The Woman Whose Phone 'Misdiagnosed HIV' (bbc.com) 166
An anonymous reader shares a report on BBC about a woman in Kenya, who downloaded a prank app that noted that she has HIV simply by "analyzing her fingerprint." While many people would have not trusted an app for such kind of diagnosis in the first place, and some would have figured that something is amiss about the app, the story tells the tale of people who are increasingly finding it hard to deal with the technological advances they see. From the report: Esther sells water on the side of the road in Kenya for a few dollars a day. She also owns a smartphone and ownership of such a device should, according to most of the received wisdom, empower its owner. But in fact it did quite the opposite for her when she acquired an app. It claimed to diagnose HIV simply by analysing her fingerprint on the touch screen. When researchers met her at her roadside workplace, she was worried. "She did not know if it was true and she was panicking," said researcher Laura de Reynal, who worked on a year-long study into the experiences of first-time smartphone users in Kenya. "And she wasn't the only one, there were others that came to us worried about this app and those were just the ones that were willing to speak out." The app was in fact a prank and anyone reading the comments on Google's Play Store would have seen that. However, many first-time smartphone users in Kenya get hold of apps via a friend's Bluetooth connection, rather than downloading them via the net, in order to save data. But the prank would not have been apparent via a Bluetooth share. "People are not able to understand the limits of the technology," said Ms de Reynal. "They think, because it was on a smartphone, it seems real and credible."
Any sufficiently advanced technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I also don't think this woman should be criticized. When I see the stupid things people who have grown up with technology do (as opposed to growing up dirt poor in Africa), she's no worse off than they are.
Outbreaks of "Genital Retraction Syndrome". (Score:2, Interesting)
In all seriousness, this really has little to do with technology.
Into the 1990s and even the 2000s we've seen numerous outbreaks of "Genital Retraction Syndrome" [wikipedia.org] in various African nations.
In essence, these outbreaks are cases of mass hysteria where people mistakenly think that their genitalia are shrinking or even being "stolen".
This is how the Wikipedia article currently describes it:
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Unlike AIDS, this is something that men who think they're affected can check for themselves. All that a man needs to do is check if his penis is still present, and that its size is remaining consistent.
Even without cell phones and technology, we'd still see misdiagnoses in Africa, even when this misdiagnosis can easily be proven to be wrong or nonsensical like in the cases of "Genital Retraction Syndrome".
If you think penis and testical sizes remain constant under fluctuating environmental conditions you must not have any significant experience with them.
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Genital Retraction Syndrome involves a distinctly more...extreme version of shrinking--the expectation is more along the lines of 'extreme feminizing' or 'will end up with an infant boy's twig and berries.' The interesting thing is that men with it genuinely percieve that this level of shrinkage is happening--and very little will convince them that there is anything to be done except to go find and kill the black magic user who inflicted this upon them, because that's what they believe the cause of the (no
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Fair call: although she didn't know the technology's capabilities at least she didn't walk out into traffic as though a set of earbuds provide an impenetrable force field.
Which gives me a great idea for an app...is there a "herd culling" category?
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Which gives me a great idea for an app...is there a "herd culling" category?
I think one searches for "Darwin effect."
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Thanks, I'll give that a...wait, this is a trap, isn't it?
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The culling you talk of being the difference between believers and those that understand. Contrary to marketed belief, belief is not the higher form of humanity bit tied directly back to primitive mind function. Animals do things because they believe they work and are easily trapped when someone who understands that belief manipulates it to their own advantage because the animal can not understand the trap. The more evolved the intellect the more it is based upon understanding and the more it questions ever
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Well, it's a relief to me. I've been in the closet ever since that "Gaydar" app detected me. Now that it turns out that these apps don't really work, I can stop hiding.
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That Clarke quote applies to other fields too (Score:3)
Revenge of the nerds Anyone? (Score:2)
Now that most jocks are addicted to their smartphones, nerds are going to get their own back
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No, but in 2001 the web firm I worked at created a prank hand scanner app. It told people to press their hands to the monitor and let it scan their hand. Nearly everyone we showed it to went along, thinking somehow a 2000-era CRT could be converted into a scanner, "because internet."
Ours just concluded with "your screen is dirty" and then people got it.
You say "stupid," but if it's new and people don't know how it works, practically anything is possible, or will seem like it to them.
