Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#111

Post by simondotau » Sat, May 01, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC

jakear wrote: post #97

This is such an amazingly terrible invention I have no clue where to begin. How many people will be sexually assaulted by predators planting these devices in the bags of unsuspecting folks at bars and tracking their every location? How many domestic abuse survivors will be terrorized by their abusers planting the tag on some possession then having access to their every location? Hell, how many folks will be burglariz…

> Off the top of my head: a notification any time a tag has been away from it’s owners device for more than X time and has been around your device for at least Y time

That's exactly what Apple has done. This isn't even new information. It was part of the AirTags announcement on the 20th of April.

"iOS devices can also detect an AirTag that isn’t with its owner, and notify the user if an unknown AirTag is seen to be traveling with them from place to place over time."

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-introduces-airt...

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#112

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 01, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #40

w0mbat wrote: post #18

All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find device, not one that gives away its position (by warning the thief). I also want an easy mechanism to give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back.

I don’t know where you are, but in the US, if I gave the police a literal GPS coordinate of a stolen good, I still wouldnt expect them to actually go there and find it unless it’s of exceptionally high value (car, etc).

[deleted]

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#113

Post by [deleted] » Sat, May 01, 2021, 3:59 AM UTC

w0mbat wrote: post #18

All these stalking counter-measures make it useless if your device is stolen rather than mislaid. If my bag is stolen I want it to contain a hard to find device, not one that gives away its position (by warning the thief). I also want an easy mechanism to give the police temporary access to track it, til they catch the thief and get my stuff back.

[deleted]

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#114

Post by testrun » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #96

baybal2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it ridiculously easy to work around, they will probably get flak even earlier, harder, and be legislated to the ground more certainly than otherwise. I spoke with Frank Wang on a few meetups in Shenzhen many years ago, back when DJI was still kind of a garage company. Frank had big, nebulous ideas how he will be "engaging the civil society," "stakeholder negotiations," "industry wide self-governance body" bl…

His customers got them banned by doing reckless things.

Any examples?

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#115

Post by lolinder » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:43 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #89

djrogers wrote: post #35

There are a lot of comments here about how useless these protections are, because A or B already exist, or C works better for stalking. I think most of those comments are missing the real point here. If an Apple product were ever used to stalk - or God forbid, harm - an individual, it would be a big national story. If a Tile or a Samsung tag (or an amazon gps tracker made for stalking) were used in the same way, it w…

Well, if it ridiculously easy to work around, they will probably get flak even earlier, harder, and be legislated to the ground more certainly than otherwise. I spoke with Frank Wang on a few meetups in Shenzhen many years ago, back when DJI was still kind of a garage company. Frank had big, nebulous ideas how he will be "engaging the civil society," "stakeholder negotiations," "industry wide self-governance body" bl…

I think in this case it's likely that Apple is drawing attention to the stalking concerns on purpose. Bring on the regulation and the public outrage! Just let it be directed at Tile for not doing this sooner.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#116

Post by w0mbat » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:48 AM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #60

vineyardmike wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know where you are, but in the US, if I gave the police a literal GPS coordinate of a stolen good, I still wouldnt expect them to actually go there and find it unless it’s of exceptionally high value (car, etc).

Part of the problem is the GPS resolution, which isn't accurate enough to know exactly which individual on a street has your stuff, or even which house it might be inside. A long while back, on a early Saturday morning, I was awoken by my doorbell and accosted by an angry father of a crying daughter who had had their iPhone stolen by someone at a bar the previous night. Well, "Find My iPhone" showed the dot location…

This is true, but irrelevant to discussion of AirTags. AirTags give much finer grained location once you are close, as it uses the new iPhone's ultrawideband hardware to give you accurate bearing and distance to the tag, based on live information.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#117

Post by jessaustin » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #49

w0mbat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there was an easy mechanism to temporarily hand over tracking of stolen tags/iPhones/iPads to police, with the nice ultra wideband tracking that gives an arrow and direction, police would go and get a lot of stuff back. The police love low-hanging fruit and easy arrests.

Chasing down petty thieves is not the low hanging fruit most police departments go for.

They'd be interested if drug activity in that house were reported. Then they could raid the house, and keep whatever goods weren't broken or burned in the raid for themselves.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#118

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:06 AM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #35

There are a lot of comments here about how useless these protections are, because A or B already exist, or C works better for stalking. I think most of those comments are missing the real point here. If an Apple product were ever used to stalk - or God forbid, harm - an individual, it would be a big national story. If a Tile or a Samsung tag (or an amazon gps tracker made for stalking) were used in the same way, it w…

"..., it would be a big national story."

Lawsuit would follow.

Does any company have deeper pockets than Apple.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#119

Post by kepler1 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #38

BitwiseFool wrote: post #16

I must have lived a sheltered life because none of these concerns crossed my mind.

That's what we call privilege, and why it's actually great to build diverse teams so they can bring concerns that others wouldn't think of.

Oh will you gtfo with your stupid agenda? You would've told him to hire people for racial diversity, and what, that would've helped prevent this from being used to stalk people? Or what's the next class of diversity you want? Smell your own bullshit that you're trying to peddle once in a while.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#120

Post by jamesrcole » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #115

baybal2 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if it ridiculously easy to work around, they will probably get flak even earlier, harder, and be legislated to the ground more certainly than otherwise. I spoke with Frank Wang on a few meetups in Shenzhen many years ago, back when DJI was still kind of a garage company. Frank had big, nebulous ideas how he will be "engaging the civil society," "stakeholder negotiations," "industry wide self-governance body" bl…

I think in this case it's likely that Apple is drawing attention to the stalking concerns on purpose. Bring on the regulation and the public outrage! Just let it be directed at Tile for not doing this sooner.

> Bring on the regulation and the public outrage! Just let it be directed at Tile for not doing this sooner.

Public outrage seems to be based on a very low-res view of reality drawn from viral sound-bites, so I doubt that's how any public outrage would work.