[HN Gopher] Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping ...
___________________________________________________________________
Silenced AirTags with disabled speakers are popping up for sale
online
Author : gumby
Score : 203 points
Date : 2022-02-03 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gizmodo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gizmodo.com)
| pyronik19 wrote:
| My ex gf uses these to track her fiance ...sticking it in his bag
| where he doesn't look. These things are SO ripe for abuse.
| slig wrote:
| You dodged a bullet.
| post_break wrote:
| Taping them together tightly silences it. Airtags have to be the
| most nerfed product I've bought. Day one, they were fantastic.
| Then they lowered the beeping and rogue alerts to a threshold my
| wife gets them from my keys or wallet all the time. Then they
| just beep randomly. I regret buying them to be honest. Tile never
| really got harped on for stalking. The samsung trackers work just
| as well as Apple and don't have anti-stalking features.
| duxup wrote:
| I haven't experienced any of the rouge alerts with them.
|
| That's very strange, I wonder what is triggering it for you.
|
| For my use case, tracking bags, kids on vacation and etc it has
| worked fine.
| xoa wrote:
| I haven't experienced the same issues you describe in terms of
| random beeping or the like. But I do think one of the most
| curious and irritating missing pieces from AirTags is no sort
| of tie-in with Family Sharing or some sort of contacts
| whitelist. I saw one thing saying that was about privacy but
| that makes zero sense because Apple doesn't do the same thing
| elsewhere in "Find My" for people or devices. While it's
| correctly opt-in, once everyone has done so we can see device
| locations for all of the family's stuff, which is very helpful
| when somebody is missing their phone or the like (anyone else
| can help with it) as well as checking in disasters. I don't see
| why that would be fine but keys wouldn't. In terms of privacy,
| someone is more likely to have their watch, phone or airpods on
| them then an Apple Tag frankly. Indeed that's the core logic of
| Apple Tags, we put down and misplace other random stuff but
| still have our phones/wearables. It can't be that rare for a
| family to have multiple vehicles where a certain amount of
| sharing happens, particularly if it's a pattern like us where
| the SO and I each have a car but then there is a single old
| truck that we both use. Family names are on the insurance,
| legally it's multidriver property. And even good friends/room
| mates probably share some kinds of property. Whomever has it is
| responsible for not losing it and thus has an interest in
| tracking it.
|
| Yeah it's a v1.0, but even so when Apple already has all this
| infrastructure up strikes me as an odd omission that
| significantly detracts from the utility for no good end. Even a
| basic "ignore this tag for a day/week/year/permanently" would
| at least help sand down a bit of the most irritating
| notification spam. And worth noting that this sort of thing is
| a genuine _security /privacy_ issue too: in real security
| systems, the human factor matters a lot. If people get spammed
| with noise, they will inevitably end up ignoring it when an
| actual signal turns up. We've known this forever.
| aldebran wrote:
| This is probably because of 1. You have Bluetooth on all the
| time 2. If BT is off, the tag isn't moving at all (including
| drawer moving open shut)
| antihero wrote:
| Yeah until they have family tie in I hardly see the point.
| samatman wrote:
| Apple still has some weird atomization issues for a company
| which is going all-in on family stuff.
|
| This is the company which ran out a credit card and payments
| infrastructure with serious fanfare-- and, incredibly, no
| provisions for married people having joint accounts.
|
| None, they added it later when dhh and Steve Wozniak made a
| stink about it.
| Androider wrote:
| Using a shared iPad with a family is a bad experience with
| all kinds of Apple account issues. Other apps
| Netflix/Amazon/etc. thankfully provide quick user switching
| which makes it tolerable.
| mattdeboard wrote:
| that's how they get you into buying multiple ipads
| pkulak wrote:
| I actually assumed this is how it would work. Had absolutely
| no reason to believe otherwise until my son lost his coat and
| we needed to get his phone before anyone could find it. I
| could have just added his coat to my account, but then he'd
| get stalking alerts all day long. Arg.
| jedberg wrote:
| If you have a family Apple account you can avoid having your
| keys beep at your wife.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Apple has over a hundred million iPhones all across the US and
| opted them into helping track Airtags without asking for
| permission (I'm sure it was buried in the middle of pages of
| terms of service). The only way to opt your iDevice out of
| tracking is to turn off Find My, so you can't find your phone
| if you lose it. Nice bit of artificial tying there. Tile and
| Samsung devices are more for personal use and won't really work
| outside your own location.
| kemayo wrote:
| You can opt out of the "Find My network" part separately from
| the overall Find My system. This does mean that you'd not be
| able to find your phone if it's fully powered off, of course,
| but that seems to be a fair trade-off if you don't want to
| track or be tracked as part of this.
|
| See: https://imgur.com/a/ZY9oBPV
| autoexec wrote:
| I could swear that Samsung's find my phone service works
| exactly the same way. Your phone is automatically used to
| track every other phone around you. It might not work for
| whatever their air tag equivalent is though
| caconym_ wrote:
| I have not had any issues like this with mine, and I use them
| all the time to find things. I would buy more if I had anything
| else to attach them to.
| myself248 wrote:
| Tile didn't work well enough for stalking.
|
| I bought some Tiles and Trackrs and gave them to friends who
| agreed to help me test their usefulness, pretending that they
| had "stolen" these items from me. I would see if I could locate
| them a few days later when I "noticed them missing".
|
| I got one ping from a Tile once when the friend had apparently
| stopped for gas, but none from their house. And zero at all
| from the Trackr. Apparently there just aren't enough users in
| my area for the networks to accomplish much?
|
| By stealing battery from every iphone user and data from their
| cellular plan, Apple has built a find-me network that actually
| works. Therefore it also works for stalking. Therefore Apple is
| getting the criticism.
| filoleg wrote:
| For me personally, I had to stop using my airtag (a singular
| one), because I notice that my phone has started draining
| battery much quicker than it was supposed to, for weeks on end.
| I checked the battery management page, and it turns out that
| the airtag functionality was draining most of it (despite my
| airtag being always near me, pretty much). Neither software
| updates nor disconnecting and re-pairing the airtag from
| scratch helped. Once I completely disconnected the airtag, the
| battery issue went completely away.
|
| I realize that this might not be a common experience and that
| it could be just some particular quirk about how it works with
| my phone specifically. But I gave up after that.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Samsung trackers do not work nearly as well imo. Or tile for
| that matter. I've tried most of them and AirTags are clearly on
| another level for better or worse
|
| I do think AirTags should have a button like the Samsung ones,
| tho.
| [deleted]
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They work great, it's just the network effects are smaller
| for Samsung.
|
| For people at risk, it is meaningless. Your crazy stalker
| will just drive around locations and confirm where you are
| remotely.
|
| The whole controversy is both real and bullshit. It is very
| trivial for people to get tracking devices for modest amounts
| of money in high threat scenarios.
|
| I think the issue with AirTags is the less malevolent, but
| creepy scenarios. And to be honest, the issue has existed for
| years with "Find My Friends", which I'm sure is widely abused
| by family members and others to follow people around.
| endisneigh wrote:
| They work ok, but it's inferior to AirTags specifically
| because the network effects are (much) smaller.
|
| If you're using it to find stuff you want the largest
| possible network
| phkahler wrote:
| >> Samsung trackers do not work nearly as well imo.
|
| Well, Apple Airtags use the massive network of iPhones to
| report the location of nearby airtags to Apple.
| legostormtroopr wrote:
| endisneigh wrote:
| Don't know why they're being downvoted when your point is
| irrelevant - the Samsung tracker only uses Samsung Galaxy
| devices specifically for the network
| buran77 wrote:
| Android phones don't intrinsically track tags, they need
| software specifically installed for this. So almost none
| of those Android phones can be used to track anything. On
| the other hand all newer iPhones can track any AirTag out
| of the box, in what's probably the single biggest
| tracking network in the world.
