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Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

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Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#211

While it’s theoretically possible that this happened, I think this particular story was made up. For a number of reasons: 1) How did the stalker know that that’s her car? She said she was on a night out. Unless she went back to her car all the time, he must have seen her arrive in it. 2) Sticking an AirTag to the inside of the front wheel well isn’t easy. There is dirt and grime there and the surfaces aren’t flat. Th…

While it is possible you could use an Apple AirTag in this way, there are a number of facts that don't add up in the story. Supposedly the AirTag in question was "thrown away" so there would be no hints as to how it was attached. Also, if you are being unknowingly tracked by another person's AirTag you can disable the tracking and notification if you are worried about it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227 and additional steps at https://www.macworld.com/article/345863/how-to-find-block-di...

If you are worried enough to drive to someone else's home, why would you go to sleep with the tracker still on the car without disabling the tracker first?

No doubt that this sort of tracking is possible, but there's much here that needs some questions answered. If it was a ploy to get people to be aware of the possibilities of AirTag tracking, then I suppose that should be disclosed.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#212
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? You can get GPS trackers for less than an airtag

Most GPS trackers however need a SIM card, which would be traceable.

No - you buy a burner phone at any convenience store, using cash, pop the sim card out of the phone, and put it into the GPS tracker.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#213
"Of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement, 93% of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were acquaintances. 34% were family members. 7% were strangers to the victim.

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquaintance_rape

>this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car and they found it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well. I wish he took pics before he threw it away

throw away individually identifiable piece of evidence instead of calling the police, ok

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be hard to hear when driving on the highway, also, the seems like a long time if someone is following you home from a bar. I don't think there's any good way for Apple to fix this. On the other hand, it's been possible to do something similar for a long time, just not this easy, and at this price point. You could suggest that the AirTag disable tracking if it move along with the same phone for more th…

> It's a product where Apple really didn't consider the real world implications. It's a neat device, and I'm sure it's well intended, but it's not fit for the world we're currently living in. Exactly; it's unfortunate, but this sort of product should really be made illegal, just due to the many ways it can be misused.

Except they clearly did consider it? And made many countermeasures, from beeping loudly after separation, to releasing an open source first party app on the dominant competing platform to show what is going on.

If anyone provides a device? It’s also traceable to the owner/person watching it.

None of these things are possible/done for the myriad of GPS trackers out there. Apple has made it very risky and frankly dumb to use them for this purpose.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#215

Apple AirTag Linked to Increasing Number of Car Thefts, Canadian Police Report - https://nypost.com/2021/12/07/carjackers-are-using-this-new-...

Why does the thief bother to track your car back to your house to steal later? Why not just drive around the residential areas where the cars are parked and just choose one at the time you want to do the theft?

In Amsterdam I once met an Eastern European career criminal who followed people driving home after work hours and waited for them to get into the shower. Then he'd pick their front door lock and take the keys.

Unrelated, he also had a room in his apartment set up to grow weed, with some serious climate control and artificial lighting. He was dealing this pot. He had no papers or permit to stay... what crazy folk.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#216
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the creepy potential. I don't see the danger.

The danger is that predators could track a child to a secluded area and abduct them.

Stranger danger is ridiculous and harmful.

Most abuse, abductions, and harm to kids comes from those close to them who already have access to them, not some rando somewhere.

Putting everyone into ‘oh my god, some rando is going to kidnap and kill your kid’ just amps up the already insane anxiety overload everyone is in.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is news just because it's an Apple device being used for something that was already trivially possible. Or it's news because unlike GPS trackers, AirTags create the ability to be psychologically abusive to victims by attaching them to cars or dropping them in purses at little cost, risk, or effort. Wanna take a guess as to how many assholes out there just want to make a mouthy cunt from the bar lose sleep vs.…

Why exactly is it lower effort than a cellular GPS tracker from Amazon? They're around the same size, and roughly the same cost.

How is a common consumer-grade device not less effort than intentionally purchasing, setting up, and deploying a custom spy gadget? They're totally different levels of effort and investment (dollar-'cost' being a small part of it). With an airtag you can even get plausible deniability in a lot of cases.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of abductions of children are by family. Same with other crimes against children. People they know are far more dangerous than people they don’t. The predators aren’t hiding in the bushes, they are already in the house.

That's true but I don't see how it negates my point.

Do you go around telling people they should be worried about shark attacks, because someone could put a shark in their pool without telling them?

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I just wish you could transfer ownership of a tag between family members.

You can. Disconnect it from one person's iCloud, connect it to the other. We did it with our cat's AirTag when I got a newer iPhone, so we could use the more accurate location. I do wish there was a share feature, though.

The lack of integration with family sharing has made AirTags mostly useless for me.

Re: Someone attached an AirTag to my car while I was in a bar

#220
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the tweet thread: >this morning while I was asleep I had someone close to me check my car and they found it stuck on the underside of my front passenger wheel well. I wish he took pics before he threw it away If I found a tracking device on the car of someone close to me, I certainly wouldn't throw it away without showing them and insisting that they go to the police. Why would they just throw it away?

Because it never happened.

or

"Of sexual abuse cases reported to law enforcement, 93% of juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were acquaintances. 34% were family members. 7% were strangers to the victim."

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