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

nytimes.com

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

#211

Post by joshspankit »

hnrodey wrote: post #108
acomjean wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Care to share the competitors in the power monitoring space? I could really use a solution to this because my home electric bill is crazy high. We moved in to a new house about eight months ago and this electric bill is like 30% higher than my previous home. Not just the raw total of the bill - my consumption is higher in this house. I know of sense.com but perhaps there are others?

I use Sonoff S31 smart plugs, flashed with Tasmota and connected to Home Assistant. It allows fine-grain monitoring of anything that plugs in to the wall, even if you disable the remote on/on switch (like for the fridge/deep freeze). LED bulbs use basically nothing and so can be removed from the equation, then all that’s left is built-in temp/humidity/air units and car chargers (though most of those have great metrics built in)

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

#212

Post by babypuncher »

hnlmorg wrote: post #36

Can someone explain to me (because I cannot work it myself) why everyone is suddenly worried about AirTags yet these kinds of devices have been around for a while (eg the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag was released last year and little was talked about it). And GPS tracking isn't even a new thing either. So why is it most conversations focus on the AirTag? What is it that the AirTag does better/worse/differently to the othe…

Any time an iPhone, iPad, or newer MacBook sees an AirTag, its location is reported back to the owner. Apple devices are so ubiquitous that you can effectively get real time tracking anywhere in the developed world where there are people.

Similar products like Tile have existed for years, but their real-time tracking abilities are poor because they rely on a network of devices that have their app installed and running in the background.

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

#213

Post by ubermonkey »

OH, I remember this person's story about setting up way-too-much smart tech in their house. Her whole shtick is this kind of IT HAPPENED TO ME weird quasi-alarmist immersive reporting, and I imagine it's incredibly tedious in real life. It definitely is on the page.

I closed the tab once I realized it was the same person.

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

#214

Post by Osiris »

kelnos wrote: post #136
Osiris wrote: post #77

My wife and I have Google maps location sharing turned on all the time. It's not stepping because we agreed to it. Last night I got home from a motorcycle ride and the garage door opened as I pulled up because my wife knew I was coming home from a movie and saw I was almost home.

I have friends who do this too, but it always just feels icky to me. Yes, I know that my mobile carrier knows more or less where I am at all times, and Google knows with even greater precision. But I don't want people I know, even my partner, to have that kind of access (and I don't want to be able to track my partner, either). Another poster mentioned their wife went to a doctor's appointment, but it was in the same…

> Another poster mentioned their wife went to a doctor's appointment, but it was in the same building as a divorce lawyer.

This exact thing happened to me. However if your first thought is they are at the lawyer at not the hospital... You probably have some things to work out in your relationship anyway.

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

#215

Post by Osiris »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #87
Osiris wrote: post #77

My wife and I have Google maps location sharing turned on all the time. It's not stepping because we agreed to it. Last night I got home from a motorcycle ride and the garage door opened as I pulled up because my wife knew I was coming home from a movie and saw I was almost home.

My wife and I do the same. She often has to drive long distances, at night, in the winter. It's a nice way for me to both see her progress and make sure she isn't stuck somewhere. I also struggle to send a "hey, I'm on my way message". My wife really appreciates being able to check on the map quickly.

As a motorcycle rider I don't have access to my phone while riding so I actually prefer that she can just check on me. It also makes her feel better when she sees me moving and not stopped.

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

#216

Post by technothrasher »

gnicholas wrote: post #192
toxik wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they see their texts calls emails etc? Surely that’s illegal.

Parents can monitor their children's email. Phone call records are in your monthly billing statement. As long as you're up front with your child about the level of monitoring, I don't think this is unethical, let alone illegal.

Yeah, none of the surveillance I'm talking about with the other parents I know is secretive. The kids seem to have been groomed to accept it from very young ages, so they all know it is happening.

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

#217

Post by lemmsjid »

nostromo wrote: post #132
ameminator wrote: post #3

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…

Yes, this isn’t good journalism. “I drove over my husband with an F150 for journalism. Ford clearly needs to do more.”

The average NYT Reader knows what an F150 would do if driven over a husband. Presumably, the average NYT Reader does not know about the capabilities of tracking devices or the ramifications of stashing them on a husband's person. I personally kind of knew about Airtags and knew nothing about Tiles until a fairly recent Hacker News post, and it was news to me how Airtags used surrounding devices for locational info.

Furthermore, there's a place for journalism that grounds a hypothetical experience in descriptive prose / photography in order to transform abstract facts to something closer to lived experience. In that aforementioned HN post I learned about using those devices for stalking as a hypothetical, but this article's actual photographs did make me uncomfortable and drove home the ramifications.

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

#218

Post by arthurofbabylon »

This may sound nuts - but I don’t want certain kinds of security.

For example, I don’t want my home in specific to be safe – I want my society to be safe. So I’m less interested in cameras/locks and more interested in social programs, education, and access to resources.

As another example familiar to those who travel in wild places, there’s not much value in trying to avoid getting robbed. Mitigate the losses with pragmatic decisions but by all means enjoy a great adventure. (Preventing violence is a different equation.) Being robbed might be scary - but there are much more important things worthy of attention in some of these places.

Last example, closer to privacy -> One of the healthiest opportunities for humans is to get early morning light (it establishes endocrine function, literally curing depression) - for most people sacrificing this is not worth increased privacy in the form of closed blinds.

Calculations of privacy and security are rarely intuitive. They inherently touch numerous webs of interconnection. And folks who use AirTags will find the same challenges and realize similar lessons.

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

#219

Post by Knufferlbert »

6510 wrote: post #115
acomjean wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Someone told me that by examining smart meter data by amount, time and duration different appliances could be identified. He was rather surprised himself by the level of detail.

You may be shocked how much more you can get, I heard of being able to identify the movie/tv show you are watching based on power consumption of the TV based on brightness.

Obviously depends on how granular the smart metering is, but it sent chills down my spine.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-meter...

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

#220

Post by technothrasher »

cmckn wrote: post #189
technothrasher wrote: post #171

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?

I definitely also did things as a teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, etc. And my parents were good parents, were involved in my life, had open communication with me, and tried hard to teach me the right things. But I was a teenager; I did it anyway. And I suspect that if I were being monitored like the kids today seem to be, I would just learn how to hide my activities more.

> How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you just get lucky with good kids?

I think partly I got lucky that my son is somewhat risk averse, which rules out a lot of bad stuff he could do. But I also am not fooling myself into thinking he isn't doing dumb things and not telling me about it. I certainly understand the desire to heavily surveil your kids to protect them, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I think it sends the wrong message that he doesn't have to take responsibility and can always just rely on me to bail him out. So I'm willing to take the risk in order to give him a sense of personal responsibility. I don't know that I'm making the right choice, parenting seems to be mostly doing the best you can and having your kids usually turn out ok in spite of you.

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