This is news just because it's an Apple device being used for something that was already trivially possible.
GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service
-- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag. These are much harder to detect, as you might imagine.
The Apple device does try to make itself less useful for abusive purposes. Nearby iPhones will notify you if there's an AirTag following you. Apple released an Android app to scan for them (manually -- it'd probably be nice if they released something that did the same passive scanning as iPhones get, but there's battery trade-offs there, and obviously most people won't have that app). AirTags will also beep if they're separated from their owner.
In fact, this is news we're hearing about because of the steps Apple took to make it harder to use these devices for bad purposes. The tweet author got a warning about the device following them.
It's tricky to make something that lets you find where you dropped your keys while walking the dog that can't also be used for nefarious purposes.
While you're correct, I think there is something to be said about the popularization of the technology. Most people aren't aware of GPS trackers other than movies and think they are much harder to come by. AirTags are also less nefarious by nature. If you get caught with a GPS tracker on your person that's pretty suspicious. If you're caught placing an AirTag on someone's car it's easier to pretend you dropped it and are looking for it. I'd also say that the popularization increases the chance of use in the moment. You already have the AirTag and can decide do that tracking. With the GPS you have to do forward planning. I do think there's a difference here that could lead to more people being tracked. Crimes of opportunity are different than planned crimes, and I assume much more common.
It is good that Apple is notifying users when being followed. But it seems that too many false positives are getting people to ignore the messages. Though this is a hard thing to combat.
- Would a GPS tracker placed at this position be able to catch the GPS signal? If I understand it correctly, an airtag communicate via bluetooth and would get the location from a phone in range?
- An airtag do not require a SIM card. Are they easily traceable or is it hard to get to the owner?
I see some parallels here to cases like "Google Glassholes"[1] or the "Sony see through camera" [2]. Both turned to be PR problems, even though technically the companies did not do anything that was not already otherwise possible.
In Australia to activate a sim you need a form of ID, if you were to put a sim card in a GPS tracker you could easily be identified. air tags not so much.
"GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag. These are much harder to detect, as you might imagine."
Yes ... but Apple has built a mesh network to report the position of people who don't want to be tracked ... and clearly are being tracked. And it's very possible my own iphone is being used in the service of an evil actor. That feels ... different. Ethically -- if not technically.
"It's tricky to make something that lets you find where you dropped your keys while walking the dog that can't also be used for nefarious purposes." This seems awfully blithe. I suspect you aren't a woman. Or that you don't have daughters old enough to live on their own.
And both should be simple for the police to link to the owner, if they are reported. Maybe a bit less so for a SIM card, but that AirTag is registered with someone’s phone
> This is news just because it's an Apple device being used for something that was already trivially possible.
> GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag.
So you're saying Apple made it even more trivially possible. Not only does it cost the same, it now requires less effort.
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. The stalker would have had to use a very strong adhesive to make the AirTag stick while the car was moving. 3) While it’d be a smart idea to not drive home while a foreign AirTag tracks you, who is alert enough after a night out AND happens to have friends in the vicinity that you can wake up at what must have been a very late hour? 4) Her friend who found and removed the AirTag took no photo. Really?
The interesting thing is that I have seen multiple reports of this ( think this is is the third), but in every case, they have destroyed it, lost it, or thrown it away before hand - not given it to the police.
Apple can't tell who the devices is from signals in the wild, but they can figure out who it is if someone gives them the physical device. (Apple tracks the serial number of the device, and from what I understand, can provide purchaser/activator information based on the serial number).
There is, it's open source and works. I have have this running on my phone in the background and it has alerted me a few times like when my phone was in the locker at the gym and someones airtags was in a locker close to mine.
If you already knew that there was an app out there, maybe don't use absolutist sounding phrases like "they'll never know" just to come back and make defensive edits about how nobody out there knows about its existence when you yourself obviously knew about it.
There is at least one android app to list nearby airtags. The one I found requires you to manually start a scan though so it doesn't alert to issues like this one. OTOH your own phone won't be used to track the air tag. OTOH half the people around you have an iPhone that will do it for them.
The flip side of this is that if you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have anything participating in the mesh network that’s required for the AirTag to operate. Of course, someone else’s iPhone could still pick it up and relay the position, but this becomes considerably less likely in a scenario where the adversary is attempting to track a vehicle.
"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.
>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
So I and my wife both have AirTags. Every time we take a walk together, we both get notifications that there's an unknown AirTag with us (each others'). You can pause these notifications for just one day, which means we get notified every single day.
Does anyone know how to disable this for specific known AirTags?
As someone who has been around message boards and forums since the late 90’s one thing that has really surprised me is the degree to which people have started taking first person online stories seriously.
