[HN Gopher] I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to wat...
___________________________________________________________________
I used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS tracker to watch my husband's
every move
Author : danso
Score : 141 points
Date : 2022-02-11 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Osiris wrote:
| My wife and I have Google maps location sharing turned on all the
| time. It's not stepping because we agreed to it. Last night I got
| home from a motorcycle ride and the garage door opened as I
| pulled up because my wife knew I was coming home from a movie and
| saw I was almost home.
| ei8htyfi5e wrote:
| We do the same.
|
| We realized we were calling each other too often asking where
| the other is and just decided to let tech solve the problem.
| Now I can push a button and see how far away from home she is.
|
| If I decide to do something sketchy, I can turn off location
| temporarily and just lie to her about what I was doing if she
| checks while I was crime-ing. Same as the pretech way. :-P
| password4321 wrote:
| Can anyone share how they do this self-hosted? I'd guess a
| custom protocol would be worse battery-wise, but I would be
| able to plug in while in the car.
| calculatte wrote:
| I use NextTracks/OwnTracks and a self-hosted MQTT server.
| It's great!
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| My wife and I do the same. She often has to drive long
| distances, at night, in the winter. It's a nice way for me to
| both see her progress and make sure she isn't stuck somewhere.
|
| I also struggle to send a "hey, I'm on my way message". My wife
| really appreciates being able to check on the map quickly.
| Osiris wrote:
| As a motorcycle rider I don't have access to my phone while
| riding so I actually prefer that she can just check on me. It
| also makes her feel better when she sees me moving and not
| stopped.
| kelnos wrote:
| I have friends who do this too, but it always just feels icky
| to me. Yes, I know that my mobile carrier knows more or less
| where I am at all times, and Google knows with even greater
| precision. But I don't want people I know, even my partner, to
| have that kind of access (and I don't want to be able to track
| my partner, either).
|
| Another poster mentioned their wife went to a doctor's
| appointment, but it was in the same building as a divorce
| lawyer. Having forgotten about the appointment, they panicked.
| That sort of thing tells me that this sort of thing isn't
| harmless, even if there's nothing nefarious going on. There are
| enough reasons in life for miscommunications and
| misunderstandings to pop up; adding extra ways for that to
| happen by accident is not something I'm interested in.
|
| I think targeted, time-limited, explicit sharing can be useful.
| I used to use Glympse sometimes, when I was on my way
| somewhere, to make it easy for other people I'd be meeting to
| know where I was and how long they'd expect to be waiting for
| me. That let me share with specific people, on demand, and only
| for a certain amount of time that I specify up-front. But
| blanket, always-on sharing? No thanks.
| Osiris wrote:
| > Another poster mentioned their wife went to a doctor's
| appointment, but it was in the same building as a divorce
| lawyer.
|
| This exact thing happened to me. However if your first
| thought is they are at the lawyer at not the hospital... You
| probably have some things to work out in your relationship
| anyway.
| operator-name wrote:
| I'm also quite liberal with sharing my location (via Google
| maps) when traveling to meet up with friends, but it's always
| been a huge battery drain. I can't imagine what it's like being
| on all the time!
| derimagia wrote:
| It's not a huge battery drain when I use it at all. Google
| already has a history of where you go so I don't even know
| why they would need more battery for it.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| When it comes to AirTags, what I care about is my use cases and
| if this tech is serving me well. I have one in my motorcycle,
| vespa and backpack. I've previously had a bike stolen and never
| recovered. My mom looses her keys so what often, so I got her one
| as well. These AirTags provide me with an affordable peace of
| mind that works better than my Tile ever did.
| mettamage wrote:
| Same, I was once drunk and I thought my backpack was stolen (it
| wasn't), because I didn't see it in the bar. It turned out it
| was in the car that was parked quite far away (15 min.). That
| saved a whooooollllleeeee load of anxiety.
|
| Recently I had to go at a moment's notice and needed my wallet.
| I couldn't find it, but I airtagged it, so I could. That saved
| an awful ton of stress, which helped me in keeping my head
| cool. The moment's notice was really stressful, searching my
| wallet for 5 to 10 minutes in a time-pressure sensitive task
| with stakes that are too high for my taste would only have
| compounded my stress.
|
| So in that sense, Apple is helping me preserve my sanity at
| moments where I could otherwise lose it. There only have been
| these two situations for it, but IMO that's worth it. I have
| one on my keys, my wallet and my backpack.
|
| And of course, I've used it dozens of times because I'm too
| lazy to go search them. That's just a convenience feature. The
| real reason I have them is to reduce stress.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| Not much to add to the conversation here except that I love my
| Airtag in my wallet. So many times I've lost it for days and
| sometimes weeks on end only to find it in the crack of my
| couch, behind the seat in the car, under a pile of paper etc.
| Not anymore! Works like a charm within seconds.
| coding123 wrote:
| So they can more than double detection if Apple opens a web
| service that lets you find out if you're recent coordinates were
| also tracked by giving such a service to Google. So instead of
| having your phone ping Apple, Google could do it for you and find
| out if you're being tracked.
| tinalumfoil wrote:
| I hate this AirTag because besides being pointless (nothing you
| couldn't do before), it fosters a fear of your neighbor while
| placing tech companies as your trusted friends. There's no
| evidence these, "people have freaked out after finding AirTags
| hidden in their bags and on their cars" are anything other than
| just stray airtags their owners would very much like back. Just
| because police (or journalists for that matter) are helping to
| foster this environment doesn't matter because most police are
| technologically illiterate and under-trained, and frankly don't
| know what they're doing.
|
| Google using hidden terms to track your every location is your
| enemy. Your wife leaving an AirTag in the car is not the enemy.
| You live in a tech dystopia, not a Liam Neeson film. Nobody is
| following is following you to QuickCheck to kidnap you.
|
| Also, AirTags suck. If you drop one in your friends car and drive
| around trying to find it you're now (1) effectively a stalker (2)
| won't find your AirTag if they have Android which kind of defeats
| the purpose, since these things are supposed to want to be found,
| and (3) correct me if I'm wrong, but even if someone finds your
| lost item and doesn't immediately send the police on you -- they
| have no way to contact you to setup a return of your lost item?
| You have to go through the police? Why would anyone want that?
|
| EDIT: Appearantly Apple says you can give it a message if lost of
| how to contact you, but no way to message without giving
| additional contact info, and only if you mark it as lost.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I disagree. I mean yeah, obviously mistakes are mistakes, but I
| doubt many people are seriously suspecting anything else than
| that.
|
| However, it seems unusual for people to be carrying around air
| tags in such a way that they are casually lost. I would guess
| mistakes aren't THAT common. I would guess domestic abuse is
| not an uncommon use case of these things. I would also guess
| that thieves do have an eye for it. You don't need to be Liam
| Neeson for someone to want to steal your shit. The alert that
| an air tag is following you mostly negates this.
|
| I do agree they don't seem to have much utility on their own
| dschep wrote:
| > won't find your AirTag if they have Android which kind of
| defeats the purpose
|
| While they're alone in a car, sure. But as soon as they're
| around folks with iPhones, they're tracked just fine and will
| never get the notifications the husband in the article got.
| etskinner wrote:
| https://archive.is/VGDKw
| McHankHenry wrote:
| Apple have reluctantly been in the surveilance industry for
| years, due the governments far-reaching and uncontestable court
| orders. Now it seems they've willingly jumped in with both feet.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I often wonder with USA whether TLA's have a bounty on certain
| tech, like implement a tracker we can piggyback on and we'll
| provide a $X00M bonus, implement an email parsing service,
| implement a street-facing webcam system, implement a household
| based microphone array with remote access, etc..
|
| They'd be state level equivalents to a parent slipping a
| tracker in a kids bag, or reading their messages, or whatever.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| This may sound nuts - but I don't want certain kinds of security.
|
| For example, I don't want my home in specific to be safe - I want
| my society to be safe. So I'm less interested in cameras/locks
| and more interested in social programs, education, and access to
| resources.
|
| As another example familiar to those who travel in wild places,
| there's not much value in trying to avoid getting robbed.
| Mitigate the losses with pragmatic decisions but by all means
| enjoy a great adventure. (Preventing violence is a different
| equation.) Being robbed might be scary - but there are much more
| important things worthy of attention in some of these places.
|
| Last example, closer to privacy -> One of the healthiest
| opportunities for humans is to get early morning light (it
| establishes endocrine function, literally curing depression) -
| for most people sacrificing this is not worth increased privacy
| in the form of closed blinds.
|
| Calculations of privacy and security are rarely intuitive. They
| inherently touch numerous webs of interconnection. And folks who
| use AirTags will find the same challenges and realize similar
| lessons.
| maccard wrote:
| > for most people sacrificing this is not worth increased
| privacy in the form of closed blinds.
|
| There is an assumption here that people wake after sunrise and
| that people go to bed after sunset. I live in Scotland where
| during winter it's dark at 4:30 pm and bright at 9am, and
| during summer it's mostly dark by midnight (we've technically
| had sundown but it doesn't dark dark) and bright at 4am.
|
| I sure as hell am not going to be a healthier person for being
| awake at 4am after having gone to bed at midnight
| pyman wrote:
| Paywall!!
