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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

#251

Post by antpls »

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...)

1) Covid19 was largely dangerous for old people cumulatting other comorbidities, mostly retired people. 2) Old people don't move that much and don't meet that many other people.

It leads me to believe that the proposed loss of privacy isn't the best way to fight a virus such as a flu

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

#252

Post by FabHK »

freakynit wrote: post #80

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

Have you read the spec (or even only the crypto sub spec [1]) before making your comment?

[1] https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

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

#253

Post by tastroder »

tengbretson wrote: post #181
CubsFan1060 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part about how it works. Once you've read that (here's a link: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... ) Can you describe to me how you'd track individuals with it?

For starters, I would assume that most people's daily rotating keys could easily be fingerprinted based on identifiable patterns of movement that could be picked up by any number of municipal devices people come into contact with throughout the day. In order for contact tracing to work as advertised, each person's device has to keep a log of daily ids that they contacted that has a TTL of at least a few weeks. That m…

The Daily Tracing Key cannot be "easily fingerprinted" since it does not leave the device (see page 5). Your LE threat model seems like grasping at straws, the majority of users already have location services enabled anyway, people breaking the law would have to change exactly nothing from the common practice of not bringing your phone when committing crimes.

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

#254

Post by FartyMcFarter »

The_Double wrote: post #240

There is surprisingly little discussion about the actual spec here. It looks really good to me! - Advertisements change every 15 minutes, are not trackable unless keys are shared. - The only central bit is a repository of "infected" daily keys. - No knowledge about contacts is shared with a central authority. Nothing is shared unless you are infected and decide to share your keys, which are only valid for one day. I…

> I don't see how you could have a real argument against this unless you are a privacy extremist.

The authors of DP-3T (which seems quite similar to this spec) have a huge list of privacy caveats in their whitepaper [1], in section "5.4 Summary of centralised/decentralised design trade-offs".

I haven't seen any analysis on how the Apple/Google spec prevents those problems.

[1] https://github.com/DP-3T/documents/raw/master/DP3T%20White%2...

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

#255

Post by FabHK »

maxerickson wrote: post #17
jefftk wrote: post #10

> would allow more individuals to participate, if they choose to opt in I don't see how this can work unless it gets very high distribution. I wonder if local governments might do something where the shelter-in-place orders are lifted for some categories of people conditional on running the app?

Depends on how you define "work". To get to 0 you need very high participation. Even modest adoption will have some impact on the rate of spread.

Not sure I agree. This only works if both ends of a contact have a conforming app. As such, the proportion of contacts you can trace is not linear, but quadratic in adoption.

(If 20% of people adopt it, you’d catch only 4% of contacts).

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

#256

Post by zby »

I know it is about APIs - but no mention of any Free or at least Open Source Software example implementations makes me worry.

I was expecting that people would organize around git repos - but no, just one of the many COVID tracing initiatives published their code.

It is https://github.com/tripleblindmarket/covid-safe-paths by the way.

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

#257

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

mmcnl wrote: post #235
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You base your opinion on nothing more than a couple of icons. Having now read it, I cannot in good faith even call it specs. It is a step above infomercial. Hardly something trustworthy.

I mistakenly gave you the impression that I was linking to the spec. I was in fact linking to the infomercial that had a summary of the privacy considerations. The actual spec can be found here: 1. Bluetooth: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... 2. Cryptography: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... 3. Framework: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/co…

No worries. I apologize for jumping to conclusions like this. I will be going over these soon.

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

#258

Post by monksy »

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...)

People aren't being forcefully sharing their health status via FB, IG, etc. Imagine if Facebook published if you had an STD to your friends.

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

#259

Post by ck2 »

We learned so little after 9/11, we still live with TSA security-theater nightmare to this day (ironically now spreading covid19 with their groping and concentrating crowds into small spaces)

So now this nightmare is going to give historical tracking data to government entities without warrants forever.

And Barr is going to get encryption backdoors with his theater.

How about just making a test that costs a few cents in million quantities that you can take at home. It won't be the last time we need that tech for a virus.

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

#260

Post by FabHK »

saagarjha wrote: post #94
jborichevskiy wrote: post #87

I am much happier Apple is in the mix here, versus say Google x Amazon. Will that be enough to reign in the privacy concerns though, who knows

They have to, as they ship a mobile OS that a large portion of the country uses.

Yes. The point was (I think) that Apple respects user privacy, having a very different business model from the data-slurping advertisement firm that ships the other OS. As such, having Apple’s participation can be seen as guaranteeing some decent privacy standards (as seems borne out by the spec).
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