{"id":558,"date":"2009-01-30T15:08:45","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T23:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cubist.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/?p=558"},"modified":"2009-01-30T15:10:13","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T23:10:13","slug":"security-review-stopping-pandemics-one-cough-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/2009\/01\/30\/security-review-stopping-pandemics-one-cough-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Security Review: Pandemic Prevention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/dn16499-innovation-sick-traveller-detectors.html\">New Scientist Article<\/a>, a company called Biorics wants to control the spread of pandemic disease by dispersing \u201ccough-detecting\u201d microphones throughout airport lounges. The proposed technology would detect coughing passengers and distinguish a common-cold-like cough from one that could be a symptom of a serious and spreadable disease. In 1998, a group of scientists from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, Japan showed that they could discriminate between productive and non-productive coughs; where a productive cough is usually accompanied by the expulsion of phlegm (i.e. a sick person\u2019s cough). Biorics used this research to develop a system that theoretically could detect a sick traveler in an airport and stop the spread of a possibly devastating disease.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Assets:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> The obvious security goal of this technology is to reduce the spread of potentially pandemic disease by detecting it early. By detecting disease in airport lounges, the international spread of serious illnesses can be mitigated.<\/li>\n<li> A secondary use of this technology and a possible asset is to detect illnesses in livestock to prevent the spread of animal-borne disease. By detecting animal \u201ccoughs\u201d that indicate serious illness, food safety issues and health hazards caused by sick livestock could be avoided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Threats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Third parties (e.g. CIA, NSA, etc.) could get access to conversation\/location data.<\/li>\n<li> Adversaries could infect a specific individual and track him and record his conversations as he travels. Or a group of adversaries could all infect themselves with a non-terminal disease that would give them a distinguishable cough in order to potentially quarantine an entire airport. Stranding hundreds of travelers would not only be costly, but would result in a prime target for large scale terrorist attacks.<\/li>\n<li> Airport workers who have access to recorded data\/control of the microphones would be able to intentionally misinterpret the data to detain a specific individual. A person with access to this data could also record and manipulate conversation and location data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Weaknesses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> One potential weakness is filtering microphone data from crowded, noisy areas. Yelling, loud noises, or fake coughing could cause a false positive.<\/li>\n<li> Another weakness is attempting to contain an infected individual once a disease is identified. Numerous other travelers would have to be quarantined as well in order to actually prevent an outbreak. This seems costly and incredibly inconvenient. Also, this situation could result in many healthy people becoming infected by being quarantined with the infected individual.<\/li>\n<li> This technology would require constant monitoring of incoming data and numerous employees to track down and quarantine infected individuals. This could be costly.<\/li>\n<li> One of the biggest weaknesses from a traveler\u2019s point of view is that this technology inflicts yet another way to make traveling slow and inconvenient.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Defenses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> A simple cough screening (just like taking off your shoes, checking your bags, etc.) could be administered while people go through security. A doctor or health worker would have to be present in order to verify the disease in travelers who test positive.<\/li>\n<li> By only allowing doctors\/health workers (rather than a security guard) to access the data, privacy could be better maintained.<\/li>\n<li>In order to speed up the quarantine process for possibly infected passenger, a quick test should be developed to confirm\/verify illness on site. This would allow healthy but misidentified passengers to be on their way sooner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Risks:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> People\u2019s privacy could be violated in several ways: medical data could be leaked, conversations could be monitored\/recorded, and people\u2019s location could be tracked.<\/li>\n<li> Even if the above risks were addressed, this system would only be effective if every major airport adopted it, which seems unlikely given the lack of consistency in airport procedures worldwide.<\/li>\n<li> This technology is not very likely to evolve because it is too invasive and too likely to be abused.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although this technology is well-intentioned and could be a very powerful tool for preventing the spread of diseases, the potential for abuse and invasion of personal privacy is too great. If this technology was used more overtly, as described in our possible defenses section, it could be more accepted. Implementing this technology for livestock has greater potential, as animals have less concern about their privacy \uf04a. Preventing the spread of diseases in livestock could also greatly impact the spread of animal-to-human transmittable disease.<\/p>\n<p>Authored By: Heather Underwood &amp; Guy Bordelon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a New Scientist Article, a company called Biorics wants to control the spread of pandemic disease by dispersing \u201ccough-detecting\u201d microphones throughout airport lounges. The proposed technology would detect coughing passengers and distinguish a common-cold-like cough from one that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/2009\/01\/30\/security-review-stopping-pandemics-one-cough-at-a-time\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1,8,5],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-miscellaneous","category-policy","category-security-reviews","tag-security-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}