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Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

gizmodo.com

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Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#131

Post by not2b »

tharne wrote: post #106
errcorrectcode wrote: post #71

Anecdotal regional issue: I had an AirTag on my AirPod Pro's case that was stolen. I immediately notified Austin's police (APD) as I could see where it was going. Unfortunately, due to understaffing of 100-200 police officers and detectives, most calls unrelated to imminent threats of injury or death aren't being handle for days or ever. So, it's open-season on packages and property because APD can't or won't do its…

Quoted post unavailable.

No, because the calls to "defund the police" were not acted on.

Taking lead out of gasoline may have done more to reduce urban crime than any police measure, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis for lots more on this.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#132

Post by tharne »

josephcsible wrote: post #128
alfalfasprout wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and notice how a good chunk of the people asking to defund the police are from already very safe neighborhoods or very young and never had to live through lots of crime. I'm all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements, more training) but the whole defund the police movement is downright dangerous.

> I'm all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements A lot of rabidly anti-police people are actually against body cams.

It's true. More often than not, the body cams corroborate the officer's side of the story.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#133

Post by chimeracoder »

downrightmike wrote: post #114
tharne wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I wonder if we'll see higher civil asset forfeiture by police to make up for the funding loss.

> I wonder if we'll see higher civil asset forfeiture by police to make up for the funding loss.

What funding loss? Total spending on police increased in 2021 and 2022 in every major city across the country.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#134

Post by duxup »

rootusrootus wrote: post #37
kazinator wrote: post #7

> To make it harder for stalkers to abuse them, Apple included (and has since upgraded) several safety features that will alert someone to the presence of a nearby AirTag that’s not their own, including an audible beep. Is this saying that Apple is relying on the unknown tag to announce itself by emitting a beep, and is that true? I think you want your management device (e.g. phone) to alert you to the presence of su…

> Is this saying that Apple is relying on the unknown tag to announce itself by emitting a beep, and is that true? Not by itself, no. If you have an iPhone, you get notifications on your phone whether the AirTag ever beeps or not.

Also there's an Android app that does the same thing.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#135

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

jdminhbg wrote: post #55
stefan_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple coopted every iPhone into a global surveillance network for the benefit of throwaway keychain tokens. That's why .

Every iPhone (and Android and dumbphone) was coopted into a global surveillance network from the very beginning.

Previously, it didn't help random creeps to find home address of a girl he saw in a grocery store. Now, with AirTags it is rather trivial. Thanks, Apple.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#136

Post by not2b »

josephcsible wrote: post #128
alfalfasprout wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and notice how a good chunk of the people asking to defund the police are from already very safe neighborhoods or very young and never had to live through lots of crime. I'm all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements, more training) but the whole defund the police movement is downright dangerous.

> I'm all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements A lot of rabidly anti-police people are actually against body cams.

From what I've read, they are against body cams that police officers can selectively turn on and off, because they can surveil everyone but still hide their misconduct.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#137

Post by [deleted] »

TuringNYC wrote: post #52
rootusrootus wrote: post #8

I guess I don't get it. For the price of an AirTag, you can buy a more capable tracker with GPS and mobile data. And it won't be notifying the trackee that it's there. The AirTag seems like a downgrade.

Can you name some alternatives with a decent network? If the item has its own mobile network, i'm expecting an extra $20/mo for a phone plan (at which point, comparing to a fixed cost of an AirTag isnt valid.) If it doesnt have a mobile network and relies on the mesh, then, is there any mesh available? Apple's mesh is global and pervasive. And if it provides neither mobile support nor mesh, it isnt useful for anythin…

[deleted]

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#138

Post by uoaei »

jen20 wrote: post #110
errcorrectcode wrote: post #71

Anecdotal regional issue: I had an AirTag on my AirPod Pro's case that was stolen. I immediately notified Austin's police (APD) as I could see where it was going. Unfortunately, due to understaffing of 100-200 police officers and detectives, most calls unrelated to imminent threats of injury or death aren't being handle for days or ever. So, it's open-season on packages and property because APD can't or won't do its…

> I met a UT campus police officer who refuses to live in or bring his family to ATX because of the risks and de facto lawlessness. I live in Downtown Austin, and this kind of picture simply does not fit with my day-to-day experience of Austin.

If you ask a lifeguard what they fear, they'll say drowning.

Cops are not objective sources of reality, neither is anyone else. More than a few grains of salt need to be taken when cops say stuff because they're steeped in a very different life than the average citizen.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#139

Post by jfengel »

spike021 wrote: post #33
k8sToGo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also need an Apple device.so it is not just $30

Your comment is akin to "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" I highly doubt there's (much of) a market looking to buy AirTags without already owning the pre-requisite Apple hardware.

I would. I own a Tile, and it's limited by the relatively smallish network, at least out in the burbs where I live. Having every iPhone in the vicinity conscripted into the network would be good for me... even though I don't particularly want an iPhone.

Mind you, I only ever use it to locate my wayward cat, so perhaps my use case isn't the most common. I don't seem to find any other need for it, though perhaps I should attach one to my keys.

Re: Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

#140

Post by rolobio »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #104
rolobio wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I drive over a thousand miles to pull it off? What do you expect me to do? I'm not sure what will happen if I disown it, it will probably attempt to be owned by whoever walks by? Can I disown an AirTag without being near it? And if someone who works for Fedex suddenly owns the AirTag, has the situation improved? I really don't know what you expect me to do. I did this by accident. I thought it was funny.

Quoted post unavailable.

Rather than ban the device, punish the behavior. Apple has made it quite easy for anyone with an Apple device to notice if they are being tracked. Why punish someone tracking their scooter as if they were tracking some "daughter"?

GPS tracking of cars is legal in many place. Those devices don't report their existence to the owner. Perhaps we should start there?

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