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XA Credit Score For Your COVID-19 Risk? USC Gets Federal Funds to Create a Location-Based Mobile App
Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.

Researchers at the University of Southern California, Emory University and the University of Texas Health Science Center have received a federal research grant to create a mobile app for contact tracing the novel coronavirus that hopes to track a person's real-time location and symptoms "for quarantine and decontamination." The project would use collected data to calculate a type of credit score of your COVID-19 risk and uses that to help calculate an aggregate risk score for locations like your neighborhood grocery store over time.
As part of the National Science Foundation Rapid Response Research award, created for situations like the ongoing pandemic, USC's Cyrus Shahabi, a professor of computer science, electrical engineering and spatial sciences, and chair of the Computer Science Department was granted $67,185. The project, entitled "REACT, for REAal-time Contact Tracing and risk monitoring via privacy-enhanced tracking of users' locations and symptoms" is a multi-university with researchers at Emory University and the University of Texas Health Science Center, with total funding at $151,477. Work officially begins on Friday.
The universities hope to have a working mobile app by August, in time for the start of the fall semester, Shahabi said.
It's yet another digital twist on contact tracing, a pillar of public health and infectious disease control that can be onerous detective work. It involves identifying those who have been in contact with infected persons to help isolate and limit spread of a virus, especially during epidemic — or, in this case, pandemic conditions.
Enabling such efforts have become a recent focus by governmental entities and organizations. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said that contact tracing capacity and expanded testing are crucial measures that need to be in place before stay-at-home orders can be loosened. That includes establishing a contact tracing "workforce" and developing a statewide training academy to train 10,000 workers to do contact tracing.
Shahabi envisions a use case where people with higher personal risk scores might decide to stay home or get tested for COVID-19, and where areas that are deemed high-risk because people are later known to be infected, like a particular supermarket, might be avoided. Policymakers could warn the public to avoid an area that's known to be a potential hotspot of infection.
Graphic by Haotian Mai/USC
assets.rebelmouse.io
The main problem with contact tracing is that it relies on human memory, in this case over as long as a 14-day period, which can be especially faulty, Shahabi said. It also has a built-in delay between when an infected person is identified and when those who have been exposed are notified. Immediate isolation is only possible with digital contact tracing, he said.
A recent Science research report found that SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19, is spreading "too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing, but could be controlled if this process was faster, more efficient and happened at scale" using digital methods like a mobile app.
While companies like Apple and Google who have engaged in a rare collaborative effort to create an "exposure notification API" that would be utilized to inform people via bluetooth signals on their phone that they may have been near an infected person -- allegedly without jeopardizing privacy.
Shahabi said that Apple and Google's proposed method could provide many false positives or negatives, because it doesn't take into account factors like whether a person is wearing a mask or how close they are. For those who are warned, it could be unclear as to what to do about it, and eventually people may become inured to alarm bells that are raised because of it, he said.
Countries such as South Korea or China have used location-based digitized contact tracing. However, it has only been successful because citizens are forced to download it, opt into location monitoring, and regularly check in or otherwise be visited by enforcement authorities, according to Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who has worked in contact notification for 25 years in areas like HIV in the United States.
"In that setting where there's 100% mandated compliance, it's been shown it can work, in our setting in the United States, I don't see that really happening," Klausner said. "We have enough problems with governors issuing orders and denying free personal movement, that the idea that people are going to be ordered to download apps to monitor their movement is highly unlikely and probably not constitutional."
USC's Doheny Library.
upload.wikimedia.org
Privacy advocates have repeatedly raised alarms over efforts by governments in China, South Korea, Israel, and other areas in the world to stop the viral spread through surveillance, and have warned about ensuring that any privacy tradeoffs are narrow and time-limited.
"There's several red flags," said Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights advocacy group. That includes the fact that GPS, when you're not in an area with tall buildings, provides accurate information roughly down to 15 feet. Precise location data isn't accurate enough to do reliable contact tracing. If people choose to limit the specificity of their location data, then it will be even worse.
"Even if I just stay in my house all day, there are probably hundreds of people within a thousand feet of me that I never interact with," Cyphers said.
Shahabi has repeatedly brought up concerns about privacy implications of the work in an interview with dot.LA and in the grant itself, stating that "such use also heightens concerns on individual privacy and data abuse" and that there needs to be "a careful balance or privacy protection with public health benefits."
The app would enable users to control and refine how frequently their data is captured and how detailed it is, the grant states. The grant would also investigate "privacy-preserving" ways to share collected data for further research studies.
Shahabi would aggregate the risk scores for individuals using AI to calculate risk scores for community areas as part of what he wants to call his pandemic tool kit, or Pandemic Risk Evaluation Platform (PREP). He believes that this aggregation would somewhat alleviate individual privacy concerns for public use of the data by policymakers and others, and is also less potentially problematic than the Apple and Google method.
