11 ms·
“My scooter was stolen. Unknown to the thief, I hid two AirTags inside it.”
- toiletaccount 5y agoSomeone want to copy and paste this? I can't read it without JavaScript.
- accelbred 5y agohttps://nitter.net/dguido/status/1424921645483966466 https://nitter.net/dguido/status/1424921645483966466 Nitter doesnt need javascript. Theres browser pugins to redirect twitter links as well
- pmoriarty 5y agoTry this nitter[1] page. Other nitter instances can be seen here: [2] [1] - https://nitter.eu/dguido/status/1424921645483966466 https://nitter.eu/dguido/status/1424921645483966466 [2] - https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
- senectus1 5y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1424921645483966466.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1424921645483966466.html
- prirai 5y agoTry Fritter (no login) or Twidere
- Causality1 5y agoA whole lot of people are going to be doing experiments like this and all of them are going to find out just how little the police care about their stolen property. iPhone users automatically receive a push notification if an unknown Airtag has been “following” them, without its owner, for a random time between 8 and 24 hours. Wouldn't this be a pain in the ass if you took a long flight and happened to sit near an air tag in cargo while its owner was on the other end of the plane?
- tolmasky 5y agoForget that, it’s a huge pain on a weekly basis when I go on a walk with my significant other and my iPhone reports that the one in her wallet is following me. It’s a horrible UX that in classic Apple fashion has no concept of family and also breaks one of the AirTag’s key features. You should basically only rely on AirTags to find your keys at home.
- SilverRed 5y agoThere is a button on that screen to ignore the airtag and it will never alert you again for that particular tag. Apple cant solve the fact you didn't read the small amount of text on the page.
- tolmasky 5y agoIt's been reported that this option is not presented to everyone. (I do however get the option to disable Safety Alerts for all AirTags though, which isn't really what I want). Next time I get it I'll try tapping again to see if anything got kicked into place with 14.7.1.
- top_kekeroni_m8 5y agoIf the other user is in your Apple Family you will be presented the "ignore forever" option. Otherwise you can only ignore the AirTag for 24 hours. Very Apple of Apple. Terrible design.
- eigen 5y agoWhat to do if you find an AirTag or get an alert that an AirTag is with you https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 To disable the AirTag and stop sharing your location, tap Instructions to Disable AirTag and follow the onscreen steps.
- SilverRed 5y ago
- villgax 5y agoPeople should be doing this to their cars as well.
- paxys 5y agoCars already have enough space and power for a real GPS tracker. I can't think of any new cars today that come without one.
- bosswipe 5y agoWhat they don't have is the necessary internet connection unless you're willing to pay a cell phone bill just for that purpose.
- jacobsenscott 5y agoI bought a new 2021 Honda CRV less than six months ago. As far as I know it doesn't have one.
- jeffbee 5y agoIf your Honda is a "Touring" or "Elite" trim, it might. Install the HondaLink app on your phone and find out!
- sharken 5y agoThieves who steal high-value vehicles have methods to prevent these things from happening. But for the ordinary car theft, it does sound like a nice idea. Though you'd have to buy into the Apple ecosystem and the anti-follow feature could be triggered when you don't want it to.
- someperson 5y agoWhat is the best non-Apple AirTag product?
- websap 5y agoDoesn't exist. The network of iPhones is where Apple really stars. You can try Tile, but that works in bluetooth range.
- new299 5y agoThe problem is AirTag is only really viable because of the huge number of iPhone users. Anyone with a recent iPhone will pickup the AirTag signal and report the location to the owner. Tile has somewhat similar functionality, but it doesn't really have the same ability to track the tile's location. And there are a comparatively tiny number of tile users.
- masklinn 5y agoAh so outside of losing stuff in your home it’s really only useful in countries or areas where the apple mesh is dense enough?
- SilverRed 5y agoWhich is almost everywhere on the planet outside of north korea and the middle of a desert. I have tested the things and they get picked up constantly even in low density areas. If you had one in a house they would be getting picked up every 2 minutes from passing cars.
- sofixa 5y agoYeah, no. Apple products aren't that popular outside of Western countries ( and the US in particular). Take India for an example - the iOS market share is a paltry 3.2% for 2019. Ukraine, 13%. Nigeria, 6%. I highly doubt those users are nicely spread to give you full coverage everywhere and not cluttered in the bigger cities and their more affluent parts. Heck, even France is with 23%, that could easily leave significant gaps in coverage.
