NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Classic LoJack had good privacy. It's a box hidden somewhere in the car, with a connection to vehicle power. It has a transmitter, but normally doesn't transmit. If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack. That broadcasts an ID over a subcarrier of some local FM broadcast station. The receiver in the Lojack unit listens for those IDs, and if its own ID comes up, it turns on. It starts loudly transmitting to units in police cars, giving approximate direction and range. If you see a police car with four short whip antennas on the roof in a square pattern, that's a Lojack-equipped vehicle. It's uses radio direction finding. The vehicle box has no idea where it is. It's a totally independent system - no cellular, no GPS.
So this only tracks vehicles which have flagged as stolen. It's not constantly phoning home.
Classic Lojack is a one-time charge, with no annual fees.
The current product, LoJack AnalProbe™, which they call "Connected Car", constantly phones home, reporting your location, battery level, etc. to the mothership. There's an app to review where you've been. And, inevitably, the EULA says that Lojack may "share information with LoJack’s affiliated companies, Service Providers and/or third parties in conjunction with the Software and Services and for the purpose of providing You with any promotional offers and marketing materials as may be permitted by applicable law."
You get to pay a subscription fee for this.
my first 'nice' car had lojack installed in it. i remember it was about $200, and that's all, but this was 10+ years ago. i wonder if it's still out there...
When direction finding was used Doppler DF based on multiple antennas was rare due to the high cost of the electronics package, which also consumed a lot of trunk space. Most police departments did it the old fashioned way with a handheld log periodic they waved around. Another part of the decline of the original Lojack system was the high price of providing good DF receivers to police departments, so not many had them. LoJack never got big into having their own DF "hunters" on staff like other companies using transponders did.
> you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13
I didn't see anything in the comment which suggested they were. It is specifically points out there are devices not produced by Apple. Third parties can create compatible devices:
That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.
What is the clear reference? One person said they searched GPS tracker tags on Amazon and the other gave a link to Apple’s licensing program which in turn links to NDAs and contractual agreements as well a multi-step design and approval process. There seem to be some knock-offs claiming they work with Find My, but there’s all sorts of weird counterfeit crap on Amazon. Do you have links to a product that’s actually licensed/supported by Apple (ie works and will keep working), because that’s what surprised me.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HQF72ZM/A/chipolo-card-sp...
I own one, and it works just like an airtag and appears in the find my app. It doesn't have precision feature but everything else works(like using the apple/iphone network to find it)
So like, if you left your keys somewhere, you'd know where they were when you walked away, but not where they are afterwards.
They cost half as much as legit airtags
I called in with my report, dispatch quickly verified that the car had not been towed then asked me some preemptive questions to make sure it really was stolen (no one else had keys to it, etc).
My car a tracker that the thieves disabled but I sent the dispatcher the last known flair location before the tracker shut off.
The police sent one officer to get my statement while three other cars of officers canvassed the area around the the flair location building by building until they found the car inside of a gated community.
Then they took me to it to confirm it was mine, dusted everything for fingerprints, and gave me a business card with the officer's name, department, etc. and a case number I could use to for reference with insurance or to follow up and see if they managed to catch the people who stole it.
The entire process only took about an hour and the police went above and beyond. I'll forever be grateful for their efforts.
With all the dubious “stalkers put an airtag on my car” stories from a while ago they are also trivial to find and disable.
Apple isn’t stupid, they are good for finding your lost keys but not for finding your lost girlfriend.
From that perspective it's probably better for people to not know you have lojack, conceal it, and make them work harder to check for it.
Then get a second hand Shit-Box 2000 like I do. Nobody will ever steal it, as no self respecting thief will want to be seen driving that, and it costs me less to buy and own.
Win-win I'd say.
I'm struggling to understand why people who aren't Bezos wealthy buy expensive cars. The depreciation is insane and you're always anxious someone will steal it or ding it in a parking lot. But then if people weren't frivolous with their money, half of us wouldn't have jobs ;)
for example, the fabled acura integra. While not cheap, it's certainly not going to make a thief rich. At the end of the day it's a vtec honda civic with 2 doors and standard transmission.(I'd argue that a 97 Acura Integra IS your definition of a shitbox.)
Because of that desirable engine, they are still the most GTA vehicle in US.
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/most-stolen-cars/
I have purchased a couple new cars in my life, but in the sub-$35k range. While, looking at the amount a payment would be on an $80,000 car, I'm aware I could definitely afford it -- especially at that 6-7 year term that is so popular now -- it is wild to me that anyone would derive enough marginal utility to justify the cost. I'll take my car plus a briefcase full of money over a Mercedes, thanks.
It's possible though that the person with that $80k car also thinks they're quite rational and only the person with the $150,000 car is a lunatic.
"Warning: Small active tracker device hidden somewhere in the car. Good luck!"
thieves spend 3 hours literally tearing the car apart and then give up but your car is ruined anyway
Kick your local thief in the face, ya?
With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief yourself and shoot them.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/texas-man-used-apple-airtag-to...
Outstanding name! Their marketing team has a wicked sense of humor.
Cars that were outfitted with low jack would have the devices removed or disabled before the tracking could be enabled and as they didn’t report their position the police would have nothing to go by.
Whilst I agree that the information sharing is pretty despicable since you are already paying for that service the new model is more useful at least in a situation where the police actually has resources for recovery instead of doing the bare minimum because most vehicles are insured.
There probably is a market for a solution that would be more reliable than an airtag but one that you can control.
One can probably build one fairly easily with a low power SBC with cellular capability and one of those IOT global sim plans.
Capitalism, you scary.
On the other hand, we have a private for-profit company that is piggybacking off the cops vehicles in order to make profit for it's shareholders. That would never be allowed in any democratic country, but then neither would bribery/lobbying so [insert shrug emoji]
"In March 2016, the company was acquired for $134 million by CalAmp, an Irvine, California-based provider of Internet of things (IoT) software applications, cloud services, data intelligence and telematics products and services.[4]
In March 2021, the vehicle intelligence company Spireon announced it had acquired the LoJack U.S. Stolen Vehicle Recovery business from CalAmp, joining LoJack users with "nearly 4 million active subscribers from over 20,000 current Spireon customers".[5]
Under Spireon, LoJack technology moved from RF-based location to GPS and cellular-based technology, growing availability of the solution throughout the U.S. and Hawaii and expanding the solution from only stolen vehicle recovery into connected car technology for both dealers and consumers."