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I understand the negative points about airtags, and one negative
| point I thought of but never see mentioned is the fact that all
| iphones are opted in by default to use battery life and data
| (however little) to operate the findmy network. In fact not many
| non-tech people realize that a) airtags work globally, not just
| near your iphone and b) relay data through any nearby iphone and
| not somehow directly to apple. People are usually blown away when
| I show them my map with a bunch things
|
| But as a forgetful person, I got a pack of four on the day they
| were released. I used one when shipping an important, time
| sensitive and expensive item to a client. It was a huge value
| compared to the usual tracking of packages. I could see exactly
| when it moved from customs to an airplane, and surprisingly the
| location even updated in flight! I used and am still using this
| data, many times to confirm when the item was actually on the way
| or not, and if related travel and work can be done or not. It's
| saved thousands of dollars.
|
| Another time, I was just about to board a train from Paris to
| Luxembourg when my iphone notified me that I left my bag behind
| (at a cafe in the station). I bought 8 more after that and put
| them in anything of value I have the experience to leave behind
| somewhere. Bags, ski boots, glasses case, inside the ear cup of
| my good headphones. Come to think of it, I should put one in my
| work notebook. Early in my career I had a work trip to sketch all
| of the dimensions of some heavy machinery so I could automate it
| (replace actuators and control them with an added PLC). I lost
| the notebook and had to go back, which was probably a $20k
| mistake in travel costs + not working on other projects.
| kemayo wrote:
| It's difficult, because the very thing that make AirTags
| specifically so useful for legitimate purposes -- the vast
| network they participate in, and the ease of use -- is also
| what makes them particularly usable for shady things.
|
| I mostly accept it because I'm aware of how trivial it is to
| get a cheap GPS+SIM tracker that's even better for nefarious
| purposes, so worrying about AirTags seems a bit overblown.
| privacyking wrote:
| G
| privacyking wrote:
| G
| somethoughts wrote:
| Yes it seems like Apple should be able to limit the Airtags to
| just the bluetooth of the owner and then mark the GPS location
| of the last known connection.
|
| If more people knew about the piggybacking feature of Airtags,
| I think few would opt in.
| r00fus wrote:
| > I used one when shipping an important, time sensitive and
| expensive item to a client. It was a huge value compared to the
| usual tracking of packages.
|
| Imagine this included as part of shipping. Vendor puts an
| airtag (or equivalent commercial item) and once you receive,
| you "turn off" this tracking device (with a code or NFC)
| confirming receipt of the package, either disabling the device
| or enabling it for another (return?) shipping request.
|
| Ideally, eventually legislation will exist to constrain the
| capabilities of such trackers. With the current state of
| Congress I'm not sure this will happen at a federal level in
| the US.
| shmatt wrote:
| I have to guess some of these "bugs" have to do with the writer
| and her husband sharing an Apple family. When AirTag just
| started, my S.O would get alerts when we walked together, that my
| AirPods are following them. Well yeah, we were doing errands
| together and the AirPods were in my pocket.
|
| These days it doesn't happen, I have to assume having a AirTag
| from your own defined family "track" you is not considered alert
| worthy anymore, at least not for the first few hours. Or somehow
| this bug still randomly pops up, but not right away
| danso wrote:
| Non-paywall:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/technology/airtags-gps-su...
| ameminator wrote:
| Btw, thanks for posting these types of links - it's
| appreciated.
| [deleted]
| dangoor wrote:
| Regarding her husband not being able to find the Airtag, Apple's
| announcement this week of planned improvements[1] also include
| the ability for recent-model iPhones to be able to do precision
| tracking of unknown Airtags, just as they can when looking for
| known Airtags.
|
| I've personally come around to the idea that Airtags are a
| product that shouldn't exist, but at least Apple is making an
| effort to make these less attractive to stalkers.
|
| [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/02/10/airtag-updates-
| unwanted...
| caffeine wrote:
| The only clear conclusion to be drawn from this is - never marry
| the author of this piece!
| bhelkey wrote:
| This is extremely uncharitable. It was buried, but the husband
| consented to this.
|
| > "You can do it," [The author's husband] said. "But it'll be
| boring. We're in a pandemic. I never go anywhere."
| rjsw wrote:
| Next week, an article written by the husband on how to get a
| patio really flat in your garden.
| rustybolt wrote:
| > All these people received warnings on their iPhones, a feature
| Apple had built into the AirTag system to help prevent unwanted
| tracking.
|
| So if you don't have an iPhone, enjoy being stalked!
| boopmaster wrote:
| I stalk iPhone users with Tiles
| lostlogin wrote:
| No you don't. Their CEO is here saying that doesn't happen.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30305461
| jeromegv wrote:
| What are your plans regarding Tile and GPS trackers that
| provide no warnings? What was your opinion on it before the
| current hysteria, did that bother you?
| rustybolt wrote:
| I don't know, I never thought about them before the AirTags
| were widely used, so I never really formed an opinion on
| them.
|
| It just seems strangle that a safety measures is only made
| available for iPhone users.
| alistairSH wrote:
| And, if I'm reading the documentation correctly, for the only use
| case I personally care about (theft recovery for expensive
| bicycles), it's useless because the thief can utilize the anti-
| stalk features to locate/disable the tag?
| Zigurd wrote:
| It would make a good decoy: "Ah! I found the airtag under the
| saddle!"
| [deleted]
| bigyellow wrote:
| bla3 wrote:
| One way to look at this is that Apple is democratizing
| surveillance capitalism. Is that good? Bad?
|
| Seems a bit at odds with their pro-privacy marketing though,
| which might be why they get so much flak for something presumably
| fairly minor.
| crhulls wrote:
| Hi All, I'm the cofounder and CEO of Life360, which is the
| relatively new owner of Tile. Stalking hasn't been much of an
| issue for us, but we are in the process expanding the finding
| network via our 35 million+ active user base (will require opt-in
| consent) and we also do offer a location device for kids and pets
| (Jiobit) that has its own cell connection which is actually meant
| for finding people in real-time.
|
| We have a number of initiatives in the works to help allay
| concerns. I would be curious if the community here has any
| suggestions. I know our very existence is controversial - so
| please be kind - I'm here to listen.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I am a mostly happy user of Life360, not currently paying (but
| I have in the past). I would be more likely to pay real money
| for the service if it came with a contractual guarantee that by
| paying for it, my data would _never_ get sold. Not even in
| aggregate, 'anonymized'. I like the service, I'm willing to be
| a customer, but I hate the privacy leak.
| crhulls wrote:
| We are now on record that data from Tile and Jiobit will
| NEVER be sold. Period. Some of the other stuff on our data
| practices were highly sensationalized, and we have a privacy
| center that allows any user - free or paid - to opt in/out of
| any portion of our platform they don't like, even ads within
| the system. So this is something you absolutely don't need to
| worry about.
| nostromo wrote:
| Consider just using AirTags then if you can. It's built such
| that Apple can't even read the location data, and it's a
| onetime cost. The value prop is much nicer for someone that
| cares about privacy.
| crhulls wrote:
| It is a much longer topic but there is some irony that
| privacy allows Apple and other giant platforms full use of
| 1st party data however they want. If we are worried about
| the hive mind (I am personally not) the attention needs to
| be on the big news and social media networks.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I have a slightly unrelated question about Life360.
|
| When Life360 sold Couple in 2016, did it sell all the data that
| users had stored up to that point as well? As best I can tell
| it was announced via tweet and sold to what looked like a
| 1-person dev shop.
|
| Myself and a number of others who used to use the app have
| often wondered this[1]. If I'm incorrect on anything in this
| article I would be happy to edit it, but I'd really like to
| know.
|
| https://rymc.io/blog/2019/decoupling/
| xeromal wrote:
| Another couple user in the wild. My girl and I used that for
| SO long! It's sad to see it gone. I stole the cute little dog
| and beaver emojis before it went offline and incorporated
| them into whatsapp.
| crhulls wrote:
| We sold the app in its entirety, which did include data, to a
| startup run by a former employee. It didn't really get going
| and the servers are all wound down, so I assume the data is
| gone into the ether for good (I am 90% confident on this last
| point - I will confirm).
| Klonoar wrote:
| The confirmation would be greatly appreciated. :)
|
| Would you also be comfortable with me linking to this
| discussion/comment on that post as a 2022 edit? I still get
| people emailing me asking if anything was ever determined
| on it.
| crhulls wrote:
| sure - do you want to send me an email at chris at
| life360 .com and I'll follow up with you there?
| dstaley wrote:
| Hello, Tile owner here! I have a Tile on my house keys and my
| wallet, which are the two devices I misplace the most often.
| They've saved me countless times, primarily helping me find
| them when I leave them in my car, or put them someone in my
| house that they aren't supposed to be.
|
| I'm most excited for the upcoming UWB tracker, and especially
| for the work that Google and Tile are apparently doing to
| ensure devices with UWB support are all compatible. I was
| wondering if you could give a quick update on the status of UWB
| tracking on Android? As far as I know, there's only two devices
| that support it (Samsung's S21 Ultra and S22 Ultra), but it
| hasn't been confirmed whether Tile's UWB tracker is compatible.
| As mentioned in the article, BLE tracking isn't as accurate as
| UWB, so I assume that UWB support would be necessary for most
| of these tracking concerns to materialize with Tile's trackers.
| crhulls wrote:
| Glad we have you as a customer. UWB is coming - I imagine
| there will be compatibility and chipset issues in the short
| run, in particular on Android, but over the long run it will
| be a game changer. I'm a couple degrees removed from this
| part of the business so sorry about the vague answer.
|
| One thing to note - UWB is very short range now. Even now
| AirTags and Tile are primarily BLE. Upcoming chips and
| standards updates will be dramatically increasing range. I
| think that is when the magic happens.
| CharlesW wrote:
| It's interesting that you decided to appear here in an effort
| to position Life360 as a more-private alternative to Apple
| solutions.
|
| _" We see data as an important part of our business model that
| allows us to keep the core Life360 services free for the
| majority of our users, including features that have improved
| driver safety and saved numerous lives."_ -- You
|
| _" In 2020, the company made $16 million--nearly 20 percent of
| its revenue that year--from selling location data, plus an
| additional $6 million from its partnership with Arity."_ -- The
| Markup
|
| https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-...
|
| This is the part where you respond how you're sharing
| surveillance data to the CDC for people's own good, and that
| you've stopped selling "precise location data".
| crhulls wrote:
| I was a bit worried about posting here because I had a
| suspicion I would get comments like this which assume I'm
| here on a PR pitch and clearly come at me with assumptions of
| negative intent.
