3 ms·
> Depending on the design of the tag, it might be possible to rewrite the firmware to violate the requirements in this document, for instance by rotating the MA
by kccqzy 4y ago
> Depending on the design of the tag, it might be possible to rewrite the firmware to violate the requirements in this document, for instance by rotating the MAC address frequently to evade detection (oddly: this document says "The accessory SHOULD have firmware that is updatable by the owner", which is the opposite of what you want here.)
One part of me supports this Stallman-esque proposition as self-evident: of course the owner should have the ability to update the firmware. Another part of me is deeply concerned about the potential for misuse, including modifications that explicitly evade detections of stalking. Tracking another human and violating their privacy shouldn't have been so easy.
- namaria 4y agoPeople want cheap, ubiquitous networked radio emitting devices. There is a fundamental trade-off there...
- AshamedCaptain 4y agoThere are two sides here that should not be confused. One on side we have "the network", i.e. the ability for these tags to be tracked through a myriad of iPhone owners that are not even aware that they are doing the tracking. On the other hand, we have the broadcasts emitted by the tag itself, which can announce the presence of the tag to a _nearby_ stalker. What actually makes these tags interesting, I think, is the network. While changing the firmware of the tags makes it (probably) easier to track nearby ones "locally" with specialized software, it will not change its interaction with the Apple network whatsoever -- it will not make it easier nor harder to stalk long-distance. And if you are only interested in "local area stalking", I presume there are much smaller, cheaper and even more conspicuously looking trackers than an Apple AirTag.
- saurik 4y ago> What actually makes these tags interesting, I think, is the network. I mean, that mostly only makes them more interesting for the stalking use case, no? If you left your wallet at a restaurant, you don't need the network: you need your phone to notice it lost the connectivity to the wallet when you left the restaurant and you need the ability to find where in the restaurant it might be once you go back there to get it. I've been using Tile for years and have been extremely happy--hell: I end up using it every couple days to find something--despite never once having an interest in their "network".
- zamnos 4y agoHow sensitive is the phone's "I'm being tracked" algorithm? It doesn't go by tag owner but by Bluetooth Mac. If I I buy 4 tags, register them all to me, overwrite the firmware on one so it rotates between 4 IDs, once every 15 minutes, then the phone won't see the tag as following it. Hell, you could glue 4 of them to transistors, a power supply, and a circuit to turn them on and off in rotation without modding the firmware.
- AshamedCaptain 4y agoWhy wouldn't it see 4 tags as following it, then?
- zamnos 4y agoIt might! I don't know what's in Apple's closed source blob that implements the "am I being stalked" behavior and what parameters actually trigger it. Maybe you need to rotate between 60 tags, or 600.
- AshamedCaptain 4y agoIn which case Apple could notice that 600 tags from the same guy tend to float around you...
- theshrike79 4y agoOr you could just spend a few bucks more and get a GPS tracker that's 100% undetectable.