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An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

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Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#101

Post by jackson1442 »

jmull wrote: post #56
Syonyk wrote: post #18

> ...and we condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Then subject them to malicious users before releasing them to see what sort of ideas they can come up with in a few days, and mitigate those before general release. Go schedule a room at Defcon, give people AirTags, and see what they do. If they neutralized your mitigations in an hour, well... other people can figure that out too.…

I think you’re completely misunderstanding the threat model here. First the reality: Malicious actors interested in, e.g., tracking other people or other people’s things without their knowledge or consent, have many other options. To defeat them, an Apple product just needs to be somewhat less convenient/useful/cost-effective than some of the many other options. Second, the perception: Apple needs to convince their c…

Exactly– the SmartThings tracker didn't ship with any of these features. Tile didn't either. The only reason this is such a conversation is because Apple built these anti-stalking features and marketed them.

Not to mention I could probably make a crappy GPS tracker with none of these alerts and stick it to people's stuff. It may be clunky, but there are plenty of good hiding places. Or I could just get this[0]. Or this[1]. Or any of the dozens of trackers I can find on Amazon that would be perfectly good for stalking.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Amcrest-LTE-GPS-Tracker-Geo-Fencing/d... [1]: https://www.amazon.com/LandAirSea-Waterproof-Magnetic-Person...

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#102

Post by hackmiester »

Judson wrote: post #96
jedberg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you on a shared iCloud account? This never happens to my wife and I but we’re on the same iCloud family account.

Interesting. Just one data point, but my wife and I both have airtags on our keys. When I drive her car (and she's not in it), I get a notification about her keys traveling with me. We're on the same iCloud "family" account. I wonder if there’s something else that needs to happen?

I would reach out to Apple about that. It’s not supposed to work that way.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#103

Post by josephcsible »

> New privacy warnings during AirTag setup: In an upcoming software update, every user setting up their AirTag for the first time will see a message that clearly states that AirTag is meant to track their own belongings, that using AirTag to track people without consent is a crime in many regions around the world, that AirTag is designed to be detected by victims,

I expect that this will be about as effective as the antipiracy warning at the beginning of every movie is.

> and that law enforcement can request identifying information about the owner of the AirTag.

Haven't there been a lot of stories of victims going to police with an AirTag, but this not happening?

> iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 users will be able to use Precision Finding

How convenient. Now you need a modern, expensive Apple product to protect yourself from stalkers.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#105

Post by [deleted] »

jackson1442 wrote: post #95
warning26 wrote: post #93

Hot take: There is no conceivable way to make Airtags safe, and they should be banned entirely. The problem is that by leveraging Apple devices to get worldwide geolocation and data service effectively for free, they make tracking trivially easy in a way that no other entity could.

Should all GPS trackers be banned then? The problem with AirTags is they're accessible; these problems have always existed with any kind of GPS tracking.

[deleted]

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#106

Post by vmception »

warning26 wrote: post #93

Hot take: There is no conceivable way to make Airtags safe, and they should be banned entirely. The problem is that by leveraging Apple devices to get worldwide geolocation and data service effectively for free, they make tracking trivially easy in a way that no other entity could.

mmm the free part

maybe they should make airtag operators accumulate freely tradeable data credits and iPhones reject relaying location data without a balance of credits

helium network works this way

for airtags it would make bad behavior more expensive and maybe another way to track bad actors or disable their ability to be a bad actor.

or not. just saw the free part

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#107

Post by warning26 »

jackson1442 wrote: post #95
warning26 wrote: post #93

Hot take: There is no conceivable way to make Airtags safe, and they should be banned entirely. The problem is that by leveraging Apple devices to get worldwide geolocation and data service effectively for free, they make tracking trivially easy in a way that no other entity could.

Should all GPS trackers be banned then? The problem with AirTags is they're accessible; these problems have always existed with any kind of GPS tracking.

GPS trackers require that you sign up for cell service, which is a non-trivial obstacle to overcome, and opens the user up to tracking by law enforcement.

Thanks to Apple's usage of their own proprietary network, both difficulties are automatically negated.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#108

Post by FireBeyond »

post_break wrote: post #74
FireBeyond wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just buy them on eBay, pre-silenced. I'm really not exactly sure what happened here in this "update", other than "FYI, we'll give out information after being subpoenad" and "we'll also include a dialog to say "don't track people with these"." "So, basically nothing, then?"

It will alert people that they are being tracked even sooner than the threshold now, and it will now play an even louder alert tone.

The "alerting people that a tracking device may be moving with them" is a good thing, though they definitely buried the lede on that, I feel.

A louder tone? I thought a lot of the issue was that people using them nefariously were disabling the speaker entirely, or buying AirTags that others have helpfully pre-disabled for them.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#109

Post by kingcharles »

warning26 wrote: post #93

Hot take: There is no conceivable way to make Airtags safe, and they should be banned entirely. The problem is that by leveraging Apple devices to get worldwide geolocation and data service effectively for free, they make tracking trivially easy in a way that no other entity could.

You might as well say the same for any product that can be misused by criminals. I use crowbars to lift heavy objects, but they can also be easily used for leveraging open doors that I have no legal access to...

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#110

Post by Closi »

josephcsible wrote: post #103

> New privacy warnings during AirTag setup: In an upcoming software update, every user setting up their AirTag for the first time will see a message that clearly states that AirTag is meant to track their own belongings, that using AirTag to track people without consent is a crime in many regions around the world, that AirTag is designed to be detected by victims, I expect that this will be about as effective as the…

> How convenient. Now you need a modern, expensive Apple product to protect yourself from stalkers.

To be honest, this is more about technical capability than an intentional lock-out.

If older phones simply don't have the hardware to do precision finding, what would you propose Apple does? No precision finding for anyone?

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