6 ms·

The difference is that a tag mailed to someone didn't follow them and their iPhone, it just shows up one day. In that case the person sending the tag obviously

The difference is that a tag mailed to someone didn't follow them and their iPhone, it just shows up one day. In that case the person sending the tag obviously already knows where you live anyway. In your example, attaching it to someone's car (presumably while at work, shopping, etc) it will follow them home and their iPhone would see that tag the entire trip until they get home at which point it would notify the tracked person.

fjni 5y ago
Got it! The distinction being that the location changed while in the vicinity of one iphone. Thanks for clarifying!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TeMPOraL 5y ago
So I am an evil stalker, and I want to find out where my target lives. I know the Target has a Spouse. I stalk both, and spot that Target uses an iPhone, but Spouse uses an Android phone. I attach the AirTag to Spouse's bag/jacket, in hopes they'll bring it home. With luck, from the POV of Target's phone, the tag will look like it just "showed up one day", at least for a while. End of story. As a real me, I'd hope that one could bring the tag to the police, and law enforcement would be able to get the details on the person who owns it? Assuming the answer is "yes", this should deter most malicious use, as even with a burner iPhone/Apple account, the owner of that tracker would be exposing a big trail of their activities.
- pradn 5y ago
  Another scenario is putting an AirTag on the bottom of someone's car, waiting for them to go home, going to their home, and taking the AirTag off. There's more risk here, but it's impossible to do. Or to remove the risk, you can drain the battery til it's got just enough to go a few more miles. Then, it'll keep pinging you the location and die when it gets to their house. With 3 days of leeway, you don't have to be too exact. It's even easier if you know they aren't going to using their car at the destination. Like if they're going camping or something.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    You've gained very little in that scenario over simply following their car home.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    You could just hide an old iPhone with Find My enabled in the car. Or a $20 GPS tracker from Aliexpress. Much more reliable and accurate, zero chance to be found if you hide the device well. People are inventing the weirdest scenarios to make AirTags be some kind of super stalking tool. =)
- tshaddox 5y ago
  In your hypothetical scenario what have you (the stalker) saved other than the trouble of following one of the targets home once? Or placing any number of existing tracking devices (like a cheap smartphone) in one of their bags? Or, you know, looking them up in the phone book?
  - avh02 5y ago
    you know people don't only go home. they have affairs, they may be undercover agents, or they may be doing something they're not proud of (legal or not).
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      All those things are possible with tons of device on the market, and has been possible for years. I don't really know what your point is. Yes, this can be used in a bad way. Just like the car you purchase can be used in a bad way, to kill pedestrians. But what is the point of those what-if scenarios?
      - avh02 5y ago
        You can justify anything with that logic: Guns are just an improvement on skull bashing, and there's rocks readily available everywhere! The low cost, simplicity, network ubiquity, and availability of these devices is different. Nobody what-if's cell phones (after all they can be used to coordinate terrible actions) because they provide a useful service to most people, as do cars (which require license and registration btw). Misuse is mostly obvious and punishable by law. Employing a massive, worldwide, distributed network which can run trackers just for lost trinkets, with the nefarious uses so easily in reach (and defenses not available to anybody not on your fancy ecosystem) is a scary thing. As for other products that exist, I have no defense except that their purchase is either obvious, their presence notable "oops, somebody dropoed an airtag here" (relatively innocuous) vs "oops, somebody dropped a gps tracker here". I don't know how e.g: tile deals with this, but at the very least it doesn't get to piggy back on my resources by default to trace me home.
- mckeed 5y ago
  The AirTag will start making a sound after a while, and yes they have plans for working for law enforcement: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227#sound https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227#sound These kind of devices have been available for years, including from Samsung who has just as many phones out there as Apple. Of course as soon as Apple makes one – taking extreme pains to address privacy concerns – everyone pops up to armchair quarterback.
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    The speaker is trivially disabled, and the AirTag continues to function. > These kind of devices have been available for years Devices like Tile do not have access to a global network of iPhones. SmartTag only works with Samsung Galaxy devices, and we've yet to see if it works beyond the current model. Apple will make this work for everything. My old iPad from 2014 still receives software updates!
    - eknkc 5y ago
      There are gps trackers for dogs (I mention these because they are extremely available) that use cellular data. They track much better, faster, more accurate. If I wanted to track someone to the point that I’d disable an AirTag speaker, I’d not bother with an AirTag.
tshaddox 5y ago
> In your example, attaching it to someone's car (presumably while at work, shopping, etc) it will follow them home and their iPhone would see that tag the entire trip until they get home at which point it would notify the tracked person. Okay, but is that really different than driving down a random street, choosing a random house with a car in the driveway, and thus learning that that car parks at that address? Knowing that the car you chose to put a tag on at the store later parked at a certain address is hardly that useful, isn't much easier than just following the car from the store one time, and presumably wouldn't upset most people because most people's security models don't rely on their home address being private and thus no one ever following their car home from the store.
- hundchenkatze 5y ago
  I was only clarifying the difference between mailing someone a tag versus attaching a tag to someone or something they own. Sure if you already know the person's car then just follow them.

fjni 5y ago

Got it! The distinction being that the location changed while in the vicinity of one iphone. Thanks for clarifying!

