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Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

annoying.technology

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Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#31

Post by Nextgrid »

mostdataisnice wrote: post #30
QuikAccount wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems kind of ridiculous that in order to opt out of Apple's airtag network you essentially have to give up the ability to find your phone if it gets lost.

It's not ridiculous at all - you don't get to reap the benefits of the network without participating.

Find My iPhone primarily uses the phone to self-report its position when requested over the Internet.

This new "Find My" network (what a stupid name, btw) also allows to use other devices to report positions of nearby devices for those that don't have a data connection (AirTags or iPhones that were powered off).

The problem seems to be that a single toggle controls both features, while the first feature doesn't rely the community network and should remain available even if you opted out.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#32

Post by TooKool4This »

Nextgrid wrote: post #31
mostdataisnice wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ridiculous at all - you don't get to reap the benefits of the network without participating.

Find My iPhone primarily uses the phone to self-report its position when requested over the Internet. This new "Find My" network (what a stupid name, btw) also allows to use other devices to report positions of nearby devices for those that don't have a data connection (AirTags or iPhones that were powered off). The problem seems to be that a single toggle controls both features, while the first feature doesn't rely…

Thats actually how it is set up.

Current settings screen: https://imgur.com/a/TepOqb2

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#33

Post by Gigachad »

olliej wrote: post #9
Nextgrid wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be a DoS attack vector - presumably a BLE-enabled microcontroller could technically emulate an infinite number of AirTags and drain the battery even more if not cause more serious problems. I wonder how quickly this would be fixed if someone were to sprinkle a few such microcontrollers around Apple Stores or offices.

Someone already reversed the exact protocol and proof of concepted a arduino (or pi?) device that could happily use the network and would roll the keys regardless of whether it was in the owners vicinity, defeating the anti-tracking stuff. Of course at that point you’ve probably spent more than regular gps stalkerware

You are possibly at risk of Apple detecting this and locking your account. But at some point, if the attacker is determined enough to build custom hardware like this, there is not a lot you can do. None of the competitors managed any better or even got close to the protections Apple provided.

At some point we need to put the burden on law enforcement. It's impossible to make abuse of technology impossible but we can criminalize misuse.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#34

Post by Krasnol »

_g5q8 wrote: post #27
Krasnol wrote: post #23

How far are we from the moment where everybody admits that those things were a bad idea?

There's no reason to believe these are a bad idea beyond lowering entry cost to GPS trackers. It seems like there's a bug going on here - otherwise everyone would have the same issue. This is something that can be fixed and isn't really related to these existing overall.

This isn't the only "bug" though.

The use of it as a stalking device should be widely known already.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#35

Post by redleader55 »

picture wrote: post #26
pugworthy wrote: post #19

There are some battery draining tricks you can do with Bluetooth apps on a phone to drain the device batteries. Essentially if you did a ton of device queries to every BLE device visible, you could drain the batteries of every device in range. Transmission is probably a heavier battery drain so just making them talk to your phone creates drain. It’s a single device example, but in a bar once I was showing a co-worker…

That seems like a neat demo. Out of curiosity, what software/hardware did you use to see and ping nearby BLE devices?

You can do this easily with an Android phone. These are the apps I use:

Lightblue

nRFConnect

BLE Scanner

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#37

Post by Retric »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #28
_g5q8 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use the same system

They didn't use to, though. And you can't get that old functionality back while disabling the new.

Yes you can, they have different toggles.

There are currently two independent systems for finding your phone that work in different but complementary fashions.

Well arguably 3 systems, an iPhone can also be set to report it’s location when the battery is low.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#38

Post by rootusrootus »

fomine3 wrote: post #18
barkerja wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disable the Find My network, which is a separate option/setting from Find My for your specific device(s). It's found under your iCloud Settings > Find My The only major caveat to disabling it on your devices is it removes the ability for those devices to be located when they're turned off.

Apple should separate the settings for FindMy the device / FindMy other devices.

AFAIK they are separate already. They are separate toggles on the configuration screen.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#39

Post by jimrandomh »

Nextgrid wrote: post #4

An annoyance that is driving me away from the Apple ecosystem is the lack of choice when it comes to these new features - they are forced onto you with no way to disable them and sometimes radically modify the behavior of the device you purchased and may make it unsuitable for the original purpose you bought it for. I'm still using an iPhone and plan to get the new SE (and only because of Touch ID is back - Face ID w…

> In my case, the audio devices menu on Mac/iOS displays nearby AirPlay targets, including those not on the LAN. My neighbors got their misconfigured so it always pollutes my menus with no way to disable this even though I never use AirPlay and don't have any compatible hardware (nor intend to get any).

Make it play Rick Astley until they fix it.

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