[Replicant] Exposure Notification not working

[Nick]

Hi GNUtoo, thanks for your thoughtful answer. Sorry for not 
providing more links in my email to help readers.

Quoth Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli:
> On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 19:43:59 +0200
> Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli <GNUtoo at cyberdimension.org> wrote: 
> I've came across an article about it here:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple/Google_Exposure_Notification_system
> 
> It seems to be a standard. It can probably be implemented at the
> OS/distribution level or in applications.

Yes, this is what microG does. They reimplemented it theirselves, so 
it is free software, though I believe I read that there is some 
non-free server-side stuff that it relies on, but I can't find that 
right now.

Anyway, good news is that I got it working, all with free software.  
It looks like the BLE thing was an irrelevance. The app in my 
country (the UK) is free software, too, thankfully; 
https://github.com/nhsx/covid-19-app-android-ag-public

I discovered that the reason it wasn't working for me was that I was 
missing "signature spoofing support", which microG needs for the 
exposure notification stuff it provides. I got that by installing 
Xposed and the FakeGApps module.

To be more explicit, these are the steps I took to get it to work:
- Installed the bluetooth firmware using the script at 
  https://code.fossencdi.org/firmwares_nonfree.git
- Installed microG from Fdroid
- Installed FakeStore from Fdroid (needed for microG to work for 
  this)
- Installed Xposed Installer from Fdroid
- Enabled root for apps from Settings -> Developer options -> Root 
  access -> Apps only
- Ran Xposed Installer to install Xposed, and rebooted when it 
  prompted
- Disabled root for apps from Settings -> Developer options -> Root 
  access -> Disabled
- Installed the FakeGApps Xposed Module from Fdroid, and enabled it 
  by pressing on the notification that came up to enable, and ticking 
  the checkbox that then appears
- Rebooted the phone again (may or may not have been necessary)
- Installed the APK of the Covid app (which for my country is only 
  officially available on Play Store, unfortunately, so I got it from 
  apkmirror.com

I also granted all optional permissions to the microG app from the Self-
Check screen of the app, but I don't know if they're necessary; I'll try
disabling them soon.

So, I hope this helps someone, and am happy and relieved that we can get
it working with all free software (except for bluetooth firmware)!

Thanks for your help,

Nick