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Apple and Google partner on Covid-19 contact tracing technology

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

#211

Post by tastroder »

clairity wrote: post #186

we need to collectively take a step back and put this pandemic into proper perspective so we don't fall for privacy and liberty erosions like this. the panic is unproductive and dangerous to our civil rights. for context, roughly 8000 people die per day in the US. the virus has killed 2 days worth of people in the US in the 80 days of known infection, and probably ~100 days of undiagnosed infection. so covid has kill…

> contact tracing only makes sense when groups of strangers come into close proximity. it doesn't need to track every single person you brush past on the street. so for instance, you could just provide "contact tracing" with beacons in stores rather than always-on phone tracing.

The part of this comment that actually addresses contact tracing proposes a method (beacons in stores that would have to rely on fixed identifiers, known geolocation, and central storage) that would not only be worse for privacy than what is proposed here, it is also the likely outcome without employing a technique that at least considers privacy concerns.

The other paragraphs read like a compilation of Facebook-based science, where not simply factually incorrect, all points made are debatable and by no means as clear as you make it out to be.

This is a opt-in API and a technical protocol specification which we can discuss on technical grounds. Nothing proposed and discussed here even affects data leaving the end user device, or your rights for that manner, yet.

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

#212

Post by crypt1d »

I've spent the last 3 weeks with my team building exactly this - contact tracing apps for both android and ios that use bluetooth tech[1]. This will probably require us to redo the app completely to fit into their API plans, but I'm glad they are, in a way, acknowledging our idea.

The troubling thing is, bluetooth-based contact tracing is in no way easy. Different android phones handle background bluetooth scanning / advertising differently and some tend to require additional config changes - such as disabling battery saving features - to even make it work. And iOS bluetooth advertising in background is just bad. Since u can't add custom UUIDs to the advertisement package, just advertising data is often not enough, so u have to connect too, which creates a range of other problems. I suspect they will release OS upgrades to solve some of these issues, but not all devices will be fixable (eg, older Android devices). This, combined with the fact that they will start rolling out this feature in May, makes me think it will not help us much for the latest wave of COVID-19 infections. Might come in handy for the next epidemic, though.

[1] - https://github.com/cryptekio/corridorapp-android

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

#213

Post by mmcnl »

est31 wrote: post #178

https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... > Upon a positive test of a user for COVID-19, their Diagnosis Keys and associated DayNumbers are uploaded to the Diagnosis Server. A Diagnosis Server is a server that aggregates the Diagnosis Keys from the users who tested positive and distributes them to all the user clients who are using contact tracing. Is this scalable? Earlier in the document they…

Is your calculation correct? You only need to download the Diagnosis Keys. How would that be 48MB?

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

#214

Post by WikipediasBad »

crypt1d wrote: post #212

I've spent the last 3 weeks with my team building exactly this - contact tracing apps for both android and ios that use bluetooth tech[1]. This will probably require us to redo the app completely to fit into their API plans, but I'm glad they are, in a way, acknowledging our idea. The troubling thing is, bluetooth-based contact tracing is in no way easy. Different android phones handle background bluetooth scanning /…

Do you think that GPS coordinates will be exposable with the API so that there can be public tracing maps online? Obviously a big privacy issue where the actual bluetooth ID and the person's identity have to be fully anonymized but if GPS coordinates of contact points can be exposed publicly, there can be good public tracing maps that can show where contact events are happening and in what numbers so that people can avoid certain areas (and on the other end where other areas are safe where there's no contact). This can publicly also be used to display R0 counts in different zip codes and geographic areas.

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

#215

Post by tastroder »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #200
mmcnl wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you even read the spec before dumping your thoughts? They address the privacy concerns explicitly. A short summary: - Doesn't collect personally identifiable information or user location data - People who test positive are not identified to other users, Google or Apple - List of people you’ve been in contact with never leaves your phone https://blog.google/documents/57/Overview_of_COVID-19_Contac...

