Clearly, there is no one-size-fits-all or one-size-fits-all solution to the individual needs of the world's government and health agencies trying to use technology to help reduce COVID-19 infection rates.
According to Wikipedia , more than 30 countries have (or are planning to launch) applications designed to trace contacts or keep users isolated in order to limit and manage the spread of COVID-19. The development and distribution cycle of these urgent solutions is unprecedented. Ask members of any app development team if they could develop an app and the infrastructure to support 100 million or more users in less than three months, and they'll answer no, and that's after they stop laughing at the suggestion.
Reaching a phone near you information security job description examples
The concept of tracking or tracing contacts is to inform people that they may have come into contact with another person who has contracted or is showing symptoms of an infectious disease, in this case COVID-19. The recipient of the notification may take precautionary measures, such as self-isolation. This has been shown to be successful in helping to eradicate other diseases such as smallpox and has been used to control others such as tuberculosis, measles, and HIV. Considering that a large percentage of the world's population carries a smartphone, technology should be able to play an important role, which explains why we are seeing an increase in the development of contact tracking applications.
Most of the apps currently available are government sponsored and use a variety of different methods to fulfill their purpose, such as Bluetooth vs. GPS, centralized vs. decentralized, and not everyone cares about user privacy.
There are two main methods that are used to obtain the physical proximity of users. The first is the global positioning system (GPS): it uses radio navigation by satellite to approximate the location of the individual and the location of other users of the application. The second, more prominent solution uses Bluetooth and signal strength to identify the proximity of other app users, allowing devices to exchange handshakes instead of tracking the actual location. There are some solutions that use a combination of Bluetooth and GPS for tracking and location, and some even use network-based location tracking, but these methods present significant privacy concerns and fortunately their use is limited to a few developments.
However, there is an underlying problem: Bluetooth “discover” mode is not enabled while a phone is locked and the requesting application is not primary. So far there has been no reason for this to be enabled. The earliest versions of apps like BlueTrace, the Singapore government solution, depended on their users keeping their phones unlocked. The UK NHS beta app had a unique solution for this, at least for Android, but it seems that the limits implemented by Apple on iOS have meant that this was somewhat unreachable and required developers to work with the official API of exposure notifications from Apple and Google.
The joint Google and Apple solution, which is the official Exposure Notifications API, preserves privacy and provides a method of using Bluetooth Low Energyand cryptography to provide a contact tracking infrastructure. The use of the API is limited to public health authorities and access is only granted when specific criteria on privacy, security and data are met. However, this API is only part of a solution that an application needs to offer the necessary functionality. If an app requests personal information, either directly or by other methods, it could make this privacy-friendly solution questionable. The perception of a potential user of a contact tracking app that uses this solution may be that the application, due to the solution of Google and Apple, has been developed to preserve the privacy of the person, which could give a false impression of security.
It is also speculated that the use of the Exposure Notification API and Bluetooth for proximity and distance measurement on iOS devices may not be accurate; This was alluded to by the UK government when it announced the cessation of the development of its own solution. Some of the possible problems were detailed in an article published by MIT Technology Review, in which it is stated that if the phone in the pocket is oriented in a vertical position instead of horizontal, this can only adjust the received power and make it appear that someone is on the other side of the room instead of being at your side. Research also cites the problem of signals passing through bodies - for example, if two people are standing with their backs to each other, the signal may appear weak and thus record an incorrect distance. The UK government claims to have developed algorithms that reduce some of these problems; Hopefully the tech giants are willing to at least explore the possible solution that the British National Health Service (NHS) team claims to have.
The solution created by Google and Apple join eight other frameworks that have been created since the beginning of the pandemic. These frameworks have been created in parallel by a set of technology companies, privacy organizations, academia, and governments. If the world were to adopt a framework, of course there would be standardization, but this also adds a single point of failure if the framework is compromised or fails to deliver the expected results.
The terms decentralized and centralized are frequently used to visually represent where the data collected by a contact tracking application is processed and stored; giving the perception that centralization creates a greater risk to privacy. This may not be true, as there are designs that use a centralized approach but potentially provide the user of the application with the desired level of privacy. The underlying problem is whether the use of data can be misused; that is, if the identity of the user is revealed or if this information can be easily obtained.
