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So ... "if you're currently near someone who was previously diagnosed" ... the app is 100% useless then? Blatant lies. The app does not and cannot do what is claimed unless it gathers personal information. It knows exactly the time you ARE near or were near someone; that's the entire point of the app.

I assume that just means that resolved cases are removed from the database of positives… perhaps automatically for a rolling 14 days or something. Clearly you don’t want to be giving people an exposure alert for being close to someone who had it 4 months ago.
 
I assume that just means that resolved cases are removed from the database of positives… perhaps automatically for a rolling 14 days or something. Clearly you don’t want to be giving people an exposure alert for being close to someone who had it 4 months ago.
Correct. Your device keeps track of IDs you’ve been near in the last 2 weeks or so, then flushes them.
 
Works but anyone else seeing a huge battery drain with the app active? I'm seeing about 10% battery drain per hour. Drain stops if I shut down the app.
 
Works but anyone else seeing a huge battery drain with the app active? I'm seeing about 10% battery drain per hour. Drain stops if I shut down the app.

if you are seeing such dramatic battery drain then it probably is due to this app.

such a battery drain would point to the app itself is not well written or other problem with it.

there was large scale debate about the google/apple api when they began to provide it.
the major reason apple and google recommended their provided api be used as opposed to countries and USA individual states developing their own solutions was precisely due to security and battery drain.

users in counties that have not based their app on the google/apple api report heavy battery drain to the point of not being able to use it.

canada's app is however based on the google/apple api therefore the canada provided app is somehow not written well.
or, trying to do things that are beyond the scope of the google/apple api.

for what it is worth, my Japan Ministry of Health provided app that uses the google/apple api has zero noticeable battery drain.
its well implemented.
 
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COVID Alert has no way of knowing:

- your location - COVID Alert does not use GPS or location services
- your name or address
- the place or time you were near someone
- if you're currently near someone who was previously diagnosed


So ... "if you're currently near someone who was previously diagnosed" ... the app is 100% useless then? Blatant lies. The app does not and cannot do what is claimed unless it gathers personal information. It knows exactly the time you ARE near or were near someone; that's the entire point of the app.

Folks, don't be a sheep. The stats show less than 200 active cases across Canada ... at this point, the politicians have lost their minds and are either actively mocking the population or ... mocking the population. In Canada, they even released a news article stating individuals should use "glory holes" (no joke) to stay safe during COVID.

So just to clarify. If I, someone with iOS dev experience and was able to view the apps source code and verify these claims, understands what this app does I’m a sheep. But if I follow what you say, a person who can’t even use basic critical thinking to understand how this app can easily work without sending or even capturing personal info, I then cease to become a sheep.

So in summary;

sheep = someone who’s able to read the source code and understand what this app does
not a sheep = someone who blindly follows what you, a person who wasn’t even able to accurately surmise the workings of this extremely simple app?
 
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In the USA there are 2,813,503 people die each year among those 647,457 die from heart disease and 599,108 die from cancer (1 million+ combined). Yet hospitals were not mobilized neither for heart disease patients nor for cancer patients nor trillions of dollars spent over those patients. So the government
So just to clarify. If I, someone with iOS dev experience and was able to view the apps source code and verify these claims, understands what this app does I’m a sheep. But if I follow what you say, a person who can’t even use basic critical thinking to understand how this app can easily work without sending or even capturing personal info, I then cease to become a sheep.

So in summary;

sheep = someone who’s able to read the source code and understand what this app does
not a sheep = someone who blindly follows what you, a person who wasn’t even able to accurately surmise the workings of this extremely simple app?
Well they also made up completely false stats about active cases in Canada, so they are clearly a good source of information.
 
So just to clarify. If I, someone with iOS dev experience and was able to view the apps source code and verify these claims, understands what this app does I’m a sheep. But if I follow what you say, a person who can’t even use basic critical thinking to understand how this app can easily work without sending or even capturing personal info, I then cease to become a sheep.

So in summary;

sheep = someone who’s able to read the source code and understand what this app does
not a sheep = someone who blindly follows what you, a person who wasn’t even able to accurately surmise the workings of this extremely simple app?

I'm a developer. Shall we go through this app together that neither of us wrote? Let me know where to find the source code. Also ... when you test positive for COVID, and enter that into the app. Where did you go to test positive? Your information is linked.

I'm well aware of how a token system works. You're missing the larger picture
 
I'm a developer. Shall we go through this app together that neither of us wrote? Let me know where to find the source code. Also ... when you test positive for COVID, and enter that into the app. Where did you go to test positive? Your information is linked.

I'm well aware of how a token system works. You're missing the larger picture

here’s the repo

the app is irrelevant in this process. If you have to give your health card when you take the test, then your information is already linked to that test. Entering that code into an app doesn’t give anyone anything that they didn’t already have when you just took the test.
 
If you’re interested, here is he file we’re the request is generated.

Maybe I missed something, but I don’t see the request object containing any info pulled from your device (so any identifying info).

what exact info do you think they’re gleaning from your device after inputting the code
 
You got my main point in your 2nd last post ... I think we actually agree with each other. The app itself isn't what's actually giving personally identifiable information it's as you said "If you have to give your health card when you take the test, then your information is already linked to that test."

