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Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

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Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#11

Post by uvw »

barbegal wrote: post #7

I really question whether these apps will be effective. The limitation section https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/ma... of their architecture document shows that people in close proximity for a few minutes may not even get picked up. Anyone who has dealt with trying to work out distance from Bluetooth signal strength will know that it is virtually impossible once you factor in, the orientation…

I imagine it's not meant to be 100% accurate. If it identifies even 50% of the people that may have come in contact with someone who's positive, even considering 50% false positives, I would consider it a rousing success.

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#12

Post by fabian2k »

barbegal wrote: post #7

I really question whether these apps will be effective. The limitation section https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/ma... of their architecture document shows that people in close proximity for a few minutes may not even get picked up. Anyone who has dealt with trying to work out distance from Bluetooth signal strength will know that it is virtually impossible once you factor in, the orientation…

The biggest risk are longer contacts, not very short ones. You don't want to notify everyone that passed that person on the street, but you do want to notify everyone that was reasonably close in the same train for half an hour.

This is pretty much just an extension to classic contact tracing. And there you also have to work with very rough categories of risk, this isn't so much different.

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#13

Post by mikece »

I wonder how quickly contact tracing applications will be leveraged for other uses. If a significant number of protesters are using such an application then I imagine government will throw the “for your protection“ excuse to go harvest information from the phones of protesters to see who was meeting with him and who their social circles are. Of course, to keep us and our children safe.

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#17

Post by Someone »

fabian2k wrote: post #12
barbegal wrote: post #7

I really question whether these apps will be effective. The limitation section https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/ma... of their architecture document shows that people in close proximity for a few minutes may not even get picked up. Anyone who has dealt with trying to work out distance from Bluetooth signal strength will know that it is virtually impossible once you factor in, the orientation…

The biggest risk are longer contacts, not very short ones. You don't want to notify everyone that passed that person on the street, but you do want to notify everyone that was reasonably close in the same train for half an hour. This is pretty much just an extension to classic contact tracing. And there you also have to work with very rough categories of risk, this isn't so much different.

I don’t see why N S-second contacts would be lower risk than one N×S-second one. This isn’t a matter of ‘small doses can’t harm you’, is it?

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#18

Post by Schlaefer »

uvw wrote: post #11
barbegal wrote: post #7

I really question whether these apps will be effective. The limitation section https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-documentation/blob/ma... of their architecture document shows that people in close proximity for a few minutes may not even get picked up. Anyone who has dealt with trying to work out distance from Bluetooth signal strength will know that it is virtually impossible once you factor in, the orientation…

I imagine it's not meant to be 100% accurate. If it identifies even 50% of the people that may have come in contact with someone who's positive, even considering 50% false positives, I would consider it a rousing success.

Even if there are 95% false positive: if you're able to test all those people and catch the 5% that might still be a net profit. It comes down to cost. Societies are spending thousands of billions to mitigate the problem, even a slight reduction of that number is a win.

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#19

Post by monkeynotes »

mikece wrote: post #13

I wonder how quickly contact tracing applications will be leveraged for other uses. If a significant number of protesters are using such an application then I imagine government will throw the “for your protection“ excuse to go harvest information from the phones of protesters to see who was meeting with him and who their social circles are. Of course, to keep us and our children safe.

I have brought up the same worry in similar threads. I think it's a given that once this sort of thing is accepted it will be implemented more broadly for our safety.

Re: Germany's Covid contact tracing app is Open Source

#20

Post by mschuster91 »

monadic2 wrote: post #5
mschuster91 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also NZ is essentially corona-free, there isn't much pressure for app based tracing as long as those in contact with people coming in from anywhere else (i.e. air and sea port workers, customs officials and the likes) get rigorously tested.

Still far better, and quite simple at that!, than we have in the US.

The US is way too deep in the corona mess to do anything like that. What would help is widespread, easy access to tests (including a moratorium on ICE enforcement and no "paper records" requirement so that also illegalized persons get tested instead of being an unknown harbor!) and especially daily tests for at-risk personnel (medical, public transport, supermarket staff and inmates of prisons, jails and health/elderly care institutions).
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