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NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

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Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#331

Post by lstamour »

Fatnino wrote: post #302
crhulls wrote: post #236

I'm the CEO of Life360, Tile's parent company. I chimed in on another comment but adding to the conversation directly here. I'm biased, but I am surprised how little pushback this is getting as AirTags explicitly are NOT meant to deter theft - to combat stalking (which is exceedingly rare) Apple notifies you if a tag you do not own is near you. That goes for thieves - they will be told an AirTag is nearby. At Tile we…

There are third party apps that will see right through your "secret stalking mode". Basically, since apple doesn't give a damn about android users, they just unleashed airtags on the world with no way to be alerted you are being stalked if you only have android. Months later apple did release some half assed android app that doesn't do automatic scanning. So android users need to use something like airguard and that…

Actually re non-iPhone detection: I’ve been annoyed by air tags beeping and it’s definitely the case that the new anti-stalking features on AirTags make them rather noisy and easy to find as a result. You have to get very creative with the hiding spot so that thieves know it exists (they can hear it) but they can’t find it, remove it or take out the battery to disable it. I’ve heard stories about people planting more than one AirTag on their bike, such as dropping one in the frame in a hard to reach area, and having opportunists decide to drop the bike off at a used store than deal with the AirTag they can’t find that keeps making noise.

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#333

Post by crhulls »

schwartzworld wrote: post #325
crhulls wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have updated all models to have either replaceable batteries or a 3-year life. Given how beaten up devices on things like keys get we are getting very good feedback on the 3 year models. We are also giving away free tiles to paid Life360 members, which is probably not as relevant to the hacker news crowd but we do have over 20% of US families using our service. We think tiles should be free with membership, includ…

What was the justification for the original 1 year with no replaceable? It was so shady.

That was a vestige of the business well before I was involved. I don't think there was anything nefarious. These are devices that get beaten up quite a bit and the idea was they were cheap enough that it made sense to replace annually.

We have now moved to either 3 year disposable units or replaceable batteries. 3 years feels like a reasonable lifespan. And, our plan is to give them away for free to Life360 members (which is probably a small portion of HN readers but a high percentage of traditional families)

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#334

Post by crhulls »

chevman wrote: post #308
crhulls wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just launched Tile for cats and you can share your Tile devices and have them appear in Life360 along with your family members. Give it a go! https://www.tile.com/product/tile-for-cats-white

I would seriously recommend you advertise this heavily on NextDoor paid ads - will make an absolute truckload of cash!!!!!!!

Good idea! I just shared this note with our marketing team

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#335

Post by devmor »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #309
linooma_ wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> No need to buy Apple > you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13 I didn't see anything in the comment which suggested they were. It is specifically points out there are devices not produced by Apple. Third parties can create compatible devices: https://developer.apple.com/find-my/

The advantage of AirTags is the large phone tracking network: every recent iPhone defaults to tracking them. That's hundreds of millions of devices globally, with probably even more density in the US. The main competitors (Tile and Samsung) have much smaller networks. I'm not sure what network you'd get with generic "Bluetooth Tracker" tags: technically it could be Apple but I can't find any evidence for such product…

I am convinced you are not reading the things you reply to.

That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#336

Post by sneak »

icelancer wrote: post #166
sitkack wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had someone steal my keys with an airtag on them in Seattle. Cops said they were going to send someone after making me file a police report, screenshots of Find My, etc. Call them an hour later, "oh yeah, no officers responded, we are too busy, good luck!" and this was on a slow-ass sunday around Greenlake. Recovered the keys myself. Good thing they have a 355M budget. https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/…

SPD does much the same for me. I had my laptop tracked using Prey software (prior to Airtags) and they refused to send cops to a location I personally scouted out, took pictures of, and identified my equipment. When I told them I might confront the thief on my own, they strongly cautioned against it. Basically they aren't interested in doing their job, or anyone taking action themselves.

This is the best argument for defunding the police - their budgets have largely stayed flat or even gone up, and they aren't doing their jobs. Why are we paying for it?

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#337

Post by crhulls »

switz wrote: post #323
crhulls wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need that for background scanning; Apple just cheats and does the same without really asking. We have never sold Tile user data. We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm, but we exited the business as it seemed to cause confusion and was a very small part of our revenue

> "We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm" I'm confused. Life360 was found selling precise user location data to third party data brokers[0]. It doesn't take a creative mind to see the harm (or even potential harm) caused here. I could never trust you or your company. [0] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-... > A former X-Mode engineer said the raw location dat…

The entire premise of "found" is a bit nuts as we are a public company and disclosed this regularly and consistently, including how we used the data. The coverage we got in the MarkUp was the most unethical I have seen in my life with reporters literally cutting/pasting parts of quotes to make a point.

We had a data platform for targeted ads. I realize that isn't popular, but we were always transparent. We exited the business because it wasn't worth the controversy.

Please go look at our public filings before you trust this article. We were so transparent about everything we did both to our users and the public.

I do think our record of zero instances of harm show we had good safeguards in place.

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#338

Post by [deleted] »

switz wrote: post #323
crhulls wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need that for background scanning; Apple just cheats and does the same without really asking. We have never sold Tile user data. We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm, but we exited the business as it seemed to cause confusion and was a very small part of our revenue

> "We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm" I'm confused. Life360 was found selling precise user location data to third party data brokers[0]. It doesn't take a creative mind to see the harm (or even potential harm) caused here. I could never trust you or your company. [0] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-... > A former X-Mode engineer said the raw location dat…

[deleted]

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#339

Post by thedougd »

renewiltord wrote: post #317
thedougd wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works fine to find your own devices by giving it permission 'while using the app'.

The primary use case for these things requires other participants in the network. It doesn't look like this is a good product for you, yeah.

I'm using Tile Stickers the same way they're depicted on their website, as a TV remote finder. Is that wrong?

Re: NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts

#340

Post by jandrese »

kevviiinn wrote: post #153
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first one is... incredibly convoluted. Like reaching your right arm over your head to touch your left esr (try it!). The second one sounds like it sucks. With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief yourself and shoot them. https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/texas-man-used-apple-airtag-to...

That's probably the only solution because from the stories I've seen, when someone has something stolen that's airtagged and they tell police, the police basically just tell them to fuck off

Police will take more notice if they get to charge someone with Grand Theft. Tracking down a thief for a low-mid dollar item is seen as a waste of time because they'll be back out on the street in no time.
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