It's not likely to happen, but I wish Apple would provide an API for UWB and NFC. I've got the watch, and it would be really fun to tinker with this along with my home automation setup.
Apple Introduces AirTag
741–750 of 966 posts
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#742Earlier quoted context omitted.
By attempting to prevent misuse they also prevent some legitimate and morally unquestionable uses. Like - the most obvious examples already mentioned in the comments - finding your cat or tracking your checked baggage. There are probably more less obvious use cases where something temporarily leaves owner's proximity, does not remain stationery, but tracking that object's location is perfectly legal and not questiona…
I'll be blunt: Neither of those use cases are very important in comparison, and neither come remotely close to justifying AirTags as unlimited tracking devices with zero restrictions. Just go buy some other tracker for your cat or whatever.
I’ll be blunt: a stalker is going to find tools to do stalking without apples help. Far more people just lost out on a super easy pet tracker because of a glorified “think of the children argument”.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#743I've been thinking about a solution that would let me find a 4-10 year old child that gets lost in a big city crowd. Like a bracelet or something. Is the AirTag truly first or best in class?
Not suitable for purpose. AirTags are for objects which will stay in one place when lost. They aren't appropriate for tracking "objects" which will move on their own, like pets or people, nor are they likely to work on the time scale that you'd need to find a lost child.
I'm not sure why you say that. There is no evidence supporting this in Apple's documentation or any protocol reverse-engineering literature I've read on this. Further, Apple's own marketing shows an AirTag being tracked around San Francisco.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#744Earlier 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…
Seriously, the use cases for 96 hours of tracking are frightening. Meet victim in club/bus/supermarket/wherever I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how stalking works in practice. People don't stalk random strangers they meet in the supermarket. They stalk former partners, and (more rarely) people they've developed an obsession about. That means the stalker has to worry about being recognized by the victim,…
I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how
stalking works in practice. People don't stalk random
strangers they meet in the supermarket. They stalk
former partners, and (more rarely) people they've
developed an obsession about.
However, if not properly safeguarded, this sort of tech clearly can enable some new types of bad behavior.
Ultimately I'm a technology optimist and we shouldn't reject new tech simply because it might be misused. However it's also true that even the most cursory glance at history shows us that just about any new technology is also used for nefarious purposes.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I've had my phone stolen multiple times and thieves know exactly what to do to prevent 'find my' activating. I'm sure it wouldn't take them long to find/disable AirTags either. ...putting it in a faraday bag? Since tags are cheap, they can even smash it.
This isn't really complicated, just remove the battery.
Can't remove batteries from iPhones, or most phones these days.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#746> AirTag is designed for over a year’s worth of battery life with everyday use. The CR2032 battery is user-replaceable and widely available. Replacement batteries are sold separately. That's the piece of information I wanted to know first. Devices like this can be built, but those can't run on batteries for a reasonable time frame. Apple made it practical.
God damn it's like I'm back in 2010 where people praise Apple for doing things other people have already done. Apple did not invent device trackers with replaceable batteries. Tile has been doing that since 2018 on some of their devices (Basically all except the smallest ones), and I imagine someone else did it before then.
The brilliant thing with apple is the privacy feature and the fact there are hundreds of millions of devices/people able to help find your lost item - that’s where a lot of the other trackers fell down.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#747Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many of these third party devices can use every iPhone, iPad and more in the world as a beacon?
They don't need to? GSM radios have gotten tiny. Think literally any innocuous item and it can be fitted with a tracker. Even a hairbrush: http://www.mccalltech.net/images/0TrackBrush.jpg
The limitation of any tracker is battery lifetime. The AirTag circumvents this by only using low power transmission and the network of all iPhones and iPads in the world, which then relay via their own wifi/4G.
What is certain is that we'll see sophisticated modifications to AirTags that (1) disable the beep, (2) disable anti-stalking.
Theoretically remote attestation and self-disabling anti-tamper could be used, but the potential wins for bypassing the Apple protocol are enormous, the Holy Grail of surveillance espionage.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
I care a fuck-ton more about finding my dog if lost than my bag. A bag can be replaced with an identical one. A dog cannot. Current GPS collars are absolutely trash (3 day battery life, bulky, etc), this would be about 10,000 times better if effective. But if it starts beeping randomly unprompted and scares the dog, it's a problem.
A GPS collar and this are two very very different things. An AirTag only works if an iPhone is nearby - if your dog is lost in the woods so to speak, an AirTag will not help you - a GPS collar will.
Sure but this is good enough to be useful in many situations, whereas a GPS collar is impractical enough that it's unlikely to be regularly used. I just wanna throw a chip on the 3 dogs collars and forget about it except to swap batteries once a year. I don't want to be bothered charging active GPS collars every few days and putting a heavy device for the dogs to carry.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#749Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, the use cases for 96 hours of tracking are frightening. Meet victim in club/bus/supermarket/wherever I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how stalking works in practice. People don't stalk random strangers they meet in the supermarket. They stalk former partners, and (more rarely) people they've developed an obsession about. That means the stalker has to worry about being recognized by the victim,…
I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is how stalking works in practice. People don't stalk random strangers they meet in the supermarket. They stalk former partners, and (more rarely) people they've developed an obsession about. Well, yeah -- I agree 100% that this is existing predator behavior, and most crimes will continue to be committed by a person known to the victim. However, if not properly safeguarded, t…
This I agree with. My contention was with what you first wrote, which made it seem like the 4 day limit was not meaningful. I think it makes all the difference for the reasons I laid out.
Re: Apple Introduces AirTag
#750Earlier quoted context omitted.
CR2032 is 2cm wide so you're probably referring to smaller batteries as these cannot be swallowed by a child.
The rule of thumb used to be that if it fits in a 35mm film canister, it's too small to have around children younger than 3. Nowadays I suppose a lot of people don't know what a film 35 mm canister is...
In Sweden all infant parents are offered the "smådelscylinder" (literally "cylinder for small parts") [1] in which you can put things to determine if they're safe or not. Very handy.
[1]: https://www.homesafety.se/produkter/ovriga-produkter/smadels...