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Comment by viktorcode | Hacker News Reader

Read on the news that this kind of tracking with AirTags is used to steal cars. A car thief attaches it to the target vehicle, and then simply arrives to the place where it is parked overnight. The thief removes AirTag and then waits for an opportunity to steal the car.

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How is that better that just stealing a car without the airtag?

It is not attached to average cars, they attach them to cars that are hot in the market

Lmao exactly. This argument seems absurd - just steal the car it’s not like she was driving a lambo

We don’t know if the tag was placed there for car theft reasons. The perpetrator could want to know where she lives for something even more nefarious.

You can steal the car in a quiet area at night when the odds of being caught are much lower. It allows the criminal to pick the time and place of the crime, rather than it being dictated by luck and coincidence.

Why not drive through a random suburb at night and randomly pick a car?

Because you’re not guaranteed to find one you’re looking for. If you do a little work up front you get much better odds.

I can think of other reasons:

You can target more vulnerable people (someone you know isn’t likely to come out and confront you).

And, you can observe the usage pattern of the car. For example: you might notice that the victim works nights on Fridays and leaves their car in a more vulnerable location than when at home.

I don’t think this is gone in 60 seconds, man. People aren’t out here trying to steal $1 mil collector cars on the regular.

They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because they’re easy to steal. Thieves steal easy to steal things. This is why the AirTag thing doesn’t make sense for tracking a car you’re planning to steal. They’d just steal it on first sight. Otherwise, they’re out like $25+ if that car drives hella far away. Not a wise investment.

I think a stolen car will fetch you a bit more then $25, something tells me that successfully stealing one car will pay for hundreds to thousands of AirTags. So they can afford to lose one or two.

> They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because the

Opportunistic thieves steal easy to steal things. Professional criminals steal high value assets and will have good contacts in organised crime to move those assets on, and usually move them over a border, very quickly. It’s these individuals who are using AirTags to steal cars.

Professionals are probably tracking half a dozen high value vehicles (Mercedes, Audi’s, Porsche’s etc), and will grab a number of them in a single night. Don’t assume these thieves are just junkies looking to pay for their next high. There are more cars in this world than just $1mil collectors cars and cheap civics, plenty of $70k-$150k cars worth putting some effort into.

>They steal cheap ass Honda civics and what not because they’re easy to steal. Thieves steal easy to steal things.

You're talking about joy riders. The rest of us are talking about more sophisticated operations. Besides, your logic doesn't follow: Because most thefts are of vehicle X, there are no thefts of vehicle Y?

The police didn't say it was the primary method of stealing cars, only that it was a new phenomenon they hadn't seen before.

Car theft rings focus on particular make, model, year.

I would also estimate that the nicer the car, the more likely it's inaccessible later in a home garage, limited access parking deck, etc.

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