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Do you mean that every Apple device in the world acts as a proxy to forward Bluetooth requests from nearby (off) devices containing their location, automaticall

by nojs 5y ago

Do you mean that every Apple device in the world acts as a proxy to forward Bluetooth requests from nearby (off) devices containing their location, automatically? E.g my laptop is pinging data to Apple about random nearby phones all the time that it sees with Bluetooth?

Jtsummers 5y ago
Unless they opt out of it, yes. Which is pretty easy to do, pretty sure it's an option during initial device configuration, but regardless it's in the system settings. Which is pretty easy to navigate. There's even a search option at the top to help you find it instead of navigating to the setting.
- xg15 5y ago
  If you know about it.
  - anchpop 5y ago
    you have to opt in when setting up a new device, and I think when updating to the OS version that enabled it
    - judge2020 5y ago
      It jumps off of general Find My functionality, so pretty much anyone that has BT enabled, and doesn't want their phone to be sellable when stolen, will act as a proxy node.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      Maybe I missed declining a prompt in setup, but this latest feature was opt-out, automatically enabled after a software update, and only notified me once, the first time I powered off the phone after updating. To disable the feature, I had to go four levels deep in Settings, with the last two levels having seemingly unrelated names, disable a toggle, and accept a misleading confirmation prompt.
notjesse 5y ago
Yes, essentially.
Gigachad 5y ago
Not only a proxy. The other random devices use their known location to add to the data to show where the device was found. It’s all encrypted with the key of the lost device owner so apple can not read it.
olliej 5y ago
And all of the data is encrypted so that no one other than the actual device owner can get any of the location information for their device. No one else, including apple can locate a device using the find my network.

by nojs 5y ago

Jtsummers 5y ago

Unless they opt out of it, yes. Which is pretty easy to do, pretty sure it's an option during initial device configuration, but regardless it's in the system settings. Which is pretty easy to navigate. There's even a search option at the top to help you find it instead of navigating to the setting.

xg15 5y ago
If you know about it.
- anchpop 5y ago
  you have to opt in when setting up a new device, and I think when updating to the OS version that enabled it
  - judge2020 5y ago
    It jumps off of general Find My functionality, so pretty much anyone that has BT enabled, and doesn't want their phone to be sellable when stolen, will act as a proxy node.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Maybe I missed declining a prompt in setup, but this latest feature was opt-out, automatically enabled after a software update, and only notified me once, the first time I powered off the phone after updating. To disable the feature, I had to go four levels deep in Settings, with the last two levels having seemingly unrelated names, disable a toggle, and accept a misleading confirmation prompt.

notjesse 5y ago

Yes, essentially.

Gigachad 5y ago

Not only a proxy. The other random devices use their known location to add to the data to show where the device was found. It’s all encrypted with the key of the lost device owner so apple can not read it.

olliej 5y ago

And all of the data is encrypted so that no one other than the actual device owner can get any of the location information for their device. No one else, including apple can locate a device using the find my network.