|
| I'll make a few points:
|
| 1) Stalking is completely different than a data platform used
| for targeted advertising and research.
|
| 2) Good minds can disagree on how user data should be used.
| We decided to shut down our data business because it wasn't
| worth the distraction - we have over $200m of revenue and it
| is not core to our business so we decided to move on. It
| should be noted we have always been extremely transparent
| with our customer and allowed anyone, whether a free or
| paying user, to have fine grain control over how we use data.
|
| 3) I am not positioning us as a more-private alternative to
| Apple. If this is a real problem that is emerging, I'd like
| to understand how we can address it. There are a lot of smart
| minds here.
|
| 4) Our user base is largely middle American moms - this is
| not the place we go to do PR!
| latchkey wrote:
| > _Stalking hasn 't been much of an issue for us_
|
| How would you know?
| crhulls wrote:
| We get I think something on the order of 10,000 customer
| service tickets a week, and we regularly get subpoenas. We've
| heard almost every story you can think of. Although we are
| getting inquiries with this recent press, in terms of actual
| reports of stalking via our devices it is essentially zero.
|
| AirTags has a much broader network than us as of now. Part of
| why we bought Tile is because we can expand their network. We
| aren't as big as Apple but we have about 10% of devices so it
| will get us way up the S curve.
|
| So I could see it becoming more of an issue, which is why I'm
| looking for ideas. One thought would be to rate limit updates
| - at some frequency you get 90% of the benefit for lost items
| (since they don't move unless it was lost on say a train) but
| it dramatically hampers more nefarious use cases. That is
| just one thought. Or perhaps requiring ID verification and
| registering each device to a real human.
| hedgehog wrote:
| I think your best bet is to fund a study group to do an
| independent public report on the risks around these
| products and recommendations for mitigating them. Put
| domestic abuse survivors, parents, infosec people, lawyers,
| etc on there. Stakeholders and people good at reasoning
| about risk. You might not like all of the conclusions but
| to the extent you adopt them it will give you the most
| credit for having done the right things.
| chaircher wrote:
| What do you mean by "actual stalking report"?
|
| ID verification is the way to go IMO. So much stalking
| isn't like in movies, it's just seemingly normal people
| seeing how far they can push things and get away with it.
| And potentially some way to get people to register what
| it's being used for, as well as a way to register it
| missing. That would be very useful in a stalking case to
| cross-reference with how a the alledged stalker claims the
| tracker ended up in someone's bag/car/etc and could
| potentially be the break through that gets the conviction
| crhulls wrote:
| I mean that we do know what it is like when users are
| stalked with our product - we've heard all sorts of crazy
| stories over the years about our app being used for
| stalking - it sucks when we hear it and we help with law
| enforcement. This just hasn't been a thing for Tile (yet
| anyway - probably due to the much less dense network).
|
| I think we will end up with ID verification - I bet Apple
| could do that too. Then you'd be risking a felony if you
| use the product illegally.
| latchkey wrote:
| > in terms of actual reports of stalking via our devices
| it is essentially zero
|
| I'm confused, now you're admitting that stalking is an
| active part of the product and this has gone on for
| years.
| crhulls wrote:
| We learned early on that people would very very
| occasionally use our APP for stalking .000001% of the
| time. That was easy to fix - we send regular push
| notifications, we let you know when someone is added to
| your group, we participate in subpoena's from law
| enforcement etc. We have had over 100 million downloads
| so we have heard it all, it is just the law of large
| numbers.
|
| I'm talking about Tile devices - that is where we've yet
| to see anything concrete, and as mentioned we don't yet
| have a network that rivals AirTags. But we want to get
| ahead of it.
| latchkey wrote:
| Thanks for the response. Thinking this through a bit more
| from a use case perspective:
|
| 1. If I was stalked by someone using your product, would I
| contact your customer support?
|
| 2. If I was doing the stalking, would I contact your
| customer support?
|
| Pretty sure the answer would be no in both cases. In 1), I
| wouldn't necessarily even know it is your product. In 2),
| what am I going to say to customer support? "I'm trying to
| stalk my husband and your product isn't working well."?
|
| Subpoenas _might_ reveal a percentage of stalking
| activities, but if the OPs post is true, then I don 't even
| think police would be involved here.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Someone else in another thread has a really good idea: tell
| people how often someone checks in on them (for location
| sharing info).
|
| > I don't claim that there are simple solutions here, but a
| starting point would be tech companies making it easier to see
| an audit of how this "innocent" tracking tech is being used on
| the trackee. For example, I bet my grandpa would think twice
| about checking in on my cousins location as often as he
| probably does if he knew that my cousin got a notification
| every time he checked in.
|
| Doesn't solve the Tile problem, of course. A solution there
| might be counter-intuitive: make the battery worse. Its a lot
| harder to stalk someone if you need to re-seed a device every
| few days. Of course, i can barely remember to charge my phone,
| nevermind keys, so that might kill tile's utility all together.
|
| Or, maybe you could have some sort of "did someone else's tile
| follow me home" sort of feature. You set your home location,
| and if any tile that isn't yours is at home, you get notified.
| (unless the owner is with it, or you white-list one for eg.
| partner's, children, etc). This tells you if someone planted
| you with it to stalk (you'd have to have tile app even if you
| don't have one i guess). Don't tiles support findmy? That means
| that any apple device will already warn people, so you just
| need to cover android users. Maybe the alexa/sidewalk
| partnership can impl similar features for when you come home?
| Maybe partner with google for built-in tracking warning
| standards? If they're open to it.
|
| I think > half the use of tile is "ring my X at home" where x
| is probably mostly keys, or "did i leave X at Y place". Based
| on this, you might be able to not track tiles everywhere, but
| just at pre-set locations. Only if you set it to a "lost mode"
| can you track it everywhere outside of certain pre-set
| locations, but then it'll beep and have annoying antistalking
| features like airtags - where you notify people nearby. Maybe
| orphaned tiles could try to collect to random bluetooth devices
| after a period of time to make their presence known? It would
| help people who didnt set up an app to listen ahead of time.
| That could be annoying though if the balance isn't right. Can
| probs still be abused, but should make it a complex task, and
| you can never stop everyone anyways.
|
| ----
|
| aside, I'm surprised tile never tried to build any static infra
| in major urban areas to supplement their phone-based network
| (which seemed lacking when i used it compared to airtags). Do
| you see the use of Alexa/Sidewalk as a significant boost or
| advantage? Have you considered things like LoRaWAN based
| networks (thing network etc) as a supplement? A lot of that is
| built in major areas, and would just need a mapping step which
| may be able to be collected by existing users phones+tags in
| day to day use.
|
| --
|
| Aside again: this seems like a fun problem to work on, are you
| hiring?
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Whenever I open the front door my cat tries to zip out and run
| away.
|
| He doesn't go far, and generally stops running from me after a
| few meters and gives up. But I am concerned what might happen if
| he's away a few hours before I discover.
|
| So I put an airtag on his collar. It's already paid off once when
| I found the front door open I just looked up where he was and
| went and got him.
| [deleted]
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I opened an app linked to the most precise tracker in my
| arsenal, the $30 LandAirSea device. To activate it costs extra,
| because it needs a cellular plan to ping global positioning
| satellites._
|
| I feel like someone who writes about privacy and surveillance
| should at least know how GPS works... nothing "pings" a GPS
| satellite here. GPS signals are constantly being broadcast to the
| ground for anyone to receive. The cellular plan is so the device
| can phone home to tell an online service what the device's
| position is, after determining it from the (free to use, open
| air) GPS broadcasts.
| ezfe wrote:
| does this distinction matter _at all, in any way_ to the point
| they were trying to get across?
| kelnos wrote:
| If someone is going to write an article about tracking and
| surveillance, to me it reduces their credibility if they
| don't understand something very basic about how GPS works. It
| makes me wonder what else they got wrong in the article, and
| whether or not I should trust their overall conclusions.
|
| This might not matter to you, and that's fine; it does matter
| to me.
| xeromal wrote:
| But she's not giving a technical analysis of GPS. She's a
| wife tracking her husband. For that scenario, her
| understanding is good enough.
| greatjack613 wrote:
| https://webreader.app/?url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/1...
| parasense wrote:
| I cannot see the content, paywall. Not even with incognito mode.
|
| What is the gist of the article?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Quote: "I realize I sound like the worst wife ever, so let me
| explain. It was for journalism.".
| bitminers wrote:
| I didn't find any analysis here of what these companies are doing
| with all this location data they are collecting. The consumer
| gets some detail of single devices which they can see on a
| screen, but the mother ship is collecting a ton of detailed
| location data from every device that they can run through their
| advanced computing to refine into predictive products or
| advertising. This is the bigger story to me.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I often peek at my wife when she's coming home from work via our
| car's app. She knows I do this. (When my kids are with me they
| love watching the car move on the map. I hope she peeks at me
| when she's with the kids and I have the car.)
|
| What made it funny one time was when I was between jobs, and she
| went to her gynecologist after work. Even though she told me, I
| forgot, and the map only showed that there was a divorce lawyer's
| office in the parking lot. I really needed a hug when she walked
| in the door.
| supergeek wrote:
| Yeah, it's been very surprising as a Tesla owner to learn that
| there's no way to opt-out of this tracking in the car. Your
| location is always relayed to the app, and your only option is
| to log out of your account in the car, which still relays the
| data to Tesla for the super paranoid.
| KyleJune wrote:
| Only people with access to your Tesla account can access
| location information. The information is limited, you just
| see where the vehicle is at live, not a history of where it
| has been. You can opt out of people being able to check your
| location via the app. You can just go to the Safety &
| Security settings on the display in your car and turn off
| Mobile Access.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Even though she told me, I forgot, and the map only showed
| that there was a divorce lawyer 's office in the parking lot. I
| really needed a hug when she walked in the door._
|
| A fine example of why pervasive tracking is terrible for
| relationships. I'm assuming based on your tone that you were
| calm and collected and didn't fly off the handle with
| accusations when she got home. But I think there are many
| people who would give into their insecurities (we all have
| them) and create a big mess with this sort of knowledge. The
| "accidental" nature of it just makes it worse.