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TeMPOraL 5y ago

So I am an evil stalker, and I want to find out where my target lives. I know the Target has a Spouse. I stalk both, and spot that Target uses an iPhone, but Spouse uses an Android phone. I attach the AirTag to Spouse's bag/jacket, in hopes they'll bring it home. With luck, from the POV of Target's phone, the tag will look like it just "showed up one day", at least for a while. End of story. As a real me, I'd hope that one could bring the tag to the police, and law enforcement would be able to get the details on the person who owns it? Assuming the answer is "yes", this should deter most malicious use, as even with a burner iPhone/Apple account, the owner of that tracker would be exposing a big trail of their activities.

pradn 5y ago
Another scenario is putting an AirTag on the bottom of someone's car, waiting for them to go home, going to their home, and taking the AirTag off. There's more risk here, but it's impossible to do. Or to remove the risk, you can drain the battery til it's got just enough to go a few more miles. Then, it'll keep pinging you the location and die when it gets to their house. With 3 days of leeway, you don't have to be too exact. It's even easier if you know they aren't going to using their car at the destination. Like if they're going camping or something.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  You've gained very little in that scenario over simply following their car home.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  You could just hide an old iPhone with Find My enabled in the car. Or a $20 GPS tracker from Aliexpress. Much more reliable and accurate, zero chance to be found if you hide the device well. People are inventing the weirdest scenarios to make AirTags be some kind of super stalking tool. =)
tshaddox 5y ago
In your hypothetical scenario what have you (the stalker) saved other than the trouble of following one of the targets home once? Or placing any number of existing tracking devices (like a cheap smartphone) in one of their bags? Or, you know, looking them up in the phone book?
- avh02 5y ago
  you know people don't only go home. they have affairs, they may be undercover agents, or they may be doing something they're not proud of (legal or not).
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    All those things are possible with tons of device on the market, and has been possible for years. I don't really know what your point is. Yes, this can be used in a bad way. Just like the car you purchase can be used in a bad way, to kill pedestrians. But what is the point of those what-if scenarios?
    - avh02 5y ago
      You can justify anything with that logic: Guns are just an improvement on skull bashing, and there's rocks readily available everywhere! The low cost, simplicity, network ubiquity, and availability of these devices is different. Nobody what-if's cell phones (after all they can be used to coordinate terrible actions) because they provide a useful service to most people, as do cars (which require license and registration btw). Misuse is mostly obvious and punishable by law. Employing a massive, worldwide, distributed network which can run trackers just for lost trinkets, with the nefarious uses so easily in reach (and defenses not available to anybody not on your fancy ecosystem) is a scary thing. As for other products that exist, I have no defense except that their purchase is either obvious, their presence notable "oops, somebody dropoed an airtag here" (relatively innocuous) vs "oops, somebody dropped a gps tracker here". I don't know how e.g: tile deals with this, but at the very least it doesn't get to piggy back on my resources by default to trace me home.
mckeed 5y ago
The AirTag will start making a sound after a while, and yes they have plans for working for law enforcement: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227#sound https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227#sound These kind of devices have been available for years, including from Samsung who has just as many phones out there as Apple. Of course as soon as Apple makes one – taking extreme pains to address privacy concerns – everyone pops up to armchair quarterback.
- angry_octet 5y ago
  The speaker is trivially disabled, and the AirTag continues to function. > These kind of devices have been available for years Devices like Tile do not have access to a global network of iPhones. SmartTag only works with Samsung Galaxy devices, and we've yet to see if it works beyond the current model. Apple will make this work for everything. My old iPad from 2014 still receives software updates!
  - eknkc 5y ago
    There are gps trackers for dogs (I mention these because they are extremely available) that use cellular data. They track much better, faster, more accurate. If I wanted to track someone to the point that I’d disable an AirTag speaker, I’d not bother with an AirTag.

tshaddox 5y ago

> In your example, attaching it to someone's car (presumably while at work, shopping, etc) it will follow them home and their iPhone would see that tag the entire trip until they get home at which point it would notify the tracked person. Okay, but is that really different than driving down a random street, choosing a random house with a car in the driveway, and thus learning that that car parks at that address? Knowing that the car you chose to put a tag on at the store later parked at a certain address is hardly that useful, isn't much easier than just following the car from the store one time, and presumably wouldn't upset most people because most people's security models don't rely on their home address being private and thus no one ever following their car home from the store.

hundchenkatze 5y ago
I was only clarifying the difference between mailing someone a tag versus attaching a tag to someone or something they own. Sure if you already know the person's car then just follow them.