Reddit of course is full of them, as is Twitter and lots of other places. Meanwhile the incentives to successfully tell a just-so story that goes viral have never been higher. Youtube money, GoFundme, influencer opportunities, etc.
The post we are all responding to is super low effort, not even a photo, and not even a first person account. Her “friend” found an AirTag and threw it away.
Meanwhile there’s a GoFundme link right on the profile.
Surely Apple can use information from their Find My account to figure out who the AirTag was registered to. Even if the tag has been destroyed. That should be trivially easy, right?
Correct, this is how Apple’s “find my” network works. Devices that don’t have their own GPS can still be on the network because they piggy-back off of nearby Apple devices.
Apple devices do notify users if there’s an unknown AirTag following them around.
Can someone just put any random AirTag on someone's car and have it trigger alerts on nearby iphones? Does one have to do something to activate it first?
Curious if all one needs to do is get one and stick it on a randos car to cause psychological distress without even pairing with a phone or otherwise registering/activating the thing.
Between reports of AirTags being used to enable auto theft and stalk targets, it is pretty obviously a very handy criminal tool. Apple definitely needs to do something about this for both ethical and reputational reasons.
the beeping if separated from owner after 8-24hrs is a bit helpful, but likely not noticeable if attached to the outside of a car. This is also a pretty big window in which to pull off your crime.
I'd suggest that all tracking come with logging of the original owner's Apple device and it's location. The handy general use case would be to find your phone with an airtag (e.g., on your keys) and another phone (e.g., friend in the group). The obvious deterrent to criminals is that their target and the police will have their device ID and location. They might still get away with it, but would need effectively a burner Apple phone & location history separate from their real device.
I think this reverse tracking would also raise concerns
- keys with airtag attached are lost, thief (perhaps opportunist) can find the home/car they belong to
- stalker types can steal an airtag from a water bottle, handbag, or whatever, and find the owner's home
Not an iPhone user but AFAIK the lost phone scenario was already covered with even pre-airtag "Find my..." since you could log into iCloud web interface on any other device and use that
Reading that, it sounds like a situation to call/drive to/or otherwise get the attention of the police. Attaching a tracking device to your vehicle is a significant indication of malicious intent. It's a potentially life threatening situation and should be treated as such.
Sounds nice but how it would be possible to prove that owner of the device attached it to vehicle? You would need to have video recording with clearly identifiable person, otherwise owner can simply say that she lost AirTag and someone did a dumb joke and attached it to the car.
On the Apple help site, it says you can disable an AirTag that is following you:
> To disable the AirTag and stop sharing your location, tap Instructions to Disable AirTag and follow the onscreen steps.
If I’m understanding this correctly, this means you can defeat this type of stalking easily. On the other hand, this makes AirTags less useful for tracking stolen items, as presumably the thief will disable it.
I suspect this has a lot to do with apple raising awareness of tracking capabilities. I'd love to know if other forms of this attack increase as a result.
When tweets or news articles like this get popular, I can't help thinking this has a Streisand effect. Crazy stalker people who didn't know they could do this now know they can.
[+] [-] kemayo|4 years ago|reply
GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag. These are much harder to detect, as you might imagine.
The Apple device does try to make itself less useful for abusive purposes. Nearby iPhones will notify you if there's an AirTag following you. Apple released an Android app to scan for them (manually -- it'd probably be nice if they released something that did the same passive scanning as iPhones get, but there's battery trade-offs there, and obviously most people won't have that app). AirTags will also beep if they're separated from their owner.
In fact, this is news we're hearing about because of the steps Apple took to make it harder to use these devices for bad purposes. The tweet author got a warning about the device following them.
It's tricky to make something that lets you find where you dropped your keys while walking the dog that can't also be used for nefarious purposes.
[+] [-] godelski|4 years ago|reply
It is good that Apple is notifying users when being followed. But it seems that too many false positives are getting people to ignore the messages. Though this is a hard thing to combat.
[+] [-] mgh2|4 years ago|reply
Behind its "privacy" PR, Apple is secretly nudging people to buy more iPhones again...
Past tricks to make people upgrade:
1. Slowing down: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724
2. "Other" storage: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/666721
[+] [-] jjallen|4 years ago|reply
But now anyone with an iPhone can buy a $25 device and track anyone. I would guess that Airtags are also smaller than gps trackers.
[+] [-] kuon|4 years ago|reply
- Would a GPS tracker placed at this position be able to catch the GPS signal? If I understand it correctly, an airtag communicate via bluetooth and would get the location from a phone in range?
- An airtag do not require a SIM card. Are they easily traceable or is it hard to get to the owner?
[+] [-] jpalomaki|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://nypost.com/2014/07/14/is-google-glass-cool-or-just-p... [2]https://bettermarketing.pub/sonys-see-through-camera-disaste...
