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

nytimes.com

271–280 of 322 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a mostly happy user of Life360, not currently paying (but I have in the past). I would be more likely to pay real money for the service if it came with a contractual guarantee that by paying for it, my data would never get sold. Not even in aggregate, 'anonymized'. I like the service, I'm willing to be a customer, but I hate the privacy leak.

We are now on record that data from Tile and Jiobit will NEVER be sold. Period. Some of the other stuff on our data practices were highly sensationalized, and we have a privacy center that allows any user - free or paid - to opt in/out of any portion of our platform they don't like, even ads within the system. So this is something you absolutely don't need to worry about.

"We are now on record that data from Tile and Jiobit will NEVER be sold."

I'm now going on record as saying pink unicorns eat the cotton candy shed by the fairies which will NEVER stop.

Why should you being on record about data from your users be treated any differently to mine about pink unicorns? What consequence is there for you personally if you decide to flip that and say "Lol, I believed that at the time too but then we got an offer..." Would you personally go to prison for fraud, for example? Would you personally go bankrupt - against your will, like it or not?

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

#272
post #199
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?

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…

Yep. Literally every prior generation, including ours, went through this process. If anything the world is safer: everyone has cell phones in an emergency, cars are made to handle accidents better, and there's winder cultural awareness about how to spot abuse.

And frankly, the kids have the upper hand. Monitor texts and they'll switch to "Finsta"—or whatever came after that.

All it's going to do is mess up their ability to understand trust or cause them to avoid taking any sort of basic social risks.

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

#273
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it hard to buy a SIM card in much of the world? I can walk into one or about ten shops within 5km of here and buy one instantly. I think the price is ‘free’ but you pay something like EUR 10 to have credit on it. If you want to be anonymous, you can wear a hood and a mask and pay with cash.

In the US, it's very unusual to buy a SIM card outside of purchasing a phone and phone plan. And while we do have prepaid options, they're much less commonly used than in other countries. At a quick glance, the cheapest T-Mobile plan is $60/mo, or $45/mo if you're adding a second line to an existing plan. You can also get a SIM card intended for IoT usage, but this is probably not something your average non-technical…

prior to international roaming bundles becoming reasonable my first task when arriving in the US was always to buy a SIM card. Unlike almost anywhere else the US (well SFO at least) did not have the usual line of SIM sellers at the exit from immigration

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

#274
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…

Totally.

A decade ago I setup an RPi Zero W garage camera for my sister, using the GPIO for driving a relay to move the garage door remotely.

Ostensibly the specific use case for this thing was so the fam. could check the garage door status and close it remotely if it was forgotten open. Innocent enough, totally sane.

Except I setup the MotionEye software to not be too sensitive about people walking around in the garage or quick open-close cycles like returning home so it wouldn't wear out the SD card with writing irrelevant minutiae.

Years later I get an email from my sister asking if the garage camera I set up was failing to capture her son coming and going via the garage door keypad. I had to explain that the thing was setup to detect just the garage door being left in a changed state for an extended period, not if it opens and closes in a short window of time. But that it could be reconfigured to be more sensitive if needed.

Turned out she'd been abusing what was supposed to be a simple "did you forget the garage door open again? close it" facility as a surveillance tool from literally the moment I'd set it up, unbeknownst to me.

Sigh.

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

#275
post #199
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?

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…

This is how I feel about it too. In some cases, I can look back at times when I did something that my parents would have considered bad and I felt like it helped me rather than hurt.

Those are learning experiences too.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

>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!

How exactly does one know of one's phone is being snooped on?

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

#277

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 want to let me kid (now 5) be more independent. These days, at least in the USA, kids aren't allowed out until they are 10 or even older, and even then they often don't get to take the bus alone (I started doing that when I was in 2nd grade, in the 80s when crime was much worse than it is today, I was biking on my own outside when I was in Kindergarten). But I thought...something like an air tag, cellphone, and may…

> These days, at least in the USA, kids aren't allowed out until they are 10 or even older

Or, you could ignore the overprotective parents and just let you kid run around. Maybe wait a few more years to align with your second grade goal, I don't know.

But it amazes me you live in a neighborhood where most parents don't trust their 10 year olds to take the bus.

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?

If you're interested in local control and open source:

https://circuitsetup.us/

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

#279
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…

I don't necessarily disagree with your ideas here but I do want to offer some of the "child's" perspective.

My father was an EMT for 20 years, overlapping most of my childhood. My memories (particularly of car trips) are peppered with stories like you describe. The "being there to help" part is the part I'd recommend you emphasize (and is something I try to do with my daughter). I carry some mental "scars" from my father's stories 30+ years later. Beyond a point the stories didn't offer any more lessons and were just disturbing.

(I don't hold any of this against my father. I think his heart was in the right place. I count myself lucky to have had the best parents in the world.)

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy. What does this even mean?? Your partner commented on it??

Basically I got a comment that she already knew where we went on our walk because she checked the dogs location.
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