Dad says glitch in ‘Find My iPhone’ app directs angry strangers to his home | Hacker News Reader

Dad says glitch in ‘Find My iPhone’ app directs angry strangers to his home

nypost.com

60 pointsfhrow448459 comments

This reminded me of the MaxMind story a few years ago, when they used some family farm in Kansas as the default location when they couldn't find a match for an IP.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/09/maxmind-m...

If I recall correctly, it was a case of "we can tell this is in the US, but not where... so we return the center of the US with a _radius of error_ that encompasses the entire country"... and then a bunch of people who look at the location but not the radius. I seem to recall it happened with law enforcement more than once; which could lead to dangerous results.

> A supposed glitch in the popular “Found My iPhone” app has been directing random strangers to the home of an unsuspecting Texas dad at all hours of the day, falsely accusing him of stealing their electronic devices. [...] he’s been visited by close to a dozen irate people over the past few years, telling him that their missing phone had last pinged at his address.

He wouldn't be the first dad to be totally unaware of what his shithead kid(s) is/are up to.

Doesn't sound likely, the kids are 7 and 9 years old respectively, and he says the issue has been going on for years. Unless the older one turned into a brilliant pickpocket at age 7 I would rule this out. With older kids, sure, I can see this happening.

Agreed, that makes this scenario a lot less likely.

FWIW they are in the NY Post article as well, just further in.

LOL my initial reaction was wow this a a creative defense to petty theft. The GPS says your phone is at my house? Must be a bug!

This article is missing so many technical details. Would have been so interesting to dig into the "why" and "how".

I've had something similar happen. For devices that don't have or can't access GPS, they look the MAC address of nearby wifi base stations and see if anything correlated that with a location earlier. This is what the iphone did at launch with the skyhook database.

However in some cases your wifi MAC isn't unique and it'll think you're elsewhere. In my specific case it kept resetting my time zone to somewhere in Russia (I'm in Massachusetts) because that's what the MAC said.

It seems to be worse if there are no other networks in range for it to do sanity checking against.

Expecting this random guy to deeply understand the technicalities of why Apple is directing angry people to his house, in a state where it's legal to kill people for stealing your stuff, is not terribly reasonable. If techies are interested, they could help by figuring out the reason for this.

Expecting journalists to have an answer before writing a piece is very reasonable.

> The Post reached out to Apple on Thursday seeking comment on Schuster’s predicament, and the company’s efforts to resolve it, and was awaiting a reply.

There are technologists other than Apple who could help them understand.

Yeah sure, expecting journalists to find a cause + fix for the trillion-dollar company's buggy software and _only_ call-out and amplify a commoner's struggle _after_ they figure it out sounds super reasonable. Totally.

I’m curious why you imagine anyone is expecting that?

Because you said "Expecting journalists to have an answer before writing a piece is very reasonable." - given the journalist did not have an answer, it implies you think the journalist should have had an answer before publishing

How is that relevant to Sangeeth69’s comment?

There doesn’t seem to be any connection between what they said and what I said.

You said "Expecting journalists to have an answer before writing a piece is very reasonable.", implying it was reasonable to ask journalists to have an answer to the Q in the article. Sangeeth disagrees with you.

I don’t think so.

Can you quote something that Sangeeth wrote that indicates how they disagree with me?

Its da Post so maybe not.

In what state is it legal to kill people for stealing your stuff?

I’m fairly certain it is legal to shoot people on your property just for being on your property in some states.

I don’t know about finding somebody and “protecting” your property somewhere else.

I think you’re spreading misinformation. I hope it’s not intentional.

There is not a single state in the US where it is legal to shoot someone just for being on your property.

It does seem like there are a number of states in which deadly force is permitted in the circumstances of trespassing

https://www.ncsl.org/civil-and-criminal-justice/self-defense...

While it probably wouldn’t apply in this specific case, in Texas the Castle Doctrine describes circumstances where one could apply lethal force to defend one’s property

Can you explain how this has any relevance at all to going to someone else’s house and killing them because you wrongly think your cellphone is somewhere nearby?

As far as I can see the person who I was replying to is simply making this up.

Please mind the site guidelines. You're being super aggro in this thread.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine.

Your question was:

> In what state is it legal to kill people for stealing your stuff?

In Texas, under certain circumstances, it is legal to kill people for stealing your stuff. This might be very different than the laws in the state that you live in (it certainly is for me in New Jersey) but it is the reality.

As I mentioned it likely wouldn't apply in this case.

As a side note, the Castle Doctrine does apply within one's vehicle. Presumably an argument could be made that if someone stayed within their vehicle while confronting the home owner the Castle Doctrine may apply. Admittedly that is quite a stretch and I have no idea if something like that has ever been tried in Texas courts.

That may be slightly overstated, but use of lethal force to protect one's property is legal in Texas. Very recently somebody in Texas did kill somebody for stealing their truck, using airtags to find to track them down. Legally speaking, somebody showing up at your door with a gun to recover their phone may not be okay. Realistically, the law doesn't act until you're dead.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9590520/truck-thief-airtag-shot-d...

It’s more than slightly overstated. It’s a total lie.

Showing up at someone’s house and killing someone because they have your phone is always illegal in every US state.

I don’t know why people are trying to defend this. It’s complete misinformation.

Showing up while in real time pursuit is not in Texas. If you followed the thief all the way, the worst you get is a trespassing charge.

