Personally: Yeah, I think that would be a good use of tax money. I'd love to see systems like this (as well as ones like covid contact detection) built by governments, in open source, and I literally mean goverment__s__. I'd love it if they had strong encryption and privacy preservation.
Practically: they aren't doing it, so does that mean it shouldn't be made? Government also seems pretty captured by industry (not just US) who are more interested in profits than utility. Sadly that's supposed to be where governments should shine the most as they are supposed to have different incentive structures.
Best note(?): Seems when incentives align and there isn't strong capture that the two can work in tandem pretty well. But that seems more and more rare these days. In fact, this particular app works with JMA (government).
Additional note: But couldn't we also say the same thing about texting, calling, and even email? Are these not social goods? In fact, even in some ways the government does this. It's why the USPS exists, which is not a profit seeking entity and services places that UPS and FedEx don't. Also, the US gov donates to Signal (and Tor and some others) under the Radio Free Asia program. The intent is to get people under oppressive regimes encrypted communication so they can organize against tyrannical rule. But this also causes conspiracy around Signal (and Tor) because there are larger factions of the government that want to destroy encryption. This also creates a lot of distrust, especially among Americans, so would we/they have trust in such a system?
Practically: they aren't doing it, so does that mean it shouldn't be made? Government also seems pretty captured by industry (not just US) who are more interested in profits than utility. Sadly that's supposed to be where governments should shine the most as they are supposed to have different incentive structures.
Best note(?): Seems when incentives align and there isn't strong capture that the two can work in tandem pretty well. But that seems more and more rare these days. In fact, this particular app works with JMA (government).
Additional note: But couldn't we also say the same thing about texting, calling, and even email? Are these not social goods? In fact, even in some ways the government does this. It's why the USPS exists, which is not a profit seeking entity and services places that UPS and FedEx don't. Also, the US gov donates to Signal (and Tor and some others) under the Radio Free Asia program. The intent is to get people under oppressive regimes encrypted communication so they can organize against tyrannical rule. But this also causes conspiracy around Signal (and Tor) because there are larger factions of the government that want to destroy encryption. This also creates a lot of distrust, especially among Americans, so would we/they have trust in such a system?