|
| I'm getting a new car soon, and I'm weighing losing the utility
| of the things in the app vs. my desire not to be tracked. It's
| really annoying that I have to make that trade off.
| xtracto wrote:
| Stanley Kubrick put it very well in Eyes Wide Shut. A person
| can let his imagination fly so wildly when he is fixated in
| one issue.
| nomel wrote:
| > A fine example of why pervasive tracking is terrible for
| relationships.
|
| Seems like an example of a relationship that's lacking a good
| connection and understanding, if someone thinks the other is
| going to swing by to get a divorce. Tracking didn't cause
| that, and lack of tracking wouldn't fix it.
| maeln wrote:
| I think it is important to mention that clever people already
| managed to reverse engineer the Apple "Find My" network/protocol
| to "make tour own airtag" : https://github.com/seemoo-
| lab/openhaystack
|
| This notably allow one to easily create a tracker that is silent
| and potentially smaller than an AirTag. Also easier to hid in a
| daily object since all you need is basically a nRF51822 and a
| battery.
|
| People who don't own an iPhone, or in general a _recent_ iPhone
| might be tracked without their knowledge (and, obviously, their
| consent).
|
| The potential of misuse of this kind of tool is so great, we
| should really regulate against those.
| operator-name wrote:
| Wow, this is wonderful and scary at the same time. We as a
| society really are pushing the boundaries of privacy.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| OH, I remember this person's story about setting up way-too-much
| smart tech in their house. Her whole shtick is this kind of IT
| HAPPENED TO ME weird quasi-alarmist immersive reporting, and I
| imagine it's incredibly tedious in real life. It definitely is on
| the page.
|
| I closed the tab once I realized it was the same person.
| ameminator wrote:
| Look, I usually try to be charitable. However, this article
| offered no new insight on Apple Airtags. If you don't want to
| waste your time, allow me to summarize:
|
| Woman puts Airtags in a car. Her husband isn't able to find them,
| even using Apple's "anti-stalk" features. Ergo, Apple needs to do
| more.
|
| I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags? I
| don't think anyone can conclude either way on the effectiveness
| of Apple's "safety measures" when it comes to Airtags, from this
| small anecdote.
|
| In my mind, the article buries the Lede on the _real_ discussion
| - should Apple be doing these measures at all? I find _that_
| issue far from settled when this article takes it for granted
| that not only should Apple take these safety measures, they
| should do more!
|
| The author also seems to be somewhat deceptive - "I sound like a
| terrible wife, but it's for journalism!" No, it seems like the
| author played a prank on her husband a while back and used that
| to neuroticaly follow him, then tried to excuse that behavior by
| writing this fluff piece.
|
| Anyways, I do think there is interesting discussion to be had
| about Airtags and if/what Apple should be doing to prevent
| unwanted tracking. However, this article didn't have that
| discussion or contribute to it in a meaningful way.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| > I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags? I
| don't think anyone can conclude either way on the effectiveness
| of Apple's "safety measures" when it comes to Airtags, from
| this small anecdote.
|
| While I understand where you're coming from, I think there's
| value in adding to the chorus when it comes to putting pressure
| on a company to rethink a strategy.
|
| Certainly, while articles such as this may not be news to you
| or I, they are likely to be news to a number of people on HN,
| their friends & family, etc.
|
| > The author also seems to be somewhat deceptive - "I sound
| like a terrible wife, but it's for journalism!" No, it seems
| like the author played a prank on her husband a while back and
| used that to neuroticaly follow him, then tried to excuse that
| behavior by writing this fluff piece.
|
| This point misses the mark IMO. The issue with AirTags at their
| core is that they permit people who are deceptive and shady to
| do bad things much easier than they could before.
|
| I think the cat's out of the bag now on this type of tech
| though. Tile's been around for a while, AirTags are now
| everywhere, the goal now should be developing detection systems
| (which shouldn't be too hard).
| xoa wrote:
| > _The issue with AirTags at their core is that they permit
| people who are deceptive and shady to do bad things much
| easier than they could before._
|
| But that's just not true. Seriously, right now, go to Amazon
| and type in "GPS Tracker" and look at the results:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gps+tracker
|
| Literally $30 gets you a 1oz cellular magnetized tracker you
| put a SIM into for real time tracking anywhere with cell
| coverage _with_ voice monitoring included! Literally for
| tracking and they proudly advertise it. No warnings or nags
| about "a device is following you", no noises. Comes with
| Prime shipping, get it as soon as Sunday February 13!
|
| Apple being Apple may well have brought more publicity to the
| issue but no, AirTags do not do what you say they do. If
| anything there are reasonable arguments that Apple has been
| _too_ careful to the extent of making them pretty irritating
| in family /friends usage where everyone gets nagged for
| normal shared item activity and cannot use them in a shared
| way (despite being able to do so for devices!).
| BeefWellington wrote:
| > Apple being Apple may well have brought more publicity to
| the issue but no, AirTags do not do what you say they do.
| If anything there are reasonable arguments that Apple has
| been too careful to the extent of making them pretty
| irritating in family/friends usage where everyone gets
| nagged for normal shared item activity and cannot use them
| in a shared way (despite being able to do so for devices!).
|
| Bringing more attention and publicity to it, and claiming
| to have actually solved the privacy problems when in fact
| they haven't has actually made it easier for stalkers. The
| proof is in the pudding: Similarly google search guides on
| disabling the speaker on AirTags, you'll find hundreds just
| for the one product. Likewise, compare sales of AirTags to
| the GPS Trackers on Amazon.
|
| Whenever a big trusted company makes a product more
| accessible to the average person, they're making it easier
| as a whole.
|
| Even in a strict technical sense, having it visible in the
| Find My App that people already are familiar with and use
| to locate their airpods, apple watches, etc., that alone
| gives the infrastructure benefit to make it simpler.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Likewise, compare sales of AirTags to the GPS Trackers
| on Amazon.
|
| You know one has a convenience factor to it, right? And
| it's a known brand and has an ecosystem built up around
| it... These misc trackers on Amazon don't have that...
| why would you ever consider comparing the sales as an
| argument?
| BeefWellington wrote:
| This is _exactly the point I am making_ -- Apple has made
| it _EASIER_ -- which xoa was arguing against.
| oneplane wrote:
| It always was this easy. Apple has't made it easier
| because it has built-in anti-stalking which you cannot
| disable. You can tamper with the speaker, but not with
| the BTLE or UWB radios (well, you technically can but at
| that point you can't use them to track anything either).
|
| The only thing you could theoretically attribute to Apple
| is that it is now much more known that this can happen.
| That is both good (you can now look for it) and bad (dumb
| people will try to use this to stalk/steal, not realising
| that they are tied to their AppleID, and thus to their
| SIM, IMEI, MAC, and device serial number and thus to
| them).
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| I am with you on this, there were and are a lot of tracking
| alternatives. The issue is more that now, since Apple
| released AirTags, everyone just got aware of it. While
| previously one had to search for a solution how to track
| someone, now we have streamlined mainstream product with
| great usability for the purpose. Which is still a net
| negative for a society, and it's Apple's fault for
| popularizing such behaviour.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I actually agree with you, but Tile is a better example, I
| think.
|
| Because needing to also get a working SIM card is a pretty
| substantial "oh, you'll also need..."
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| Is it hard to buy a SIM card in much of the world? I can
| walk into one or about ten shops within 5km of here and
| buy one instantly. I think the price is 'free' but you
| pay something like EUR 10 to have credit on it. If you
| want to be anonymous, you can wear a hood and a mask and
| pay with cash.
| kelnos wrote:
| In the US, it's very unusual to buy a SIM card outside of
| purchasing a phone and phone plan. And while we do have
| prepaid options, they're much less commonly used than in
| other countries.
|
| At a quick glance, the cheapest T-Mobile plan is $60/mo,
| or $45/mo if you're adding a second line to an existing
| plan.
|
| You can also get a SIM card intended for IoT usage, but
| this is probably not something your average non-technical
| person would know how to do. I also expect that most
| Americans are unfamiliar with buying a SIM card in a way
| that is not direct from a mobile carrier.
| samatman wrote:
| > _In the US, it 's very unusual to buy a SIM card
| outside of_
|
| In your circles.
|
| There are entire industries which rely on 'burners',
| wisely or not, for various logistics tasks involved in
| deriving tax free income from controlled substances.
|
| Buying a SIM card with cash is as easy as wanting to and
| doing some searching, or just driving around and looking
| for dollar stores: the phone provider you want is in the
| same parking lot.
| selectodude wrote:
| T-Mobile will give you unlimited talk and text + 2.5GB of
| data for $15/mo.
|
| https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/plan-detail/t-mobile-connect
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I could drive to walmart (most large stores, really) and
| buy 20 sims from various prepaid providers. Most people
| may not do this, but it is certainly a viable option for
| such a device.
| adolph wrote:
| > get a working SIM card is a pretty substantial
| Best Seller in Cell Phone SIM Cards SpeedTalk
| Mobile $5 Prepaid GSM Sim Card for GPS Tracking Pet
| Senior Kid Child Car Smart Watch Devices Locators 30-Day
| Wireless Service 3 4 out of 5 stars 8,954
| $5.00 Today 2 PM - 6 PM
| jtbayly wrote:
| I would have thought I had to go to a phone store. Thx.
| Interesting.
| adolph wrote:
| A totally anonymous phone card would be a bit tougher. My
| guess is that the proliferation of iot devices like CPAPs
| using mobile data plan means that one could be stolen or
| dumpster-found without someone knowing the chip needs to
| be deactivated.
