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How the Apple AirTag became a stalker’s gift

101 points by Freak_NL 4y ago

samatman 4y ago
It's not possible to design a tracking device which isn't at least somewhat dual-use. It seems relevant that the most shocking story they could put together was about someone who found the AirTag and got a protection order against their stalker. That is, in fact, how it's supposed to work. If you have an iPhone, you can find it quite exactly by playing 'hot cold', that being one of the main intended uses, emerging your keys from couch cushions. If you don't, you do have to install an app. I guess the alternative to that is for Google to build this in? More than evidence that stalkers will use AirTags, this article demonstrates that it's a good way to get caught red-handed stalking someone, with tangible physical evidence that a court will respect and understand. If I were out there offering advice to stalkers, I'd tell them to use an AirTag, because: fuck stalkers, they deserve to get caught. You'd be sickened how many times these people can jump out of the bushes at their prey before the police pay attention.
- SadTrombone 4y ago
  > It seems relevant that the most shocking story they could put together was about someone who found the AirTag and got a protection order against their stalker. An AirTag has already been used to track down and murder someone: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/woman-airtag-track-boyfriend-death/7632348001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/woman-...
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    The AirTag was used to track someone. A vehicle was used to murder them. I might agree with the framing if it was more like a person was in witness security, and AirTags were used to discover their location and then execute an assassination.
    - SadTrombone 4y ago
      > The AirTag was used to track someone. A vehicle was used to murder them. I don't think anyone who clicked the article (besides you perhaps) was expecting the AirTag to be the actual murder weapon. It's an indisputable fact that the killer used an AirTag to track and follow her victim to his destination and then murder him, I'm not quite sure why you're bringing up WitSec or "framing".
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Because the wording makes it seem like the murderer used the AirTag with the motive to murder. If the girlfriend had used the AirTag to track the boyfriend and found him planning a surprise party for her or something, then the AirTag served the same role, which makes the AirTag superfluous to the murder part of this story. Edit: another way of putting it is if the girlfriend simply followed the boyfriend’s car, the end result was the same. But an article would not have been written titled “Woman used a vehicle to track boyfriend, then ran over and killed him, police say”
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        SadTrombone 4y ago
        The problem with tailing your boyfriend in your car is that your boyfriend tends to notice you tailing him in your car, since he knows what you and your car look like. Using an AirTag completely negates that. It's a lot easier to tail someone without being caught when you can wait for them to reach their final destination and just go straight there instead without ever being visible to the victim. If you're unwilling to even acknowledge that tracking someone via AirTag is much simpler versus physically tailing them around town then we're just wasting time here.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        > If you're unwilling to even acknowledge that tracking someone via AirTag is much simpler versus physically tailing them around town then we're just wasting time here. I specifically acknowledged the AirTag was used to track, and obviously it makes tracking easier. I objected to the notion that an AirTag was involved in the murder, since it was not premeditated.
- jraph 4y ago
  > I guess the alternative to that is for Google to build this in? Probably better, but still not sufficient. It will probably take years before Android users get this builtin, and not everybody has a smartphone anyway. I don't currently use one. If you really want to avoid tracking you may also want to avoid having a phone with you too. Both things enter in contradiction. I guess Pandora's box is already open anyway. AirTags are not the only device with this feature if I understand correctly. There's probably no coming back to a world where there's no risk for you that someone puts such a device to track you. I don't know what is the solution, other than legal. I guess my computer has Bluetooth/Wifi and could be used to detect such devices when they use Bluetooth since I'm using it for the most part of the day and all my stuff is within the Bluetooth range. But that's because I use a computer everyday. I still think Apple should not have made this mainstream. If this kind of device already existed, the idea of using them was probably less in the mind of regular people and Apple's product is probably very convenient and possibly affordable enough. Obviously, I understand why this kind of thing is useful for people who keep losing their stuff, I'm one of them. Still, I'm not sure it was worth it.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    Apple didn’t really make them mainstream. In fact Apple were really late to the game themselves. Tile and Samsung have similar products, without similar measures for example. Tile was hugely available at many big retail stores.
    - giaour 4y ago
      Apple’s turning on Find My Phone by default arguably did more to normalize tracking than anything else. Tile (and other niche products) were largely seen as nerdy and an extravagance at best, but AirTags were seen by the public as a logical extension of Find My Phone.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Yes. You can simultaneously correctly say that other trackers (and ways to track someone) existed before AirTags and that most tools can be used for both good and bad and... Also say that AirTags almost certainly made tracking more mainstream and on more people's radar.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  AirTags have a lot of privacy protections. The stalkers were only caught because they were dumb enough to use their own identifiable Apple IDs. Just creating one with a fake protonmail email will make it quite difficult, though you will also have to purchase an iOS device just for that. Still not unthinkable. You can even build your own tracker for some apple's network: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
Traubenfuchs 4y ago
To improve surveillance and tracking outcomes I recommend removing the AirTag speaker and to hide two or more AirTags with the target. AirTags are a boon to private surveillance.
- projektfu 4y ago
  I'm imagining driving people crazy like in the end of "The Conversation".
  - Traubenfuchs 4y ago
    Besides tracking, AirTags can also be used to drive people crazy and instill fear. An advanced tactic is to put an AirTag you broke inside in front of the real AirTag, a decoy so to speak. The target will find it and assume they are no longer tracked. I wonder how far up I am on the top AirTag buyers list worldwide.
onion2k 4y ago
Airtags are a tool, and like most tools they can be used in ways that they're not supposed to be used. That doesn't make the tool a bad thing. In most of these cases the stalker could have used something else - a smartphone running an app, a Raspberry Pi running on a battery, something specifically designed for tracking someone - to achieve the same result. The fact Apple makes it hard to get advice if you find one and suspect it's being used in a nefarious way is a problem which would be trivial for Apple to resolve though. They really ought to support users far more than they do.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 There is extensive information available halfway down starting with section “Find the unknown AirTag, AirPods, or Find My network accessory”. The above was the second link when I searched “apple find AirTag following” in duck duck go. Below is the 3rd link: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-and-unwanted-tracking/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-a...
MForster 4y ago
Can somebody explain how the stalking actually works? As I understand, the wireless technology is short-range? How does the stalker know where the tag is if they're not next to it?
