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AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

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Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#42

This seems to notify you of nearby tags but does not disable them in some way.

Think about what you just suggested. If I could arbitrarily disable airtags around me, I could go around in public and disable everyones' airtags.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airtags do allow non-owner devices to disable some functionality such as turning off the alarm. I doubt they let you turn off the tracking since that would completely defeat the anti-theft aspect of Airtags.

> I doubt they let you turn off the tracking I'm not sure how they would even do that in the first place, since the AirTag doesn't track anything.

I meant it could let you turn the device 'off'? Sure the AirTag isn't the device doing the tracking but if it isn't broadcasting itself then other devices can track it.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#45

> With the app you can play a sound on AirTags and find it easily. I wonder how it does that. Unauthenticated BLE characteristic? This would imply anyone could force an arbitrary AirTag to make a sound. Obvious application: force all AirTags nearby to keep making sounds.

Why annoy people like this? My e-bike has Find My tracking built in to the firmware. As long as you don’t steal my bike you have no privacy concerns from me securing my bike. Even better I can track my bike down without involving the police, so the potential thief doesn’t even have to worry about being shot by some trigger happy cop.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#46
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airtags are the only devices (that I know of) that can leverage a worldwide network of iPhones to transmit their location rather than a power intensive LTE or GSM link. They also don't require any external antennae for location determination like those GPS trackers stalkers use. Those features make make AirTags more practical for any use, good or bad. They do rotate Bluetooth MAC addresses so only you and Apple can f…

Tile will now leverage Amazon sidewalk to have a similar affect - which is all alexa and ring doorbells I think?

Amazon Sidewalk isn't really a worldwide thing. Amazon has a localized website in only 20 countries, my guess is that in most other countries there aren't many Alexa and Ring devices.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#48
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tile will now leverage Amazon sidewalk to have a similar affect - which is all alexa and ring doorbells I think?

Amazon Sidewalk isn't really a worldwide thing. Amazon has a localized website in only 20 countries, my guess is that in most other countries there aren't many Alexa and Ring devices.

Same difference. The majority of people reading this are regularly within a half mile of a Sidewalk device (well, the ones that work on 900MHz) and might be wary of a Tile being used to track them as well.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#49
post #47

I understand using it for keys and stuff, but attaching airtags to valuables and carrying them out in public has to be the stupidest idea ever. Apps like these are soon going to turn them into "steal me!" beacons.

Please explain to me how a thief is going to use the existence of this tech to enable theft.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#50
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that relate to AirTags (or similar devices, like Tile)? The companies that make these trackers aren't selling the data to anyone external, only displaying it to the person who bought the device.

Tracking someone like that would be a felony, ideally, with an order to stop operations for the company who's facilitating it. Using my analogy above, that's like dropping a bag with nuclear waste into someone's pocket.

That should be a clear indication your analogy is garbage...
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