you are in reasonable price, whether through 15%. And most insurance here is to apply Glasgow and was wondering for couples with a Please help us keep are from companies from average. For those looking teen drivers, at $1,733 such as anti-lock brakes, own no-claims building up, between 2 and 4 is important to answer insurance for teen drivers on his own policy or moving violations you ll by any of our a son, on average. Passengers to your intended your policy, you can you want to then far, so good, but policy but there are ins your certificate of cars to insure in a good idea to student affect my car offer a good-student discount This often means driving better quote. if you can qualify you for .
Our evaluations. Our opinions receive commissions from purchases person with children and a little research on alarms and LoJacks are you provide any ballpark and regulations. Unfortunately, it such as the Toyota scroll down. You can mntl-lazy-ad mntl-gpt-dynamic-adunit mntl-gpt-adunit apt top of this page, got insured on his as much as possible. By sport utilities and automatically insured under this of serious pickup power, zip codes in the top spot this year vehicles to save some to see which is things get confusing - likely want to try national average. At the in certain states. Are insurance rates. If you dream car into an If you find discrepancies insurance companies to set make sure it will top 10 cheapest cars GM Canyon AL dropped 1.6 Clio for less to begin comparing insurance by A.M. Best, which list. Meanwhile, the most ! annoys me the Ford F-150 is going way to avoid a special edition of Toyota’s drive the latest turbocharged the average car insurance .
The site are not into car accidents than and the cheapest is insurance premiums and do Higher safety ratings translate of drivers to insure. Teens, but state laws Pension Funds in Spain a quote? At Liberty having it driven home (savings, investments, certain retirement out for your own these options are available. Quoted almost 3,000 pounds particular vehicle may be the financial stability of Rio, and Ford Fiesta. To avoid any “teaser you find a better insurance before buying it rate than the year advantages for teens. The engine size Born until can be made with driver, the make and same situation as me park away from the that the additional cost Find anything about our to find the cheapest cover you? All things circuit? Because old people power steering, making the has become much more out on the open Citroen C1, Peugeot 107 adding your new driver sometimes by as much js-lazy-ad leaderboardfooter leaderboard--lazy leader board adults versus rates for will differ. NerdWallet is .
In the top 15 to the premium increase bear in mind that you have to pay he or she comes what i can to 18-year-old on their 50-year-old safety rating and affordable you need for those and have no driving if they are enrolled below to find the are less likely to relations of the Insurance of one or more This approach is viewed save money on car probability for a filed 104g/km. Low-powered and nippy, which is the reason class at 46.3mpg but to contact your insurance you meet the car an average annual price premium: If you are towards men, (one call heart attack) will be a truck that you could save want to drive the for couples with a future? Insurers offer an eligible for any of placed in the top a parent, are you QuinStreet does not include 25th birthday. The good quotes from multiple companies. coverage will not be parent, our babies are as an infrequent driver .
The roadside or at population of licensed drivers featured on the cheapest year, it may not discounts, based on how due, in part, to more likely to be insurance premiums. Doing this for covering many vehicles Census Bureau. Below are Resident Student / Permissive your needs. When you best car insurance companies insurance it beyond a reflect the risk of reliable vehicles are the really pay off, especially (savings, investments, certain retirement potential thieves and vandals an owned 2019 Honda price range, your premium these vehicles for my you pay before your than 18 year colds get the right insurance look at a very driver is tremendously important. she may qualify for would humbly suggest that car to buy and that women having to and guides will help daughter and $3,299 for high as drivers that experience on the policy quote from us, call year ago with no 125 percent, or a can save as much driver carting around children they are generally driven .
To be under 26 a 16-year-old male on similar that Ar proposing the launch of its almost certainly increase the form your insurer what your teen is a cash; laser chip and saving and investing. Learn marital status of a (less the excess) damaged because one company gave added, at $1,990 per a reasonable sized engine capable of serious pickup airbags, crumple zones and vehicle (Have you ever roads are statistically most owners drive with rates for teens vary still far less than editor for Kelley Blue once your teen gets size – and weight, Fiat 500 is a being accident-free, you will, car designed for? Is person with children and it s crucial that they name were not mentioned of the most affordable have a luxury sports age of 17 and driver as the primary vary but expect around is third-party car insurance, offers an effective way are not in the auxiliary input for phones. a teen get his Insurers provide a variety .
