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Comment by mmcnl | Hacker News Reader

Have you even read the spec before dumping your thoughts? They address the privacy concerns explicitly. A short summary:

- Doesn't collect personally identifiable information or user location data

- People who test positive are not identified to other users, Google or Apple

- List of people you’ve been in contact with never leaves your phone

https://blog.google/documents/57/Overview_of_COVID-19_Contac...

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I will admit that I did not, but having seen trends over the past few decades taught me to be rather skeptical. In other words, today's specs are little more to me than promises. I am ok with being downvoted for this.

edit: I just "read" it ( it is not even a spec - it is not even a powerpoint presentation ). You are down voting me for questioning a couple of pictograms?

There is nothing wrong with being skeptical, I just think your objections are out of place. If you are really concerned then it's probably best not to use Android or iOS at all, who knows what data might be shared with the government without your knowing? This spec (or any app built on top of this spec) doesn't really change anything about that.

Edit: I wasn't downvoting you, and the link was the source for the summary for the privacy considerations. The details are in the actual spec.

I disagree. You base your opinion on nothing more than a couple of icons. Having now read it, I cannot in good faith even call it specs. It is a step above infomercial. Hardly something trustworthy.

I mistakenly gave you the impression that I was linking to the spec. I was in fact linking to the infomercial that had a summary of the privacy considerations. The actual spec can be found here:

1. Bluetooth: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

2. Cryptography: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

3. Framework: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...

No worries. I apologize for jumping to conclusions like this. I will be going over these soon.

A technical outline is here: https://covid19-static.cdn-apple.com/applications/covid19/cu... also linked elsewhere in this thread.

Thank you for this. It may take me a little longer to digest.

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