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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 11 2020, @07:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the proximity-alert dept.

Apple and Google are launching a joint COVID-19 tracing tool for iOS and Android

Apple and Google's engineering teams have banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that will help individuals determine whether they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Contact tracing is a useful tool that helps public health authorities track the spread of the disease and inform the potentially exposed so that they can get tested. It does this by identifying and 'following up with' people who have come into contact with a COVID-19 affected person.

The first phase of the project is an API that public health agencies can integrate into their own apps. The next phase is a system level contact tracing system that will work across iOS and Android devices on an opt-in basis.

The system uses on-board radios on your device to transmit an anonymous ID over short ranges — using Bluetooth beaconing. Servers relay your last 14 days of rotating IDs to other devices which search for a match. A match is determined based on a threshold of time spent and distance maintained between two devices.

If a match is found with another user that has told the system that they have tested positive, you are notified and can take steps to be tested and to self quarantine.

[...] you run into technical problems like Bluetooth power suck, privacy concerns about centralized data collection and the sheer effort it takes to get enough people to install the apps to be effective.

Two Phase Plan

To fix these issues, Google and Apple teamed up to create an interoperable API that should allow the largest number of users to adopt it, if they choose.

The first phase, a private proximity contact detection API, will be released in mid-May by both Apple and Google for use in apps on iOS and Android.

[...] The second phase of the project is to bring even more efficiency and adoption to the tracing tool by bringing it to the operating system level. There would be no need to download an app, users would just opt-in to the tracing right on their device. The public health apps would continue to be supported, but this would address a much larger spread of users.

This phase, which is slated for the coming months, would give the contract tracing tool the ability to work at a deeper level, improving battery life, effectiveness and privacy. If its handled by the system, then every improvement in those areas — including cryptographic advances — would benefit the tool directly.

[...]

You can find more information about the contact tracing API on Google’s post here and on Apple’s page here including specifications.

Alternate source: Apple, Google Bring Covid-19 Contact-Tracing to 3 Billion People

So it's like a dating hookup proximity app for covid-19?


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  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:27AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:27AM (#981079)

    Do you think this API will be going away after the virus is gone? Do you think this API will *not* be switched to always-on-and-phone-home as soon as possible?

    Never allow paranoia to get in the way of a solution. Actually, in this case, this is major part of the solution. If you can trace all the people's contacts, you can focus testing and greatly reduce amount of disease. South Korea proved that already.

    But I guess 50 million dead is OK for you because government cannot possibly track you... No Sir Ree Bob. If only they had things like police and layers and courts.... but that's is one thing I've learned about Americans. The so called "freedom lovers" are the ones deathly *afraid* of the government. Stockpiling guns to compensate for their lack of self confidence. But if you go to places like France, it's the government that is afraid of the people. And no one needs guns.

    Anyway, good luck. The virus doesn't give a rats ass about your government or your fears or your guns. It only cares to get another host so it can survive longer.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:38AM (4 children)

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2020, @09:38AM (#981081) Journal

    Except that it is not part of a solution. It is a solution in search of a problem. Despite the hype, contact tracing is not so useful for preventing the spread of the virus [medrxiv.org]. It is, however, very useful in datamining which is the main business model of Google and an activity which Apple is increasinging misusing.

    A question I have is that is the presence of the "app" itself opt-in or will Google and Apple roll it out as part of their phone operating systems?

    If the "app" is rolled out on all phones, whether the ostensible owers ask for it or not, then it will also be just a matter of time before it is on by default. Scope and power grabs have a tendency to creep.

    --
    Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
    • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @10:38AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @10:38AM (#981087)

      Claim not supported by citation.

      The linked article makes two claims:
      1) Contact tracing is not effective IF the number of asymptomatic cases is more than 30%. This virus has an asymptomatic case rate of roughly 25%.
      2) Social distancing is important too. Nobody is saying it isn't. Contact tracing can't do it all. We aren't going to all be crowding into standing room only nightclubs again any time soon. But with contact tracing, we can at least go back to work. Unless you work in one of those nightclubs.

      Finally, as a counterexample, contact tracing seems to have been the main "secret sauce" employed by South Korea in stifling the outbreak without the need for extreme social distancing measures.

      Right now Google *already* tracks almost everyone's movement, if you have an Android phone with location on (that's most people), and occasionally even if you don't (depending on exactly what else you do). Between Google, the phone companies, and law enforcement (e.g. with license plate readers) most of the surveillance infrastructure is already in place. We just need to put it to work doing something useful for a change.

      I am sure the app will be opt-in. Google, for all their privacy-destroying efforts, still allows you to disable location services, and this is pretty much baked into the EULAs. I will be happy to opt in to the app for the duration of this pandemic, and then I will delete it again afterward.

      • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:40PM

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:40PM (#981159) Journal

        But with contact tracing, we can at least go back to work. Unless you work in one of those nightclubs.

        Extorting people like that is probable.

        “If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.” -- Samual Adams [history.com]

        However, be that as it may, contact tracing is not only overrated, the centralized model and generic name given the project belie the real purpose.

        This contact tracing framework isn't about SARS-CoV-2 despite what some of the headlines might imply. Read down through the actual press releases [apple.com]. Even the framework documentation calls it a "Contact Tracing Framework" generically and not a temporary framework or a "COVID-19" framework:

        This is about creating a centralized, smartphone-based, generalized contact tracing framework. There is nothing in the scope notes limiting it to the duration of the pandemic nor to just SARS-CoV-2-related epidemiology. This pandemic is just the right excuse for Apple and Google to pull these plans off the shelf and get people to voluntarily assume "The Position". This service could have been made in a distributed, decentralized manner if data mining were not the hidden goal. Google is not going to change its main business model over night and suddenly do that.

        Between Alphabet/Google and Apple, they control about 100% of the smartphone market. Once this surveillance infrastructure [jacobinmag.com] is in place on as good as 100% of smartphones it will collect plenty of data. The amassed centralized data will be too big a temptation for the data miners to leave be and they will start dipping into it after the pandemac has passed. Then from there flood gates open. Again, if this were about dealing with this pandemic, the scope would be limited. If this were about privacy, and not control and surveillance, then the framework would be decentralized and distributed.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
      • (Score: 2) by canopic jug on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:54PM

        by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 11 2020, @03:54PM (#981164) Journal

        The linked article makes two claims:
        1) Contact tracing is not effective IF the number of asymptomatic cases is more than 30%. [...]

        Correct. And thus contact tracing is ineffective for the SARS-CoV-2 virus even if it were not already too widely spread: The current studies are showing that the portion of asymptomatic cases is over 50% [bgr.com]. However, it is looking like it could be much higher.

        --
        Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:54PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:54PM (#981350)

        Your statement:
        " Google, for all their privacy-destroying efforts, still allows you to disable location services"

        FIXED version:
          Google, for all their privacy-destroying efforts, still allows you to THINK YOU CAN disable location services

        Until you have audited all of their code, I'll go with my version ...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2020, @11:49PM (#981346)

    call when there are 50 million dead and those dead are CAUSED by Covid-19, not just
    all deaths blamed on Covid-19 ....