| oneplane wrote:
| > A totally anonymous phone card would be a bit tougher
| Depends on where you buy them. The internet is big and
| you can have stuff delivered anywhere, including
| somewhere that doesn't have your name or address.
| jtbayly wrote:
| But hard to pay without your name, right?
| eddieroger wrote:
| >> The author also seems to be somewhat deceptive - "I sound
| like a terrible wife, but it's for journalism!" No, it seems
| like the author played a prank on her husband a while back
| and used that to neuroticaly follow him, then tried to excuse
| that behavior by writing this fluff piece.
|
| You need to read more of the article.
|
| > Some states, including New York, where we live, have laws
| criminalizing this sort of thing. Not wanting to break the
| law, or my husband's trust, I had asked him for permission.
|
| It may be fluff, but it wasn't deceptive.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I think you replied a level too low.
| eddieroger wrote:
| Whoops. So it goes.
| iszomer wrote:
| If I had a pessimistic-comedic attitude towards titles of
| articles, it would read like this: "So you like putting a
| leash on your husband? Kinky."
| kelnos wrote:
| > _No, it seems like the author played a prank on her husband a
| while back and used that to neuroticaly follow him, then tried
| to excuse that behavior by writing this fluff piece._
|
| She planted the tracking devices on him with his permission,
| after discussing with him that she wanted to write a piece on
| the experience. This information is right in the article.
| bberenberg wrote:
| I found the key quote to be
|
| "My husband, of course, had agreed to this in principle, but
| didn't realize just how many devices I had planted on him. Of
| the seven trackers, he found only two: a Tile he felt in the
| breast pocket of his coat and an AirTag in his backpack when he
| was looking for something else. "It is impossible to find a
| device that makes no noise and gives no warning," he said, when
| I showed him the ones he missed."
|
| which I read as "Apple needs to improve, but still drastically
| better than everything else out there"
|
| I am not in the market for AirTags, but if you are completely
| scatterbrained and this provides you a helpful way to manage
| your stuff, AirTags seem to be least bad way of doing this.
| ameminator wrote:
| I actually tend to agree somewhat with your arguments.
| However, from the article, I don't think you can reach those
| conclusions like:
|
| "Apple needs to improve, but still drastically better than
| everything else out there"
|
| Where does the article talk about this _class_ of device?
| Nowhere is a competing product mentioned or compared against.
| Even a Bluetooth keyfob, used to track keys by emitting a
| sound (and widely available) could have been used there.
|
| I _like_ and agree with what you said, I just don 't think
| the article makes those points, to its detriment.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah Tile even has the same network tracking effects that
| extend widely beyond bluetooth range. They've done this for
| a decade at this point, IIRC.
| smilespray wrote:
| Too bad Tile's network tracking is useless in most areas
| since an app install is required to be part of the
| network.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| If you live in a moderately sized city it's good enough
| to track someone to their house. I did it with a backpack
| thief 5 years ago.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I mean for personal use, airtags seem all right. But it's the
| ones that don't come with a warning that they're around that
| worry me.
|
| I mean if you're paranoid, I'm sure there's detectors that
| can find bluetooth signals and whichever other technologies
| they use (I'm fairly sure GPS is passive, that is, they only
| need to receive satellite signals, not send anything).
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Download the nRFConnect app and you'll probably be amazed
| at the number of BLE devices that are around you all the
| time.
|
| Anecdote: I used to work for a company that did a lot of
| wireless wearable stuff and early on in COVID lockdown I
| had a Linux tool: bluetoothctl, running while I was testing
| some code down in the basement of my house. The first
| indication I had that my wife was home was the appearance
| of a Fitbit device in the scan, followed by a couple of
| unknown phones as she and a friend walked up to the house.
|
| Not unexpected, but it was that sudden appearance of
| devices (I live far outside the city) that really drove
| home how much data we're throwing off all the time without
| thinking about it.
| shantara wrote:
| Wow, I was indeed amazed. I live in an apartment
| building, and I could immediately see more than a hundred
| devices! The list has everything: from headphones and
| smart watches to light bulbs and TVs.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Now don't be tempted to send random data to those light
| bulbs :-)
| nostromo wrote:
| Yes, this isn't good journalism.
|
| "I drove over my husband with an F150 for journalism. Ford
| clearly needs to do more."
| lemmsjid wrote:
| The average NYT Reader knows what an F150 would do if driven
| over a husband. Presumably, the average NYT Reader does not
| know about the capabilities of tracking devices or the
| ramifications of stashing them on a husband's person. I
| personally kind of knew about Airtags and knew nothing about
| Tiles until a fairly recent Hacker News post, and it was news
| to me how Airtags used surrounding devices for locational
| info.
|
| Furthermore, there's a place for journalism that grounds a
| hypothetical experience in descriptive prose / photography in
| order to transform abstract facts to something closer to
| lived experience. In that aforementioned HN post I learned
| about using those devices for stalking as a hypothetical, but
| this article's actual photographs did make me uncomfortable
| and drove home the ramifications.
| major505 wrote:
| The fact that she was to tired to take a baby to the hospital,
| but not to follow husband every step is what concerns me.
| ppseafield wrote:
| My impression was that she was both a) already up with the
| baby all night, and b) was too tired to drive 30 minutes to
| the nearest hospital with their baby. The article didn't say
| if the husband was also up with the baby all night. While
| tired I'd be wary of drifting off while driving with my
| newborn in the car.
| dekhn wrote:
| baby-hospital visits are brutal. It's about 8 hours of
| waiting (usually in the middle of the night) with a screaming
| child while staff ignores you and then finally says there
| isn't a problem.
|
| Recently during a bout of covid my son's tongue was blue and
| he couldn't figure out what was up. My wife wanted to the go
| to ER, the doctor said to go to the ER. I said, "no, there's
| another explanation for this and nobody is losing a night of
| sleep over this". The next day we noticed the blue tongue
| happened after taking some blue-colored vitamin gummies.
| secabeen wrote:
| > baby-hospital visits are brutal. It's about 8 hours of
| waiting (usually in the middle of the night) with a
| screaming child while staff ignores you and then finally
| says there isn't a problem.
|
| Add to that that depending on your health-care plan, it
| could cost you thousands of dollars!
| dekhn wrote:
| Personally, I could care less about the cost (but it does
| bother me). IO should have mentioned above that in nearly
| all cases, urgent care is more appropriate (my provider
| has one open during daytime hours).
| ajford wrote:
| Also depends on your insurance provider (at least in the
| US). Previous insurance I had wouldn't cover urgent care
| clinics, but would cover ERs. Stupid beyond belief, but
| it was a small company so I guess there were compromises
| on the plan. Luckily I no longer have that plan and have
| a much more sensible and comprehensive plan.
| ajford wrote:
| Taking a child to the hospital, in particular a
| toddler/infant, is extremely stressful. If one is already
| tired from caring for that child all night, I'd completely
| understand asking the other parent to take the child. In
| fact, I have done so personally, though having two children
| meant it also made more sense for one of us to stay home with
| the other child instead of towing a second (healthy) child
| through the hospital as well.
|
| Also, this is an opinion/editorial piece, so whether the
| author watched their spouse the entire time or if the author
| pieced the evening together after the fact while writing this
| article is up for speculation.
| ameminator wrote:
| I do try to be charitable, but it almost seemed like a sick
| game to me.
|
| "Here, let me convince my husband that he needs to go take
| the baby to the hospital. Now, let's stalk him to see if he
| actually did it!"
|
| Anyways, this turned me off. It could have been "forgiven"
| (if this word even applies) had it contributed something
| meaningful. Sadly, it didn't, so it just comes off as
| neurotic stalking.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I don't have that take at all. The husband knew he was
| being tracked, she got permission from him prior to putting
| any tracking devices on him.
|
| > _It could have been "forgiven" (if this word even
| applies) had it contributed something meaningful_
|
| Just because you are aware of the dangers of tracking and
| how these devices work it doesn't mean others are equally
| aware.
| ameminator wrote:
| This is actually one of the side issues I had with the
| piece. The way it's written, you would think that she
| asked explicit permission to track him to the hospital.
|
| However, what seems to have happened in reality, is that
| they had previously played a harmless game of "find the
| Airtags". Then, some time later, possibly a large period,
| she uses those Airtags to track the husband. It's hard to
| say in either direction if the husband knew and expected
| to be tracked to the hospital. I think that was a
| deliberate choice - but it still comes off deceptive, if
| this is just happenstance.
|
| If any of this had contributed meaningfully to the main
| points, I would tolerate it a lot more - that's my
| biggest contention. The fact that the author isnt a
| perfect person is just a side gripe that I have with
| plenty other articles.
| outworlder wrote:
| The way I understood that was - she was going to write a
| piece about this subject. Asked for permission. What's
| implicit is that this experiment would have to last until
| she was done writing the piece.
|
| Not just "let's find airtags today" and then "boohoo I've
| been tracking you without permission". Wouldn't make
| sense. He was not surprised when his phone notified him
| that a tag was tracking him after a day in Manhattan.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I doubt very much that a journalist would publish
| something about stalking their _also works in journalism_
| spouse without everyone involved being on board with what
| went on. I think it 's _written_ to highlight how creepy
| it is, with the occasional "I got my spouse 's consent
| for all this" interludes to make a point that it's often
| used for non-consensual spying.
|
| Articles don't normally highlight the virtues of the
| journalist where that's not relevant to the subject of
| the article.
| danso wrote:
| I'm sorry, but what? The ostensible benefits of AirTags is
| that they're extremely easy to use and track with an iPhone.
| Why is it concerning that the author feels too tired to go to
| the hospital (during covid-heightened restrictions), but not
| too tired to use her iphone? Is going to the hospital for
| pediatric care generally easy? Is actively calling her
| husband easier than passive notification via the Find My app?
|
| > _"I'm worried," I told my husband. "I want you to take her
| to the hospital."_
|
| > _"Doctors always tell us to take the baby to the E.R.
| whenever we call about anything," he replied, exasperated.
| (This was true.) "She is fine. She is eating and playing and
| happy. This is not an emergency."_
|
| > _He eventually caved and set out for the hospital a half-
| hour away. Knowing he was already annoyed by me, I did not
| want to pepper him with questions about how it was going._
|
| > _Instead, I turned to the location-monitoring devices that
| I had secretly stashed in our car a week earlier._
| adolph wrote:
| > "I'm worried," I told my husband. "I want you to take her
| to the hospital."
|
| > "Doctors always tell us to take the baby to the E.R.
| whenever we call about anything," he replied, exasperated.
| (This was true.) "She is fine. She is eating and playing
| and happy. This is not an emergency."
|
| > He eventually caved and set out for the hospital a half-
| hour away.
|
| The next article writes itself doesn't it?
|
| _In 2018, the United States spent about $3.6 trillion on
| healthcare, which averages to about $11,000 per person.
| Relative to the size of the economy, healthcare costs have
| increased over the past few decades, from 5 percent of
| gross domestic product (GDP) in 1960 to 18 percent in 2018.
| The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
| project that by 2028, such costs will climb to $6.2
| trillion, or about $18,000 per person, and will represent
| about 20 percent of GDP._
|
| https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2020/04/why-are-americans-
| paying-m...
