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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

#121

Post by luckylion »

y4mi wrote: post #101
daenz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying really hard not to come to this conclusion, but the tweet thread doesn't make any sense. >I didn’t wanna go home, so I spent the night somewhere and just said I’d figure it out in the morning. So they stayed somewhere and said they would figure it out in the morning. Ok, that's reasonable. >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car How did they tell someone to search the car wh…

its quite easy to imagine in my opinion. she drives home and gets these notifications, which clearly spook her, which is why she made extra turns etc. she sends a few messages to friends and/or family, because she's freaking out about it, but goes to sleep because she doesn't know what to do one of these friends or family comes by in the morning, sees her car and checks it out before ringing her door bell the given f…

What friend would check the car, find a tracker and then immediately get rid of it and not even take pictures of it instead of showing her or just calling the police themselves though?

What's somewhat plausible is that "the person close to her" put the tag there in the first place. They'd have a good reason to "get rid of it" in that case.

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

#122

Post by madeofpalk »

raydev wrote: post #110
kemayo wrote: post #86

This is news just because it's an Apple device being used for something that was already trivially possible. GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag. These are much harder to detect, as you mig…

> This is news just because it's an Apple device being used for something that was already trivially possible. > GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag. So you're saying Apple made it even mor…

In one way. In another way, the only way the tweet author knew was because Apple alerted them to the fact that they were being tracked.

Other trackers would not do that. It seems Apple actively put effort into thwarting this kind of use.

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

#123

Post by ctoth »

topochico3 wrote: post #100
ctoth wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ... a net negative? Okay, like maybe I get that some people abuse this thing and maybe that's bad and maybe ten extra people got their car stolen this year or something although even that is questionable given that Tile already existed. But net negative? All the utility from all the people that found all the things they found this year with AirTags is counteracted, is wiped away by... what?

You can always buy more stuff. Lowering the bar for stalking seems like a bad trade off, doesn’t it?

Well, I'm blind and I use an AirTag to find my cat. I would rather not just buy another cat. I get a lot of utility from knowing if he's inside or outside when I go to bed. This is one trivial example of millions of people every day using millions of AirTags to do small but useful things. That utility aggregates.

Using your logic we should also ban cars because cars create the novel attack vector of being able to transport someone against their will discretely in the trunk, which clearly will increase kidnappings. After all, lowering the bar for kidnapping seems like a bad tradeoff, doesn't it?

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

#124

Post by kshacker »

awinter-py wrote: post #119

is this part right? > If a foreign AirTag is around ANY Apple device that’s connected to a network, a nefarious AirTag owner will know its location! the airtag is phoning home over all apple hardware, whether or not it belongs to the owner of the tag?

Basically that is as advertised.

The feature set definition of airtag = "tracking the airtag" and this requires a phone home which is done by using any iPhone (or is is any apple) device.

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

#125

Post by warning26 »

mrweasel wrote: post #98
frakkingcylons wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, no app is necessary. The AirTag will start beeping once it's been separated from its owner for longer than 8-24 hours.

That's going to be hard to hear when driving on the highway, also, the seems like a long time if someone is following you home from a bar. I don't think there's any good way for Apple to fix this. On the other hand, it's been possible to do something similar for a long time, just not this easy, and at this price point. You could suggest that the AirTag disable tracking if it move along with the same phone for more th…

> It's a product where Apple really didn't consider the real world implications. It's a neat device, and I'm sure it's well intended, but it's not fit for the world we're currently living in.

Exactly; it's unfortunate, but this sort of product should really be made illegal, just due to the many ways it can be misused.

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

#126

Post by brendoelfrendo »

awinter-py wrote: post #119

is this part right? > If a foreign AirTag is around ANY Apple device that’s connected to a network, a nefarious AirTag owner will know its location! the airtag is phoning home over all apple hardware, whether or not it belongs to the owner of the tag?

Correct, this is how Apple’s “find my” network works. Devices that don’t have their own GPS can still be on the network because they piggy-back off of nearby Apple devices.

Apple devices do notify users if there’s an unknown AirTag following them around.

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

#127

Post by dijit »

jeidz wrote: post #116
frakkingcylons wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, no app is necessary. The AirTag will start beeping once it's been separated from its owner for longer than 8-24 hours.

I’m sure it’s easy to open the AirTag and pierce the speaker.

It is not very easy to do so, no. ifixit has a tear down.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/50145/airtag-teardown-part-one-y...

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

#128

Post by katbyte »

topochico3 wrote: post #100
ctoth wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ... a net negative? Okay, like maybe I get that some people abuse this thing and maybe that's bad and maybe ten extra people got their car stolen this year or something although even that is questionable given that Tile already existed. But net negative? All the utility from all the people that found all the things they found this year with AirTags is counteracted, is wiped away by... what?

You can always buy more stuff. Lowering the bar for stalking seems like a bad trade off, doesn’t it?

The bar is already really low. GPS trackers are just as cheap, more “real time”, and have no way for anyone to detect them unlike AirTags.

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

#129

Post by madeofpalk »

awinter-py wrote: post #119

is this part right? > If a foreign AirTag is around ANY Apple device that’s connected to a network, a nefarious AirTag owner will know its location! the airtag is phoning home over all apple hardware, whether or not it belongs to the owner of the tag?

It works like Tile and other previous Bluetooth trackers - it relies on a network of devices that can pick up the signal from the tracker and phone it back to the owner/Apple to know the location.

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

#130

Post by bengale »

ghaff wrote: post #104
endisneigh wrote: post #89

Are people against the idea of GPS trackers? Lightbug uses GPS and has a 6 year battery with a size smaller than a credit card. Ultimately there's no way to put the cat in the bag. I'd argue it's not possible for a tracker to exist that cannot be used for bad purposes.

Arguably AirTags raised the awareness that you can pretty trivially plant a tracker on someone's bag or car. But given that the technology exists, I'm not sure what everyone outraged expects to happen. Being able to track things and people (with their permission of course) is actually genuinely useful. So it's not reasonable (and of course ultimately unworkable with respect to nefarious purposes) to block this techno…

It’s about the logo on the device. It drives clicks and ad impressions when you write about apple so people are influenced to feel more outrage about them.
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