Cycling UK Forum

pwa wrote:I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

What did you get?

pwa wrote:I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

Emotional blackmail against vigilant citizens is completely inappropriate. Get a bloody grip yourself!

The government has no good reason to exploit this pandemic and launch a centralised tracker. In doing so, it's putting intelligence gathering ahead of public health. It's sick, sick, sick! I hope it fails testing so comprehensively that they switch to the Swiss-Austrian app on order to get something useful quickly.

Tangled Metal wrote:The NHS app was chosen because the Google and apple version didn't have sufficient privacy controls I understand from what I've heard about the options. There's a key design decision made by those two tech giants that could give the conspiracy buffs more to stress about than the NHS app. Of course I suspect it's more about the lack of trust in the Tory party than the NHS app itself.

No, it's really about the design flaws in the app system. It's actually more remarkable that the party that used to advocate small government and laissez-faire has gone this way.

The Google/Apple plan has problems too, but fortunately they are not the only alternative. D3PT looks most promising to me, but there are others with good arguments for them, too. At the moment, NHSX's app is a bit difficult to assess but the information dribbling out seems pretty awful.

mjr wrote:

pwa wrote:I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

Emotional blackmail against vigilant citizens is completely inappropriate. Get a bloody grip yourself!

The government has no good reason to exploit this pandemic and launch a centralised tracker. In doing so, it's putting intelligence gathering ahead of public health. It's sick, sick, sick! I hope it fails testing so comprehensively that they switch to the Swiss-Austrian app on order to get something useful quickly.

You need to get your priorities right. Think about it some more. Please. You can even time limit it if you want. Give it a year, say, while there is a good reason for it, then get rid of it after that.

mercalia wrote:

pwa wrote:I have already bought my first smartphone in anticipation of this, so yes, I will be using it. And anyone wishing to join in the general effort to control the virus will do so. This is the wrong time to develop US-style conspiracy theory anti-government paranoia about these things. Get a bloody grip!

What did you get?

One of the cheapest, since I don't really want it apart from for this purpose. Moto Play. To me it is just a phone (as in for texts and calls, with the benefit of Google Maps). It seems okay.

Tangled Metal wrote:The NHS app was chosen because the Google and apple version didn't have sufficient privacy controls I understand from what I've heard about the options. There's a key design decision made by those two tech giants that could give the conspiracy buffs more to stress about than the NHS app. Of course I suspect it's more about the lack of trust in the Tory party than the NHS app itself.

I thought it was the other way around? there were doubts about the NHS soln

I honestly don't think the Government app is going to work adequately, on iOS at least. I don't have any experience with Android, but I've written iOS code to do pretty much exactly what they're trying - i.e. monitor Bluetooth Low-Energy connections from nearby devices. It is incredibly locked down on iOS, and for good reason. As soon as the app goes into the background, its ability to use BLE is severely restricted.

Am I the only one that had not heard of this thing until reading this thread?

peetee wrote:Am I the only one that had not heard of this thing until reading this thread?

It has been talked about for about a month, which is why I decided a couple of weeks ago to do what I had resisted doing, and got a smartphone on contract. I hope Richard is wrong (sorry Richard, nothing personal) because this, in theory, makes contact tracing more automated and less reliant on infected people being interviewed about what they can remember about their recent contacts, then someone doing a lot of phoning round.

Under more normal circumstances I would find the idea of carrying a tracking device rather creepy, but these are not normal circumstances. And in my job I still have a lot of reasonably close encounters (inevitable part of my job, and the same for lots of people) and I cannot hide behind my curtains until this is over. It could be useful for me and people I plan to work with if I can get early notification that I may have spent X number of minutes close to someone who has tested positive, so that I can isolate myself until I know I did or didn't contract it.

pwa wrote:

peetee wrote:Am I the only one that had not heard of this thing until reading this thread?

It has been talked about for about a month, which is why I decided a couple of weeks ago to do what I had resisted doing, and got a smartphone on contract. I hope Richard is wrong (sorry Richard, nothing personal) because this, in theory, makes contact tracing more automated and less reliant on infected people being interviewed about what they can remember about their recent contacts, then someone doing a lot of phoning round.

