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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

#351
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the creepy potential. I don't see the danger.

The danger is that predators could track a child to a secluded area and abduct them.

That is indeed creepy! But it is unlikely enough that I would not call it dangerous.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that’s probably a larger and more expensive device.

I don't think the limiting factor in child abductions is a few hundred dollars in the kidnapper's possession.

This is unlikely to have a significant effect on human trafficking cartels, but it might have an effect on people that are around the stalker level.

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

#353
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're surprised a company making a product wants consumers to buy their product? How does the "slowing down" story keep coming up when it's clear it was the best solution to the problem "what to do when users have the same battery for 3+ years and the device literally cannot sustain itself anymore".

Not surprised, just a hypothesis on hidden tactics behind. As for your question, do you really trust in Apple's PR? "Privacy, green, ethical labor" Oh almost forgot, another case: 3. https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/complete-control-apple-a...

Well, the way I see it is that in the counterfactual world where they didn't downclock, someone who doesn't "trust in Apple's PR" would conclude that the lack of downclocking is so that phones would turn off randomly, nudging people to buy a new phone.

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

#354
post #323
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not drive through a random suburb at night and randomly pick a car?

Because you’re not guaranteed to find one you’re looking for. If you do a little work up front you get much better odds. I can think of other reasons: You can target more vulnerable people (someone you know isn’t likely to come out and confront you). And, you can observe the usage pattern of the car. For example: you might notice that the victim works nights on Fridays and leaves their car in a more vulnerable locati…

I don’t think this is gone in 60 seconds, man. People aren’t out here trying to steal $1 mil collector cars on the regular.

They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because they’re easy to steal. Thieves steal easy to steal things. This is why the AirTag thing doesn’t make sense for tracking a car you’re planning to steal. They’d just steal it on first sight. Otherwise, they’re out like $25+ if that car drives hella far away. Not a wise investment.

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

#355

Somewhat unrelated… if you drive to the bar then you can’t drink surely?

It's pretty easy to track your drinks and be safely under the limit for driving.

In my country the rule of thumb, for men, is Two standard drinks in the first hour, and then one standard drink for every hour after that.

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

#356
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air tags can be persuaded to emit a sound, but they can be modified to prevent it.

> persuaded to emit a sound please explain your choice of word, an AirTag is not a person, you don't persuade it

The correct word is coerce. AirTags can be coerced into chanting an audible sound.

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

#358
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you’re not guaranteed to find one you’re looking for. If you do a little work up front you get much better odds. I can think of other reasons: You can target more vulnerable people (someone you know isn’t likely to come out and confront you). And, you can observe the usage pattern of the car. For example: you might notice that the victim works nights on Fridays and leaves their car in a more vulnerable locati…

I don’t think this is gone in 60 seconds, man. People aren’t out here trying to steal $1 mil collector cars on the regular. They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because they’re easy to steal. Thieves steal easy to steal things. This is why the AirTag thing doesn’t make sense for tracking a car you’re planning to steal. They’d just steal it on first sight. Otherwise, they’re out like $25+ if that car drives…

I think a stolen car will fetch you a bit more then $25, something tells me that successfully stealing one car will pay for hundreds to thousands of AirTags. So they can afford to lose one or two.

> They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because the

Opportunistic thieves steal easy to steal things. Professional criminals steal high value assets and will have good contacts in organised crime to move those assets on, and usually move them over a border, very quickly. It’s these individuals who are using AirTags to steal cars.

Professionals are probably tracking half a dozen high value vehicles (Mercedes, Audi’s, Porsche’s etc), and will grab a number of them in a single night. Don’t assume these thieves are just junkies looking to pay for their next high. There are more cars in this world than just $1mil collectors cars and cheap civics, plenty of $70k-$150k cars worth putting some effort into.

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

#359

Reading that, it sounds like a situation to call/drive to/or otherwise get the attention of the police. Attaching a tracking device to your vehicle is a significant indication of malicious intent. It's a potentially life threatening situation and should be treated as such.

Sounds nice but how it would be possible to prove that owner of the device attached it to vehicle? You would need to have video recording with clearly identifiable person, otherwise owner can simply say that she lost AirTag and someone did a dumb joke and attached it to the car.

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

#360
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia to activate a sim you need a form of ID, if you were to put a sim card in a GPS tracker you could easily be identified. air tags not so much.

Easy, use a foreign SIM and roam. This is pretty common for IoT devices.

Still, even if not linked through purchase, the device will communicate back to a number controlled by you, fairly directly. A lot of obvious and hard-to-mask effort to emulate something that's provided as a COTS package with far harder tracking back to you.

TL;DR: this was possible previously, for fairly determined and advanced users; now it's available to anyone on a whim.

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