By which time it is already chopped up for parts or, in the case of places like Phoenix, is already in Mexico.
I used to have a roommate who grew up in NYC, had a somewhat dubious past and was talking about LoJack one day. He claimed it doesn’t work well enough in dense urban areas to get a precise location fix to actually impede theft. IIRC they would have enough time to disable it as long as they stayed around tall buildings. Something like they would park the car in an alley between buildings and find the LoJack before doing whatever with the car.
I’ve known a few youthful car thieves over the years with some interesting stories.
Fun fact. Very few alleys in NYC
Like this whole Kia Challenge thing, I’m sure a bunch of them are going to grow up and say they were crack auto thieves because they got six months community service for jacking their neighbor’s car with a usb cable.
It first celebrates surveillance devices as a net positive and hand-waves away its problems.
But most importantly, it is awfully shortsighted to allow a single company to entrench itself further into societal transactions. However, hearing it is inconvenient, so I am often dismissed for saying so.
> They're made by Apple, which means they're very platform-agnostic.
You mean platform-specific.
> "Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority, and seems to ignore the realities of the world. Perhaps Mayor Adams spends too much time on HN?
1. NYPD-affiliated material on your car
2. Plate cover
3. Plate holder with strategically placed leaves attached
If you pay for parking in NYC you're a sucker.
Around 15:50: https://youtu.be/Vuw72THyXsQ?t=942
They were laughing at it. So hilarious, I'm in stitches over the ignorance.
Why would I want to join Google’s advertiser-driven ecosystem, and voluntarily make myself into Google’s product?
Here are some other reasons why you or other people might choose Android phones:
- Generally cheaper/better value, especially on the low end
- Less locked down (e.g. you can actually choose what browser engine you want to use, or sideload apps relatively easily)
- More options to choose from
- The core OS is FOSS
If you like iPhones that's fine but it's not true that there's literally no reason for anyone to get an Android phone
As such, AirTags only work because of Apple's market position and extremely wide reach. Put simply, Apple is abusing their control over their devices and the trust their users have placed in them to perform a form of mass surveillance.
As someone who has used both the airtag is just plain better when it comes to locating it, the uwb stuff is awesome. But the tile tags have some upsides as well. I love the button on the tile that you can use to ring your phone, helps solve ye olde.. i have my keys, where's my phone problem.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
Last time I tried that, it was very limited. No paying by phone, no banking apps (and most banks require app as second factor), no proper maps with navigation and routing, no streaming music, no "work" apps like Teams or Slack, no utility apps like taxis or public transport. Even messaging apps wouldn't work well due to lack of push notifications.
Degoogled Android was basically touch display dumbphone. Which is perfect for some people who want it that way, but I like the ability to use public transport, get a cab or message people by something else than a text.
edit: I think there might be a difference between degoogled as in not registered to play store but still having play services install, and degoogled as using shim play services? I honestly don't remember.
Operating systems that have microG preinstalled include CalyxOS, /e/, and LineageOS for microG.
That said, I simply can’t blame someone for considering an iPhone to be the default choice for the majority of consumers.
What do you use them for? That sounds interesting.
There's janky series of actions I have set up where my phone detects when I get to my office building and sends a text triggers turning my computer on for me, signs in, and then runs a start up script(which starts all my programs and launches an RDP session as well, which has its own start up script as well that gets run) and then locks the screen again, so it's all ready when I sit down. Back when I played WoW I'd also use a similar system to launch the game and wait in the login queue on raid nights for me while I was driving home.
My spouse sometimes will text me from upstairs when she needs something, but I work from the office 2 days a week but she never remembers(she has some memory issues...) so I have it set to send her a reminder that I'm not home the first time she texts me for the day, but doesnt mark the messages as read or dismiss the notification so I can still see what she sent and reply if I need to. Also have it set to replay the notification sounds/buzz for messages from her outside of work hours because I am bad at checking my phone and sometimes forget to text her back. It also stickies the notifications from her in the slide-down menu so I can't accidentally dismiss them without replying.
Our oncall system at work has us dial into a phone tree and punch in some numbers to set it to yourself, I have my phone do it automatically for me.
I have a specific camera shortcut that will automatically text my spouse any pictures taken for that specific session until the app is closed/exited, usually its pictures of our cats but also useful when she's taking pictures with my phone for whatever reason or if we're having someone take a photo of the two of us, saves the trouble of having to send it manually each time.
Whenever the WiFI goes down at the house I have it set to turn my phone hotspot on, then send a text that triggers my computer to connect to the hotspot network, sign into the spectrum website and check for outages so I know what is broken.
There's something ironic to find this comment on a video of a former cop surrounded by other cops touting the surveillance features Apple's product offers exclusively.
On AirTag location privacy, from Apple's site [1]:
> Only you can see where your AirTag is. Your location data and history are never stored on the AirTag itself. Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
I don't think they're lying about this.
Original post follows: I haven’t read any white papers on how this works, but I’m going to call “slight BS” anyway. Technically, Apple knows the location of the AirTag, that’s how their network works. The payload of airtag data might be encrypted, but Apple also keeps the keys for your AirTags so that you don’t have to associate new AirTags with each Apple device you want to use Find My on. While I don’t doubt that Apple strictly reduces what information they log or identify about AirTags to literally the bare minimum that keeps the service running, it’s a bit ingenuous to suggest Apple doesn’t know. What I mean by this is Apple isn’t lying when they say they don’t know the location of your AirTag (until you use their app to look for it) but it is true they know the location of all AirTags synced to their network, they just don’t know which one is yours until you go looking for it. Encryption probably plays a role in that asymmetric encryption would allow Apple to not know any AirTag details until your devices provide the decryption key. A handshake could be involved too so that your device can’t decrypt the location of the tag without proving they own the associated encryption key. But presumably Apple has a way of issuing or remotely authorizing against such keys. It is likely the case that your password for your phone protects Apple from gaining access to the keys thus justifying the position that Apple doesn’t have access because they don’t have your keys. Apple would have to act maliciously with their software into order to break this system, and it’s not worth it for them to do so. I’m not saying they’re lying but they are simplifying things a bit.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
That said the spying aspect makes little sense to discuss in the context of a literal portable surveillance device leveraging their network, which they keep hand waving away in explanations.
