[HN Gopher] NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in...
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NYPD urges citizens to buy AirTags to fight surge in car thefts
Author : pseudolus
Score : 94 points
Date : 2023-05-02 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| One of the big practical problems in automotive tracking for
| anti-theft reasons is concealment. Some thieves know to check for
| common, especially factory-fit trackers, and so will take
| precautionary actions like storing vehicles under metal cover
| until they can disable the tracker. How effective this is depends
| on the tracker and the thief's knowledge level, but there is a
| cat-and-mouse game here where you want to prevent the thief
| knowing a tracker is fitted.
|
| With AirTags this is rather difficult because of the anti-
| stalking feature, but on the upside they are easy to conceal
| places so you will get a time window of good functionality. With
| more conventional GPS trackers a good way to install them is
| often under the dashboard plastics below the windshield, which
| offers a clear sky view and is a fair amount of work to get to in
| a lot of vehicles. Of course the labor on that installation
| method drives up price so it's not unusual for them to be
| somewhere far less discrete like in the engine compartment with
| an external antenna or glued to the bottom of the rear deck in
| sedans.
| nwellinghoff wrote:
| Better idea. Maybe car manufacturers could introduce 2 factor to
| start your car. Of course one could disable this. But when you
| feel you are in a shady spot. Your car prompts your phone to
| enable two factor to start etc
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Here's an even better idea: car theft should be practically
| non-existent in a modern, western city and instead of the mayor
| telling people to put airtags in their car he should be
| announcing how the _literal armed police force he commands_
| will be dealing with the issue.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| After years of being subjected to property crime including
| multiple car breakins, getting threatened at knife point by
| crazy folks on the street, and seeing a woman on my street
| get forcibly abducted into a car with the police refusing to
| even report the crimes in all cases we left San Francisco.
| What's worse is bringing up how this is not OK gets you
| called some extremist nutjob.
|
| Sad to see NYC is now in a similar state where they'd rather
| penalize the victims than the perpetrators.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > What's worse is bringing up how this is not OK gets you
| called some extremist nutjob.
|
| I'm going to go ahead and bet you said something other than
| "this is not OK" about crime and bad policing, if you got
| that reaction. Or you put that statement somewhere with
| very bad context.
| brink wrote:
| If they could implement this on an open protocol, that'd be
| great too. The last thing I need is some proprietary cloud
| service that goes down twice a month to start my car.
|
| But what would be even better is just enabling a password.
| zzzeek wrote:
| who here can already see clearly the NYPD officer's completely
| blank stare when you show them exactly where the car thief took
| your car. "did you see them do it? otherwise it's not our
| problem"
| trafficante wrote:
| Portland Police Bureau are in good company, it seems.
|
| The only reason to file a police report for a stolen vehicle
| these days (in Portland) is documentation for insurance. I very
| rarely hear about people getting their cars back via PPB
| without it being months later (and in pieces with mysterious
| stains everywhere) due to being incidentally swept up in a rare
| chop shop bust.
|
| And yes, this is a policing problem. It's also a city council
| problem. And a DA problem. And a homeless/drug problem (both
| direct results of voter referendums).
|
| But we have a two party system so urbanite Oregonians will
| never vote these idiots out.
| mperham wrote:
| Portland city political positions are nonpartisan. Portland
| "democrats" can range from center right (rene gonzalez) to
| progressive left (no one). I'm hopeful RCV will help.
|
| Eric Adams may have a D next to his name but he's a
| traditional Republican according to his policies (cutting
| libraries/schools, more funding for cops).
| 1-more wrote:
| I know it's a nearby city but when I used Orbicule Undercover
| to find my laptop's thieves the Newark fuzz had it back to me
| very fast. They of course did not chase down anything else that
| was stolen and fenced elsewhere because the crime was solved
| with my thing. Crazy.
