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Apple AirTags stalking led to ruin and murders, lawsuit says
- master_crab 3y agoI get that this lawsuit is about discerning whether Apple built enough safeguards into the AirTag system… But taking a step back and acknowledging the amount of heat Apple has gotten for releasing a legitimately useful product while we drown in an ocean of guns always makes me chuckle uncomfortably.
- asah 3y agoThe utility of a thing does not excuse its danger to individuals and society. Shoplifting should be not ignored until first catch all the murderers. see "whataboutism"
- olliej 3y agoThere are plenty of non-AirTag trackers, and they by and large have no anti-stalking measures. In fact there is an entire market of explicitly non-traceable stalker ware, and that market existed long before AirTags. Meanwhile there are explicit legal protections for gun manufacturers despite the vast majority of murders in the US being with guns that people have no real reason to have (see: the rest of the civilized world, and its lack of active shooter drills and training)
- codetrotter 3y agoMy electric scooter was taken from the house of a friend of mine one night. We eventually got it back, because we posted notes around town with a picture of the electric scooter urging anyone who’d seen it to contact us by phone. Anyways, as a result of that I went on AliExpress and bought a small device which is supposed to be able to be mounted on things and track their location. You put a SIM card and an SD-card in it and it will report its location. I didn’t get around to mounting it on the electric scooter yet. But something that stood out to me when it came in the mail is that it was declared as being something else and I was like, is this because people buy this thing and they don’t want their spouse to know what they bought or something. That’s a bit creepy, considering it’s a GPS tracking device.
- sargun 3y agoProbably more likely to get around customs / export restrictions.
- Scoundreller 3y agoBeen a while since I actually looked at one of my aliexpress customs labels, but they tend to arrive as “electronic gadget - $5” or something very generic and undervalued like that. Definitely a “they can’t inspect them all” aspect to it.
- codetrotter 3y agoThe thing that was weird and creepy in this case was that the label was very specific. But claimed that the contents of the package was another kind of product entirely. Seemed suspiciously like they want to make people able to order it without others in their family knowing what had been bought.
- Gibbon1 3y agoThat and It's not FCC licensed so illegal to sell. Not carrier approved either so they'll get pissy if they figure that out. And likely the hardware design itself is stolen.
- foota 3y agoPro: you'll be able to find your things. Con: The FCC will also be able to find your things!
- chx 3y agoThat's like saying the LG Prada was the first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen...
- mjburgess 3y agoI think the charge of 'whataboutism' is often a bit of a strawman. The argument is rarely, 'ignore Y because of X' or similar. Rather its 'if were were to apply this standard correctly, we would have other priorities'. So here that if we were to apply the 'regulate/remove objects which change the social environment to make it less safe' standard to prioritise our concern, I'd imagine find-my-device systems wouldnt rank highly: indeed, we might find these systems make it more safe. So, in a complex series of tradeoffs where all actions have a cost (time, effort, etc.) the claim is about where one ought pay that cost. I think its fine to show that the standards people have lead to contradictions.
- gretch 3y agoI think this happens all the time as a form of societal procrastination. Like in a city where homelessness is rampant, and the city government meets up and the first thing they talk about is littering ordinances or if there's enough sun/shade in the park, and then oops, all out of time to talk about homelessness - let's just put that on the agenda for next time right after we talk about changing trash pickup day.
- mjburgess 3y agoThat's true -- but sometimes people are being accused of that when they arent doing it. To say, eg., "my country did X too!" when "Country B did X" could be whataboutism, or it could be pointing to an international game with its own rules that all players are complicit in -- such an observation is a kind of rebuke to moralism. Here we can read this sort of reply to those who worry about airtags in a similar sort of way: what, exactly does the principle, "limit objects which make a social environment less safe" do if applied mechanically -- rather than as a sort of circumstantial moralism about some recent headline. Perhaps often, then, whataboutism is really a kind of distaste for hastey moralism about circumstantial matters
- Krasnol 3y agoI don't understand. How would regulating guns make tracking less problematic? It's still a problem in societies which have gun regulations. You can murder someone without a gun, too. Stalking is there without guns too. Let's just face the obvious: bringing up a huge and dramatic topic like gun regulation makes the issue which is the topic here look less dramatic. This is it. There isn't more to it. The argument makes no other senese here.
- mainpassathome 3y agook but we should ignore the shoplifters though
- ZoomerCretin 3y agoAre you serious? Shoplifting has huge negative externalities that affect more people than the megacorporations you think you're sticking it to.
- callalex 3y agoThis kind of thinking is how food deserts happen. I know because I live in one.
- itake 3y agoWhat is the solution? Ban all radio transmitters with Bluetooth or GPS? Make owning a cell phone illegal?
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y agoYES PLEASE! Unironically! But the government won't ban its surveillance device.
- yathaid 3y agoNot sure why you are being downvoted. Parent's argument is literally "but what about guns", the textbook definition of whataboutism.