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Agreed. Before anyone in the U.S. criticizes, they should think back to the '70s (if they remember the '70s) when the computer couldn't be wrong. When any dispute with billing could be shut down by "well the computer says...". When any thing the computer was hard coded to print was taken to be some sort of mysterious process where people wondered "How could it possibly know that?" People even fell for "computer dating" where because computers were amazing and super smart they obviously could choose the best
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Obligatory Little Britain [youtube.com]
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I also don't think this woman should be criticized. When I see the stupid things people who have grown up with technology do (as opposed to growing up dirt poor in Africa), she's no worse off than they are.
However, the technology that is being misunderstood isn't the app or the smartphone, it's how HIV medical tests are conducted. If you know that a HIV test requires drawing blood (and lab testing) and all the app does is scan your finger then you should be able to reason out that the app is utter crap.
People will forever do stupid things. Technology just makes it easier and has the potential for a wider spread.
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In general, people in Africa probably have a lot more understanding of HIV/AIDS and the testing procedures than people in the West do. For example:
You say that HIV testing requires drawing blood and testing at a lab. Nope - HIV testing can now be done with saliva, in a cheap ($40) device, and give you results in about 15 minutes. A person in a country with a high rate of infection would very likely be at least somewhat familiar with such a thing considering that those tests are vastly cheaper than the old b
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We used Oraquick as part of a study of high-risk individuals, and would confirm positive results. It's also a fairly economic way to do quarterly screenings for people who are in high risk categories. Of course, an individual with the means, would opt for a full screening if they were worried about exposure from a particular event.
It's used in developed nations primarily in the same way it's used in developing nations - for people who do not necessarily have the resources for and access to medical care. Ine
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Yeah... I had *numerous friends duped by the various varieties of apps that claim to allow your phone to charge off of solar via the screen... You don't have to grow up without technology to not understand what it is (currently) capable of.
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Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Especially in Africa. ;) [youtube.com]
It does "empower her" (Score:3, Insightful)
The smartphone did "empower her." It turns out that life does not work in dichotomies the way binary thinkers assume it must because, for whatever reason, that is all they can see. Did this new tool result in a net loss of capabilities for her? No, it just introduced a nasty unintended side effect based on her ignorance and a particular method of app distribution.
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You avoided it, I'll say it: With great power comes great responsibility.
Smartphones are low power devices. This is why people stare at them while walking, driving, etc: with diminished power comes diminished responsibility.
Not really (Score:2)
The problem is that is that giving people technology does not make them smarter. While certainly tech can be used for the purposes of education, it can not replace education. This is a chronic problem with people of all sorts. People in power want an ignorant populace because they are easier to control. People sitting in a different country with education can't understand why their magic bullets never hit a target. Lastly, the ignorant populace does not know any better and nobody will educate them.
The
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I'd suggest that the author of this app travels to Africa and tells these people in person what was so funny. If he doesn't come back alive, all the better.
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The real problem is her ignorance.
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Understanding limits of technology ... (Score:4, Insightful)
well, this sort of machine is seen in films and on TV (think: Star Trek, ...), obviously all of Star Trek is not true, but which bits are and which are not? Then there is an X Prize competition to make a Medical tricorder [wikipedia.org], so think before you laugh at her.
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My point is that the woman did not understand what the app's capabilities/limits were. To her: the ability to diagnose HIV seemed reasonable and given what she might have seen on TV/.. entirely possible.
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I knew someone who was stationed in various African countries. I can't remember which country it was, but he said people didn't distinguish what was on TV and what was real. They thought Star Trek actually happened. It's on TV; it must be real.
There are tribes in Brazil who do not have words for colour or numbers. The adults can never be taught basic math skills; or even in the case where they can learn them -- they never apply them to their daily lives. Language has a large impact on our perception of the
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Magic (Score:3)
Someone once said that any technology advanced enough will appear as magic to someone who isn't used to it. (I'm sure if I weren't lazy I could google-fu who said that).
There are places around the world where economics and science dictated they skipped over the computer generation. They went straight from disconnected villages to smart phones. A lot of the tech and what can and can't be done with it was never learnt. The lady in the summary wasn't necessarily gullible, or stupid, nor did she believe the phone was "magic" I'm sure. However, how the phone worked was probably almost magical, with an unexplained technology she couldn't fathom how it might work.
Going from simple life to smart phone life, it's easy to see how someone can be fooled by what exactly is possible.
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People in developed countries can be easily tricked, too.
Remember all the idiots who were fooled into believing that installing iOS 10 would make their iPhone waterproof?
