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It's possible to build your own tracker atop the Find My network without these anti-stalking features. The Find My network can even be abused for low bandwidth
by FriedPickles 2y ago
It's possible to build your own tracker atop the Find My network without these anti-stalking features. The Find My network can even be abused for low bandwidth data transfer from any point in the world with an occasionally nearby iPhone.
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
- neilv 2y agoUnfortunately, OpenHaystack is not as open as I'd hoped. > All you need is a Mac and [...]
- sodality2 2y agoThat’s because Apple themselves limit access to authenticated (but supposedly anonymous - aka doesn’t matter whose) Apple IDs before allowing access to the geodatabase
- jimbobthrowawy 2y agoNot for long, since cross compatibility with android is apparently coming. IIRC, they need you running macos to get the data via a plugin for apple mail. If you only needed an appleID, it could likely be done in a web browser.
- lolinder 2y agoThe cross compatibility is only for anti-stalking features, and is probably implemented in such a way that you couldn't use it to implement a tracker that works in both systems.
- jimbobthrowawy 2y agoYou're right. I think I misremembered a news article I read about a week or so ago, that I can no longer find.
- mschuster91 2y agoWhat I don't get is why nobody seems to have done the work to reverse engineer the onboarding workflow, and why Apple doesn't allow onboarding on Mac devices. I had to buy a (used) iPhone just to onboard AirTags, despite onboarding Mac devices works without one.
- microtherion 2y ago> It's possible to build your own tracker atop the Find My network without these anti-stalking features. Are you sure? It seems to me that the anti stalking features depend on the stalkee's / tief's software stack, not the stalker's stack.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoThe biggest anti-stalking feature is that the tracker will beep when it's notified when it's moving in proximity with a phone or other device. So obviously it's trivial to create a tracker that doesn't beep. Your phone can also refuse to send notifications about the location of a nearby tracker if it thinks it's being tracked, but if there are a bunch of other phones nearby that can relay that information there is nothing to stop them from doing so.
- microtherion 2y agoTrue, you can build without any acoustical feedback (or maybe even feedback not triggered by the find my network, but only by your own app). But the target's phone will still be notified that "Someone else's tracker is moving with you", won't it?
- OptionOfT 2y agoIf I were to do this on a certain chip and put it in a random person's car, wouldn't they get a message showing 'X found moving with you'? Or is that only implemented for AirTags themselves?
- pests 2y ago> So now it is on me to know whether my object is lost or stolen? Sounds like you responsibility - your belongings, you should know where they are or if they are missing. How would you have survived before AirTags?
- hackernewds 2y agoWhat an asinine comment, I can only presume was written on a Palmyra stone tablet
- pests 2y agoThis was posted to the wrong comment, apologies.
- imp0cat 2y agoYes, they would, it tracks all BT devices, not just Airtags. But even with an unmodified tracker, it's quite hard to locate one in a car, because there is a lot of hiding spaces (especially if you put one in some hard-to-reach space such as under the carpet in the cabin etc...).