161–170 of 508 posts
"We have successfully partnered with them (police) on cases where information we provided has been used to trace an AirTag back to the perpetrator, who was then apprehended and charged." Obviously each air tag is associated with an iCloud account, so this could be quite an effective move on Apples part.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you want them to do? Shoot brain waves in to your skull to notify you without any device?
There's really nothing they can do short of not doing the airtags at all. The spectrum does not belong to them, it's leased to them and they are a user. We can ask for oversight.
I like the functionality of the AirTags so I don't want them nerfed, but I can think of no way to fix their fundamental problem of being such easy to use stalking devices. Chefs knives are great for cooking and are inexpensive and easy to purchase; they can be very dangerous weapons in the wrong hands so we make it against the law to use them in that manner. Maybe that's the best we can do with AirTags.
> Precision Finding: This capability allows recipients of an unwanted tracking alert to locate an unknown AirTag with precision. iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 users will be able to use Precision Finding to see the distance and direction to an unknown AirTag when it is in range. As an iPhone user moves, Precision Finding fuses input from the camera, ARKit, accelerometer, and gyroscope to guide them to the AirTag through a combination of sound, haptics, and visual feedback.
I guess this probably only works for people who have iPhones, but it still at least makes tracking somebody using an AirTag a somewhat risky proposition (for example, if a person is stalking somebody using this technology and knows their target has a non-iPhone, they never know if that person might have a friend with an iPhone).
Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…
Trackers have been around for years . Tile came out in 2014, and Samsung has their own Galaxy tracker line for a while now. Neither have anti-stalking features of any kind to this day. If one was stuck on your car, you wouldn't get an alert or any info on who placed it there, be you an iPhone user or an Android user. And before that, there were GPS trackers which have bigger batteries and were more accurate (if a bit…
Remember that stalking isn't a profession; it's often a crime of opportunity, with plenty of reported cases of e.g. people slipping GPS trackers into spouses' cars/bags before or during divorces.
Those people aren't sophisticated, and might go on Amazon and see Tiles that won't work (sparse detection network), or GPS trackers that cost the same as AirTags and have a monthly subscription. Or they could just pick a spare AirTag they have, and use that, because they know their spouse has an Android and wouldn't detect it.
Again, the problem isn't that AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection. The problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk (no AirTags notifications on Android with Apple's app, you have to manually scan), and Apple seems uninterested in doing anything about it (or even promising to do anything about it, since this announcement doesn't mention Android).
Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…
I mean, increase from 0.00001% to 0.0001% is still significant and yet I still wouldn't worry about it in the slightest.
If somebody steals your car/purse/whatever with an airtag on it, and that person has an iPhone, will they get notification that somebody is tracking them?
"If a Find My network accessory that's separated from its owner is seen moving with you over time, this alert is displayed"
If somebody steals your car/purse/whatever with an airtag on it, and that person has an iPhone, will they get notification that somebody is tracking them?
Yes. "If a Find My network accessory that's separated from its owner is seen moving with you over time, this alert is displayed" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227
Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. All a stalker needs to do, is remove the speaker. To detect a rogue AirTag, an Android owner needs to: 1) know AirTags exist (many obviously don't) 2) go out of their way to install Apple's Android AirTag scanner app (only 100k-500k worldwide have done so according to Google Play stats) 3) manually open the scanner app and scan, si…
So: sort out the privacy implications with a low-priority product like AirTag first.
But I am not a guessing person. ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trackers have been around for years . Tile came out in 2014, and Samsung has their own Galaxy tracker line for a while now. Neither have anti-stalking features of any kind to this day. If one was stuck on your car, you wouldn't get an alert or any info on who placed it there, be you an iPhone user or an Android user. And before that, there were GPS trackers which have bigger batteries and were more accurate (if a bit…
> But Apple apparently has done it with anti-stalking features but is too high-profile. Remember that stalking isn't a profession; it's often a crime of opportunity, with plenty of reported cases of e.g. people slipping GPS trackers into spouses' cars/bags before or during divorces. Those people aren't sophisticated, and might go on Amazon and see Tiles that won't work (sparse detection network), or GPS trackers that…
It is foolish to underestimate stalkers and stereotype it as just a crime of opportunity.
> "problem is that AirTags still, to this day, present a major Android stalking risk"
Ironically, so did Tile for the last 8 years, and Samsung's own Galaxy trackers for Android, but there is no outcry about them. Also, considering how long Tile has been on the market, this doesn't seem like a new issue. Also, Apple has built-in "Find My Friends" in iPhone. A stalker could just flip that on without telling the person being stalked (assuming he/she is close to him/her), and the phone would be tracking them, no tag necessary. Yet nobody ever hears about this being abused much.
> "AirTags have been nerfed into uselessness because of anti-stalking protection"
Hey, if I lose my wallet in my own home, it's great. If I can't find my wallet at the gas station, I can figure out where in the car it fell. There are plenty of ways it is still plenty useful. Also, if you are complaining about uselessness, maybe Apple should roll-back some anti-stalking protections but you'd be against that too.
This leaves you in the impossible position of wanting Apple to restrict it more (reduce stalking) and simultaneously unlock it more (to improve utility), all while competitors don't bother with stalking prevention at all.