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Or have read /r/talesfromtechsupport? An M.D. who was touching his monitor to open a fingerprint-unlocked USB drive (but accepted that it would not work "because his computer didn't have a touch screen) comes to mind in this case. And that was without deliberate misdirection - the program was simply showing a picture of the USB stick and an animation of how to touch it.
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In app purchase, straight from the diagnostic app!
Reminds me why I don't donate to moz://a. (Score:2, Insightful)
This was the most interesting part of the article (ignore the "Firefox operating system" error):
This is a great reminder of why I won't donate to moz://a.
Instead of spending money to improve Firefox, which badly needs some real improvement, moz://a squandered money researching the gullibili
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It's called market research. They're looking for a potential growth market where people may be gullible enough to use Firefox and believe it's good.
Trusted Technology. (Score:2)
Part of the problem is in order to get trusted software, you need to have some sort of review process like the Apple Store, where only approved software is placed in, while this is good to make sure harmful or just bad taste software doesn't get placed in. It also creates a freedom issue, because like the Apple Store perfectly valid apps get rejected just because it may affect someones sensibilities, or step into Apples domain and they don't want to compete with your app.
The HIV app is in Bad Taste to a po
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It's not just first time users (Score:1, Interesting)
I've had a smartphone for years. I'm an IT professional in a first-world country. And even I have difficulty at times discerning what's legit and what's not. Spammers are getting better and better, and if it weren't for the fact that I use a unique email address for every company with which I do business (something not accessible to the vast majority of computer users), I'm not sure that I wouldn't have been taken in a time or two.
This is an interesting sociological issue, and I think it's likely to get muc
you've been infected (Score:1)
It seems we've gone full circle from browser hijacks with computer virus scares, to apps with human virus scares.
Gives new meaning to 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'.
Android phone (Score:2)
They should say Android phone and not smartphone. Android's competition has built in safeguards against malicious apps.
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an Android smartphone with one setting lets you download and install APKs without a store. Something youcan't do with an iPhone.
yes the sharing of apps via bluetooth is the cause of this woman's distress but it's also enabled her to use her phone. She got burned one time but she's also been living with this arrangement for presumably a while now. It's enabled her to do many thing that she wouldn't otherwise be able to do because of data limits. It's a bit like the cuban intranet. Or even the idea of selli
valuable life lesson (Score:3)
Well, she'll "understand the limits of the technology" a lot more now. That's how humans learn: through experience.
People have blind trust into technology (Score:3)
"They think, because it was on a smartphone, it seems real and credible."
This is no different from "but I have seen it on TV, so it must be true.
Or any media that has been invented. The most memorizeable instance is probably the panic during "War of the Worlds"
Re:People have blind trust into technology (Score:5, Interesting)
I have seen it on TV, so it must be true.
Psychologically, it's a "voice of authority" [amzn.to]. Humans seem to be hard-wired to accept authority. It's a good idea for keeping kids from being eaten by lions.
By adulthood, humans should learn to reject arbitrary authority. But it seems to be very easy for people to delay that maturation by decades or even forever - they accept gods, presidents, and televisions as "voices of authority" and obey their commands.
It's really not good for anybody to have adults thinking and behaving like children, except for those who wish to control them.
Dr. Lexus will be with you shortly. (Score:1)
Uh, this goes in your mouth. This one goes in your ear. And this one goes in your butt.
All right, so that'll be... this many dollars.
Fake Apps! (Score:2)
Stop picking on this woman... (Score:2)
I know of well paid americans that would do the exact same stupid mistake. Most of them get their computer infected with malware by being that uneducated.
The problem is to safely and correctly use technology requires a high level of education that most people do not get. Most degree holders in the USA are dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to technology.
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You should read the reviews for flashlight apps for your phone.
"5 stars, very bright!"
Third world meets smart phone (Score:2)
Pretty sure this has less to do with direct access to the Play Store and more to do with people from the third world, who for all intents and purposes view technology as magic, getting access to smart phones. And who was the friend who shared the app with her? One would think that friends would be even better sources for information on an App that they use and have on their phone than the play store's faceless reviews.
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Pretty sure this has less to do with direct access to the Play Store and more to do with people from the third world, who for all intents and purposes view technology as magic, getting access to smart phones. And who was the friend who shared the app with her? One would think that friends would be even better sources for information on an App that they use and have on their phone than the play store's faceless reviews.
you're wrong. This has everything to do with no access to the play store. This woman lives a life where she doesn't get her apps from the play store because of the cost of data. Were that not the case there wouldn't be an alternative economy of bluetoothing apps in a peer to peer manner. She would have gotten the app from the play store and it would have been much more obvious it was a prank.
