German corona app
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The German authorities released today the so called corona app through the Apple and Google app stores.They claim that also the source code was made available. I'm unsure about if this helps at all for the used technic (Bluetoth) and I'm not even sure if I'd install it at all for data security reasons.
But, will it be ported to UBports?
matthias
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@guru It is very unlikely that this App will ever reach Ubuntu Touch: All the low-level functions are missing to access Bluetooth in the way needed, plus on top no Apps are allowed to run in the background, so the App would never find any contacts.
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I often run the browser in background, or cron jobs.
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I even can't use this app on my lineageos device because of missing google play services.
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@guru said in German corona app:
They claim that also the source code was made available. I'm unsure about if this helps at all for the used technic (Bluetoth) and I'm not even sure if I'd install it at all for data security reasons.
But, will it be ported to UBports?Surely for the same reasons you mentioned you would not run a third party port of the application if you are unwilling to trust even the official one?
In my view even if it were possible to port the app Ubuntu Touch (the proper name for the OS is Ubuntu Touch. UBports is the name of the community and also the foundation), it would only be as trustworthy as the party that published it, which in this case would have to be the German government.
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You can trust the German corona app. After lots of criticism on the original app idea (centralized, closed source), the German government has learnt it the hard way. Now, the app is both open source and decentralized. Several people and institutions have reviewed the code and said that it is trustworthy and does not contain strange things.
IMHO, the main questions are, whether it is portable, whether someone wants to port it and whether it can run in the background. Another question is how long Ubuntu Touch battery life is when Bluetooth is permanently enabled.
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As far as I heard its all opensource. So for lineageos at least you could try to remove or change the parts using play services and make your own build: https://github.com/corona-warn-app
Edit: lengthy discussion about it here https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-app-android/issues/75 and also some progress if I got it right... but I haven't read it in detail. -
@GT may depend on the device, but I know several people using smart watches with UT and therefor have their bluetooth always on. Seems to be okay for mx4, nexus5 and pro5 at least. And OPO also I think.
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@GT Battery life will be a mess, we are not optimized for permantne background activity.
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Also we are missing the middleware and low-end implementation probably for the BT functions they need. So I guess its a big nono atm
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The announcement of these apps made me buy a pinephone, even if it does not work properly yet.
If you want to protect yourself and others from
deseases keep the safety distance and do not trust any software, regardless how well its made or who made it! -
@htc_tattoo That's pretty true that software does not keep you safe. The goal of the app is different, though.
It gives you a warning when you were close enough to infected people. Then you are advised to do a corona test. If you are tested positive you get a QR code from the doctor and with that code entered in the app you can send a warning to the other phones. Only those phones that have had registered your id on their phones (not anywhere else), because they were too close to you, will also display a warning, and so forth.
This makes sense and if too many people are tested (~20% false alarms) that doesn't really matter. Of course, it is not a replacement to social distancing, mask, washing hands, etc.
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@GT
This is useless if not at minima 80% of population have the app installed and running.
Knowing that only 70% of people have a compatible phone.
And on this 70%, only a few installed it.And that app is useless if you cross the way of "sane" carriers of the desease, wich are a lot, and will never trigger the radar.
All that desease crysis is "good" to justify all sort of social experiments, population tracking is one.
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Hi,
This is going off topic.
People are free to use this kind of app or not.This is not the place to debate about health and what is efficient against the virus.
Issues porting this app to UT have been pointed out by Florian.
But anyone is welcome to try.I'm locking this thread now for this reason.
You can refer to similar debate in the OT section of the forum:
i.e. https://forums.ubports.com/topic/4103/contact-tracing-on-ubports-covid-19