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I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

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Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#191

Post by vineyardmike »

crhulls wrote: post #88

Hi All, I'm the cofounder and CEO of Life360, which is the relatively new owner of Tile. Stalking hasn't been much of an issue for us, but we are in the process expanding the finding network via our 35 million+ active user base (will require opt-in consent) and we also do offer a location device for kids and pets (Jiobit) that has its own cell connection which is actually meant for finding people in real-time. We hav…

Someone else in another thread has a really good idea: tell people how often someone checks in on them (for location sharing info).

> I don’t claim that there are simple solutions here, but a starting point would be tech companies making it easier to see an audit of how this “innocent” tracking tech is being used on the trackee. For example, I bet my grandpa would think twice about checking in on my cousins location as often as he probably does if he knew that my cousin got a notification every time he checked in.

Doesn't solve the Tile problem, of course. A solution there might be counter-intuitive: make the battery worse. Its a lot harder to stalk someone if you need to re-seed a device every few days. Of course, i can barely remember to charge my phone, nevermind keys, so that might kill tile's utility all together.

Or, maybe you could have some sort of "did someone else's tile follow me home" sort of feature. You set your home location, and if any tile that isn't yours is at home, you get notified. (unless the owner is with it, or you white-list one for eg. partner's, children, etc). This tells you if someone planted you with it to stalk (you'd have to have tile app even if you don't have one i guess). Don't tiles support findmy? That means that any apple device will already warn people, so you just need to cover android users. Maybe the alexa/sidewalk partnership can impl similar features for when you come home? Maybe partner with google for built-in tracking warning standards? If they're open to it.

I think > half the use of tile is "ring my X at home" where x is probably mostly keys, or "did i leave X at Y place". Based on this, you might be able to not track tiles everywhere, but just at pre-set locations. Only if you set it to a "lost mode" can you track it everywhere outside of certain pre-set locations, but then it'll beep and have annoying antistalking features like airtags - where you notify people nearby. Maybe orphaned tiles could try to collect to random bluetooth devices after a period of time to make their presence known? It would help people who didnt set up an app to listen ahead of time. That could be annoying though if the balance isn't right. Can probs still be abused, but should make it a complex task, and you can never stop everyone anyways.

----

aside, I'm surprised tile never tried to build any static infra in major urban areas to supplement their phone-based network (which seemed lacking when i used it compared to airtags). Do you see the use of Alexa/Sidewalk as a significant boost or advantage? Have you considered things like LoRaWAN based networks (thing network etc) as a supplement? A lot of that is built in major areas, and would just need a mapping step which may be able to be collected by existing users phones+tags in day to day use.

--

Aside again: this seems like a fun problem to work on, are you hiring?

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#192

Post by gnicholas »

toxik wrote: post #187
technothrasher wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so creep…

How do they see their texts calls emails etc? Surely that’s illegal.

Parents can monitor their children's email. Phone call records are in your monthly billing statement. As long as you're up front with your child about the level of monitoring, I don't think this is unethical, let alone illegal.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#193

Post by micromacrofoot »

smilespray wrote: post #186
micromacrofoot wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Tile even has the same network tracking effects that extend widely beyond bluetooth range. They've done this for a decade at this point, IIRC.

Too bad Tile's network tracking is useless in most areas since an app install is required to be part of the network.

If you live in a moderately sized city it's good enough to track someone to their house. I did it with a backpack thief 5 years ago.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#194

Post by everforward »

kbos87 wrote: post #32

My comment isn’t specific to AirTags, but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream products. Here’s a pattern I’ve seen play out more than once among friends and family - they share their location willingly and for seemingly benign reasons. It’s helpful to know when you’ll be getting home so I can start dinner! Just i…

I think there needs to be a delineation between anti-theft devices and anti-loss devices.

The sticking point now is that you want to let innocent people know if they're being tracked, but you don't want to let thieves know that they're being tracked. It seems an intractable problem, because there's no way that I can think of for a device to tell the difference between the two.

Anti-loss devices should be portable and detachable, but required to be able to be easily found via some kind of standard tooling. Maybe like the Bluetooth equivalent of pinging the broadcast IP. They should also make an audible noise when the owner tracks them.

Anti-theft devices should be silent, but required to be semi-permanently installed into the device to be tracked. Something annoying to remove, but not impossible. The ownership of the tracker should also be required to be registered with someone; logically the police, since that's who you would call anyways if your stuff was stolen. Anyone who finds an anti-theft device on their person or property that they didn't place there should automatically qualify for a restraining order against the device's owner (that they could opt not to pursue if they wanted). The restraining order should also prevent the device's owner from owning or registering any other anti-theft devices for the duration of the restraining order.

There would also need to be some kind of penalties for unregistered anti-theft devices, and for anti-loss devices that have been tampered with to not make noise or respond to the standard signal.

