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From the link: "iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn’t with its owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be traveling with them from
by dbt00 5y ago
From the link: "iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn’t with its owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be traveling with them from place to place over time."
- technofiend 5y agoThat's cool and all, but how do they handle a trainload of people all going the same direction sitting near each other? I mean public transportation is still a thing.
- p49k 5y agoI assume “over time” means for a long enough period to eliminate the possibility that you’re on a train with other people.
- hyperpl 5y agoSome train rides are quite long
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoI don't know what Apple is doing behind the scenes here, but if I were Apple, I would generate much more "signal" from "this AirTag is traveling with this one person that is not its owner" than from "this AirTag is traveling with forty people that are not its owner".
- technofiend 5y agoAnd maybe this tag is generating a stronger signal than any other and is registered to me. Apple is all about the user experience so I assume they have a solution, just curious what it is.
- function_seven 5y agoWhen you get off the train, pick the one that sticks with you.
- pseudalopex 5y agoIt has to be away from the owner to trigger the warning.
- dariusj18 5y agoSo after the owner accidentally leaves it on the train, someone will be notified to look for whatever item was so important that it needed to be tracked.
- newsclues 5y agoIndeed I much rather get an alert on my watch that I’m about to leave the train on the way home with my phone still on my seat. The evolution will be smarter and stickier the more you invest in the ecosystem
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ragazzina 5y ago> Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner.
- diebeforei485 5y agoThey mentioned this exact scenario on their website[1] > Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner. 1. https://www.apple.com/airtag/ https://www.apple.com/airtag/
- dariusj18 5y agoSo if my family has a single car and we share keys it's going to annoy each of us that isn't the owner of the tag.
- coryking 5y agoIf they are part of your "family" in the apple ecosystem maybe it figures it out? Dunno.
- SilverRed 5y agoThats good, stops parents tracking their kids without notifying them
- SllX 5y agoParents just equip them with an iPhone or Apple Watch instead.
- SilverRed 5y agoYou still can tell if someone is tracking you. I'm not aware that Apple allows in any way for an apple watch or iphone to monitor the location without making the holder aware.
- SllX 5y agoI don’t disagree, but this is not any comfort to the children of tech savvy parents. They’ll be tracked and they’ll know they’re being tracked and they won’t have recourse. AirTags are kind of irrelevant here.
- gnicholas 5y agoIt only triggers if it’s not with the owner but is with someone else. I wonder what happens if you put your luggage on a train and sit down elsewhere on the train. Would it recognize that it is still, generally speaking, with the owner?
- graeme 5y agoAirplane transport crews may come to hate Airtags. I can imagine a lot of beeping luggage.
- Nextgrid 5y agoI wonder how they allow a device to tell that the same AirTag is being seen repeatedly without allowing malicious third-parties to do the same? I thought the system was designed in such a way that the data is meaningless to anyone but the owner of the tag, so that third-parties can't learn anything from said data.
- function_seven 5y agoMy speculation: The iOS device keeps seeing a random AirTag in close proximity. Even as the ID rotates, it's still about 2m away, and continues to be 2m away as you move. It doesn't know who it belongs to, but it's probably the same physical device, because it keeps going to wherever you're going. That's a different scenario than the evil store owner who wants to track their customers. In that case, it's just a random procession of tags roaming about the store. A tag arriving at the store on repeated days has nothing to indicate that it's the same one. So if it's being used as a malicious tracker (hidden in someone's car or purse), then the constant proximity is a clue. But if someone is trying to guess which tag belongs to a specific person, they can't unless they maintain constant contact with that tag over a long timeline. At that point, they can just see you :)
- shuckles 5y agoThe random ID has a fixed suffix in the spec, so you can infer that it’s the same AirTag if you see the same suffix across multiple rotations.
- gruez 5y agohow long is the suffix? I can't see it being effective for both anti-stalking (ie. someone placing a tag on you without your consent) and anti-tracking (ie. shops/malls using your tag to follow you around).
- function_seven 5y agoI don't know the answer to that, but thinking about it generally: If the suffix was just a single hex digit, it would work to detect a persistent tag. After, say 5 key rotations, if the last digit is still "E", then it's highly likely that the tag that's constantly in range is the same physical thing. Meanwhile, if you're trying to use these things to track visitors to your store, you're only getting 16 bins of people. My "E" tag will be the same as 50 other people who've visited last week with the same "E" suffix. I'm having a hard time finding the actual whitepaper on this. Hopefully someone links it in this thread.
- ghostpepper 5y agoIt may not be foolproof (ie. if the person in question doesn't use iOS) but at least this shows Apple has considered the potential for abuse.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- capableweb 5y agoSo what about the majority of people who do not own an iOS device? They can be tracked? Somehow I don't see this idea working out when law makers start seeing what kind of things this product enables.
- diebeforei485 5y ago> And even if users don’t have an iOS device, an AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
- capableweb 5y agoI'm not sure how that solves anything. I'm worried about situations like people tracking others by placing the AirTag on their person. If they gotten close to them once, they can probably do it more times too, to retrigger the inactivity period.
- jliptzin 5y agoGood luck hearing that when it’s stuck to the bottom of your car. That being said, plenty of devices are already available to cheaply track people without them knowing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lancepioch 5y agoYou realize these devices already exist and for much cheaper right? In fact you can buy or make your own with gps and a sim card too. This technology isn't new at all. Even this exact product isn't new, you can already do this with Tile. The big difference is that AirTags are more secure.
- Angostura 5y agoAccording to the link, if the tag is away from the owner you can disable tracking with a NFC-enabled device, as well as an iPhone. It's not for anti-theft
- themaninthedark 5y agoBut that will only work if you have an Apple device/AirTag app installed right?
- sss111 5y ago>even if users don’t have an iOS device, an AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.
- NoPicklez 5y agoThat doesn't really explain what would happen if the person didn't have an iPhone to receive such notifications? Perhaps they're an Android user.