Every day on the news you hear about a new way to either treat, test, or track COVID-19. Through all of the media missinformation that has been coming out lately, one idea has stayed prevalient and is being repeated all over the world. This is the idea of people downloading an app on their phone and being able to track if they have been in contact with someone who has had the virus. These tracking apps are being developed by the biggest tech companies in the world. The main two creators being Apple and Google. The people are worried about these apps though becuase this combines almost a social interaction with people’s health informaiton. There are many pros and cons to these kinds of apps. Two major pros would be that this would ideally slow the spread of the virus even more and it would limit your exposure to people that could possibly be infected. Two major cons to these apps would be that you are putting your health infromaiton out for others to see and that there is always the possiblity of that informaiton to be stolen once it is digitized.

The main question I want to ask the blog is, do people feel these apps are safe enough to use or are they a breach of personal privacy?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/26/21237598/australia-coronavirus-contact-tracing-privacy

If you walk up to a building, how do you get inside? You find a door and grab the handle and go in right? Well in todays world with this virus that is spreading like wild fire through our country that does not seem like the safest option anymore because you do not know who all has touched that handle, when the last time it was cleaned, or if anyone who touched that handle is carrying this new virus. A gorup in FInland is now 3D printing their way around this problem by creating 3D printed hands free door handles. This idea was came about in the beginning in April and has been implemented in acouple of groccery stores in Finland and customers are really starting to like the idea. The group coming up with this design is also making the design schematics available online so that anyone who has a 3D printer is able to print these handles whether it is for your house, shed or your own business.

https://www.foxnews.com/science/coronavirus-hands-free-door-openers-3d-printed

Phishing is the act of trying to receive information from someone by using a fake email that is made to look like it is coming from a trusted person or company. With everyone being quarantined, a lot of people are turning to the internet for a cure to the boredom. With this in mind scammers have been full steam ahead with sending out tons of phishing emails to people. Most of these emails appear to look like COVID-19 relief help emails but really are phishing emails to try to get people to enter their credit card information in. Google is reporting that they have blocked about 18 million phishing emails a day related to COVID-19.

One thing that bothers me about these phishing emails is that these scammers know that older people such as grandparents and great grandparents are taking this quarantine time to learn how to use the internet to virtually connect with their families and to someone who is new to the internet, these emails could be extremely convincing. This is why I am extremely happy to see that google is stepping up it’s efforts to catch these emails and keep them away from the public.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52319093

One topic we covered a good bit in our class is the idea of the digital divide across the world and out country. The digital divide is the divide between people who have access to the internet and who do not. During the time of this pandemic, this digital divide is proving to be a major killer in rural areas. These areas have very little access to internet because a lot of them do not need it to get through their days. These areas without internet access are seeing a higher death rate per-capita then some of the hardest hit areas in our country such as Los Angeles and New York City.

I believe that in times like this, internet should be considered an essential item such as water and electric. If this is the case, a family or person who is not able to pay their internet bill at the time because they are not working, should not have to worry about getting their internet shut off.

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/coroanvirus-response-hampered-half-the-world-doesnt-have-internet

Rogue fitness is a production company that produces some of the nicest lifting and fitness equipment on the market. You can find their brand and equipment in many almost any gym that is on the face of the earth. They normally produce the highest quality of dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, and kettle bells that money can by. As of March 21st through an Instagram post the company announced that it will shift its production focus to make masks shields and gowns to help fight the covid-19 virus. They ordered 3, 3D printing machines that are capable of producing mass quantities of these items. This shows how our economy, through the use of technology, is able to adapt and overcome hard times.

Rogue Fitness Will Manufacture Masks, Face Shields to Fight Coronavirus

In the article I found. Google has reported that travel in major parts of our country such as retail store and transit stations. This has also had an effect of nearly half of the  human population. Google is getting this data from people who have opted in to have their whereabouts being monitored through different devices such as cellphones, cameras, and smart watches.

This tool by google concerns me because if government regulation continues to broadcast stricter and stricter rules to quarantine this technology could be used to track people and be used in court to people some people behind bars for violating the stay at home orders.

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/google-data-reveals-massive-plunge-in-movement-which-communities-are-obeying-coronavirus-orders

According to an article from CNN Business written by Clare Duffy, with the spread of the corona-virus becoming more and more of a reality, the information about the disease and how rapidly it is spreading is becoming a bit clouded. With so much information being thrown around the official media sites along with all the non-official news outlets on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

My question for the forum is how can we weed out the wrong and incorrect information about the corona-virus without infringing on people’s first amendment rights?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01/tech/coronavirus-social-media-reliable-sources/index.html

In this article from Fox News written by Kim Komando, she talks about ways to keep your home security devices from being hacked and used for the opposite purpose of what they are intended for. In the article it says that the top three tips for keeping your home security devices secure are to make sure your passwords are not something easy to guess, add two factor authentication when possible, and to remember to update when the new software is released because most of the time these updates contain important software patches.

The question I want to bring to the forum would be that is there a way that we can create an 100% secure home security system that would have 0 vulnerabilities? and if so how could it be done?

In an article from Fox News’s John Brandon, a company in China that produces the iRobot is using this new robot to help stop the spread of this deadly Corona Virus within Wuhan, China. These robots are being used to help bring medicine to patients that have already been diagnosed or are in quarantine. The Chinese government has leaned towards the use of these robots to reduce the number of humans that come into contact with someone who is infected with the virus. Other uses for these robots range from being able to disinfect public areas, to doing tasks that normal humans would find to be repetitive and would reduce the risk for mistake because of fatigue of tedious tasks.

One thing that worries me is that who is programming these robots and what are the chances that someone would be able to hack these machines and use them to spread the virus instead of help quarantine it?

Is there a way to monitor who has access and control to these robots without fully taking a product away from a company and having complete government control of it?

Source: Brandon, J. (2020, February 14). Coronavirus-battling robots deployed to help fight deadly outbreak in China. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/tech/coronavirus-battling-robots-deployed-help-fight-deadly-outbreak-china