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Exactly - it is a joke.
Yes, antennas vary a lot, even if the phones use the same BT chip.
Lots of (most? all?) BT chips allow software control of transmission power, so even for a given phone model you can't be sure of the transmission power.
When you walk past a person, if you both keep your phones in the pocket towards the other person, the signal essentially goes in free air. If you both switch the phone to the opposite pocket, the distance between the phones increase by at least four feet and the signals must pass through two bodies on their way.
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There is at least a dozen (maybe two or three dozen) similar initiatives all over the world. As far as I have been able to find out, the main operation and goal is the same for all of them - the essential difference is how they handle the data.
An app cannot protect you against covid-19. All it gives you is a message a few days after you have been around some other person, that it might be too late: You may be infected yourself.
The real protection comes from here and now not being around people who are infected. The app cannot help you with that; you'll have to take responsibility for that yourself.
The app is like if you receive a phone call from a friend: "Hi, buddy! Bad news - I am sick with covid-19. Since I visited your home a week ago, I thought you should know about it. I can't tell if I was already infected then, but if I was, I may have brought it to you as well. So maybe you should have the entire family tested..."
Sure, you may use an app to send the message, rather than making a phone call. But the end result is the same: The app gives you no protection, only a warning that the protection may have failed.
If the guy getting sick has been in close contact with hundreds of people the last two weeks, he probably won't remember them all, and won't be making hundreds of phone calls. The app could help with that. But if you go to the grocery store six days a week, you probably get within six feet of at least fifty people inside the store, on the walkways and in the parking lot. Six hundred people lining up for being tested, the day you get sick. No, that is not possible to manage. So most apps require the closeness to last for some time, like 15 minutes (the suggested value here in Norway).
None of those six hundred people (50 per day) when I go to the store are closer to me than six feet for as much as two minutes - most of them only for a few seconds. Or we are not close at all, but I empty my cart into the car, and ten minutes later it is picked up by another customer who has never been closer to me than half a mile. Yet I might have left virus on the cart.
Those I spend 15 minutes at a time with at a distance less than six feet, those I know of without any app: Those are family, or if I still went to the office, coworkers in the same 4-cubicle. There might have been others, like hairdressers and dentists, if they were open. They are not, and I would have known about them even without the app.
Then comes this "6 feet distance". GPS is not by far precise enough, especially indoors. Smartphone GPS is very poor at altitudes, and cannot distinguish between floors of a building. Almost all of these initiatives therefore assume that Bluetooth (in addition to GPS) is constantly turned on, and the distance from another smartphone can be determined from the signal strength.
If everybody used exactly the same smartphone, with exactly the same antenna solution. with the BT transmitter set to exactly the same output level, and everybody had fastened their smartphones to their cap, out in open air, at the same altitude above the floor... Then: Maybe. But BT transmit power may vary quite a lot. Antennas differ in how efficient they are. If two guys pass each other in opposite directions, both with their phones in their left pocket, and then repeat, this time with the phone in their right pocket, at the same distance between them, the two signal strength readings is likely to e quite different: The real distance between the phones would be at least 4 ft more or less, and the signal would have to pass through two bodies or none.
It seems like lots of people have come to believe that Bluetooth has some radar-like function. It does not. Signal strength from the other phone is all there is to measure the distance. So it doesn't help much.
In other words: I see this as a result of app-mania. If I get sick, I will make an ordinary phone call to warn those I have spent at least fifteen minutes with the last week or two, urging them to be tested. The will provide nothing beyond that.
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Hell no.
Personally, I'll probably never know if I have (or had) corona.
There's too few tests and given my health and age it's likely I'll only have mild flu symptoms, which aren't at all rare during this season.
So I'll never warn others if I have corona because I simply don't know I have it.
If someone else has it that I've been close to I still don't know if I have it and there's little I can do about it.
It's been about two weeks since I've been close to this person so I've probably infected one or two people already since I'm not in full lock down.
The best I can do then is go in complete isolation.
I'm not sure if it's possible for people to abuse the system or enter false positives, but if it is I'll be in isolation for nothing.
The elderly, who are most at risk, probably won't benefit as much because this group is relatively unknown with smart phone technology.
Meanwhile companies are tracking me and everyone I've been in contact with.
They say they don't, but they will.
Google knows pretty much everything about me already, but this will only make it worse.
When people find out they've been tracked personally, contrary to current claims, Google and Apple will get a fine that's small in comparison to the money they've made with the data they gathered.
