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Comment by kuschku | Hacker News Reader

The app is just a fork of the German Corona-Warn-App [1][2]. From what I can tell only the UI was modified, the codebase seems to be still the same.

Honestly, pushing the app to users isn’t anything to worry about – and in fact something I’d have loved to see other countries do as well.

________

[1] https://www.coronawarn.app/en/ [2] https://github.com/corona-warn-app

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The worrying part is that it was installed without consent.

There’s nothing worrying about that. You get tons of apps installed without consent (including whatever spam your network provider pushes on you).

This app can actually save lives without sacrificing any privacy, pushing it to users is something that has no drawbacks.

The largest trouble for the German version of the app was that not enough people installed it. Choosing to install it automatically isn’t something nefarious under these circumstances.

> There’s nothing worrying about that. You get tons of apps installed without consent (including whatever spam your network provider pushes on you).

That is different. They are pre-installed and I can list them and disable them. They do not install suddenly by themselves months after buying the device. If they did so, there would be an outrage.

> This app can actually save lives without sacrificing any privacy, pushing it to users is something that has no drawbacks.

Yeah, "for our own good". Next time it would be an app that sends an alarm when an excon is near you. And next time it would be an app that sends an alarm when someone who shows dangerous opinions (ie. against government) is near you. No thanks, please unsubscribe me of this Chinese dystopia.

> They do not install suddenly by themselves months after buying the device. If they did so, there would be an outrage.

They absolute can do that, and do that. For example, if you switch SIM cards, the phone can (and in some situations will) install whatever crap the ISP chooses.

In my case, inserting a SIM card from ALDI’s carrier used to auto-install some weather, news, and similar stuff. Luckily that stopped recently.

This can happen at any time, actually.

> Yeah, "for our own good".

Sometimes it is actually for your own good. I agree that it can be a slippery slope, but using the available means to save lives is sometimes necessary.

The only risk is governments not returning the power they got during this pandemic, but that’s more of a worry in 3rd-world-dictatorships.

> In my case, inserting a SIM card from ALDI’s carrier used to auto-install some weather, news, and similar stuff. Luckily that stopped recently.

Surely there is a prompt. I never had apps silently auto-install in my phone. If that is true, one more reason to go with the custom rom way.

> The only risk is governments not returning the power they got during this pandemic, but that’s more of a worry in 3rd-world-dictatorships.

In my life I've seen a lot of just-for-emergency-temporary-only laws that become permanent once the outrage subsides. In supposedly first world countries

> Surely there is a prompt. I never had apps silently auto-install in my phone. If that is true, one more reason to go with the custom rom way.

Nope, Google Play Services does this all in the background. The same happens if Google thinks you’ve reinstalled your device (e.g. by wiping the Play Services data) and it starts installing some of Google’s default apps again, without prompts

Under any circumstances it is nefarious. Please allow me into your home and let me put up a painting of my choosing.

> You get tons of apps installed without consent (including whatever spam your network provider pushes on you).

So you are putting this app in the same category as spam, at least that's good.

> This app can actually save lives without sacrificing any privacy, pushing it to users is something that has no drawbacks.

I have an app that can save your life, trust me. And give me your email so I can send it to you ;)

> I have an app that can save your life, trust me. And give me your email so I can send it to you ;)

Great, send me the source code, I’ll get it released on f-droid and then I’ll install the f-droid version of it, just like I’ve got the f-droid and microG version of the Corona Warn App installed :)

So where is the source code for this tracking app?

The upstream from which this app is forked is at https://github.com/corona-warn-app/cwa-app-android, the fork itself is not publicly available, as far as I can tell.

> This app can actually save lives without sacrificing any privacy, pushing it to users is something that has no drawbacks.

This app might have absolutely no privacy leaks; honestly, it’s too early to know that yet. The code is not published; there’s been no public auditing of the backend data handling practices.

Given that, I see drawbacks.

I did not opt-in to the MA one when prompted on iOS (and it did not install [as far as I can tell]).

It is a slippery slope, the boundaries keep getting pushed, I think no one really cares about the app but just the fact that for some people it apparently is hidden installed.

