4 ms·

Is there another tiny tag that automatically pairs with a billion mobile listening stations? If so, where can I buy it?

jeromegv 5y ago
You can get a GPS device that automatically pairs with satellite in the sky, regardless of the devices around it. Are you worried about someone putting a GPS device in your bag?
- angry_octet 5y ago
  GPS trackers don't work well inside, they are large due to battery requirements, and are easily jammed. They are really only practical for tracking vehicles, where they can be wired in or use a large battery. It is significantly incriminatory if you are found to be using one.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Depends on your definition of "large": https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32639620194.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32639620194.html That's about the size of a matchbox. Add a 18650 battery on that and you're good for days. If you live in a world where it's "easy to jam GPS", you shouldn't be worrying about BTLE trackers or cellphones either. You do know that GPS jamming is highly illegal pretty much everywhere? If your threat model includes enabling a GPS jammer, I think it also includes other methods to prevent tracking too.
    - angry_octet 5y ago
      I don't know about days from a single battery, depends on logging frequency I guess. It is certainly a threat. Days of tracking isn't in the same realm as months of tracking though. With months of lifetime devices can be secreted at a time convenient to the attacker. Jammers are illegal but widely available, and used frequently by people who don't want to be tracked. $50 for a good one. A low power jammer isn't going to get picked up very easily if it's moving. Jamming BTLE is also possible, and likely to be more common in the future. The coming ubiquity of these trackers is the problem, they are going to be everywhere. Makes it hard to filter which ones are valid. Not just Apple, but their network is the most pervasive.
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        Jamming GPS or cell phones is a federal offense in the US... If you're operating on a level where committing federal-level crimes is an every day occurrence, your threat model is not in the public median :) It's not even hard to get days or months of use from simple GSM-GPS loggers. It's quite trivial to put them in deep sleep modes with different wake up triggers (external motion detector, clock, etc) to update their state. They can even operate over SMS so the amount of data transferred is minimal. If you want to be extra paranoid, there are devices that only respond to "where are you/where have you been" SMS messages and stay offline most of the time (SMS messages are cached on the network side for a few days). Stuff like this won't be detected by equipment looking for active RF transmissions. I really don't see how AirTags are supposed to be this super ubiquitous nefarious tracking device used by everyone from foreign governments to disgruntled exes.
        angry_octet 5y ago
        Jamming may be a Federal offence (it is illegal in pretty much every country) but nevertheless jammers can be picked up for not much money, and are used widely by truckers, OCGs (avoiding surveillance, hijacking or warehouse theft, kidnapping, and especially stealing cars), even taxi drivers and couriers (and these guys are the ones using el cheapo jammers which cause lots of interference.) People facing serious surveillance threats (like law enforcement or OCGs) will have to start scanning and mapping BTLE now, which is a serious pain. The real advantage is ubiquity and deniability. I'd like to see Apple provide a way for police to identify the iCloud account owner, and other iCloud devices, for a suspect AirTag. This would significantly raise the bar for effort required for covert use. Still allows controlling boyfriends a great tracking technique though.
- dingaling 5y ago
  GPS-based trackers don't pair with satellites, the antenna and radio to do that would be enormous.

You can get a GPS device that automatically pairs with satellite in the sky, regardless of the devices around it. Are you worried about someone putting a GPS device in your bag?

angry_octet 5y ago
GPS trackers don't work well inside, they are large due to battery requirements, and are easily jammed. They are really only practical for tracking vehicles, where they can be wired in or use a large battery. It is significantly incriminatory if you are found to be using one.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Depends on your definition of "large": https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32639620194.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32639620194.html That's about the size of a matchbox. Add a 18650 battery on that and you're good for days. If you live in a world where it's "easy to jam GPS", you shouldn't be worrying about BTLE trackers or cellphones either. You do know that GPS jamming is highly illegal pretty much everywhere? If your threat model includes enabling a GPS jammer, I think it also includes other methods to prevent tracking too.
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    I don't know about days from a single battery, depends on logging frequency I guess. It is certainly a threat. Days of tracking isn't in the same realm as months of tracking though. With months of lifetime devices can be secreted at a time convenient to the attacker. Jammers are illegal but widely available, and used frequently by people who don't want to be tracked. $50 for a good one. A low power jammer isn't going to get picked up very easily if it's moving. Jamming BTLE is also possible, and likely to be more common in the future. The coming ubiquity of these trackers is the problem, they are going to be everywhere. Makes it hard to filter which ones are valid. Not just Apple, but their network is the most pervasive.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      Jamming GPS or cell phones is a federal offense in the US... If you're operating on a level where committing federal-level crimes is an every day occurrence, your threat model is not in the public median :) It's not even hard to get days or months of use from simple GSM-GPS loggers. It's quite trivial to put them in deep sleep modes with different wake up triggers (external motion detector, clock, etc) to update their state. They can even operate over SMS so the amount of data transferred is minimal. If you want to be extra paranoid, there are devices that only respond to "where are you/where have you been" SMS messages and stay offline most of the time (SMS messages are cached on the network side for a few days). Stuff like this won't be detected by equipment looking for active RF transmissions. I really don't see how AirTags are supposed to be this super ubiquitous nefarious tracking device used by everyone from foreign governments to disgruntled exes.
      - angry_octet 5y ago
        Jamming may be a Federal offence (it is illegal in pretty much every country) but nevertheless jammers can be picked up for not much money, and are used widely by truckers, OCGs (avoiding surveillance, hijacking or warehouse theft, kidnapping, and especially stealing cars), even taxi drivers and couriers (and these guys are the ones using el cheapo jammers which cause lots of interference.) People facing serious surveillance threats (like law enforcement or OCGs) will have to start scanning and mapping BTLE now, which is a serious pain. The real advantage is ubiquity and deniability. I'd like to see Apple provide a way for police to identify the iCloud account owner, and other iCloud devices, for a suspect AirTag. This would significantly raise the bar for effort required for covert use. Still allows controlling boyfriends a great tracking technique though.
dingaling 5y ago
GPS-based trackers don't pair with satellites, the antenna and radio to do that would be enormous.