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I ask - what new insight did this article offer on Airtags?_
|
| Ask the author: https://mobile.twitter.com/kashhill
|
| Let us know what she says.
|
| _The author also seems to be somewhat deceptive_
|
| Let us know what she has to say about that, too.
| ameminator wrote:
| I don't have twitter and I don't think twitter is a good
| platform for discussion.
| reaperducer wrote:
| No problem! There's a link on her NY Times biography page
| so you can e-mail her: https://www.nytimes.com/by/kashmir-
| hill
|
| Or are you going to make up another excuse to hide behind
| the anonymity of HN so you can throw around a bunch of
| insulting questions in public without bothering to speak
| directly to the person you're criticizing?
| nooyurrsdey wrote:
| Not everything has to offer new info. Sometimes things bear
| repeating, it's how we add emphasis and continue the
| conversation.
|
| Coming out with "Apple is doing a poor job" just once isn't
| going to move the needle. People have to hear it over and over
| in a relatable way.
| ameminator wrote:
| Fair point - but in that case, I found the author's account
| unrelatable, so much as to approach uncredible.
|
| Maybe it hits different for other people, but I don't
| appreciate being given a conclusion without any good
| discussion
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| Your critique is bit shallow. That the article does not
| present any new information to any one reader (you)
| specifically, or that any one reader (you) cannot relate
| personally is to be expected and not remarkable given the
| size of this publication's audience and the novelty of the
| phenomenon the article discusses.
|
| I imagine, however, that there are readers for whom this
| information is novel, and for whom the first-person
| journalistic style is insightful. In this case, the value
| here is obvious.
| ameminator wrote:
| Yes, I will present my viewpoint. I didn't find this
| article relatable. I didn't find new information from
| this article. I think this article objectively is hard to
| relate to and has little new information.I will share my
| viewpoint in a comments section - feel free to disagree.
| If you think it's shallow, it's probably because the
| original piece didn't have much meat to begin with.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| >Yes, I will present my viewpoint
|
| You can, or, alternatively, you can simply acknowledge
| you're not the intended audience for the article, and
| that you may have over-stepped rhetorically in declaring
| a complete absence of value with respect to insight or
| novelty in the article; which is there, and obviously so.
| ameminator wrote:
| I didn't find any value, and I look forward to someone
| presenting some value other than "I don't like your
| critique".
|
| For example, I found this comment section much more
| enlightening than the article, because commenters here
| made better discussion than I found in the article.
| outworlder wrote:
| This comment section would not exist without the article.
| fleetwoodsnack wrote:
| > I didn't find any value
|
| Not to be crude, but that seems like a personal
| deficiency, not a demerit of the article. The "commenters
| here" who "made better discussion than I found in the
| article," are discussing the implications of the
| article's information and presenting interesting
| perspectives. If you didn't find anything of value,
| perhaps you could try thinking a bit harder or for a bit
| longer. Others have done so successfully.
| parasense wrote:
| It's resembling an attack of the author, instead of the
| authors ideas, aka a form of ad hominem. So it's kinda
| ironic to say the author adds nothing while simultaneously
| adding nothing with a non sequitur.
| ameminator wrote:
| I know nothing about the author outside of this article
| and I can't remember ever reading anything else she
| wrote. The author may be a perfectly virtuous person -
| but knowing that may actually bias my review/critique.
|
| For example, this is actually a story about a mother
| worried about her child. I really appreciate that! What I
| don't appreciate is someone using that to present
| unsupported positions.
|
| I _am_ attacking the piece that she wrote and it 's
| because I don't think it was a good piece.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >what new insight did this article
|
| author found a trending topic, and is making the mostest
| bhelkey wrote:
| I found these three portions intersting:
|
| >[LandAirSea] which sells about 15,000 devices per month...
| tells these callers they should go to the police, because they
| will need a subpoena to determine who owns the device they
| discovered.
|
| >My husband, of course, had agreed to this in principle, but
| didn't realize just how many devices I had planted on him. Of
| the seven trackers, he found only two..It is impossible to find
| a device that makes no noise and gives no warning
|
| >For all the bad press the AirTags have gotten...at least I was
| consistently getting notifications they were following me...The
| privacy dangers of the other trackers were way worse
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > should Apple be doing these measures at all?
|
| Apple no, but law makers should require a licence to use those.
| This is not a tech that anybody should be able to use on a
| whim. Too much potential for abuses.
|
| Not to mention the more there are, the bigger the cake for a
| nation that want to get control of the biggest offline spying
| network of all time. Somebody is going to crack that thing
| sooner or later. There will be an NSO for airtags.
| nomel wrote:
| What until you hear about the tracking device that everyone
| has in their pockets, used by cellular companies, ad
| companies, and the government!
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Yes, they are a problem too.
|
| But, you know they are here.
|
| They can be turned off.
|
| They require an internet connection.
|
| They are not meant for tracking, and intent is important.
|
| They provide other features than tracking.
|
| They are expensive, and battery don't last. People won't
| use them to track their ex wife for months.
|
| It's like comparing a gun and a knife. Sure, you can kill
| with a knife, but it's harder, and initially the knife is
| made for cutting carrots.
| kbos87 wrote:
| My comment isn't specific to AirTags, but there's a much larger
| conversation that needs to be had about this gray area of
| stalking capabilities that are now built into many mainstream
| products.
|
| Here's a pattern I've seen play out more than once among friends
| and family - they share their location willingly and for
| seemingly benign reasons. It's helpful to know when you'll be
| getting home so I can start dinner! Just in case something
| happens to you! This is the innocent end of the spectrum; subtle
| or outright coercion in a controlling relationship is the darker
| end of the spectrum.
|
| How it starts really doesn't matter, because the truth is that
| even among otherwise well meaning and well intentioned people,
| tracking tech can turn them obsessive. Checking in constantly.
| Wondering and/or quizzing their child, partner or friend about
| what they were doing at location X.
|
| The truth is that most people aren't immune to being on either
| end of a situation like this, and the negative outcomes can range
| from feeling like your everyday movements are under a microscope,
| to outright abusive behavior more easily taken to the extreme.
|
| I don't claim that there are simple solutions here, but a
| starting point would be tech companies making it easier to see an
| audit of how this "innocent" tracking tech is being used on the
| trackee. For example, I bet my grandpa would think twice about
| checking in on my cousins location as often as he probably does
| if he knew that my cousin got a notification every time he
| checked in.
| acomjean wrote:
| Yeah. I took my partners dog for the afternoon. It has an
| airtag (not an official supported use). I knew the dog had it
| but there was some comment made about our walk. Monitoring by
| proxy.
|
| When I worked at a power monitoring startup (we monitored home
| power use, by individual circuit) this passive monitoring came
| up. And our CEO mentioned to his wife that she was home early..
| "how did you know?" He saw the garage door circuit draw
| power... He was told he could keep his toys, but not to talk
| about them.
|
| Our sales guy had a potential partners remote door installed.
| He noted one time the dog walker did a pretty short walk (the
| door opens where x minutes apart), and was wondering if he
| could mention it..
|
| Passive monitoring is everywhere. Not just cell phones.
| 6510 wrote:
| Someone told me that by examining smart meter data by amount,
| time and duration different appliances could be identified.
| He was rather surprised himself by the level of detail.
| Knufferlbert wrote:
| You may be shocked how much more you can get, I heard of
| being able to identify the movie/tv show you are watching
| based on power consumption of the TV based on brightness.
|
| Obviously depends on how granular the smart metering is,
| but it sent chills down my spine.
|
| https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-
| meter...
| joshspankit wrote:
| Even back 20 years ago I was monitored by my ex-spouse by
| them simply watching the bank card transactions then
| calculating travel time. It was (or evolved in to) a full-
| blown anxiety disorder.
|
| It's easy to imagine that this higher level of easy
| surveillance is going to efficiently send others down the
| same path.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| One great use case of passive monitoring is detecting water
| leaks, especially for vacation homes.
|
| > It has an airtag (not an official supported use)
|
| I'm surprised. That sounds like a great use for it,
| especially for a larger breed that runs fast.
| acomjean wrote:
| > especially for a larger breed that runs fast.
|
| Young Husky. Medium breed that can run far and sometimes
| doesn't listen (like a cat... but bigger)
|
| They have pet trackers.. But I'm not sure if its because
| its transmitting a lot and its close to them on their
| collar.. In this case in on her going outside harness..
