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

Post by UncleEntity » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 9:48 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #34

politelemon wrote: post #25

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…

Post by judge2020 » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: 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?

Post by aeontech » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #8

akomtu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A blanket ban on hoarding, storing and selling personal data for any purposes other than natsec. Basically, treat personal data like nuclear materials in the laws.

I wasn't onboard at first, but I actually think that's a pretty reasonable take to have on it. Apple should be allowed to implement Find My, but only as an open standard that other manufacturers can implement so they can also have safety features. Simply notifying every iPhone isn't going to stop someone from putting it in a kid's backpack, tracking your vehicle, or any other obvious edge case. There are lots of solu…

Post by btown » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #20

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #10

Pretty cool but why does it have to be limited to AirTag or any specific devices? It would be easy to expand it to keep track of any nearby Bluetooth device and a corresponding whitelist. (Or do AirTag devices rotate Bluetooth MACs?) Airtags are just one implementation of a Bluetooth transmitter and a long life battery but anyone could probably build a similar device dedicated to tracking with off the shelf parts.

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…

Post by jcims » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #45

TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

> 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.