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An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

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Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#411

Post by hedora »

kyledrake wrote: post #404

I've heard of multiple people using airtags to prevent and successfully recover stolen vehicles and property after armed carjackings, and as dystopian as that feels, it seems to me far less invasive to society to narrowly target violent criminals than hiring more beat cops to randomly pull over (disproportionately innocent and disenfranchised) people over miniscule driving infractions to hunt for the actual criminals…

Yeah; I’d prefer it if the police could nerf it (by enabling notifications) to help out stalking victims, but thieves could not.

Alternatively, if (with an actual warrant, and involvement of the airtag owner) the police could link location trajectories of any phones that travelled with the stolen airtag, that’d be nice. Not sure how to avoid abuse with that scheme.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#412

Post by apexalpha »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #392
concinds wrote: post #119

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…

> Android users are still vulnerable, and these announcements do nothing to reduce that. I feel like this is ignoring the fact that if any company other than Apple made these trackers, it wouldn't do this with anyone's phones. The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the use…

The fact that these work out of the box with iPhones is a bonus, not an entitlement that any phone of any brand should have full support for them without installing any apps and without the user even knowing that the product exists.

Isn't this the whole clue, rather than just a bonus? When someone slips an AirTag on to you every single iPhone in the world forms a sort of ad-hoc spying network against you. Without you or the iPhone's owners knowing.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#413

Post by howinteresting »

rootusrootus wrote: post #210
nomel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said this in other threads, but I'm probably done buying AirTags, because the anti-stalking features, that I assume you're aware of, are so annoying, that I don't want to add any more to my life. When I get in my car with my wife, we both get a notification that an AirTag is following us, because my wife is potentially stalking me with her purse and keys. I can silence this notification for only one day. I can't…

> If the metric is to stop all the bad, then technology needs a huge lobotomy! I think we need to change the metric. Every tool humans have ever invented can be used maliciously. So we have fallback options, like punishment, to mitigate that. Apple needs to make you read and acknowledge a notice when you get an AirTag that says quite clearly that they know the serial number and will happily provide your contact info…

Why should the public bear the costs of a $2 trillion dollar company's decisions? Why should overpoliced communities be subject to even more policing?

The solution here is to restrict airtags to finding your own stuff only. That takes away some of the utility but also all of the stalking risk.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#414

Post by theshrike79 »

up6w6 wrote: post #279
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #240

> Every AirTag has a unique serial number, and paired AirTags are associated with an Apple ID. Apple can provide the paired account details in response to a subpoena or valid request from law enforcement. We have successfully partnered with them on cases where information we provided has been used to trace an AirTag back to the perpetrator, who was then apprehended and charged. This makes me wonder, could Apple go fu…

If I understood correctly, this still doesn't protect you against custom Airtags using embedded boards[1]. You could just use any serial number you want and maybe even incriminate other people by using the serial number of their authentic Airtag? [1] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack/

If your threat model includes someone "just cloning your airtag and planting a clone", I think you've got big issues you need to deal with.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#415

Post by Wiseacre »

jeromegv wrote: post #191
Wiseacre wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can see how that would be a poor design choice. It's quite a common use case for tracking devices like the AirTag.

How is that a poor design? How would you design it to not alert the thief but alert someone they are being stalked? You can only have 1. Can’t have both.

It is poor design only if we are calling this misuse. For the record I don't think Apple is doing anything of the sort. They knew exactly how these AirTags would be used, so they wouldn't blame the user as misusing the tags.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#416

Post by oxplot »

tomxor wrote: post #343
oxplot wrote: post #251

This is a great response - very happy to hear Apple's involvement with various groups to make things better. Some noteworthy bits: > we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking If that's true, then Apple just raised the privacy bar and now Tile and other small players need to up their game to stay relevant. There is also lesson to learn here: whoever makes a tech/product popula…

>> we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking > If that's true, then Apple just raised the privacy bar Except that's only true for Apple users. Fuck everyone else I guess. subtext: buy Apple, lest you get robbed or stalked because of Apple

> Fuck everyone else I guess.

They do seem to have dropped the ball on their Android app. Majority of reviews on that app is people complaining that it doesn't do background scans!

Not sure if there is a technical limitation in doing so on Android, but if not, I hope they make, what seems to be a small effort to make things better for Android users.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#417

Post by theshrike79 »

x0x0 wrote: post #347
foolfoolz wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is an api that returns someone’s pii without authenticating they are allowed to see it. a uuid on its own is not a problem. but if you can take one and establish a link pii then the uuid becomes a pii risk.

The far bigger problem is the airtag itself, which spews unpermissioned tracking data without any consent required.

There is consent. If you don't want the "spewed tracking data", you can disable the Find My Network completely.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#418

Post by zimpenfish »

wernerb wrote: post #377
ghaff wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 100% of the population has no way to monitor if a GPS tracker has been planted.

GPS trackers are a lot pricier and often bulkier though, somewhat limiting the probability of it to be used by the average stalker. Barrier to entry is significantly higher.

> GPS trackers are a lot pricier and often bulkier though

A quick look on Amazon UK suggests that there are plenty of cheaper options and, whilst not many, there are options of a similar size to the AirTags.

Now, admittedly, none of them have the same feature set as an AirTag but if you're at the point of buying GPS trackers to stalk someone, I doubt you're thinking about the technical distinctions.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#419

Post by machrider »

oxplot wrote: post #416
tomxor wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> we innovated with the first-ever proactive system to alert you of unwanted tracking > If that's true, then Apple just raised the privacy bar Except that's only true for Apple users. Fuck everyone else I guess. subtext: buy Apple, lest you get robbed or stalked because of Apple

> Fuck everyone else I guess. They do seem to have dropped the ball on their Android app. Majority of reviews on that app is people complaining that it doesn't do background scans! Not sure if there is a technical limitation in doing so on Android, but if not, I hope they make, what seems to be a small effort to make things better for Android users.

There's an open source app that does it, AirGuard: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_t...

So I don't think it's a technical limitation.

Re: An update on AirTag and unwanted tracking

#420

Post by netsharc »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #259
netsharc wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A less charitable reading is "We've had at least 1 solid case of criminal use of the AirTag that lead to arrest and charge.".

Why would that be less charitable? Many things can be abused criminally. Arrest and charges are how our society deals with it if someone does. Deterrence prevents crimes in many cases. Not all, but many.

It's not common for many companies to admit that their product was used for crime, and here is one, in a PR piece about "We care sooo much about our users' safety!"
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