According to Wikipedia , more than 30 countries have (or are planning to launch) applications designed to trace contacts or keep users isolated in order to limit and manage the spread of COVID-19. The development and distribution cycle of these urgent solutions is unprecedented. Ask members of any app development team if they could develop an app and the infrastructure to support 100 million or more users in less than three months, and they'll answer no, and that's after they stop laughing at the suggestion.
Reaching a phone near you information security job description examples
The concept of tracking or tracing contacts is to inform people that they may have come into contact with another person who has contracted or is showing symptoms of an infectious disease, in this case COVID-19. The recipient of the notification may take precautionary measures, such as self-isolation. This has been shown to be successful in helping to eradicate other diseases such as smallpox and has been used to control others such as tuberculosis, measles, and HIV. Considering that a large percentage of the world's population carries a smartphone, technology should be able to play an important role, which explains why we are seeing an increase in the development of contact tracking applications.
Most of the apps currently available are government sponsored and use a variety of different methods to fulfill their purpose, such as Bluetooth vs. GPS, centralized vs. decentralized, and not everyone cares about user privacy.
There are two main methods that are used to obtain the physical proximity of users. The first is the global positioning system (GPS): it uses radio navigation by satellite to approximate the location of the individual and the location of other users of the application. The second, more prominent solution uses Bluetooth and signal strength to identify the proximity of other app users, allowing devices to exchange handshakes instead of tracking the actual location. There are some solutions that use a combination of Bluetooth and GPS for tracking and location, and some even use network-based location tracking, but these methods present significant privacy concerns and fortunately their use is limited to a few developments.
However, there is an underlying problem: Bluetooth “discover” mode is not enabled while a phone is locked and the requesting application is not primary. So far there has been no reason for this to be enabled. The earliest versions of apps like BlueTrace, the Singapore government solution, depended on their users keeping their phones unlocked. The UK NHS beta app had a unique solution for this, at least for Android, but it seems that the limits implemented by Apple on iOS have meant that this was somewhat unreachable and required developers to work with the official API of exposure notifications from Apple and Google.
The joint Google and Apple solution, which is the official Exposure Notifications API, preserves privacy and provides a method of using Bluetooth Low Energyand cryptography to provide a contact tracking infrastructure. The use of the API is limited to public health authorities and access is only granted when specific criteria on privacy, security and data are met. However, this API is only part of a solution that an application needs to offer the necessary functionality. If an app requests personal information, either directly or by other methods, it could make this privacy-friendly solution questionable. The perception of a potential user of a contact tracking app that uses this solution may be that the application, due to the solution of Google and Apple, has been developed to preserve the privacy of the person, which could give a false impression of security.
It is also speculated that the use of the Exposure Notification API and Bluetooth for proximity and distance measurement on iOS devices may not be accurate; This was alluded to by the UK government when it announced the cessation of the development of its own solution. Some of the possible problems were detailed in an article published by MIT Technology Review, in which it is stated that if the phone in the pocket is oriented in a vertical position instead of horizontal, this can only adjust the received power and make it appear that someone is on the other side of the room instead of being at your side. Research also cites the problem of signals passing through bodies - for example, if two people are standing with their backs to each other, the signal may appear weak and thus record an incorrect distance. The UK government claims to have developed algorithms that reduce some of these problems; Hopefully the tech giants are willing to at least explore the possible solution that the British National Health Service (NHS) team claims to have.
The solution created by Google and Apple join eight other frameworks that have been created since the beginning of the pandemic. These frameworks have been created in parallel by a set of technology companies, privacy organizations, academia, and governments. If the world were to adopt a framework, of course there would be standardization, but this also adds a single point of failure if the framework is compromised or fails to deliver the expected results.
The terms decentralized and centralized are frequently used to visually represent where the data collected by a contact tracking application is processed and stored; giving the perception that centralization creates a greater risk to privacy. This may not be true, as there are designs that use a centralized approach but potentially provide the user of the application with the desired level of privacy. The underlying problem is whether the use of data can be misused; that is, if the identity of the user is revealed or if this information can be easily obtained.
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