Report Details How Apple and Google Developed Contact Tracing API

[TechieGeek]

Anonymized is being used so heavily in every article.

I'll try again, anonymized would assume you can't discover the origin device. You literally have to for this to work. That means somewhere device id = anonymized id. You can change the anonymous id every five minutes but it still has to be in a table somewhere that said id at this time belongs to device id. That's the only way you are notified.

In advertising that's anonymized and what everyone keeps touting you don't need to store device id = advertising id anywhere. The data never has to make it back to the origin device because you just want the data.

Do you see the difference? Somewhere there is a record that has to keep track of the device. You are trusting this joint rushed operation has safeguards in place that someone won't be able to access that data. In the advertising world that data literally isn't there so its safe.

"You literally have to for this to work" ... no, you're incorrect. Read the spec and come back.

 

[iOS Geek]

Where does it say that Apple or Google get your data?

To be fair...this IS Google we're talking about here.

Personally, I would have had a bit more trust in the security and privacy aspect...if Google wasn't involved. (But then you get into the fact that not having Google involved limits the availability). I also don't trust that this will end up being optional and that it will also go away when this is over. It's just going to be another "optional" thing that becomes mandatory, and then when this threat passes, it will stick around because no government in the history of humanity has EVER relinquished the ability to further track you when the original reason it was implemented, passes. We are letting our fear create a pretty damn grim and invasive future in terms of privacy, freedom, and control. Let's not forget that the Patriot Act was supposed to be temporary, with many of it's provisions set to expire in 2005. All of which still exist, permanently, today and they have ADDED to it. And in many instances...it is used AGAINST you.

I understand wanting to monitor the spread of this virus. I've been treating COVID patients for weeks. But the skepticism and lack of trust is well deserved, considering the US government is no stranger to abusing powers, violating trust, and turning "optional" and "temporary" into "mandatory" and "permanent". Hell, I find it suspicious enough that the US government suddenly seems to care so much about our health and safety. When has that EVER happened?
Give an inch, they take a mile. The future we are creating for ourselves is more than a little worrisome. There are many situations where people say "is this the world you want to create for your children and grandchildren?" An invasive government that has access to your every movement...is one of those situations. Is that really what we want? Allowing too much control has come back to bite us multiple times throughout history.

 

[RecentlyConverted]

Anyone still think Local State Govt won’t require you have this app on your phone before you go out ?

An Italian friend tells me you will need to have a COVID tracking app on your Mobile and carrying it in order to go out when they start to loosen the lock down.

Any one want to take bets on when the next stage starts -

- Compulsory to have a tracker chip inserted into the body
then
- Thought monitoring
- Thought control

Anyone thinking that´s crazy, what would you have said 4 months ago, if you were told that the world would be almost completely shut down (economically and physically), due to a new virus, with an unknown infection and death rate?

 

[iOS Geek]

Interesting. I was on board until Google joined in. No, thanks.

One would hope that Google learns from this and makes an effort to rebuild trust. When people have so little trust in you, that they aren't even willing to take this step to monitor a deadly virus...it might be time to look in the mirror and see where you went wrong. I honestly hope that Apple's hard-fought stance on privacy rubs off on Google. Apple being involved is literally the ONLY reason I have even a sliver of trust in this. As I said above...I would have been more open to the idea if it was ONLY Apple. But again...that heavily limits the availability if that were the case. Partnering with Google was really a kick in the face to Apple's dedication to privacy.

 

[Unami]

Anonymized is being used so heavily in every article.

I'll try again, anonymized would assume you can't discover the origin device. You literally have to for this to work. That means somewhere device id = anonymized id. You can change the anonymous id every five minutes but it still has to be in a table somewhere that said id at this time belongs to device id. That's the only way you are notified.

no, that's not how it is supposed to work. in this case bob uploads the keys of his last 14 days to a server and then the keys get distributed to every other phone using the app. if one of the keys work with one of Alice's, stored for 14 days on her phone, she gets a notification.

 

[nutmac]

In the US it's most likely a state agency will do this, although it'd make more sense to do it nationally.

I hope Apple and Google are working with various government agencies to create a reference app. I don't think US gov't agencies are capable of quick turnaround.

South Korea has been using contact tracing app for awhile now, which along with much higher testing capacity, was able to keep hospitalization and death rates very low while allowing most businesses to stay open.

While I am a firm supporter of shelter-in-place and social distancing as means to keep hospitalization rate low, the economic impact of unemployment could've been significantly reduced with these measures in place.

 

[now i see it]

All these knee-jerk reactions to a future app none of us have the true details about. I've got an idea: How about everyone hold on to their horses until the app goes live - then we can comment more succinctly when we know more about how the whole thing works?
Right now there's too many unknowns to jump to any conclusion.

 

[0ID]

The data will never touch Apple‘s or Google‘s servers. It stays on your device. So there is nothing to sell. Only if you were infected and consented, your random beacon codes that were broadcasted via Bluetooth will be uploaded to a centralized place (which probably still won‘t be a Google or Apple server).