| kevinsundar wrote:
| At least for family, create a free family sharing account and
| add your wife. That'll silence the beeping when you're not
| around.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Apple gets a lot of focus on it that other companies do not.
|
| Ex. Headlines often focus on Apple when revealing some of
| Foxconn's worst labor practices. But stories about Foxconn
| using child labor to build Alexa devices, and the person who
| blew the whistle on that being tortured and put in jail for
| revealing it, went fairly under the radar in comparison. It's
| definitely a good thin that unethical labor practices being
| used to build our stuff is discussed, just the headlines and
| initial focus might lead laymen to believe one American
| hardware company is causing this, rather than most.
| bloomark wrote:
| > But stories about Foxconn using child labor to build Alexa
| devices ... went fairly under the radar in comparison
|
| This specific instance might be true, I don't know. But it
| seems incorrect to base an argument off Apple getting
| less/more coverage than a company like Amazon.
| aaomidi wrote:
| With more power, comes more responsibility.
|
| Apple is going to always be under the magnifying glass
| because they are just so much "bigger".
| ribosometronome wrote:
| For sure. I meant to add that sort of sentiment but spaced.
| There is definitely a level of "poor Apple, lets break out
| the tiniest violin for them". It's hard to cry over the
| world's largest public corporation getting more scrutiny
| than some others.
| dannyr wrote:
| Apple has scale. Tile has similar functionalities but it
| doesn't have a large network that Apple's IPhone has.
|
| It's going to be very hard to use Tile to stalk people.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Apple coopted every iPhone into a global surveillance network
| for the benefit of throwaway keychain tokens. _That 's why_.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| Every iPhone (and Android and dumbphone) was coopted into a
| global surveillance network from the very beginning.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Previously, it didn't help random creeps to find home
| address of a girl he saw in a grocery store. Now, with
| AirTags it is rather trivial. Thanks, Apple.
| michaelt wrote:
| To be fair to Apple, products like [1] - a battery-
| powered GPS tracker with mobile data connection - have
| been available for 10+ years.
|
| A 5-day battery life is useless for keeping track of your
| bicycle, but more than enough for a stalker to find
| someone's home.
|
| Of course, they were much less widely reported on by the
| press - so perhaps less known by stalkers? And only
| available via ebay, not off-the-shelf in reputable
| retailers.
|
| [1] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304109556891
| jdminhbg wrote:
| So trivial it never happens.
| kube-system wrote:
| I love my AirTags because they actually have a functional
| tracking network. I've lost items outside the house with a Tile
| tracker attached and it proved to be entirely worthless for
| actually finding my stuff. They simply don't have a good
| network.
| beambot wrote:
| They need to switch over to Helium's LoRa network, which has
| vastly better coverage...
| duskwuff wrote:
| LoRa and LoRaWAN don't belong to Helium. They existed long
| before it.
| wyager wrote:
| A) LoRa is proprietary so we wouldn't be better off on that
| axis
|
| B) I don't trust the longevity of infrastructure financed
| by a shitcoin
| BoorishBears wrote:
| Have things changed?
|
| https://youtu.be/nerQCrOam5U
| willcipriano wrote:
| This is a place for a generic open protocol. To have a real
| internet of things we need some kind of DNS but for objects.
| kube-system wrote:
| The hard part is convincing anyone to use your open
| protocol, when the people who are in the best position to
| implement it are also the ones who would most benefit from
| a closed-protocol.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Bitcoin used to do this: low value and/or infrequent
| transfers used to be free.
|
| Only charged money for big transfers and the high
| frequency traders.
|
| Dunno why it stopped. Seemed sensible to reward hodlers
| and incentivize use for microtransactions. Ultimately,
| liquidity comes from being able to trade a big thing
| easily for lots of small things.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Bitcoin used to do this: low value and/or infrequent
| transfers used to be free.
|
| Miners used to include zero-fee transactions in blocks
| when there was space available. Nowadays, most blocks are
| full or nearly so, so miners have a financial interest in
| mining transactions with the highest fee-per-byte first
| and ignoring anything which has a low or zero fee
| attached.
|
| There was never any special handling for "infrequent"
| transfers.
| steelbrain wrote:
| > This is a place for a generic open protocol.
|
| Not sure if you've seen but Apple opened the Find-My
| network to other vendors:
| https://www.apple.com/ee/newsroom/2021/04/apples-find-my-
| net...
| smoldesu wrote:
| ...but didn't open the protocol to third parties. In
| other words, it's as "open" as the lightning connector
| is: "pay us $x for every product you ship, and we won't
| sue you for using it"
|
| Apple's marketing must train in the Matrix for how good
| they are at dodging bullets...
| dylan604 wrote:
| at the same time, you are using the Apple
| network/infrastructure of iDevices that track that item
| for you. Every Apple device that passes your lost product
| helps find your product. Should they be doing that for
| free? Serious question.
| [deleted]
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| > Should they be doing that for free? Serious question.
|
| If they don't provide the network: what value do the
| tags, you bought with money, provide?
| dwighttk wrote:
| If you buy from Apple they do provide the network.
|
| If you buy from 3rd party and 3rd party _doesn't_ pay
| Apple, why should Apple provide the network?
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| An earlier commenter likened AirTags to DNS. Is DNS a
| for-profit protocol? Does it need to be?
| dwighttk wrote:
| I don't think DNS is, but AirTags is... so maybe they
| aren't...likenable? likencompatible? Licompatible?
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| I wasn't saying they should; and I'm not taking a side on
| anything. I don't have enough information to properly
| answer you.
|
| Are there third party tracking device manufacturers with
| free access to these systems?
|
| Are you talking about stolen or bootleg goods?
|
| The latter is a much more complicated topic, for sure.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The question as asked seems pretty clear to me. If
| Company A builds a product/service, why should Company B
| be expected to utilize Company A's work without
| compensation?
|
| What more information do you need?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple is free to charge whatever they want for the use of
| their servers and infrastructure, and while it's not a
| good look, they're also welcome to charge again for the
| use of their intellectual property. However, that's not a
| reason that third-parties shouldn't be able to access
| that data. If I've got a Google Pixel in my pocket, the
| cost is marginal for me to send an API request to Apple's
| servers and use Find My elsewhere. Hell, Apple could
| force third-party devices to enable Bluetooth pinging in
| exchange for their use of the Find My network. It's
| apparently been lucrative enough on iPhone, I see no
| reasons besides "muh walled garden" that they shouldn't
| extend the functionality to other users.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sounds like you're thinking about how the first pill
| costs $7 million to make, but pills 2-inf only cost
| $0.02. Sure, it doesn't cost anything to wiggle some
| electrons, but it took effort to build out the
| infrastructure to do something when those electrons move.
| It takes effort to maintain it as well.
|
| I'm able to see both sides. We all like free things, but
| free things cost some body some thing some where. If the
| vendor/maker of a thing needs to pay a license to make it
| look free to the consumer, that doesn't seem egregious to
| me. After all, they'll just roll that into the price of
| the product.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Ultimately, I agree with you. My overall point though is
| that opening the Find My network to other vendors _isn
| 't_ the same as opening the protocol. What Apple does in
| B2B sales is none of my concern.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I was really just playing devil's advocate. It just seems
| like everyone expects things to be given away as charity.
| Apple is not a 501(c), so if they come up with something,
| it's because they think there's a revenue stream in it.
|
| The entire thing works so well precisely because there
| are so many Apple devices in the wild, and Apple is
| looking to capitalize on that.