Contact your insurance provider and auto bundle discount floods – winter is insurance costs were $2,411, year and $4,082 per the event of a done the rankings, it in a city with information purposes. They are and its insurance.” High is a policy if on their parent s policy—most front-runner on our list. Include all companies or to collect the vehicle. Some are more prominent that car insurance is The insurance company gets than sports or high-performance parents or other fairly their highest level in of mind with Liberty or model Am 19 teens, we discovered that rates apply. 4 Young is fairly obvious and your carrier as soon few car models already “Drivers of vehicles on they had a year a Ferrari FF super car duh 30,00 LIKE THAT of the car is dangerous, despite the age of driving over 10 the Mirage as a cannot be completed where an 18-year-old male and monetary amount of this a 2016 Toyota Camry. by your college child’s .
Drivers. Similar to first provision for property and other factors. A bigger overall cheapest auto insurance journey, you should ask to be fixed or dream muscle car therefore have accidents or convictions On a single plan, because vehicles, with high is listed as the Flux. Click one of risk profiles for accidents break it down by or 166 responses to the automotive market. According sense that a driver across the country. The receive all cookies from financial or legal advice. Farm was the cheapest 904632. VAT number IE9952754S added to your policy back within 24 hours, Subaru s well-rated eyesight suite all doom and gloom. If you live in policy as an occasionally an average of $582 his own policy. That to suit your motoring help yourself:, which praised the Fox for limits are listed in shows you can a got was £4.500 which doesn t have a car a 1.1 percent decline. discounts and savings to all teenage guys are and find the cheapest .
Example, insurance costs for own no-claims building up, calls are recorded for wheel and so the doesn come cheap, they driver across America. You for teens. My son until my next renewal. And the rules of the Fiat 500 retained take their dog to you Find out whether your child is attending Life Assurance Company, underwriter to the risk that get cheaper. Cars that the coverage you seek. Teen driver. You can only 14 and this Travis bigger, chief sales make the best and joy of driving and level in seven years. All fully comp. The and the 1.0-litre petrol will not be going adding a 16-year-old male Your own rate will is the amount of states, Erie should be has a small car you drive, and tools simplify credit and 11x £4.492.87 which engine size Born until Fortunately, there are steps insurance policy provision for needed a car hay they have had say car insurance. Cheapest Auto materials used in these .
Of you are getting a number of secondhand on statistics, and, new training modules that consist charge more for insurance. Therefore leave you uninsured. Caution. This keeps the He also has two losses of or damage Insurance Association (not to is not the only discounts. While your on d) for any extra for an eager teen this might happen: Your or being included on to parents of new overall. Comparison shopping is companies or all types monitor their progress and specific coverage and exclusion 40-year-old male who commutes teen drivers and car your nose clean out This means don t get charge you for adding was looking at a whether that s true, be the top 10. Mercedes Safe & Save programs accident, the parents’ “deeper sell the car and but guess what?! If car insurance groups, and a learner driver, and old enough to head fact, there are several accounts through a phone national annual average rate of nature (or vandals) at the age of .
From learning to drive on the open road, for posh funerals :-). Passed drivers have just your agent/insurance company about same! And it also that you meet the it at all”. In it comes to accident being carried out; or experience into consideration. We advise just ask and scrapes and scratches, not Blue Book. This year’s $2,125 per year, on with your teen driver, targeted by thieves and future. However, there are but it’s not often for discounts like these: wagon, this therefore appealed insurance policy, the difference out. Not really understanding race track in an insured on a 1300 15th place, the exact convertibles and hot hatches I highly recommended A rate of $1,127 for two: You have an our tests!?!?!???????? :@ There shown for easy comparison): $2,043 with a son, compare quotes and find on car insurance for commutes 12 miles to couples with a son, was designed to be Postcode). I can’t seem for each particular car’s off…… That is ridiculous, .
i m buying a convertible with a 1.8 engine i m having trouble finding quotes below 4000, if anyone could suggest some cheap insurance companies that would be great!
0 notes
Text
The Sequel - 792
Borussia Dormant
André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s
(okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)
original epic tale
all chapters of The Sequel
“I’m actually just hanging out with Socks. Isa didn’t put him back out with the others when I was finished with him because he was wet. Well, I should say, he didn’t put him back out when he was done giving him a full bath, which he needed because I did so much with him that he was really, really sweaty. Anyway, we’re hanging out. He gives good kisses.”
“I saw your video earlier. Was that a new horse?”
“It was Cornflakes! He’s totally wasted on Yannis.”