- detaro 4y ago
  They don't need to be next to it, any iPhone nearby the tag will report on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag
  - MForster 4y ago
    And the iPhone will share that information globally without asking for permission? I can see how that is a privacy concern.
    - pb7 4y ago
      It's opt in.
      - MForster 4y ago
        So, enough iPhone users opt in to surveillance to make this a globally useful method for stalking? Wow.
        mccorrinall 4y ago
        Enough users opt in to help other people find their forgotten keys :)
        ShamelessC 4y ago
        That is an incredibly bad faith interpretation of what’s going on. I don’t have to cite statistics to know that users aren’t “opting in to surveillance” - that’s the clickbait version lacking any nuance. In reality, Apple has built up enough trust and good will with their customers that they not only gladly enable a feature that makes it possible to retrieve lost or stolen items, but they even pay for these aforementioned AirTags. Whether or not that’s wise is another matter, but come on - don’t blame the victim.
dewey 4y ago
There's so many battery powered GPS trackers (with even longer battery life) and these don't have any "reporting" mechanism. I don't really understand the criticism against AirTags. Just because they are affordable, or because Apple drama brings many clicks?
- rini17 4y ago
  I don't understand, you say the reporting mechanism mitigates all the issues? Airtags are convenient, user friendly. So they are widely used even if there might be technically better alternatives. They would not work as well without half of the planet having iphones. So criticizing Apple is fair.
- Freak_NL 4y ago
  Read the article and you'll notice that the AirTag gave the stalker plausible deniability. You don't accidentally lose a GPS-tracker — find one of these in your car and you'll know someone is stalking/tracking you — but for an AirTag (or similar product) it's much easier to claim that the stalker uses them for their own possessions, and that they simply lost that one. The stalker in the article (partly) got away with that excuse: he claimed to have just lost the AirTag when he put the child seat back in the car of his ex with whom he has shared custody.
  - mgoetzke 4y ago
    This time. But it was reported, found, identified to him. With another tracker they might never have found out.
    - oxfordmale 4y ago
      Unless you have criminal connections it is hard to purchase a GPS tracker without leaving a trail. In this case the ex husband was a clear suspect.
      - dagmx 4y ago
        Why does it matter about covering your purchasing tracks? I presume most stalkers believe their targets won’t find the device. If it was found, how are you going to easily know what it is and then identify the owner? AirTags don’t let you cover any tracks at all. A GPS tracker is easy to buy, without any nefarious connections.
IndySun 4y ago
An ill thought out product from Apple. Because their tagline should be "Our business is pretending to care." Back to the story. By default iOS "Find My" tends to be on when setting up a new phone with an Apple id. If it is not on, or switched off, does the 'stalkee' still get that notification that they're being tracked?
- samatman 4y ago
  Are you asking if a phone which has specifically been told to ignore AirTags will see AirTags? Why are you asking this question? The answer borders on the tautological.
  - Liquid_Fire 4y ago
    The functionality to help track AirTags by reporting them to Apple could presumably be distinct from the functionality that detects if there is a new tag following you (for one, the latter wouldn't require reporting any device locations to Apple), so I don't see how the question requires a tautological answer. Does the setting actually say "ignore AirTags", or does it say "help track other people's devices" or something else? Genuine question, as I don't have an iPhone.
    - elondaits 4y ago
      The functionality is a toggle labeled "Find My network" with the description "Participating in the Find My network lets you locate this iPhone even when it's offline." As I understand it, if you want to track your things you need to opt-in into the "Find My network", which also means you will relay information about nearby devices. It's not specific to Airtags... as the "Find My" network helps locate iPads, Macbooks and even Airpods. ... However, I presume the functionality that lets you know that there's an AirTag following you is separate, since it has nothing to do with the network, but rather with the iPhone detecting that there's an Airtag traveling along with it. I don't see a way to opt-out of that... but probably it stops working if you disable Bluetooth completely, from the Settings app.
  - IndySun 4y ago
lapcat 4y ago
What makes AirTags different from other tracking devices: 1) AirTags take advantage of Apple's global "Find My" network of hundreds of millions of Apple iPhones. No other tracking device has this capability. 2) AirTags are mass produced and mass marketed by the world's largest corporation, whose every move is followed by the news media. No other tracking device has this capability either. 3) Battery life is excellent, more than a year. AirTags are inexpensive, easy to use, powerful, and pervasive, all due to Apple. For most consumer devices, these would be things to celebrate, but not in this particular case. Apple has "revolutionized" stalking.
- int0x2e 4y ago
  Apple is super popular in the US, but in the rest of the world, and especially in non western countries, Google (Android) and Samsung have a much larger network...
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Google (Android) and Samsung have a much larger network Network of what? They have more phones, but I'm not aware of any tracking network or tracking devices sold by them.
    - scrlk 4y ago
      Samsung has the Galaxy SmartTag: https://www.samsung.com/uk/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smarttag-black-ei-t5300bbegeu/ https://www.samsung.com/uk/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smartta...
      - lapcat 4y ago
        Ah, you're right, Samsung does operate a tracking network, Galaxy Find, though it's Samsung-only and still smaller than Apple's network: https://www.theverge.com/22570161/apple-airtag-samsung-smarttag-tile-pro-bluetooth-tracker-review-test-comparison https://www.theverge.com/22570161/apple-airtag-samsung-smart...
- 4y ago
ghusto 4y ago
I have to be the voice of unpopular opinion here, and say that the reasoning behind the sentiment "It's only a tool. The tool can be used in a bad way, but that doesn't make the tool a bad thing", glosses over some nuance which would otherwise make it suspect reasoning. A hammer is a tool. You can use a hammer to kill somebody so effectively, that you could argue to an alien who knows nothing of hammers, that they're actually murder weapons. That doesn't make hammers inherently bad. An Airtag is also a tool, but it is different in an important way for this comparison; it works by using the internet, thereby providing one degree of separation from the user and the victim. This single degree of separation has an important psychological effect on the user; that of a false sense of security. Some proof of this, is the fact that people continue to use Airtags for stalking, despite the fact that they know they can be caught easily. It's a psychological safety that they allow to trick themselves with, rooted in how we work as human beings; "physical things are real, screens and ephemeral things aren't". So yes, the Airtag is also a tool, but it's likelihood to be used by people (so inclined) for stalking, is higher than somebody using a physical object inappropriately (and illegally).
- mgoetzke 4y ago
  The likelihood of them being removed from the stalker pool is also higher.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Assuming that the cops recognize the danger and actually do their goddamn job. Unfortunately, many cops barely know how to operate a computer, way too many outright disregard cases where women are the victims (just look at the various rape kit backlog scandals to see how little the cops care), or have the knowledge on how to correctly request data from Apple, Samsung, Tile or whomever, and then how to use these data to get to the identity of the stalker. On top of that, way too many people reflexively remove the AirTag or whatever tracker on their own - the correct way is to call the police which can at least use a sealed evidence bag so that fingerprints and DNA remains aren't compromised.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
