Sympatic, Inc.

Startup making technology to allow for data sharing without giving up ownership.
Data sharing is hopelessly broken. We aim to fix it.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

@harvardintech the Eventbrite link for tickets for Harvard in Tech Healthcare Division: HOW AI COULD REVOLUTIONIZE HEALTHCARE is not working. Email sent. Can you help with access?

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Excellent point, but also telling how much the cloud has morphed.

Cloud used to mean "machine running elsewhere that might not be secure." But it now can also mean "database you don't have access to."

It doesn't have to be that way. We need to empower individuals to keep data.

[Lesley Carhart @hacks4pancakes]

You know, I talk a lot about smart tech and personal threat modeling - and how some people may find it okay to have lots of devices other people can’t accept the risk of, but smart assistants and cloud-based security cameras are looking more ubiquitously unwise by the month.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

We're thrilled to be part of @MxDInnovates and can't wait to help!

[MxD @MxDInnovates]

Welcome to @sympatic_data as a Tier 3 member! Sympatic is dedicated to building #cloud-based tools that allow #data owners to grant counter-parties access to compute over their data. Check them out: https://t.co/C9dzcvgjb9

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Great thread on names that illustrates a "simple" problem that's very, very complex.

[Lea Kissner @LeaKissner]

Last article before I start my new job. This one's about human names. They're hard to handle well. Really hard. 🧵

In the end, names are non-unique, non-canonical, changeable tags for people. Using them is fraught with issues, so design carefully.

https://t.co/MuuVZD3veW

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Excellent thread on how actual security works vs. perception of security (prevention vs. post-incident forensics).
tl;dr - people want the former, the latter is more practical & more prevalent in tech.

[Ben Adida @benadida]

1/ In light of the voting question that will never die -- "if I can do X online, why can't I vote online" -- I'm reminded that most people don't have a good intuition for what makes things secure. So let's explore.

Security online depends predominantly on logging and auditing.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Great thread here on how current ideas of privacy & interoperability are mired in competitive issues that aren't really what they seem.

[Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER @doctorow]

Today, as part of its Tech Policy Greenhouse, @Techdirt has published my essay "Interoperability And Privacy: Squaring The Circle": how forcing services to allow users to move freely and exchange messages between rivals can be good for privacy.

https://t.co/Evbayjjgws

1/

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

This is exactly the problem with our current method of data use. Hand the data over, there's no way to stop bad behavior.

[Jennifer Stisa Granick @granick]

I have questions about this story. How are Apple and Google stopping health officials from building apps that track location? Lots of apps already collect GPS data now and no one is stopping them.

https://t.co/iuHdtU83y1

@ReedAlbergotti @drewharwell

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

The hyper-optimization of the algorithms shows how fragile our systems were. Optimization is good, but adaptability is better, especially in uncertain times. AI is going to need to adapt to be more flexible & less backward-looking.

[Cory Doctorow NO LONGER ON TWIT TER @doctorow]

One interesting side-effect of the pandemic is that it magnifies this conservative bias in ML: because we're acting in unprecedented ways, the ML-based predictive systems are misfiring badly ("automation is in a tailspin").

https://t.co/7XwF0k0bSf

4/

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

All data work should have this in mind. If you can engineer the code to work separately from the data, that's halfway to what we're talking about. But so many data sci folks just hack, and you have horrible coupling of code/data.

Well done.

[Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre]

But to be clear, our platform is not wedded to the data residing inside the TPP patient records database. We have written fully portable code, portable by design, to run against any data store the NHS has today, or that the NHS might create in the future.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

@bengoldacre Ben, we'd love to talk to you about running this on our platform so that you have every ability to use the data but no risk of any ex-filtration. I'll work on getting some time to see what it would take and work up using it. But love your input.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

This will be a problem as long as solutions don't exist that allow tracing and preserve privacy. We think we have the solution, but we want to see everyone weigh security & privacy with public safety.

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @PranavDixit]

New from me: Nobody in India is required to install the government's Aarogya Setu contact tracing app yet. But soon, you may not have a choice. You may need to show it to enter pharmacies, use public transport, and just live a normal life, experts fear.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Woo, thanks for the shoutout @TechCrunch! Honored to make your top picks.

[TechCrunch @TechCrunch]

TechCrunch's top 16 picks from Techstars April virtual demo days https://t.co/oa0TZ09nug | by @jshieber and @alex

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

This is a variant of Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately described by incompetence."

Lack of time + single minded metrics = sloppy security/privacy

We believe that unless security/privacy are built in from the start, this will always happen.

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Whole lot of retweets on this, but yes, our @techstars demo will be live on 4/30. If you want to check it out, go here:
https://t.co/GDFIMEo1So

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

No, and not just for Betteridge's Law. We can do both.

[FiveThirtyEight @FiveThirtyEight]

Should we sacrifice our data privacy to fight the coronavirus? https://t.co/4FBWjjPTMc

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

It does not have to be this way. We have alternatives. We can help use the data and not violate privacy. We can help make sure safety and security are balanced.
Some privacy leaking is inevitable, but we have to do better. We have to.

[FiveThirtyEight @FiveThirtyEight]

In some ways at least, technology has been able to tell us more about how and where the virus is spreading.

But we also need to ask: How much surveillance is acceptable in the service of the greater good? https://t.co/QqhDsSIdXe

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Welp, @tiffanycli gets it. We can do both, and we need help from lawmakers to ensure the proper methods are followed. We also believe in building systems with those ideals first.

[Future Tense @FutureTenseNow]

To fight the pandemic, @tiffanycli writes that she wants the CDC and Google to "take all my data. If it can help solve or mitigate the harms of this historic crisis for humanity, please take my data and use it for that purpose—and that purpose alone." https://t.co/Z1UZbtNxv7

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

Google, no! There are better ways to do this that preserve privacy.

[ABC News @ABC]

Google launching tool that will publicly track people's movements, allowing health officials to check whether their communities are abiding by social-distancing measures. https://t.co/pbtrUqAVmP

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

This analysis is great and important, but the tracking at the end shows that the "anonymization" of the cellphone data is an illusion. Everyone who has this data knows who those people are, or can very easily find out. We can't let that data be copied.

[Tectonix @TectonixGEO]

Want to see the true potential impact of ignoring social distancing? Through a partnership with @xmodesocial, we analyzed secondary locations of anonymized mobile devices that were active at a single Ft. Lauderdale beach during spring break. This is where they went across the US:

[Sympatic, Inc. @sympatic_data]

With the right data, we could detect this. Look for clusters of symptoms & distribute tests. And we should be able to do this without compromising the privacy of those patients. We'd love to help.

[Andy Manar @AndyManar]

So according to @CDCgov, how do the elderly in a small town with all symptoms and all signs (as published by the #CDC) supposed to qualify for a test? Answer: they don't. At least they don't until their health has deteriorated enough to be hospitalized and in critical condition.