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Comment by pretext-1 | Hacker News Reader

> They know airtags can be used for crime and don't care.

So can iPhones. Or Androids. Or ski masks, lock picks, tape. Should we stop selling useful items when they can be abused? Apple did way more to stop the abuse of AirTags than the competition and I don't see anyone complaining about Tile. Almost any tool can be abused or used to hurt someone. Stop trying to shift the blame from the perpetrator to the tool being used.

Also: funny how the US doesn't ban guns even though they were literally invented to kill people but now fight about AirTags.

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> Should we stop selling useful items when they can be abused?

No. My points above are:

1: people go out of their way to excuse Apple of any wrongoding, part of it is because of the "cult", part of it because Apple is very good at PR and painting themselves always in a good light

2: Apple has, as usual, done the bare minimum to arginate the problem and hand-waved at it.-

Likewise some people go out of their way to disparage Apple because they belong to the anti-“cult”. Comment histories can be damning…

Maybe adding something useful to the conversation by recommending a possible solution to the problem that Apple could implement to alleviate the problems would be more constructive?

Here let me start such a conversation: Apple could spearhead a standard to make their trackers communicate with surrounding devices and allow blocking to occur if someone doesn’t want to be tracked. But on the flip side the blocker is then recorded by a central authority to prevent bad actors from stealing and blocking tracking.

> Maybe adding something useful to the conversation by recommending a possible solution to the problem that Apple could implement to alleviate the problems would be more constructive?

My solution is: stop buying devices made to violate their users' privacy. Good job on investigating my thoughts digging up my very public comment section, though. I am impressed.

> My solution is: stop buying devices made to violate their users' privacy.

This thought process doesn't flow with me. Do you really thing some product manager at one point said "these airtags will allow complete tracking of our minions and their children, and we'll showcase them tracking other things to trick them into buying the product"?

This kind of snide, egotistical drivel is not why I come to this site.

I highly suggest you reflect on how you relate to other people; it would likely do you some good in your personal and professional lives.

In all honesty, what you do suggest is irrelevant to me.

Then why offer your opinions?

And yet GPS trackers people can slap on cars have been a thing for over 2 decades. My point in the second paragraph is that regardless of how good or bad the safeguards the big company implements are, someone will be able to either abuse it or repurpose/reimplement the technology to perform malicious acts.

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