Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by vanusa » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #213

"Of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement, 93% of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were acquaintances. 34% were family members. 7% were strangers to the victim. also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car and they found it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well. I wish he took pics before he threw it a…

Throw away individually identifiable piece of evidence instead of calling the police, ok

I wouldn't consider it particularly wise to assume the police will automatically be your friend, in this situation. Ask yourself who may have planted the device, after all.

(I don't think law enforcement would use AirTags, actually. But I'm just saying -- on general principle).

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

#242

Post by hankman86 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:20 PM UTC

InTheArena wrote: post #172

The interesting thing is that I have seen multiple reports of this ( think this is is the third), but in every case, they have destroyed it, lost it, or thrown it away before hand - not given it to the police. Apple can't tell who the devices is from signals in the wild, but they can figure out who it is if someone gives them the physical device. (Apple tracks the serial number of the device, and from what I understa…

Maybe that’s because none of these reports were actually true?

Honestly, AirTags invading on people’s privacy are the latest fad. And as with any story about the dangers of “Big Tech”, they make for good headlines. Only that nobody bothers to do some basic due diligence on the truthfulness of these reports in the first place. This one is littered with nonsensical facts that makes me not believe in this story for a second.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that there is indeed abuse potential with Apple’s AirTags.

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

#243

Post by kuon » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

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…

I am wondering:

- Would a GPS tracker placed at this position be able to catch the GPS signal? If I understand it correctly, an airtag communicate via bluetooth and would get the location from a phone in range?

- An airtag do not require a SIM card. Are they easily traceable or is it hard to get to the owner?

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

#244

Post by kayodelycaon » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

higginsc wrote: post #190

Number of times I've had a true positive alert from Apple's new device tracking notifications: 0 Number of times I've had false positives due to intermittent connectivity issues with my airpods or from my partner using mine: over a dozen. I'm this close to disabling all of these features

AirTags seem to work reliably.

Everything else? I had my iPad in the backpack I was wearing get left behind. Same with my AirPods. I’ve turned those things off and just put an AirTag in my backpack.

That said, I already had two extra air tags since I got a four-pack instead of buying two separately.

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

#245

Post by number6 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:27 PM UTC

jjallen wrote: post #238

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…

Trivially possible? I wouldn’t know how to use or where to buy a GPS tracker. I’m sure it’s not super hard. But not as easy as an airtag. But now anyone with an iPhone can buy a $25 device and track anyone. I would guess that Airtags are also smaller than gps trackers.

I thought that too. Google GPS tracker and the first result are trackers for about $30. They come with a SIM Card and and a Online Service for $5 so you can track the tracker. Also comes with an alarm if someone removes the tracker. This is really trivial...

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

#246

Post by musingsole » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

educaysean wrote: post #186

godelski wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends how you were caught. On your back reaching up? No. On your knees? Yeah. Consider that this tag was placed in the wheel well, which doesn't require getting on your back and would only take a few seconds. It isn't like someone is there for a significant period of time. Especially since you can then produce said AirTag after inquiry and people will generally believe the claim even if suspicious. All you have to…

Your argument isn't very convincing. AirTags are one of the few location tracker that the public can recognize by sight and identify its use. This makes AirTags much less effective for use by malicious actors than other generic black-plastic case electronics.

You clearly have near 0 relationship with the public. The public can't identify an AirTag; most have hardly heard of the thing. And even if they did, someone's story of dropping a thing would convince 99% of people who want to be doing anything else than running BS detection on some weird person they've happened upon.

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

#247

Post by ghaff » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #207

ghaff wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it needs to be activated to an Apple account. But seriously, people here way overthink things. If a random sicko wants to cause someone psychological distress there are a million ways that they can unfortunately do so that don't involve elaborate technology.

> If a random sicko wants to cause someone psychological distress there are a million ways that they can unfortunately do so that don't involve elaborate technology This doesn't strike me as elaborate at all. The fact is the largest generation living today is more engaged with the world via their smartphones than their physical surroundings. AirTags seem uniquely well suited to that reality, with Apple delivering not…

It strikes me as dependent on the person being griefed being in the Apple ecosystem and the person doing the griefing using a device that is at least potentially tied to their IRL identity. Not saying it's not possible but seems at least an edge case.

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

#248

Post by nabeards » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #43

somehowadev wrote: post #15

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

According to the tweet thread: >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car and they found it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well. I wish he took pics before he threw it away If I found a tracking device on the car of someone close to me, I certainly wouldn't throw it away without showing them and insisting that they go to the police. Why would they just throw it away?

Perhaps they are the ones who put it there in the first place?

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

#249

Post by throwDec19 » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

jonpurdy wrote: post #82

So I and my wife both have AirTags. Every time we take a walk together, we both get notifications that there's an unknown AirTag with us (each others'). You can pause these notifications for just one day, which means we get notified every single day. Does anyone know how to disable this for specific known AirTags?

You can track each other with your phone and Google tracking or a bunch of other apps. Maybe that is simpler alternative to tags?

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

#250

Post by viktorcode » Sun, Dec 19, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

hankman86 wrote: post #191

While it’s theoretically possible that this happened, I think this particular story was made up. For a number of reasons: 1) How did the stalker know that that’s her car? She said she was on a night out. Unless she went back to her car all the time, he must have seen her arrive in it. 2) Sticking an AirTag to the inside of the front wheel well isn’t easy. There is dirt and grime there and the surfaces aren’t flat. Th…

Read on the news that this kind of tracking with AirTags is used to steal cars. A car thief attaches it to the target vehicle, and then simply arrives to the place where it is parked overnight. The thief removes AirTag and then waits for an opportunity to steal the car.