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Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

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Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#61

Post by piaste »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #51
tomschlick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disable isn't a disable of notifications. It disables the airtag from reporting its status as an anti-stalking measure. So it wouldn't work for anyone.

So does this mean person A could reverse stalk person B (who has their airtagged Macbook on them, for instance). Use the disable function to disable the airtag on person B's Macbook once IOS pops up a potential stalking notification. And then freely steal the Macbook? What's the distance and time required to get a stalking notification? I presume close enough that it would be hard to do on the street, but potentially…

> So does this mean person A could reverse stalk person B (who has their airtagged Macbook on them, for instance). Use the disable function to disable the airtag on person B's Macbook once IOS pops up a potential stalking notification. And then freely steal the Macbook?

If you've stolen the macbook, you can just... check the bag for airtags and throw them away?

I suppose disabling it first prevents them from potentially tracking the thief for those first 100m to the nearest trash box, but it also has a good chance to alert them.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#62

Post by jclardy »

soco wrote: post #42
tomschlick wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The disable isn't a disable of notifications. It disables the airtag from reporting its status as an anti-stalking measure. So it wouldn't work for anyone.

So I can walk around and disable every airtag in sight? Some important information must be missing here...

It requires the iPhone to go "home" or "work" or any regular repeated location with the airtag following for some period of time.

That's why the dog airtag in the article continues to go off, when they take the dog on a walk, it follows the same path, then ends up back at the shared house. Their case would be solved by using an iCloud family plan, but they don't want to.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#63

Post by dml2135 »

twawaaay wrote: post #52

That's simple. Things like this happen when people act without principles. It is like patching software without taking one step back to understand the underlying issues. The underlying issue with airtags is supposed to be that people can use them to track other people. Well, rather than try to take a step back and understand what the problem is, Apple decided to just jump in and start figuring out some heuristics tha…

> Imagine car makers reacted to first car accidents by putting pillows around the cars rather than figuring out we need legal moves (road rules, drivers licenses, car safety standards, infrastructure to separate flows of traffic, etc.)

I think this analogy may work but not in the way you are saying.

"Pillows" here would be seatbelts, and other actual car safety features. Those have been massively successful in reducing traffic deaths. As bad as it is today, take a look at what car crash fatalities were like in the 60s.

The car companies fought tooth and nail against safety features back in the day, and they didn't become ubiquitous until the government stepped in and required them. Which I'd image is exactly what Apple is trying to get ahead of here.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#64

Post by kyleee »

dokem wrote: post #29

Is there any reason to believe that air tags actually enables or encourages otherwise non-stalkers into stalking? I'm not really inclined to believe so. Stalking isn't difficult or technically challenging thing to do. If you can get the chip on them then you can just follow them home and know where they live. Then you can stalk them whenever you want. The airtag maybe makes it more convenient but I don't think conven…

I tend to agree; I think Apple’s efforts are mostly PR to avoid low quality media outlets ex. vice, etc. from being able to write AirTag stalking articles

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#65

Post by altairprime »

dml2135 wrote: post #58
jclardy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super annoying for me, as I bought a tag for our shared mailbox key thinking we both could find it when needed, but only my devices can. It seems crazy to me that this still hasn't been implemented in over a year now - iCloud family plans exist, CloudKit sharing zones exist since last year (In public API form, so likely they existed internally for even longer.) Also the device ID's are already shared internal…

Why does it seem crazy to you? Here's what likely happened -- they built the entire system from the ground-up based on a single-user because integrating with iCloud family wasn't part of the MVP. By the time someone got around to asking about it, they realized that their data model was so thoroughly fucked it would take several weeks of risky migrations in order to add multi-user support. So stakeholders are punting…

Alternate interpretation: Any multi-user support will be wielded by abusers, and no other use cases deserve precedence over inhibiting abuse, so all multi-user cases result in unpredictable sound and/or push notifications to inhibit abuse.

