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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 wa

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.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        That is some Olympic-level mental gymnastics to argue that just because other, much more difficult, ways to track someone exist, that a tracking device played no part in making that particular sequence of events (including the crime of murder) easier to commit.
  - thefz 4y ago
    Ah, yes. I imagine if you read "killed with a handgun" you'll go out replying "actually, killed by a bullet"
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Context is important. The point of writing “the car was used to murder someone” was to show that in this story, it was just as nonsensical to claim the AirTag was used to murder someone. samatman: 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. SadTrombone then links to what they think is a more shocking story because the AirTags were presumably part of a plan to murder someone. Me: points out that SadTrombone’s story is not more shocking because the AirTag was used to track, or stalk, but not as part of a plan to murder someone, as was insinuated. I think the original story of a stalker stalking an ex is more shocking than someone stalking their girlfriend/boyfriend to verify if they are cheating. Most people would simply break up at this point, but that this girlfriend became enraged enough to cause violence or kill is unrelated to AirTags.
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

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.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      That is some Olympic-level mental gymnastics to argue that just because other, much more difficult, ways to track someone exist, that a tracking device played no part in making that particular sequence of events (including the crime of murder) easier to commit.
- thefz 4y ago
  Ah, yes. I imagine if you read "killed with a handgun" you'll go out replying "actually, killed by a bullet"
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Context is important. The point of writing “the car was used to murder someone” was to show that in this story, it was just as nonsensical to claim the AirTag was used to murder someone. samatman: 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. SadTrombone then links to what they think is a more shocking story because the AirTags were presumably part of a plan to murder someone. Me: points out that SadTrombone’s story is not more shocking because the AirTag was used to track, or stalk, but not as part of a plan to murder someone, as was insinuated. I think the original story of a stalker stalking an ex is more shocking than someone stalking their girlfriend/boyfriend to verify if they are cheating. Most people would simply break up at this point, but that this girlfriend became enraged enough to cause violence or kill is unrelated to AirTags.

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