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I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

nytimes.com

201–210 of 322 posts

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#201
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so creep…

I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health, etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did. How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about it enough?

In my case by talking to my teens about choices, consequences, and how to plan for good outcomes. It helped to start having that conversation long before they were teens.

We had an ios family group set up with location sharing enabled, which was great when they were 12 and losing things all the time (using a phone as backpack lojack isn't necessarily cost efficient, but it was a nice accidental outcome). When they got a little older, they figured out how not to share with us. I was peeved, but proud. Privacy respected.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#202
post #5

Look, I usually try to be charitable. However, this article offered no new insight on Apple Airtags. If you don't want to waste your time, allow me to summarize: Woman puts Airtags in a car. Her husband isn't able to find them, even using Apple's "anti-stalk" features. Ergo, Apple needs to do more. I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags? I don't think anyone can conclude either way on the effectiv…

The fact that she was to tired to take a baby to the hospital, but not to follow husband every step is what concerns me.

Taking a child to the hospital, in particular a toddler/infant, is extremely stressful. If one is already tired from caring for that child all night, I'd completely understand asking the other parent to take the child. In fact, I have done so personally, though having two children meant it also made more sense for one of us to stay home with the other child instead of towing a second (healthy) child through the hospital as well.

Also, this is an opinion/editorial piece, so whether the author watched their spouse the entire time or if the author pieced the evening together after the fact while writing this article is up for speculation.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#203
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> baby-hospital visits are brutal. It's about 8 hours of waiting (usually in the middle of the night) with a screaming child while staff ignores you and then finally says there isn't a problem. Add to that that depending on your health-care plan, it could cost you thousands of dollars!

Personally, I could care less about the cost (but it does bother me). IO should have mentioned above that in nearly all cases, urgent care is more appropriate (my provider has one open during daytime hours).

Also depends on your insurance provider (at least in the US). Previous insurance I had wouldn't cover urgent care clinics, but would cover ERs. Stupid beyond belief, but it was a small company so I guess there were compromises on the plan. Luckily I no longer have that plan and have a much more sensible and comprehensive plan.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#204
> ... but I think I’ll leave the AirTag in it. It will make it easier to find the car in a vast parking lot.

It sounds like the author has an iPhone, and it has a feature that will show you where you parked your car if you connect it to your car via BT. It basically takes note of the location where you disconnected from the car and stores it in Maps as Parked Car.

Leaving a tracker in your car is not a bad idea if you're worried about theft, though.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#205
post #32

My comment isn’t specific to AirTags, but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream products. Here’s a pattern I’ve seen play out more than once among friends and family - they share their location willingly and for seemingly benign reasons. It’s helpful to know when you’ll be getting home so I can start dinner! Just i…

yeah, concerning the feature in the apple ecosystem to share your location with someone else is great, i just wish it had a feature that alerted the you whenever someone used it to locate one of your devices. That way if say i went to the big state fair with my friend and we shared our locations with each other in case we got separated but then forgot to shut it off. If a few days later i got notified that my friend…

>The airtag/tile makes this much harder, perhaps the airtag should loudly beep or notify nearby devices whenever it's being actively located.

They absolutely should. It boggles my mind a bit that they don't do this. It would even help you find them. Is there any downside to making noise?

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that we do know what it is like when users are stalked with our product - we've heard all sorts of crazy stories over the years about our app being used for stalking - it sucks when we hear it and we help with law enforcement. This just hasn't been a thing for Tile (yet anyway - probably due to the much less dense network). I think we will end up with ID verification - I bet Apple could do that too. Then you'd…

> in terms of actual reports of stalking via our devices it is essentially zero I'm confused, now you're admitting that stalking is an active part of the product and this has gone on for years.

We learned early on that people would very very occasionally use our APP for stalking .000001% of the time. That was easy to fix - we send regular push notifications, we let you know when someone is added to your group, we participate in subpoena's from law enforcement etc. We have had over 100 million downloads so we have heard it all, it is just the law of large numbers.

I'm talking about Tile devices - that is where we've yet to see anything concrete, and as mentioned we don't yet have a network that rivals AirTags. But we want to get ahead of it.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a matter of time before we start seeing news of couples fixing their marriage by sharing AirTags with each other. I say this with sarcasm but recent years have made me wonder what is reality anymore.

We should get them ankle bracelets while we are at it.

We already have rings. Just embed a tracking chip there, add a monthly subscription service "loyal partner 365" and change laws to allow subpoena your partner if she/he "accidentally" forgets to wear the ring.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#208
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so creep…

I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health, etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did. How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about it enough?

Before my daughter starts driving, I'm going to take her around where I grew up and show her the places where people I knew died in car accidents / other issues, and explain why they died:

- These two girls were speeding to make it home by curfew, ran off the road, and died in a car fire over the side of this hill - don't speed if you're running late. Let me know, and get home safely.

- This is where a guy was on drugs and ran into a telephone pole. - don't do drugs. If you do drink and no longer feel comfortable in the situation, call me and I will pick you up to get you home. Don't try to drive.

- Here's the parking lot where my friend OD'd on Heroin. Don't try it. Not even once. There is a huge difference between weed and harder drugs, even though weed and harder drugs are sold by the same people. Stay clear of all of them if you can.

- Here's the cliff where my friend fell 60 feet and died trying to showboat his climbing skills. So many things today have been made extremely safe (car driving assistance, etc.) - you need to know which activities have real consequences and treat them accordingly.

- Here's the parking lot where my friend and I almost flipped his truck trying to do slides on snow at 60 mph. Don't do that.

It will be a rough day, but driving is a serious responsibility and learning from others' mistakes is better than making your own.

Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#209
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The road to authoritarian technology is paved with convenience

I always knew pizza delivery would end up in total loss of freedoms

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Re: I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband’s every move

#210
post #32

My comment isn’t specific to AirTags, but there’s a much larger conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream products. Here’s a pattern I’ve seen play out more than once among friends and family - they share their location willingly and for seemingly benign reasons. It’s helpful to know when you’ll be getting home so I can start dinner! Just i…

Yeah. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by proxy. When I worked at a power monitoring startup (we monitored home power use, by individual circuit) this passive monitoring came up. And our CEO mentioned to his wife that she was home early.. "how did you know?" He saw the garage doo…

Even back 20 years ago I was monitored by my ex-spouse by them simply watching the bank card transactions then calculating travel time. It was (or evolved in to) a full-blown anxiety disorder.

It’s easy to imagine that this higher level of easy surveillance is going to efficiently send others down the same path.

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