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AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

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Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#81

Post by haswell »

rubicon33 wrote: post #77
midasuni wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cops kill 15 times as many civilians as most civilised countries.

> "fairly common"? You are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. Chance of getting hit by lightning: 1 in 500,00 = 2.0 * 10^-6 [1] Chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020): 993 in 331,449,281 = 2.99 x 10^-6 [2] Hardly seems "fairly common" now does it? And, your second post about the relative frequency to other countries is a different statement, one…

> And yet, you are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police.

And?

You’re also more likely to die of a lightning strike than you are in a school shooting [0]. Does that mean we should judge the horror of school shootings any differently?

- [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#82

Post by rubicon33 »

haswell wrote: post #81
rubicon33 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "fairly common"? You are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. Chance of getting hit by lightning: 1 in 500,00 = 2.0 * 10^-6 [1] Chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020): 993 in 331,449,281 = 2.99 x 10^-6 [2] Hardly seems "fairly common" now does it? And, your second post about the relative frequency to other countries is a different statement, one…

> And yet, you are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. And? You’re also more likely to die of a lightning strike than you are in a school shooting [0]. Does that mean we should judge the horror of school shootings any differently? - [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...

You're asking if we should judge the horror more differently?

Certainly. One (school shootings) is obviously far more horrible, for obvious reasons.

But, if you're commenting on how common something is (as the original poster did), then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important. For instance, I don't think we need armed police and metal detectors on every single campus. That would be an over reaction but one that you might make if you thought the problem was bigger and more widespread than it actually is.

I am somewhat surprised that I am having to explain why keeping perspective is important on HN. Sign of the times, I guess.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#83

Post by ajdude »

bogwog wrote: post #56

This is something Apple should be providing themselves (edit: for Android). They already have "Apple TV", "Apple Music", and a "Move to iOS" app. Is it really so much to ask for a stalking prevention app?

Apple should provide a “find my” app on android that not only detects rouge airtags but lets you participate in tracking your, and other’s, airtags like an iPhone can.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#84

Post by haswell »

rubicon33 wrote: post #82
haswell wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, you are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. And? You’re also more likely to die of a lightning strike than you are in a school shooting [0]. Does that mean we should judge the horror of school shootings any differently? - [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/971473/number-k-12-schoo...

You're asking if we should judge the horror more differently? Certainly. One (school shootings) is obviously far more horrible, for obvious reasons. But, if you're commenting on how common something is (as the original poster did), then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important. For instance, I don't think we need armed police and metal detectors on every single campus. That would be an over reacti…

> then having an actual understanding of the frequency is important

In which case it’s important to add some more context to the numbers you cited.

Lightning strikes kill about 50 people/year. Police kill about 1,000 (US).

You’re significantly more likely do die at the hands of police than you are from lightning.

Does that make either occurrence particularly likely? That’s where things get messy. Lightning doesn’t discriminate. Cops do. A person of color has no disadvantage against lightning, but they do when police are involved.

Bottom line: this comparison is problematic and misleading. This was the point of my first response.

Understanding that on the whole it’s extremely unlikely to be struck by lightning doesn’t mean someone should go stand in a field during a lightning storm holding an umbrella.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#85

Post by [deleted] »

jdavis703 wrote: post #45
TeMPOraL wrote: post #29

> With the app you can play a sound on AirTags and find it easily. I wonder how it does that. Unauthenticated BLE characteristic? This would imply anyone could force an arbitrary AirTag to make a sound. Obvious application: force all AirTags nearby to keep making sounds.

Why annoy people like this? My e-bike has Find My tracking built in to the firmware. As long as you don’t steal my bike you have no privacy concerns from me securing my bike. Even better I can track my bike down without involving the police, so the potential thief doesn’t even have to worry about being shot by some trigger happy cop.

[deleted]

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#86

Post by nathannecro »

rubicon33 wrote: post #77
midasuni wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cops kill 15 times as many civilians as most civilised countries.

> "fairly common"? You are about as likely to get hit and killed by lightning as you are to die from being shot by police. Chance of getting hit by lightning: 1 in 500,00 = 2.0 * 10^-6 [1] Chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020): 993 in 331,449,281 = 2.99 x 10^-6 [2] Hardly seems "fairly common" now does it? And, your second post about the relative frequency to other countries is a different statement, one…

Wait a second, why is the chance of getting shot and killed by the police a per capita statistic.

The denominator should be the number of police-initiated encounters. I could only find 2018 data, but it's likely in the same ballpark. [1]

Thus, the chance of getting shot and killed by police (2020):

993 in 28,880,900 = 3.44 x 10^-5

For African Americans (2020):

241 in 3,393,800 = 7.10 x 10^-5

So it's an order of magnitude more likely that you'll be shot and killed by the police than getting hit by lightning. It's in the same category as being killed by cataclysmic weather in the US.

As an aside, I also believe that the way you've argued your point here speaks to a lack of contextualization. Murder is more abhorrent than many other causes of death simply because things like lightning strikes or car accidents are done without prejudice or intent. Murdering someone with a gun requires intent at every step. In some cases, it's preventable, and action should be taken to ensure that mistakes do not happen.

[1] https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#87

Post by csande17 »

sen wrote: post #73
btown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A prominent group of Virtual YouTubers (whose talents use avatars and keep their real identities anonymous) recently needed to stop allowing fans to send gifts to talents, despite them always having been screened, because the gifts might contain AirTags that could ping the sender when they arrive ina talent’s home. It’s not that this wasn’t possible before, but it suddenly became easy for a would-be stalker to execut…

Why not just have all packages go through a central location first, like an office in the city or something, where someone can open them and pass on the gifts? This is already a thing for celebrities/people who get targeted by stalkers/attackers.

AirTags are small enough that you can hide them inside the gift item itself.

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#88

Post by mmis1000 »

sen wrote: post #73
btown wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A prominent group of Virtual YouTubers (whose talents use avatars and keep their real identities anonymous) recently needed to stop allowing fans to send gifts to talents, despite them always having been screened, because the gifts might contain AirTags that could ping the sender when they arrive ina talent’s home. It’s not that this wasn’t possible before, but it suddenly became easy for a would-be stalker to execut…

Why not just have all packages go through a central location first, like an office in the city or something, where someone can open them and pass on the gifts? This is already a thing for celebrities/people who get targeted by stalkers/attackers.

They are probably even thin enough that can embedded into cardboard or somewhere in the product so only open the box to inspect doesn't matter

Re: AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

#90

Post by cton »

andreareina wrote: post #72
teakettle42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is “cop shoots bike thief” something you actually think is common enough to note? This implies a concerning reality departure.

The police department is recommending people store their documents in an always-visible pouch to avoid getting shot. https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ooc/news-releases/Pages/dps-par...

This is a solution in the same way anti-homeless design is a solution
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