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Apple Introduces AirTag

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Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#672
post #561
post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a stretch to say anonymized reporting of nearby lost devices is abuse and part of a botnet, but you can turn off the U1 chip in settings. Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Networking & Wireless

It's a good idea to turn off location services on all Apple devices systemwide. Having it on sends your location over the network to Apple (via visible Wi-Fi MAC address lists) all the time - it's not just passive GPS reception. Apple then shares this data with the US federal government without the requirement for a warrant, whenever they ask via a FISA request. No probable cause of criminal activity is required: it…

You keep repeating this data is shared without a warrant message. I don't believe you are correct in this assessment.

The legal definition of a warrant is a written order issued by a judicial officer or other authorized person for the purpose of the administration of justice.

A written request by the FISA court, which is staffed by eleven federal district court judges, is de facto a warrant.

What I think you really object to is the authority and accountability of the FISA court. In particular, the conditions under which such warrants are issued. But that is a problem with the FISA court, not the companies that receive the warrants.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#673
post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got knock off ones. Yeah, they nice. I lost them in about 3 weeks. First one bud, then the other. Shame but I'm 5 years into my Bose over ears and I don't think I'll lose them.

Over ears are pretty much a non-starter for a lot of people who travel.

Many of the people I know who travel a lot will only use over-ear headphones, as even the best in-ear and earbud headphones can get pretty uncomfortable with the pressure changes that happen on an airplane.

I have a fairly good set of in-ear 'phones that I can wear pretty much indefinitely on the ground, but I usually can't get keep them in for more than a couple hours while I'm on a plane. I've tried using different tips for them while on a plane, but nothing works.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a detailed protocol reverse engineering paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.02282.pdf My guess would be that you, as the tag owner, locally store the master beacon key and can use it to derive key required to decrypt received beacon payloads for your own tags. You can then filter out your own and approximate how many others (which you cannot link over time) you permanently see. If it is more than one most of the…

This seems like a problematic situation. In a vacuum I can see how they want to mitigate the stalking risks, but as of right now, unless you have a recently updated Apple device then, then you're completely ignored by the stalking mitigations. There's nothing official from Apple on the Google Play store that would mitigate that situation as well. This just seems like a low barrier to entry stalking tool on the extrem…

I thought I read that the tag itself will start beeping if it's not near its owner for too long, and the tag has been moving around? Not sure what "too long" means, but if it's short enough, that should foil stalking attempts if the potential stalkee doesn't have an iDevice.

Edit: looks like it doesn't start beeping for three days (though Apple can change this server-side if they decide three days was a bad choice), which seems like way too long. A stalker could probably make good use of this in just a few hours, let alone three days.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#675
post #672
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good idea to turn off location services on all Apple devices systemwide. Having it on sends your location over the network to Apple (via visible Wi-Fi MAC address lists) all the time - it's not just passive GPS reception. Apple then shares this data with the US federal government without the requirement for a warrant, whenever they ask via a FISA request. No probable cause of criminal activity is required: it…

You keep repeating this data is shared without a warrant message. I don't believe you are correct in this assessment. The legal definition of a warrant is a written order issued by a judicial officer or other authorized person for the purpose of the administration of justice. A written request by the FISA court, which is staffed by eleven federal district court judges, is de facto a warrant. What I think you really o…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s going to be real funny if non Apple users are basically fair game for AirTags tracking and you have to get an iPhone to protect yourself from AirStalking

Apparently they can be disabled with any NFC enabled device: https://apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airtag/ >[...] And even if users don’t have an iOS device, an AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it. If a user detects an unknown AirTag, they can tap it with their iPhone or NFC-capable device and instructions will guide them to…

... and if all else fails, you can always whack it with a hammer a few times. Or just take its battery out.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make sense to do the anti stalking notification after say 4 days "Your privacy and safety are important to Apple. We won't let anybody use these devices to stalk you for more than 96 hours." You haven't thought this through! Seriously, the use cases for 96 hours of tracking are frightening. 1. Meet victim in club/bus/supermarket/wherever 2. Drop AirTag in their bag/pocket/whatever. 3. Now you know where they…

Seeing as you can literally give someone a USB cable that tracks them, I don't think AirTags are enabling anything particularly new: https://www.walmart.com/ip/OURLEEME-Car-GPS-Tracker-Vehicle-...

That USB cable doesn't work unless it's plugged into something that has power.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#679

This tag has an U1 chip using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) which means that iPhones 11 and above also equipped with those chips will be able to locate those tags from 80m away with a +/-30cm accuracy. U1 UWB uses short pulses at 6.24GHz and 8.2GHz and positioning is done by combining time of flight (ToF) and angle of arrival (AoA).

Does anyone have any clue about whether other devices with a U1 chip will also be able to do that? (I'm thinking about people like me, who have an apple watch 6---which does have the U1 chip---but are a few generations behind on the iphone)

I would be surprised if the next airpods case doesn't have the UWB location feature as well.

Re: Apple Introduces AirTag

#680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? It's literally just a 2-axis lookup table with voltage on one axis and SOC on the other.

Except it isn’t, not with modern lithium based batteries. Now most devices use direct voltage, coloumb counting and battery impedance to keep track, and that’s with known batteries.

Even for lithium ion batteries, notoriously hard to track, that's only true for the middle 70-80% of the charging range. It's very easy to check it a lithium ion battery is almost empty, just wait for the voltage to drop below 3.6 or 3.5 and maybe adjust for temperature.

For a CR2032 specifically, you get a nice smooth drop over at least the last third to quarter of its charge. There's no difficulty in detecting that.

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