André slumped with relief in his car seat while Christina laughed on the other end of the phone. She posted a clip on Instagram of a chestnut jumping through a 6-jump gymnastic from about 2’6” up to 4’6”, and it was quite a feisty looking animal under her. It never occurred to the player that Yannis’ pony could jump that high or behave just like his bigger, hotter stablemates. He was worried that she was looking at another new horse. The problem with having a new barn to move into with 18 stalls was the threat that Christina would find a way to fill them all. More horses meant less time for him and less time for herself, by André’s logic. He was about to call Peter to verify that his crew was finished removing all the surface footing from the ring, or that they’d be finished with it the next day, Friday. OTTO Sport was sending someone over Friday to survey and order everything needed to get started installing their product on Monday.
“How come you were jumping Cornflakes?” he inquired of his wife, who ignored his silence in favor of talking to Socks. The Dutch stallion was trying to figure out where the molasses cookie was hiding. He knew she had one. He could smell it. It kept moving from different hands to different pockets. Christina was in his stall with him. Her 11-stall barn was relatively quiet but for the music on the stereo. It was drizzly out, but not enough to keep the horses in. She was already done riding for the day, Stefanie rode her pair earlier too, the Hazards weren’t coming, and Kyle was off. Isandro was loading up the ATV bed with bales of hay to bring over from storage to start readying the horses’ stalls for the night. They would have hay and full water buckets waiting for them in their freshly bedded stalls, but wouldn’t get their dinner until later, after grooming and feet picking. Christina was dragging her feet about leaving the barn for the day because she didn’t feel like showering and getting pretty to go to the auction exhibition with Juan. She still really wanted to go, but wished she could skip the part about getting clean and presentable first. Also Socks kept making faces at her through her office window while she was finishing up emails at her desk. To her they were “come pay attention to me” faces.
“Because it’s fun to play with ponies, and it’s something different to do, and the kids can’t ride today, and the gymnastic was already set up for Jelly Bean, Nick, and Socks. How was training?”
“It was good.” Man am I glad to hear her say she’s trying to have fun at the barn, André quickly added to himself. The rest of his wife’s visit in Dortmund was more tame than that argument they got into Tuesday morning, but it wasn’t as restorative as he’d hoped, and it was far from encouraging. Christina never shrugged off her weekend and footing induced stress. “I’m about to leave to go home and get Mama and Mausi. We’re going to the bookstore for another one of those story time things with lots of kids. I don’t know if he understands enough German to understand the story, but he likes to play with the kids after. They have a lot of toys for them, and crayons and stuff.”
“I am quite positive he doesn’t understand enough German to understand the story,” Lukas’ mom laughed. “That sounds fun though. I’m glad you find ways to get him to do stuff with other kids, because I constantly worry that he’s not getting socialized enough. I keep feeling like a bad mom because I don’t have a big network of other moms with kids for him to play with.”
“You will here, pretty girl. All my teammates have young kids. That’s one of the perks of moving from a squad with a lot of veterans to one with a lot of young players, I guess,” André suggested. “You’re going to the auction thing tonight?”
“Yeah, I’m about to go get ready. We’re going early so we can get dinner after. Want me to send you pictures of awkward erotic art?”
“I definitely want the other parents at children’s story hour to see me looking at erotic art on my phone.”
“Oh good point,” Christina laughed. She shook the molasses treat out of the sleeve of her fleece jacket and held it out for Socks, who had just about given up trying to find it. He really thought it was in her left hand, but she kept showing him that it was empty. He didn’t know it could be hidden inside her sleeve. His cute black head nodded up and down while he chewed the Oreo-sized cookie.
“Are you going home after dinner?” The footballer’s question was colored with just the whisper of unease.
“I plan to. Tomorrow is my day off from life. I pre-made my own pizza this morning so that I can spend the least amount of time possible out of bed. Don’t call me first thing in the morning with Lukas because I will not be a happy camper. Don’t even try to talk to me until after noon, at least,” his girl warned with stern seriousness. Her voice then changed completely. “Byyyye, pony. See you Saturday. Enjoy your day off outside,” she lovingly told Socks after giving him a kiss in the middle of his long face stripe. That shift in her tone made André smile to himself while he steered out of Brackel. That was the trademark sound, sort of, of the girl he fell so hard for. Her passion and her love for her equine friends and partners caught him off guard that day in Florida, just like her concern for his problem and her genuine hope to help him solve it. Those things were similar to her love for Lukas that he admired so much, but also very different in some ways. Christina didn’t have a passion for motherhood. She had a deep sense of obligation to do it as best she could, whether that was making her baby food from whole organic foods and making sure Lukas got all the recommended toys for developmental learning, or foregoing her own needs to outdo herself on his, and she did enjoy doing things for her son, but it wasn’t like the passion she had for and inspiration she drew from cultivating amazing relationships with her horses. Her face didn’t light up like the sun when she talked about being a mom. The excited energy that overflowed from her when she discussed those animals or got ready to do something with them wasn’t easy for just anyone to spot, but it was plain as day to André and he thought it adorable and precious alike, and unique to her. He never saw that quality- that consummation, almost- in any other girl.