| tantalor wrote:
| https://abc7.com/ebike-theft-airtag-aliso-viejo/13091749/
|
| > spokesperson with the Orange County Sheriff's Department
| reminded victims of crime to let local law enforcement take
| over the recovery of stolen items
| beembeem wrote:
| Have already seen this with other stolen property with other
| PDs across the country.
|
| - "It's too risky"
|
| - "not valuable enough"
|
| - "could be dangerous"
|
| - "can't prove your stolen item is where the GPS says"
|
| - "can't dispatch an officer or detective just because you have
| a GPS location"
|
| etc etc
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Don't forget: "Are you sure you didn't let them borrow the
| car?"
| sitkack wrote:
| I had someone steal my keys with an airtag on them in
| Seattle. Cops said they were going to send someone after
| making me file a police report, screenshots of Find My, etc.
| Call them an hour later, "oh yeah, no officers responded, we
| are too busy, good luck!" and this was on a slow-ass sunday
| around Greenlake. Recovered the keys myself. Good thing they
| have a 355M budget.
|
| https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/FinanceDepartm.
| ..
| icelancer wrote:
| SPD does much the same for me. I had my laptop tracked
| using Prey software (prior to Airtags) and they refused to
| send cops to a location I personally scouted out, took
| pictures of, and identified my equipment.
|
| When I told them I might confront the thief on my own, they
| strongly cautioned against it.
|
| Basically they aren't interested in doing their job, or
| anyone taking action themselves.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _did you see them do it? otherwise it 's not our problem_
|
| If we're trading anecdotes, I had two laptops lifted from my
| apartment. The NYPD's detectives followed up with the building
| for footage, identified a suspect, followed up with the
| resident they were seen with, got the suspect's Instagram and
| got an arrest warrant. That resulted in them nabbing the guy
| when he was ticketed for jumping a subway turnstile.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I actually know multiple people who were robbed and NYPD
| caught them when they used the victims metro card. Wild that
| thieves haven't realized that the cards can be tracked and
| the stations are under surveillance, but maybe that's why
| they turned to crime.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > who here can already see clearly the NYPD officer's
| completely blank stare when you show them exactly where the car
| thief took your car. "did you see them do it? otherwise it's
| not our problem"
|
| With NYPD, it's even worse: "if _we_ didn 't see it, we can't
| do anything about it". This is, of course, entirely false, but
| good luck trying to argue with a cop and getting them to do
| their job.
|
| Heck, NYPD refuses to even take police reports on stolen
| property (which is a huge hassle because insurance usually
| requires a police report as a prerequisite to filing claims).
| You literally have to argue with them just to get them to file
| the report - not even _do_ anything about the issue, mind you,
| just to get them to fill out the form.
| yowzadave wrote:
| The NYPD can bend crime stats by controlling the number of
| reports that get made. Want to make it seem like crime is
| going down in a neighborhood (so they can take credit for
| it)? Stop filling out so many reports. Want to convince
| people that there is a crime wave before an election to
| stymie any "defund" efforts? Fill out more reports. Neither
| requires doing any actual investigations.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| How is car theft in 2023 still a problem? What happens to a
| stolen car? It doesn't seem feasible or realistic to try to sell
| it for parts (where are you going to store all these cars
| before/after parting them out), and there's no way you can just
| sell the car and expect it not to get flagged. WTF is going on?
| [deleted]
| rolph wrote:
| body panels and related polymer. interior re-options,
| operations like that have established shops, and compounds.
| they just have to be wary of buying from a "heatscore" with
| cops on thier tail.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| On the contrary, pulling apart a car and selling it for parts
| is frequently worth more than the car itself on the used
| market. It's especially profitable when you've stolen the car.
| The hardest part is probably getting rid of the parts of the
| shell that have VINs stamped into them.
| Vvector wrote:
| Many stolen cars are transported out of the country
| Blahah wrote:
| They either get reworked in a chop shop, stripped for parts and
| then the remainder used for scrap, or they get shipped abroad
| for resale
| pcurve wrote:
| Remember Lojack?