Under more normal circumstances I would find the idea of carrying a tracking device rather creepy, but these are not normal circumstances. And in my job I still have a lot of reasonably close encounters (inevitable part of my job, and the same for lots of people) and I cannot hide behind my curtains until this is over. It could be useful for me and people I plan to work with if I can get early notification that I may have spent X number of minutes close to someone who has tested positive, so that I can isolate myself until I know I did or didn't contract it.

when covid-19 is over you can always delete the app and do a phone reset to remove any residual "hanger ons" I think it is all a bit late in the day? I think the only people to be afraid are those home grown islamist terrorist? I doubt they will be using the app?

peetee wrote:Am I the only one that had not heard of this thing until reading this thread?

at the moment it is being tested on the isle of wight

pwa wrote:You need to get your priorities right. Think about it some more. Please. You can even time limit it if you want. Give it a year, say, while there is a good reason for it, then get rid of it after that.

Seriously, my priorities are right. The benefit of this tracker is maybe about a year. The damage done by the government tracking database will be for a generation at least. Surely NHSX, the UK gov and you are the ones who have got it backwards yet again, not Apple, Google and the vast majority of other governments?

Also, if it's anything like other similar apps, once you've allowed it free run of your phone, including permitting it to prevent the phone sleeping and allowing it to reconfigure your phone, there's basically no way to secure your phone again. There's no guarantee that even a factory reset will actually remove the weevil. Maybe you could flash your phone with a completely new firmware, but that relies on you having the knowledge and equipment to do that, as well as your phone being unlocked and some similar apps simply refuse to run on user-unlockable phones. It's probably new phone time and how many people would do that?

I'd be slightly more inclined to trust a central tracker based on bluetooth tags/tiles with no app, because they're basically recyclable and it would limit exposure, but I see that's no longer being talked about, which makes me more suspicious. The publication of the phone app source code has slipped to "eventually" which probably means never or when it's far too late to do much about any problems, plus in a centralised system, it's the server app source code which tells us far more.

Centralisation and developing a UK-specific app is a complete mission-creep and over-reach by the government, to use a technically inferior system - why? I really hope people ask why and don't fall for the emotional blackmail. Make Dominic wind his bleeding neck in. We've seen what he did with facebook data. We've yet to see what he's been able to do with the gov.uk data he's recently acquired, but just imagine what he could do with real contact tracking data and say no, Dom, no.

mercalia wrote:when covid-19 is over you can always delete the app and do a phone reset to remove any residual "hanger ons"

That remains to be seen. I will not be surprised if it ingrains itself in the firmware at least as deeply as some of those preloaded games and messaging apps.

mercalia wrote: I think it is all a bit late in the day? I think the only people to be afraid are those home grown islamist terrorist? I doubt they will be using the app?

Surely the deviants using Windows Phone should also be afraid. What have they got to hide? Why don't they use ordinary smartphones? Lock 'em up until covid-19 is passed - and then forget to unlock them afterwards!

mercalia wrote:

RH20 wrote:Call me a cynic but have the developers of the NHS app considered the pranksters out there? Now for the what if scenario. What if someone downloads the app and then thinks it would be a wheeze to go out and about and then to report they have coronavirus symptoms for no other purpose than to cause messages to be sent to others who they may have come into close proximity with, informing them to isolate. Could this be possible? I admit I do not know the technicalities of the system, could anyone answer, is this a possibility?

dont give people ideas

The ideas are already doing the rounds: Teenagers are posting comments on other groups asking how to use it to get their schools closed down for weeks. Others are asking if they could put the app on a cheap phone that they only take with them out of the car when they're going somewhere that only allows tracking app users in, but not when they're doing stuff like buying drugs. Jokers are asking what happens if they hang their phone on their dog and let it run up close to people and houses - how easily could they get their whole estate locked down?

This is another problem of when government builds a central surveillance app that people don't trust. They will look for ways to exploit it - and not just the small stuff like above. The central database, which has to be contactable by the app so it's going to have some internet interfaces, will be utterly bombarded by attacks because it will be so valuable for various things, from people trying simple denial of service attacks of various types, through to people trying to find ways to get the data out.

There exists the ability to track every working phone in the UK. The relevant authorities use it all of the time but trust me we were never Interested in Mrs Miggins back then so why would anyone be Interested now ?

People have the choice to use this app or not, let them have the choice instead of sticking in ridiculous conspiracy theories to muddy the water.