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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

#311

Post by madeofpalk »

awinter-py wrote: post #208
newaccount74 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the major difference that taking part in the Tile network is opt-in (you have to install an app) while taking part in Apple's Find My network is forced on iOS users (there is a way to opt-out, but 99.9% of iOS users are unaware of it).

fun antitrust case when tile decides they want their plugin to ship with the OS too

Sonos and Tile execs warn Congress that Amazon, Google, and Apple are killing competition: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/21/21070812/sonos-tile-basec...

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

#312

Post by toss1 »

throwaway39203 wrote: post #167
toss1 wrote: post #147

Between reports of AirTags being used to enable auto theft and stalk targets, it is pretty obviously a very handy criminal tool. Apple definitely needs to do something about this for both ethical and reputational reasons. the beeping if separated from owner after 8-24hrs is a bit helpful, but likely not noticeable if attached to the outside of a car. This is also a pretty big window in which to pull off your crime. I…

I think this reverse tracking would also raise concerns - keys with airtag attached are lost, thief (perhaps opportunist) can find the home/car they belong to - stalker types can steal an airtag from a water bottle, handbag, or whatever, and find the owner's home Not an iPhone user but AFAIK the lost phone scenario was already covered with even pre-airtag "Find my..." since you could log into iCloud web interface on…

Yup, good points.

Perhaps it is just announced that it is logged and subject to police search.

IDK, just trying to think of ideas for a tough situation, but when a primary use case becomes enabling property and violent sex crimes ...

Heck, I was earlier wishing for tags like this that worked better, more trackable and a lot smaller for a variety of uses, including embedding in products. Which would make them all better crime tools. Ugh. Sociopaths really do ruin it for everyone.

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

#313

Post by 1123581321 »

filoleg wrote: post #302
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friend just had someone jack up his car and hack off a catalytic converter with a hacksaw in broad daylight, to steal it. How long does it take to place an airtag, 3 seconds? I think the chances of you being caught placing an airtag are slim to none.

A bit of an off-tangent: does your friend live in Seattle? Because catalytic converter and bike theft in broad daylight have become a staple here, but it is definitely not the norm in other cities. So I wouldn't judge how easy it is to do something like that in general, based on a city where the prosecution is notorious for letting all kinds of criminals get released the morning after, which leads to the police not b…

Catalytic converter theft is big everywhere, unfortunately. It's most common in larger cities, but it's worth the effort for thieves to travel out of town as well.

[catalytic converter theft map] is a productive search with some graphics, some dating back years: https://www.google.com/search?q=catalytic+converter+theft+ma...

Not intending any greater point about AirTags.

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

#314

Post by ted_dunning »

rsj_hn wrote: post #192
johnnymonster wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security by obscurity is not security at all. Thinking you were safe because “people didn’t know about it” is not safety at all! Bad people are going to be bad. They don’t need AirTags for that. Knowing it can happen is far better for everyone to know about than living in a false sense of security.

As someone who has been in this field professionally for almost 20 years, my thoughts on this have changed quite a bit. The idea of condemning security through obscurity traces back to cryptography, not security in general. In cryptography, you want the security of your protocol to not depend on the protocol being secret, but the cryptographic keys themselves being secret. There are a lot of good reasons for this, th…

Even in cryptography, there can be value in obscurity.

For instance, suppose you have a system that uses the latest well-known encryption algorithm. You keep the keys secure. Of course.

Now suppose you have an alternative version of the system which super-enciphers all traffic with a fixed and physically protected key. Clearly, if that key is known then the system is no harder to attack than a system without the super-encryption. If the key to the super-encryption is not known, this adds considerable security against, say, successful key interception. Essentially, you are adding diversity of mechanism so that attackers have to multiply and diversify their attacks.

So security-by-obscurity can be a useful adjunct. It just can't be the whole story. Also, it isn't something you should talk about which means that the conversation about such techniques tends to be dominated by people who don't have practical experience with expert and well-financed adversaries.

The intelligence community is very well aware of these factors. That's why they try to protect the integrity of their hardware so much. That also why they don't talk much about the pragmatic aspects of their encryption machines.

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

#315

Post by nickphx »

edgedetector wrote: post #305
briffle wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And both should be simple for the police to link to the owner, if they are reported. Maybe a bit less so for a SIM card, but that AirTag is registered with someone’s phone

"So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it."

neither of those statements say anything about identifying who purchased the air tag and what apple account is tied to the air tag.. you do realize that for someone to be able to find the location of the airtag, it has to be tied to their icloud account? the airtags have a serial number. it's trivial for apple to identify what icloud account is associated to the tag by serial number..

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

#316

Post by 1123581321 »

mortenjorck wrote: post #183
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…

I have a feeling the interaction with the police in a lot of jurisdictions would go something like: “This person at this address tried to track me without my consent! Here’s the documentation from Apple!” “Ma’am, has the person at this address murdered you?” “No.” “I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do right now. If this person does murder you, please call 911 immediately.”

In this situation you should work with a lawyer to have law enforcement discover the owner of the tracker as part of the process to achieve a civil restraining order. It's probably also doable pro se.

There isn't a clean path to obtaining that information merely by filing a police report or having a conversation with an officer. I would think officers would point you to civil court, but if they don't, it wouldn't take much to discover the process.

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

#317

Post by ted_dunning »

edgedetector wrote: post #305
briffle wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And both should be simple for the police to link to the owner, if they are reported. Maybe a bit less so for a SIM card, but that AirTag is registered with someone’s phone

"So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it."

Correct. And if you read that carefully, it does not say that Apple doesn't know who the owner is. The owner, in this case, is not whose phone reported the tag.

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

#318

Post by mthoms »

jjallen wrote: post #276
number6 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

But still not as trivial as an Airtag. You need an iPhone and an Airtag. That’s it. No extra service. No waiting non-Prime or non-Apple shipping for a tracker to arrive. The first results in Google for me are $50 and are about 10-20x the size as an Airtag. Also multiple parts.

And, the units off Amazon have to be purchased with a credit card + shipped to your house. AirTags can be bought with cash much more anonymously. (Though I’m not sure how/if Apple can identify the associated iPhone if presented with a warrant.)

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

#319

Post by throwaway0a5e »

1123581321 wrote: post #313
filoleg wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of an off-tangent: does your friend live in Seattle? Because catalytic converter and bike theft in broad daylight have become a staple here, but it is definitely not the norm in other cities. So I wouldn't judge how easy it is to do something like that in general, based on a city where the prosecution is notorious for letting all kinds of criminals get released the morning after, which leads to the police not b…

Catalytic converter theft is big everywhere, unfortunately. It's most common in larger cities, but it's worth the effort for thieves to travel out of town as well. [catalytic converter theft map] is a productive search with some graphics, some dating back years: https://www.google.com/search?q=catalytic+converter+theft+ma... Not intending any greater point about AirTags.

Cat theft, and petty property crime in general, is way worse in the cities that decline to prosecute which basically boils down to "the west coast and a few pinpoints on the east coast."

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

#320

Post by comex »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #319
1123581321 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Catalytic converter theft is big everywhere, unfortunately. It's most common in larger cities, but it's worth the effort for thieves to travel out of town as well. [catalytic converter theft map] is a productive search with some graphics, some dating back years: https://www.google.com/search?q=catalytic+converter+theft+ma... Not intending any greater point about AirTags.

Cat theft, and petty property crime in general, is way worse in the cities that decline to prosecute which basically boils down to "the west coast and a few pinpoints on the east coast."

Citation?
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