4 ms·

Not to disagree with your overall point, but on #2 magnets work well for this and there are a lot of “hide-a-key” type things on the market that are often used

by dpeck 5y ago

Not to disagree with your overall point, but on #2 magnets work well for this and there are a lot of “hide-a-key” type things on the market that are often used in wheel wells by people who have a history of locking their keys in their car.

hankman86 5y ago
Good point, but may I add 5) AirTags are a very expensive way of stalking someone. Surely, there may be some creeps willing to put up this sort of money. But some random guy who sees her on a night out and who happens to have an AirTag with attached magnet with him? And if that was indeed the case, wouldn’t there be some pretext to this, like someone hitting on her that night and she turned him away? She doesn’t mention anything in this regard. So no, this story doesn’t line up and looks more like cheap attention grabbing at the expensive of a real problem with Apple’s AirTags.
- UncleEntity 5y ago
  Back in my cab driving days I would occasionally pick up women from a shelter (for medical appointments and whatnot) and some of the stories they told me about their stalker exes make a $30 investment basically nothing. The amount of effort they would put into stalking is mind blowing.
- filoleg 5y ago
  > AirTags are a very expensive way of stalking someone I don't know your frame of reference in terms of what counts as expensive here, but an AirTag just $29 if bought individually or $25 if bought in a 4-pack. $25 would cover 2 drinks on a night out here (a major west coast US city) at best (and that's without accounting for tax+tip+etc.). Plenty of stalkers out there are definitely willing to spend way more than just the cost of ~2 drinks, when it comes to stalking someone. I agree overall that plenty of things in the story don't add up, but the AirTag cost imo isn't one of them.
- ascagnel_ 5y ago
  Apple knows who owns any given tag, even if they don't know who located the tag, and an iPhone is required to set up the tag. If they hadn't thrown the tag away, looking up the associated ID would have been trivial. I'm not sure if Apple's system will let you pair a tag to a phone that isn't on a cellular network, but if not, that's yet another point of identity for a potential thief or stalker. So the potential thief/stalker is using a cellular handset that can identify them on an account that can identify them to use a $25 tracker that can identify them. Or, they've stolen someone else's phone, assumed that person won't trigger the lost phone kill-switch in time for them to complete whatever task they've set out for themselves, paired a tag to the stolen phone (which I believe requires the account password and phone passcode to do, but it's been a while since I've done it), and then tracked the victim. It seems like a massive risk compared to buying a plain GPS tracker & pre-paid SIM, but then again, criminals don't tend to be the smartest.

by dpeck 5y ago

hankman86 5y ago

Good point, but may I add 5) AirTags are a very expensive way of stalking someone. Surely, there may be some creeps willing to put up this sort of money. But some random guy who sees her on a night out and who happens to have an AirTag with attached magnet with him? And if that was indeed the case, wouldn’t there be some pretext to this, like someone hitting on her that night and she turned him away? She doesn’t mention anything in this regard. So no, this story doesn’t line up and looks more like cheap attention grabbing at the expensive of a real problem with Apple’s AirTags.

UncleEntity 5y ago
Back in my cab driving days I would occasionally pick up women from a shelter (for medical appointments and whatnot) and some of the stories they told me about their stalker exes make a $30 investment basically nothing. The amount of effort they would put into stalking is mind blowing.
filoleg 5y ago
> AirTags are a very expensive way of stalking someone I don't know your frame of reference in terms of what counts as expensive here, but an AirTag just $29 if bought individually or $25 if bought in a 4-pack. $25 would cover 2 drinks on a night out here (a major west coast US city) at best (and that's without accounting for tax+tip+etc.). Plenty of stalkers out there are definitely willing to spend way more than just the cost of ~2 drinks, when it comes to stalking someone. I agree overall that plenty of things in the story don't add up, but the AirTag cost imo isn't one of them.
ascagnel_ 5y ago
Apple knows who owns any given tag, even if they don't know who located the tag, and an iPhone is required to set up the tag. If they hadn't thrown the tag away, looking up the associated ID would have been trivial. I'm not sure if Apple's system will let you pair a tag to a phone that isn't on a cellular network, but if not, that's yet another point of identity for a potential thief or stalker. So the potential thief/stalker is using a cellular handset that can identify them on an account that can identify them to use a $25 tracker that can identify them. Or, they've stolen someone else's phone, assumed that person won't trigger the lost phone kill-switch in time for them to complete whatever task they've set out for themselves, paired a tag to the stolen phone (which I believe requires the account password and phone passcode to do, but it's been a while since I've done it), and then tracked the victim. It seems like a massive risk compared to buying a plain GPS tracker & pre-paid SIM, but then again, criminals don't tend to be the smartest.