Exactly. Is that even legal?

In my country, the government re-skinned the Singaporean open source covid19 app, which appears to be about the same thing as this one.

The government didn't install it in every phone, but they made it mandatory for business-owners to check that you have the app enabled if you want to enter their premises. Everyone needs to eat/shop, so most people were forced to install the app.

Every grocery store has a greeter at the door to check you have the app running, check your temperature, and squirt sanitiser on your hands.

https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/

People just will worry about apps which suddenly appear on their phones without their action. And this is totally justified, as the chance that this could be something malicious is much higher than being something non-malicious.

Having said that, I totally agree that German government should have done more to push the Corona Warn App - but only in public relation terms. I totally think Corona Warn App does not live to its full potential in Germany because it is not installed widely enough. But you just cannot do this by force.

>and in fact something I’d have loved to see other countries do as well.

Why are you wishing harm on people ?

Why are you? Since when is it justified to preinstall apps for tracking and advertising, but not justified to do this to save lives?

Pre installed (visibly) is a lot different that pushed and hidden installed, you really don't see that difference?

Gov is breaking into your house at midnight to sell face masks.

Except, the Corona Warn App is the biggest crap that I have ever seen. Yes, the code is open and free and super transparent; morally superior. But what about the effectiveness of this app? Even the German officials do not mention this app since many many many months. The app was criticised from all sides due to lack of effectiveness.

Even the freedom-loving large news outlets published their opinions that they would have wished to see some sacrifice of those high morals for at least SOME level of effectiveness.

I have the app and it is a big piece of junk since day 1. My brother is a doctor and is using this app. He has regular direct contact with Covid patients. Do you know how many "high risk contact" notifications he has received since Summer 2020? Yes, you guessed it: 0.

> The app was criticised from all sides due to lack of effectiveness.

That’s because not enough users use it. About 10% of Germans have the app installed.

Massachusetts deciding to auto-install the app on every device is the logical conclusion if you consider those statistics.

That's some seriously flawed logic, and a much bigger issue, if you are correct. They should have tried an information campaign first. If that didn't work then clearly people voted against it, and they have no business going against that. If they think they know better than the people they undermine democracy.

Germany had a massive ad campaign for months without much success. The issue remains that people are lazy. That’s part of why microsoft bundling IE was banned, because 90%+ of users won’t go out of their way to install something.

I can't find those ads, but most likely the ads were uninformative so people did not find them to be instructive. Suggestion without reference to fact is the norm with those campaigns.

These ads were on every single billboard, bus station, etc in the country https://www.dfb.de/fileadmin/_processed_/202007/csm_224709-D...

And the TV ad was shown as preroll ad for youtube videos for months, and on TV during every ad break on every channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4fCbuZqo6M

Just the ad budget for this app dwarfed the budgets of some hollywood blockbusters, and yet it still didn’t reach more than 10% of the population

Me installing a custom rom without google play, and with aurora app store is the logical conclusion.

The app was recently evaluated for effectiveness.[1] 110-230k people were tested positive as a result of a warning and therefore isolated. They found that it had about the same effect as the tracing efforts by all public health authorities combined.

[1] article in German about it https://www.heise.de/news/RKI-Schaetzung-Warn-App-hat-mehr-a...

These numbers don't seem to reflect the whole picture based on the data provided by the local institutions which show a rather small effectiveness.

See here (german): https://netzpolitik.org/2021/robert-koch-institut-widersprue...

The RKI estimates the contribution that the Corona-Warn-App makes to containment to be roughly as high as that of all health authorities together. [1]

I'm surprised your brother has not received any notifications. My partner is a doctor at a major university hospital and has been warned repeatedly to say the least. During the second wave, the Corona Warn App showed low or high risk warnings pretty much every week.

[1] https://www.heise.de/news/RKI-Schaetzung-Warn-App-hat-mehr-a... (German)

The Corona Warn App won’t give you a warning unless you’ve spent a minimum amount of time next to that person. In Germany, patients often spend only very few minutes near the doctors themselves. That may explain the lack of warnings.

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