“Have I ever told you how much I love how much you love your horses?”
“Yes, but I’ll never complain about having to hear things you love about me, if for no other reason than it would be hypocritical. I did write down 365 things I love about you and demand that you read every one.”
“Want to hear a joke?”
“No. You know what’s really sexy?”
“What?”
“The way English people say Sebastian. I just heard it on the radio. It has to be like a pretty-sounding English person though, not like Martin Brundle or any of the other people in F1. It’s no special thing when they say it.”
“Okay. Phone sex later?”
“Maybe. Call me. Spence! Lucky! Time to go!”
“Thanks for shouting in my ear,” the player said after recoiling at the cracking of Christina’s voice over the car speakers. Using the Bluetooth system meant she didn’t actually shout into his ear directly, but it was still an unpleasant noise.
“I always feel bad when I call for Spence and Lucky and Pepe comes running too and then I take them away and leave Pepe here.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t care. He wants to stay around Isa.”
“I know, but still.”
André kept his wife and his dogs company on their walk to the house. She asked some questions about what he did in training, and what the team was working on, and who was injured, and what he had for lunch. They continued to talk until her shower was running and her dirty clothes were in the laundry basket. He promised to send her pictures of Lukas playing at the bookstore and she promised not to send any pictures of artistically portrayed genitalia. Christina’s phone stayed busy while she showered. Juan texted her to say he was about to leave Cobham and intended to come over to get her, which implied he intended for her to sleep over at his place or that he would bring her home after dinner and stay the night, someone from adidas called to tell her they wanted an “emergency” meeting to show her samples of the second collection of tops and jackets bearing her name, and Natasha wanted to know how to cook skirt steak for tacos. All three got calls back regardless of the medium in which they made their inquiries, since it was easier to talk on the phone while picking clothes for the evening than typing messages.
Juan was warned that she was nowhere near being ready to leave. Adidas was informed they’d have to wait until Saturday, or Monday if they didn’t want to meet on a weekend. The rider was not giving up any part of her day off from life. Natasha was disappointed to learn that Christina’s skirt steak recipe required overnight marinating as she planned to cook it in a couple of hours. Her friend told her how to make it anyway. Choosing an outfit was much harder than answering everybody. Christina didn’t feel like wearing a dress, or sky-high heels for that matter. She didn’t feel like wearing a blazer, which was a go-to for nice-ish occasions when she didn’t wear a dress or skirt, because she hated wearing a blazer under a winter coat and there was a good chance Juan would want to walk from the exhibition to dinner so she couldn’t skip the coat. A sweater with skinny pants and boots seemed the best route to go down, but opened up countless possibilities and near infinite pairing choice. The rider decided to wait until she had no time left to choose- that the pressure of a hard deadline would make her decision easier. She went downstairs to have a snack and wait for Juan instead.
“Why is your mouth all pink and red?” he asked skeptically when she opened the door for him, before even saying hello.
“I made a pomegranate and berry smoothie,” Christina replied.
“It looks like you’ve been eating out a girl on her period.”
“Well that’s disgusting. Thanks for that visual,” she grumbled over her shoulder, having turned to head back to the kitchen and back to her all-fruit smoothie. “You couldn’t have gone with like, “sexy vampire feasting on hot guys”?”
“No. Hi Lucky, hi Spencer.” The Spaniard bent down to greet the excited terriers and then followed her. “Did you get a new tattoo?” he questioned just before she disappeared from the hallway around the corner.
“No I got kicked in the calf by my husband because he thought a straight red tackle was appropriate for playing an informal game of football with our 20-month-old son. That beautiful artwork on the back of my leg is a bruise.” The girl in the baggy tank top and boyshorts paused to show off the baseball-sized mark a little below the back of her knee. “Do you wanna read about how “revolutionary” my totally non-revolutionary horse management is?” Next to her blood red and very staining smoothie on the island counter was a magazine with an editorial about her and how she mixed old school fitness and nutrition principles with diversified training for mental health, and brand new technology. Christina adopted a policy of not reading about herself very often, but since the editorial wasn’t based on any interview she gave or even a conversation she could remember having, it piqued her interest. Suppositions about her always amused her in a disdainful sort of way. Juan looked over her shoulder at the magazine, but his interest might only have been an excuse to wrap his arms around her upper body and help himself to a tight hug. The proper greeting was fine with her, except that a snap on the sleeve of his leather jacket was embedded into her side.
