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It irks me that the onus of not being tracked is on the "target" themselves. Further, there's no protection if you have no smartphone but are in a dense popula

It irks me that the onus of not being tracked is on the "target" themselves. Further, there's no protection if you have no smartphone but are in a dense population area surrounded by devices that are part of this surveillance network. There is no aspect of this that is privacy friendly except for the hand waving.

mikestew 5y ago
There’s protection even if you’re standing there naked (except for the AirTag, of course, that has been secretly duct-taped to your buttocks): if the paired phone isn’t around, the AirTag makes noise. I can confirm this because my spouse is currently out of town, and I’ve grabbed her RV keys a couple of times to put stuff in the RV. And every time I pick the keys up, the AirTag goes off. It eventually shuts up just shy of my threshold of looking for a way to turn it off. (Or I could just make sure to grab my keys instead of hers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
- cianmm 5y ago
  You can remove the battery pretty easily thankfully, if it’s annoying you. https://found.apple.com/airtag/disable# https://found.apple.com/airtag/disable#
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  It is trivial to damage airtag to disable the dynamic. So a committed stalker will do it without difficulty.
  - mwint 5y ago
    At some point, a committed stalker has access to lots of other options for stalking that are easier than the AirTag game.
    - nullc 5y ago
      What other options allow them to embed a tiny almost invisible device in a piece of clothing or a toy and learn its location from anywhere in the world? GPS trackers are larger, require a fair amount of power (big battery), don't work well indoors, and require cellular service.
      - mwint 5y ago
        I was thinking about this - if I were a stalker, I wouldn’t bother with any physical device. I’d just add myself (or an innocuous looking account) to “share my location” on their phone. The non-HN public would probably never notice, and it wouldn’t be too hard to get someone’s unlocked phone (especially in an abusive-relationship scenario)
        nullc 5y ago
        In cases where you can get access to the phone, sure. But these trackers mean that you can give a stuffed animal to your favorite streaming star at a conference (or sent one in the post to their mailbox service) and then learn where they live... and you can do so with a few minutes effort and a few dollars in cost above the toy. If you know you're at risk you can protect your phone. I think the threat from these apple-powered trackers is much more severe, but it's true that these sorts of risks still exist without them.
- UncleEntity 5y ago
  > There’s protection even if you’re standing there naked … if the paired phone isn’t around, the AirTag makes noise. Unless someone piggybacks on Apple’s find my network using their own hardware. I read the specification and turned my laptop into an airtag clone one day I was particularly bored, really isn’t complicated.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    > I read the specification and turned my laptop into an airtag clone one day I was particularly bored This is believable. > really isn’t complicated. This isn't.

mikestew 5y ago

There’s protection even if you’re standing there naked (except for the AirTag, of course, that has been secretly duct-taped to your buttocks): if the paired phone isn’t around, the AirTag makes noise. I can confirm this because my spouse is currently out of town, and I’ve grabbed her RV keys a couple of times to put stuff in the RV. And every time I pick the keys up, the AirTag goes off. It eventually shuts up just shy of my threshold of looking for a way to turn it off. (Or I could just make sure to grab my keys instead of hers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

cianmm 5y ago
You can remove the battery pretty easily thankfully, if it’s annoying you. https://found.apple.com/airtag/disable# https://found.apple.com/airtag/disable#
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
It is trivial to damage airtag to disable the dynamic. So a committed stalker will do it without difficulty.
- mwint 5y ago
  At some point, a committed stalker has access to lots of other options for stalking that are easier than the AirTag game.
  - nullc 5y ago
    What other options allow them to embed a tiny almost invisible device in a piece of clothing or a toy and learn its location from anywhere in the world? GPS trackers are larger, require a fair amount of power (big battery), don't work well indoors, and require cellular service.
    - mwint 5y ago
      I was thinking about this - if I were a stalker, I wouldn’t bother with any physical device. I’d just add myself (or an innocuous looking account) to “share my location” on their phone. The non-HN public would probably never notice, and it wouldn’t be too hard to get someone’s unlocked phone (especially in an abusive-relationship scenario)
      - nullc 5y ago
        In cases where you can get access to the phone, sure. But these trackers mean that you can give a stuffed animal to your favorite streaming star at a conference (or sent one in the post to their mailbox service) and then learn where they live... and you can do so with a few minutes effort and a few dollars in cost above the toy. If you know you're at risk you can protect your phone. I think the threat from these apple-powered trackers is much more severe, but it's true that these sorts of risks still exist without them.
UncleEntity 5y ago
> There’s protection even if you’re standing there naked … if the paired phone isn’t around, the AirTag makes noise. Unless someone piggybacks on Apple’s find my network using their own hardware. I read the specification and turned my laptop into an airtag clone one day I was particularly bored, really isn’t complicated.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > I read the specification and turned my laptop into an airtag clone one day I was particularly bored This is believable. > really isn’t complicated. This isn't.