How does Apple privately find offline devices? • Hacker News Board

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#11

Post by dmitrygr » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #10

Okay, so this would make it insanely easy to stalk any iPhone user. 1. Get BLE tracking tags, and register them with Find My. 2. Covertly attach the BLE tracking tags to things your target owns (backpacks, cars, bikes, etc). 3. You constantly get updates on your tags locations via their iPhone and other iOS devices near the BLE tag(s). This gives you their approximate location and movement history, facilitated primar…

I have no idea how the FindMy BLE system works, but i strongly suspect that the cheaperst compatible "tag" you will find will be an iPhone. Might get a tad expensive to do this...

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#12

Post by pwinnski » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #10

Okay, so this would make it insanely easy to stalk any iPhone user. 1. Get BLE tracking tags, and register them with Find My. 2. Covertly attach the BLE tracking tags to things your target owns (backpacks, cars, bikes, etc). 3. You constantly get updates on your tags locations via their iPhone and other iOS devices near the BLE tag(s). This gives you their approximate location and movement history, facilitated primar…

The only "BLE tracking tags" reported to use Find My are Apple devices, and if you can attach an Apple device to something your target owns, there are many means you can use other than Find My to track them.

I mean, if you can accomplish step 2, you don't need Apple at all.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#13

Post by imhoguy » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

I see lots of poor Lassies in airports, conferencies and generally in crowded places. Not even mentioning flood or replay attacks.

Lassie's help needs to have some limits otherwise it may quickly drain batteries or mobile plans especially in roaming.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#14

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

kohtatsu wrote: post #3

The post is speculation; perhaps s/does/might/ or s/does/could/ in the title.

The title is a question. Which is why it ends with a questionmark. The article attempts to answer the question with theories. The article isn't written by Joe Random; it is written by Matthew Green who teaches cryptography at John Hopkins university.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#15

Post by Slippery_John » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #6

The problem I see with this is that your phone always has to be broadcasting the BLE beacon, regardless of if it is lost or not. Otherwise it could randomly end up lost in a place with poor/no service... and would never be found For phones, how often is this really an issue? Sure, this is useful for the Tile type "dumb" devices... but if my phone has no cell or data service... it's probably because the battery is dea…

I can think of several scenarios:

* I lost the phone hiking somewhere with no signal

* I lost the phone / it was stolen while in airplane mode

* I lost the phone while traveling abroad without any local service

This finding service will work for wifi-only ipads, wifi-only apple watches, and macbooks in addition to the likely tracking tokens.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#16

Post by RosanaAnaDana » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

Total aside, but kinda relevant.

I lost my phone like a dufus about a two weeks ago. Battery died and I had no idea where it was. When I pulled the my google location history, it was too coarse to tell me anything other than 'at your house'. However, I was able to pull the raw data from google and post process it by time stamp into a series of rasters that were fine enough for me to see that the phone was definitely in the bedroom/ bathroom area. After processing my data, finding my phone took all of a minute.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#17

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

RIMR wrote: post #10

Okay, so this would make it insanely easy to stalk any iPhone user. 1. Get BLE tracking tags, and register them with Find My. 2. Covertly attach the BLE tracking tags to things your target owns (backpacks, cars, bikes, etc). 3. You constantly get updates on your tags locations via their iPhone and other iOS devices near the BLE tag(s). This gives you their approximate location and movement history, facilitated primar…

Wouldn't this be already possible (and a lot cheaper) using something like Tile?

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#18

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

> The good news is that Apple claims that their system actually does provide strong privacy, and that it accomplishes this using clever cryptography.

But that does nothing to protect your privacy against Apple.

I already have to make sure that I disable WiFi and Bluetooth when I enter commercial establishments. Now I have to stop using Bluetooth whenever I leave my house?

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#19

Post by Fnoord » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

Slippery_John wrote: post #15

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #6

The problem I see with this is that your phone always has to be broadcasting the BLE beacon, regardless of if it is lost or not. Otherwise it could randomly end up lost in a place with poor/no service... and would never be found For phones, how often is this really an issue? Sure, this is useful for the Tile type "dumb" devices... but if my phone has no cell or data service... it's probably because the battery is dea…

I can think of several scenarios: * I lost the phone hiking somewhere with no signal * I lost the phone / it was stolen while in airplane mode * I lost the phone while traveling abroad without any local service This finding service will work for wifi-only ipads, wifi-only apple watches, and macbooks in addition to the likely tracking tokens.

Stolen while in airplane mode, and you're going to rely on BLE? A "good" thief would learn that he'd need to carry around a Faraday cage (read: some tinfoil) to block the signals. The only disadvantage is that the act of putting tinfoil around an iPhone then becomes suspicious.

Re: How does Apple privately find offline devices?

#20

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #6

The problem I see with this is that your phone always has to be broadcasting the BLE beacon, regardless of if it is lost or not. Otherwise it could randomly end up lost in a place with poor/no service... and would never be found For phones, how often is this really an issue? Sure, this is useful for the Tile type "dumb" devices... but if my phone has no cell or data service... it's probably because the battery is dea…

Given how little power it takes to operate something like a Tile, maybe the beacon will continue operating for quite a while after the battery is too low to operate the whole phone.