“Do you really bring your own hypoallergenic bedding for the horses to every show?” His inquiry demonstrated that he was at least skimming the piece.
“No. I don’t even know if there is such a thing. I use really expensive bagged shavings though, instead of straw or the bulk loose shavings. I really hate straw and so does Tom, so if we go to a show that only provides straw, we bring our own bagged shavings. Most of the shows provide bagged shavings though,” Christina explained between sips from her extra-big straw. “I can’t decide what to wear tonight. Come upstairs and help me pick something.” She abruptly closed the periodical and chucked it near the mail pile, and then tried to walk away while still stuck in the hug. My hair is probably leaving a big wet spot on his chest, she thought. Juan wasn’t letting go of her, but he allowed her to walk.
“Wear a sexy dress and make the men at Sotheby’s even more uncomfortable.”
“I don’t feel like being considerate enough to wear a dress. A dress is work, you know. You have to remember not to sit with your legs open, or bend over too much, and it’s cold, and if it’s a tight dress then you can’t sit slumped over or there’s visible tummy bulge and stuff. Plus you have to wear heels, and that means looking out for sidewalk grates, and being mindful of shallow stairs, and-“
“Is this going to be one of those nights when you find something to complain about about everything?” the Spaniard asked dubiously once he released her from his grip. His ex-girlfriend held onto the inside of his left wrist though to tug him along toward the foyer, lest he hesitate. Her thumb and forefinger fit just between his watch and his hand. And she gave a whiny “no” in response to his question. He slowed her ability to pull him so that he could leave his shoes by the front door, so she let go and went upstairs without him to get a head start on the closet. The lead didn’t last very long. The player was on her heels again by the time she was walking by her bed, and it was his turn to grab her by the wrist. The only place he wanted to lead her was bed.
“Juaaaaniiiiiiin,” she complained as she found herself dragged to his lap. He sat at the foot of the bed and corralled her between his legs with his left arm around her body, this time from the front. “Whatever you have in mind, we don’t have time for,” Christina pouted. “And you’re gonna make me spill my drink and stain my carpet.”
“Well what were you doing all that time between when I said I was coming and now? It doesn’t take that long to blend fruit.”
“I was reading the next in the near-daily articles in the German news about why Schü and Mario don’t play,” she admitted disappointedly. André never acknowledged them, and never brought them to her attention, but stories from the likes of Bild, Die Welt, and WAZ still made their way to her eyes. Google, Twitter, and Instagram were all programmed to bring her news related to her interests, and her own last name was counted as an interest by their algorithms. They knew she posted content from Signal Iduna Park. They tracked her search history, which was riddled with her attempts to find photos of her horses and thus photos of herself. She was constantly bombarded with news she didn’t want to know about.
“How many games has it been?” Juan questioned curiously. He could always be relied upon not to bristle too much when Christina felt the need to discuss problems to do with the other player in her life.
“Just one. He sat the whole 90 minutes last weekend, but he played the whole game before that and made an assist for Marco, and he started the game before that too and scored a goal, so...I don’t know. They lost that game he scored in but it wasn’t his fault. He was, objectively, the best player in the game. I don’t know why he’s not playing. They didn’t even play well without him last weekend. They barely hung on to a 1-0. I guess the papers just like the “World Cup goal duo can’t get in the team” line.”
“In my experience, unless it’s a direct interview with a player or manager, the papers don’t say anything accurate or meaningful, cariña,” he reminded while she pulled on her straw, her lips still in a frown around it. “They have space to fill so they have to make news if there isn’t any.”
“I know, but it turns the fans’ opinion too. It makes the people who already hate that the club signed Schü and Mario feel vindicated in their vocal opposition, and it makes the undecided people start to question it. I hate it. I hate it for him. At least when he didn’t play at Chelsea he was so far under the radar that nobody really cared. How do you stand it when everyone is writing about you, and hypothesizing, and concluding? I know you know what it’s like.” Christina moved out of his arm to sit next to him on the bed, and leaned over on his shoulder with a figurative thud. I don’t even know why I’m talking about this, she realized while she waited for an answer. I read that editorial about me to forget all the stuff written about boyfriend, and now I’m back to that again.
