On detecting terrestrial planets with timing of giant planet transits

Abstract

In order to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries enforced\nextended social distancing measures for several weeks, effectively pausing the\nmajority of economic activities. In an effort to resume economic activity\nsafely, several Digital Contact Tracing applications and protocols have been\nintroduced with success. However, DCT is a reactive method, as it aims to break\nexisting chains of disease transmission in a population. Therefore DCT is not\nsuitable for proactively preventing the spread of a disease; an approach that\nrelevant to certain use cases, such as international tourism, where individuals\ntravel across borders. In this work, we first identify the limitations\ncharacterising DCT related to privacy issues, unwillingness of the public to\nuse DCT mobile apps due to privacy concerns, lack of interoperability among\ndifferent DCT applications and protocols, and the assumption that there is\nlimited, local mobility in the population. We then discuss the concept of a\nHealth Passport as a means of verifying that individuals are disease risk-free\nand how it could be used to resume the international tourism sector. Following,\nwe present the DHP Framework that uses a private blockchain and Proof of\nAuthority for issuing Digital Health Passports. The framework provides a\ndistributed infrastructure supporting the issuance of DHPs by foreign health\nsystems and their verification by relevant stakeholders, such as airline\ncompanies and border control authorities. We discuss the attributes of the\nsystem in terms of its usability and performance, security and privacy.\nFinally, we conclude by identifying future extensions of our work on formal\nsecurity and privacy properties that need to be rigorously guaranteed via\nappropriate security protocols.\n