Apple can be compelled to spy on you[0].
> and does not sell my information to advertisers
Apple is an advertiser.
Isn't modern technology fun?
It’s dishonest to equate lawful warrants with Google’s targeted advertising and exploitation of our information.
Furthermore, Apple is clear about what information they have access to, and what information they don’t, and have consistently, year-over-year, reduced the information they actually have access to.
> Apple is an advertiser.
This is another disingenuous false equivalency. Apple does not gather personal information from our devices for advertising, and always requires explicit opt-in before making use of any data provided to them through the use of their services.
Is it?
Google has not suffocated the AOSP. If you don't want their advertising or services, you can remove it. No such option exists on iOS, so you're effectively locked into an inherently insecure product. You can claim that you trust the parties with the backdoor key, but that doesn't change the fact that the key exists.
In mainland China, that puts Apple in the awkward situation of complying with lawful warrants that are complicit in human rights violations. Trusting wholesome, benevolent government collaboration is not enough. Apple has to design a transparent and accountable security system if they want their privacy stance to look like something other than a theater scripted on whitepapers.
> This is another disingenuous false equivalency.
Apple is an advertiser, though. You cannot pretend like they don't also have a conflict of interest here. Not to mention, they're equally capricious on the service upsell - the in-OS advertising was one of the reasons I left their ecosystem in the first place.
> Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
They can be compelled to spy on you. They have also clearly put systems in place that make it very hard or impossible for them to do so without re-architecting their entire ecosystem of devices
Yeah I'm too cheap to pay that much.
You have misunderstood privacy. It's not limited to selling of information. It's whether you control your own data. With Apple you certainly don't. You are a product either way.
The lack of elaboration to the question shows that there wasn't much thought put into this idea IMO. While a majority of Americans use iPhones, there is still a significant portion of Android users. It's unfortunate that an interoperable solution was not promoted, but I assume this suggestion attempts catering to the majority and puts little thought into what we are all concerned with -- interoperability and being able to target everybody, not just ~60% of the U.S. population (if you want to believe statcounter's numbers).
It was a joke. Maybe an off-color, inappropriate, unfunny, bad taste, etc.
But it was a joke, not ignorance.
Speaking of too much time on HN (:
Delivery is too important, and every politician knows that a hostile media can turn the best of jokes into a brand new hoax / manufactured scandal.
He was making a joke, playing into the Android vs iPhone eternal war.
But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched fully to Android for 5 devices across 4 years, and now back to iPhone..... I actually think the ignorance is the other way (Android users who have never tried iPhone as their full time phone).
Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last Android device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going strong after I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone), and my new device will probably last a long time too.
Each for a fraction of the price charged by Apple.
In comparison, my secondhand iPhone 3G worked for several years—until I left it in a plane by mistake. My iPhone 7plus I used for ~7 years; in fact I still use it, along with my new iPhone 13.
I had a Samsung in the past, but I had some issues with it.
Btw, I never buy top of the line phones.
Google pixel running grapheneos
Also no, I have never owned an apple device and I never will
They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people do that.
Actually, despite the common wisdom that Apple users are always getting the latest thing and just can't wait to give Apple more money at every opportunity, every person I've known who replaced their phone about annually to chase whatever the just-released flagship phone was so they can always have the shiniest thing, has been an Android user. Though, to be fair, I've also known plenty of Android users who don't do that. I've just not yet seen an Apple user behave that way (but I'm sure some do). I think this has something to do with Android fans having more overlap with computer hardware enthusiasts in general, than Apple fans do.
I've also known a few Android users who get a new phone every year because they think the next $200 phone won't suck just as much as the last one did. And that, sure, is kinda their own fault.
I actually don't like to replace my phone a lot. The issue was, with each Android phone, despite great recommendations from others and lots of research I was left wanting. And after being disappointed by each Android phone, another Android expert would tell me that some other newly released hardware would blow me away. I was tricked by this again and again and again. Until eventually releasing I would just be so much happier on iPhone. I was.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-dis...
Right. They’re doing it wrong?
More than I can say about the old iPad I have here, that became essentially a paperweight. First and last shit I bought from Apple.
That's part of the problem with Android...
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/switch-between-open-a...
You can also quickly switch between open apps on an iPhone with Face ID by swiping right or left along the bottom edge of the screen. But try App Switcher first, it'll provide clearer orientation.
To go back in all cases you can swipe the home indicator to the right to go back to the previous app you were in. Or you can fling it up to about half way to see all previous apps
The most recently used app is usually immediately to the left of the one you’re currently in.
On older iPhones with the Home button, double tap the Home button to get to the app switcher.
(I also currently own an iPhone mini 12 but my Galaxy S23 Ultra is my daily driver, no accounting for taste and such).
He's also talking to car thieves.
Maybe they work for casual joyriding. At least where I am, most car theft is organized crime shipping them overseas. Gimmicks like airtags will do nothing.
I remember hearing stories as a kid in Slovenia that if your is stolen, you'll never get it back because it gets chopped into pieces within hours – before you even realize it's gone – and the parts make it to Bosnia/Albania/Serbia by next day.
In the early 00's there was even a show on Discovery Channel about chop shops in UK – indie garages that make new cars out of parts. How the parts are sourced was not discussed, they "just show up".
Usually parts are sourced from crashed cars, which are bought by breakers who often specialise in a specific model, and resold on online marketplaces. They don't present any form of 'verification' so I don't see why it couldn't be used for stolen parts, but it seems that it isn't.
I have heard about people breaking into BMWs and stealing the media console, but as I understand thefts of the whole car or even easily accessible body parts like wheels are very rare.
I don't feel that it is that security has changed much - if it is organized crime then it's no issue to get a car carrier with a crane and lift the car away. Maybe people have just gotten better morals since the 90s?
Yeah, I figured the main problem was police not wanting to do anything about theft even when you had a GPS location and videos of the people stealing your stuff. I've seen lots of stories about people who knew exactly where their lost phone/laptop/car/whatever is but police were totally uninterested in recovering the items.
