10 ms·

All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find devic

by w0mbat 5y ago

All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find device, not one that gives away its position (by warning the thief). I also want an easy mechanism to give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back.

jolux 5y ago
>All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. I think “useless” is a bit extreme. After three days, the thief may notice it when it starts beeping, but before then it will track just fine. Clearly there’s a trade off here, but I think having anti-stalking protections is pretty important for a product that millions of people are going to bug.
fossuser 5y ago
It's a tradeoff of course, but I think they struck a pretty good medium. I like how much they thought about this issue.
- PurpleFoxy 5y ago
  Agreed. Previously I could not find lost or stolen items. Now I can find lost items. That’s a pure improvement in my eyes.
nodesocket 5y ago
> give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back. I don’t know where you live, but as somebody who previously lived in San Francisco, do you really think the police are going to actively pursue theft claims? It’s why car break-ins and petty theft are out of control in the bay area. The police don’t enforce laws, and certainly don’t actively track down stolen property.
- djrogers 5y ago
  As somebody who has lived in a lot of places that aren't San Francisco, I can tell you that San Francisco is an outlier WRT how much illegal activity "law enforcement" puts up with.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Alupis 5y ago
  If you dig a little deeper, you'll find out the issue isn't police choosing not to enforce the laws in SF...
adriancr 5y ago
This goes against someone else not wanting to be tracked. (via someone gluing an airtag under their car, hiding one in their coat or whatever) I'll definitely look if a easy to use bluetooth scanner/tracker is on fdroid and build one if not. I also wonder how easy it is to generate random ids / ddos iphones in an area... since by default they listen and forward tags on users data connection. edit: it beeps after 3 days so its nice enough to prevent a need for countermeasures
madeofpalk 5y ago
It gets back to picking a purpose for the device and tradeoffs for privacy and the rest. Airtags are not for finding stolen things. They're for finding lost things. I think what you described is a privacy nightmare that Apple very rightly wants to avoid. They do not want to make a small device that is hard to find and doesn't give itself away to allow people to track each other. At Apple's scale, it will be abused and there would be significant negative attention on Apple for that.
- matt-attack 5y ago
  Then why did Van Moof bikes adopt the Find My feature as a third party? No one really misplaces their bike. Surely it’s for anti-theft. Pretty sure Van Moof is literally the first example of a third party Find My device and it sounds to me like it completely contradicts your (and Apple’s) statement about the scope and intended use of the Find My network.
vineyardmike 5y ago
I don’t know where you are, but in the US, if I gave the police a literal GPS coordinate of a stolen good, I still wouldnt expect them to actually go there and find it unless it’s of exceptionally high value (car, etc).
- jonfw 5y ago
  yep... I had a cell phone stolen when I was in high school, we could track it to a specific house, and they didn't even knock on the door.
- w0mbat 5y ago
  If there was an easy mechanism to temporarily hand over tracking of stolen tags/iPhones/iPads to police, with the nice ultra wideband tracking that gives an arrow and direction, police would go and get a lot of stuff back. The police love low-hanging fruit and easy arrests.
  - filleduchaos 5y ago
    Chasing down petty thieves is not the low hanging fruit most police departments go for.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      They'd be interested if drug activity in that house were reported. Then they could raid the house, and keep whatever goods weren't broken or burned in the raid for themselves.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    You can already do this today with iPhones and iPads and the police won’t do anything
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If it was anything less than a kidnapped police officer or child, I wouldn't expect them to do anything.
libeclipse 5y ago
I would not trust police with location data or with getting my device back.
ziml77 5y ago
Are the advertising it as a way to find stolen items? I've only ever thought of products like this as a way to find something I've misplaced. Given that they talked about people scanning found AirTags and that they have those fancy looking holders for them, I can't imagine they expect the tags to be hidden. And if that's the case then a thief is going to know to take the AirTag off right away.
- matt-attack 5y ago
  VanMoof bikes adopted Find My technology explicitly for theft protection: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/find-my-third-party-accessories/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/find-my-third-party-acc...
464733838373 5y ago
Joke's on you, police don't do that anymore because blm decided holding non-violent criminals accountable is racist.
Rapzid 5y ago
I would think they would both not advertise these for locating stolen items as well as warn people not to retrieve items they suspect have been stolen. Retrieving stolen items can be very dangerous, and Apple would want no liability from that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
illustriousbear 5y ago
The anti-theft argument is a bit over stated. 1. The thief would probably still find the tracker. 2. You would probably still lose connection/track of the device. 3. Police would probably still be reluctant to travel to a private residence somewhere and try to find it. 4. Are you going to physically find and confront a criminal yourself? Encrypt your digital devices, have backups and insure anything valuable. That is the better than using some tracker and spending your time trying to chase down criminals.

by w0mbat 5y ago

jolux 5y ago

>All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. I think “useless” is a bit extreme. After three days, the thief may notice it when it starts beeping, but before then it will track just fine. Clearly there’s a trade off here, but I think having anti-stalking protections is pretty important for a product that millions of people are going to bug.

fossuser 5y ago

It's a tradeoff of course, but I think they struck a pretty good medium. I like how much they thought about this issue.

