Support for contact tracing?

asked 2020-05-06 15:06:53 +0300

omichalek
200 ●9 ●13 ●17

updated 2020-05-06 16:01:48 +0300

Many people believe that decentralized contact tracing using Bluetooth low-energy that would not pose threat to one's privacy is well possible. I found the concept well described here: https://ncase.me/contact-tracing/

I believe it is important that, when available, the solution(s)/applications will work on our phones running SFOS. Will they, please? If not, understand this as a feature-request.

note: it is possible this request has been made, the search for "contact tracing" does not reveal it, anyway.

EDIT:

We might not be reliant on an Android application it seems: there is a native one in works by https://twitter.com/flypigahoy as found by Allstar12345 in a comment here: https://together.jolla.com/question/226861/will-the-finnish-corona-tracking-app-ketju-work-on-alien-dalvik/

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There are posts related to this subject, it is not a popular subject, people are sick of hearing and reading about it, as am I. Your choice of search terms are once again letting you down.

https://together.jolla.com/question/225231/reflections-about-a-future-covid-19-app/

https://together.jolla.com/question/226861/will-the-finnish-corona-tracking-app-ketju-work-on-alien-dalvik/

Spam Hunter ( 2020-05-06 15:12:08 +0300 )edit

I've found the first link ( https://together.jolla.com/question/225231/reflections-about-a-future-covid-19-app/ ) I did not understand it to be either question or feature request.

omichalek ( 2020-05-06 15:47:32 +0300 )edit

No problem, then add 'feature-request' to your tags and see how the votes go. I feel quite certain that your request will not amount to anything, but of course, there is no harm in asking.

Good luck.

Spam Hunter ( 2020-05-06 17:10:30 +0300 )edit

There is nothing big brotherish about the solution described in the link I posted. I suggest you open it if you want to learn about design that avoids centralized surveillance.

omichalek ( 2020-05-08 03:17:40 +0300 )edit

The app by Flypig is only a demo and has a dependency not allowed in harbour. The demo is buggy to say the least, not that I am any kind of expert in building apps. I built the app and sent it to my Jolla1, the app runs, but cannot use the 'scan' feature as I assume that my device is not BLE capable. I also note that the minutes on the date/time in the app, count up as seconds, so time really is flying!, but kudos to Flypig for the creation of this demo, but that's all it is...for now.

I didn't know Flypig was a sailor at Jolla, greetings David!

Spam Hunter ( 2020-05-08 11:02:58 +0300 )edit

answered 2020-05-26 00:41:43 +0300

flypig
296 ●6 ●9 ●12

http://www.flypig.co.uk/

updated 2020-05-26 00:45:14 +0300

As @Allstar12345, @omichalek and @Edz have all mentioned, I and others have been working on a native contract tracing app based on the GApple protocol. It's still a work in progress, but very much a serious attempt to get something usable: https://github.com/llewelld/harbour-contrac

If anyone else is interested in this, your contributions would be most welcome. Putting aside privacy/resource issues, one of the biggest practical challenges is that different apps are needed for different countries. Currently I'm looking at Germany's Corona-Warn-App, but I'd especially appreciate help converting the app for other countries. This is only really practical for countries that use either the GApple or DP-3T protocols (e.g. the SwissCovid app may be a possibility). The app is unofficial and unrelated to my work at Jolla, and is of course all open source. It runs on Xperia devices, but not the Jolla1 or Jolla C as they don't have the BLE > 4.0 hardware needed.

The other way around this would be to have the official apps running in Alien Dalvik, but this brings its own set of problems: most crucially AD doesn't support the BLE passthrough needed, but also because the GApple API lives in Google Play Services, so that would also need to be installed to get them to work.

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"GApple API lives in Google Play Services" - OMG, that alone makes it a no-go. Thank you for explaining the situation

omichalek ( 2020-05-27 00:32:36 +0300 )edit

Great that you're on it and incredible to see such fast progress. I couldn't find much information about the "GApple protocol". Can you explain how it relates to the DP-3T protocol? "Currently I'm looking at Germany's Corona-Warn-App" does this mean your implementation is compatible to the Corona-Warn-App, or does "looking at" mean that your app will need to be converted for it? Thanks.

Mario ( 2020-05-27 23:31:11 +0300 )edit

When I say "GApple" I just mean the "Google/Apple" protocol (https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing/). The current implementation replicates this, so should already be enough to exchange beacons with the Corona-Warn-App and Immuni (I've not yet had a chance to test, so probably it'll need tweaking). But this is only half the battle, because there also needs to be some code to communicate with the server. This is the part that isn't yet written, and may be different for different countries. It's also possible some countries will prevent third party apps from accessing their servers... I'm hoping not.

Occasionally in the media I see the Google/Apple protocol and DP-3T used interchangeably, but as I understand it they're not identical. But the Google/Apple protocol was based on an earlier version of DP-3T, so I'm hoping it wouldn't be too difficult to alter the code to make it compatible with it. SwissCovid uses DP-3T without using the Google/Apple API.

flypig ( 2020-05-28 00:03:02 +0300 )edit

Thanks for clarification. This means that the Corona-Warn-App doesn't implement DP-3T itself, but (just) uses a similar protocol provided by Google/Apple? I only noticed they are providing an "interface" for corona apps to the Bluetooth hardware, I wasn't sure how high/low it is. Let's hope the server communication part is just simple HTTPS request..

Mario ( 2020-05-30 19:45:31 +0300 )edit

Hi flypig, great, that you work on a native app. Meanwhile the official rki corona warn app in Germany is released. Are there some news about your native sailfish app too? I would hate it, to have a second android handy just for the corona app. Thanks a lot for you work :-).

triessner ( 2020-06-24 22:58:37 +0300 )edit

Support for contact tracing?

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