At Tile we just launched an Anti-Theft feature where you can turn off stalking notifications if you share your government issued ID and agree to extremely stringent penalties for misuse, including a large fine.
All Life360 users are now scanning for Tile devices, and that equates to over 10% of all phones in the country, so our network in any moderately dense area is almost as good as Apple's. And, we are cross-platform.
https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...
We've put a ton of thought into this problem so happy to answer any questions.
It's pure speculation, but I wonder if the average car thief is more likely to own an iPhone as a form of status symbol? Or, is the average car thief more likely to be using burner phones from Walmart?
We initially used a Tile and then decided to switch to an AirTag since it had a larger network.
After 4 months of the air tag we're looking to switch back. Most of what the tags do is allow us to know when we're within X number of feet of our cat. The Tile had a better range and was lighter. But most importantly, we could have multiple accounts track the same Tile. Somehow Apple's airtags are missing this really critical feature that has come up again and again for us. If one of us is not home we need to be able to have another one of us be able to track her down but we simply cannot
To be honest, the biggest reservation for me personally has been the company itself. It seems like an obvious industry where a very in-your-face-look-how-trustworthy-we-are approach to marketing like Mullvad the VPN service does is the right move. Mullvad's "only one price no matter how many years you buy it for" and "we never have a sale" on top of their just straight up "our quality speaks for itself" product seems like the perfect approach for a company where trust is so critical. In contrast, our Tile tried to force us into buying a brand new Tile when the battery died instead of just... letting us get a new battery. We had to cut it open and then buy special glue to glue it back together. I understand not all the models do this but... really? This doesn't seem like the market where you should be trading customer trust for a quick buck.
Another thing I've yet to see from Tile/Chipolo/AirTag marketing is specific mention for our use-cases of ~~tracking~~(making easy to find) our outdoor cat. The network effect in this market is killer but this seems like an obvious audience that I'm shocked no one is targetting. People walk their dogs and people who let their cats out often have to check NextDoor or FB when something comes up. The point is that they talk. And the thing about the network effect with bluetooth trackers is that the network effect is localized. Meaning Apple can dominate NYC and Chipolo can dominate SF but if everyone in my suburb of Chicago for whatever reason happens to be using BlahBlah, I'm obviously gonna go with BlahBlah. I want my cat to be findable and the most important thing is what my neighbors are doing. A targeted approach seems obvious yet it's rare to see a product specifically marketed for that
I really hate Apple's insistence on using 1 account for everything (I mean EVERYTHING). I think it was what finally made me put my foot down on using iCloud and not wanting an apple card savings account. Plus their account management system sucks. It's the only system I've used that randomly forgets I'm logged in and demands me to log in again on my computers, phones, etc.
I have one on my dog's collar, in a 3D printed enclosure. He got out a few weekends ago and ran all around town, and there weren't any breadcrumbs on the app. It's one of the mid-range models rather than the high-end ones, though.
I have the high-end ones in our cars, and there's plenty of activity in the app.
While I pay for the premium service, it's too much hassle to deal with the "free" battery replacements. I just buy bulk packs of coin cells on Amazon for $0.10 each.
Mobile is hard.
Google's Find My Phone fails to wake up my pixel 7 about half the time I used it, even if I am staring at the phone. Sometimes the alert goes off half an hour later.
My fitbit's "find your phone" feature also works less than half the time.
I am genuinely surprised that my wife's apple watch can locate her phone every time she asks it to.
We are also giving away free tiles to paid Life360 members, which is probably not as relevant to the hacker news crowd but we do have over 20% of US families using our service. We think tiles should be free with membership, including getting new devices.
We have now moved to either 3 year disposable units or replaceable batteries. 3 years feels like a reasonable lifespan. And, our plan is to give them away for free to Life360 members (which is probably a small portion of HN readers but a high percentage of traditional families)
I can assure you the original packaging didn't make this explicit.
It was absolutely nefarious. The only reason the device stopped working was because the $2 coin cell battery died, and it was explicitly designed NOT to be replaceable. It's beyond wasteful and I would guess I'm not the only former customer left with a bad taste in their mouth.
Your website is showing me "502 Bad Gateway" right now.
20% of US families haven't even heard of his service. heck, not even 2%, not even 2% of the families who work in tech. US-wide, Maybe 20% know what an airtag is.
go to walmart, ask anyone there if they've heard of.. well, I forgot what his service is called already. best leave it at that. something about a new cryptocoin I think it was.
what about families without children? what about a couple of old people?
for your little area where everyone knows what it is, there are 330million more people, half of whom empty their webmail folder when windows gives them an out of space message. you really think 1 in 5 families nationwide know of this niche thing? that literally makes zero sense.
what makes even less sense, the claim from this company is not only do 1 in 5 families know about it - they own one.
here's my theory: the scammers defined family as "family tree" - and if your married second cousin you've met once has this airtag clone, they count it. but if your married but don't have kids, you're not counted at all.
fake numbers from a scammer, for a product that's not unique or first, or anything more functional than a simple app on a phone.
I'd like the understand the reflex to immediately assume this is a lie. The information is readily verifiable as we are a public company and 3rd party sites like data.ai will verify this.
What is your impetus to make such strong accusations from what in my view can only be your intuition? I don't think you have taken the time to try to diligence your claims.
The reason for my "impetus" is when a claim is this riduculous, I don't need your information that's as easily verifiable as "horse dewormer cures covid."
the reflex to bs is to gag. your reflex is to blindly accept jesus into your life because he walked on water.
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems out of proportion to any damages sustained to Tile and likely unenforceable (not to mention uncollectable)?
(FWIW: I think ID verification is a good non-technical deterrent to what is largely a non-techincal problem!)
Perhaps a court would limit the fine, but liquidated damages are a commonly used concept, and I don't think most people will tempt fate.
Aggressive stalkers will buy dedicated GPS devices - this is a real roadblock.
In so far as I would hope most people would avoid doing business with companies that mention $1 million dollar civil lawsuits in their terms of service.
You're right: they'll just use your far more well-established competitor without such ridiculous language.
