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

Post by seoulmetro » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

DrBenCarson wrote: post #86

bushbaba wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ll be pretty shocked if I’m “spied on” with this style of device. Why? There's plenty of devices in the wild constantly looking for wifi connection attempts, BLE Scans. Even cellular provider track locations in real-time by logging what cell towers you're using and associated signal strength. Just search for a place in google maps, and note the "Popular Times". How do you think they got that data :D

Um they get that data from being a monopoly and knowing when most people are looking up directions to or information about a location. Sure, they might do some other stuff to expand the data but there's much more relevant data right in their first-party domain.

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:29 PM UTC

eminence32 wrote: post #48

It's also interesting that this low-power mode is sufficiently low power for Apple to be feel comfortable sipping battery power continually. Any guesses about how much power this mode actually uses?

Post by dcow » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

0xdeadb00f wrote: post #62

dcow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks. Genuinely gave me a laugh. I predict HN mods won't be so humorous about it though.

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #92

nojito wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they waste their time on Bluetooth tracking when your location pings cell towers and WiFi hotspots?

Perhaps because the bluetooth tracking is a lot more accurate. But since not even Apple can access the data (or so they claim), this shouldn’t be useful for surveillance.

Post by cirgue » Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 11:39 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #89

xg15 wrote: post #82

In some way this feature reminded me of Android's song detection functionality which is also on by default and is constantly listening in the background [1]. So now tech companies normalized that: - the mic is always on. - the phone is always on, even when it's off. (thanks to AOP) - devices are always online even when they are offline.(thanks to company-operated p2p networks like Find My or Sidewalk) What could poss…

Yes which supports all kinds of functionality that people like. Just because you have a processor on or mic listening for wake words doesn’t mean everything is always being transmitted or evil is being done. State actors could do this selectively regardless even before these features. There have been attacks on Motorola razrs, etc for spying. Long before the smartphone, they just implanted microphones, shine lasers o…