Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#141

Post by dmarchand90 » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #137

dmarchand90 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the NSA already was tracking most people anyway?

GPS / phone network tracking probably has lower precision than short-range bluetooth. Bluetooth receivers can be present even in places without network reception or GPS, and receive signal passively and without a trace.

I guess I'm not clear to that extent the NSA hacks people phones. I would imagine for most users they would have good access to our GPS data, e.g. via Google Maps?

Edit: I'm assuming that GPS level precision is sufficient to start the dystopia

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#142

Post by tinus_hn » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

acqq wrote: post #64

kian wrote: post #49

It says this is opt-in - is this just the sending of covid information, or is it the entire contact-tracing key-exchange enterprise?

If I understand correctly, it's up to every infected person to manually click "upload" (edit: here was "who I was close to", but it's not correct, see note 1 here) once he gets diagnosed, i.e. completely voluntary. That is so that once one is diagnosed others can check if they were close to that one (and when?). And even these lists aren't supposed to be any typical metadata but something that stays local and the thi…

You can’t upload who you were close to because you only have a set of pieces of data that can’t be traced back to people without their key. Only if infected, you upload your key to the server which distributes it to the others who can then tell if they’ve been close to you.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#143

Post by atomi » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

podgaj wrote: post #131

iso1210 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with living in modern society

No thanks.

Byeeeeeee!

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#144

Post by haoc » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

Does this all depend on people's opt-in and self-report? What is the minimum opt-in percentage to keep the system functional?

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#145

Post by tinus_hn » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

freakynit wrote: post #80

This has a very serious potential to be misused to target an individual for nefarious purposes.

How? Or is this just some non specific idea about any contact tracing concept?

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#146

Post by RandallBrown » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #139

Two major OS platforms covering majority of the population working together in an attempt to better track current populations at behest of the government. How could anyone even begin to feel a wee bit cynical? To question this effort it worse than wanting PATRIOT ACT to expire. It is downright unamerican. I hate the fact that I definitely see a good reason for it and the goverment is more than happy to accommodate th…

This doesn't appear to be a way for the government or tech companies to track people. Looking through the API docs I think it's designed just to alert people who may have been exposed.

It lets someone identify as Covid-19 positive and then if people have come into contact with them, you can be alerted. Most of the processing happens on device and it doesn't use location data.

It looks like it would be very hard to abuse by governments or businesses, but I'm not an expert on these kind of things.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#147

Post by driverdan » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:51 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #115

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #100

Promising opt-in is a bit disingenuous. These tech giants are creating a technological capability. Whether or not it is opt-in, opt-out or mandatory is then decided by governments, now and in the future. This is of course nothing new. But it's worth noting considering how high the tolerance for extremely intrusive government action currently is and how extremely weak any resistance is bound to be. I'm not saying I'm…

They already have the shiny button. They can compel cell phone companies to give this data to the government already, without you knowing about it. At least this way you will get some control of the info and you'll know what was collected and have control of it's disclosure (for now). In other words, this is no worse than what the government is already capable of, it just makes it easier for you to share the data wit…

It's much worse because it won't have judicial oversight.

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#148

Post by tinus_hn » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #132

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #100

Promising opt-in is a bit disingenuous. These tech giants are creating a technological capability. Whether or not it is opt-in, opt-out or mandatory is then decided by governments, now and in the future. This is of course nothing new. But it's worth noting considering how high the tolerance for extremely intrusive government action currently is and how extremely weak any resistance is bound to be. I'm not saying I'm…

This functionality is already live in Find My iPhone. iPhones are performing these associations already. The bigger change is Android joining and sharing the data with researchers.

You do know that there also is a Find My Device service for Android that runs on all Android phones?

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#149

Post by petedoyle » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

pat2man wrote: post #121

petedoyle wrote: post #79

This is huge. A limiting factor has been iOS not being able to (on purpose, for privacy, and battery life) do BLE scanning (edit: or advertising, thanks Slartie) in the background. I imagine this will enable that for specific apps, and I have high confidence privacy will be well-implemented by Apple's involvement (edit: see tastroder's comment for technical docs). Having a single, well-designed spec for Bluetooth adv…

While background scanning is limited you can key off iBeacon devices via the location framework. This allows your app to wake up when certain devices are near.

Thinking this might be different. I've been curious what the BLE packet structure might look like. Looks like there's 16 bytes of unique id needed for the "Rolling Proximity Identifier" in the spec. Typically iBeacon would have 16 bytes of unchanging UUID, and 4 bytes that can change: https://support.kontakt.io/hc/en-gb/articles/201492492-iBeac....

Could probably flip it to be a 4 byte prefix (to identify this packet for contact tracing), followed by 16 bytes of the Rolling Proximity Identifier, but not sure if the underlying hardware (the BLE chips) can do low-power matching on a pattern like that. Something only Apple and Google could make work, so this is exciting.

(Or, it could be iBeacon to wake, then making a connection to fetch the Rolling Proximity Identifier. Though, in my experience, not requiring a connection will be more reliable in practice, especially for Android.)

Re: Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

#150

Post by ceejayoz » Fri, Apr 10, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #91

ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be shocked if some businesses - movie theaters, malls, etc. - asked people to show their contract tracing status for entry.

Well, I would think that would be met with a you-can-fuck-right-off by most people.

I really doubt that.

Hell, vast numbers of people have been doing it voluntarily already with loyalty cards.