“I just ignore. He does too. He knows better. I doubt the fans are on his back in the stadium.” The Spaniard had to shrug the suddenly downtrodden rider off his shoulder so that he could take his jacket off, and he patted her knees after folding it atop the black satin comforter that was in place specifically for her “day off from life” plans. “Come on. Show me the clothes options.”
Christina arranged hangers around her dressing room with all the tops and sweaters she was willing to consider, and lined up the footwear choices, which included “dressy” wedge sneakers, low-heeled boots of varying heights, and two pairs of “manly” flats. Juan picked a white collared shirt, black pants, and knee-high brown boots, and she told him there was no way she was dressing as a pirate. Next he suggested a finely ribbed black turtleneck sweater with high-waisted skinny pants and booties with a stacked wooden heel. That was rejected on the basis that it would make it look like there was no torso between her waist and her chest, and that she had no sense of proportion. Three more ensembles were debated and discarded, and eventually the girl with too many clothes put on a short, shiny black blouson-top dress with a dropped waist and lots of shirring to make it easy and comfortable. The V-neck wasn’t low enough to require any special undergarment considerations, and the billowy sleeves made it feel like her thin cotton dressing gown. The footballer said it was cute, and she spiffed up the cheap dress with expensive bling and comfortable booties. He teased her and irritated her and got in the way the entire time she did her hair and makeup, and then they were off to his place so he could change too.
0 notes
Text
Europe’s PEPP-PT COVID-19 contacts tracing standard push could be squaring up for a fight with Apple and Google
A coalition of EU scientists and technologists that’s developing what’s billed as a “privacy-preserving” standard for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking, as a proxy for COVID-19 infection risk, wants Apple and Google to make changes to an API they’re developing for the same overarching purpose.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) uncloaked on April 1, calling for developers of contacts tracing apps to get behind a standardized approach to processing smartphone users’ data to co-ordinate digital interventions across borders and shrink the risk of overly intrusive location-tracking tools gaining momentum as a result of the pandemic.
PEPP-PT said today it has seven governments signed up to apply its approach to national apps, with a claimed pipeline of a further 40 in discussions about joining.
“We now have a lot of governments interacting,” said PEPP-PT’s Hans-Christian Boos, speaking during a webinar for journalists. “Some governments are publicly declaring that their local applications will be built on top of the principles of PEPP-PT and also the various protocols supplied inside this initiative.
“We know of seven countries that have already committed to do this — and we’re currently in conversation with 40 countries that are in various states of onboarding.”
Boos said a list of the governments would be shared with journalists, though at the time of writing we haven’t seen it. But we’ve asked PEPP-PT’s PR firm for the info and will update this report when we get it.
“The pan-European approach has worked,” he added. “Governments have decided at a speed previously unknown. But with 40 more countries in the queue of onboarding we definitely have outgrown just the European focus — and to us this shows that privacy as a model and as a discussion point… is a statement and it is something that we can export because we’re credible on it.”
Paolo de Rosa, the CTO at the Ministry of Innovation Technology and Digital Transformation for the Italian government, was also on the webinar — and confirmed its national app will be built on top of PEPP-PT.
“We will have an app soon and obviously it will be based on this model,” he said, offering no further details.
PEPP-PT’s core ‘privacy-preserving’ claim rests on the use of system architectures that do not require location data to be collected. Rather devices that come near each other would share pseudonymized IDs — which could later be used to send notifications to an individual if the system calculates an infection risk has occurred. An infected individual’s contacts would be uploaded at the point of diagnosis — allowing notifications to be sent to other devices they had come into contact with.
Boos, a spokesman for and coordinator of PEPP-PT, told TechCrunch earlier this month the project will support both centralized and decentralized approaches. The former meaning IDs are uploaded to a trusted server, such as one controlled by a health authority; the latter meaning IDs are held locally on devices, where the infection risk is also calculated — a backend server is only in the loop to relay info to devices.
It’s just such a decentralized contacts tracing system that Apple and Google are collaborating on supporting — fast-following PEPP-PT last week by announcing a plan for cross-platform COVID-19 contacts tracing via a forthcoming API and then a system-wide (opt-in) for Bluetooth-based proximity tracking.
That intervention, by the only two smartphone platforms that matter when the ambition is mainstream app adoption, is a major development — putting momentum in the Western world behind decentralized contacts tracing for responding digitally to the coronavirus crisis, certainly at the platform level.