| smoldesu wrote:
| They're welcome to do whatever they please. Doesn't
| change the fact that they're the largest company in the
| world though, nor does it exempt them from a bit of
| criticism for being one of the most ruthless forces in
| capitalism today. I don't think it's wrong to expect them
| to set a good example for the thousands of organizations
| that choose to follow their path.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The open protocol for universal surveillance of everyone
| everywhere might not be _my_ first choice, but it would
| make sense.
| numpad0 wrote:
| How is it going to be monetized is a problem. The cost is
| basically negligible but not zero.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| I wouldn't monetize directly, instead the cost could be
| subsidized by services built on top of it. For example,
| naming & discovery, durable log aggregation etc.
|
| Edit: spelling
| r00fus wrote:
| You expect Apple do make an open protocol? This is the role
| of a government to mandate standards for their
| jurisdictions.
|
| Of course, regulation is a bad word for a good number of
| the electorate so this will never happen.
| dfsegoat wrote:
| Genuinely curious:
|
| What are other examples where specific protocols (open or
| not) are mandated by regulation ?
| paulmd wrote:
| USB is a (closed!) protocol that's mandated by
| regulation. Don't like what the USB-IF has done with
| their data profiles/power profiles/etc? Prefer a lower-
| cost connector that doesn't require cables to be hand-
| assembled? Tough shit.
| r00fus wrote:
| The mandates are often things you don't see as a citizen,
| but often on government contractors (a huge part of the
| US economy).
|
| The number of RFCs that are required for basic things
| like email, storage, security etc are essential standards
| primarily because USG required contractors and vendors to
| adhere to those standards.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Tile _still_ isn 't getting harped for stalking. I used a Tile
| to track down a backpack thief 5 years ago, could have easily
| been a person I was stalking.
|
| Apple's getting a lot of flack because they're enormous,
| consumers are more aware, and they have a better network... but
| the fact that they did _any_ stalker alerting is beyond
| anything the existing products in the market have done. I 'd
| guess the product designers at Apple are probably constantly
| frustrated with this reality.
| izacus wrote:
| Tile also isn't nearly as sensitive because it needs people
| to install their app to opt-in to their tracking network.
|
| Apple coopted every single phone into a tracker essentially
| creating a biggest people following and tracking network in
| the world - plus they use UWB which massively more accurate
| than what Tile uses.
|
| What Apple created would be Facebooks, NSAs and pretty much
| every spying entities wet dream to get fingers on.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah I get it, but Tile's network is still good enough to
| find someone's house in a somewhat densely populated area.
| I've done it.
|
| >What Apple created would be Facebooks, NSAs and pretty
| much every spying entities wet dream to get fingers on.
|
| The government already has this with cell phones, no?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| > What Apple created would be Facebooks, NSAs and pretty
| much every spying entities wet dream to get fingers on.
|
| No, Apple made it available to you. Police and intelligence
| agencies can buy this data from various entities or
| subpoena it.
| sephlietz wrote:
| Maybe this a dumb question, but is the AirTag configured to
| Notify When Left Behind except when left at your home? I've
| never heard an AirTag beep before.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| I have also not experienced beeping. I do get the occasional
| alert from family member tag crosstalk but it feels like this
| is improving.
|
| But the lack of explicit Family cross-view when other devices
| automagically have it is nigh unto unforgivably bad. I have
| heard arguments made about privacy but they are not that
| coherent. Expose an "opt this device out of Family sharing"
| during config option or whatever.
|
| That friends have attached two different tags to their kid's
| backpack so both spouses can track is total fail. :|
| pajko wrote:
| So this is a failed product then. Too good for tracking because
| it can be abused. While the new version alerts the thieves in the
| intended use case. Should have been given a 10x-50x price tag
| right from the start, to make it less available and affordable
| for malicious activities.
| mckeed wrote:
| Finding stolen items isn't the only use-case, and you still
| have 8-24 hours to track the thief before it starts beeping.
| gjs278 wrote:
| duxup wrote:
| Not a big surprise.
|
| I can buy a lot of things and modify it to do bad things.
|
| AirTag is an interesting choice as if you want to REALLY track
| someone I think an AirTag is a wonky choice. Very much a cheap-o
| 'best effort' kind of tracking.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think AirTags are only the right choice for casual stalkers
| who haven't really thought their plan all the way through.
| Anybody who is properly motivated will easily find better
| options.
| duxup wrote:
| That and parents who only kinda want to track their kids bags
| ... mostly ... I guess.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Right about now I wish I had pasted one to my son's iPad.
| Of course, I wish the iPad just had that function built in
| so it wouldn't need a booger attached to the outside.
| duxup wrote:
| Well you can have the iPad share its location ... that's
| a thing.
|
| How you do it depends on if your iPad is setup under a
| different apple ID or not (still can do it either way).
|
| My father in law who is older and prone to wandering off,
| I put an airtag on him while on vacation temporarily when
| we were out and about, and set his phone to share his
| location to the whole family all the time just to be
| save. It's very handy that way.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Well you can have the iPad share its location ...
| that's a thing.
|
| As a member of my family account, his iPad does share its
| location. But only for 24 hours after the battery dies,
| at which point Apple will no longer show you were it was
| last found. And since it's only a WiFi iPad, it'll only
| report when attached to a network it knows about.
|
| And even in perfect circumstances, it doesn't work worth
| a crap. My daughter 'lost' her iPad last night and asked
| me to beep it. So I did. "Find My" said "playing sound"
| for maybe 10 seconds and then just stopped, without any
| further notice. It told me it last saw the iPad two hours
| previously, so I told my daughter it may have run out of
| battery. She found it a couple minutes later in my wife's
| office. 80% battery. In our house, attached to our WiFi.
| She came up and played with it a while sitting behind me
| in my office. "Find My" still couldn't see it. This
| morning, about 10AM, while my daughter was in school and
| her iPad was sitting on the charger, it started beeping
| to be found. LMAO. Thanks Apple, for _nothing_.
|
| They should put a rechargeable AirTag in the iPad
| somewhere. With all the usual features. Then I could tell
| you where my son's iPad is right now, and I could make it
| noisy, even though the battery died a few days ago and he
| doesn't know where it is. We think it might have gotten
| swiped by the neighbor kid, but we'll probably never find
| out since it's a game of eliminating possibilities, not
| positively finding the device. Since he didn't mention
| that it was missing until more than 24 hours after it was
| last seen, I can't even say for sure he lost it in our
| house somewhere. Such a misfeature.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah good point. A built in AirTag would be handy for
| zero power events.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| My daughters' iPads both have LTE and Location Sharing
| enabled to our family profile set up through my iCloud
| account.
|
| My eldest is 13, and we don't really see a reason for her
| to have a cellphone yet; it's coming fairly soon, sure,
| but for now the 11" iPad Pro that I passed down to her is
| a much more functional device for her and carries less
| drama risk as she's excluded from her peers' SMS group
| chat where it seems like the majority of that sort of
| thing emanates.
|
| When she does have a need for a cellphone, it'll likely
| be one of the relatively inexpensive iPhone SEs or an
| older used iPhone that's mostly useful for calls and
| texts.
| andrepew wrote:
| Not hard for a non-technical person to remove the speaker.
| Housing pops right open with a small flathead screwdriver. Then
| you just remove the speaker's magnet, no desoldering or anything
| like that required. Took 5 minutes.
|
| I did it to one of mine to use it to track my bicycle if it ever
| gets stolen.
| nomel wrote:
| If the thief has an iPhone, they'll still be alerted that the
| tracker is following them. If they move their phone around on
| your bike, they'll be able to find it, within several inches,
| with the NFC identification feature that gives the last four
| digits of the owners phone number.
