Hacker News Reader

Comment by avh02 | Hacker News Reader

so it's nice that it notifies me there's an airtag on me but only when i get home - however if someone's nefariously tracking me, at that point it's too late.

If i have an Android i wouldn't even know that.

View on HN

Well, the problem here is that there's no easy way to prevent false positives otherwise. Imagine if you leave your phone at home but take your keys with an AirTag to go shopping using public transportation. Everyone on the bus or the train will be getting notifications about an AirTag that is following them. Same if you lost an item with an AirTag in that bus or train even if you had your phone with you when you boarded it in the first place.

That's why the alert only pops up when you get to a known location (home/office).

As for Android, I wonder if an app could be made for phones equipped with UWB radios that alerts you if a tag is always in close proximity, just based on the tags radio activity.

You don't need UWB for safety alerts. Simply bluetooth is enough. These tags send out a message every 2 seconds and have a predictable part of the rotating key so if you see the same fixed portion multiple times in a row, its very likely to be the same tag (unlikely that multiple different tags were near you one at a time with exactly the same fixed part) but if you do something like set up tracking stations at malls, there will be too many duplicates.

Or if you have an iphone and someone plants a samsung tag on you, you also get no notification. Someone could also just follow you home. Airtags at least prevent long term stalking which is difficult to pull off without them.

The cat is well out of the bag now. I think Apple, Google and Samsung all need to get together and standardize safety alerts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com