- hitekker 5y ago> I move outside while one cop retrieves the evidence, but the most aggressive employee followed me. He says, “All you’re doing is making enemies.” Gets closer to me, and pantomimes shooting me. He implies I’d get murdered if he sees me again. Police should have arrested this man.
- glangdale 5y agoSeriously. Anyone that worked up about the events is obviously running a fence operation out of the shop. As I commented on the Twitter thread, we used to have tons of break-ins in our area. Miraculously, when they closed down all the pawn shops in the area with a "relaxed" attitude to the provenance of where stuff came from, we saw almost an order of magnitude reduction in b-and-e and theft from vehicle type events. For this type of crime, you can have about as much of it as you're willing to tolerate. And closing down the operations that make it profitable to steal stuff is way simpler than chasing around perps as it's much more centralized.
- dhosek 5y agoYou're assuming that the cops actually care about solving or preventing crimes. Look how much effort it took to get them to manage what should have been an open and shut case. There have been plenty of similar cases. I have little doubt that one or more police officers are well aware of the nature of the shop and get their own cut of the profits.
- aerosmile 5y agoOccam's razor: 1. The police don't know and don't care. No surprise there. 2. The police do know (holy shit!) and also are directly involved in a criminal operation (holy double shit!).
- runarberg 5y agoOff course they know, they work (and perhaps live) in the neighborhood. They know people that have had stuff stolen from them, they might have had stuff stolen from them them selfs. Now caring, that is another issue.
- websap 5y agoIt's wild that someone has the gall to threaten the poster infront of the police and show him signs that he'll get shot. That would've seriously messed him up. So glad this guy recovered his bike and hope they identify the thief and crack down on these stores.
- someguydave 5y agoyes, it shows the degree to which criminals are allowed to run free while the government focuses increasing resources on telling the non-criminals what to do
- paulpauper 5y agohmmm...the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Some of it for drugs (only 15% of state and 40% federal) but you have to compare to the rest of the world. I doubt the German or UK police would be bothered to care much either. At least in the US criminals eventually get caught and arrested if they persist. the system works, but it sometimes takes longer than it should. In this case ,it's hard to make an arrest when there is no evidence but some video footage which may or may not exist or even identity the thief.
- SilverRed 5y ago> but it sometimes takes longer than it should. I'm convinced that the solution to crime is not to increase punishments, but to make the speed and likelihood of being punished fast and almost certain. If theft had a 100% detection rate and a punishment greater than the value of the item, you would never steal anything because it would be pointless. The problem is we let people get away with it multiple times and then eventually destroy their lives over it. Airtags and other anti theft tech can help here. Make theft extremely difficult to get away with and people will not bother.
- brayhite 5y agoWhat you just described is far costlier on society (assuming these efforts would be covered with taxes) and likely requires severe invasions of privacy, especially considering theft can be both physical and digital/virtual. All in all, I’d rather not aim for 100% detection + swift punishment as the improvement metrics for deterring theft.
- realitysballs 5y agoThat ‘anti-stalker’ feature sounds like it’s a burden to recovering items that are stolen . …what’s a bigger issue theft or stalking ? Aren’t sure tags more about theft prevention than stalking prevention?
- Jtsummers 5y agoIf they didn't have that feature, they'd be vilified. It's a necessary compromise to make a useful thing socially acceptable.
- arsome 5y agoI'm noticing Apple making a lot of rather poor decisions to make things "socially acceptable" lately.
- Jtsummers 5y agoMaybe, but I'm not convinced that it's a poor decision in this case. AirTags were billed, from the start, as a "find your stuff" device, not an anti-theft device. In that vein, the potential for abuse as a stalking device was more important to resolve than the potential diminished utility as an anti-theft device (when it's not an explicit objective for them).
- lostlogin 5y agoAre you arguing that they choose poorly when they decided not to make the ultimate stalking device?
- SilverRed 5y agoThink about it this way, before and after the airtag, theft was just as much of a problem. So no harm done. Without the anti stalking features, this would have become a problem which did not exist nearly to the same scale and ease. The airtags would have been extremely good stalking tools without these safeties and even with them you can still get some anti theft protection as the airtags do not notify until the holder gets home and your app will hold the last known location (their house)
- fy20 5y agoDo e-scooters not have security features built-in? If you really want to steal it you can, but if you need to replace the main board to actually use it then it's going to put off a whole lot of people.