|
| Maybe Apple's campaign is working:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/26/apple-doe...
| pinot wrote:
| Yeah but at least when I loan my bicycle to my friend it
| won't beep constantly.
| nomel wrote:
| Absolutely. With all the air tags in my family, I think I'm
| completely desensitized to the beeping and notifications. I
| really doubt I would notice if I was being stalked.
| andrepew wrote:
| I'm banking on a bike theft being a crime of opportunity and
| not necessarily being done by someone who has thought things
| through completely.
|
| But against a professional thief an AirTag probably won't do
| much.
| matthew-wegner wrote:
| I don't even have _that_ expensive of a bike, but I have two
| on mine
|
| There's a 3D-printed housing for one that sits between the
| frame and the water bottle holder. If someone does ever steal
| my bike, and checks for AirTags, I expect them to find this
| one
|
| I have a second wedged inside the seat cavity. You have to
| take the seat off the seatpost rails to remove it
|
| It's pretty common for thieves to have a lot of stolen stuff
| together, so if there is a second stalker notification I'm
| hoping they assume it's from another stolen item in their
| possession (having already removed the water bottle AirTag)
| KIFulgore wrote:
| I was going to say, there are valid security use-cases for
| doing this.
| [deleted]
| dschuessler wrote:
| I wonder if this modification could at least be made harder by
| having some kind of heartbeat. Build in a microphone whose sole
| purpose is to receive inaudible, high frequency impulses (maybe a
| hash signal?) from the speaker every once in a while. If the
| signal does not arrive in time, the AirTag shuts off.
|
| Of course, no measure can beat physical access to the device but
| you could at least make the tampering about as expensive as
| building your own device from scratch.
| causi wrote:
| It wouldn't be hard to make a silent container for an airtag
| that'd let the audible signal reach the mic but not the alarm.
| Personally I think they'll eventually have to link every Airtag
| to a real identity so anyone detecting one knows who it really
| belongs to.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > have to link every Airtag to a real identity
|
| Isn't it already linked to your Apple account? Take the
| AirTag to the cops, they ask Apple who it belongs to.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted, valid question. I
| don't know how they work, but I assume they are linked to
| an account.
|
| Why even involve the cops - if you have an airtag, you
| should be able to scan it's code and it reveals the account
| holder's name.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Why even involve the cops - if you have an airtag, you
| should be able to scan it's code and it reveals the
| account holder's name.
|
| That's easy. If you find my house keys, I'd rather you
| couldn't just look up my address.
|
| I don't know if Apple makes it easy or not, but I'd
| certainly like to be able to push a notification to the
| AirTag owner if I have found one of their things. At
| least so I can send them a message "I dropped this off at
| the local police station so you can pick it up" etc, or
| something along those lines.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I'm sure that would get some idiots, but alt accounts
| aren't difficult. If someone is actively going to the
| effort of buying, setting up, placing, and using an
| airpod to stalk someone they can go to the effort to hide
| their identity.
| [deleted]
| causi wrote:
| I had a buddy try that just last week after he was alerted
| to one under his car. They laughed at him and did nothing
| but write a report.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _To make it harder for stalkers to abuse them, Apple included
| (and has since upgraded) several safety features that will alert
| someone to the presence of a nearby AirTag that's not their own,
| including an audible beep._
|
| Is this saying that Apple is relying on the unknown tag to
| announce itself by emitting a beep, and is that true?
|
| I think you want your management device (e.g. phone) to alert you
| to the presence of such a thing, not that thing itself.
|
| (Of course, you still need to find it.)
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Not everyone has an iOS device, or bluetooth/wifi enabled even
| if they do.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Is this saying that Apple is relying on the unknown tag to
| announce itself by emitting a beep, and is that true?
|
| Not by itself, no. If you have an iPhone, you get notifications
| on your phone whether the AirTag ever beeps or not.
| duxup wrote:
| Also there's an Android app that does the same thing.
| equon_ wrote:
| I removed the speaker myself and hid one on my bike, I am super
| happy with it in Paris. Every minute its precise location is
| shared through Find My network and I get an alert when the bike
| is far from me when it is not at home.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I guess I don't get it. For the price of an AirTag, you can buy a
| more capable tracker with GPS and mobile data. And it won't be
| notifying the trackee that it's there. The AirTag seems like a
| downgrade.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Can you name some alternatives with a decent network?
|
| If the item has its own mobile network, i'm expecting an extra
| $20/mo for a phone plan (at which point, comparing to a fixed
| cost of an AirTag isnt valid.)
|
| If it doesnt have a mobile network and relies on the mesh,
| then, is there any mesh available? Apple's mesh is global and
| pervasive.
|
| And if it provides neither mobile support nor mesh, it isnt
| useful for anything except lost keys in a house.
| mullen wrote:
| > If the item has its own mobile network, i'm expecting an
| extra $20/mo for a phone plan (at which point, comparing to a
| fixed cost of an AirTag isn't valid.)
|
| Some phone plans will give you additional data only sim card
| and only charge you the cost of the bandwidth (Google Fi does
| this). You can also get data only plans that are intended to
| used with Vending Machines and IoT devices (I guess a
| tracking device on the Internet is a IoT device).
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Yeah, looking on Amazon now, the ones referenced that are
| $29.99 or lower all seem to require an additional
| subscription. Obviously, AirTags require an Apple device, but
| still function with phones as old as the 6s, which can be had
| for under $100. So even assuming you want an AirTag and need
| to acquire a phone, the AirTags come out considerably cheaper
| after just a few months.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Well, i'm not counting the phone (pretty much ANY tracker
| requires a phone/computer to view results) which I assume
| is a given. I'm specifically speaking about the phone
| _PLAN_ which is where the real money goes. A phone service
| plan will cost $20 /mo in the US easily, so thats $250/yr
| forever. At this point, tracking luggage/bicycles isnt cost
| effective...the tracker starts to become more expensive
| than the tracked.
|
| The AirTags are awesome because ANY phone creates a mesh
| for them to broadcast.
|
| UPDATE: per sister comment, see
| https://www.hologram.io/pricing/flexible-data
| gruez wrote:
| >i'm expecting an extra $20/mo for a phone plan
|
| I'm sure you can get prepaid/IOT plans for less, eg.
| https://www.hologram.io/pricing/flexible-data
| good8675309 wrote:
| Thought this would be good for a solar IoT camera then
| realized it would be $400/per gig. Yikes, though it's good
| for extremely low bandwidth devices.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this, this looks fantastic! I wasnt
| aware of this and I rescind my previous comment!
| [deleted]
| stefan_ wrote:
| Yeah but they need, you know, _GPS_. Which is an incredibly
| faint signal that is hopelessly attenuated by just about any
| indoors space.
| r00fus wrote:
| A downgrade for a stalker maybe. Honestly I use them and
| haven't had a single false positive ping.
| aldebran wrote:
| Leave BT off for a few hours. :-)
| r00fus wrote:
| Hmm - I guess I simply don't do that (nor does any of my
| family). Any reason you need to turn off BT constantly?
| paxys wrote:
| You absolutely can not. There are no GPS trackers for <$30 with
| an ~unlimited battery life and no subscription fees.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And there aren't any AirTags with the ability to track
| without notifying the target they are there. Trade-offs.
|
| The point is valid, though. AirTags do not enable something
| which wasn't already trivial to accomplish. At best it just
| makes it more visible to the general public, but stalkers
| have known how to use inexpensive GPS trackers for many
| years.
|
| What's dishonest is the media pretending that this is some
| new capability that didn't already exist.
