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xref

You can opt out. You’re beclowining yourself ranting through this entire thread but not having researched any details

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> xref - You can opt out.

track your ex girl friend easily... thanks apple ....

it should be opt-in at the very least

Not sure why HN is so anti-privacy lately

HN is a microcosm of the world. People support whatever is the norm, because they are social beings. Being privacy focused is "idealist" or "extremist" or "paranoid", and people don't want to be outcasts. And you are a conspiracy theorist for thinking that Apple and Google don't have your best interests at heart. And abuse of Hanlon's razor, etc, etc

Actually, it's more that many of us frequently risk the likely theft of our precious items, the permanent loss of which would be extremely damaging or upending. And the contrived examples of abuse cases are much less compelling, especially when the only alternative, cellular GPS trackers, are even more invasive. And I dare someone to formulate an ethically consistent argument for banning GPS tracking devices.

Reading the comments outside of the article I see no other example where it helped catch a thief but I find one case of possible abuse to track soomeone.

Annecdotic I know, but I guess some of us value the potential abuse of others higher than an hypothetic recovery in case of theft.

I’ll let you know the outcome when someone jacks my custom $7000 bike from its truck bed rack for the second time.

Did you forget about the article?

How about this story:

Apple initially launched AirTags with the “find your missing possessions” use case in mind, and didn’t fully anticipate the stalking use case.

When they realised there was a stalking problem, they put in some fairly robust defences against it (see https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/02/an-update-on-airtag-a...), robust enough that it makes the tags a lot less useful for tracking stolen items.

Do you agree that’s what happened? And if so, what parts of it make Apple anti-privacy? Should they have axed the entire product?

It's too naive to think that Apple, one of the biggest company, hadn't noticed that AirTag could be used for stalking. I suspect that they think it's still fine because competitors like Tile already exists

Maybe they even thought that it would be a good thing that people would stalk at first... then they could implement a semi-effective method to prevent it... and be looked at like heroes

I suggest Hanlon's Razor applies here: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

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