PurpleFoxy 5y ago
Agreed. Previously I could not find lost or stolen items. Now I can find lost items. That’s a pure improvement in my eyes.

nodesocket 5y ago

> give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back. I don’t know where you live, but as somebody who previously lived in San Francisco, do you really think the police are going to actively pursue theft claims? It’s why car break-ins and petty theft are out of control in the bay area. The police don’t enforce laws, and certainly don’t actively track down stolen property.

djrogers 5y ago
As somebody who has lived in a lot of places that aren't San Francisco, I can tell you that San Francisco is an outlier WRT how much illegal activity "law enforcement" puts up with.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Alupis 5y ago
If you dig a little deeper, you'll find out the issue isn't police choosing not to enforce the laws in SF...

adriancr 5y ago

This goes against someone else not wanting to be tracked. (via someone gluing an airtag under their car, hiding one in their coat or whatever) I'll definitely look if a easy to use bluetooth scanner/tracker is on fdroid and build one if not. I also wonder how easy it is to generate random ids / ddos iphones in an area... since by default they listen and forward tags on users data connection. edit: it beeps after 3 days so its nice enough to prevent a need for countermeasures

madeofpalk 5y ago

It gets back to picking a purpose for the device and tradeoffs for privacy and the rest. Airtags are not for finding stolen things. They're for finding lost things. I think what you described is a privacy nightmare that Apple very rightly wants to avoid. They do not want to make a small device that is hard to find and doesn't give itself away to allow people to track each other. At Apple's scale, it will be abused and there would be significant negative attention on Apple for that.

matt-attack 5y ago
Then why did Van Moof bikes adopt the Find My feature as a third party? No one really misplaces their bike. Surely it’s for anti-theft. Pretty sure Van Moof is literally the first example of a third party Find My device and it sounds to me like it completely contradicts your (and Apple’s) statement about the scope and intended use of the Find My network.

vineyardmike 5y ago

I don’t know where you are, but in the US, if I gave the police a literal GPS coordinate of a stolen good, I still wouldnt expect them to actually go there and find it unless it’s of exceptionally high value (car, etc).

jonfw 5y ago
yep... I had a cell phone stolen when I was in high school, we could track it to a specific house, and they didn't even knock on the door.
w0mbat 5y ago
If there was an easy mechanism to temporarily hand over tracking of stolen tags/iPhones/iPads to police, with the nice ultra wideband tracking that gives an arrow and direction, police would go and get a lot of stuff back. The police love low-hanging fruit and easy arrests.
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  Chasing down petty thieves is not the low hanging fruit most police departments go for.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    They'd be interested if drug activity in that house were reported. Then they could raid the house, and keep whatever goods weren't broken or burned in the raid for themselves.
- nemothekid 5y ago
  You can already do this today with iPhones and iPads and the police won’t do anything
sokoloff 5y ago
If it was anything less than a kidnapped police officer or child, I wouldn't expect them to do anything.

libeclipse 5y ago

I would not trust police with location data or with getting my device back.

ziml77 5y ago

Are the advertising it as a way to find stolen items? I've only ever thought of products like this as a way to find something I've misplaced. Given that they talked about people scanning found AirTags and that they have those fancy looking holders for them, I can't imagine they expect the tags to be hidden. And if that's the case then a thief is going to know to take the AirTag off right away.

matt-attack 5y ago
VanMoof bikes adopted Find My technology explicitly for theft protection: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/find-my-third-party-accessories/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/find-my-third-party-acc...

464733838373 5y ago

Joke's on you, police don't do that anymore because blm decided holding non-violent criminals accountable is racist.

Rapzid 5y ago

I would think they would both not advertise these for locating stolen items as well as warn people not to retrieve items they suspect have been stolen. Retrieving stolen items can be very dangerous, and Apple would want no liability from that.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

illustriousbear 5y ago

The anti-theft argument is a bit over stated. 1. The thief would probably still find the tracker. 2. You would probably still lose connection/track of the device. 3. Police would probably still be reluctant to travel to a private residence somewhere and try to find it. 4. Are you going to physically find and confront a criminal yourself? Encrypt your digital devices, have backups and insure anything valuable. That is the better than using some tracker and spending your time trying to chase down criminals.