- avidiax 5y agoSo long as the one chip locking you out of the main board + some labor to reflow the solder is much cheaper than an e-scooter, it's worth it to the criminal.
- SilverRed 5y agoYou could trivially make that chip the main controller. The device is then worthless without the same chip with firmware on it. With the read protection on modern chips it is feasible that you could make it close to impossible to find a replacement chip with firmware on it. Especially if its a no name brand and every brand has its own custom protection.
- toomanybeersies 5y agoTheft for parts is a pretty common hustle (specially for cars). There's a lot less oversight on replacement parts than whole vehicles/laptops/phones.
- yonran 5y agoDid the cops give the scooter shop a citation for failing to record the source of the stolen article on https://www.leadsonline.com/ https://www.leadsonline.com/? (This post from last month recounted how a laptop repair man in New York City got in trouble for this law https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27810019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27810019 specifically Administrative Code §20-273 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCadmin/0-0-0-33242 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC... (electronics record required for each purchase AND sale of second-hand articles) and Rules Title 28 §21-07 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYCrules/0-0-0-78502 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC... (electronics record must be at a designated website leadsonline.com)). The previous post was about the unintended consequence of the law on law-abiding shops, but here we should see the intended consequence that it should shut down shops that fence stolen goods.
- unchocked 5y agoThe scooter shop could have a protection arrangement. The laptop repair man clearly does not.
- crazydoggers 5y agoIt’s probably unlikely given that the cops pressed them at all, but it is a valid concern. It is quite clear that the e-bike shop owners know very very well that they’re trading in hot merchandise, and they’re probably facilitating it. I would love to make “enemies” of these guys and see how far the dominos fall. Unless as a society we push these criminals, we’ll end up back in the heyday of organized crime and mafia run cities. Corruption is a constant battle.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago> end up back in the heyday of organized crime and mafia run cities … this is New York.
- silexia 5y agoI live in LA and had a similar experience to the original poster. I had an employee who stole $19,000 for me and I called in and made a police report and got no help. Then I went to the precinct and asked for help and got nothing. Finally, I called the mayor and their office put pressure on the police to actually help. Absolutely ridiculous. I am convinced that anyone who puts in a minimum effort to get away with almost any crime in America at this point.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- phibz 5y agoAn AirTag is small and thin. So it's probably piezo speaker. Could you damage the speaker with a needle or similar through the sound hole?
- SilverRed 5y agoThere is no sound hole. It uses the outer case as the speaker. You can either do anything that applies pressure to the case or crack it open and remove the magnet and the speaker is disabled.
- hellbannedguy 5y agoI am not familiar with AirTags. Are the AirTags tied to the owner's phone, or does everyone see the tags? If a thief had an iphone could he identify other peoples AirTags while creeping around?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- masklinn 5y ago> Are the AirTags tied to the owner's phone, or does everyone see the tags? The first one, but as the thread notes there is an anti-stalking feature: after some time of being in near proximity with a lone airtag not paired to your phone you get warned about the tag… if you have an iphone i assume.
- bhaile 5y agoHate reading long Twitter threads. Here it is in condensed form. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1424921645483966466.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1424921645483966466.html
- paganel 5y ago> I reiterated I didn’t want them to do anything illegal to help me, made a joke about it only costing $800 so it’s no felony, and insisted it would get solved within an hour. It worked! You can see this is written by a white man, the middle-class status probably also helps. Not sure a non-middle-class person of color or a Latin American would have dared entering said precinct and using that tone ("made a joke") with the police officers.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kristianp 5y agoHow does the Airtag communicate when it's out of range with the host iPhone? Does it piggyback off other iPhones network connections?
- tnorthcutt 5y agoYes
- anchpop 5y agoYes, exactly. It’s something you’re asked whether you want to enable when setting up a new iphone. The location is encryped with a key that only the host iphone can decrypt, so supposedly apple doesn’t see your location every time you walk by an airtag
- usmannk 5y ago> The location is encryped with a key that only the host iphone can decrypt, so supposedly apple doesn’t see your location every time you walk by an airtag Does that matter re: Apple considering that the location originated on your phone to begin with...? If they wanted to, there isn't really a reason to wait until you walk by an airtag to grab your location.
