Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#51

Post by _jal » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:40 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #40

I was under the impression that having Bluetooth enabled at all was a security risk. Do people actually use Bluetooth?

Depends on your threat model. Generally probably not, but there's always a risk, and network stacks are not becoming simpler. There are disclosure risks - bluetooth trackers are common in retail stores.

I disable Bluetooth on almost everything, not so much for "security" as because I don't need it, so there's no reason for it. I don't like things in my ears, so it is of no benefit to me on my phone, and I don't feel a burning desire to provide real-world unique identifiers to in-store surveillance, so I don't.

I also don't use a wireless keyboard or other toys like that, so my other machines don't need it either.

Last use I had for Bluetooth was getting data from a battery charger. That lasted long enough for me to discover I didn't care about the data.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#52

Post by flatiron » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:43 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #41

Could you theoretically fill a backpack with a few hundred of these and piss off everyone around you? Asking for a friend.

Would be much easier to script that all out and have a single Bluetooth device.

https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack#how-to-track-othe...

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#53

Post by tedunangst » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:44 PM UTC

I must spend time near hundreds of AirTags each day, yet my battery doesn't seem to be affected. Is it possible somebody is exaggerating? Or omitting relevant info?

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#54

Post by tomcam » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:45 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #41

Could you theoretically fill a backpack with a few hundred of these and piss off everyone around you? Asking for a friend.

At about $3000 (tax included) per 100 you could probably do more interesting things with say $10,000. Like giving stacks of 100 $1 bills to everyone around you except the people you want to piss off.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#55

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:48 PM UTC

redleader55 wrote: post #35

picture wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a neat demo. Out of curiosity, what software/hardware did you use to see and ping nearby BLE devices?

You can do this easily with an Android phone. These are the apps I use: Lightblue nRFConnect BLE Scanner

I’ve found nRFConnect to be far and away the easiest to get started with.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#56

Post by chasil » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:49 PM UTC

QuikAccount wrote: post #22

TooKool4This wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Find My network can be opted out of in the settings [1]. And if I remember correctly, it asks you to opt in (but I might be remembering wrong) I have somewhat the opposite opinion though that there are way too many settings in iOS now and it does get difficult to dive through all the menus. Best thing I can recommend is to use the search in the settings. [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/725664/how-to-opt-out-of-appl…

Seems kind of ridiculous that in order to opt out of Apple's airtag network you essentially have to give up the ability to find your phone if it gets lost.

As I understand it, Airtags are low-power Bluetooth devices with no GPS capability.

If your Bluetooth transceiver is disabled, your iOS device will not see nor report the locations of any Airtags that are otherwise in range.

If you do enable Bluetooth on an iOS device, any Airtags detected will be reported to Apple over any available data connection, and this cannot be disabled in iOS as far as I know.

Disabling Bluetooth will likely save any device's battery. This is separate from GPS and mobile data.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#57

Post by andrewia » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:49 PM UTC

I've seen this issue in a slightly different context. A few years ago, my Android phone began dying much more quickly than before. Looking at the built-in battery stats, nothing was amiss and there were no apps causing excessive wakeups. It was only when I used Android Battery Historian that I saw there was a ton of bluetooth wakeups caused by Google Play Services.

But why would it be waking up so much? Usually the wake requests originate from some other app, but I didn't see any associated wakeups in the stats dump. After a while I remembered that I installed GasBuddy recently, and a Google search revealed that other people had Bluetooth battery drain issues after installing it. Apparently GasBuddy had an ads SDK that aggressively scanned for Bluetooth beacons. Removing the app stopped the drain.

I was shocked that no battery stats screen showed GasBuddy was the culprit. Even the Battery Historian tool (which requires the user to run a Docker image and dump a bugreport) only hinted that there was some Bluetooth wakeups, but didn't show which app they originated from.

This AirTag seems to be a similar issue, especially if a less experienced user doesn't realized all the "Find My" wakeups are caused by nearby AirTags.

I think Apple needs to make the "deep sleep" states of their devices more strict so they can minimize drain when sitting (both when sitting overnight on a nightstand, or for a week in a living room). Notifications (besides calls) can usually afford to be batched since users are asleep or not nearby. As for AirTags, if one is being carried through an area, there's probably other iDevices that are being actively used nearby. They're already awake and using RF, so they can handle the AirTag ping with virtually no additional power consumption.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#58

Post by RVRX » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:50 PM UTC

redleader55 wrote: post #35

picture wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a neat demo. Out of curiosity, what software/hardware did you use to see and ping nearby BLE devices?

You can do this easily with an Android phone. These are the apps I use: Lightblue nRFConnect BLE Scanner

LightBlue is available for iOS users as well.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#59

Post by IntrepidWorm » Thu, Mar 10, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #41

Could you theoretically fill a backpack with a few hundred of these and piss off everyone around you? Asking for a friend.

Right- I feel a Raspberry Pi and a bluetooth module (or a handful of them) would be a lot cheaper. Set it up to repeatedly ping everything in range, stick it to a battery pack, and just go about your business. It would certainly illustrate some of the many shortcomings of Bluetooth, and always-listening services.

I'm not advocating that you should, keep in mind. It certainly seems to be in poor taste, but there may be a platform for using it educationally, I.e. hacker cons.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#60

Post by tshaddox » Fri, Mar 11, 2022, 12:03 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #31

mostdataisnice wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ridiculous at all - you don't get to reap the benefits of the network without participating.

Find My iPhone primarily uses the phone to self-report its position when requested over the Internet. This new "Find My" network (what a stupid name, btw) also allows to use other devices to report positions of nearby devices for those that don't have a data connection (AirTags or iPhones that were powered off). The problem seems to be that a single toggle controls both features, while the first feature doesn't rely…

As others are mentioning, I see two toggles, and the second toggle is "Find My network" which is the one that works by other people's iPhones detecting your iPhone even when it's offline, in power reserve mode, or powered off.