Additionally, most stalkers know their victims, so you are entering into a vast grey area that civil courts do not have prior established case law (vis-a-vis a third party as you are) to adjudicate and for which the burden of proof is on your lawyers who won't have the same powers to subpoena information as is available in criminal matters. It's also unlikely stalkers would have significant assets, making civil enforcement of this policy potentially very costly and time consuming for your company. Making a mistake with an enforcement action or loosing a case would be incredibly poor optics for your company.
Sending a letter to your legal staff for a cursory review and getting their rubber stamp won't change the potential legal outcome for your company or shield you from liability, when (not if) the time comes, and likely opens you to substantial liability should the product be used in the service of a crime.
That said, if I really want to stalk someone your app already provides everything that is needed, and in fact it is currently being used by sex traffickers and domestic violence abusers to track, stalk and exploit their victims en mass [1].
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/04/06/sex-t...
How exactly does a non-government entity impose a fine?
As a generally reasonable person, I have no interest in submitting anything more official than a valid credit card number to any company for lack of any legal need.
It seems like it would be wise to avoid any pretense if you want to start selling covert tracking as a premium feature. Either do it or don't, but don't try to offload the moral implications onto your customers by "policing" them.
I'm confused. Life360 was found selling precise user location data to third party data brokers[0]. It doesn't take a creative mind to see the harm (or even potential harm) caused here. I could never trust you or your company.
[0] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-...
> A former X-Mode engineer said the raw location data the company received from Life360 was among X-Mode’s most valuable offerings due to the sheer volume and precision of the data. A former Cuebiq employee joked that the company wouldn’t be able to run its marketing campaigns without Life360’s constant flow of location data.
...
> Two former Life360 employees also told The Markup that the company, while it states it anonymizes the data it sells, fails to take necessary precautions to ensure that location histories cannot be traced back to individuals. They said that while the company removed the most obvious identifying user information, it did not make efforts to “fuzz,” “hash,” aggregate, or reduce the precision of the location data to preserve privacy.
> The former X-Mode engineer said that the company also received raw data from Life360. The company relies on its customers to obfuscate that data based on their specific applications, Hulls added.
We had a data platform for targeted ads. I realize that isn't popular, but we were always transparent. We exited the business because it wasn't worth the controversy.
Please go look at our public filings before you trust this article. We were so transparent about everything we did both to our users and the public.
I do think our record of zero instances of harm show we had good safeguards in place.
Once you have been covered in the press you start to realize how blatantly they lie. I'm not sure if it has always been this way but I encourage everyone to have an extremely skeptical eye to any news org that has advocacy as their mission
Basically, since apple doesn't give a damn about android users, they just unleashed airtags on the world with no way to be alerted you are being stalked if you only have android. Months later apple did release some half assed android app that doesn't do automatic scanning.
So android users need to use something like airguard and that just so happens to also snitch on tiles.
Does that mean Tile will be the preferred choice for wealthy stalkers?
I already paid for my Tile devices at retail and only access them over Bluetooth locally anyway. Please stop trying to squeeze more money out of me.
question: have you put any thought into the fact that you cannot fine Anyone, since you're not the government, and have zero authority to do so? "fine" lol. all you can do, is ban people from using your service and attempt to bully them by blatantly lying.
Mayor Adams was asked during the press conference if AirTags work with Android (they don't).
"Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Oh and given that this in New York we're talking about here, the vigilante mob are gonna go wild for this, especially after Citizen worked out so well ....
But by last month, Frame was enthusiastically backing the idea of manhunts, according to screenshots of internal company communications seen by NBC News and first reported by Motherboard [1]
[1] "Inside Citizen: The public safety app pushing surveillance boundaries" https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/citizen-public-safety...
This is a New Yorker’s response to a stupid question.
AirTags have a recognised brand. Messaging “buy AirTags” comes through cleanly in a way an inclusive statement would not. Given nobody is burning city funds for this, it’s literally a PSA, a reporter asking the mayor technical questions the answer to which they know is fine to be answered dismissively.
That’s a publicity stunt, not a crime-fighting measure. I do not count five hundred AirTags as “burning city funds.”
You call it corruption. Is it, or is it just a good ROI?
I think it'll depend on whether this does anything, or whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you report your car's location to them with an AirTag.
Time will tell.
That's ridiculous. At that rate it would be better to just buy the owner a new car.
But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate or VIN as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected. It would be far cheaper and not that different from reporting your credit card as stolen.
No, it's just how the world works.
The unfortunate thing about property crime is that frequently, $50 worth of gain often results in $500-$5,000 worth of damages and costs. Just ask anyone who's had a catalytic converter stolen, or their copper ripped out.
> But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected.... It would be far cheaper...
Designing and deploying an automatic system for 'Automatically deploying spike strips', (besides being a bad idea) in a city like NYC will be an eight-figure sort of project. That will assure that in the best-case scenario, a car theft will run four-figures worth of damages. In the worst case, it will do nothing, because the car's been abandoned, or is being taken apart in a Jersey chop-shop by the time you report it stolen.
The difference is when someone's catalytic converter is stolen, we don't spend $5000 of taxpayer money on it. More often than not, we spend $0 of taxpayer money, and the angry owner spends $5000.
I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
If the police spends any time documenting it, looking for it, or catching and prosecuting the guy who did it, it can run up to that. Even if they do the bare minimum, it'll definitely run a lot more than $50...
> I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars in personal loss, or tens of dollars in taxes that fund measures and mechanisms to prevent or mitigate that loss? It all comes out of your pocket at the end of the day. Whether it comes out of your taxes, or your insurance premiums, or from your pocketbook, you'll still be paying.
I know that all costs being equal, I'd rather live in a world with fewer car, or cat, or copper thefts, or any other negative-sum activity than one with more of them. There's no magic bullet for this, though, which is why each mitigation should be considered on its own costs and merits.
The bare minimum is taking a report and checking a file, and that'll take about five minutes. How are you calculating "a lot more than $50"?
And why did you pick $50 anyway? Is that a comparison to how much the criminal makes? If the profit is a small fraction of the damage they do, it makes lots of sense for the police to spend more than the profit.