Also likely some kind of contract two people can enter into that says "I acknowledge that person X has tracker Y in thing Z, and I absolve my right to pursue a restraining order for it" for people who share a car or bike or whatever.

I haven't fully fleshed out the ideas, but I think something like the above reinforces that it's okay to track your own stuff but that's it not OK to track other people.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#195

Post by privacyking »

kemayo wrote: post #95
johnwalkr wrote: post #71

I understand the negative points about airtags, and one negative point I thought of but never see mentioned is the fact that all iphones are opted in by default to use battery life and data (however little) to operate the findmy network. In fact not many non-tech people realize that a) airtags work globally, not just near your iphone and b) relay data through any nearby iphone and not somehow directly to apple. Peopl…

It's difficult, because the very thing that make AirTags specifically so useful for legitimate purposes -- the vast network they participate in, and the ease of use -- is also what makes them particularly usable for shady things. I mostly accept it because I'm aware of how trivial it is to get a cheap GPS+SIM tracker that's even better for nefarious purposes, so worrying about AirTags seems a bit overblown.

G

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#196

Post by privacyking »

kemayo wrote: post #95
johnwalkr wrote: post #71

I understand the negative points about airtags, and one negative point I thought of but never see mentioned is the fact that all iphones are opted in by default to use battery life and data (however little) to operate the findmy network. In fact not many non-tech people realize that a) airtags work globally, not just near your iphone and b) relay data through any nearby iphone and not somehow directly to apple. Peopl…

It's difficult, because the very thing that make AirTags specifically so useful for legitimate purposes -- the vast network they participate in, and the ease of use -- is also what makes them particularly usable for shady things. I mostly accept it because I'm aware of how trivial it is to get a cheap GPS+SIM tracker that's even better for nefarious purposes, so worrying about AirTags seems a bit overblown.

G

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#197

Post by eigen »

sleepybrett wrote: post #155
kbos87 wrote: post #32

My comment isn’t specific to AirTags, but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream products. Here’s a pattern I’ve seen play out more than once among friends and family - they share their location willingly and for seemingly benign reasons. It’s helpful to know when you’ll be getting home so I can start dinner! Just i…

yeah, concerning the feature in the apple ecosystem to share your location with someone else is great, i just wish it had a feature that alerted the you whenever someone used it to locate one of your devices. That way if say i went to the big state fair with my friend and we shared our locations with each other in case we got separated but then forgot to shut it off. If a few days later i got notified that my friend…

> That way if say i went to the big state fair with my friend and we shared our locations with each other in case we got separated but then forgot to shut it off.

you can share location for 1 hour or until end of day rather than Indefinitely.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210514

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#198

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

shantara wrote: post #117
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Download the nRFConnect app and you'll probably be amazed at the number of BLE devices that are around you all the time. Anecdote: I used to work for a company that did a lot of wireless wearable stuff and early on in COVID lockdown I had a Linux tool: bluetoothctl, running while I was testing some code down in the basement of my house. The first indication I had that my wife was home was the appearance of a Fitbit d…

Wow, I was indeed amazed. I live in an apartment building, and I could immediately see more than a hundred devices! The list has everything: from headphones and smart watches to light bulbs and TVs.

Now don't be tempted to send random data to those light bulbs :-)

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#199

Post by ethbr0 »

cmckn wrote: post #189
technothrasher wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so creep…

I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health, etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did. How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about it enough?

I look at it the other way around: I did things as a kid and teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health... and those things made me... me.

So why should I, or do I have a right to, keep my kids from doing the same?

We aren't only the product of our positive lessons. A lot of life is learned through burning yourself on the hot stove. And by and large, it usually doesn't kill you.

IMHO, no humans are self-actualized enough to possess omniscience and act ethically. We have too many neuroses.

And, at the more obvious end of the spectrum, all of the suburban crowd complaining about how their children fail to launch, lack initiative in life, and aren't independent.

After their entire childhood was spent being monitored and constantly corrected by the parent.

The mind boggles.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#200

Post by BiteCode_dev »

nomel wrote: post #176
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should Apple be doing these measures at all? Apple no, but law makers should require a licence to use those. This is not a tech that anybody should be able to use on a whim. Too much potential for abuses. Not to mention the more there are, the bigger the cake for a nation that want to get control of the biggest offline spying network of all time. Somebody is going to crack that thing sooner or later. There will be…

What until you hear about the tracking device that everyone has in their pockets, used by cellular companies, ad companies, and the government!

Yes, they are a problem too.

But, you know they are here.

They can be turned off.

They require an internet connection.

They are not meant for tracking, and intent is important.

They provide other features than tracking.

They are expensive, and battery don't last. People won't use them to track their ex wife for months.

It's like comparing a gun and a knife. Sure, you can kill with a knife, but it's harder, and initially the knife is made for cutting carrots.

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