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I totally acknowledge that. They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian

I totally acknowledge that. They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian measures. I don't even think you have to go to China. Any sufficiently motivated person can strap a GPS hat on a Raspberry Pi and make their own tracker, or do the same out of pedestrian electronic parts. My goal is merely to try to drastically cut down on the more casual "I'd pay $20 to track my wife/SO/friend/whatever" style stalking that AirTags and the like enable, as well as giving victims an easier recourse in the event that a more knowledgeable or motivated adversary targets them. Tracking someone without their knowledge would give a restraining order, and tracking them after that would violate the restraining order which is a crime in all states afaik, and a felony in some of them. It won't outright stop people, but it at least gives victims some teeth to fight back with.

kazinator 5y ago
I suspect that the market will be flooded with this stuff in a couple of years, in a way that is impossible to regulate.
rootusrootus 5y ago
> They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian measures. It boils down to the age old question about why make regulations that only ever effect people who are law abiding to begin with. Which isn't an argument against all regulation, but more of a question about what regulation actually hits the desired goal. Right now any actually nefarious stalker will just get the $25 GPS tracker, put a decent battery on it, and stick it to the bottom of the car. They're not going to use an AirTag that is easily traced back to them and stands a good chance of notifying their target of the tracking. The kinds of stalkers who use AirTags are the low effort losers.

kazinator 5y ago

I suspect that the market will be flooded with this stuff in a couple of years, in a way that is impossible to regulate.

rootusrootus 5y ago

> They're not designed to stop electronic stalking at all costs; I can't really find a way to do that without extremely authoritarian measures. It boils down to the age old question about why make regulations that only ever effect people who are law abiding to begin with. Which isn't an argument against all regulation, but more of a question about what regulation actually hits the desired goal. Right now any actually nefarious stalker will just get the $25 GPS tracker, put a decent battery on it, and stick it to the bottom of the car. They're not going to use an AirTag that is easily traced back to them and stands a good chance of notifying their target of the tracking. The kinds of stalkers who use AirTags are the low effort losers.