I don't expect a random guy to deeply understand the technicalities, but I do expect a journalist to do more investigation than reaching out to a large corporation for comment.

Regardless of what is "expected" I stand by that it would have been interesting to dig in to the details. Hopefully somebody does. I doubt apple will, but I think there can be lessons learned from understanding how it happened if someone were to research it.

Could just be in the center of whatever radius the system spits out from cell tower triangulation, I assume? Or something similar. The technical details would be fun.

I recall a similar phenomenon some years before the pandemic, where Google Maps (?) continually led streams of angry humans to a particular person's residence. I've not succeeded in pulling up the reference, unfortunately.

I can only imagine how much it must suck to be at the blunt end of such MegaCorp oversights.

It's pretty similar to this Reply-All episode:

#53: In the Desert: Strangers keep coming to Mike and Christina’s house looking for their stolen cell phones. Nobody knows why. We travel to Atlanta to find out what’s going on, in our thorniest Super Tech Support yet.

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/n8hodm/

I wonder if he shares a wifi SSID or MAC address on some wifi device in his home with a thief's

He should obviously sue Apple for endangering his family. I’m sure there’s a decent payout in this for him.

Anyone managed to come up with any reasonable explanation yet?

There was a good Reply All about a similar phenomenon in Atlanta:

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/n8hodm

I think because Find My relies solely on the GPS report of surround Apple devices, it may happen in the situation where the only Ithings around the stolen devices are the ones in this family.

Sounds like the plot of a horror movie

Apple may not be directly responsible or capable of rectifying this. It could be a third-party database. See also: geolocation database errors.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/09/maxmind-m...

They’re responsible for the final product no matter what databases they use.

No, actually they cannot be responsible, because Apple cannot even see the devices or locations that are being reported.

I am confident that you will find, in the app(s) and devices, equal disclaimers of any warranty or fitness for purpose of the Service, just like any other software EULA.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/find-my/

  Find My can use the Find My network to help find devices even if they are not connected to the internet and, for supported devices, even if they are turned off or erased. Devices in the Find My network use Bluetooth wireless technology to detect missing devices or compatible items nearby, including AirTags and compatible third-party products registered to your Apple ID, and report their approximate location back to the owner. If a device is turned off or erased, that location is also visible to members of the owner’s Family Sharing group with whom they have chosen to share the location. The interaction is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple cannot see the location of any offline device or reporting device. When your device participates in the Find My network, it can both be located by the network and anonymously help locate other missing devices. ... For more information on AirTags and compatible third-party products, including instructions on adding these products to Find My and registering them to your Apple ID, visit support.apple.com/kb/HT211331.

This raises an interesting question. If the homeowner never bought any Apple products, then he would not be bound by the EULA in any way.

It's less clear what would happen in the event that the homeowner does have some Apple devices, and has clicked through the EULA at some point. I would still say he'd have a good argument that Apple has wronged him by sending a constant stream of unhappy/confused/irate people to his home.

HackerNews: where we love E2EE, but we shoot the messenger when he tells us that a service with E2EE works as designed.

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/locate-a-device-mmfc0...

  Note: Maps and location information depend on data collection services provided by third parties. These services are subject to change and may not be available in all geographic areas, resulting in inaccurate or incomplete maps or location information.

How does this help the guy who due to Apple services is having angry people turning up?

What is the purpose of this thread?

That’s irrelevant. If the databases are the source of the problem and if the problem is that they’re inaccurate the onus is on them to ensure the correctness of the data so one guy and his family are not getting harassed at their home because of Apple’s software.

Apple doesn't even know what the data is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35497539

  The interaction is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple cannot see the location of any offline device or reporting device. When your device participates in the Find My network, it can both be located by the network and anonymously help locate other missing devices.

That’s between them and their vendors. Not knowing what the problem is doesn’t make them not responsible.

> "Scott Schuster told the local news station KTRK that he’s been visited by close to a dozen irate people over the past few years, telling him that their missing phone had last pinged at his address."

So like... a couple people a year? As far as annoyances go, not exactly a big one.

Still, I'm happy he has this article now. He can just show it to the couple new visitors who arrive each year. Heck, frame it and put it above the doorbell...

Of course, it's also the perfect cover if he ever wanted to turn into an iPhone and AirPods thief... :P

In all seriousness though, I would be concerned if somebody ever did become violent. I'd definitely want the local police to be aware of the situation in advance and be ready to call them.

But also, the solution is maybe as easy as replacing your Wi-Fi router?

> So like... a couple people a year? As far as annoyances go, not exactly a big one.

This is a safety issue more than it is an annoyance issue. Someone may get violent if they think they have evidence that you've stolen their phone and are denying it.

> But also, the solution is maybe as easy as replacing your Wi-Fi router?

GPS coordinates have nothing to do with Wi-Fi routers. He could bulldoze his house and people would still show up to that location because the GPS system does not know or care what is at that location.

Apple’s location database uses the location of Wi-Fi routers to get proper GPS locations. If someone is spoofing his routers MAC address, then that could fix it.

> So like... a couple people a year? As far as annoyances go, not exactly a big one.

People who are looking for their possessions and think you have them are probably not going to be rational when you tell them to leave. The homeowner will have to call 911 to get them trespassed each time. That's a waste of his time.

A guy whose truck was stolen shot and killed the thief, after using an AirTag to locate his truck: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/san-antonio-texas-apple-airt...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com