| aetherane wrote:
| Unfortunately air tags only work in the Apple ecosystem.
| smoldesu wrote:
| "Buy your mom an iPhone" - Tim Cook, 2022
| vrc wrote:
| You've misspelled Tim Apple, sir.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| See this regarding android phones:
| https://www.youtube.com/live/Vuw72THyXsQ?feature=share&t=947
|
| "Why would anyone have one?"
| [deleted]
| oh_sigh wrote:
| That's not true - Tracker Detect is available for android, so
| even car thieves with an android can find your airtag.
| Animats wrote:
| LoJack used to be the go-to company for this. No more.
|
| Classic LoJack had good privacy. It's a box hidden somewhere in
| the car, with a connection to vehicle power. It has a
| transmitter, but normally doesn't transmit. If your car is
| stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack.
| That broadcasts an ID over a subcarrier of some local FM
| broadcast station. The receiver in the Lojack unit listens for
| those IDs, and if its own ID comes up, it turns on. It starts
| loudly transmitting to units in police cars, giving approximate
| direction and range. If you see a police car with four short whip
| antennas on the roof in a square pattern, that's a Lojack-
| equipped vehicle. It's uses radio direction finding. The vehicle
| box has no idea where it is. It's a totally independent system -
| no cellular, no GPS.
|
| So this only tracks vehicles which have flagged as stolen. It's
| not constantly phoning home.
|
| Classic Lojack is a one-time charge, with no annual fees.
|
| The current product, LoJack AnalProbe(tm), which they call
| "Connected Car", constantly phones home, reporting your location,
| battery level, etc. to the mothership. There's an app to review
| where you've been. And, inevitably, the EULA says that Lojack may
| "share information with LoJack's affiliated companies, Service
| Providers and/or third parties in conjunction with the Software
| and Services and for the purpose of providing You with any
| promotional offers and marketing materials as may be permitted by
| applicable law."
|
| You get to pay a subscription fee for this.
| noduerme wrote:
| Just a thought here... Why not just write a simple script that
| collects GPS location, host it on a private server, point an
| old Android phone at that page, and wire the phone under the
| dashboard?
| zamnos wrote:
| Don't even need to write a script, just provide the storage.
| Eg https://www.gpswox.com/en/mobile-apps/android-gps-
| tracking-a...
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| That could work fine, but dedicated GPS tracker hardware
| isn't that expensive and will be more robust and reliable
| than an old phone (simpler software, heat and vibration
| tolerant) - plus there's usually IOT-NB/LTE Cat-1 support so
| you can use less expensive cellular providers and most
| trackers have at least one dry contact output for remote
| immobilization. The main downside to hardware GPS trackers is
| that they're mostly sold "to the trade," so you get a
| reference manual for their often AT-based communications
| protocol and you're left to your own devices. There are open-
| source backend servers around but I feel they're often too
| genericized to work well with the features of any one
| tracker, so big incentive to write your own software.
| inconceivable wrote:
| do you know if the legacy system is still in use?
|
| my first 'nice' car had lojack installed in it. i remember it
| was about $200, and that's all, but this was 10+ years ago. i
| wonder if it's still out there...
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| Today you see four antennas on police cars for digital
| diversity reception, originally desirable for minimizing
| multipath issues but today just about required for P25 "phase
| II" operation of multiple repeaters on the same channel. These
| are usually 900MHz radios, one of the factors in the decline of
| traditional Lojack was many police departments shifting to
| 900MHz for P25 and no longer equipping all vehicles with VHF
| radios. Depending on the department, vehicles may not have any
| radio capable of receiving Lojack transponders. Whether or not
| they're programmed for it is also a question.