OK, so the cloud ltd. will own the data together with all syphoneers and hackers. Nice!

 

[jonblatho]

Anonymized is being used so heavily in every article.

I'll try again, anonymized would assume you can't discover the origin device. You literally have to for this to work. That means somewhere device id = anonymized id. You can change the anonymous id every five minutes but it still has to be in a table somewhere that said id at this time belongs to device id. That's the only way you are notified.

In advertising that's anonymized and what everyone keeps touting you don't need to store device id = advertising id anywhere. The data never has to make it back to the origin device because you just want the data.

Do you see the difference? Somewhere there is a record that has to keep track of the device. You are trusting this joint rushed operation has safeguards in place that someone won't be able to access that data. In the advertising world that data literally isn't there so its safe.

That’s a lot of words to say that you have no clue what you’re talking about because you haven’t read the specification.

 

[UnusedLoginID]

Too little (only 10% will opt-in) and too late (January 2020 was the right time) and forgets that people without symptoms may be carriers.
Which brings me to the fact that we - California, USA - have no way of getting tested unless you have the symptoms AND you’re an essential worker.
The only right way to restart the economy and do tracing with tools like this is to have EVERYONE tested.
Moreover if you’re positive for the antibodies - which will be about 40% of the population soon - it will save you a trip to the doctor for the vaccine.

 

[iOS Geek]

All these knee-jerk reactions to a future app none of us have the true details about. I've got an idea: How about everyone hold on to their horses until the app goes live - then we can comment more succinctly when we know more about how the whole thing works?
Right now there's too many unknowns to jump to any conclusion.

I agree. However, there being "too many unknowns" I think is the EXACT reason for the knee-jerk reactions. To have this many unknowns from something Apple is involved in...seems a little odd (especially when they tout privacy...and then turn and partner with Google...one of the biggest privacy violators out there...on a method of tracking). To have this many unknowns for something Google is involved in...is pretty much right on the money. For that...I totally understand the knee-jerk reactions. I, personally, am not convinced enough to trust it.

 

[Trik]

Anonymized is being used so heavily in every article.

I'll try again, anonymized would assume you can't discover the origin device. You literally have to for this to work. That means somewhere device id = anonymized id. You can change the anonymous id every five minutes but it still has to be in a table somewhere that said id at this time belongs to device id. That's the only way you are notified.

In advertising that's anonymized and what everyone keeps touting you don't need to store device id = advertising id anywhere. The data never has to make it back to the origin device because you just want the data.

Do you see the difference? Somewhere there is a record that has to keep track of the device. You are trusting this joint rushed operation has safeguards in place that someone won't be able to access that data. In the advertising world that data literally isn't there so its safe.

It really doesn't, and here is why.

The device is the only thing that knows what identifiers it has created. So, let's say your iPhone processes the algorithm, creates a unique identifier, and transmits it to devices around it. It then stores that it did that. Then, for the purposes of this example, you and I were near each other, and my device "heard" your unique identifier. My device stores your ID.

Now... one of us gets COVID-19, since this is my hypothetical, I'll take the hit. I now log into the app and say "I have COVID" My device uploads my unique identifiers, saying: "these are the keys I've been broadcasting over the past 14 days"

And now the magic.

Your device checks in randomly, looks at all the Unique IDs and says, have I seen any of these? ****, I have seen one of them... Now I popup a notification on the device "Someone you have been in contact with has tested positive for Covid-19"

Because the device keeps its own anonymized list, only the device knows if it has been near someone that has tested positive. The "cloud" has no idea. Do you see the difference?

Hat tip to TechieGeek for correcting my original theorization with actual facts based on the standard.

This is very close, except for the part I highlighted. If you test positive, you can volunteer to upload your own keys. Healthy people's keys are never uploaded. Your phone uploads "these are the keys I've been broadcasting over the past 14 days".

Then everyone else can look at the "infected keys" database, and on-device determine if they've seen any of those keys in the past 14 days.

Page 8: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.co...otification-CryptographySpecificationv1.1.pdf

I agree that Stromos is absolutely incorrect.

 

[konqerror]

All of you probably already have this turned on. None of the journalists picked up that it's just Find My iPhone's Offline Finding but with an interface to health apps and the government.

The Clever Cryptography Behind Apple's 'Find My' Feature

Apple says an elaborate rotating key scheme will soon let you track down your stolen laptop, but not let anyone track you. Not even Apple.

www.wired.com

 

[iOS Geek]

Too little (only 10% will opt-in) and too late (January 2020 was the right time) and forgets that people without symptoms may be carriers.
Which brings me to the fact that we - California, USA - have no way of getting tested unless you have the symptoms AND you’re an essential worker.
The only right way to restart the economy and do tracing with tools like this is to have EVERYONE tested.
Moreover if you’re positive for the antibodies - which will be about 40% of the population soon - it will save you a trip to the doctor for the vaccine.

