4 ms·

Find My doesn’t actually map the device to an individual. Someone might know where the device which is currently broadcasting an ID is, but that ID rotates freq

Find My doesn’t actually map the device to an individual. Someone might know where the device which is currently broadcasting an ID is, but that ID rotates frequently, and can only be resolved to you using keys held against your Apple ID. The entire thing is specifically designed such that objects being tracked by Find My can’t be resolved to individuals, because the network depends upon publicly broadcasting those object’s IDs via Bluetooth.

rgrs 3y ago
Can ID be mapped to IMEI and by extension SIM or mobile number? If yes, then it can be resolved to individuals.
- Cu3PO42 3y ago
  No, the "Find My" identifiers cannot be mapped to an IMEI except by the user to whose account the device is registered.
- rekoil 3y ago
  It can not. The master private key used by the system is generated locally and never leaves your Apple devices in a state that anyone except your devices can read it. The master key is used to derive an AirTag specific private key which is provisioned to the AirTag and is in turn combined with an increasing counter which generates a third private key that's never stored anywhere. The ID broadcast is the public key of this third key. It changes every 30 minutes or 1 hour, I forget which. Other devices see this key, use it to encrypt their own location, and upload that encrypted blob along with the public key to Find My, and in order for Apple to even know which account the encrypted blob they can't decrypt belongs to I have to actually request the location of my AirTag by locally deriving the keypair it used for a certain point in time.
rekoil 3y ago
Yeah, the GPS location (of the finder device) is encrypted using the ID as encryption key before uploading to Apples servers, so unless the owner of the device actually looks for it, Apple doesn't even know who the encrypted blob they can't read belongs to.
kornhole 3y ago
It would be nice if the code on the device and server could be independently viewed and verified. Otherwise we need to trust the biggest corporation in the world. There are reasons why governments of the second and third great powers in the world, China and Russia, have banned Iphones for government use.

rgrs 3y ago

Can ID be mapped to IMEI and by extension SIM or mobile number? If yes, then it can be resolved to individuals.

Cu3PO42 3y ago
No, the "Find My" identifiers cannot be mapped to an IMEI except by the user to whose account the device is registered.
rekoil 3y ago
It can not. The master private key used by the system is generated locally and never leaves your Apple devices in a state that anyone except your devices can read it. The master key is used to derive an AirTag specific private key which is provisioned to the AirTag and is in turn combined with an increasing counter which generates a third private key that's never stored anywhere. The ID broadcast is the public key of this third key. It changes every 30 minutes or 1 hour, I forget which. Other devices see this key, use it to encrypt their own location, and upload that encrypted blob along with the public key to Find My, and in order for Apple to even know which account the encrypted blob they can't decrypt belongs to I have to actually request the location of my AirTag by locally deriving the keypair it used for a certain point in time.

rekoil 3y ago

Yeah, the GPS location (of the finder device) is encrypted using the ID as encryption key before uploading to Apples servers, so unless the owner of the device actually looks for it, Apple doesn't even know who the encrypted blob they can't read belongs to.

kornhole 3y ago

It would be nice if the code on the device and server could be independently viewed and verified. Otherwise we need to trust the biggest corporation in the world. There are reasons why governments of the second and third great powers in the world, China and Russia, have banned Iphones for government use.