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Privacy

Singapore Government To Make Its Contact-Tracing App Freely Available To Developers Worldwide (straitstimes.com) 27

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
In a move to help the international community combat the coronavirus pandemic, the Singapore government will be making the software for its contact-tracing application TraceTogether, which has already been installed by more than 620,000 people, freely available to developers around the world. From a report: In a post on Monday, Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan said that the app, developed by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health, will be open-sourced. This means that the software's source code will be made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. "We believe that making our code available to the world will enhance trust and collaboration in dealing with a global threat that does not respect boundaries, political systems or economies," said Dr Balakrishnan, who is also Foreign Minister. "Together, we can make our world safer for everyone."
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Singapore Government To Make Its Contact-Tracing App Freely Available To Developers Worldwide More

Singapore Government To Make Its Contact-Tracing App Freely Available To Developers Worldwide

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  • Seriously, disable Bluetooth [fcc.gov] when not actively using it. Particularly, if you are visiting Singapore. Otherwise all those other Bluetooth devices in range will have logged tracking information about you.
    • Also, don't chew gum on the subway. It's against the law there.

    • Like I always say, buy a cellphone at the airport when you get there. Leave the real thing at home. Activate call-forwarding if you need it.

      • Won't help you fuck-all if you ever enable call forwarding, or bring that phone anywhere close to your old phone, location and time-wise, or log in to the same websites, services, accounts.

        (Also, expect a phone bought there to include their CA's root certificate. Meaning: TLS won't save you.)

    • Reading the comments, I cannot understand how most people are just freaking about the privacy concerns with this app. If that is the trade-off you need to do to squelch the virus, I think it's totally worth it. Google, Facebook etc already know about my whereabouts. It's not only the GPS, not only Bluetooth, but also WiFi and cell towers. In cities, the cell triangulation can be pretty precise as data from multiple towers can be combined, and the area of each tower is not that large.

      At the moment, you shoul

  • Google has this covered already. (Google Timeline) Don't install some shady app. https://www.google.com/maps/ti... [google.com]

    • It's attitudes like logging into Google, turning on Bluetooth, carrying our personal computing and data devices around city centers, and touching everything and then our faces that got us into this problem!

      Secure yourself first. "Together, we can make our world safer for everyone."

      • I'm looking forward to the whiny dramas about the generation afraid to touch anything. I assume they'll be reverse goths, who always wear white.

        • I'm looking forward to the whiny dramas about the generation afraid to touch anything. I assume they'll be reverse goths, who always wear white.

          You just nailed post-COVID fashion. And the touch-free world drives the first real demand for Google Glass. Tinder goes VR. Everyone stays home and looks beautiful.

        • Daleks. :)

          DISINFECT! DISINFECT! DISINFECT!

          _ _ _ _
          Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Depends on the nations laws and the privacy laws in that nation.
      Some nations had to quickly change laws just to try normal police level smartphone telco use tracking.

  • Smelling an opportunity to abuse.

    Disgusting.

    Just stay the fuck home. Tracing it won't prevent nor cure anyone. Apart from being uselessly incomplete anyway. Don't delude yourselves. It will only tell you when it's too late.

    Note: Singapore may be the most totalitarian place on Earth. With things like death sentences for littering, and such.

    • May as well not spread complete disinformation. There is no death sentence for littering.

      It is of course, illegal, and enforced, which makes the society incredibly enjoyable to live in. Especially for those of us that aren't assholes and don't need to litter, tag cars, etc.

  • In 2018, Singapore was ranked 151st by Reporters Without Borders in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index.
  • There's been enough viruses passed around already, don't need any more.

  • This means that the software's source code will be made freely available

    Sure, but you didn't define "software", or "source code", so how are we supposed to know what the heck they are even talking about?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      "Software" in this case refers to a computer program. Both GPLv2 and GPLv3 define a work's "source code" as "the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it."

      The impression I get from the BlueTrace project's front page [bluetrace.io] is that Team TraceTogether expects to publish protocol documents and a reference implementation in source code form within about a week.

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