They'll say "it's a bug" or "it's critical information" or some such.
This sounds like a good excuse to go China government on our asses and follow us 24/7.
These apps aren't for us, they're for Apple, Google and governments.
Meanwhile, we have something that let's us avoid exposure: staying the hell at home and keeping distance if that's not an option.
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Sander Rossel wrote: This sounds like a good excuse to go China government on our asses and follow us 24/7.
 My mobile lives in my car, is often in ✈ mode, and has all forms of data turned off.
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...and (assuming your car is new enough) your phone then integrates with your car, and you can't prevent your car from relaying all that data. 
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The car is too old, but it doesn't matter because the phone is in airplane mode.
Newer cars might act as a tracking device all on their own, through stuff like OnStar and Sync.
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Sander Rossel wrote: There's too few tests
This!
It's only the countries that has domestic production of test kits, or the monetary means to pay for them (the highest bidder) that can afford to test every person needed.
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To verify this, go to Coronavirus Update (Live)[^] and sort on the rightmost column ("Tests/1M pop") to show which countries have the highest test frequencies.
Be careful not to point out countries that are not as high as their leaders proclaim that they are. That is defined as 'politics', which is is inappropriate in the lounge.
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Member 7989122 wrote: Be careful not to point out countries that are not as high as their leaders proclaim that they are. That is defined as 'politics', which is is inappropriate in the lounge.
The figures are provided by health professionals, not leaders; and mocking leaders (no matter their politics) is appropriate everywhere outside of Russia, the Middle East, and Asia -- where it may technically still be appropriate, but it's probably a bad idea.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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littleGreenDude wrote: Will you install it? Why, or why not?
No, for obvious reasons.littleGreenDude wrote: I think it is worth it for health safety
The only things necessary for health safety is the NHS (IMO, any country that doesn't have something like the NHS is doing bad by its people), and an organisation like the WHO.littleGreenDude wrote: I think we need more than this. This is a reactive solution not proactive
True. We need the NHS and the WHO.
And not "tools" that will end up being used as spyware and/or hacked.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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People could just leave their phones at home, right? 
littleGreenDude wrote: Personally, even if there are privacy issues I think it is worth it for health safety.
I quite agree!
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I practically never have my phone in my pocket. It might be on table in front of me, e.g. if I have used it for some 2FA login on the Internet, but it might as well be at my bedside - I use it as my alarm clock to get out of bed in the morning. If I go to the supermarket, I rarely remember to pick it up. Usually when I go to work, I remember to put it in my backpack, but I don't take it out of there until I need it, which is quite rarely when I am at work. So it doesn't follow me to the canteen.
This is not because I "leave" it at home, or bedside, or in my backpack, but because I forget it there. I spend little energy on trying to forget it less. I grew up with a fixed line telephone, located in the hall, not in the living room. I am bothered by people who demand their right to disturb me at any time, or their right to, through the phone, disturb a face-to-face talk I have with somebody else: Very few if any of my friends ever ignore/reject an incoming call, no matter what we are talking about.
Forgetting to pick up my phone when leaving home is more a pleasure than a personal crisis (the way it is with some younger people). But the app wouldn't work for me.
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If you combine a laxative with alphabet soup would you call it "Letter Rip"
I'm hiding from exercise...I'm in the fitness protection program.
JaxCoder.com
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Nobody would use that!
A simple visit to the bathroom could spell disaster!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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Either you're awfully good at this or Mike's your setup man!
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A remark like that just spells trouble.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Hmmmm,
If you are planning on consuming any alphabet soup just make sure it's ISGINASVVNIQKEIDRLNEVAKNLNESLIDLQEL
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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And you can clarify your statements with petomanic punctuation (a variant of Victor Borge's superb phonetic punctuation (youtube)[^]).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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A classic, I've seen it many times and love it!
I'm hiding from exercise...I'm in the fitness protection program.
JaxCoder.com
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 That is going to annoy SWMBO no end, she insists on reading every plaque she walks past and the text on the virtual is just too fuzzy. A museum tour can take all day and the British Museum tour has never been completed by us.
I usually find a nice comfortable seat by the entrance/exit and read a book for a couple of hours.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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My SO does that also so after I see/read what I want I sit down and wait for here.
I'm hiding from exercise...I'm in the fitness protection program.
JaxCoder.com
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First lover turns into wine glutton (9)
modified 14-Apr-20 5:30am.
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Hmmmm,
Too easy, It took me literally 5 seconds on this one.
wolverine
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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 You're up tomorrow.
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