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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

#131
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are probably even thin enough that can embedded into cardboard or somewhere in the product so only open the box to inspect doesn't matter

The gifts could then sit in "quarantine" for a day or so, with an Android phone running AirGuard sitting nearby.

You can remove the speaker

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

#132

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…

> 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 Sure, but “of iPhones” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Worldwide network of generally isn't as uncommon.

Name a product which allows me to find my dog, without paying monthly subscription fees.

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

#133

> 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.

> Why annoy people like this?

Does it matter? Someone is going to do it anyway. They might just think that it's funny that they can make all the tags in the subway car start making noise.

So maybe the question should be "why did Apple design it to allow this?".

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is “cop shoots bike thief” something you actually think is common enough to note? This implies a concerning reality departure.

The police department is recommending people store their documents in an always-visible pouch to avoid getting shot. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-par...

The sad reality is buried under so many layers of derangement, I can’t really understand what exactly they are trying to solve here

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

#135
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In what area of the US do the police actually recover bikes?

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

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the bad guys never have one in the movies /s

Future movie spoilers alert! And it’s actually true isn’t it! :-) Apple won’t let bad guys use their hardware; https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/apple-wont-let-bad-guys-use-...

That is nonsense. Legally, Apple can do nothing if a movie maker wants to go out and buy an Apple product and show a bad guy using their products.

That director is probably referring agreements the movie maker made with Apple in exchange for free Apple devices to use in the movies. Or he is trying to misdirect for the next movie he is making.

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

#138
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In what area of the US do the police actually recover bikes?

If you show the police officer a live location of your stolen property moving on a map, that's usually enough to motivate them into action. I've seen two stolen phones recovered this way. If you tell them your bike is stolen and that's all the information you have, they rightly deduce that there's almost no chance of you getting it back.

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

#139
post #97
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, a committed stalker has access to lots of other options for stalking that are easier than the AirTag game.

What other options allow them to embed a tiny almost invisible device in a piece of clothing or a toy and learn its location from anywhere in the world? GPS trackers are larger, require a fair amount of power (big battery), don't work well indoors, and require cellular service.

I was thinking about this - if I were a stalker, I wouldn’t bother with any physical device. I’d just add myself (or an innocuous looking account) to “share my location” on their phone.

The non-HN public would probably never notice, and it wouldn’t be too hard to get someone’s unlocked phone (especially in an abusive-relationship scenario)

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