4 ms·

Oh for the love of... can we please address the giant pink elephant blowing fire rings doing a hula dance on a tricycle in the room? "Stalking" was possible 15

Oh for the love of... can we please address the giant pink elephant blowing fire rings doing a hula dance on a tricycle in the room? "Stalking" was possible 15+ years ago with $5 worth of sketchy hardware off Ebay or Aliexpress. AirTags didn't all of the sudden invent a new problem. What worse is every crypto dork at these companies is pretending like the main use case _isn't_ recovering your stolen stuff. Lets be real: "finding your lost stuff" is a secondary use case. "Theft Recovery" is the primary use case. The protocols need to somehow cover theft, as theft is a much much bigger problem than stalking.

iudqnolq 4y ago
> What worse is every crypto dork at these companies is pretending like the main use case _isn't_ recovering your stolen stuff. Lets be real: "finding your lost stuff" is a secondary use case. "Theft Recovery" is the primary use case. I regularly used Tiles to find lost stuff. Then I got better at not losing things and stopped. I've never considered using them for theft recovery. Sounds illegal. Are you just showing up at random people's apartments and threatening them or something?
- mock-possum 4y ago
  Someone stole my car last year - luckily, I had an AirTag stashed in a side compartment. I tracked it down to the other side of the city and stole it back from the parking lot of the shopping center while the thieves were busy shopping. Or shoplifting, more likely, given their treatment of my car. It’s not illegal to take something that’s yours back from someone who’s stolen it.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    Whether it's illegal or not depends on the specifics. for ex if you'd gone into their driveway to take it back that could be trespassing. regardless that sounds dangerous. I guess if my car was worth a lot more I might take that kind of risk.
    - mock-possum 3y ago
      oh it was definitely dangerous, we rolled up to the parking lot ready to fight... and I am incredibly relieved that it wasn't necessary. my buddy was like "let's wait for them to come out of the store!" - like no dude, I just want my car back. It's not about what it's worth - although obviously, I'm attached to my car, I've had it a while and I'm fond of it - it's about what's right. My car belongs to me. Someone took it from me. I have to take it back. That's just how it works for me. Otherwise, what good is property or privacy? What good are boundaries that you don't enforce?
msh 4y ago
> "Stalking" was possible 15+ years ago with $5 worth of sketchy hardware off No, it was not possible 15 years ago with 5USD equipment. The airtags are not just using bluetooth for close range detection, but uses all apple devices in the world so its also locateable over long distances. While that could be build 15 years ago it would not be as cheap and as small.
sofixa 4y ago
You do realise that things can evolve and thus become bigger problems than what they originally were, right? A few examples: * cars. They've been a thing since the late 1800s/early 1900s, yet they didn't become a problem until they were prevalent, forcing urban planning to accommodate them at the expense of everything else, and their pollution became a global problem. * porn online: great for the consumers and producers, until it became easy to upload whatever one wants, bringing in a torrent of revenge and/or unconsenting content * guns: groups of people having a rifle for self-defence/hunting is perfectly fine. Every random person having automatic rifles and pistols and shotguns with all the ammo they could want leads to unstable people going on murder sprees. * Misinformation and targeted propaganda: yeah it was bad when your local newspaper was run by a piece of shit that lied for money/engagement/to further their own interests, but as we've seen today, it's drastically worse when anyone anywhere in the world can have their words heard and believed. We had ISIS recruitment, political meddling, serial murders and neo-nazi/adjacent terrorists all inspired by hateful words read anonymously online from faraway places (e.g. the piece of shit in New Zealand or the other one in Norway, or the Qanon idiots in Germany). * AirTags: yes, stalking has existed for a long time, and tools to enable it have too. That doesn't mean that AirTags don't make it drastically easier to do so - it's something everyone has heard of, can easily pick up/buy, have an excuse for what it's for, etc. vs the harder, but still possible route of buying random hardware off AliExpress. Like suicides, access to guns make attempts easier and more lethal; most people won't put in too much effort. Oh, and vigilante "justice" is something dangerous for everyone involved that shouldn't be encouraged. In the stealing back your car example, what if the thieves saw that, and opened fire? Is anyone seriously willing to die over a car?

iudqnolq 4y ago

> What worse is every crypto dork at these companies is pretending like the main use case _isn't_ recovering your stolen stuff. Lets be real: "finding your lost stuff" is a secondary use case. "Theft Recovery" is the primary use case. I regularly used Tiles to find lost stuff. Then I got better at not losing things and stopped. I've never considered using them for theft recovery. Sounds illegal. Are you just showing up at random people's apartments and threatening them or something?

mock-possum 4y ago
Someone stole my car last year - luckily, I had an AirTag stashed in a side compartment. I tracked it down to the other side of the city and stole it back from the parking lot of the shopping center while the thieves were busy shopping. Or shoplifting, more likely, given their treatment of my car. It’s not illegal to take something that’s yours back from someone who’s stolen it.
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  Whether it's illegal or not depends on the specifics. for ex if you'd gone into their driveway to take it back that could be trespassing. regardless that sounds dangerous. I guess if my car was worth a lot more I might take that kind of risk.
  - mock-possum 3y ago
    oh it was definitely dangerous, we rolled up to the parking lot ready to fight... and I am incredibly relieved that it wasn't necessary. my buddy was like "let's wait for them to come out of the store!" - like no dude, I just want my car back. It's not about what it's worth - although obviously, I'm attached to my car, I've had it a while and I'm fond of it - it's about what's right. My car belongs to me. Someone took it from me. I have to take it back. That's just how it works for me. Otherwise, what good is property or privacy? What good are boundaries that you don't enforce?

msh 4y ago

> "Stalking" was possible 15+ years ago with $5 worth of sketchy hardware off No, it was not possible 15 years ago with 5USD equipment. The airtags are not just using bluetooth for close range detection, but uses all apple devices in the world so its also locateable over long distances. While that could be build 15 years ago it would not be as cheap and as small.

sofixa 4y ago

You do realise that things can evolve and thus become bigger problems than what they originally were, right? A few examples: * cars. They've been a thing since the late 1800s/early 1900s, yet they didn't become a problem until they were prevalent, forcing urban planning to accommodate them at the expense of everything else, and their pollution became a global problem. * porn online: great for the consumers and producers, until it became easy to upload whatever one wants, bringing in a torrent of revenge and/or unconsenting content * guns: groups of people having a rifle for self-defence/hunting is perfectly fine. Every random person having automatic rifles and pistols and shotguns with all the ammo they could want leads to unstable people going on murder sprees. * Misinformation and targeted propaganda: yeah it was bad when your local newspaper was run by a piece of shit that lied for money/engagement/to further their own interests, but as we've seen today, it's drastically worse when anyone anywhere in the world can have their words heard and believed. We had ISIS recruitment, political meddling, serial murders and neo-nazi/adjacent terrorists all inspired by hateful words read anonymously online from faraway places (e.g. the piece of shit in New Zealand or the other one in Norway, or the Qanon idiots in Germany). * AirTags: yes, stalking has existed for a long time, and tools to enable it have too. That doesn't mean that AirTags don't make it drastically easier to do so - it's something everyone has heard of, can easily pick up/buy, have an excuse for what it's for, etc. vs the harder, but still possible route of buying random hardware off AliExpress. Like suicides, access to guns make attempts easier and more lethal; most people won't put in too much effort. Oh, and vigilante "justice" is something dangerous for everyone involved that shouldn't be encouraged. In the stealing back your car example, what if the thieves saw that, and opened fire? Is anyone seriously willing to die over a car?