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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

#51
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.

I’m confused about the difference between keys and valuables (as if keys aren’t valuables). Both suck to misplace and it’s helpful being able to find their pinpoint location or event of separation.

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

#52

> 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.

Is “cop shoots bike thief” something you actually think is common enough to note?

This implies a concerning reality departure.

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

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It irks me that the onus of not being tracked is on the "target" themselves. Further, there's no protection if you have no smartphone but are in a dense population area surrounded by devices that are part of this surveillance network. There is no aspect of this that is privacy friendly except for the hand waving.

There’s protection even if you’re standing there naked (except for the AirTag, of course, that has been secretly duct-taped to your buttocks): if the paired phone isn’t around, the AirTag makes noise. I can confirm this because my spouse is currently out of town, and I’ve grabbed her RV keys a couple of times to put stuff in the RV. And every time I pick the keys up, the AirTag goes off. It eventually shuts up just s…

It is trivial to damage airtag to disable the dynamic. So a committed stalker will do it without difficulty.

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

#54
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.

I think their point is that knowing there’s an air tag on something nearby indicates it’s probably something of value worth stealing.

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

#55

> 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.

Great, now instead of getting shot by a cop you’ll get the crap kicked out of you instead.

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

#57

> Our goal is to protect privacy and to find out how many people are opposed to tracking. Asking how many ppl are opposed to tracking is a silly question that won’t get you anywhere — it’s answer in a vacuum doesn’t make sense as it needs to be contextualized. “Are you ok with google seeing your IP so they can sell you ads to give you free YouTube” is an example of context where people see trade offs. Most people won…

Google doesn't just "see your IP" to sell you ads. They collect a lot more information about you than that, so I don't know why you consider your question to be more useful than the one you quoted.

Neither one provides enough information for the average person to give an informed answer. They're both equally biased/leading, but in opposite directions.

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

#59

> 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.

In many areas of the US, that trigger happy cop will be the difference between you recovering your property and you being severely beaten when you show up in a rough neighborhood trying to get your bike back.

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

#60
post #56

This is something Apple should be providing themselves (edit: for Android). They already have "Apple TV", "Apple Music", and a "Move to iOS" app. Is it really so much to ask for a stalking prevention app?

I can see those cheery iStalking ads already, telling you to get anti-stalking subscription.

And, of course, for adventurous devs they’re going to introduce a StalkingKit!

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