That's exactly what I'm getting at. The app itself may indeed be tokenized and not sharing your personal information directly, but it requires people to give their health card in the first place to then use the app. Correct?

FYI that react app isn't going to show us how the API works. Just went through the source code ... is a REACT app, which of course you know as a developer isn't going to show you how the API works. Just how to interact and fetch/receive data from the API.
 
That's exactly what I'm getting at. The app itself may indeed be tokenized and not sharing your personal information directly, but it requires people to give their health card in the first place to then use the app. Correct?
I expect you’re going to be showing your health card to take the test, whether or not there’s an app involved. That doesn’t seem like the app causes any incremental loss of privacy over getting the test already.

Manual contact tracing (which the app is not a replacement for, just an adjunct to) is rather more privacy invasive than an app using the API - the contact tracer will want to know everyone you’ve had contact with, by name, and everywhere you’ve gone - name, location, and when. And all this is necessary for contact tracing to work. One big win for the app, a place it can reach compared to contact tracing, is it can alert people in that place you forgot you went, or that you’re embarrassed to say you went. They’ll get a notification that they may have been exposed, without it having any connection to you, or that place, and then they can see about getting tested. Essentially, wide use of the app would mean the contact tracers getting more useful leads to follow.
 
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@CarlJ it's all an overreach to begin with though. All of it, right down to the app. Again, I think people are missing the much larger point that no doubt a lot of you will debate; but if you dig for the truth, you'll see there never was a need for this COVID-19 reaction and especially tech companies creating an API and apps for it.

No thank you to this app, regardless.
 
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In the USA there are 2,813,503 people die each year among those 647,457 die from heart disease and 599,108 die from cancer (1 million+ combined). Yet hospitals were not mobilized neither for heart disease patients nor for cancer patients nor trillions of dollars spent over those patients. So the government prioritized covid patients over the 1 million + patients that die most, year over a year.

Cancer is not communicable and neither is heart disease. Do everyones grandparents a favor and wear a mask.
 
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You got my main point in your 2nd last post ... I think we actually agree with each other. The app itself isn't what's actually giving personally identifiable information it's as you said "If you have to give your health card when you take the test, then your information is already linked to that test."

That's exactly what I'm getting at. The app itself may indeed be tokenized and not sharing your personal information directly, but it requires people to give their health card in the first place to then use the app. Correct?

FYI that react app isn't going to show us how the API works. Just went through the source code ... is a REACT app, which of course you know as a developer isn't going to show you how the API works. Just how to interact and fetch/receive data from the API.

Sorry, missed this one.

No, you don't need to give your health card to use the app. You don't need to give the app any info aside from what province you're in so that it know which server to ping to download the list of daily positives.

We don't need to know how the API works. The API isn't what's sending info anywhere. So any communication between the local government and your phone is brokered by the app. It's fairly straight forward;

app downloads list of positive codes from gov. server -> app asks the API "are any of these codes in the DB of phones we've come in contact with"

If you want to upload a positive result, app asks the phone for it's unique ID, then app then uploads this to the server.

In terms of the API itself, Apple has well documented how it works and has put out white papers on it. Possibly they could completely be lying - but if you are going to base your opinion on the fact that Apple is outright lying, then all is already lost since obviously they could outright be lying about anything.
 
@CarlJ it's all an overreach to begin with though. All of it, right down to the app. Again, I think people are missing the much larger point that no doubt a lot of you will debate; but if you dig for the truth, you'll see there never was a need for this COVID-19 reaction and especially tech companies creating an API and apps for it.

No thank you to this app, regardless.

Just in case anyone is wondering - "dig for the truth" is code for spending countless hours looking for facts, no matter how dubious and unsourced they are, to support conclusions people have already come to.

All the information on this is readily available - if you have to dig for anything it's because you need to find a third hand anecdotal account from someone's Facebook page about what a nurse (who is there cousins, fiances, nieces, friend) said, then try to give that the same weight as the totality of the worlds scientific community, so that you can maintain your pre-concieved beliefs.
 
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Sorry, missed this one.

No, you don't need to give your health card to use the app. You don't need to give the app any info aside from what province you're in so that it know which server to ping to download the list of daily positives.

We don't need to know how the API works. The API isn't what's sending info anywhere. So any communication between the local government and your phone is brokered by the app. It's fairly straight forward;

app downloads list of positive codes from gov. server -> app asks the API "are any of these codes in the DB of phones we've come in contact with"

If you want to upload a positive result, app asks the phone for it's unique ID, then app then uploads this to the server.

In terms of the API itself, Apple has well documented how it works and has put out white papers on it. Possibly they could completely be lying - but if you are going to base your opinion on the fact that Apple is outright lying, then all is already lost since obviously they could outright be lying about anything.
I live in Canada and I can confirm that the only bit of personal information the app asks for is the province you live in. The only other thing you can do with the app is enter a “key” if you test positive for COVID, which you would get from your provincial testing service after a positive result which I’m assuming would only tell the app that you tested positive and the date, at which point it would notify any close contacts from the previous 2 weeks of a potential exposure.
 
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