andrewstuart 4y ago
I have one on my cat's collar and it is absolutely fantastic for when he runs away. I just go grab him wherever he is and bring him back. Absolutely fantastic - very glad of the Airtag.
- potamic 4y ago
  Cat must be like, sob! how do I keep getting found out?
MontyCarloHall 4y ago
It’s impossible to design a wireless tracker that both can a) be used to surreptitiously track and recover stolen items and b) not be abusable by stalkers. It’s probably a good thing that Apple is sacrificing a) for b), but it does suck that I can no longer hide an AirTag on my bike and have a robust way of tracking it if it gets stolen, since a thief will now be promptly alerted that there is a hidden tracking device on board the bike.
- mvanbaak 4y ago
  The latest vanmoof bikes have one built in. Thief will not be able to get it out without breaking the electronics of the bike, rendering it into a very heavy no-fun to use ebike without motor/smart features. I LOVE how this prevents my bike from being stolen.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Just because you know where it is doesn't prevent it from being stolen--and you not able to get it back.
    - mvanbaak 4y ago
      Thieves are also not that dumb. They know the owner and the police will know where the bike is. They prefer to leave it at that. Sure, if the police wont help you, all this doesn't matter, I know. Luckily where I live the cops still want to help the people.
cainxinth 4y ago
The high rate of lost luggage by airlines is AirTag’s killer app. It’s becoming standard practice to track your own luggage.
- ghaff 4y ago
  At least United has a tracking app that seems to work pretty well these days. But, yes, not that I check luggage a lot but I do throw an AirTag into checked luggage and it seems to do a good job of telling you if your luggage has made the plane/connection.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    The value is in having objective information that an airline/airport/airport employee cannot lie or feign ignorance about.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      I'm not concerned about them lying so much as the bag just not being scanned for some reason. I'm not really that concerned about their computer lying to me (in the sense of providing information it knows to be wrong).
      - michaelt 4y ago
        I think the issue is: 1. If the airline had kept track of your bag properly, it wouldn't have got lost in the first place (At least for a literal enough definition of 'lost') so the moment I land without my luggage, their data is already suspect. 2. The airline might not expose its data to you - or might only do so after waiting in a phone queue for 30 minutes, or only in a very low-resolution form.
        ghaff 4y ago
        re: 2 United's app does give you the information directly although obviously their information could be wrong for some reason. In any case, an independent source of information is always good because if the two sources agree, you can be pretty sure of where the bag is actually located.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
eunos 4y ago
> Apple has stressed that the company takes the issue of stalking very seriously, which is why it designed the alert system that appears on your iPhone if an AirTag not registered to you is seen moving with you over time So if you don't use iPhone then you wouldnt know if you are being tracked?
- garblegarble 4y ago
  They start beeping once moved if they've been separated from their owner for a time (8-24 hours), Apple also makes an app for Android[1] that will let you find nearby AirTags (and has a procedure via reporting the device to the police to unmask the owner) It's still not ideal (and I'm not conviced small cheap standalone trackers are worth the risks compared to Find My built in to devices), but Apple do provide a lot more tools to protect people than other tracking device companies... and as a result an AirTag is a way worse choice within this category for stalkers from risk of getting caught. 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trackerdetect&hl=en_GB&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > They start beeping once moved if they've been separated from their owner for a time (8-24 hours) An AirTag speaker can be removed in a matter of minutes. There are a bunch of instructional videos on YouTube.
    - garblegarble 4y ago
      At the risk of sounding like I'm defending a product I don't particularly like, of course somebody can tamper with the electronics, but even without the speaker alert, an iOS device will warn about an AirTag moving with you, and the Android app can still find nearby tags (and I'm sure someone has built and released an Android app that can scan in the background too - Find My is just using standard BLE after all). Once discovered & the police are involved the tag can be linked back to the owner with a nice paper trail that can be presented in court... so it's still a worse device for a stalker to use. They'd be much better served using a cheap GPS tracker[1] with a disposable SIM card... there are heaps of them available. You can buy both domestically and internationally from aliexpress, and they're cheap. 1: https://www.speakit.co.uk/products/speak-it-premier-mini-gps-gprs-magnetic-real-time-tacker-requires-sim-card https://www.speakit.co.uk/products/speak-it-premier-mini-gps...
paxys 4y ago
Other than the stalking aspect (which is very real) it's crazy to me that Apple casually built the largest surveillance network in the world and tech-minded people, who are usually up in arms about stuff way milder than this, are actually cheering them on. Is it because of the Apple logo (I remember a million negative comments about Amazon's similar mesh network)? Or because it makes your life 0.01% easier? Is it really worth it to carry a tool in your pocket 24x7 that governments, stalkers, investigators or anyone else can use for their own ends without you even realizing it?
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  It’s end-to-end encrypted, so the only other devices able to read the location of your phone/AirTag/laptop/etc. are devices that you own. Nobody else—not Apple, not the government—can access your location data in any way. This network used to only exist for iDevices, making it very easy to track down a lost or stolen phone or tablet. People didn’t have any concerns about stalking because it’s not practical to hide a phone to stalk someone (and the battery would only be good for a few days anyway). The game changed when AirTags were introduced, which are both easily concealed and have replaceable batteries that last for years, hence why we’re seeing critical articles like the OP.
  - MForster 4y ago
    Thanks for pointing out the encryption. Would be nice if the original article did explain a bit what's actually going on...
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    > Nobody else—not Apple, not the government—can access your location data in any way. You seriously believe that, do you?
    - InTheArena 4y ago
      Yes. The protocol is fully published - and more then a few acadmeics are trying to earn their PhDs and creds by finding faults in it. Tinfoilism isn't helpful here.
FerretFred 4y ago
Unfortunately, as with many devices, Airtags can be used for bad as well as good. I own a number of them and have attached them to things that are valuable to me, and not just financially. The car is the prime example, but I've also attached one to my dog's harness. He's a rescue Fox Terrier with a prey drive like a missile and no recall skills whatsoever (yet): if he slips his lead somehow we have at least some slight chance of finding where he's run off to. Likewise my waist-mounted hiking bags - if I lose the one that holds my keys or first-aid kit on a long walk I could be in big trouble when I get to my destination. Sadly, the Guardian doesn't mention the positive aspects...
- terrio 4y ago
  - Cederfjard 4y ago
    The GP literally listed several valid usecases?
    - terrio 4y ago
      Valid in comparison to all those apple phones knowing where things are. I never really lost luggage. I never lost anything. How would our radio look like if it becomes the norm to put tags from everyone onto everything?
  - blackoil 4y ago
