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Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

fastcompany.com

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Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#121

Post by bobthepanda »

PurpleFoxy wrote: post #100
bobthepanda wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you wouldn’t. It would only be necessary for the stalker to do it and then slip the Tile in with your belongings. Tiles can be marked lost until found by other users with the Tile app.

The main difference is Apple made it work way better and more accessible. Tile users are pretty rare in the wild.

Apple mostly got there because they already had so many phones. As Jobs would've said, Tile is a feature, not a product.

Unfortunately things start getting weird/potentially negative at scale, but at least Apple is trying to get ahead of the problem.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#123

Post by lstamour »

drdaeman wrote: post #46
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…

Would it really help, though? A stalker, not stupid and well-aware about the protection, visits iFixit for a picture of internals, takes a drill, and physically obliterates the buzzer, right through the case. Epoxy or superglue for protection from the elements. So they plant an Airtag, it gets found by accident, shit hits the fan, Apple's name goes in the news, journalists start journalist things, people don't are ou…

If you ask me, I'd say the odds that Apple makes a second revision of the AirTag within 4-6 years are pretty high. And that they end up deprecating/limiting the resolution of looking up the location of the first-gen devices.

That said, there is a foolproof way of preventing trackers from tracking you: like how the iPhone can warn you when a tracker than isn't yours is present (that's how the tracker works, after all!) then just make that feature open source and broadly available within Android. Poof, instantly you've reduced the need to worry about trackers to nil as both iOS and Android phones can thus warn users when trackers are following them and don't belong to them.

Because trackers must be registered, they actually become proof of stalking as much as they can harm individuals, if they can be caught in time of course.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#124

Post by cageface »

bobthepanda wrote: post #121
PurpleFoxy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is Apple made it work way better and more accessible. Tile users are pretty rare in the wild.

Apple mostly got there because they already had so many phones. As Jobs would've said, Tile is a feature, not a product. Unfortunately things start getting weird/potentially negative at scale, but at least Apple is trying to get ahead of the problem.

The problem is that there is some benefit in integrating almost any service into the growing Apple ecosystem and almost any product could conceiveably benefit from become an Apple feature. I think regulators need to draw the line somewhere to protect competition.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#125

Post by illustriousbear »

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.

The anti-theft argument is a bit over stated.

1. The thief would probably still find the tracker.

2. You would probably still lose connection/track of the device.

3. Police would probably still be reluctant to travel to a private residence somewhere and try to find it.

4. Are you going to physically find and confront a criminal yourself?

Encrypt your digital devices, have backups and insure anything valuable. That is the better than using some tracker and spending your time trying to chase down criminals.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#126

Post by toxik »

baybal2 wrote: post #99
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His customers got them banned by doing reckless things.

Really not. Prior to the big buzz about drones, and DJI buying full page ads describing how their software can load no fly zones, avoid nuclear power stations, prisons, flight into people etc, nobody was ever concerned with some random Chinese gizmo. And then he made people in places of power to read all kinds of scary things, to which they reacted in the most usual to them manner.

As a counter point, my flight was unable to land some years ago because some moron was flying his drone in the airport airspace.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#127

Post by asiachick »

simondotau wrote: post #111
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 t…

So I can track every person that doesn't have an iPhone?

> an AirTag separated from its owner for an extended period of time will play a sound when moved to draw attention to it.

How long is "extended"? It probably won't take more then 60-90 minutes to track someone.

This also sounds really annoying. Anytime I leave a tag somewhere I have to somehow be able to tell it "don't buzz" and if I forget it annoys all the people near where I left it. Leaving things at my parent's when going out while visiting, leaving things in a hotel room, leaving things in the gym locker, etc...

> If a user detects an unknown AirTag, they can tap it with their iPhone or NFC-capable device and instructions will guide them to disable the unknown AirTag.

So if don't own an NFC capable device? How many people would even know to "NFC" the tag or how?

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#128

Post by Iv »

drdaeman wrote: post #46
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…

Would it really help, though? A stalker, not stupid and well-aware about the protection, visits iFixit for a picture of internals, takes a drill, and physically obliterates the buzzer, right through the case. Epoxy or superglue for protection from the elements. So they plant an Airtag, it gets found by accident, shit hits the fan, Apple's name goes in the news, journalists start journalist things, people don't are ou…

> A stalker, not stupid and well-aware about the protection, visits iFixit for a picture of internals, takes a drill, and physically obliterates the buzzer, right through the case. Epoxy or superglue for protection from the elements.

You eliminate 95% of the potential stalkers. It is hard to remember that for most consumers the idea of drilling into a thing made of Apple black magic is a foreign idea.

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#129

Post by Iv »

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…

Yeah, god forbids that a company may actually want to genuinely address an ethical problem, amirirte?

Re: Apple reveals more about AirTag stalking protections

#130

Post by ViViDboarder »

Alupis wrote: post #95
_s wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best GPS resolution available to civilians is about 8 meters (26 feet) - and that's under the best, most ideal situation using the best GPS receiver and a large antenna... things a small cell phone in a pocket or bag doesn't have. I am not sure where you got this from but that is incorrect - the accuracy (or resolution) depends entirely on the number of satellites and/or augmentation systems you're tapped into,…

From your link: > For example, the government commits to broadcasting the GPS signal in space with a global average user range error (URE) of ≤7.8 m (25.6 ft.), with 95% probability. Actual performance exceeds the specification. On May 11, 2016, the global average URE was ≤0.715 m (2.3 ft.), 95% of the time Which assumes clear skies and good line of sight... Neither condition exist inside your pocket or house. Regard…

From your quote:

> Actual performance exceeds the specification. On May 11, 2016, the global average URE was ≤0.715 m (2.3 ft.), 95% of the time

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