I will admit that I did not, but having seen trends over the past few decades taught me to be rather skeptical. In other words, today's specs are little more to me than promises. I am ok with being downvoted for this. edit: I just "read" it ( it is not even a spec - it is not even a powerpoint presentation ). You are down voting me for questioning a couple of pictograms?

A technical outline is here: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... also linked elsewhere in this thread.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

alyz wrote: post #203
DavideNL wrote: post #174

Am i the only one who thinks it's mindblowing that people use Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, etc. however now that Apple + Google release a tool to prevent thousands of people from dying in a pandemic they start thinking/complaining about the possible privacy implications? (without even having read the specs or knowing the details...)

This is dangerously close to Feinstein's "think of the children" argument. If people complain about EARN IT, they should investigate privacy implications of this "enhanced" tracking technology.

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by est31 »

loeg wrote: post #184
est31 wrote: post #178

https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... > Upon a positive test of a user for COVID-19, their Diagnosis Keys and associated DayNumbers are uploaded to the Diagnosis Server. A Diagnosis Server is a server that aggregates the Diagnosis Keys from the users who tested positive and distributes them to all the user clients who are using contact tracing. Is this scalable? Earlier in the document they…

3 million is way too high. Old infections aren't interesting for this; users only need to download newly reported infections since yesterday. Limiting to broad geographic regions would also help reduce scope and not be especially privacy invasive.

> Old infections aren't interesting for this

Yes, healed patients who don't produce viruses any more aren't important, but anyone still infectious is still a danger. Even if you are supposed, often even legally required, to stay at home while being infected, there is no guarantee you aren't. I'd bet that most of these people also take their phones with them, after all far more serious criminals like actual murderers are often taking their phones to sites of crimes as well. The IDs of those devices are still relevant. Quarantine after diagnosis may last up to 14 days, so your phone should be uploading IDs for 14 days to the diagnosis server.

Given continuation of exponential spread, we aren't far from having 3 million new patients within a span of two weeks in populous countries like the US.

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

#218

Post by Confiks »

colmmacc wrote: post #195
soamv wrote: post #97

The spec pdf looks a lot like the DP-3T protocol. The DP-3T docs have more explanation and a good discussion of privacy aspects. https://github.com/DP-3T/documents paper: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%... data protection aspects: https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20-%20Da... Here's an overview comparing that approach to some others (such as Singapore's tracetogether): h…

They're not the same and I think Google/Apple's is a bit better. In DP3T the infected person shares a single daily key from which all future daily keys can be derived. In Google/Apple's each daily key is HKDF derived from a master key and they are not linkable. Infected people share the relevant daily keys from their infection period. THat's more data to push around, but it is better for privacy. It means that contac…

> It means that contacts with infected persons can't be linked across days, and it means that I can't build an app that alerts me that someone who was previously infected just walked by.

Edit: This actually turns out to be correct, but your conclusion:

> It means that contacts with infected persons can't be linked across days, and it means that I can't build an app that alerts me that someone who was previously infected just walked by.

Is not possible, because every time secrets are made public, the secret key is reset.

[1] https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/blob/master/DP3T%20White%...

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

#219

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

tastroder wrote: post #215
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will admit that I did not, but having seen trends over the past few decades taught me to be rather skeptical. In other words, today's specs are little more to me than promises. I am ok with being downvoted for this. edit: I just "read" it ( it is not even a spec - it is not even a powerpoint presentation ). You are down voting me for questioning a couple of pictograms?

A technical outline is here: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... also linked elsewhere in this thread.

Thank you for this. It may take me a little longer to digest.

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

#220

Post by skuhn »

conradev wrote: post #197
simonsaidit wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative would be GPS which some governments are looking at now. It might give higher precision with a grid of location data to enhance it, but I would assume the protocol prevents this eg by some randomization of ids?

GPS is completely unidirectional from satellites to receivers and thus the satellites cannot be used to track the receivers

The receivers can be made to report their GPS data back for tracking purposes.
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