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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

#371

Post by kbos87 »

autoexec wrote: post #190
kbos87 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate truth is that police have better things to spend their time on. Heck, I had a nighttime home invasion/$4k+ of goods stolen in Boston 9 months ago and as far as I can tell the police couldn’t even be bothered to get their hands on the security camera footage from a neighboring convenience store after I told them there were cameras outside.

> The unfortunate truth is that police have better things to spend their time on. From what I can "better things" is mostly pulling people over (legitimately or otherwise) in order to hand out tickets to raise revenue. Catching criminals is what we're told they do, stealing from the public, making money, and protecting only the most wealthy seems to be their real job.

You aren’t wrong! I saw this recently and it blew my mind…

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYtk8HVr3SP/?utm_medium=copy_lin...

Police actually spend a tiny portion of their time on what you think they spend their time on.

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

#372

Post by blindmute »

TameAntelope wrote: post #309
silisili wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is objectively false. There are laws, which are enforced by courts, that provide sufficient deterrent. Round and round we go. The OP of this chain was correctly stating that police rarely even investigate theft. > if you respond to property loss with violence, you deserve anything bad that happens to you. What a horrible thing to say. I don't think I'll reply here anymore, it's obviously going nowhere good.

What's actually horrible is committing acts of extrajudicial violence.

Why?

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

#373

Post by wildzzz »

exhilaration wrote: post #184
rootusrootus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search on Amazon for 'gps tracker' will yield at least one option on the first page for $29.99. GSM for communications. Not as small as an AirTag, but 1.5 inches by 0.9 by 0.6 inches isn't exactly huge either. A legitimate point is that the battery life isn't great. But that's not too hard to solve, if you tolerate a little more space for a bigger battery. I'm sure there are even better options out there, tha…

The last time this came up on HN someone suggested this: https://lightbug.io/ . I've gotta say it looks amazing, the smaller unit has a battery life measured in months, the big one in years.

I'm surprised they really break down the pricing on their custom tracking devices. Most companies would just have a "contact us" button and then dump out some arbitrary pricing after a few email exchanges.

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

#374

Post by samatman »

gumby wrote: post #287
mattdeboard wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's how they get you into buying multiple ipads

A common, shallow, cynical take…no, wait, never mind: it’s correct! OS X has always supported multiple user accounts and I can’t see that ever changing. The I-devices on the other hand are explicitly positioned as personal devices. And I don’t really see that changing either. Nowadays the price of macs has dropped to the point where some of the iPads and phones (!) are more expensive than the cheapest (and perfectly…

> And I don’t really see that changing either.

So, crystal-ball-gazing time: I don't think this part is true for iPadOS, but it's going to take them a couple more years to really get it right.

Here's where I think they're skating: watches and phones are personal devices, Macs remain what they are (personal computers, I could define this but it doesn't seem necessary on HN), and iPads (and HomePods) are family devices.

"Modes" and Family Sharing are both brand-new, and I can see effort to merge the two concepts so that you can put the family iPad in "Alice mode" or "Bob mode". Instead of separate user accounts (in MacOS each user sees a personal set of applications, that will never happen on i-anything), iCloud just manages all the login stuff in the background so that each user sees the subset of the system they're allowed, with their personal data and user accounts swapped out transparently.

This is a bad fit for how apps and logins work... right now. But Apple is clearly trying to fix that, like I said, I think this will take a couple years at minimum before we actually see it.

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

#375

Post by CryptoPunk »

tootahe45 wrote: post #366
CryptoPunk wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this could be managed by a blockchain-based app, once blockchains are sufficiently scalable of course.

> Yep, this could be managed by a blockchain no.

Making it blockchain-based would guarantee all parties will have equal access to the application indefinitely. It's ideal for a situation where you want infrastructure to be shared by mutually distrusting parties.

The problem with blockchain-based applications right now is that the blockchain is not scalable in its write-access, so the extent to which such applications can be updated is quite limited.

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

#376

Post by panzagl »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #316
panzagl wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that speaks more about being a bicyclist on the roads of New Jersey than the dangers a cop faces. It's funny when people complain about HN being too US-centric, when in reality it's CA,NY/NJ, and MA centric. NJ is awash in money flowing from Wall St, so I don't feel bad that their cops make a decent wage.

The biggest danger most cops face is being hit while standing by a car they've pulled over. That totals to ~60mins if you spend a full day issuing traffic citations. There are much more significant risks the general public faces in their daily lives.

The entire world is not New Jersey- I'm sorry your posh township doesn't have more going on, but my guess is the garbagemen, plumbers, carpenters, etc make similar amounts. Move to Camden, they don't even have a police department anymore so I'm sure you'll love it.

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

#377

Post by gumby »

samatman wrote: post #374
gumby wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common, shallow, cynical take…no, wait, never mind: it’s correct! OS X has always supported multiple user accounts and I can’t see that ever changing. The I-devices on the other hand are explicitly positioned as personal devices. And I don’t really see that changing either. Nowadays the price of macs has dropped to the point where some of the iPads and phones (!) are more expensive than the cheapest (and perfectly…

> And I don’t really see that changing either. So, crystal-ball-gazing time: I don't think this part is true for iPadOS, but it's going to take them a couple more years to really get it right. Here's where I think they're skating: watches and phones are personal devices, Macs remain what they are (personal computers, I could define this but it doesn't seem necessary on HN), and iPads (and HomePods) are family devices…

I anticipate a slightly different model:

- Macs: no change.

- iGadgets (phones, tablets, headsets, watches): will remain per-person

- "shared" devices (appletv, homepod, carplay, home iot devices) will take their settings from the per-person devices and will allow multiple per-person devices simultaneously. So the speaker will play songs / respond to requests from people whose phones are on the LAN; the car will take its default settings from the driver (how will it know?) but the passenger can control the map etc.

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

#378

Post by tharne »

dicknuckle wrote: post #230
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.

You do realize "defund the police" means diverting funds that would usually be spent on tons of military grade gear they don't need, and using those funds on community improvement programs, right?

> You do realize "defund the police" means diverting funds that would usually be spent on tons of military grade gear they don't need, and using those funds on community improvement programs, right?

That's not what it means at all. In policing, as in most organizations, the overwhelming majority of expense comes from paying salaries and benefits. Equipment makes up a relatively small portion of the pie. The only way to defund the police, or anything else for that matter, is to cut the headcount.

Why I don't agree with AOC on much, she was considerably more honest than other politicians when she said, "Defund the police means defund the police".

As others have already pointed out, meaningful improvements to policing in the U.S. would require spending more money, not less.

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

#379

Post by mensetmanusman »

FredPret wrote: post #216
entropie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in most major city in Germany its the same. MY GF filed a public assault (very minor) case like a year ago and there is still no success yet all persons identities are known. Police is horrible understaffed.

Refund the police!

Repair the police

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

#380

Post by TameAntelope »

blindmute wrote: post #372
TameAntelope wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's actually horrible is committing acts of extrajudicial violence.

Why?

You need someone on the Internet to tell you why extrajudicial violence is among the worst things a person can do in a society?

Ahmaud Arbery is a perfect example.

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