|
| When direction finding was used Doppler DF based on multiple
| antennas was rare due to the high cost of the electronics
| package, which also consumed a lot of trunk space. Most police
| departments did it the old fashioned way with a handheld log
| periodic they waved around. Another part of the decline of the
| original Lojack system was the high price of providing good DF
| receivers to police departments, so not many had them. LoJack
| never got big into having their own DF "hunters" on staff like
| other companies using transponders did.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| The first one is... incredibly convoluted. Like reaching your
| right arm over your head to touch your left esr (try it!). The
| second one sounds like it sucks.
|
| With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief
| yourself and shoot them.
|
| https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/texas-man-used-apple-airtag-to...
| kevviiinn wrote:
| That's probably the only solution because from the stories
| I've seen, when someone has something stolen that's airtagged
| and they tell police, the police basically just tell them to
| fuck off
| sgustard wrote:
| I assume the "LoJack Inside" window sticker is the main
| technology you really want? Suggest the thief go steal a
| different car?
| is_true wrote:
| Negative externalities Co.
| 7speter wrote:
| The whole thing about the mayor and NYPD telling everyone who
| watches or listens to the news to buy a 30 dollar gps patch
| that someone can put under some car carpeting anywhere in
| said car should be enough to discourage most car thieves with
| 2 or more active brain cells, but hey, I'm an idealist.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| On Amazon I see them as low as 5 for $13
| asveikau wrote:
| I don't know anything about the trade of stolen vehicles and
| the people who do it, but i imagine advertising that will let
| smart thieves and chop shop types know what to look for and
| quickly remove.
|
| From that perspective it's probably better for people to not
| know you have lojack, conceal it, and make them work harder
| to check for it.
| INeedMoreRam wrote:
| [dead]
| politelemon wrote:
| This article throws up many flags for me, not necessarily red,
| but of a worrying color.
|
| It first celebrates surveillance devices as a net positive and
| hand-waves away its problems.
|
| But most importantly, it is awfully shortsighted to allow a
| single company to entrench itself further into societal
| transactions. However, hearing it is inconvenient, so I am often
| dismissed for saying so.
|
| > They're made by Apple, which means they're very platform-
| agnostic.
|
| You mean platform-specific.
|
| > "Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams
| responded.
|
| Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is
| surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority,
| and seems to ignore the realities of the world. Perhaps Mayor
| Adams spends too much time on HN?
| acchow wrote:
| > Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is
| surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority
|
| He was making a joke, playing into the Android vs iPhone
| eternal war.
|
| But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched fully
| to Android for 5 devices across 4 years, and now back to
| iPhone..... I actually think the ignorance is the other way
| (Android users who have never tried iPhone as their full time
| phone).
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched
| fully to Android for 5 devices across 4 years
|
| Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last Android
| device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going strong after
| I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone), and my new
| device will probably last a long time too.
|
| Each for a fraction of the price charged by Apple.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last
| Android device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going
| strong after I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone),
| and my new device will probably last a long time too.
|
| They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people do
| that.
|
| Actually, despite the common wisdom that Apple users are
| always getting the latest thing and just can't _wait_ to
| give Apple more money at every opportunity, every person I
| 've known who replaced their phone about annually to chase
| whatever the just-released flagship phone was so they can
| always have the shiniest thing, has been an Android user.
| Though, to be fair, I've also known plenty of Android users
| who don't do that. I've just not yet seen an Apple user
| behave that way (but I'm sure some do). I think this has
| something to do with Android fans having more overlap with
| computer hardware enthusiasts in general, than Apple fans
| do.
|
| I've also known a few Android users who get a new phone
| every year because they think the next $200 phone won't
| suck just as much as the last one did. And that, sure, is
| kinda their own fault.
| acchow wrote:
| > They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people
| do that.
|
| I actually don't like to replace my phone a lot. The
| issue was, with each Android phone, despite great
| recommendations from others and lots of research I was
| left wanting. And after being disappointed by each
| Android phone, another Android expert would tell me that
| some other newly released hardware would blow me away. I
| was tricked by this again and again and again. Until
| eventually releasing I would just be so much happier on
| iPhone. I was.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Heh--as an ex-Android user who owned a couple of the
| "good" ones, I definitely get where you're coming from.