Shahabi said he is working on getting some raw location data from an outside company to begin doing some risk analysis work.
For privacy advocates like Cyphers, the concern is if user location data is ultimately collected and stored by a single entity, it ups the privacy risk to people who participate. And the privacy risks are still "massive" even with low-resolution data, he said. The data can give a general idea of where a person lives and works, plus when the person arrives there and elsewhere. Such cell-site data is used by police to make cases regularly.
Risk scores could also become problematic if a school or employer requires students or workers reveal them as a condition of receiving a benefit, entering a building or returning to their office, Cyphers said. How the scores are created, whether users are informed about what makes them up, and how they're used are all crucial questions that need to be transparently answered.
"When you introduce 'scoring' that takes other factors into account, it complicates everything, and increases the risk that users will be misinformed or discriminated against due to factors beyond their control," Cyphers said.
In China, the government has used Alipay Health Code, giving citizens a QR code inside the app that's colored red, yellow or green to indicate your health status, with the color green enabling you to travel freely. Law enforcement authorities were involved in the app's development, according to China's state-run media.
Klausner, the epidemiologist, said "we generally feel that voluntary notification where we educate people and empower them with tools to do the notification themselves is the most effective (way) and we've built digital tools for them to use over the past few decades," including a new one that lets you notify people swiftly and directly via text or email immediately and directly.
He added: "It's going to be difficult to get Americans to agree to involuntary surveillance" and to agree to download or opt into such location tracking on a basis large enough to be effective.
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Tami Abdollah was dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
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Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Rivian’s stock lost 7% yesterday on the back of news that the company could face delays in fulfilling Amazon’s order for a fleet of electric delivery vans due to legal issues with a supplier. The electric vehicle maker is suing Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) over a pricing dispute related to the seats that the supplier promised, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The legal issue could mean that Amazon may not receive their electric vans on time. The dispute hinges on whether or not Commercial Vehicle Group is allowed to raise the prices of its seats after Rivian made engineering and design changes to the original version. Rivian says the price hike from CVG violates the supply contract. CVG denies the claim.
Regardless, the dispute could hamper Rivian’s ability to deliver electric vans to Amazon on time. The ecommerce/streaming/cloud computing/AI megacorporation controls an 18% stake in Rivian as one of the company’s largest early investors. Amazon has previously said it hopes to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles from Rivian by 2030.
The stock plunge marked another wild turn for the EV manufacturer. Last week, Rivian shares dropped 21% on Monday after Ford, another early investor, announced its intent to sell 8 million shares. The next few days saw even further declines as virtually the entire market saw massive losses, but then Rivian rallied partially on the back of their earnings report on Wednesday, gaining 28% back by Friday. Then came yesterday’s 7% slide. Today the stock is up another 10%.
Hold on tight, who knows where we’re going next.
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Snapchat’s Attempt to Protect Young Users From Third-Party Apps Falls Short
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Some Snap Kit platform developers have skirted guidelines meant to make the app safer for children.
A new report from TechCrunch released Tuesday found that some third-party apps that connect to users’ Snap accounts have not been updated according to new guidelines announced in March. The restrictions, which target anonymous messaging and friend-finding apps, are meant to increase child safety. However, the investigation found a number of apps either ignore the new regulations or falsely claim to be integrated with Snapchat.
The Santa Monica-based social media company announced the changes after facing two separate lawsuits related to teen suicide allegedly caused by the app. Over 1,500 developers integrate Snap features like the camera and Bitmojis. Snap originally claimed the update would not affect many apps.
Developers had 30 days to revise their software, but the investigation found that some apps, such as the anonymous Q&A app Sendit, were granted an extension. Others blatantly avoided the changes—the anonymous messaging app HMU, which is now meant for adult users, is still available to users "9+" in the App Store. Certain apps that have been banned from Snap, like Intext, still advertise Snapchat integration.
“First and foremost, we put the privacy and safety of our community first and expect the products built by our developer community to adhere to that standard in addition to bringing fun and positive experiences to people,” Director of Platform Partnerships Alston Cheek told TechCrunch.
The news is a blow to Snap’s recent efforts to cast itself as a responsible social media platform The company recently announced Colleen DeCourcy would take over as the company’s new chief creative officer and CEO Evan Spiegel to recently made a a generous personal donation to graduates of Otis College of Art and Design. The social media company currently faces a lawsuit from a teenager who claims it has not done enough to protect minors from sexual exploitation. In April, 44 attorney generals sent a letter to Snap and TikTok urging the companies to strengthen parental controls.
Lawmakers are considering new policies that would hold social media companies accountable for the content on their platforms. One such bill would require social media companies to share data with independent researchers.
