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Apple AirTags Being Used by Thieves to Steal Cars in York Region
- ab_testing 5y agoTitle and story seem exaggerated. Yes, you can place an airtag or any other gps tracking device on anybody's car parked out in the open. But that does not lead to stealing. The actual act of stealing is when you break into the car using any means - mechanical or electrical and then drive away with the car. And that stealing action does not involve the airtag at all. The vulnerability lies with the electronic keys used by the car manufacturers - yet rather than blaming them for lax security, the article chooses to focus on the airtag.
- kadoban 5y agoDoesn't change that the airtags are apparantly a helpful part of the theives' toolkit. Being able to track your target to a quiet place, with little/no effort, is huge.
- e44858 5y agoMost other GPS tracking devices have a SIM card that can easily let law enforcement identify the thieves. They also cost a lot. Airtags are anonymous and cheap.
- colejohnson66 5y agoThey’re linked to an iCloud account. That’s not anonymous.
- olliej 5y agoI presume they’ve been using tiles earlier then - the difference is Ios notifies you within a couple of hours if an unknown AirTag is travelling with you.
- kadoban 5y agoWhich is great except not everyone has/wants an Apple phone, and everyone else is apparantly free game.
- olliej 5y agoI mean that the AirTags on cars were only noticed because of this feature, and similar tracking with Tile, etc haven't been noticed before
- josephcsible 5y agoDon't other similar trackers only work if you're within a few hundred feet?
- olliej 5y agoI assumed they actually had range because otherwise they're not hugely useful? I recall that people were saying AirTags were just Tile, so maybe they are more functional? This is a real (not intended to be sarcastic or anything) Q as I haven't used Tiles at all.
- philth_ 5y agoAirTags are able to leverage all the iOS devices in the world which gives them a major advantage over Tile in terms of tracking reliability. Airtags seem to be a major step forward for the “internet of things.” Although this article seems like exaggeration, it’ll be interesting to see how Apple handles situations where their trackers are being used maliciously… (possibly adjusting what they’ve already implemented with alerts after x amount of time of a foreign airtag tracking you)
- philth_ 5y agoSeems like a good problem for Apple to have where their AirTags are reliable, convenient and affordable enough that even thieves are using them.