I think a LOT of things are being done too late. (But of course that is an issue with not fully understanding what we were up against. Wasn't a whole lot we could do about that). Another example of "too late" in my opinion, is the mask mandates. Those probably should have been put into effect on a state level at roughly the same time as the stay-at-home orders. My state has been closed since March. Our mask mandate doesn't go into effect until this Friday. Even if it couldn't have been done at the same time as the stay-at-home order...it should have been a lot earlier.

 

[jonblatho]

I agree. However, there being "too many unknowns" I think is the EXACT reason for the knee-jerk reactions. To have this many unknowns from something Apple is involved in...seems a little odd (especially when they tout privacy...and then turn and partner with Google...one of the biggest privacy violators out there...on a method of tracking). To have this many unknowns for something Google is involved in...is pretty much right on the money. For that...I totally understand the knee-jerk reactions. I, personally, am not convinced enough to trust it.

What unknowns are there? The API specification is pretty detailed.

 

[gnasher729]

This seems as good of a solution as there can be - unfortunately, yet again our dumb ass UK government think they know best (like they did when they didn't lock down and let probably about 10,000 people more die than would have otherwise) have decided to bake their own app with a central server and basically give themselves permission to monitor everyone's location 24/7. People above saying this Apple/Google way is a hard pass should bear in mind the alternatives.

The reason for this seems to be no technical considerations, but the fact that Dominic Cummings handed a huge contract for developing this app to a good mate. Nothing to do with “dumb ass” but more with “making some serious money”.

 

[yoheywut]

Anonymized data with user consent is the right way to do this. If you have Tik Tok installed on your phone, but you think this is "too much" you really need to re-evaluate where your trust lies.

Lmao nice

 

[jonblatho]

All of you probably already have this turned on. None of the journalists picked up that it's just Find My iPhone's Offline Finding but with an interface to health apps and the government.

The Clever Cryptography Behind Apple's 'Find My' Feature

Apple says an elaborate rotating key scheme will soon let you track down your stolen laptop, but not let anyone track you. Not even Apple.

www.wired.com

Exactly. I can’t stress enough how strongly similar this functionality is to that feature, which as you said many folks crying about the sky falling here probably already have enabled.

Might as well reuse the work they already did, just in a slightly different context.

 

[TechieGeek]

It really doesn't, and here is why.

The device is the only thing that knows what identifiers it has created. So, let's say your iPhone processes the algorithm, creates a unique identifier, and transmits it to devices around it. It then stores that it did that. Then, for the purposes of this example, you and I were near each other, and my device "heard" your unique identifier. My device stores your ID.

Now... one of us gets COVID-19, since this is my hypothetical, I'll take the hit. I now log into the app and say "I have COVID" My device uploads the unique identifiers of everyone I've been in contact with the last two weeks.

And now the magic.

Your device checks in randomly, looks at all the Unique IDs and says, are any of these mine? ****, one of them is... Now I popup a notification on the device "Someone you have been in contact with has tested positive for Covid-19"

Because the device keeps its own anonymized list, only the device knows if it has been near someone that has tested positive. The "cloud" has no idea. Do you see the difference?

This is very close, except for the part I highlighted. If you test positive, you can volunteer to upload your own keys. Healthy people's keys are never uploaded. Your phone uploads "these are the keys I've been broadcasting over the past 14 days".

Then everyone else can look at the "infected keys" database, and on-device determine if they've seen any of those keys in the past 14 days.

Page 8: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.co...otification-CryptographySpecificationv1.1.pdf

I agree that Stromos is absolutely incorrect.

 

[iOS Geek]

What unknowns are there? The API specification is pretty detailed.

For those who actually read into the details, absolutely! But be honest...how many people do that? The average person who regularly goes "ehh who has time for that" won't bother looking at the details.

 

[jonblatho]

For those who actually read into the details, absolutely! But be honest...how many people do that? The average person who regularly goes "ehh who has time for that" won't bother looking at the details.

So…you’re calling knowns unknowns? What?

 

[gnasher729]

All of you probably already have this turned on. None of the journalists picked up that it's just Find My iPhone's Offline Finding but with an interface to health apps and the government.

The Clever Cryptography Behind Apple's 'Find My' Feature

Apple says an elaborate rotating key scheme will soon let you track down your stolen laptop, but not let anyone track you. Not even Apple.

www.wired.com

It has taken some ideas from “Find my phone”. And the ability to use low-power Bluetooth to do something useful.

 

[konqerror]

Exactly. I can’t stress enough how strongly similar this functionality is to that feature, which as you said many folks crying about the sky falling here probably already have enabled.

However, Find My only allows you to get the results, whereas the whole concept of coronavirus tracking is to let everybody, including the government, know. It's the part at the end that people are concerned about.

 

[iOS Geek]

So…you’re calling knowns unknowns? What?

To people who don't read the "knowns"...yes, it is an "unknown" to them. One would think the reactions on this post, despite the explanation being right on the top of the thread, would prove that.

Personally...I understand it. However...Google being a part of it...makes me STILL question it a little.

 

[TechieGeek]

Personally...I understand it. However...Google being a part of it...makes me STILL question it a little.

This quite literally means you don't understand it. Read the spec. Then see if you can articulate what you don't like about it.