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Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

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Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#32
post #28
post #24

The worst part of this is, if you don’t have an iPhone, you’ll never know if you’re being tracked. Edit: Yes, I know there’s an app. Do you think more than 1% of victims will have it installed?

Apple made an Android app for this.

Apple's app requires you to scan manually, it doesn't warn you if you're being stalked. You'll need something like Air Guard to get similar notifications.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's where the advice to hand an AirTag to the authorities come from? From here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212227

I’m not convinced this is a priority for police. Air tags seem to be a net negative for all.

I would attempt to file a restraining order against the owner of the tag, that would force the police to act.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the folks who aren't iPhone users, which is the majority of people.

Apple released an app for Android users to alert them if an AirTag is “following” them: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/android-users-get-this-appl...

That app requires you to click a button every time you think you're being followed. Then it'll scan and report any results.

It won't warn you of an AirTag someone attached to your car, unless you make it a habit to constantly press "scan" all day.

AirGuard (https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard) can do this for you, at the cost of battery life for having something scan for Bluetooth signals in the background all day. It's silly and honestly kind of sad that Apple's app doesn't provide this functionality.

Perhaps Google should add this functionality to Play Services. They already have an API capable of running Bluetooth background scans constantly in the form of the COVID contact tracing API, so the technology is nearly there already.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#36
post #24

The worst part of this is, if you don’t have an iPhone, you’ll never know if you’re being tracked. Edit: Yes, I know there’s an app. Do you think more than 1% of victims will have it installed?

There is at least one android app to list nearby airtags. The one I found requires you to manually start a scan though so it doesn't alert to issues like this one. OTOH your own phone won't be used to track the air tag. OTOH half the people around you have an iPhone that will do it for them.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#38
post #24

The worst part of this is, if you don’t have an iPhone, you’ll never know if you’re being tracked. Edit: Yes, I know there’s an app. Do you think more than 1% of victims will have it installed?

There is at least one android app to list nearby airtags. The one I found requires you to manually start a scan though so it doesn't alert to issues like this one. OTOH your own phone won't be used to track the air tag. OTOH half the people around you have an iPhone that will do it for them.

Care to link the one you found? Going through the play store these days is a nightmare of privacy problems and adware so if you already found a good one, that would be nice to mention.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#40
post #28
post #24

The worst part of this is, if you don’t have an iPhone, you’ll never know if you’re being tracked. Edit: Yes, I know there’s an app. Do you think more than 1% of victims will have it installed?

Apple made an Android app for this.

The app is stop gap at best - it has to be run manually, the screen has to be on, and it chews batteries (due to phone architectural designs)
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