[+] [-] 28uwedj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|4 years ago|reply
I've got Android. Where do i see a warning?
Ps. No, people with Android will not have a Apple app installed. It's the wrong solution for that problem.
[+] [-] 323|4 years ago|reply
Why didn't the AirTag beep in this situation? She said she went around the car trying to find it.
[+] [-] danesparza|4 years ago|reply
Yes ... but Apple has built a mesh network to report the position of people who don't want to be tracked ... and clearly are being tracked. And it's very possible my own iphone is being used in the service of an evil actor. That feels ... different. Ethically -- if not technically.
"It's tricky to make something that lets you find where you dropped your keys while walking the dog that can't also be used for nefarious purposes." This seems awfully blithe. I suspect you aren't a woman. Or that you don't have daughters old enough to live on their own.
[+] [-] briffle|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pengaru|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] raydev|4 years ago|reply
> GPS trackers designed to be magnet-attached to a car which report their location via cell signal cost ~$20 on Amazon. You then tend to need to pay for either a SIM card or a subscription to the device maker's service -- bringing you up to about the cost of an AirTag.
So you're saying Apple made it even more trivially possible. Not only does it cost the same, it now requires less effort.
[+] [-] hankman86|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] InTheArena|4 years ago|reply
Apple can't tell who the devices is from signals in the wild, but they can figure out who it is if someone gives them the physical device. (Apple tracks the serial number of the device, and from what I understand, can provide purchaser/activator information based on the serial number).
[+] [-] raldi|4 years ago|reply
Edit: Yes, I know there’s an app. Do you think more than 1% of victims will have it installed?
[+] [-] sschueller|4 years ago|reply
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
[+] [-] educaysean|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frakkingcylons|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mortenjorck|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xwdv|4 years ago|reply
Do you see the danger
[+] [-] edot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2-718-281-828|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] jonpurdy|4 years ago|reply
Does anyone know how to disable this for specific known AirTags?
[+] [-] CPLX|4 years ago|reply
Reddit of course is full of them, as is Twitter and lots of other places. Meanwhile the incentives to successfully tell a just-so story that goes viral have never been higher. Youtube money, GoFundme, influencer opportunities, etc.
The post we are all responding to is super low effort, not even a photo, and not even a first person account. Her “friend” found an AirTag and threw it away.
Meanwhile there’s a GoFundme link right on the profile.
Just saying.
[+] [-] newhotelowner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahepp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kitcar|4 years ago|reply
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/apple-tracking-devices-being-used...
[+] [-] awinter-py|4 years ago|reply
> If a foreign AirTag is around ANY Apple device that’s connected to a network, a nefarious AirTag owner will know its location!
the airtag is phoning home over all apple hardware, whether or not it belongs to the owner of the tag?
[+] [-] brendoelfrendo|4 years ago|reply
Apple devices do notify users if there’s an unknown AirTag following them around.
[+] [-] pengaru|4 years ago|reply
Curious if all one needs to do is get one and stick it on a randos car to cause psychological distress without even pairing with a phone or otherwise registering/activating the thing.
[+] [-] toss1|4 years ago|reply
the beeping if separated from owner after 8-24hrs is a bit helpful, but likely not noticeable if attached to the outside of a car. This is also a pretty big window in which to pull off your crime.
I'd suggest that all tracking come with logging of the original owner's Apple device and it's location. The handy general use case would be to find your phone with an airtag (e.g., on your keys) and another phone (e.g., friend in the group). The obvious deterrent to criminals is that their target and the police will have their device ID and location. They might still get away with it, but would need effectively a burner Apple phone & location history separate from their real device.
Other ideas?
[+] [-] throwaway39203|4 years ago|reply
- keys with airtag attached are lost, thief (perhaps opportunist) can find the home/car they belong to
- stalker types can steal an airtag from a water bottle, handbag, or whatever, and find the owner's home
Not an iPhone user but AFAIK the lost phone scenario was already covered with even pre-airtag "Find my..." since you could log into iCloud web interface on any other device and use that
[+] [-] emeraldd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pxtail|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] endisneigh|4 years ago|reply
Lightbug uses GPS and has a 6 year battery with a size smaller than a credit card. Ultimately there's no way to put the cat in the bag.
I'd argue it's not possible for a tracker to exist that cannot be used for bad purposes.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MarkSweep|4 years ago|reply
> To disable the AirTag and stop sharing your location, tap Instructions to Disable AirTag and follow the onscreen steps.
If I’m understanding this correctly, this means you can defeat this type of stalking easily. On the other hand, this makes AirTags less useful for tracking stolen items, as presumably the thief will disable it.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212227
[+] [-] hatenberg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donkarma|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notjustanymike|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Underphil|4 years ago|reply