    > And how did you survive before they existed Like with the most of technology, uncomfortably. I survived before phones, mobile and the Internet. I survived without AC, Car and so many similar things, personally. Now I prefer them and get real benefit from them.
    - terrio 4y ago
      That's a very big Stretch from an airtag to a car.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
"How the hammer became a murder tool" "How the computer helped increase suicide" "How knitting yarn became a strangulation method" "How electricity became a torture method" "How candles caused untold deaths and damage" "How the pencil, landed in the chest, can kill you" We could go on. Every tool has uses and abuses, sometimes extreme. Also, this has been around forever. If I wanted to track someone, I could get a battery-powered GPS tracker with 4G LTE and stick it to their car, or buy a Tile. AirTag attempts to notify people which makes it perhaps among the most least-desirable options. Heck, if I really wanted to track someone I'd just hire a Private Investigator. Edit: And for those saying, one person was killed by an AirTag, look up how many children have been injured in schools from pencils (more than 1,000 per year in California). I'm not calling for banning pencils. You are more likely to die from a pencil than a shark. Likewise, I'm not calling for banning AirTags.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Now, who could have forseen such sinister consequences?! /s (Actually, anyone, even I did [0] ) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27122057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27122057
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Existed forever. Battery-powered GPS trackers, Tile trackers, Private Investigators, buying cell-phone location data, there are plenty of options, and none of those options even bother trying to notify the person being tracked. Sure, AirTag makes it easier... if you trust that nobody with an iPhone comes near it who might be alerted, and the person is an idiot who didn't have plenty of tracking options already available that are superior. Did I mention hammers have been used to smash brains in? And we allow our teenagers to use them!
  - Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
    None of the options you listed offers same autonomous life, cheap price, invasiveness, ubiquitous detection network, and, on top of that, plausible deniability in case you are caught. "Oh that's where my keys ended up! Thanks you, officer!" Also, I admire your audacity in denying reality, dismissing the dangers of technology as negligible right under that article that reports on its malicious use.
    - gjsman-1000 4y ago
      I don't disagree with that it can be dangerous, I disagree on the level of danger. Someone died - yes. Also, 1,000 children are injured in California alone from pencils yearly. You are more likely yourself to die from a pencil than a shark. We're not banning pencils despite children having died from them. I need not go into cars, or how knitting yarn is a strangulation tool, or hammers a murder weapon. Not to mention the incredibly deadly thing called stairs (12,000 deaths yearly, over 1 million ER injuries yearly). We as a society have decided hammers, pencils, stairs, and so forth are safe enough, even for children. Same for AirTags.
rootusrootus 4y ago
If I were a stalker, an AirTag would be pretty low on my list of preferred tracking devices. Easy, sure, but even easier to get caught.
- mc32 4y ago
  Probably right. But don’t underestimate the power of stupidity. Look at how many criminals think they can stick up a bank and get away with it. Stalkers by profile aren’t the stablest people, so this is another item in their arsenal for “conquering” their target.
crhulls 4y ago
I’m the CEO of Life360 which owns Tile. We are exploring a program that would disable anti-stalking features if we could verify someone’s identity to then enable our devices to be used to protect against theft, which is not possible with AirTags (a thief can just scan for your tags). Our belief is that by adding more friction and increasing the risk of punishment we can make these devices far more powerful for the 99.999% of users who are responsible. We don’t want outliers to ruin it for everyone. If a stalker wants to track someone there are inexpensive stealth GPS devices with their own cell connections that allow real-time location - we make them too - but for whatever reason there hasn’t been any negative attention on this side of the location device category. Are there any thoughts or implementation suggestions on this?
- InTheArena 4y ago
  How on earth do you read this article, and then come to the conclusion that the answer is to disable anti-stalking mechanisms (which apple, due to using the UWB and their own protocol has vastly better ones) then your own product? This is the necessary trade off. Long time user of Tiles, and then later airtags - I travel a lot, and I have a tendency to leave my bags, so for me they save me a lot of money. My dog wears one. My kids and wife are bugged constantly with alerts that a unknown device is with them (with my name on it), but that's acceptable because somewhere a jealous ex-partner is using this for ill, or someone is trying to isolate someone for a crime. This is the perception problem. Apple introducing anti-stalker controls with the Airtag's didn't introduce a new problem - it revealed one that was already there.
  - MontyCarloHall 4y ago
    Because theft protection is an extremely compelling use case of trackers. Unfortunately, features that make a compelling anti-theft device (concealability, secrecy) are diametrically opposed to features that make it hard to abuse for stalking purposes. It would be a killer app to somehow have the best of both worlds. I agree that robust authentication is one way to go about this. Perhaps a tracker could have a “stolen” mode, that when enabled disables anti-stalking features but also automatically notifies the police with the identity of the tracker’s owner.
Xx25 4y ago
Was reading about Apple's "Find My" network. This caught my eye: "The traffic sent to Apple by finder devices contains no authentication information in the contents or headers." This allows anyone to write a program and act as a finder device. You can report whatever location you want of the "found" device. Send your stalker to the location of your choice :)
- avnigo 4y ago
  The context of the quote is found here [0]: > In addition to making sure that location information and other data are fully encrypted, participants’ identities remain private from each other and from Apple. I don't know that it matters whether or not there's any authentication information. If you could get your Apple device to misreport its location (would need jailbreaking for iOS probably)[1], maybe you could fool the Find My network into reporting the AirTag is elsewhere. [0]: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-sec6cbc80fd0/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se... [1]: This would likely need to be quite involved, considering location may be determined from a combination of IP, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, etc., although I'd be surprised if there aren't already tools available to do that, especially on macOS.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
I have an AirTag for my dog, it's placed in his harness. My friend looks after him quite often. After a while of getting the alerts it seems it told her she could disable the AirTag. However, I'm pretty sure she did that and all it did was disabled reporting via her iPhone and it works with any iPhone so the disabling part didn't work.
ericzawo 4y ago
I am a car enthusiast, particularly Volkswagen Golfs. And in local VW Facebook Group covering Ontario (that has ~60,000 members), posts about finding rogue Apple Airtags hidden in people's cars show up easily once every two weeks.
- sarchertech 4y ago
  What is it about this group? I'm in many FB groups that large or larger, and I've never seen posts about people finding rogue AirTags.
tzs 4y ago
Do the anti-stalking features of AirTags also apply to iPhones? E.g., will your iPhone alert you if an unknown iPhone is following you like it will if an unknown AirTag is following you?
- thebruce87m 4y ago
  This would make bus, train and plane journeys pretty tedious.
gumby 4y ago
Why AirTag and not Tile? Is it because apple is famous and until they made a tracker nobody had heard of them? Or are they somehow different?

