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Find My Device on Android

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Re: Find My Device on Android

#121

Post by kelnos »

alephxyz wrote: post #73
wolverine876 wrote: post #46

> thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead. This suggests there is separate hardware with its own power and network capabilities, designed for location tracking, designed to be always on. Is there a way to disable it?

Putting my tinfoil hat on, this explains why Google was okay adding a toggle to location access for apps on Android. They don't need your device to send them their location anymore, they'd only need you to be in range of an UWB or BLE device.

I'm all for assuming bad intent when it comes to Google and, but this doesn't really make sense.

Google owns the OS; if they want your location, they don't need to care about per-app location permissions.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#122

Post by mcsniff »

someplaceguy wrote: post #82
mcsniff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you read "X is an option to try and stop this" as "it's not possible" is about as ridiculous as wanting other people to spoon-feed you a solution. Stop using Google services if you don't want to be tracked by Google tracking services.

First of all, I said it's not possible currently . Which is what I'm interested in. Not that it might not be possible in the future if enough pressure is applied (that might be interesting for activists, which I am not and have no interest in being). Second, it's not mine or EFF's responsibility to police what Google does. Let's make it very clear that the current situation is Google's responsibility and nobody else'…

You're the one looking for help, you're not gonna get it by antagonizing others and waffling off your own responsibility.

Best of luck.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#123

Post by doublepg23 »

godelski wrote: post #79
MarkusWandel wrote: post #19

Ironically, yesterday my wife couldn't find her phone while we were at a restaurant. Is it at home? Well, let's try this. Google it, go to http://android.com/find Ah, but it only shows devices logged into my account. Well, let's log into hers. Which required 2FA from... her device. Sooo useful.

Just don't log out. Let us collect your data forever and at all times. No need to restart your computer, ever. You're dumb because you didn't create hard copy two factor backup codes! User error. Some potential explanations by people who don't want to resolve this admittedly difficult problem to solve. I find these issues difficult when also considering security keys like Yubikey. Like you can't clone a yubikey and t…

The suggested solution for loosing a Yubikey is to already have n>=2 set up for your account. Apple won't even let you enable it without having two.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#124

Post by kelnos »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #11

Would anyone have details on how Pixels can be found even when out of battery?

"Out of battery" isn't really what we think it means. The phone shuts down (and refuses to start back up) when it still has quite a bit of battery left. If it truly allowed the battery to go flat, that would damage the battery, and you'd have a really hard time charging it again.

The amount of juice your entire phone needs to run for, say, a half hour can probably power just the bluetooth LE chipset for occasional wakeups for beacon-sending for... weeks? Months? (Completely made up time spans, but the BTLE chipset really does need a tiny amount of power for infrequent wakesups compared to the entire phone.) Certainly this can't last forever: if your phone is missing for long enough, the battery will eventually run down to a point where the battery controller won't let even the BTLE chipset draw any more power.

This definitely requires hardware, firmware, and software support in order to set up, which is why only Pixel 8 is supported so far. Clearly when they were designing the Pixel 8 hardware, they already knew this feature was in the pipeline, and wanted to be able to launch with a supported phone.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#125

Post by explore »

wolverine876 wrote: post #46

> thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead. This suggests there is separate hardware with its own power and network capabilities, designed for location tracking, designed to be always on. Is there a way to disable it?

Does anyone know if the baseband chip communication with the tower is disabled in airplane mode?

Re: Find My Device on Android

#127

Post by kelnos »

MBCook wrote: post #116
neurostimulant wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google decided to delay the release until apple updated their unknown tracker alert to support google's bluetooth tracking devices. Not sure why, but it took one year for apple to implement the support.

Seems odd. Unless that was going to require hardware changes I don’t see why you’d need to delay. That still leaves 2 years past Apple’s long rumored debut.

Anti-competitive behavior is why. Apple had no need to update their unknown tracker alert software on any particular timescale. And if Google was willing to wait until Apple made that update, Apple could certainly drag their feet and delay Google's launch for a while.

Presumably Google would have, eventually, said "ok, enough is enough, we're releasing on X date whether or not you've updated yet". And maybe that's indeed what happened! At that point Apple really would want to finish that update, since not doing so could be a privacy hole for their customers. (The same privacy hole Android users had to deal with in the early days of AirTags when we couldn't detect them.)

Re: Find My Device on Android

#128

Post by kelnos »

nikeee wrote: post #56

This is not compatible with AirTags in any way, no? Wouldn't this be a great opportunity for a common standard? Or is there one?

Oh sure, it would be a great opportunity, but the idea of Apple voluntarily interoperating with anyone else on most things is just funny to think about.

Google isn't significantly better on that metric, of course, but I feel like it's often in Google's business interests to interoperate more often than it is in Apple's.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#129

Post by kelnos »

thimkerbell wrote: post #68

There should be a config seeting. The 2nd time within 2 minutes that your phone is called from [other phone number] it will ring with increasing loudness, regardless of other settings. (Enable/disable)

That's fine for the phone, but not for other devices and trackers.

Re: Find My Device on Android

#130

Post by kelnos »

MBCook wrote: post #106

Can the Pixel phones do the UWB finding like iPhones can where they tell you it’s 10.7 feet to your left? Or is this more like the older iPhones where it simply tells you if you’re getting closer or further away?

Based on the mockups and description in the article, it seems like it's the latter, unfortunately. If it did the UWB thing, I'm sure Google would have prominently pointed that out.
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