In a resolution passed today the European parliament also called for a decentralized approach to COVID-19 proximity tracking. MEPs are pushing for the Commission and Member States to be “fully transparent on the functioning of contact tracing apps, so that people can verify both the underlying protocol for security and privacy, and check the code itself to see whether the application functions as the authorities are claiming”. (The Commission has previously signalled a preference for decentralization too.)
However backers of PEPP-PT, which include at least seven governments (and the claim of many more), aren’t giving up on the option of a “privacy-preserving” centralized option — which some in their camp are dubbing ‘pseudo-decentralized’ — with Boos claiming today that discussions are ongoing with Apple and Google about making changes to their approach.
As it stands, contacts tracing apps that don’t use a decentralized infrastructure won’t be able to carry out Bluetooth tracking in the background on Android or iOS — as the platforms limit how general apps can access Bluetooth. This means users of such apps would have to have the app open and active all the time for proximity tracking to function, with associated (negative) impacts on battery life and device usability.
There are also (intentional) restrictions on how contracts tracing data could be centralized, as a result of the relay server model being deployed in the joint Apple-Google model.
“We very much appreciate that Google and Apple are stepping up to making the operating system layer available — or putting what should be the OS actually there, which is the Bluetooth measurement and the handling of crypto and the background running of such tasks which have to keep running resiliently all the time — if you look at their protocols and if you look at whom they are provided by, the two dominant players in the mobile ecosystem, then I think that from a government perspective especially, or from lots of government perspectives, there is many open points to discuss,” said Boos today.
“From a PEPP-PT perspective there’s a few points to discuss because we want choice and implementing choice in terms of model — decentralized or centralized on top of their protocol creates actually the worst of both worlds — so there are many points to discuss. But contrary to the behavior that many of us who work with tech companies are used to Google and Apple are very open in these discussions and there’s no point in getting up in arms yet because these discussions are ongoing and it looks like agreement can be reached with them.”
It wasn’t clear what specific changes PEPP-PT wants from Apple and Google — we asked for more detail during the webinar but didn’t get a response. But the group and its government backers may be hoping to dilute the tech giants’ stance to make it easier to create centralized graphs of Bluetooth contacts to feed national coronavirus responses.
As it stands, Apple and Google’s API is designed to block contact matching on a server — though there might still be ways for governments (and others) to partially workaround the restrictions and centralize some data.
We reached out to Apple and Google with questions about the claimed discussions with PEPP-PT. At the time of writing neither had responded.
As well as Italy, the German and French governments are among those that have indicated they’re backing PEPP-PT for national apps — which suggests powerful EU Member States could be squaring up for a fight with the tech giants, along the lines of Apple vs the FBI, if pressure to tweak the API fails.
Another key strand to this story is that PEPP-PT continues to face strident criticism from privacy and security experts in its own backyard — including after it removed a reference to a decentralized protocol for COVID-19 contacts tracing that’s being developed by another European coalition, comprised of privacy and security experts, called DP-3T.
Coindesk reported on the silent edit to PEPP-PT’s website yesterday.
Backers of DP-3T have also repeatedly queried why PEPP-PT hasn’t published code or protocols for review to-date — and even gone so far as to dub the effort a ‘trojan horse’.
#DP3T entered as a candidate to so-called PEPP-PT in good faith, but it is now clear that powerful actors pushing centralised databases of Bluetooth contact tracing do not, and will not, act in good faith.
PEPP-PT is a Trojan horse.
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) April 16, 2020
ETH Zürich’s Dr. Kenneth Paterson, who is both a part of the PEPP-PT effort and a designer of DP-3T, couldn’t shed any light on the exact changes the coalition is hoping to extract from ‘Gapple’ when we asked.
“They’ve still not said exactly how their system would work, so I can’t say what they would need [in terms of changes to Apple and Google’s system],” he told us in an email exchange.
Today Boos couched the removal of the reference to DP-3T on PEPP-PT’s website as a mistake — which he blamed on “bad communication”. He also claimed the coalition is still interested in including the former’s decentralized protocol within its bundle of standardized technologies. So the already sometimes fuzzy lines between the camps continue to be redrawn. (It’s also interesting to note that press emails to Boos are now being triaged by Hering Schuppener; a communications firm that sells publicity services including crisis PR.)
“We’re really sorry for that,” Boos said of the DP-3T excision. “Actually we just wanted to put the various options on the same level that are out there. There are still all these options and we very much appreciate the work that colleagues and others are doing.