101 points by Freak_NL 4y ago

It's not possible to design a tracking device which isn't at least somewhat dual-use. It seems relevant that the most shocking story they could put together was about someone who found the AirTag and got a protection order against their stalker. That is, in fact, how it's supposed to work. If you have an iPhone, you can find it quite exactly by playing 'hot cold', that being one of the main intended uses, emerging your keys from couch cushions. If you don't, you do have to install an app. I guess the alternative to that is for Google to build this in? More than evidence that stalkers will use AirTags, this article demonstrates that it's a good way to get caught red-handed stalking someone, with tangible physical evidence that a court will respect and understand. If I were out there offering advice to stalkers, I'd tell them to use an AirTag, because: fuck stalkers, they deserve to get caught. You'd be sickened how many times these people can jump out of the bushes at their prey before the police pay attention.

SadTrombone 4y ago
> It seems relevant that the most shocking story they could put together was about someone who found the AirTag and got a protection order against their stalker. An AirTag has already been used to track down and murder someone: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/woman-airtag-track-boyfriend-death/7632348001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/15/woman-...
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  The AirTag was used to track someone. A vehicle was used to murder them. I might agree with the framing if it was more like a person was in witness security, and AirTags were used to discover their location and then execute an assassination.
  - SadTrombone 4y ago
    > The AirTag was used to track someone. A vehicle was used to murder them. I don't think anyone who clicked the article (besides you perhaps) was expecting the AirTag to be the actual murder weapon. It's an indisputable fact that the killer used an AirTag to track and follow her victim to his destination and then murder him, I'm not quite sure why you're bringing up WitSec or "framing".
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Because the wording makes it seem like the murderer used the AirTag with the motive to murder. If the girlfriend had used the AirTag to track the boyfriend and found him planning a surprise party for her or something, then the AirTag served the same role, which makes the AirTag superfluous to the murder part of this story. Edit: another way of putting it is if the girlfriend simply followed the boyfriend’s car, the end result was the same. But an article would not have been written titled “Woman used a vehicle to track boyfriend, then ran over and killed him, police say”
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - SadTrombone 4y ago
        The problem with tailing your boyfriend in your car is that your boyfriend tends to notice you tailing him in your car, since he knows what you and your car look like. Using an AirTag completely negates that. It's a lot easier to tail someone without being caught when you can wait for them to reach their final destination and just go straight there instead without ever being visible to the victim. If you're unwilling to even acknowledge that tracking someone via AirTag is much simpler versus physically tailing them around town then we're just wasting time here.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        > If you're unwilling to even acknowledge that tracking someone via AirTag is much simpler versus physically tailing them around town then we're just wasting time here. I specifically acknowledged the AirTag was used to track, and obviously it makes tracking easier. I objected to the notion that an AirTag was involved in the murder, since it was not premeditated.
jraph 4y ago
> I guess the alternative to that is for Google to build this in? Probably better, but still not sufficient. It will probably take years before Android users get this builtin, and not everybody has a smartphone anyway. I don't currently use one. If you really want to avoid tracking you may also want to avoid having a phone with you too. Both things enter in contradiction. I guess Pandora's box is already open anyway. AirTags are not the only device with this feature if I understand correctly. There's probably no coming back to a world where there's no risk for you that someone puts such a device to track you. I don't know what is the solution, other than legal. I guess my computer has Bluetooth/Wifi and could be used to detect such devices when they use Bluetooth since I'm using it for the most part of the day and all my stuff is within the Bluetooth range. But that's because I use a computer everyday. I still think Apple should not have made this mainstream. If this kind of device already existed, the idea of using them was probably less in the mind of regular people and Apple's product is probably very convenient and possibly affordable enough. Obviously, I understand why this kind of thing is useful for people who keep losing their stuff, I'm one of them. Still, I'm not sure it was worth it.
- dagmx 4y ago
  Apple didn’t really make them mainstream. In fact Apple were really late to the game themselves. Tile and Samsung have similar products, without similar measures for example. Tile was hugely available at many big retail stores.
  - giaour 4y ago
    Apple’s turning on Find My Phone by default arguably did more to normalize tracking than anything else. Tile (and other niche products) were largely seen as nerdy and an extravagance at best, but AirTags were seen by the public as a logical extension of Find My Phone.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Yes. You can simultaneously correctly say that other trackers (and ways to track someone) existed before AirTags and that most tools can be used for both good and bad and... Also say that AirTags almost certainly made tracking more mainstream and on more people's radar.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
AirTags have a lot of privacy protections. The stalkers were only caught because they were dumb enough to use their own identifiable Apple IDs. Just creating one with a fake protonmail email will make it quite difficult, though you will also have to purchase an iOS device just for that. Still not unthinkable. You can even build your own tracker for some apple's network: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack

Traubenfuchs 4y ago

To improve surveillance and tracking outcomes I recommend removing the AirTag speaker and to hide two or more AirTags with the target. AirTags are a boon to private surveillance.

projektfu 4y ago
I'm imagining driving people crazy like in the end of "The Conversation".
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Besides tracking, AirTags can also be used to drive people crazy and instill fear. An advanced tactic is to put an AirTag you broke inside in front of the real AirTag, a decoy so to speak. The target will find it and assume they are no longer tracked. I wonder how far up I am on the top AirTag buyers list worldwide.

onion2k 4y ago

Airtags are a tool, and like most tools they can be used in ways that they're not supposed to be used. That doesn't make the tool a bad thing. In most of these cases the stalker could have used something else - a smartphone running an app, a Raspberry Pi running on a battery, something specifically designed for tracking someone - to achieve the same result. The fact Apple makes it hard to get advice if you find one and suspect it's being used in a nefarious way is a problem which would be trivial for Apple to resolve though. They really ought to support users far more than they do.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 There is extensive information available halfway down starting with section “Find the unknown AirTag, AirPods, or Find My network accessory”. The above was the second link when I searched “apple find AirTag following” in duck duck go. Below is the 3rd link: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-and-unwanted-tracking/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-a...