Snapchat recently rolled out augmented reality shopping features and influencer-led original content to grow its younger base of users.
Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, is an investor in dot.LA.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
When we list the attributes most associated with successful founders, investors, billionaires, and industry leaders, we often think of things like determination, grit, fortitude and even obsessiveness. The winners are the most relentless, the ones who work the hardest, know the most, start the earliest in the morning on four hours of sleep and won’t accept no for an answer.
While discussing the venture capital world, and his upcoming technology conference in Santa Monica, The Montgomery Summit 2022, March Capital co-founder and Managing Partner Jamie Montgomery doesn’t necessarily contradict this formula for success, but adds a new attribute to the mix that’s sometimes left out: curiosity.
Montgomery’s a believer that there’s no one right way to go about things, and no surefire process for success. Sometimes, the best company emerges from not just the best data and team but the most creative approach. “If something isn’t clear, invert,” Montgomery explained. “Then invert again. Soon the subject becomes clear.”
The best investors and leaders have an innate inquisitiveness about the world around them, and seek out opportunities not just based on market trends but genuine observations about problems in desperate need of solutions.
“You sort of have to be a very heuristical thinker,” Montgomery said. “Sometimes I find some people I talk to are very smart and interesting, and I think, “That person’s very thoughtful. They’re going to be a good investor.’ Sometimes you meet people and you think ‘Well, they come across smart, but they’re always preparing what they’re going to say in response to what you have to say, they’re not really listening.’ Being a good investor, you’ve got to be a good listener. You’ve got to figure out, what’s the signal and what’s the noise? Filter out the noise and say ‘What’s real?’”
Thoughtfulness, attentiveness and curiosity are typically the sort of attributes that we think of as innate, as opposed to skills you can improve via on-the-job training. Montgomery noted, “I always ask entrepreneurs why rather than what. You get a more interesting answer.” Reading and research and investigation can help, but innate curiosity remains an essential ingredient in business success.
“I think, to be an investor, not just a VC but an overall investor, one benefits from an incredible amount of reading and knowledge,” Montgomery explained. “You have to have a voracious appetite, so it’s really a high-level curiosity. Some people have it, some don’t.”
March Capital Founder Jamie Montgomery.
Illustration by Dilara Mundy
One subject that’s on Montgomery’s mind these days is quantum computing, and its potential impact on cybersecurity, a major area of focus for March. His process starts by asking core questions about the next 5-10 years and what they’ll look like, before even considering potential solutions.
“If you’re investing, you have to look at something that’s inevitable,” Montgomery explained. “Is it gonna happen or not. If it’s inevitable, then the question is, is it imminent? And is it investible? Start with inevitable. Eventually you’re going to have quantum computing, and that’s gonna create an existential threat to cybersecurity. Is that imminent?... What is the post-quantum cyber world like, with all this information that’s been siphoned out of America by China… what do they have and how do we prepare for a post-quantum cybersecurity? It’s almost existential.”
This holistic question-based approach also drives Montgomery as he plans and organizes the annual Montgomery Summit, the largest such event of the L.A. tech calendar year (Montgomery refers to it as the “Rose Bowl of Conferences.”)
He expects around 1,200 people to attend this year – the event’s big return post-pandemic – for panels and sessions that don’t just cover areas in which March Capital specializes, but a vast and diverse variety of subjects and topics, designed to intrigue and inspire curious minds.
Over 175 speakers in total have signed on for the 19th annual Montgomery Summit, to be held on May 24 and 25, from the worlds of technology, economics, geopolitics, public policy, the sciences and beyond. Montgomery gets animated as he tells me about the voluminous range of topics being covered, from the Federal Reserve’s response to inflation to the war in Ukraine to the stories behind companies like Bill.com and CrowdStrike. One session will feature Chapman University Presidential Fellow Jack Horner, one of the world’s leading paleontologists and a key inspiration for the “Jurassic Park” character Dr. Alan Grant.
“It’s the interaction, the entrepreneurs with the investors and the executives,” Montgomery told me. “It’s fantastic, it’s enjoyable, it’s fun, and it’s candid. There are no big egos. The speakers will actually come and talk to you, they don’t come in the back door and leave through the back door. You actually can go to any one of seven sessions, and it’s going to be interesting, and they’re all short. 25-45 minutes each.”
The shorter 25-45 minute sessions help to stave off boredom and mean that attendees can sample a wider range of subjects and sessions than they might at other conferences. It helps keep things moving and makes them fun, a theme Montgomery returned to a few times in our discussion.
“There’s a lot of conferences that are very professionally run or research-driven or they’re very commercial. People come here and they’re gonna have a blast, right?”
The Montgomery Summit runs May 24th-25th at Santa Monica's Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows. Find out more information on their website.
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