I disagree. It doesn't take 5 figures to mitigate that loss in a society that has technology. If it does it's a misuse of funds and I'd rather move to another city, state, country than pay 5 figures to mitigate that loss. If they can mitigate the loss in 3 figures, than absolutely yes that's better than paying 4 figures for a new car, and I'd stay and happy contribute toward the 3 figures.
No, the angry owner makes an insurance claim, and then car insurance rates go up for everyone who lives a mile away from the angry owner(s) who got their catalytic converter(s) stolen
Regarding your second point, many modern cars have kill switches the police can access. This might be a better solution if these can't easily bypass them. That said, I don't personally want a car with a kill switch.
It the very least it should be a fundamental axiom of a society that {catching a thief of an item, fixing an item} should cost less than or equal to replacing the item, and I believe that to be largely true if technology is maximally utilized.
Which is affected by the mayor, a former cop, name dropping AirTags in relation to car thefts in the press.
>The Association for a Better New York (ABNY), a nonprofit founded by New York real estate developer Lewis Rudin in the 1970s and responsible for the "I <3 NY campaign," paid for the 500 AirTags.
The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email address.
The original Airtag use case included theft but you'll notice any mention of that has now been removed from the marketing material. It's really just for people who lose things.
To be fair, 45-60 minutes to track a stolen car is still a lot better than nothing.
And I doubt the police will be there in half an hour. You’ll be lucky to convince them you have the location sometime the next day, when it’s far too late.
You kiddin me? Hell no. There are a lot of guns out there and we know it.
That law evens the playing field for law abiding citizens. But hey man, you wanna cosplay Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey then by all means. Just hope the NYPD and DA are cool with your vigilantism.
Getting the police to do their job would be ideal, but that won't happen so we only have these two options.
In the article, they recommended that you "hide the airtag well", so it's most likely that the thief will receive the notification after a while, and decide to just dump the car.
So, I get that he's making a joke, but given that everyone just laughs and there is no follow up, it's clear to me it's one of those "The reason this joke is funny is because I actually think it's true" jokes.
I've been an Android user for about a decade now, but I think I'm finally going to have to throw in the towel. Between iMessage (especially iMessage) and things like this, in the US having an Android essentially marks you as a second class citizen. And to be clear, I'm not saying this from an "Androids are uncool" or some silly "green bubbles" perspective, I'm saying from the perspective that owning an Android actually makes it more difficult to interact with friends and, in this case, with government services.
No, I'm not happy about it, and I f'ing hate how Apple has used these walled garden techniques to force people onto their platform. But from a simple utilitarian perspective, owning an Android puts you at a distinct disadvantage in the US.
I'd get new friends before switching to an apple product. Actually if my friends switched to apple products, I might get new friends.
1. Video sharing is essentially unusable. Forget "potato quality", basically the videos are essentially unviewable. And this goes not just to videos that are sent to you, it's also videos you send to the group. Sharing videos in a group chat is not an uncommon activity when you're on vacation, for example.
2. In iMessage, using emoji responses is a big part of the social interaction in group chats, e.g. someone posts a photo and other people post responses. You basically can't post emoji reactions in iMessage group chats if you're on Android.
3. Messages you send randomly get dropped. "Hey, hn_throwaway_99, can you send us that group picture you took?". Me: "Sure thing". An hour later: "Why didn't you send the photo like we asked?". Me: "I did, but apparently half the group never got it."
Then, basically, everyone gets annoyed if you're the "Android man out", because everything works perfectly if everyone is on an iPhone. And, in the US, if you belong to certain social groups in particular socioeconomic classes, you will be the odd one out if you don't have an iPhone.
Nobody uses iMessage or SMS in the EU these days, but if usage was like in the US then I suspect that Apple would have already been forced long ago to open up or release clients for other platforms. The US is very unlikely to make demands, but the EU doesn't mess around with this kind of thing.
Of course, knowing Apple, they might also respond to such a scenario by removing iMessage on EU phones and keeping it the same in the US.
It sucks, but I understand why someone might be forced to swap to a specific product or device for social reasons. Shame though.
I think the Android perks still outweigh the cost. Not that any of this isn't possible on iPhone but it's a smoother Android experience: Google Fi for phone plans when traveling internationally, some open-source apps aren't available in Apple's app store, and some apps in both stores are more expensive for iPhone (e.g. Anki). I feel like iCloud has some bad incentives as well. I think that's why live photos is a pain to turn off (I also like Google Photos).
Line, Telegram, Signal, Whatsapp, Messenger.
Why do these people insist on iMessage?
Especially considering the burdensome cost of absolutely free.
Should we expect ordinary, non-technical users to behave substantially different? It's not clear to me that we should; most people find the status quo "good enough," and the activation energy for switching is higher than the minor inconvenience of some of your social circle having a slightly worse user experience.
To be clear, I completely agree, and I wish they did use a cross-platform messenger. But the reality is that, in the US, the vast majority of iPhone users use iMessage primarily.
It's more annoying that I have three apps (signal, groupme, and discord) which each have a single friend or friend group that use them but that isn't an android/iphone problem.
None of those are issues if everyone is blue.
But if everyone is iMessage everything goes through. I’m sure it’s an iPhone bug, but it means that mentally I can count on iMessage chats to go through and mixed chats I’m frequently wondering and having to check with each member, “did you get that.” So it means that mixed chats are extra chatty with people confirming with “oks.”
It’s just a crappier experience with green chats and everything goes smoothly so try blue chats.
I wouldn’t cut out friends because of it, but I have a small iota of sadness when I start a chat and it turns green because of someone.
For kids it’s kind of brutal with friends literally not talking to people because they aren’t using emojis.
It’s not android’s fault, but it’s an easy pain to spare my child by buying an iPhone. Not to mention my iPhones last years longer than my android phones and one kid is even using an ancient iPhone 6 to chat with friends.
What would exclude me is refusing to go on FB Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. And it'd seem inconsistent to use those while rejecting the iPhone on principle.
- "It's too risky"
- "not valuable enough"
- "could be dangerous"
- "can't prove your stolen item is where the GPS says"
- "can't dispatch an officer or detective just because you have a GPS location"
etc etc
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/FinanceDepartm...
When I told them I might confront the thief on my own, they strongly cautioned against it.
Basically they aren't interested in doing their job, or anyone taking action themselves.
