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Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale online

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

#231
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You expect Apple do make an open protocol? This is the role of a government to mandate standards for their jurisdictions. Of course, regulation is a bad word for a good number of the electorate so this will never happen.

Genuinely curious: What are other examples where specific protocols (open or not) are mandated by regulation ?

USB is a (closed!) protocol that's mandated by regulation. Don't like what the USB-IF has done with their data profiles/power profiles/etc? Prefer a lower-cost connector that doesn't require cables to be hand-assembled? Tough shit.

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

#232

Taping them together tightly silences it. Airtags have to be the most nerfed product I've bought. Day one, they were fantastic. Then they lowered the beeping and rogue alerts to a threshold my wife gets them from my keys or wallet all the time. Then they just beep randomly. I regret buying them to be honest. Tile never really got harped on for stalking. The samsung trackers work just as well as Apple and don't have a…

I have also not experienced beeping. I do get the occasional alert from family member tag crosstalk but it feels like this is improving.

But the lack of explicit Family cross-view when other devices automagically have it is nigh unto unforgivably bad. I have heard arguments made about privacy but they are not that coherent. Expose an "opt this device out of Family sharing" during config option or whatever.

That friends have attached two different tags to their kid's backpack so both spouses can track is total fail. :|

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

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a place for a generic open protocol. To have a real internet of things we need some kind of DNS but for objects.

How is it going to be monetized is a problem. The cost is basically negligible but not zero.

I wouldn’t monetize directly, instead the cost could be subsidized by services built on top of it. For example, naming & discovery, durable log aggregation etc.

Edit: spelling

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

#234

Taping them together tightly silences it. Airtags have to be the most nerfed product I've bought. Day one, they were fantastic. Then they lowered the beeping and rogue alerts to a threshold my wife gets them from my keys or wallet all the time. Then they just beep randomly. I regret buying them to be honest. Tile never really got harped on for stalking. The samsung trackers work just as well as Apple and don't have a…

Apple has over a hundred million iPhones all across the US and opted them into helping track Airtags without asking for permission (I'm sure it was buried in the middle of pages of terms of service). The only way to opt your iDevice out of tracking is to turn off Find My, so you can't find your phone if you lose it. Nice bit of artificial tying there. Tile and Samsung devices are more for personal use and won't reall…

You can opt out of the "Find My network" part separately from the overall Find My system. This does mean that you'd not be able to find your phone if it's fully powered off, of course, but that seems to be a fair trade-off if you don't want to track or be tracked as part of this.

See: https://imgur.com/a/ZY9oBPV

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't seem to work well for guns in the US. Besides, this tech is opening a tracking pandora box with social and political consequences that we can't predict. I'm for banning without a licence on this one.

I think banning objects goes about as well as banning drugs did.

AirTags are not addictive and are not helping people in social situation or to have sex.

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

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't seem to work well for guns in the US. Besides, this tech is opening a tracking pandora box with social and political consequences that we can't predict. I'm for banning without a licence on this one.

What stoppedyou from buying a GPS tracker before?

AirTags are cheaper and more powerful than GPS tracker. Also more known, and don't have a stigma.

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

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't seem to work well for guns in the US. Besides, this tech is opening a tracking pandora box with social and political consequences that we can't predict. I'm for banning without a licence on this one.

I think banning objects goes about as well as banning drugs did.

The technology itself is unstoppable.

At most widespread use of it could be delayed until something smaller and even harder to detect is invented.

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

#238
post #142
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, valid question. I don't know how they work, but I assume they are linked to an account. Why even involve the cops - if you have an airtag, you should be able to scan it's code and it reveals the account holder's name.

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#239
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not necessarily more dangerous, either —- jobs like line cook, delivery driver are more dangerous than police work.

Since people are downvoting the parent, check out https://advisorsmith.com/data/most-dangerous-jobs/

Near as I can tell, there are good statistics available from the BLS about fatal on-job accidents, but not so good for definitions of "dangerous" that also include non-fatal injuries.

If we're talking pure fatalities, policing is dangerous (it's on that list), but it's much less dangerous than a bunch of other professions... such that you're about 2.3x more likely to die on-job as a delivery driver than as a police officer.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My friend is a cop, and he loves his body cam. He has had dozens of complaints against him refuted trivially with body-cam footage (and prior to that at least one serious complaint refuted by the camera in his patrol car). I think most of the anti-police complaints are due to selective releasing of body-cam footage. We are approaching the point where the court of public opinion swings against officers when potentiall…

If I was a crooked cop, sure, why not have a body cam. I get to control when to turn it on and off anyway. If I want to do something bad, whoops, I forgot to turn it on. What are you going to do?
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