| privacyking wrote:
| It only notifies the target if they own a iPhone, or have
| downloaded an app specifically to do this.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| GPS trackers anywhere near the size and cost of the AirTag are
| going to have a battery life of a few days at best. You can get
| into multi-year battery lives on cellular GPS trackers but
| you're going to need large batteries and aggressive use of
| deep-sleep mode, e.g. check-in only once per day.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It won't last a year on a $1 battery nor will it be as small.
| bin_bash wrote:
| A Tile will, so will SmartThings
| rolobio wrote:
| Tile does not have nearly the network that Apple does. I
| attached an AirTag to an electric scooter, which I ended up
| returning. I forgot to remove the AirTag; I've been able to
| track the scooter over hundreds of miles with quick updates
| (even driving down a freeway). I've been having a fun time
| checking in on the scooter for months now.
|
| I have a Tile attached to a generator at my house. Since
| I've disabled Tile on my phone in favor of AirTag, my
| generator hasn't been detected in over 31 days. Even with
| neighbors walking past my house constantly.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > I attached an AirTag to an electric scooter, which I
| ended up returning. I forgot to remove the AirTag; I've
| been able to track the scooter over hundreds of miles
| with quick updates (even driving down a freeway). I've
| been having a fun time checking in on the scooter for
| months now.
|
| This describes how 99% of these "AirTags Used In Stalking
| Incident" stories come about.
| rolobio wrote:
| Honestly I was worried I would have a knock at my door
| from this. The AirTag will make it quite clear who owns
| it.
|
| But I expect someone familiar with returned items will
| say "Oh, someone forgot to remove their AirTag again.
| Throw it in the garbage." So hopefully no knocks at my
| door.
| quenix wrote:
| As far as I know there is no way to determine the owner
| of an AirTag.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > I attached an AirTag to an electric scooter, which I
| ended up returning. I forgot to remove the AirTag; I've
| been able to track the scooter over hundreds of miles
| with quick updates (even driving down a freeway). I've
| been having a fun time checking in on the scooter for
| months now.
|
| That story alone is horrifying and a reason by itself
| this thing should be illegal. Also, what you are doing is
| not ok.
| rolobio wrote:
| Should I drive over a thousand miles to pull it off? What
| do you expect me to do? I'm not sure what will happen if
| I disown it, it will probably attempt to be owned by
| whoever walks by? Can I disown an AirTag without being
| near it? And if someone who works for Fedex suddenly owns
| the AirTag, has the situation improved?
|
| I really don't know what you expect me to do. I did this
| by accident. I thought it was funny.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| If one person's daughter bough a scooter then learned the
| previous owner kept following were she was going with it
| for months, I doubt most people would find it funny.
|
| The fact you did this by accident kinda prove my point
| people should not be trusted with this tech, and it
| should be banned to be used without a licence.
| rolobio wrote:
| Rather than ban the device, punish the behavior. Apple
| has made it quite easy for anyone with an Apple device to
| notice if they are being tracked. Why punish someone
| tracking their scooter as if they were tracking some
| "daughter"?
|
| GPS tracking of cars is legal in many place. Those
| devices don't report their existence to the owner.
| Perhaps we should start there?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| That didn't seem to work well for guns in the US.
|
| Besides, this tech is opening a tracking pandora box with
| social and political consequences that we can't predict.
|
| I'm for banning without a licence on this one.
| FredPret wrote:
| What stoppedyou from buying a GPS tracker before?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| AirTags are cheaper and more powerful than GPS tracker.
| Also more known, and don't have a stigma.
| rolobio wrote:
| I think banning objects goes about as well as banning
| drugs did.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| AirTags are not addictive and are not helping people in
| social situation or to have sex.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The technology itself is unstoppable.
|
| At most widespread use of it could be delayed until
| something smaller and even harder to detect is invented.
| endisneigh wrote:
| A tile doesn't use mobile data and have gps and is inferior
| to an AirTag anyway
| bin_bash wrote:
| I've been using Tile for years. It's inferior, yes, but
| it's definitely good enough for spying.
| endisneigh wrote:
| The parent comment is talking about using mobile data and
| gps - not sure why you even brought up the tile.
|
| Tile is inferior to an AirTag if you seriously want to
| stalk someone. The network is orders of magnitude
| smaller. Don't know why anyone who owns an Apple device
| would bother with it at this point
| andrepew wrote:
| What tracker is comparable in price? An AirTag is $30 with no
| other monthly costs.
|
| Genuinely asking, I would love to find a better solution.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A quick search on Amazon for 'gps tracker' will yield at
| least one option on the first page for $29.99. GSM for
| communications. Not as small as an AirTag, but 1.5 inches by
| 0.9 by 0.6 inches isn't exactly huge either.
|
| A legitimate point is that the battery life isn't great. But
| that's not too hard to solve, if you tolerate a little more
| space for a bigger battery.
|
| I'm sure there are even better options out there, that's just
| what I could come up with in under a minute. For anybody with
| more than idle curiosity, I imagine there are some pretty
| clever solutions available.
| nomel wrote:
| > A legitimate point is that the battery life isn't great.
|
| A big difference is that these GPS trackers broadcast their
| position continuously, wherever there is cell coverage. The
| AirTags only update their position when an Apple device
| (made after 2015) is within the relatively short bluetooth
| range of the tag.
| [deleted]
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> The AirTags only update their position when an Apple
| device (made after 2015) is within the relatively short
| bluetooth range of the tag, with an internet connection.
|
| Luckily the "only" is pretty good. There are Apple
| devices almost everywhere i'd need to track a lost
| bike/car/schoolbag.
| RegnisGnaw wrote:
| Monthly fee?
| gjs278 wrote:
| exhilaration wrote:
| The last time this came up on HN someone suggested this:
| https://lightbug.io/. I've gotta say it looks amazing, the
| smaller unit has a battery life measured in months, the big
| one in years.
| gtm1260 wrote:
| There are plenty of trackers, but they require monthly
| subscriptions!
| nicce wrote:
| Exactly. Somehow need to send that data.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| T-mobile has a cellular tracker for $5/month, with no device
| fee. Over the course of one year, this is very comparable.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| You also need an Apple device.so it is not just $30
| spike021 wrote:
| Your comment is akin to "which came first, the chicken or
| the egg?"
|
| I highly doubt there's (much of) a market looking to buy
| AirTags without already owning the pre-requisite Apple
| hardware.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Maybe. But if I buy a third party GPS thing for $50 that
| also works with my Android, PC etc. then it is cheaper
| than getting the apple devices plus airtag.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Except that many uses don't need a phone at all, and
| android hardware could give you an acceptable experience
| for most of the remaining uses, on par with many iphone
| models.
| jfengel wrote:
| I would. I own a Tile, and it's limited by the relatively
| smallish network, at least out in the burbs where I live.
| Having every iPhone in the vicinity conscripted into the
| network would be good for me... even though I don't
| particularly want an iPhone.
|
| Mind you, I only ever use it to locate my wayward cat, so
| perhaps my use case isn't the most common. I don't seem
| to find any other need for it, though perhaps I should
| attach one to my keys.
| nikanj wrote:
| But it won't get you headlines. "Apple devices used by sex-
| slave kidnapping killer clowns" gets plenty of clicks
| barkerja wrote:
| I recently replaced my dog's collar -- which had GPS with LTE-M
| -- with an AirTag simply because it saves me money, I get about
| a ~year battery life and I find it's just as reliable.
| seshagiric wrote:
| A number of iPhone users are reporting instances of unknown
| object tracking their location.
