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An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

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Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#401

Post by can16358p »

paxys wrote: post #175
gambiting wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>and significantly increases the average person's risk of stalking. I mean, increase from 0.00001% to 0.0001% is still significant and yet I still wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.

You personally may not have to worry about it, but a handful of well publicized cases of misuse (say someone getting stalked/murdered) will probably be a bigger monetary hit to Apple than their profit from this entire line.

With the same analogy, we should stop producing kitchen knifes because someone may stab someone.

We should also stop producing cars because someone may crash someone.

Almost every technological device (or even a simple device) can be abused in wrong hands, nothing to do with Apple or AirTags.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#402

Post by theshrike79 »

ksec wrote: post #360
concinds wrote: post #119

Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…

>I continue to think Apple should have never released AirTags to the public It is the usual Apple strategy for decades. AirTags product play was the technological groundwork for UWB and possibly AR/VR. They always need a product, hobby or something adjacent to iron out all the problems. Chip Packaging, Next Gen OLED, Low Power Profiling all landed on Apple Watch first before they moved to iPhone. The Sound work on Ai…

Oooh, I didn't think of that. The AirTag UWB finding is eerily accurate.

If you have an Apple AR/VR headset, you could just stick tiny AirTag-like trackers in your environment and the headset could use those for location.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#403

Post by gsich »

concinds wrote: post #119

Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…

Android users don't exist in the Apple mindset.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#404

Post by kyledrake »

I've heard of multiple people using airtags to prevent and successfully recover stolen vehicles and property after armed carjackings, and as dystopian as that feels, it seems to me far less invasive to society to narrowly target violent criminals than hiring more beat cops to randomly pull over (disproportionately innocent and disenfranchised) people over miniscule driving infractions to hunt for the actual criminals.

I'm happy to see some actual numbers but it seems the devices have been used far more often to deter actual, serious crime than to cause it. Perhaps they should focus on improving the product for what it's actually good for and not nerf it's core functionality because of the extreme edge case of a few bad actors.

Samsung has a similar product called SmartTag and it's also quite good from what I've seen, and on cursory glance seems to not be hyper focused on "fixing" this "problem".

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#405

Post by oxplot »

arsome wrote: post #372
oxplot wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressed head-on in the press release: > Display alert with sound: When AirTag automatically emits a sound to alert anyone nearby of its presence and is detected moving with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, we will also display an alert on your device that you can then take action on, like playing a sound or using Precision Finding, if available. This will help in cases where the AirTag may be in a location where i…

Did you miss the part where the parent was referring to people who don't have iOS devices?

yes indeed — I missed it

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#406

Post by TheRealSteel »

concinds wrote: post #119

Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…

>All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker

What am I missing here-- it seems like it would have been trivial for Apple to add a microphone and have the AirTag stop sending location if the speaker isn't working. And have the firmware check the speaker is actually emitting sound, so no amount of physical rewiring can defeat it.

Anyone know why they didn't do this?

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#407

Post by fomine3 »

arsome wrote: post #325
concinds wrote: post #119

Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…

People are actually selling AirTags with the speakers already disabled, this is a massive hole they're consistently overlooking.

So alarm shouldn't be considered to anti tracking feature.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#408

Post by camillomiller »

kyledrake wrote: post #404

I've heard of multiple people using airtags to prevent and successfully recover stolen vehicles and property after armed carjackings, and as dystopian as that feels, it seems to me far less invasive to society to narrowly target violent criminals than hiring more beat cops to randomly pull over (disproportionately innocent and disenfranchised) people over miniscule driving infractions to hunt for the actual criminals…

That’s not how the media narrative works unfortunately. Source: I’m in media.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#409

Post by oxplot »

ask_b123 wrote: post #379
oxplot wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you live in an apartment with nfc entry, they might charge an arm and a leg to replace it, even if the actual device is only a few dollars That's just theft — plain and simple. The only half valid argument I've heard is to discourage carelessness leading to loss of the key and weakening of the building security. But that's moot in places where the garage gate is broken and left open half the year (my current pla…

At first I thought you bought the proxmark with the purpose of dating. Also, how does the proxmark work? Does it store the signal of a card key or something like that?

It reads content of RFID tags. Once you have the content, you can write it onto another tag and essentially duplicate the key.

Some tags are easier to read than others. But so far, with a bit of digging around the net, I've been able to read various key cards and copy them.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#410

Post by zimpenfish »

RC_ITR wrote: post #232
tacLog wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have to reveal who you are to Apple to use an airtag though? Or with decent operational security can you purchase and activate airtags in an untraceable way? If you can that undermines your point, however if you can't then your making a very good point.

If a stalker is willing to buy a burner iOS device (since that's the means of viewing Airtag data), associate it with an untraceable email/iCloud, and only leave the device's location services on in locations that aren't tied to their identity (since Apple also knows where the tracking phone is), then 'having access to Airtags' probably isn't the 'make or break' factor in whether or not they will stalk someone. If a…

> If a user has that level of [spare cash],

I suspect they could get several cellular GPS devices for the cost of an iPhone + some AirTags - meaning they could easily offer up one or two sacrificial ones for easy finding in order to hide a smaller one "in plain sight" (as it were.)

Or they could just hire a private detective to do some stalking for them.

Or someone even less scrupulous for even less money, I'd assume?

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