Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government's contact tracing app

Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by neximo64 on Sunday April 26, 2020 @08:24AM (#22986637)

How do you realistically use this app if you have to keep it open. You and everyone else are so focussed on convincing everyone that it’s safe, etc and totally ignoring the practical aspects of it. For someone to have the app open for 15 mins within 1.5m all day.. how will that be done, it requires a large conscious commitment. You might as well just ask the person who is in your personal space for 15 consecutive minutes

If it worked in the background that’s more useful and realistic.

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by dragonsky on Sunday April 26, 2020 @09:52AM (#22987137)

This is my problem with the app. The only reason I'm going to be in public for a 15 minute period at the moment is either being on or waiting for public transport or eating in a food court. In those cases I'm going to be using my phone to browse the net or watch a video meaning that this app won't be functional. At least on iOS, so what is the point?

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by jeromegv on Sunday April 26, 2020 @01:06PM (#22988483)

That's why an OS solution is the only viable solution. Asking for the app to be open is the most ridiculous thing ever.

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by dTal on Sunday April 26, 2020 @05:01PM (#22990224)

That doesn't follow at all. Open or not has nothing to do with it. It simply means the app is badly designed.

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by jeromegv on Sunday April 26, 2020 @08:05PM (#22991527)

No, you can't keep an app permanently running in the background on iOS. The operating system does not allow it.

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by rstuart4133 on Sunday April 26, 2020 @06:26PM (#22990832)

> If it worked in the background that’s more useful and realistic.

It does work in the background on Android, and I gather background scanning is coming on iOS.

As someone above said, don't get the perfect be the enemy of the good. Get it out the door, get it tested while you wait for Apple to get their act together is not only reasonable - it's the by far the best forward as an engineering strategy.

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by mickotron on Tuesday April 28, 2020 @05:56AM (#23005387)

Mate I think you are overcomplicating this something fierce.

It runs in the background. It logs all encounters by either advertising its presence (Peripheral mode) or scanning for devices (Central Mode). They alternate between these states. When two devices encounters it's logged on both sides. That device is blacklisted for a few cycles to avoid constantly logging it.

The 15 minutes 1.5m conditions are applied on the reporting side after it is uploaded.

No conscious effort. Kinda like how your email client pings you when you receive an email. When was the last time you had to consciously think for an email to come into your mailbox?

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Re:Dissection of COVIDSafe (Android): Australian government'... by sjy on Sunday April 26, 2020 @10:29PM (#22992328)

This is the question I’ve been wondering about, but currently it’s still not clear that you need to do this. I installed the iOS app out of curiosity, and it didn’t tell me I had to leave it foregrounded. However, a few minutes after exiting the app I did receive a notification saying I should reopen it to keep it working – maybe apps can continue scanning in the background for some limited period of time?

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