The cross-platform system will use the proximity capabilities built into Bluetooth Low Energy transmissions to track the physical contacts of sharing phone users. If a user later tests positive for COVID – 27, the disease caused by the coronavirus, she can choose to enter the result into a health department-approved app. The app will then contact all other participating phone users who have recently come within six or so feet of her.
The system, which Google and Apple described
(here and
bytes, one for each day. If moderate numbers of smartphone users are infected in any given week, that’s 451 s of MBs for all phones to DL That seems untenable. So to be usable, published keys would likely need to be delivered in a more ‘targeted’ way, which probably means … location data.
That seems untenable. So to be usable, published keys would likely need to be delivered in a more ‘targeted’ way, which probably means … location data.
In my opinion – these types of data are poor proxies for the ground truth we really seek: actual (# COVID) infection rates – which can only be truly known by widespread testing. If we had testing in place, it would make the need to pursue these privacy-invasive techniques moot
A user’s Rolling Proximity Identifiers cannot be correlated without having the Daily Tracing Key. This
reduces the risk of privacy loss from advertising them. A server operator implementing this protocol does not learn who users have been in proximity with
or users’ location unless it also has the unlikely capability to scan advertisements from users who recently reported Diagnosis Keys. Without the release of the Daily Tracing Keys, it is not computationally feasible for an attacker to find a collision on a Rolling Proximity Identifier. This prevents a wide-range of replay and impersonation attacks.
There are many important details that aren’t yet available and are crucial to understanding the privacy risks of the system Apple and Google are building. In normal times, it might be a given to advise people to opt out. Given the global health crisis presented by the ongoing pandemic, the call will be much harder to make this time around. (Read More)
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