CRAYFIS Initiative: Is it Worth Joining?

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The CRAYFIS initiative aims to utilize smartphones as a network for observing ultra-high energy cosmic rays, leveraging their camera sensors to detect muons and high-energy photons. Concerns about potential surveillance capabilities of such applications are raised, though it is noted that many existing tools already serve that purpose. The initiative could provide significant observational power if user participation targets are met. Despite the intriguing concept, some users express hesitance about downloading the app due to privacy concerns. Overall, the initiative presents a unique opportunity for citizen science in astrophysics.
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Hi all,
what do you think about CRAYFIS initiative? Is it worth to participate?
 
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I don't know but it sounds pretty cool. The only reservation I have about such apps is how easily they could be used as trojan horses for tools of global surveillance, but there are so many other existing tools for that, it may be a silly concern here.

Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones - Daniel Whiteson, Michael Mulhearn, Chase Shimmin, Kyle Brodie, Dustin Burns (Submitted on 10 Oct 2014)
We propose a novel approach for observing cosmic rays at ultra-high energy (>1018~eV) by repurposing the existing network of smartphones as a ground detector array. Extensive air showers generated by cosmic rays produce muons and high-energy photons, which can be detected by the CMOS sensors of smartphone cameras. The small size and low efficiency of each sensor is compensated by the large number of active phones. We show that if user adoption targets are met, such a network will have significant observing power at the highest energies.
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In addition, the Application may collect certain information automatically, including, but not limited to, the type of mobile device you use, your mobile devices unique device ID, the IP address of your mobile device, your mobile operating system
Yeah, not downloading this, but it does sound cool.
 
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