AirTags broadcast an encrypted ID. Phones build lists of ID’s they’ve seen and send the list to Apple.
There is no routing, no ability to send arbitrary data, no active communication of any sort. It’s not a mesh network.
The link you posted makes that pretty clear.
it means you can’t block the tracking by doing anything yourself - you’d also need to block everyone else’s devices too.
And of course you can block the tracking yourself, even though nobody is actually tracking because Apple can’t tell who owns what ID. Just turn off find my on your device.
and turning it off on your device doesn’t actually block the info being communicated, merely the association where you can see it. and hopefully on their backend, but there is no technical requirement for it.
the whole point is everyone’s iphones forward airtag info for every airtag.
I had misinterpreted “you can’t block the tracking” to mean of your own phone, rather than of devices that other people want tracked.
‘obfusication’ of IDs isn’t a meaningful thing here, or literally none of it would work.
the whole point of airtags is your phone doesn’t need to be anywhere near the tag to find it.