With NYPD, it's even worse: "if we didn't see it, we can't do anything about it". This is, of course, entirely false, but good luck trying to argue with a cop and getting them to do their job.
Heck, NYPD refuses to even take police reports on stolen property (which is a huge hassle because insurance usually requires a police report as a prerequisite to filing claims). You literally have to argue with them just to get them to file the report - not even do anything about the issue, mind you, just to get them to fill out the form.
It’s always struck me as a kind of underdevelopment, a continuation of the infantilism that so many never get over as the move from being taken care of their parents to Taken care of by school and then Taken care of by universities and then taken care of by Acme corporation that claims to really care about them. Of course that works love being taken care of by big government and its plantation formen called police.
The only reason to file a police report for a stolen vehicle these days (in Portland) is documentation for insurance. I very rarely hear about people getting their cars back via PPB without it being months later (and in pieces with mysterious stains everywhere) due to being incidentally swept up in a rare chop shop bust.
And yes, this is a policing problem. It’s also a city council problem. And a DA problem. And a homeless/drug problem (both direct results of voter referendums).
But we have a two party system so urbanite Oregonians will never vote these idiots out.
Eric Adams may have a D next to his name but he's a traditional Republican according to his policies (cutting libraries/schools, more funding for cops).
> spokesperson with the Orange County Sheriff's Department reminded victims of crime to let local law enforcement take over the recovery of stolen items
If we're trading anecdotes, I had two laptops lifted from my apartment. The NYPD's detectives followed up with the building for footage, identified a suspect, followed up with the resident they were seen with, got the suspect's Instagram and got an arrest warrant. That resulted in them nabbing the guy when he was ticketed for jumping a subway turnstile.
where we lived, there were of course lots of "detectives", but they had a single purpose which was to arrest black people for drug possession. Other than murders, that was pretty much it.
No. And off plumb. Adjust your priors. (Obviously no doormen.)
> where we lived
Where?
We have so many generic hypotheticals with loose calls for policy. Let the folks who feel the brawn and brunt of crime and law enforcement speak solutions. This topic has lost relevance because it was diluted.
That's my point. I'm don't know what the solution is. But dismissing good cops the way you did certainly isn't one.
> dont say "give them more money" because that's certainly not it
Nobody did. In this entire thread. You made an incorrect assumption and are doubling down on it.
For starters, any family that shares keys can forget about using airtags. You'll get spammed with alerts about an airtag following you and even if you mute them (for 1 day max) you can't use the airtag to find the keys. This also happens if the person next to you has an airtag and is riding in the car with you.
If a thief steals your car they'll be alerted about the airtag too.
With AirTags this is rather difficult because of the anti-stalking feature, but on the upside they are easy to conceal places so you will get a time window of good functionality. With more conventional GPS trackers a good way to install them is often under the dashboard plastics below the windshield, which offers a clear sky view and is a fair amount of work to get to in a lot of vehicles. Of course the labor on that installation method drives up price so it's not unusual for them to be somewhere far less discrete like in the engine compartment with an external antenna or glued to the bottom of the rear deck in sedans.
their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in any situation where theft is involved (or theft happens after loosing the item). the thief is alerted to their presence automatically and can disable them quickly. perfect for thieves!
AirTags can only be used for misplaced items, any utility for situations involving theft is completely negated by their "anti tracking" features.
another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..
We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times, etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has her purse with her.
They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.
It was a nice idea until all the people worried about stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.
https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...
It's all just posturing by Apple and all to the detriment of 99.99% of their user base.
You can do a tremendous amount of banking with a scanned photo ID.
Furthermore, the use case we're talking about here is disabling third-party detection for a tile you already have.
Not to mention most people want to, you know, be able to track something that got stolen.
But the 0.01% will give Apple horrible press, so it's more important than anything else.
The fact that tags aren't useful to you isn't the issue.
We initially used a Tile which I hated and would constantly try to get us to buy more tiles in their crappy app.
After 4 months of the air tag we're looking to switch back. The larger network is barely noticeable. Most of what the tags do is allow us to know when we're within X number of feet of our cat. The Tile had a better range and was lighter. But most importantly, we could have multiple accounts track the same Tile. Somehow Apple's airtags are missing this really critical feature that has come up again and again for us. If one of us is not home we need to be able to have another one of us be able to track her down but we simply cannot
I'm not a big fan of Tile as a company, but I'm sad to see AirTag's inevitable dominance rise. I would love to see an open-source solution to this problem. Especially if it can somehow hack into the Apple, Tile, etc networks. From what I've read the Apple AirTag network is actually quite insecure and can even be used to send arbitrary HTTP packets. Apple has a huge built-in advantage but also a ceiling that competitors don't have since Android phones can't tap into the network. A community-driven solution could be really effective, especially if it focused on a particular subcommunity like dogwalkers and outdoor cats
> From what I've read the Apple AirTag network is actually quite insecure and can even be used to send arbitrary HTTP packets.
Suppose you had the task of limiting and recovering of car thefts. Tracking the location from your phone would help, yes?
I'm ideologically opposed to Mayor Adams in pretty much every way, but I don't see how this suggestion is a bad one.
I use it all the time to figure out where my car is since my wife and I share and have street parking and live in a busy area.
I also slip airtags into my somewhat expensive jackets when going to events with coat check.
My SO's new car definitely has it (OnStar) although the Android Auto UX is better IMO.
"Why would anyone have one?"
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
AirGuard is a FOSS project developed by the Technical University of Darmstadt.
Must be the same people that say "just don't go out at night" when you point out the streets full of drug addicts and petty crime, as if it was a normal thing to say in a developed country.
Then it doesn't matter if someone gains entry to your car and is doing some of the more recent tricks involving the CAN or USB to disable built in immobilizers or convince the car a key is present, the ability to drive the car away is removed without a heavy and loud power tool in a very confined space.
An airtag may help with deterrence if the presence of it is advertised, and may help with recovery if the police are actively doing recovery. But the car is still going to get stolen, it's still going to be inconvenient and involve dealing with the insurers (who do want to avoid paying out).
A steering wheel lock is a far more effective deterrent and preventative.
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
For example, AirGuard lets the user activate the alarm on any AirTag in range immediately without waiting any period of time. iOS and Tracker Detect only let the user do this if they determine that the AirTag is following the user, and Tracker Detect adds another 10 minute waiting period for no good reason.
