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So... NHS Contact Tracing App

LeMarchand

By LeMarchand
in General Chat

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jmak

jmak

Posted
Posted

They love it if you run it on old Android versions. Prior to Android 8, you could run the Bluetooth stuff in the background without whatever security workaround they've come up with.

 

Needs Bluetooth version 4 or later I think as that's when they introduced the LE facility, so there is a limit, but my 5 year old phone has it.

mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted

I'm amused by people who carry mobile phones, which broadcast a unique ID to triangulate cell phone masts, and are most often linked to a bank account, think they're not being tracked. They then use these devices to call other devices, creating a graph. And then two of those devices might move close together at night and stay there until morning.

 

AIUI on iOS an app gets to use bluetooth for 10 mins after being backgrounded, and when it receives a signal from another app nearby it can wake up and reset the timer.

dmj

dmj

Posted
Posted
I'm amused by people who carry mobile phones, which broadcast a unique ID to triangulate cell phone masts, and are most often linked to a bank account, think they're not being tracked. They then use these devices to call other devices, creating a graph. And then two of those devices might move close together at night and stay there until morning.

 

For nearly 20 years It's been illegal in the UK to change your phone IMEI number, which is what is used for tracking/triangulation. I recall it being dressed up as a method of preventing phone theft, but of course the data is held for years.

A friend who worked with police on murder cases also told me that the accuracy of triangulation by IMEI number is more precise than is generally recognised and it really helps solve a lot of cases.

Presumably it's not sensitive enough for Covid tracking - different signal strengths for different phones etc.

jthompson

jthompson

Posted
Posted

The amount of false positives and false negatives is going to be immense, surely? Bluetooth wasn't designed to measure proximity in this way, particularly since it can't detect physical barriers. How many alerts, followed by tests, before you're fed up of it crying wolf? 2? 3?

 

There's no way in the world that I would choose to forego social distancing just because I have an app, so I can't see how having it would change anything for me as an individual. I'm still going to give a wide berth to anyone in a home made mask. Others may be in different circumstances, naturally, and not able to practice safe distancing as much as they'd like, but you have to ask how much would you trust this thing.

DrCheese

DrCheese

Posted
Posted
I'm amused by people who carry mobile phones, which broadcast a unique ID to triangulate cell phone masts, and are most often linked to a bank account, think they're not being tracked. They then use these devices to call other devices, creating a graph. And then two of those devices might move close together at night and stay there until morning.

 

AIUI on iOS an app gets to use bluetooth for 10 mins after being backgrounded, and when it receives a signal from another app nearby it can wake up and reset the timer.

 

There's a difference with tracking via cell towers - It's regulated with a systems of checks/balances enshrined in law. The NHS app isn't

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mrstrong

mrstrong

Posted
Posted

Never heard of NHSX are they part of NHS Digital? All sounds a bit shadowy like the X files.

Just waiting for some conspiracy theorist to say corona virus was cooked up in a lab to get us

all to install this app! 1984 etc

To be fair I'll probably install it, from what I've heard it won't be collecting too much data so not

to worried and it may work!

jthompson

jthompson

Posted
Posted
To be fair I'll probably install it, from what I've heard it won't be collecting too much data so not

to worried and it may work!

 

Genuine question: do you think you would behave differently around others if you were running it? For instance, would you be more likely to visit a supermarket at a busier yet more conveneint time, or ride on a bus, etc?

mikeprice

mikeprice

Posted
Posted
Genuine question: do you think you would behave differently around others if you were running it? For instance, would you be more likely to visit a supermarket at a busier yet more conveneint time, or ride on a bus, etc?

 

No - I'll still be avoiding people due my wife' vulnerability - my reason for installing it is that if I get exposed I want to know so I can take appropriate measures

 

If she was 'normal' (she married me so she ain;t normal!) then I would feel happier with it in more populated places and not get so stressed out when someone stands right next to me in a supermarket (which happened yesterday - he came from behind and reached round me to get something off a shelf - which would have been dodgy in normal times, in these times it was ridiculous.

jmak

jmak

Posted
Posted (edited)
Good find

 

Interesting - the contract start date for both was the same, so they were planning both the centralised and decentralised models at the same time. The contract for the one now in trial has theoretically ended, but the other one runs through to September. Values remarkably similar.

 

Edit: changed praying for planning (autocorrect error).

Edited by jmak
mikeprice

mikeprice

Posted
Posted

Atricles on the newspaper web site sthis morning suggest that the government is keeping options open to use the wonderful, great NHS app

 

or give up and use the Google/Apple versions

 

 

So - trust the NHS with an IT project and its associated data

 

or trust Google with the data

 

hmmmm

jthompson

jthompson

Posted
Posted
To be fair, the Apple-Google version doesn't send any data to either of them. It's all decentralised.

 

Info: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/06/nhs-explores-feasibility-moving-contact-tracing-app-apple-google/

My understanding how how apps built to use the Apple/Google API is that devices would exchange and store time-based keys amongst themselves, but that when someone reports a positive test to their app, their app will upload a separate key to the health service's own central database of 'positives' that every instance of the app downloads on a regular basis. The time-based keys that devices exchange between themselves, although different from the keys stored by the health service, allow for devices to match relevent keys together to decide whether an infection might have occured.

 

So it's not completely decentralised.

mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted

Right, a random number is uploaded to a server, and then everyone downloads that random number, uses it to generate the 2nd level numbers they received by bluetooth and checks for matches.

 

It's more decentralised than bittorrent, but not as much as Gnutella.

 

Really the only way to track you would be to put listening stations everywhere, and why bother, your phone is already reporting to cell towers all day, if you think MI5 doesn't have someone working at each of the 3 phone companies siphoning off that data already you're.... generous.

LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Atricles on the newspaper web site sthis morning suggest that the government is keeping options open to use the wonderful, great NHS app

 

or give up and use the Google/Apple versions

 

OR: If at first you don't succeed...

 

The FT have a pay-walled report that:

 

 

 

Presumably more details on other sites tomorrow.

Achandler

Achandler

Posted
Posted (edited)

Surely we accept that the government developing both a decentralised and centralised App is a good thing?

 

It might cost more, but if the decentralised one most other countries were using turned out to be useless, then everyone would be up in arms that we relied on that.

 

One of the more confusing bits is that South Korea has a contact tracing App, that by all accounts is good. The country is pretty widely recognised as a democratic place with decent human rights etc similar to ours. Why aren't we asking for theirs and adjusting it to suit us?

Edited by Achandler
Rubbish English
mavhc

mavhc

Posted
Posted

Only if they did them in parallel, now they're just wasting time with something that won't work. Wasting time is the main problem, they waited 3 months since they knew we had a problem doing nothing.

 

We should have been taking this more seriously since 2003 when SARS happened. Just because it didn't happen here we think we're magical British people who can't get viruses?

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