MForster 4y ago

Can somebody explain how the stalking actually works? As I understand, the wireless technology is short-range? How does the stalker know where the tag is if they're not next to it?

detaro 4y ago
They don't need to be next to it, any iPhone nearby the tag will report on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag
- MForster 4y ago
  And the iPhone will share that information globally without asking for permission? I can see how that is a privacy concern.
  - pb7 4y ago
    It's opt in.
    - MForster 4y ago
      So, enough iPhone users opt in to surveillance to make this a globally useful method for stalking? Wow.
      - mccorrinall 4y ago
        Enough users opt in to help other people find their forgotten keys :)
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        That is an incredibly bad faith interpretation of what’s going on. I don’t have to cite statistics to know that users aren’t “opting in to surveillance” - that’s the clickbait version lacking any nuance. In reality, Apple has built up enough trust and good will with their customers that they not only gladly enable a feature that makes it possible to retrieve lost or stolen items, but they even pay for these aforementioned AirTags. Whether or not that’s wise is another matter, but come on - don’t blame the victim.

dewey 4y ago

There's so many battery powered GPS trackers (with even longer battery life) and these don't have any "reporting" mechanism. I don't really understand the criticism against AirTags. Just because they are affordable, or because Apple drama brings many clicks?

rini17 4y ago
I don't understand, you say the reporting mechanism mitigates all the issues? Airtags are convenient, user friendly. So they are widely used even if there might be technically better alternatives. They would not work as well without half of the planet having iphones. So criticizing Apple is fair.
Freak_NL 4y ago
Read the article and you'll notice that the AirTag gave the stalker plausible deniability. You don't accidentally lose a GPS-tracker — find one of these in your car and you'll know someone is stalking/tracking you — but for an AirTag (or similar product) it's much easier to claim that the stalker uses them for their own possessions, and that they simply lost that one. The stalker in the article (partly) got away with that excuse: he claimed to have just lost the AirTag when he put the child seat back in the car of his ex with whom he has shared custody.
- mgoetzke 4y ago
  This time. But it was reported, found, identified to him. With another tracker they might never have found out.
  - oxfordmale 4y ago
    Unless you have criminal connections it is hard to purchase a GPS tracker without leaving a trail. In this case the ex husband was a clear suspect.
    - dagmx 4y ago
      Why does it matter about covering your purchasing tracks? I presume most stalkers believe their targets won’t find the device. If it was found, how are you going to easily know what it is and then identify the owner? AirTags don’t let you cover any tracks at all. A GPS tracker is easy to buy, without any nefarious connections.

IndySun 4y ago

An ill thought out product from Apple. Because their tagline should be "Our business is pretending to care." Back to the story. By default iOS "Find My" tends to be on when setting up a new phone with an Apple id. If it is not on, or switched off, does the 'stalkee' still get that notification that they're being tracked?

samatman 4y ago
Are you asking if a phone which has specifically been told to ignore AirTags will see AirTags? Why are you asking this question? The answer borders on the tautological.
- Liquid_Fire 4y ago
  The functionality to help track AirTags by reporting them to Apple could presumably be distinct from the functionality that detects if there is a new tag following you (for one, the latter wouldn't require reporting any device locations to Apple), so I don't see how the question requires a tautological answer. Does the setting actually say "ignore AirTags", or does it say "help track other people's devices" or something else? Genuine question, as I don't have an iPhone.
  - elondaits 4y ago
    The functionality is a toggle labeled "Find My network" with the description "Participating in the Find My network lets you locate this iPhone even when it's offline." As I understand it, if you want to track your things you need to opt-in into the "Find My network", which also means you will relay information about nearby devices. It's not specific to Airtags... as the "Find My" network helps locate iPads, Macbooks and even Airpods. ... However, I presume the functionality that lets you know that there's an AirTag following you is separate, since it has nothing to do with the network, but rather with the iPhone detecting that there's an Airtag traveling along with it. I don't see a way to opt-out of that... but probably it stops working if you disable Bluetooth completely, from the Settings app.
- IndySun 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

What makes AirTags different from other tracking devices: 1) AirTags take advantage of Apple's global "Find My" network of hundreds of millions of Apple iPhones. No other tracking device has this capability. 2) AirTags are mass produced and mass marketed by the world's largest corporation, whose every move is followed by the news media. No other tracking device has this capability either. 3) Battery life is excellent, more than a year. AirTags are inexpensive, easy to use, powerful, and pervasive, all due to Apple. For most consumer devices, these would be things to celebrate, but not in this particular case. Apple has "revolutionized" stalking.

int0x2e 4y ago
Apple is super popular in the US, but in the rest of the world, and especially in non western countries, Google (Android) and Samsung have a much larger network...
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Google (Android) and Samsung have a much larger network Network of what? They have more phones, but I'm not aware of any tracking network or tracking devices sold by them.
  - scrlk 4y ago
    Samsung has the Galaxy SmartTag: https://www.samsung.com/uk/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smarttag-black-ei-t5300bbegeu/ https://www.samsung.com/uk/mobile-accessories/galaxy-smartta...
    - lapcat 4y ago
      Ah, you're right, Samsung does operate a tracking network, Galaxy Find, though it's Samsung-only and still smaller than Apple's network: https://www.theverge.com/22570161/apple-airtag-samsung-smarttag-tile-pro-bluetooth-tracker-review-test-comparison https://www.theverge.com/22570161/apple-airtag-samsung-smart...
4y ago

ghusto 4y ago

I have to be the voice of unpopular opinion here, and say that the reasoning behind the sentiment "It's only a tool. The tool can be used in a bad way, but that doesn't make the tool a bad thing", glosses over some nuance which would otherwise make it suspect reasoning. A hammer is a tool. You can use a hammer to kill somebody so effectively, that you could argue to an alien who knows nothing of hammers, that they're actually murder weapons. That doesn't make hammers inherently bad. An Airtag is also a tool, but it is different in an important way for this comparison; it works by using the internet, thereby providing one degree of separation from the user and the victim. This single degree of separation has an important psychological effect on the user; that of a false sense of security. Some proof of this, is the fact that people continue to use Airtags for stalking, despite the fact that they know they can be caught easily. It's a psychological safety that they allow to trick themselves with, rooted in how we work as human beings; "physical things are real, screens and ephemeral things aren't". So yes, the Airtag is also a tool, but it's likelihood to be used by people (so inclined) for stalking, is higher than somebody using a physical object inappropriately (and illegally).

mgoetzke 4y ago
The likelihood of them being removed from the stalker pool is also higher.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Assuming that the cops recognize the danger and actually do their goddamn job. Unfortunately, many cops barely know how to operate a computer, way too many outright disregard cases where women are the victims (just look at the various rape kit backlog scandals to see how little the cops care), or have the knowledge on how to correctly request data from Apple, Samsung, Tile or whomever, and then how to use these data to get to the identity of the stalker. On top of that, way too many people reflexively remove the AirTag or whatever tracker on their own - the correct way is to call the police which can at least use a sealed evidence bag so that fingerprints and DNA remains aren't compromised.
yieldcrv 4y ago

andrewstuart 4y ago

I have one on my cat's collar and it is absolutely fantastic for when he runs away. I just go grab him wherever he is and bring him back. Absolutely fantastic - very glad of the Airtag.

potamic 4y ago
Cat must be like, sob! how do I keep getting found out?