Does it, though? And are those really the only two possible outcomes?
I blame reactionary click-bait journalism for forcing Apple to take these steps.
It's worse in my opinion than just going with 'we're not responsible for how our product is used' defense.
You do have to run Apple software, but it'd be a bit much to expect them to make things work with no code at all.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...
Now Apple has made it trivial for anyone to buy persistent, highly accurate dystopian stalker gear that could easily be surreptitiously placed on my person or vehicle. Having no phone, I would have no idea. The AirTag tracking system escalates the technological arms race and dramatically expands my threat model.
All I want is the right to be a human with my human dignity respected, without requiring "techno upgrades" to enforce my rights, and the best response I've seen from the pro-surveillance crowd boils down to, "well you've gotta carry a tracking device if you don't want to get tracked".
Unacceptable.
Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
Even if I had a phone, or could afford one, then I will still be carrying a tracking device. Do you really think airplane mode will prevent tracking? Apple's AirTag fuckery works even when devices present as in the "off" state! And of course there's no longer any easy way to remove phone batteries now.
I don't want to be tracked by the AirTag snitch network, I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking, and finally I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech in order to ensure my safety and rights.
> Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
It is new. Those devices are bigger and use way more power. AirTags turn everyone's iPhone into an automated snitch reporting the precise location of these ultra-low-power beacons. It's an escalation of the technological arms race. But you're right, these tracking devices should all be prohibited items for commercial sale.
> But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
Laws like those can't prevent misuse, they can only punish, maybe, after misuse. Of course, the violation must be detected first ("buy our tracking products if you don't want to get tracked"). And at which point it's potentially too late for the victim, anyway.
Banning easily-concealable low-power global mesh network snitch devices would not impact other people's rights except to protect them. Where do you get the idea that you have some right to these devices that balances with my right to safety, human dignity, and privacy?
Regulation of commercial products is absolutely par for the course, especially when those products can have such severe negative externalities for people who aren't the users of the products.
A lot of people want cheap, easy access to machine guns. At least in the US, unlike easily-concealable tracking devices we actually do have a right to bear arms--and yet machine guns are not so trivial to obtain. Why is that?
AirTags can be read using Apple software for either Apple or Google hardware, you don't have to opt into Apple's ecosystem at all. Airplane mode prevents tracking by carriers the most passive method and what most people object to when they call phones tracking devices. It of course also prevents any other methods (e.g. GPS) from calling home. Apple AirTag-like tracking of iDevices (while off) only works on newer iDevices that have a special BLE chip that runs in the "off" state and that behavior is easily disabled from the settings menu, so it can be disabled when your device is off or always. Between those two settings, you can set any Apple device into something that does not transmit anything about you.
This 100% answers your "I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking"
As for " I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech", you may not want to have any kind of technology, and that's your right, but it does seem like a trivial burden. The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
You don't seem to know what a Tile is. It's the same thing as an AirTag released for a similar price point years ago that is similar in size. The difference is, only phones that opted into downloading the Tile software scanned for and reported them to home base. But it was a fairly complete network with all the same tracking concerns.
Meanwhile, GPS receivers with 4G transmitters are under $30 on Amazon with the same physical footprint as an AirTag. Those devices are no longer bigger or significantly more power hungry than AirTags. But of course, they also make ones designed to be wired into a vehicle for power, which would last longer than the 10 month (nominal) battery life I found. And GPS avoids the "scanning with a phone" detection.
Meanwhile, you seem to ignore the use cases that many people have for finding keys or their own property. Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them. Meanwhile, detecting malicious trackers is easy enough that it doesn't seem to impose a cost on everyone else.
And, of course, people would be far less concerned about anyone owning a machine-gun if there was an app you could run on your phone that would prevent the bullets from hurting you.
If you trust Apple's software, and the firmware of every discrete SoC/IP core to be truthful and bug-free. And obviously this does not require cellular tracking, which is frankly unlikely to be prevented in airplane mode. Once again, regardless of your justifications: I refuse to carry a tracking device, so stop arguing that I should because "It'll totally be fine, trust me bro."
> Tile and GPS receivers with 4G transmitters
I'm aware of Tile and the physical and power footprint of other trackers. The AirTag is a substantial leap in capability. If you disagree: Why do so many people prefer AirTag over Tile or these other devices? But again: All these surreptitious trackers should be banned from commercial sale. The risks far outweigh the benefits, and the risks are entirely externalized to the rest of society.
> The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
So, just straight up, "Fuck your human dignity. Carry a tracking device or GTFO and forget your right to a normal life in society." Human rights are apparently not important to you; I should just bend over and accept my lot, because that's the "societal arc".
Once again: Unacceptable. And moreover: A miserable and weaselly dismissal not only of my human dignity but also of your own.
> Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them.
I disagree with that frankly ridiculous characterization. Legal surreptitious trackers impose a very large cost to other members of society.
But this entire issue would go away overnight if Apple designed their system only to detect and find lost items instead of as a generalized surreptitious global tracking system.
Simply only report beacons back to the mothership if the user of the tracking device (the "phone") has previously manually added the tracking device ("AirTag"). Allow up to 10 devices to add an AirTag, so everyone in your family/friend group can help find your lost property. No more snitching back to Apple when the tracking device sees any beacon at all.
This will satisfy the vast majority of use cases where you lose a physical possession ("where are my keys?") while preventing the vast majority of stalking and targeted muggings, rape, and burglaries, etc.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/truck-theft-suspect-fatally-sho...
Maybe I missed it here.
Sad to see NYC is now in a similar state where they'd rather penalize the victims than the perpetrators.
I'm going to go ahead and bet you said something other than "this is not OK" about crime and bad policing, if you got that reaction. Or you put that statement somewhere with very bad context.
But what would be even better is just enabling a password.
I would have a totally different feeling - if I believed that the cops would 'do' anything. They have impressed me, and my five decades on this planet, at the lengths they will go to not do their job ( or flat out do the opposite if it fits their wants. )
Love this. NYC's response to crime: sue auto manufacturers rather than make the city safer.
Solid point
That’s basically a kill switch at least in the US.