These are first time smart phone users. Not people who grew up in homes with phones. Poor Kenyans who are getting the
And what POS writes such an app? (Score:2)
Seriously, I would say 1000 hours of social work for the "nice" person that wrote this and, say, 100M fine for Google to allow this in the app-store in the first place would be a good first step. Not everybody gets a good education when they grow up, and it usually not not their own fault. This also has nothing to do with IQ. Camouflage it a bit better and you find supposedly educated people fall for the most obviously stupid things. Examples: Religion, Trump promises, Erdogan promises, human-like AI, etc.
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And 100B fine for giving that lady a smartphone that she couldn't handle.
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You miss the point.
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Global warming and that a large part of it is human-made is a solidly established scientific fact. This is not a matter for amateur opinions. You might as well claim the world is flat and have about the same level of insight. Obviously, you are one of those that never managed to take anything worthwhile out of your educational opportunities.
Wait (Score:2)
...so you're suggesting that taking a person from roughly a 15th century existence and handing them a smartphone doesn't immediately make them a sophisticated, worldly Western-world consumer?
Well hell, why didn't someone say that before?
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...so you're suggesting that taking a person from roughly a 15th century existence and handing them a smartphone doesn't immediately make them a sophisticated, worldly Western-world consumer?
Well hell, why didn't someone say that before?
Humans are adaptable. Prior to WW1 most Americans were farmers so you dont even have to go back to the 15th century. In fact Africa probably had a higher urbanisation rate than Americans 100 years back. If Americans can understand tech 100 years after coming off the farm so can Africans. Give them about 20 years and they will be kicking American tech ass as well as the Indians are doing now. Only hope is to go into their countries and create civil wars otherwise prepare for your new African overlords (same
The problem is trust (Score:2)
People assumed they can trust companies like Google and Apple to protect them from false information. And that the government might actually protect them from fraud, as they have done for generations before.
But now, we've suddenly decided that the Internet and App stores are the wild west. And caveat emptor is the new religion of Internet business.
It's all bullshit though, and it's bound to come crashing down .
Where did it begin? (Score:1)
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Is this restricted to Africa? (Score:2)
Others obviously should not have smartphones
Even others, supposedly educated, have the tools but do not know how to interpret them, and the biggest offenders are IT people.
It is a shame that common sense seems to go out of the window for the majority when people start using technology; some people would not believe such a tale if they heard it from a stranger, however they believe in everything they hear in some shady email or site; some people would not expose their
What is the point of these apps anyway? (Score:2)
And anyone who reads slashdot knows that the only real use for these apps are as ad or viral vectors. So why not just eliminate such apps from the market?
From a fingerprint, no (Score:1)
Honestly, while it isn't possible for a smartphone to do a quick-and-dirty disease assessment from a fingerprint, I wouldn't be surprised if mobile devices in the future come with attachments or accessories that could do blood analysis or more given the right software.
I'd imagine that a device that takes a sample and sends it to a medical professional for diagnosis isn't that far in the future at all, if it doesn't already exist.
HIV (Score:1)
She should learn from it (fake apps exist) and be empowered by the "ownership of such a device".
she should also learn that "get hold of apps via a friend's Bluetooth connection" was a bad idea. It's just like spread HIV from person to person but with an app. OH Wait a minute...
Lend an ignorant third worlder a phone (Score:2)
and they will make a call...
Give an ignorant third worlder a phone, and they'll use it to beat a monkey to death
Hmmmm, (Score:2)
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Thanks for wrapping up the story of "Rent"
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You would probably appreciate "Avenue Q".
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I'm sorry that you feel so insecure about your own intellect.
Certainly not in contrast to someone who would use an argument such as that.
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Congrats, you win the dumbest comment of the day award.
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Is allowing morons to use technology. It's the source of virtually every issue on Earth, and the solution is simple: if someone can't demonstrate the knowledge required to design and build a thing they shouldn't be allowed to utilize that thing.
Cool, get back to us when you've figured out how you teach someone how to design and build a device that they're not allowed to use.
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Ah, the old "developing countries need running water, not computers" trope. Is this /. myth ever going to die? Look at how India's economy has been transformed by embracing the tech industry and get a clue about how things work.