- jackson1442 5y agoIt basically piggybacks off the location pings your phone already makes for Find My iPhone and can be disabled by the user.
- ornornor 5y agoYes. And iPads and macs too.
- ds 5y agoYou can remove the speaker from airtags. https://mashtips.com/remove-airtag-speaker/ https://mashtips.com/remove-airtag-speaker/
- neolog 5y agoApple should fix that to reduce the risk of stalking and surveillance.
- _nalply 5y agoThere are two conflicting interests: a. The owner wants to find stolen or lost things b. Nobody wants to be tagged (privacy, being stalked, &c) If people being stalked are allowed to discover Airtags, thiefs also can discover them. A conundrum. Additionally, what about Deaf people being stalked? They can't hear the Airtags. This is an example where they are discriminated by technology.
- neolog 5y ago> a. The owner wants to find stolen or lost things If the item is simply lost, removal of the speaker is not desired, so that should go in (b). If the item is stolen, how long do you need to track it before you report it to the police? For me it would be less than 3 days, when the alarm starts beeping. So removal isn't helpful there either. Apple should make it nonremovable.
- _nalply 5y ago> If the item is simply lost, removal of the speaker is not desired, so that should go in (b). Stimmt! You are right. When someone lost the thing there's no conflict of interest. > Apple should make it nonremovable. If Apple was my own company I also would make it nonremovable because I wouldn't want to be held responsible for enabling stalking. Edit: I misunderstood parent first.
- neolog 5y ago> Additionally, what about Deaf people being stalked? They can't hear the Airtags. I'm curious do you think strangers would notify you if an AirTag was beeping in your bag and you didn't notice, or would you have to rely on trusted people?
- loxias 5y agoPretty ballsy, involving the police. That could have gone sideways, glad it worked out this time.
- phendrenad2 5y agoI like how if you look on google street view, the e-bike shop wasn't there last time the google street view car drove through. Pop up, sell some stolen bikes, and then drift to a new location when too many people complain?
- readonthegoapp 5y agoI don't understand what the plan was either the first time or second time -- it happened to be with the cops, but does that matter? Person was going to go to some apartment building and planning to...knock on doors? But not? But then they saw a scooter shop nextdoor? Whut?
- timonoko 5y agoNon-Apple solution: An ESP8266 which opens Wifi-station "STOLEN_BICYCLE_owner@hotmail". But only for few minutes everyday at 9:11 . Should last for years with small battery. You can go hunting yourself or hope somebody else sees it. If you manage to connect to this network, you can connect to 192.168.1.11 and turn it permanently on/off and also turn audible beep on, for final pinpointin. And now that the ESP wakes up everyday, it could also look for public Wifis and send and receive emails. From the Wifi-providers name you can get a rough idea of the location.
- abraae 5y agoRay Ozzie's new venture was on HN a couple of days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28051005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28051005 A $50 board with ten years free connectivity in 150 countries. Perhaps a better candidate than an esp32.
- timonoko 5y agoMy solution is basically $1. $50 is more than my bicycles are worth.
- thunfischbrot 5y agoIf you value your time as $0 per hour and get free hardware?
- timonoko 5y agoTakes about 10 minutes to design the program. Thereafter you can copy it to new devices in few seconds. Only difference between customers would be the time of day when it turns on. Time is short so that crook has no change to spot it herself. In most neighborhoods you already know where to look for stolen bikes.
- MaxikCZ 5y agoI got my first ESP this year. Just getting the IDE set up, testing the first demo project and overally getting accustomed to it took me half a day, if not more. Saying the design takes 10 min is only true if you already sunk tens of hours into the ecosystem. Sure, if you got the tools and spent time learning it (and dont count it towards the final cost) you can do it cheaply with ESP. For many people going with $50 board thats gonna trully 5 min setup out of the box can actually be cheaper
- unixhero 5y agoThis is hilarious.
- ChrisArchitect 5y agothis recent trend of stories about people taking things into their own hands with the help of AirTags to go on a vigilante search for their stolen bikes, cars etc, is concerning not to mention dangerous. This guy took cops along, good call. Another one I read last week where somebody went to find their stolen car I thought was nuts to go to a random place and try to 'steal your car back'. I mean even in this e-bike story the store employees were threating guy with gun fingers etc. I know it's hard to get help from law enforcement and it feels necessary to do it yourself but there's more than a small chance this doesn't end well in many circumstances.