I expect Apple will eventually add “This AirTag has been traveling with you for a while, are you okay with that?” random pop-up notifications, the same way that it randomly confirms “Always Allow” location access and “Time-sensitive” notifications access.

I explain the little chirping sound the one in my glovebox sometimes makes when I start my car to anyone riding with me who doesn’t recognize it, so that they understand what that sound is and to pay attention and be conscious of what it means whenever they hear it.

If occasional chirps are the price I have to pay to inhibit abuse by a global tracking network, then that’s a small annoyance paid for a great good for others.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#66

Post by dbg31415 »

I had the opposite experience.

I bought a bunch of these for aging parents. Set them up on their phones, not my own phone, and put them on everything for my folks.

Dad lent me a suitcase, with one of his air tags in the pocket, and a week in I still had not received any warnings.

I thought it was troubling, and I wanted to see how long it would take. So I left it in my back seat for two months… at some point I just forgot it was there.

It provided Dad with my car’s location until the battery died. At no point did I get any warning it was there. I don’t have any sort of joint account or family plan for iPhones.

This made me really nervous about how these worked. I don’t think they do enough to tell people when they are being stalked.

This all happened a year or two ago when the tags first came out. I got rid of all my AirTags after. I don’t think they respect privacy and that makes them unsafe. It makes me happy to hear people saying they got notifications. But I didn’t.

Oh one more thing… I thought I turned off location tracking on my phone and it still knew where the tags that connected to my phone were. Just shows you can’t really ever turn location tracking off.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#68

Post by throwayyy479087 »

marcosscriven wrote: post #8
bcherny wrote: post #6

I recently bought a bunch of AirTags for my family: for our keys, our bike, our luggage. Annoyingly, every AirTag needs to be linked to a single iPhone. Even when everyone belongs to the same Family. AirTags also make annoying sounds every time I grab my keys to go out. They’re still the best UX on the market, but I wish Apple would improve the UX just a bit more. Maybe their policy folks are worried about news stori…

I definitely think there should be a way to attach tags to a family. Like the original article I use one in my dog. I know it’s not the purported use, but it has and does work for us.

Particularly because there's already shared Apple services mapped to Families. It's very frustrating.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#69

Post by Spooky23 »

dml2135 wrote: post #58
jclardy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is super annoying for me, as I bought a tag for our shared mailbox key thinking we both could find it when needed, but only my devices can. It seems crazy to me that this still hasn't been implemented in over a year now - iCloud family plans exist, CloudKit sharing zones exist since last year (In public API form, so likely they existed internally for even longer.) Also the device ID's are already shared internal…

Why does it seem crazy to you? Here's what likely happened -- they built the entire system from the ground-up based on a single-user because integrating with iCloud family wasn't part of the MVP. By the time someone got around to asking about it, they realized that their data model was so thoroughly fucked it would take several weeks of risky migrations in order to add multi-user support. So stakeholders are punting…

There’s also the obvious privacy problem of family members stalking each other.

Re: Apple is convinced my dog is stalking me

#70

Post by el_benhameen »

bcherny wrote: post #6

I recently bought a bunch of AirTags for my family: for our keys, our bike, our luggage. Annoyingly, every AirTag needs to be linked to a single iPhone. Even when everyone belongs to the same Family. AirTags also make annoying sounds every time I grab my keys to go out. They’re still the best UX on the market, but I wish Apple would improve the UX just a bit more. Maybe their policy folks are worried about news stori…

This is surprisingly powerful anti-marketing from Apple. I got some AirTags to keep track of our keys without realizing that AirTags can’t be shared within a family. I hoped they’d be useful to my wife, who sometimes forgets her purse, but she absolutely hates them as they’re always giving her warnings. I loaned my car to my sister and now she and her husband are off the list of potential customers, too. I get the stalking concerns, but I’m surprised that the solution was to make the product completely unusable for anyone but single people.
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