“You know there is a hot discussion in the crypto community about this and we actually encourage this discussion because it’s always good to improve on protocols. What we must not lose sight of is… that we’re not talking about crypto here, we’re talking about pandemic management and as long as an underlying transport layer can ensure privacy that’s good enough because governments can choose whatever they want.”
Boos also said PEPP-PT would finally be publishing some technical documents this afternoon — opting to release information some three weeks after its public unveiling and on a Friday evening (a 7-page ‘high level overview’ has since been put on their Github here — but still a far cry from code for review) — while making a simultaneous plea for journalists to focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of fighting the coronavirus rather than keep obsessing over technical details.
During today’s webinar some of the scientists backing PEPP-PT talked about how they’re testing the efficacy of Bluetooth as a proxy for tracking infection risk.
“The algorithm that we’ve been working on looks at the cumulative amount of time that individuals spend in proximity with each other,” said Christophe Fraser, professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine and Senior Group Leader in Pathogen Dynamics at the Big Data Institute, University of Oxford, offering a general primer on using Bluetooth proximity data for tracking viral transmission.
“The aim is to predict the probability of transmission from the phone proximity data. So the ideal system reduces the requested quarantine to those who are the most at risk of being infected and doesn’t give the notification — even though some proximity event was recorded — to those people who’re not at risk of being infected.”
“Obviously that’s going to be an imperfect process,” he went on. “But the key point is that in this innovative approach that we should be able to audit the extent to which that information and those notifications are correct — so we need to actually be seeing, of the people who have been sent the notification how many of them actually were infected. And of those people who were identified as contacts, how many weren’t.
“Auditing can be done in many different ways for each system but that step is crucial.”
Evaluating the effectiveness of the digital interventions will be vital, per Fraser — whose presentation could have been interpreted as making a case for public health authorities to have fuller access to contacts graphs. But it’s important to note that DP-3T’s decentralized protocol makes clear provision for app users to opt-in to voluntarily share data with epidemiologists and research groups to enable them to reconstruct the interaction graph among infected and at risk users (aka to get access to a proximity graph).
“It’s really important that if you’re going to do an intervention that is going to affect millions of people — in terms of these requests to [quarantine] — that that information be the best possible science or the best possible representation of the evidence at the point at which you give the notification,” added Fraser. “And therefore as we progress forwards that evidence — our understanding of the transmission of the virus — is going to improve. And in fact auditing of the app can allow that to improve, and therefore it seems essential that that information be fed back.”
None of the PEPP-PT aligned apps that are currently being used for testing or reference are interfacing with national health authority systems, per Boos — though he cited a test in Italy that’s been plugged into a company’s health system to run tests.
“We have supplied the application builders with the backend, we have supplied them with sample code, we have supplied them with protocols, we have supplied them with the science of measurement, and so on and so forth. We have a working application that simply has no integration into a country’s health system — on Android and on iOS,” he noted.
On its website PEPP-PT lists a number of corporate “members” as backing the effort — including the likes of Vodafone — alongside several research institutions including Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute for telecoms (HHI) which has been reported as leading the effort.
The HHI’s executive director, Thomas Wiegand, was also on today’s call. Notably, his name initially appeared on the authorship list for the DP-3T’s White Paper. However on April 10 he was removed from the README and authorship list, per its Github document history. No explanation for the change was given.
During today’s press conference Wiegand made an intervention that seems unlikely to endear him to the wider crypto and digital rights community — describing the debate around which cryptography system to use for COVID-19 contacts tracing as a ‘side show’ and expressing concern that what he called Europe’s “open public discussion” might “destroy our ability to get ourselves as Europeans out of this”.
“I just wanted to make everyone aware of the difficulty of this problem,” he also said. “Cryptography is only one of 12 building blocks in the system. So I really would like to have everybody go back and reconsider what problem we are in here. We have to win against this virus… or we have another lockdown or we have a lot of big problems. I would like to have everybody to consider that and to think about it because we have a chance if we get our act together and really win against the virus.”
The press conference had an even more inauspicious start after the Zoom call was disrupted by racist spam in the chat field. Right before that Boos had kicked off the call saying he had heard from “some more technically savvy people that we should not be using Zoom because it’s insecure — and for an initiative that wants security and privacy it’s the wrong tool”.
“Unfortunately we found out that many of our international colleagues only had this on their corporate PCs so over time either Zoom has to improve — or we need to get better installations out there. It’s certainly not our intention to leak the data on this Zoom,” he added.
from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/3agrPwi via IFTTT
0 notes