MontyCarloHall 4y ago

It’s impossible to design a wireless tracker that both can a) be used to surreptitiously track and recover stolen items and b) not be abusable by stalkers. It’s probably a good thing that Apple is sacrificing a) for b), but it does suck that I can no longer hide an AirTag on my bike and have a robust way of tracking it if it gets stolen, since a thief will now be promptly alerted that there is a hidden tracking device on board the bike.

mvanbaak 4y ago
The latest vanmoof bikes have one built in. Thief will not be able to get it out without breaking the electronics of the bike, rendering it into a very heavy no-fun to use ebike without motor/smart features. I LOVE how this prevents my bike from being stolen.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Just because you know where it is doesn't prevent it from being stolen--and you not able to get it back.
  - mvanbaak 4y ago
    Thieves are also not that dumb. They know the owner and the police will know where the bike is. They prefer to leave it at that. Sure, if the police wont help you, all this doesn't matter, I know. Luckily where I live the cops still want to help the people.

cainxinth 4y ago

The high rate of lost luggage by airlines is AirTag’s killer app. It’s becoming standard practice to track your own luggage.

ghaff 4y ago
At least United has a tracking app that seems to work pretty well these days. But, yes, not that I check luggage a lot but I do throw an AirTag into checked luggage and it seems to do a good job of telling you if your luggage has made the plane/connection.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  The value is in having objective information that an airline/airport/airport employee cannot lie or feign ignorance about.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    I'm not concerned about them lying so much as the bag just not being scanned for some reason. I'm not really that concerned about their computer lying to me (in the sense of providing information it knows to be wrong).
    - michaelt 4y ago
      I think the issue is: 1. If the airline had kept track of your bag properly, it wouldn't have got lost in the first place (At least for a literal enough definition of 'lost') so the moment I land without my luggage, their data is already suspect. 2. The airline might not expose its data to you - or might only do so after waiting in a phone queue for 30 minutes, or only in a very low-resolution form.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        re: 2 United's app does give you the information directly although obviously their information could be wrong for some reason. In any case, an independent source of information is always good because if the two sources agree, you can be pretty sure of where the bag is actually located.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

eunos 4y ago

> Apple has stressed that the company takes the issue of stalking very seriously, which is why it designed the alert system that appears on your iPhone if an AirTag not registered to you is seen moving with you over time So if you don't use iPhone then you wouldnt know if you are being tracked?

garblegarble 4y ago
They start beeping once moved if they've been separated from their owner for a time (8-24 hours), Apple also makes an app for Android[1] that will let you find nearby AirTags (and has a procedure via reporting the device to the police to unmask the owner) It's still not ideal (and I'm not conviced small cheap standalone trackers are worth the risks compared to Find My built in to devices), but Apple do provide a lot more tools to protect people than other tracking device companies... and as a result an AirTag is a way worse choice within this category for stalkers from risk of getting caught. 1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trackerdetect&hl=en_GB&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...
- lapcat 4y ago
  > They start beeping once moved if they've been separated from their owner for a time (8-24 hours) An AirTag speaker can be removed in a matter of minutes. There are a bunch of instructional videos on YouTube.
  - garblegarble 4y ago
    At the risk of sounding like I'm defending a product I don't particularly like, of course somebody can tamper with the electronics, but even without the speaker alert, an iOS device will warn about an AirTag moving with you, and the Android app can still find nearby tags (and I'm sure someone has built and released an Android app that can scan in the background too - Find My is just using standard BLE after all). Once discovered & the police are involved the tag can be linked back to the owner with a nice paper trail that can be presented in court... so it's still a worse device for a stalker to use. They'd be much better served using a cheap GPS tracker[1] with a disposable SIM card... there are heaps of them available. You can buy both domestically and internationally from aliexpress, and they're cheap. 1: https://www.speakit.co.uk/products/speak-it-premier-mini-gps-gprs-magnetic-real-time-tacker-requires-sim-card https://www.speakit.co.uk/products/speak-it-premier-mini-gps...

paxys 4y ago

Other than the stalking aspect (which is very real) it's crazy to me that Apple casually built the largest surveillance network in the world and tech-minded people, who are usually up in arms about stuff way milder than this, are actually cheering them on. Is it because of the Apple logo (I remember a million negative comments about Amazon's similar mesh network)? Or because it makes your life 0.01% easier? Is it really worth it to carry a tool in your pocket 24x7 that governments, stalkers, investigators or anyone else can use for their own ends without you even realizing it?

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
It’s end-to-end encrypted, so the only other devices able to read the location of your phone/AirTag/laptop/etc. are devices that you own. Nobody else—not Apple, not the government—can access your location data in any way. This network used to only exist for iDevices, making it very easy to track down a lost or stolen phone or tablet. People didn’t have any concerns about stalking because it’s not practical to hide a phone to stalk someone (and the battery would only be good for a few days anyway). The game changed when AirTags were introduced, which are both easily concealed and have replaceable batteries that last for years, hence why we’re seeing critical articles like the OP.
- MForster 4y ago
  Thanks for pointing out the encryption. Would be nice if the original article did explain a bit what's actually going on...
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  > Nobody else—not Apple, not the government—can access your location data in any way. You seriously believe that, do you?
  - InTheArena 4y ago
    Yes. The protocol is fully published - and more then a few acadmeics are trying to earn their PhDs and creds by finding faults in it. Tinfoilism isn't helpful here.

