How to use (Chip Checker 3.0)

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Keep those two files in your disk

Please download and keep the two files of the following cc3.apk and PDF version of this page in your disk in case somehow this site disappears.

 

Download

Download cc3.apk using your browser within Android.

File size is 2,797,685 bytes. Although it’s an information for those who’re familiar with digital technology, SHA1 is “f5ed7b09f7646ddd2523f16b1580a7774796eeca”.

This is a so-called “installer”; it is not from an official Android location (Google Play Store), so you may get a warning that it may be dangerous.

*If you are afraid to download it here, please read about Android app safety issues. Even if this were a “dangerous app,” the combination of the permissions you grant and the information you enter determines whether it is dangerous or safe. No app, no matter what it is, will ever be uniformly dangerous.

Even a suspicious Android app is not immediately dangerous. Depending on the permissions you grant to the app and what you enter into the app, a “malicious app” can be dangerous.

 

Once the download is complete, run it with “Open”. If you do not see the “Open” menu, go to the downloads folder in your Android, find cc3.apk, and tap on it.

Installation

Install the downloaded cc3.apk. As shown in the previous screen, you can install it by “Open” or, if this menu does not appear, tap the cc3.apk in the “Download folder”.

 

Depending on the version of Android, location must be turned on in order to use Bluetooth. With “do not allow,” there is no detection at all.

After completing the above settings, the application will close, but an icon will be created, so you can start it up again from here.

How to use

When you start the app, you will see the following display. Of course, this is when there is a Bluetooth device or someone around who appears to be vaccinated.

In this case, black represents external device(s) (other smartphones, headphones, keyboards, etc.) and red represents the vaccinated. In other words, the Bluetooth signal is emitted from both the external device(s) and the chip in vaccinated, both of which are detected and color-coded.

Red indicates an intrnal device(s)=chip(s), black indicates external device(s). Green is from COCOA, the contact monitoring app.

  • COCOA is a COVID-19 application for smartphones provided by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Digital Agency.

In the following explanations, we will distinguish between external device(s) and “chip” in vaccinated.

SCAN & CLEAR

When the application is launched, it performs a device and chip scan, or detection operation, but if the “SCAN” button is pressed, it will scan for a set number of additional seconds (see below, 15 or 60 seconds) and add the found devices or chips to the list.

Tap the SCAN button to detect internal or external device(s) around you for a set number of seconds.

 

*Ignored if the “SCAN” button is tapped while scanning.

Tapping the “CLEAR” button will clear all displayed results. Then tap “SCAN” to scan for devices again.

However, you can also use the settings described below to “find chips(internal devices) only”.

Setting Menu

In the upper right corner is the so-called hamburger menu.

This menu is separated into three parts.

The hamburger menu (three dots) contains various setting options.

 

All, Chip, All Near, Chip Near

The default is “All”. You can select one of four modes. Once selected, the device will be detected in that mode from then on.

  • All: Lists all devices; RSSI (see below) is the maximum scan range of the terminal’s performance.
  • Chip: Ignores external devices and lists only internal devices(chips); RSSI is the maximum scan range of the terminal’s performance.
  • All Near: All devices comparatively near to you; RSSI can be set as described below.
  • Chip Near: Chip(internal devices) only which comparatively near to you; RSSI can be set in the manner described below.

In “Chip Near” mode, only chips(internal devices) are detected and the signal strength (RSSI) to be detected can be selected; the smaller the value of RSSI. the smaller detection range.

ScanSec

Choose whether to set the scan time to 15 seconds or 1 min or 5 min. This relates to how many devices will be detected when the target people are around.

If the person is stationary in the room, the number of detections would not be relevant. Also, scanning four times by 15 seconds and once by 60 seconds ought to have theoretically the same effect, but the actual detection results could be different.

RSSI

The RSSI setting is only enabled for “All Near” and “Chip Near”. In “All” and “Chip” this setting is ignored and is the maximum scanning range is determined by the performance of the terminal.

The RSSI setting indicates how strong a signal is to be detected. For example, if a person with some devices is nearby, the signal strength would be different when the person moves away.

The larger the value of RSSI of Chip Checker, the more it will catch the devices that are further away.

You can select the signal strength when in “All Near” or “Chip Near” mode. Smaller values will detect only those people who are close to you.

 

 

Summary of usage

Chip Checker can detect devices whether they are internal or external. But users are naturally more interested in internal devices, that is, “chips”. So the following settings are recommended.

  • Chip Near: to be able to select RSSI. Not interested in external devices, only internal devices, chips
  • ScanSec: Set according to your need. But 5 sec is recommened. If you find it too short, just repeat.
  • RSSI: Set according to your need. But if you want to check some target people, just get closer to them and reduce the RSSI value before scanning.

About the color of the displayed rows

Red: The “chip” here, which indicates internal device(s). However, just because a person is vaccinated does not necessarily mean that it is always detected; it may not be in there for some reason or it may be lost. Also, there’s not necessarily always one for each vaccinated person. Perhaps in the case of multiple vaccinations, more than one chip can be detected from one person.

About the bar indicator: the bar appears in order to show the intensity, especially when it is in close proximity. This is specifically for use to see which parts of the body the chips are located and distributed, but currently this test has not been fully performed because of the difficulty of finding vaccinated subjects who allow contact scanning.

Black: represents external device(s), such as smartphones, Apple watches, wireless earphones, tablets, etc, etc. It may be interesting to understand how many Bluetooth devices are around.

Green: Signal emitted by COCOA, a contact monitoring application backed by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and the signal itself is the same as that of the chip in the body. However, for the Android version, smartphones that have newly installed COCOA after the release of Chip Chcker, signals are displayed in red.

After the release of Chip Checker, signals of newly installed COCOA are displayed in red. Please understand.

 

About Multilingual Support

Chip Checker 3.0 supports multiple languages for menus and other displays. Available languages are Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean and Spanish. The language setting is automatically selected according to the language setting of your Android terminal. The default language is English.

Old Version

Click here to download and use the previous version 2.0.