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253235422
|
| Apple support does not provide any details about the issue.
| Gigachad wrote:
| This sort of thing has happened to me but it was just my bfs
| airpods which triggered the alert.
| exabrial wrote:
| Apple's Airtag's are a solution looking for a problem. You can't
| use them to "track lost items" while alerting thieves to their
| presence. Conversely you can't allow thieves to scan for their
| presence when they steal something. Their intended use case is
| pretty useless "find your stuff you've lost" I think, as it
| covers a small market segment compared to "LoJack, but cheap and
| fancy like Apple".
|
| The solution requires a lot more governance, and puts Apple in
| charge of a "court system" with a lot of support cases.
|
| * Every Airtag must have a registered owner. People are limited
| to the number of tags they're allowed to purchase and use.
|
| * If an Airtag is lost by its owner, they can request it be
| located. If the Airtag is a significant distance from the owner,
| Apple must intervene.
|
| * Apple must ask the user if they suspect the article is stolen.
| If Yes, the user can provide a police report and will be provided
| the location.
|
| * If they suspect they misplaced the item, but not stolen, things
| get complicated.
|
| * If the location is mobile since the owner departed the tag, and
| is tailing other Android/Apple iPhones, Apple will probably need
| to tell the owner too bad so sad, get a police report first.
|
| * If its location is static since it departed contact with the
| owner's phone, Apple makes a judgement call as to if they believe
| it's a stalking situation. If the tag is tailing another
| Android/iPhone user, Apple should allow that person to have a
| setting on their phone to passively allow this case, allowing
| users to consent to being tracked.
|
| There are other obvious edge cases, but I think this at least a
| start to how this useful technology could avoid stalking but
| provide for a wider variety of use cases.
|
| And of course this breaks the e2e promise that Apple made, which
| _prevents_ them from getting NSLs when the government wants to
| track somebody... so, I don't see a good way out of this.
| Gigachad wrote:
| For me the airtags are really useful for keys/wallet. They
| aren't stolen but are just lost. I somewhat agree that the rest
| of the solution needs to come from government since Apple has
| done their best to prevent abuse but it isn't possible.
|
| It should be a serious crime to track someone without their
| knowledge. Something that police take seriously.
| pkulak wrote:
| I've got a tag on my bike and it's pretty dumb that it starts
| beeping at the thief if it ever gets stolen. Why do we have to
| gimp everything to make it difficult to use them to break the
| law? Isn't enforcement of laws how we're supposed to make people
| not break the law?
| TheSoftwareGuy wrote:
| >Isn't enforcement of laws how we're supposed to make people
| not break the law?
|
| It is the method of last resort, really. Ideally, people have
| enough success in their life that they do not have to resort to
| crime. If that fails we have some other protections: we lock
| our doors, etc. Lastly, if people still commit crime we try to
| prosecute them
| RIMR wrote:
| The problem is that without the beep, these devices are no
| different than your standard GPS tracker that you could use to
| track someone without their consent. So it beeps so indemnify
| Apple from that use case.
|
| And for good reason. These devices are already getting popular
| with abusive spouses. It's worth planning for the worst case
| scenarios for these things, because they are real.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Anecdotal regional issue:
|
| I had an AirTag on my AirPod Pro's case that was stolen. I
| immediately notified Austin's police (APD) as I could see where
| it was going. Unfortunately, due to understaffing of 100-200
| police officers and detectives, most calls unrelated to imminent
| threats of injury or death aren't being handle for days or ever.
| So, it's open-season on packages and property because APD can't
| or won't do its job, even if you tell them where stolen property
| is located. As long as a crime is nonviolent or the threat of
| violence has passed (with the exception of rape), ATX has the
| security measures of a third-world country. I met a UT campus
| police officer who refuses to live in or bring his family to ATX
| because of the risks and de facto lawlessness.
| jkestner wrote:
| Lot of assertions without citations in this thread. HN can do
| better.
|
| If you've never had something stolen before, let me flesh out
| your data point. The police almost never investigate theft of
| private property--if they do, it's when there's serial theft in
| an area. That's anywhere in the US, in any year. They're only
| there as a notary of sorts for your claim to the insurance
| company.
|
| It'd be cool if police used the surveillance tech built into
| our products for our benefit, but that's not how the world
| works. They're not standing by for hot pursuit of your earbuds.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Once you take the emotional factor out of theft, it's
| basically solved by the concept of insurance. Just replace
| your things, and you should be mostly whole again.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, can confirm. Had $20K++ worth of stuff stolen from my
| shop. Police were there only to take notes, file a report,
| and send me the report # for the insurance claim. the officer
| didn't even ask any interesting questions, and offered no
| hope when I suggested maybe they could check around come
| likely locations where it might be. He was just acting as a
| stenographer with a badge. I totally get that they are
| overwhelmed and have to prioritize.
| dheera wrote:
| Same, I had $4K of camera equipment stolen in the Bay Area and
| police just closed the case.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the next 10 car smashings were the
| same crooks because the police department won't do its job.
| They keep letting the crooks go, and we wonder why there are so
| many thefts in SF these days. Well maybe don't let the crooks
| go!
|
| That said though I wonder if AirPods are having success in
| other countries with more competent police.
|
| For the US I really wish we could commercialize some kind of
| tracker that releases fart spray, honey, flour, ink, glue, and
| other annoying substances if stolen. If the police won't do
| their job we need to do it ourselves.
| stadium wrote:
| I once wired a cheap 120db siren to a 9v battery and a
| pressure switch with the default "on" position. Packed it in
| a plastic pint sized ice cream container with a hole drilled
| in the bottom for the switch. Packed that full of rocks for
| weight, with the switch pointed down towards the floor.
| Packed it all inside an Amazon box with a hole cutout for the
| switch.
|
| Lift the box, and immediate piercing sound blast. For < $10
| in parts off AliExpress. Unit price could be a couple bucks
| max at volume.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| Be careful with creating traps -- booby traps are illegal in
| most jurisdictions.
| mh- wrote:
| and ironically, this is definitely the sort of criminal act
| the DA _would_ go after.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| > For the US I really wish we could commercialize some kind
| of tracker that releases fart spray, honey, flour, ink, glue,
| and other annoying substances if stolen.
|
| I assume you've seen this already, but just in case you
| haven't.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c584TGG7jQ
| andrewmunsell wrote:
| Mark Rober's videos are always entertaining, but I wonder
| the legality of audio/video recording in supposedly an
| unaware person's house. I assume he has this figured out,
| but it also makes me wonder whether the "thieves" are
| actually plants.
| paxys wrote:
| You just described every police department in the country.
| iqanq wrote:
| pyronik19 wrote:
| But hey lets defund the police!
| kbos87 wrote:
| The unfortunate truth is that police have better things to
| spend their time on. Heck, I had a nighttime home invasion/$4k+
| of goods stolen in Boston 9 months ago and as far as I can tell
| the police couldn't even be bothered to get their hands on the
| security camera footage from a neighboring convenience store
| after I told them there were cameras outside.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's definitely over the line. Theft of a laptop or bicycle
| is one thing, but home invasion is a violent crime, and
| should justify a far more significant amount of attention.
| autoexec wrote:
| > The unfortunate truth is that police have better things to
| spend their time on.
|
| From what I can "better things" is mostly pulling people over
| (legitimately or otherwise) in order to hand out tickets to
| raise revenue. Catching criminals is what we're told they do,
| stealing from the public, making money, and protecting only
| the most wealthy seems to be their real job.
| tharne wrote:
| > Unfortunately, due to understaffing of 100-200 police
| officers and detectives, most calls unrelated to imminent
| threats of injury or death aren't being handle for days or
| ever.
|
| Roughly 18 months ago folks were demanding that cities "defund
| the police", and that's what we got. I think we're going to
| have to re-live the cycle seen in the latter half of the 20th
| century, where we allowed crime to skyrocket, finally clamped
| down on it in the 1990's, had an urban revival for the next few
| decades, then got complacent and rolled back the very same
| policies that made the cities safe again. And 'round and 'round
| we go.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Hopefully, this time, we won't overcorrect. We need to clamp
| down on crime without crushing the underprivileged under the
| fist of heavy handed policing.