| protomyth wrote:
| That is one use for monitoring, with the related use of
| doing so to your own home, that I think is really worth
| doing. Especially, if you live in the northland where
| freezing is a problem.
|
| I often wonder about these services and if we can wrap them
| in enough privacy to make them feel safe to advanced users?
| causi wrote:
| The only way I see this ending is splitting airtags into
| two populations: remote-tracking enabled and remote-
| tracking disabled where they act like a regular bluetooth
| tag. Enabling the remote-tracking feature will probably
| require you to register with Apple with photo ID and have
| your identity visible to anyone within range of the
| airtag.
|
| Which is fine by me. I'm just excited to have a way to
| get my cat back if she ever escapes outside.
| hnrodey wrote:
| Care to share the competitors in the power monitoring space?
| I could really use a solution to this because my home
| electric bill is crazy high. We moved in to a new house about
| eight months ago and this electric bill is like 30% higher
| than my previous home. Not just the raw total of the bill -
| my consumption is higher in this house.
|
| I know of sense.com but perhaps there are others?
| acomjean wrote:
| Our product was "site sage". Its subscription based and you
| have to install a current transformer around each circuit
| coming out of you electric box (you'd install in the
| circuit breaker box). But you did get circuit by circuit
| listings. Its also subscription based. The company has
| moved on to monitoring kitchen equipment, though they still
| sell them.
|
| I've been out of the space for a while, but the "sense"
| power monitor was new when I left. It claims to use AI so
| you can just monitor the mains and it will suss out what is
| using power.
|
| There were a lot of our home customers who were very
| obsessed with power use (trying to get to net 0 with
| solar). There have to be forums for this...
|
| If you are looking for the manual way. getting a kill-o-
| watt and attaching it to your outlet is one way to see one
| of the things that takes a lot of power. I have the
| "Belkin" version which I like because the display isn't
| near the outlet. I'd suggest fridge... In my case my fridge
| was a large % of my power bill. Any electric heat.
|
| https://www.belkin.com/au/support-article?articleNum=5381
| secabeen wrote:
| I've used The Energy Detective for a long time, but it is
| challenging to install the hardware in your breaker box.
|
| For an easier approach, there are a bunch of wifi plugs
| that can report energy usage:
| https://www.androidcentral.com/which-smart-plugs-are-best-
| mo...
| joshspankit wrote:
| I use Sonoff S31 smart plugs, flashed with Tasmota and
| connected to Home Assistant. It allows fine-grain
| monitoring of anything that plugs in to the wall, even if
| you disable the remote on/on switch (like for the
| fridge/deep freeze). LED bulbs use basically nothing and so
| can be removed from the equation, then all that's left is
| built-in temp/humidity/air units and car chargers (though
| most of those have great metrics built in)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Checking in constantly. Wondering and/or quizzing their child
|
| This behavior is rampant in my peer group. Most of my
| friends/neighbors are constantly monitoring their teen age
| children's location, reading their recent calls, texts, and
| emails, looking at internet usage logs, etc. One of my
| neighbors even calls her daughter every time she sees she's
| driving over the speed limit and yells at her. It all seems so
| creepy to me, and I give my kid way more privacy than that, but
| it looks like I'm in the minority of parents.
| toxik wrote:
| How do they see their texts calls emails etc? Surely that's
| illegal.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Parents can monitor their children's email. Phone call
| records are in your monthly billing statement. As long as
| you're up front with your child about the level of
| monitoring, I don't think this is unethical, let alone
| illegal.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Yeah, none of the surveillance I'm talking about with the
| other parents I know is secretive. The kids seem to have
| been groomed to accept it from very young ages, so they
| all know it is happening.
| astura wrote:
| Children do not have any legal right to privacy. Especially
| not when the parents are paying for the cell phone and
| service.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I want to let me kid (now 5) be more independent. These days,
| at least in the USA, kids aren't allowed out until they are
| 10 or even older, and even then they often don't get to take
| the bus alone (I started doing that when I was in 2nd grade,
| in the 80s when crime was much worse than it is today, I was
| biking on my own outside when I was in Kindergarten). But I
| thought...something like an air tag, cellphone, and maybe a
| bodycam, might be a great way to balance a need to let the
| kid explore some things independently and keep safe at the
| same time. I don't know, I'm still in the planning stage on
| this.
| cmckn wrote:
| I definitely did things as a teenager that were dangerous,
| unnecessary, detrimental to my physical or mental health,
| etc. etc. I don't have kids, but I would probably make some
| effort to dissuade my kids from doing the same things I did.
| How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did you
| just get lucky with good kids? Is having conversations about
| it enough?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I look at it the other way around: I did things as a kid
| and teenager that were dangerous, unnecessary, detrimental
| to my physical or mental health... _and those things made
| me... me._
|
| So why should I, or do I have a right to, keep my kids from
| doing the same?
|
| We aren't only the product of our positive lessons. A lot
| of life is learned through burning yourself on the hot
| stove. And by and large, it usually doesn't kill you.
|
| IMHO, no humans are self-actualized enough to possess
| omniscience and act ethically. We have too many neuroses.
|
| And, at the more obvious end of the spectrum, all of the
| suburban crowd complaining about how their children fail to
| launch, lack initiative in life, and aren't independent.
|
| After their entire childhood was spent being monitored and
| constantly corrected by the parent.
|
| The mind boggles.
| mlac wrote:
| Before my daughter starts driving, I'm going to take her
| around where I grew up and show her the places where people
| I knew died in car accidents / other issues, and explain
| why they died:
|
| - These two girls were speeding to make it home by curfew,
| ran off the road, and died in a car fire over the side of
| this hill - don't speed if you're running late. Let me
| know, and get home safely.
|
| - This is where a guy was on drugs and ran into a telephone
| pole. - don't do drugs. If you do drink and no longer feel
| comfortable in the situation, call me and I will pick you
| up to get you home. Don't try to drive.
|
| - Here's the parking lot where my friend OD'd on Heroin.
| Don't try it. Not even once. There is a huge difference
| between weed and harder drugs, even though weed and harder
| drugs are sold by the same people. Stay clear of all of
| them if you can.
|
| - Here's the cliff where my friend fell 60 feet and died
| trying to showboat his climbing skills. So many things
| today have been made extremely safe (car driving
| assistance, etc.) - you need to know which activities have
| real consequences and treat them accordingly.
|
| - Here's the parking lot where my friend and I almost
| flipped his truck trying to do slides on snow at 60 mph.
| Don't do that.
|
| It will be a rough day, but driving is a serious
| responsibility and learning from others' mistakes is better
| than making your own.
| dbt00 wrote:
| In my case by talking to my teens about choices,
| consequences, and how to plan for good outcomes. It helped
| to start having that conversation long before they were
| teens.
|
| We had an ios family group set up with location sharing
| enabled, which was great when they were 12 and losing
| things all the time (using a phone as backpack lojack isn't
| necessarily cost efficient, but it was a nice accidental
| outcome). When they got a little older, they figured out
| how not to share with us. I was peeved, but proud. Privacy
| respected.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I definitely also did things as a teenager that were
| dangerous, unnecessary, etc. And my parents were good
| parents, were involved in my life, had open communication
| with me, and tried hard to teach me the right things. But I
| was a teenager; I did it anyway. And I suspect that if I
| were being monitored like the kids today seem to be, I
| would just learn how to hide my activities more.
|
| > How do you approach that, without heavy surveillance? Did
| you just get lucky with good kids?
|
| I think partly I got lucky that my son is somewhat risk
| averse, which rules out a lot of bad stuff he could do. But
| I also am not fooling myself into thinking he isn't doing
| dumb things and not telling me about it. I certainly
| understand the desire to heavily surveil your kids to
| protect them, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I
| think it sends the wrong message that he doesn't have to
| take responsibility and can always just rely on me to bail
| him out. So I'm willing to take the risk in order to give
| him a sense of personal responsibility. I don't know that
| I'm making the right choice, parenting seems to be mostly
| doing the best you can and having your kids usually turn
| out ok in spite of you.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| There is also the special case of my wife who has my position
| on Google maps, and an automation where she gets it when
| sending me a special SMS.
|
| Yet she always calls to ask where I am (in your first scenario:
| because dinner or that she will kill the children if I am not
| back quickly).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| > For example, I bet my grandpa would think twice about
| checking in on my cousins location as often as he probably does
| if he knew that my cousin got a notification every time he
| checked in.
|
| I think this is a partial solution to keep honest people
| honest. Like door locks. They keep the temptation at bay for
| the average person.
|
| In abusive relationships it likely wouldn't accomplish much,
| but notifying might at least create known windows of "escape"
| when the tracking isn't being actively monitored. Maybe it
| could even draw someone's attention to abusive situations... if
| you're out with a friend and her phone "pings" that someone is
| tracking her 10 times over an hour maybe that's enough for
| someone to ask "hey is everything ok?"
| kbos87 wrote:
| Exactly. Being held accountable, and knowing you are being
| held accountable, could likely stem some amount of bad
| behavior from the start, and at the very least it makes bad
| behavior harder to conceal.
| pluc wrote:
| The road to authoritarian technology is paved with convenience
| andrewia wrote:
| Most technology is a double-edged sword. Front-facing cameras
| on phone are immensely useful for video calls and impromptu
| portraits, but in event of software compromise, can disclose
| a lot of info. Cell networks revolutionized communication and
| network availability, but make all other tech omnipresent and
| allow rough tracking of users by signal strength.
|
| The existence of technologies are fine, but we need to set
| strong social norms, laws (and resilient enforcing
| institutions), and smart design limitations to protect
| against abuse.
| heinternets wrote:
| I always knew pizza delivery would end up in total loss of
| freedoms
| inopinatus wrote:
| Hiro Protagonist wants to subscribe to your newsletter.
| schwap wrote:
| Skynet was really just the Domino's pizza tracker all
| along.
