Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

261–270 of 322 posts

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

#261
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…

This is a great solution to this issue - two way transparency.

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

#262
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have a lot of coworkers who are bigger self-starters than I am despite growing up with far more type-A parents than I did. Even to the point of there being stereotypes about the people who can't relax cause their parents drove them so hard for some Asian immigrant groups. So I think a claim that "controlling parents" -> "adrift young adults" would be hard to support. Kids need to learn from mistakes, but if not mon…

I'm not advocating for no consequences. I'm advocating for no pre-consequences.

And yes, sometimes kids get away with things if they aren't monitored 24/7. They're supposed to. Figuring out the boundaries of attempting that, and dealing with the consequences when you fail, is a very important lesson for children.

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

#263
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. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy. When I worked at a power monitoring startup (we monitored home power use, by individual circuit) this passive monitoring came up. And our CEO mentioned to his wife that she was home early.. "how did you know?" He saw the garage doo…

Yeah. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy.

We have a tracking collar for our dog. The actual tracker is around 1" x 2", and gives realtime reports via the cell network. it would be easy to use it to track a spouse or car or whatever.

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

#264
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share the competitors in the power monitoring space? I could really use a solution to this because my home electric bill is crazy high. We moved in to a new house about eight months ago and this electric bill is like 30% higher than my previous home. Not just the raw total of the bill - my consumption is higher in this house. I know of sense.com but perhaps there are others?

Sense just guesses everything wrong. I can strongly recommend Emporia energy, which has per circuit monitors.

That's a good tip, I've been really disappointed in our Sense's ability to detect anything correctly. It's detected 9 heating devices so far. I suspect that our variable speed heat pump is hard for it to figure out reliably.

I ordered the additional sensor that I'll use for the heat pump and one more circuit and see if it does any better, if not, the Emporia seems reasonably priced for as many sensors as it has.

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

#265
post #208
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Before my daughter starts driving, I'm going to take her around where I grew up and show her the places where people I knew died in car accidents / other issues, and explain why they died: - These two girls were speeding to make it home by curfew, ran off the road, and died in a car fire over the side of this hill - don't speed if you're running late. Let me know, and get home safely. - This is where a guy was on dru…

My father did something like this. He wasn’t even trying to teach us a lesson or anything. We had gone back to his hometown to see some relatives and we took a drive around. He told us all those stories you mentioned above. It did not make me think about being safer. It just made me think, “Wow, now I know why my father is such a @#$% downer all the time. Note to self: Dad is broken, don’t take anything he says seriously.” So be careful how you present it because your kids’ thought process is not the same as yours.

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

#266
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…

> i just wish it had a feature that alerted the you whenever someone used it to locate one of your devices.

I’m shocked that the very security-minded Apple doesn’t do this. I shared my location indefinitely with my wife and was shocked that I didn’t get a notification when she was tracking me. How is this not an option for the indefinite location share?

> The airtag/tile makes this much harder, perhaps the airtag should loudly beep or notify nearby devices whenever it's being actively located.

AirTags do have a feature like this. If an AirTag is detected on your person, it will make an alarm sound. Basically they can’t be carried near a device that isn’t their owner’s device for long without sounding an alarm.

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

#267
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, but what if I want indefinite sharing (like with my wife) but would also like to be notified when I’m being tracked? That should definitely be an option. It should really be the default…

Right now it’s way too damn easy to ask to borrow someone’s phone, then share their location with you indefinitely, and have that person not notice that you’re able to track them until the next time they use FindMy. There are probably a huge percentage of users that almost NEVER open the FindMy app. It’s a glaring security and safety omission from Apple.

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to share the competitors in the power monitoring space? I could really use a solution to this because my home electric bill is crazy high. We moved in to a new house about eight months ago and this electric bill is like 30% higher than my previous home. Not just the raw total of the bill - my consumption is higher in this house. I know of sense.com but perhaps there are others?

Our product was "site sage". Its subscription based and you have to install a current transformer around each circuit coming out of you electric box (you'd install in the circuit breaker box). But you did get circuit by circuit listings. Its also subscription based. The company has moved on to monitoring kitchen equipment, though they still sell them. I've been out of the space for a while, but the "sense" power moni…

Yeah, I’ve got one of those on my fridge, also.

When the monthly cost gets up to a certain level, we clean the coils and it drops back down.

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

#269
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…

> 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.

That depends. If that's a way to start up a conversation, it might lead to a lot more location-checking.

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

#270
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. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy. When I worked at a power monitoring startup (we monitored home power use, by individual circuit) this passive monitoring came up. And our CEO mentioned to his wife that she was home early.. "how did you know?" He saw the garage doo…

Supermarket loyalty card schemes give away medical insights into people & households, that they perhaps wouldnt want as public knowledge.

Search engines get given all sorts of data by people who give away medical data, financial data, crimes, both as victim and as perpetrator, past and present.

Social media interests give away data about people as well.

The internet is one giant intelligence tool and your every move, your every click gives away stuff.

In the 90's I had a Visual Basic addon AI which could work out who was typing at the keyboard. There was no need to have login screens and passwords, your typing pattern identified you.

Today smart phone's can tell if its you from the pressure of your finger, the surface area and shapes made by your finger as it moves around the screen. Again no need for login screens, but some people do know just how often women go through their partners smart phones! I'm surprised more women dont play poker!

This information wont be made known for a very long time if at all because not everyone on the planet is using the tech. If the true scale of surveillance was known, it would have to be broken to them gently as it could cause civil unrest.

Carte blanche access to peoples computers has been going on since the internet appeared.

Post reply on HN