FerretFred 4y ago

Unfortunately, as with many devices, Airtags can be used for bad as well as good. I own a number of them and have attached them to things that are valuable to me, and not just financially. The car is the prime example, but I've also attached one to my dog's harness. He's a rescue Fox Terrier with a prey drive like a missile and no recall skills whatsoever (yet): if he slips his lead somehow we have at least some slight chance of finding where he's run off to. Likewise my waist-mounted hiking bags - if I lose the one that holds my keys or first-aid kit on a long walk I could be in big trouble when I get to my destination. Sadly, the Guardian doesn't mention the positive aspects...

terrio 4y ago
- Cederfjard 4y ago
  The GP literally listed several valid usecases?
  - terrio 4y ago
    Valid in comparison to all those apple phones knowing where things are. I never really lost luggage. I never lost anything. How would our radio look like if it becomes the norm to put tags from everyone onto everything?
- blackoil 4y ago
  > And how did you survive before they existed Like with the most of technology, uncomfortably. I survived before phones, mobile and the Internet. I survived without AC, Car and so many similar things, personally. Now I prefer them and get real benefit from them.
  - terrio 4y ago
    That's a very big Stretch from an airtag to a car.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

"How the hammer became a murder tool" "How the computer helped increase suicide" "How knitting yarn became a strangulation method" "How electricity became a torture method" "How candles caused untold deaths and damage" "How the pencil, landed in the chest, can kill you" We could go on. Every tool has uses and abuses, sometimes extreme. Also, this has been around forever. If I wanted to track someone, I could get a battery-powered GPS tracker with 4G LTE and stick it to their car, or buy a Tile. AirTag attempts to notify people which makes it perhaps among the most least-desirable options. Heck, if I really wanted to track someone I'd just hire a Private Investigator. Edit: And for those saying, one person was killed by an AirTag, look up how many children have been injured in schools from pencils (more than 1,000 per year in California). I'm not calling for banning pencils. You are more likely to die from a pencil than a shark. Likewise, I'm not calling for banning AirTags.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Now, who could have forseen such sinister consequences?! /s (Actually, anyone, even I did [0] ) [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27122057 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27122057

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Existed forever. Battery-powered GPS trackers, Tile trackers, Private Investigators, buying cell-phone location data, there are plenty of options, and none of those options even bother trying to notify the person being tracked. Sure, AirTag makes it easier... if you trust that nobody with an iPhone comes near it who might be alerted, and the person is an idiot who didn't have plenty of tracking options already available that are superior. Did I mention hammers have been used to smash brains in? And we allow our teenagers to use them!
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  None of the options you listed offers same autonomous life, cheap price, invasiveness, ubiquitous detection network, and, on top of that, plausible deniability in case you are caught. "Oh that's where my keys ended up! Thanks you, officer!" Also, I admire your audacity in denying reality, dismissing the dangers of technology as negligible right under that article that reports on its malicious use.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    I don't disagree with that it can be dangerous, I disagree on the level of danger. Someone died - yes. Also, 1,000 children are injured in California alone from pencils yearly. You are more likely yourself to die from a pencil than a shark. We're not banning pencils despite children having died from them. I need not go into cars, or how knitting yarn is a strangulation tool, or hammers a murder weapon. Not to mention the incredibly deadly thing called stairs (12,000 deaths yearly, over 1 million ER injuries yearly). We as a society have decided hammers, pencils, stairs, and so forth are safe enough, even for children. Same for AirTags.

rootusrootus 4y ago

If I were a stalker, an AirTag would be pretty low on my list of preferred tracking devices. Easy, sure, but even easier to get caught.

mc32 4y ago
Probably right. But don’t underestimate the power of stupidity. Look at how many criminals think they can stick up a bank and get away with it. Stalkers by profile aren’t the stablest people, so this is another item in their arsenal for “conquering” their target.

crhulls 4y ago

I’m the CEO of Life360 which owns Tile. We are exploring a program that would disable anti-stalking features if we could verify someone’s identity to then enable our devices to be used to protect against theft, which is not possible with AirTags (a thief can just scan for your tags). Our belief is that by adding more friction and increasing the risk of punishment we can make these devices far more powerful for the 99.999% of users who are responsible. We don’t want outliers to ruin it for everyone. If a stalker wants to track someone there are inexpensive stealth GPS devices with their own cell connections that allow real-time location - we make them too - but for whatever reason there hasn’t been any negative attention on this side of the location device category. Are there any thoughts or implementation suggestions on this?

InTheArena 4y ago
How on earth do you read this article, and then come to the conclusion that the answer is to disable anti-stalking mechanisms (which apple, due to using the UWB and their own protocol has vastly better ones) then your own product? This is the necessary trade off. Long time user of Tiles, and then later airtags - I travel a lot, and I have a tendency to leave my bags, so for me they save me a lot of money. My dog wears one. My kids and wife are bugged constantly with alerts that a unknown device is with them (with my name on it), but that's acceptable because somewhere a jealous ex-partner is using this for ill, or someone is trying to isolate someone for a crime. This is the perception problem. Apple introducing anti-stalker controls with the Airtag's didn't introduce a new problem - it revealed one that was already there.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  Because theft protection is an extremely compelling use case of trackers. Unfortunately, features that make a compelling anti-theft device (concealability, secrecy) are diametrically opposed to features that make it hard to abuse for stalking purposes. It would be a killer app to somehow have the best of both worlds. I agree that robust authentication is one way to go about this. Perhaps a tracker could have a “stolen” mode, that when enabled disables anti-stalking features but also automatically notifies the police with the identity of the tracker’s owner.

Xx25 4y ago

Was reading about Apple's "Find My" network. This caught my eye: "The traffic sent to Apple by finder devices contains no authentication information in the contents or headers." This allows anyone to write a program and act as a finder device. You can report whatever location you want of the "found" device. Send your stalker to the location of your choice :)

avnigo 4y ago
The context of the quote is found here [0]: > In addition to making sure that location information and other data are fully encrypted, participants’ identities remain private from each other and from Apple. I don't know that it matters whether or not there's any authentication information. If you could get your Apple device to misreport its location (would need jailbreaking for iOS probably)[1], maybe you could fool the Find My network into reporting the AirTag is elsewhere. [0]: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-sec6cbc80fd0/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se... [1]: This would likely need to be quite involved, considering location may be determined from a combination of IP, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, etc., although I'd be surprised if there aren't already tools available to do that, especially on macOS.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

I have an AirTag for my dog, it's placed in his harness. My friend looks after him quite often. After a while of getting the alerts it seems it told her she could disable the AirTag. However, I'm pretty sure she did that and all it did was disabled reporting via her iPhone and it works with any iPhone so the disabling part didn't work.

ericzawo 4y ago

I am a car enthusiast, particularly Volkswagen Golfs. And in local VW Facebook Group covering Ontario (that has ~60,000 members), posts about finding rogue Apple Airtags hidden in people's cars show up easily once every two weeks.

sarchertech 4y ago
What is it about this group? I'm in many FB groups that large or larger, and I've never seen posts about people finding rogue AirTags.

tzs 4y ago

Do the anti-stalking features of AirTags also apply to iPhones? E.g., will your iPhone alert you if an unknown iPhone is following you like it will if an unknown AirTag is following you?

thebruce87m 4y ago
This would make bus, train and plane journeys pretty tedious.

gumby 4y ago

Why AirTag and not Tile? Is it because apple is famous and until they made a tracker nobody had heard of them? Or are they somehow different?