| everforward wrote:
| I think there needs to be a delineation between anti-theft
| devices and anti-loss devices.
|
| The sticking point now is that you want to let innocent people
| know if they're being tracked, but you don't want to let
| thieves know that they're being tracked. It seems an
| intractable problem, because there's no way that I can think of
| for a device to tell the difference between the two.
|
| Anti-loss devices should be portable and detachable, but
| required to be able to be easily found via some kind of
| standard tooling. Maybe like the Bluetooth equivalent of
| pinging the broadcast IP. They should also make an audible
| noise when the owner tracks them.
|
| Anti-theft devices should be silent, but required to be semi-
| permanently installed into the device to be tracked. Something
| annoying to remove, but not impossible. The ownership of the
| tracker should also be required to be registered with someone;
| logically the police, since that's who you would call anyways
| if your stuff was stolen. Anyone who finds an anti-theft device
| on their person or property that they didn't place there should
| automatically qualify for a restraining order against the
| device's owner (that they could opt not to pursue if they
| wanted). The restraining order should also prevent the device's
| owner from owning or registering any other anti-theft devices
| for the duration of the restraining order.
|
| There would also need to be some kind of penalties for
| unregistered anti-theft devices, and for anti-loss devices that
| have been tampered with to not make noise or respond to the
| standard signal.
|
| Also likely some kind of contract two people can enter into
| that says "I acknowledge that person X has tracker Y in thing
| Z, and I absolve my right to pursue a restraining order for it"
| for people who share a car or bike or whatever.
|
| I haven't fully fleshed out the ideas, but I think something
| like the above reinforces that it's okay to track your own
| stuff but that's it not OK to track other people.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| yeah, concerning the feature in the apple ecosystem to share
| your location with someone else is great, i just wish it had a
| feature that alerted the you whenever someone used it to locate
| one of your devices. That way if say i went to the big state
| fair with my friend and we shared our locations with each other
| in case we got separated but then forgot to shut it off. If a
| few days later i got notified that my friend had just located
| me i could shut it off and/or have a conversation with them
| about boundries.
|
| The airtag/tile makes this much harder, perhaps the airtag
| should loudly beep or notify nearby devices whenever it's being
| actively located.
| eigen wrote:
| > That way if say i went to the big state fair with my friend
| and we shared our locations with each other in case we got
| separated but then forgot to shut it off.
|
| you can share location for 1 hour or until end of day rather
| than Indefinitely.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210514
| verve_rat wrote:
| >The airtag/tile makes this much harder, perhaps the airtag
| should loudly beep or notify nearby devices whenever it's
| being actively located.
|
| They absolutely should. It boggles my mind a bit that they
| don't do this. It would even help you find them. Is there any
| downside to making noise?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Essentially, this is why we can't have nice things. Human
| nature will always have someone take something to the dark
| places. Does that mean the rest of us can't use the things in
| non-creepy ways just because some will? After all, if you don't
| build it, someone else will, so why not you? These are all
| valid questions. Some people choose to do violence with
| weapons, so nobody should have weapons? These questions are
| always polarizing.
| adambyrtek wrote:
| I'm not sure this is a good metaphor since weapons are
| designed for violence, regardless of whether that violence is
| legally justified or not. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to
| make a political stand, this is simply the dictionary
| definition: "weapon /'wep(@)n/ a thing designed or used for
| inflicting bodily harm or physical damage".
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm not trying to do politics either, so I don't know how
| to respond without straying too far off topic. I will cede
| that I probably could have picked a less polarizing
| example. Just first to come to mind.
|
| The example was meant to highlight that not everyone uses a
| product/device the same way as others. If one's use of an
| item does not bring harm, infringe upon, etc of anyone
| else, then why should they not be allowed to use it?
| Obviously, once you use an item to infringe upon, bring
| harm, etc, you should be the one punished NOT the others by
| trying to banish the item.
| underwater wrote:
| Facebook Messenger implements this as "send location" which
| lets the other party track you for the next hour. I've found
| this useful without being creepy. I can share my location
| contextually, like if I'm picking someone up or meeting them
| somewhere.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Google maps too. I've used it with friends on camping trips.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I would think that the problem isn't just auditing, it is
| control. Reasonable people using the technology for good do not
| want to be bombarded with notifications. Better that we focus
| on control, making it more difficult to coerce someone into
| accepting tracking against their will, and making it easy to
| disable.
| trinovantes wrote:
| Only a matter of time before we start seeing news of couples
| fixing their marriage by sharing AirTags with each other. I say
| this with sarcasm but recent years have made me wonder what is
| reality anymore.
| not2b wrote:
| A marriage that can only be "fixed" if each member is
| continuously surveilling the other is not "fixed".
| outworlder wrote:
| We should get them ankle bracelets while we are at it.
| akomtu wrote:
| We already have rings. Just embed a tracking chip there,
| add a monthly subscription service "loyal partner 365" and
| change laws to allow subpoena your partner if she/he
| "accidentally" forgets to wear the ring.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You can't fix a lack of emotional fortitude and insecurities
| with technology. These are mental health challenges exacerbated
| by the tools available.
| advisedwang wrote:
| How do you fix a "lack of emotional fortitude"? Can everyone
| succeed at that? How long does it take to fix?
|
| The reality is that some people are emotionally vulnerable
| and our we should keep that in mind as we develop products.
| Most new products (and indeed all changes in society) have
| some kind of negative impact to someone, and we can't get
| that to zero, but we should strive to minimize the harm we
| do.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > You can't fix a lack of emotional fortitude and
| insecurities with technology. These are mental health
| challenges exacerbated by the tools available.
|
| I dont think the GP is suggesting that there's no
| technological changes required, just lamenting the root cause
| of the problem.
|
| Similarly, technology can exacerbate gambling addictions, and
| we have measures we've put in place there.
|
| It'll probably take some time to work that out though.
| draw_down wrote:
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| We live in a society with total propaganda immersion designed
| to keep you insecure so you consume consume consume.
|
| So basically everyone is like this in some way, or will be.
| kbos87 wrote:
| I don't disagree with you. I would say that these are mental
| health challenges that can not only be exacerbated, but
| caused in the first place in some cases by having this
| technology so readily available. The other commenters' point
| about gambling tech is a good one.
| djrogers wrote:
| > The truth is that most people aren't immune to being on
| either end of a situation like this
|
| Hard disagree here - most people are _not_ going to go all
| obsessive on their spouses, kids, etc.
| fullstackchris wrote:
| Ah, yet another chilling reminder why Black Mirror doesn't have
| to make any new episodes.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Can someone explain to me (because I cannot work it myself) why
| everyone is suddenly worried about AirTags yet these kinds of
| devices have been around for a while (eg the Samsung Galaxy
| SmartTag was released last year and little was talked about it).
| And GPS tracking isn't even a new thing either.
|
| So why is it most conversations focus on the AirTag? What is it
| that the AirTag does better/worse/differently to the other
| options out there?
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| - Massively improved battery life vs. price
|
| - No network connectivity required, simply being near an iPhone
| creates location accuracy (so instantly a bigger network than
| any competitor)
|
| Probably the two biggest things right there.
| xondono wrote:
| Because there is vibrant a market for content hating on Apple,
| from forums, to magazines, podcasts,...
| orev wrote:
| AirTags do sort of change the tracking game. GPS trackers need
| a relatively large power supply and some kind of data
| connection. Tile devices are not ubiquitous, and their tracking
| network is limited to other Tile users.
|
| AirTags have a huge advantage in that they use ALL iPhones as
| part of the tracking network, regardless of whether the iPhone
| owner has an AirTag themself. This allows them to work over
| short ranges with a tiny battery as they only need to be close
| enough to any iPhone for them to be trackable.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| Apple may not have invented the technology, but they've
| definitely popularised it. Sounds familiar :P.
|
| AirTags are (at least as far as I can tell) maybe a bit easier
| to use for this purpose than other tech, but that's not _quite_
| the point: we didn 't have these discussions earlier because
| people didn't realise they were discussions we needed to have.
|
| As another data point, I've met several people who put AirTags
| on their dogs, and have been disappointed by how poorly they've
| worked: if the dog runs off and there's no-one with an iPhone
| around, the AirTag is no help. I have a battery-powered GPS and
| GPRS tracker on my dog, which works just about anywhere. The
| AirTag-using dog owners just don't know these things exist.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Any time an iPhone, iPad, or newer MacBook sees an AirTag, its
| location is reported back to the owner. Apple devices are so
| ubiquitous that you can effectively get real time tracking
| anywhere in the developed world where there are people.
|
| Similar products like Tile have existed for years, but their
| real-time tracking abilities are poor because they rely on a
| network of devices that have their app installed and running in
| the background.
| xeromal wrote:
| Because Samsung or Tile is a subset of a subset compared to
| Apple. When apple does something, hundreds of millions of
| people are instantly involved. The scale is what matters.
| throw7 wrote:
| tl;dr the baby was fine.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _... but I think I'll leave the AirTag in it. It will make it
| easier to find the car in a vast parking lot._
|
| It sounds like the author has an iPhone, and it has a feature
| that will show you where you parked your car if you connect it to
| your car via BT. It basically takes note of the location where
| you disconnected from the car and stores it in Maps as Parked
| Car.
|
| Leaving a tracker in your car is not a bad idea if you're worried
| about theft, though.
| joe5150 wrote:
| "Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance
| Technology Oversight Project, thinks the devices are 'too ripe
| for abuse' to exist."
|
| besides the fact that these devices cover a wide spectrum of
| abuse potential, in what way is this even a tenable position to
| take? it would be hard enough to get them banned, but if we're
| talking about actually making them not "exist" anymore, we're
| talking about confiscating millions and millions of devices.
|
| other comments have noted that devices that are much more
| effective for actual tracking/stalking purposes are cheap and
| readily available, so I don't understand why AirTags have become
| the center of this conversation.
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