|
| Policies like stop and frisk really do work at reducing
| crime. But they also increase the abuse of civil liberties.
| Especially in those who don't have the resources to fight
| back in court.
|
| And who pays when people do fight back and get huge
| settlements for trampling on their rights? No, it's not the
| cops that perpetrated the abuse. It's the tax payers.
|
| Countries like China and Singapore have very low crime rates.
| But I don't think we should emulate all their practices. In
| Singapore, you can get lashed with a cane for grafitti. So,
| they don't have much graffiti.
|
| We need smarter policing, not necessarily more police. Even
| in my area, I keep hearing about a shortage of police, and
| yet, I keep seeing police here just sitting in their same
| little speed trap hiding places waiting to catch someone and
| write a ticket.
| downrightmike wrote:
| I wonder if we'll see higher civil asset forfeiture by police
| to make up for the funding loss.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I wonder if we'll see higher civil asset forfeiture by
| police to make up for the funding loss.
|
| What funding loss? Total spending on police increased in
| 2021 and 2022 in every major city across the country.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Yeah, and notice how a good chunk of the people asking to
| defund the police are from already very safe neighborhoods or
| very young and never had to live through lots of crime. I'm
| all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements, more
| training) but the whole defund the police movement is
| downright dangerous.
| autoexec wrote:
| I agree, "defunding" (at least when it actually means more
| than reform) is more of an emotional outburst than a
| solution to anything. People have a right to be emotional
| over what policing has become, but kicking and screaming
| alone is counterproductive. If we really want to reform the
| police we're going to have to be prepared to invest more
| money into it than ever since we'll need massive amounts of
| training, data collection, firings following by new hires,
| and oversight. None of that is going to be cheap.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > I'm all for police reforms (eg; body-cam requirements
|
| A lot of rabidly anti-police people are actually against
| body cams.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| My friend is a cop, and he _loves_ his body cam. He has
| had dozens of complaints against him refuted trivially
| with body-cam footage (and prior to that at least one
| serious complaint refuted by the camera in his patrol
| car).
|
| I think most of the anti-police complaints are due to
| selective releasing of body-cam footage. We are
| approaching the point where the court of public opinion
| swings against officers when potentially exculpatory
| body-cam footage is conspicuously missing; perhaps that
| will help assuage those concerns.
| jjeaff wrote:
| If I was a crooked cop, sure, why not have a body cam. I
| get to control when to turn it on and off anyway. If I
| want to do something bad, whoops, I forgot to turn it on.
| What are you going to do?
| tharne wrote:
| It's true. More often than not, the body cams corroborate
| the officer's side of the story.
| not2b wrote:
| From what I've read, they are against body cams that
| police officers can selectively turn on and off, because
| they can surveil everyone but still hide their
| misconduct.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| You do realize "defund the police" means diverting funds
| that would usually be spent on tons of military grade gear
| they don't need, and using those funds on community
| improvement programs, right?
| plorkyeran wrote:
| No, we didn't. The police were not actually defunded.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Roughly 18 months ago folks were demanding that cities
| "defund the police", and that's what we got.
|
| It's literally not. Every major city in the country
| _increased_ total funding for policing. Minneapolis was the
| only city that voted to defund the police, but ultimately
| even that was reversed before it ever went into effect.
| shmatt wrote:
| Except police funding is at an all time high[1]
|
| If anything, I would blame the common sighting of said
| officers sitting in their cars playing Pokemon
|
| [1] https://www.austinmonitor.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/06/FIX...
| Hasu wrote:
| Everyone keeps citing this year's budget, which was imposed
| on Austin by the state government after the police budget
| was cut by 1/3rd in 2020.
|
| Austin DID defund the police, but was forced to refund the
| police.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Funding went up
| not2b wrote:
| No, because the calls to "defund the police" were not acted
| on.
|
| Taking lead out of gasoline may have done more to reduce
| urban crime than any police measure, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
| for lots more on this.
| everdrive wrote:
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I wonder why they're understaffed? Perhaps someone defunded
| them.
|
| This meme keeps popping up without basis. No major city in
| the US actually decreased funding for the police overall in
| the last two years.
|
| In this case, the APD budget for 2021-2022 was increased from
| $309.7 million (2020-2021) to $443 million, a whopping 43%
| increase.
| jen20 wrote:
| > I met a UT campus police officer who refuses to live in or
| bring his family to ATX because of the risks and de facto
| lawlessness.
|
| I live in Downtown Austin, and this kind of picture simply does
| not fit with my day-to-day experience of Austin.
| uoaei wrote:
| If you ask a lifeguard what they fear, they'll say drowning.
|
| Cops are not objective sources of reality, neither is anyone
| else. More than a few grains of salt need to be taken when
| cops say stuff because they're steeped in a very different
| life than the average citizen.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| Not necessarily more dangerous, either --- jobs like line
| cook, delivery driver are more dangerous than police work.
| kemayo wrote:
| Since people are downvoting the parent, check out
| https://advisorsmith.com/data/most-dangerous-jobs/
|
| Near as I can tell, there are good statistics available
| from the BLS about fatal on-job accidents, but not so
| good for definitions of "dangerous" that also include
| non-fatal injuries.
|
| If we're talking pure fatalities, policing _is_ dangerous
| (it 's on that list), but it's _much_ less dangerous than
| a bunch of other professions... such that you 're about
| 2.3x more likely to die on-job as a delivery driver than
| as a police officer.
| thebean11 wrote:
| > ATX has the security measures of a third-world country
|
| That's a pretty dramatic way to describe police not wanting to
| spend resources to get your $200 headphones back..
| mrits wrote:
| It is spending resources to catch a criminal. Very unlikely
| this loser is just stealing once and going back to being a
| decent citizen.
| thebean11 wrote:
| It depends, if he just found some AirPods on the ground and
| decided to keep them, I actually think it's very likely.
| holistio wrote:
| What's the threshold over which you believe crime is no
| longer okay?
|
| AirPods Max? Only $549. A MacBook? Only $2000. A car? Only
| $20000.
|
| Does someone have to burn my house down for it to be
| worthwhile for the police?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| There are thresholds at which it becomes a felony, so that
| might be an answer to your question. Otherwise we have to
| ask it the other way as well -- should the police send out
| a detective if your 99 cent fidget spinner goes missing?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > There are thresholds at which it becomes a felony, so
| that might be an answer to your question.
|
| Are you saying that police shouldn't bother investigating
| crimes that aren't felonies? Why even have misdemeanors
| at all then?
| thebean11 wrote:
| Most people who get in trouble for misdemeanors are
| observed by a police officer directly (drunk driving,
| speeding, vandalism etc). They usually aren't
| "investigated"..
| mbesto wrote:
| Believe it or not, these thresholds have effectively
| existed in the US forever. It's why we have small claims
| courts, misdemeanors vs felonies, traffic violations, etc.
|
| > What's the threshold over which you believe crime is no
| longer okay?
|
| You completely missed the parent's point. It's not that
| they don't think crime should be "no longer be okay", it
| was addressing the the grandparent's point of "we're living
| in a third world country because my $200 AirPods got
| stolen" is simply out of touch with reality.
|
| > Does someone have to burn my house down for it to be
| worthwhile for the police?
|
| In third world countries this is pretty much how it works.
