Saturday, June 20, 2020

A Slow Motion Car Crash

With Britain in lockdown, the Government has been trying to find ways to ease restrictions without putting public safety at risk; one solution is a contact-tracing app that can enable digital contact-tracing on a large scale.

On May 5, the Government revealed its first attempt at a contact-tracing app. But in a major u-turn, on June 18, it admitted that the app flawed and it would switch to a model being developed by tech giants Apple and Google.

It is an utter and maniacal disgrace that our betters didn't go with Google and Apple in the first place. Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales explains.

I have been doing a little wood-shedding on this as I was bemused by the fact that the Bluetooth LE protocol was central as I couldn't see (in the absence of beacons) how Bluetooth could be used to track locations. I turns out it is used to check to whom you have been close, not where the closeness occurred. The mist begins to clear. Take a look at https://www.google.com/covid19/exposurenotifications/ and the helpful links.

Matt Hancock criticising Apple's Bluetooth implementation, NHSX etc. God give me strength.

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