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Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

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21–30 of 267 posts

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#21
post #14

Is Matthew Green some industry security personality that people respect? I appreciate this write up, it's interesting. But it seems motivated by his little Twitter rant the other day. Who is he beyond some Twitizen in a Guy Fawkes mask who hates HN? I don't particularly like his demeanor, at least from his rather naively uninformed tantrum the other day. Didn't seem very professional or respectable so I just wrote hi…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_D._Green

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#22
post #20
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a load of this I've got BIG NEWS I hope you're ready for my thread.

So it turns out APPLE did something I didn't know about.

My iPhone doesn't turn off anymore when I power it off if I select the option that says "go into low power mode so that my phone can still send beacons". Can you BELIEVE this?

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#23
post #11

Maybe I missed it in the article but how does it work with Bluetooth exactly — how does that help my find my phone over a long distance? What’s the Bluetooth connecting to and how does the phone get the request?

The idea is that someone else's apple device finds it, then you can see where the last place someone was in bluetooth range of your device.

[deleted]

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#24
post #14

Is Matthew Green some industry security personality that people respect? I appreciate this write up, it's interesting. But it seems motivated by his little Twitter rant the other day. Who is he beyond some Twitizen in a Guy Fawkes mask who hates HN? I don't particularly like his demeanor, at least from his rather naively uninformed tantrum the other day. Didn't seem very professional or respectable so I just wrote hi…

Matthew Green wrote zerocash, the protocol behind zcash, and he teaches cryptography at John Hopkins.

When it comes to cryptography he knows enough to have opinions. It's hard to opine about black box systems, which is why open-source is so important. It's hard to trust what you can't verify.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#25
post #12

Yep, that's not going to spark conspiracy theories and damage the brand at all, just like the backdoor they've recently put in. /s Again, why would $3T company damage its brand like that? It's not "for children" and certainly not to "find your phone". There's something going on there.

Apple has made it easier for users to locate lost (by being misplaced, forgotten, or stolen) devices with a feature that the user can opt out of on a temporary or permanent basis.

What is controversial about this?

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#26
post #22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it turns out APPLE did something I didn't know about.

My iPhone doesn't turn off anymore when I power it off if I select the option that says "go into low power mode so that my phone can still send beacons". Can you BELIEVE this?

FURTHER, unlike Google who would never let you turn this feature off, Apple does, but I have to GO INTO SETTINGS to find it OMG. And what a jokeshow marketing team Apple has because the name is a little confusing.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#27
post #26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My iPhone doesn't turn off anymore when I power it off if I select the option that says "go into low power mode so that my phone can still send beacons". Can you BELIEVE this?

FURTHER, unlike Google who would never let you turn this feature off, Apple does, but I have to GO INTO SETTINGS to find it OMG. And what a jokeshow marketing team Apple has because the name is a little confusing.

Somehow those bumbling buffoons over on HN found my tweet and half of them LIKE this feature. WTF! They're even discussing this thread like they like to do.

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#28
post #11

Maybe I missed it in the article but how does it work with Bluetooth exactly — how does that help my find my phone over a long distance? What’s the Bluetooth connecting to and how does the phone get the request?

The Find My Network is, basically, every Apple device out in the world. Using bluetooth in this fashion, all the other devices participating in the network and in the area of the phone (or AirTags, they work similarly) will receive the bluetooth broadcast. They'll then communicate that to Apple's system. So when you go to find your device, its most recent known location can be provided to you. They've got some crypto…

Do you mean that every Apple device in the world acts as a proxy to forward Bluetooth requests from nearby (off) devices containing their location, automatically? E.g my laptop is pinging data to Apple about random nearby phones all the time that it sees with Bluetooth?

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#29
post #10

Do not try and power off the device. That’s impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. The truth? There is no off. From the Matrix, or something.

Sure you can power off your device! Just take out the batt-- oh...

Re: Always-on Processor magic: How Find My works while iPhone is powered off

#30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Find My Network is, basically, every Apple device out in the world. Using bluetooth in this fashion, all the other devices participating in the network and in the area of the phone (or AirTags, they work similarly) will receive the bluetooth broadcast. They'll then communicate that to Apple's system. So when you go to find your device, its most recent known location can be provided to you. They've got some crypto…

Do you mean that every Apple device in the world acts as a proxy to forward Bluetooth requests from nearby (off) devices containing their location, automatically? E.g my laptop is pinging data to Apple about random nearby phones all the time that it sees with Bluetooth?

Unless they opt out of it, yes. Which is pretty easy to do, pretty sure it's an option during initial device configuration, but regardless it's in the system settings. Which is pretty easy to navigate. There's even a search option at the top to help you find it instead of navigating to the setting.
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