- camhart 3y ago> The utility of a thing does not excuse its danger to individuals and society. Cars kill more people in the US than just about everything. Yet we still drive. I don't think the world agrees with you.
- Fnoord 3y agoAgreed. the world doesn't agree. Cars provide a meaningful utility which is deemed important. Interestingly, more and more on the way out inside major cities in Europe, btw. But the utility of guns in Europe doesn't outweigh ownership; this is regulated (!= illegal).
- selfhoster11 3y agoAirTags can be weaponised far outside the borders of the USA.
- sneed_chucker 3y agoGuns too, believe it or not
- goku12 3y agoGun ownership is heavily restricted and regulated in most countries.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe American gun industry has explicit immunities from lawsuits if people use their products for bad things, Apple does not. So the lawyers are going to spend their time going after the company that they can win a huge payout from, not the company that is simply immune to legal action.
- LeoPanthera 3y agoAirTags are the only tracking device that have any kind of anti-stalking protection. Literally the only one that does anything at all. And yet it gets all the flak. People are stupid.
- bogantech 3y ago> AirTags are the only tracking device that have any kind of anti-stalking protection But only if you own an iPhone, or have a specific Android app open.
- mplewis 3y agoThe other tracking devices have no anti-stalking protection, regardless of your phone or app.
- Thorrez 3y agoDon't the airtags themselves beep?
- jws 3y agoYes. AirTags which are separated from their owner beep unless they are in a designated “ok to be left here” location.
- imp0cat 3y agoUnfortunately, that feature can be easily disabled.
- Thorrez 3y agoBy physically modifying it?
- imp0cat 3y agoYes. Then you have the perfect stalking/tracking device. It's the same for other trackers, ie Samsung SmartTags, just disconnect the internal speaker and you're good to go. A tag that works as a silent car tracker and helps to recover your car is great. The same tag, but used to stalk someone else's car? Not that great. I guess this is why we can't have nice things.
- langsoul-com 3y agoThere's sorta a meta question here. If a product gets released, and some use it for nefairous uses, how much is the company at fault? Even though airtags are tracking devices, they are legitimately useful. Kinda reminds me of the NSO situation, where they supposedly only gave access for a specific set of legal reasons. Then the client decided to use it in a nefarious manner anyway.
- camhart 3y agoThe manufacturer isn't responsible when a product is misused. I could buy a 2x4 and smack someone over the head with it. Then they get to sue home depot? No, I should be charged for smacking them over the head. If the manufacturer becomes responsible for the actions of individuals the economy would immediately cease due to the litigation that would unfold.
- darkclouds 3y ago[dead]
- vman81 3y agoWhat if a manufacturer produces a tool, like a screwdriver that is shaped exactly like brass knuckles? Or some sort of similar extremely obvious dual use widget where the illegal use is readily apparent? I'm arguing that it's not some sort of self-evident truth that manufacturers can't be held responsible, IF the illegal usage is well understood.
- nojvek 3y agoUltimately the courts and police enforce. Many laws aren’t enforced. So if you think the knuckle shaped screwdriver is actively harming the population, then you can go to court.
- nektro 3y agoif only we could have seen this coming.... /s
- tiku 3y agoAs always, Apple wasn't first but sure made it more easy. Any dumbass with bad intent can now buy airtags instead of getting a sim card and a gps device.
- probably_wrong 3y agoIn my opinion, the issue is not so much that Apple built a tracking device (of which there are plenty of competitors) but rather that Apple built the first tracking device that worked at scale. Some years ago a friend of mine bought a set of Tile trackers without knowing what they were. He then found out they were useless as anti-theft devices because no one in his area had the app. If his Tile was gone (along with whatever they're attached to), the chances of his tile being near a second Tile user were negligible. But Apple had the market power to overcome that issue. I don't know how good other trackers are but I imagine a GPS tracker needs a battery and a SIM card, which would make them more expensive and with a limited battery life. If Apple truly managed to build a tracking device that's forever on and whose alarm can be easily disabled, I don't think it's a bad idea to wonder whether they've jumped too far into "bad for society" territory. Usually we would discuss these issues in the open, but nowadays lawsuits seem to be the only way to do it.
- selfhoster11 3y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted, because this is the truth. AirTags are cheap, always-on tracking tags with no GPS receiver of their own. The only way they can report their location is via the goodwill of the other devices in their monolithic ecosystem, something that can only be built via large-scale cross-manufacturer cooperation, or by unilaterally doing it as a dominant manufacturer with enough beachhead devices around the world to make the system worthwhile.
- gherkinnn 3y ago> One plaintiff from Indiana, LaPrecia Sanders, lost her son after his girlfriend allegedly used an AirTag to track his movements and then "followed him to a bar and ran him over with her car, killing him at the scene." This was one of the few explicitly mentioned cases. And something tells me AirTags were not the problem here.
- imjonse 3y agoindeed, cars kill people. She couldn't have done that with an AirTag and a bicycle.