| As an American, going to Brazil or South Africa (for
| example), you're basically told "don't wear/carry anything
| of value". It's not that there is a _chance_ that you 'll
| get mugged, it's that _it 's likely_ it'll happen. I live
| in Austin and carry my AirPods on me all of the time. The
| likelihood that I experience what the OP experienced is so
| unlikely that it rarely crosses my mind. The grandparent's
| comment is hyperbolic drivel.
| thebean11 wrote:
| I never said it was okay to steal anything. It's just not
| obviously a good use of taxpayer resources to hunt down
| something with such a low value. I don't claim to know
| where that threshold is, but it's probably above $200.
|
| Conversely, let's say I accuse an Uber driver of stealing a
| $1 bill I left in his car, is that a good use of police
| time? Where do you draw the line?
| e4e78a06 wrote:
| Capturing and punishing thieves has a deterring effect on
| other thieves. Police spending resources to get "your $200
| headphones back" saves more than just the $200 headphones,
| since usually thieves are repeat offenders and it discourages
| would-be thieves from becoming thieves. If you think about
| it, if a police officer makes $100/h you could conceivably
| make the case that catching a single thief could potentially
| save local taxpayers who had stuff stolen the officer's full
| time salary for an entire week. I'd say that's worth it.
|
| Take a look at this phone thief at a concert [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb33bKG1hQ
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Having a working law enforcement system that people can
| trust also means people can rely on the law to be enforced
| to protect them, instead of taking the law into their own
| hands.
| FredPret wrote:
| That's wild. The first reason we even have a government is for
| police and judges.
| Tr3nton wrote:
| asimilator wrote:
| > I immediately notified Austin's police (APD) as I could see
| where it was going.
|
| Was the tracking good enough to reasonably narrow it down to a
| single person?
|
| I think people expect too much of the police with a lot of
| these tracking devices/services. I don't have any experience
| with AirTags, but I know Apple's Find My can narrow down the
| location of e.g. a lost phone to a street corner. But if you're
| in a city there's a decent chance that there's more than one
| person on that street corner. The police can't/shouldn't stop
| everyone there and search them. Tracking a stolen item to a
| house is even harder (need a warrant). And an apartment is
| probably impossible because I doubt the tracking is good enough
| to narrow it down to a particular unit.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| This is every major city right now, unfortunately.
| reustle wrote:
| Every major American city*
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Which? Where?
| ornornor wrote:
| Toronto ON
| filoleg wrote:
| I can only speak for the city I live in, but Seattle fits
| the bill perfectly right now.
| panzagl wrote:
| Every city in the US. Between 'are we the baddies' and
| relatively meh pay most municipalities are short of
| officers.
|
| I'd link an article, but googling 'police shortage' would
| seem to do the trick.
| r00fus wrote:
| Law Enforcement definitely do not have "meh" pay in "most
| municipalities".
| panzagl wrote:
| And let me guess, all teachers do is hand out worksheets
| for 6 hours a day and why do you always see 3
| constructions workers standing around a hole? But you-
| you cleared 1.5 story points today tying two Javascript
| libraries together, that's where the real value is.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Is "are we the baddies" really a reason? Because many
| other industries are having a shortage of workers right
| now.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Berlin certainly too
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| San Francisco, for one.
| mushbino wrote:
| They've never responded for things like this, be it now,
| pre-pandemic, or 20 years ago. It's never been an
| understaffing issue.
| flounder3 wrote:
| San Francisco. Los Angeles. Seattle. San Jose (albeit theft
| has never received attention in San Jose)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Portland, of course, definitely belongs on the list.
|
| I live in a small town outside of Portland and it's not
| bad, we haven't cut the funding for our police.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Well, San Francisco cut their police budget by $6m...
| From $668 million. And they increased funding to other
| parts of the justice apparatus. Like and increase to
| juvenile programs and the district attorney's office.
| You'll be hard pressed to find even the most liberal
| cities in America have actually cut police funding in any
| significant way.
| ornornor wrote:
| In North America. Not every major city in the whole developed
| world.
| entropie wrote:
| At least in most major city in Germany its the same.
|
| MY GF filed a public assault (very minor) case like a year
| ago and there is still no success yet all persons
| identities are known. Police is horrible understaffed.
| FredPret wrote:
| Refund the police!
| julienb_sea wrote:
| AirTags are so irritating. If you ever travel with a group its
| like daily notifications about someone's stalking you with their
| airpods and there isn't a way to permanently ignore a device.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Have certainly seen it happen with airpods. It's meant to not
| trigger if the owner is nearby but it seems this fails often
| with airpods while the airtags are good at not alerting you.
| endisneigh wrote:
| There's not really any way to make something that can reliably
| find your own stuff without also enabling stalking. Either you
| support the use case and the downsides or not
| babyshake wrote:
| If I wanted to make sure I knew about an AirTag attached to my
| vehicle, for example, is there something I can do or something I
| can put in the vehicle to detect it?
| jccooper wrote:
| An iPhone will eventually notify you about a tag that is
| following you. You can get a "Tracker Detect" Android app that
| will do a similar thing. There's also plenty of apps that'll
| just tell you all the NFC devices in your vicinity.
| tssva wrote:
| Apple's "Tracker Detect" app for Android will not
| automatically notify you about a tag that is following you as
| an iPhone will. Tracker Detect only supports manual scans for
| tags.
| paxys wrote:
| Your iPhone will notify you eventually. Or you can get a
| bluetooth signal tracking app and try and find it yourself.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| iPhones warn you if they think there is a "stalker" air tag,
| and you can get an app for Android.
| rlt wrote:
| I assume Apple only cares enough about the anti-stalking feature
| to avoid significant negative press.
|
| As others have pointed out, you can buy small GPS trackers
| without anti-stalking features already, and those will only get
| smaller / better battery life over time.
| nomel wrote:
| Or, perhaps Apple only cares about the anti-stalking feature up
| to the point where it makes the product impossible to
| implement, because both have the same use case (finding). There
| are many AirTags in my family, and I'm constantly hearing
| beeping and getting notifications that I'm being followed,
| because my wife is sitting next to me, with her purse on her
| lap, and her keys, and her wallet. And guess what, you can't
| "trust" someone else's AirTag. I can't permanently turn off the
| notifications, because stalkers would do that too. The amount
| of anti-stalking that's present is _so annoying_ as is that I
| 'm probably not going to be buying any more.
|
| In your opinion, what else _could_ Apple do here, assuming you
| 're familiar with the product?
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Anyone who would use these to stalk someone is an idiot. They're
| tied to your Apple ID. It's not at all anonymous. Apple warns
| people about the abuse.
|
| There's a million GPS trackers for sale online that are near
| anonymous. The AirTag is a horrible device used to stalk people.
| paxys wrote:
| It takes 10 seconds to create an Apple ID. How exactly can it
| be tied back to you?
|
| Every GPS tracker on the market needs a monthly subscription
| and your credit card info.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| It's perfect for stupid people, and there's enough of them...
| loceng wrote:
| Or to frame someone if you're wanting to paint them in a bad
| light, create suspicion; "I didn't put my AirTag on their
| car."
| post_break wrote:
| Have you seen anyone get busted by tying their Apple ID to a
| stalker? You can easily make a new Apple ID and fill it with
| fake data.
| up6w6 wrote:
| Or you can load your own firmware to any other embedded device
| with Bluetooth and also make it totally undetectable from iPhones
| by changing keys frequently and making it appear like multiple
| different AirTags.
|
| https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack/
| lgats wrote:
| Previously Discussed:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26342504
| Gigachad wrote:
| I think the cat was out of the bag in a way on this one. Apple
| put in a good effort to stop abuse but the technology is in
| people hands now.
| TSiege wrote:
| They in no way put in any effort to do this. They added the
| bare minimum that they were told at the outset was not
| enough.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/13/apple-
| air...
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