| I'd take a $400 iPhone over any Android phone, no matter
| how nice, no hesitation, even disregarding existing
| purchases and such (I don't have a ton of those, anyway)
| 7speter wrote:
| You know you can get an Iphone SE for 150 dollars, right?
| npsomaratna wrote:
| Might be luck of the draw, but my experience with Android
| has been similar to OP. Each of my (at the time top of the
| line) Samsung phones stopped working due to various reasons
| after a time period ranging from just under an year, to a
| couple of years.
|
| In comparison, my secondhand iPhone 3G worked for several
| years--until I left it in a plane by mistake. My iPhone
| 7plus I used for ~7 years; in fact I still use it, along
| with my new iPhone 13.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| You used Samsung products, that was your problem. Every
| Samsung I've had or used has been absolute trash
| koito17 wrote:
| I assume it was mostly humor, albeit poorly timed humor.
|
| The lack of elaboration to the question shows that there wasn't
| much thought put into this idea IMO. While a majority of
| Americans use iPhones, there is still a significant portion of
| Android users. It's unfortunate that an interoperable solution
| was not promoted, but I assume this suggestion attempts
| catering to the majority and puts little thought into what we
| are all concerned with -- interoperability and being able to
| target everybody, not just ~60% of the U.S. population (if you
| want to believe statcounter's numbers).
| paulddraper wrote:
| > this level of ignorance and short-sightedness
|
| It was a joke. Maybe an off-color, inappropriate, unfunny, bad
| taste, etc.
|
| But it was a joke, not ignorance.
|
| Speaking of too much time on HN (:
| nomel wrote:
| This is why politicians try not to say anything at all
| whenever they talk.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Because they otherwise make bad jokes in poor taste?
| autokad wrote:
| no, because people go absolutely crazy at the slightest
| detail.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| [flagged]
| morkalork wrote:
| 21st century "let them eat cake"
| briandear wrote:
| If you can afford to park a car in NYC, you can afford Air
| Tags.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You can park for free after 6 or 7PM weekdays and in some
| limited places (Chelsea), all day long.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| "Ignorance", "short-sightedess", and "ignores the realities of
| the world" (and another commenter's "let them eat cake") seems
| like a _stratospherically_ dramatic reaction to the common
| "why would anyone use THAT platform" joke.
| evandale wrote:
| Video of "Why would anyone have one?"
|
| Around 15:50: https://youtu.be/Vuw72THyXsQ?t=942
|
| They were laughing at it. So hilarious, I'm in stitches over
| the ignorance.
| catiopatio wrote:
| Why would I choose an Android phone? Apple does not spy on
| me, and does not sell my information to advertisers. An
| iPhone SE is $429, or can be financed _at the same price_ ,
| with _zero_ interest, at $17.87 for 24 months.
|
| Why would I want to join Google's advertiser-driven
| ecosystem, and voluntarily make myself into Google's product?
| circuit10 wrote:
| If that's your main concern you'd be better off with a
| "degoogled" OS on an Android phone with an unlocked
| bootloader. iOS is locked down and you can't really see or
| control what information is being sent.
|
| Here are some other reasons why you or other people might
| choose Android phones:
|
| - Generally cheaper/better value, especially on the low end
|
| - Less locked down (e.g. you can actually choose what
| browser engine you want to use, or sideload apps relatively
| easily)
|
| - More options to choose from
|
| - The core OS is FOSS
|
| If you like iPhones that's fine but it's not true that
| there's literally no reason for anyone to get an Android
| phone
| catiopatio wrote:
| I'm sure someone running a custom Android image with an
| unlocked bootloader can figure out an Android-compatible
| alternative to AirTag.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| There is no alternative to AirTags which doesn't take up
| additional space or come with major downsides. The way
| AirTags work is by using low power ultra wideband
| communications to respond to what are effectively ping
| packets which get sent out by apple devices in the area.
| The devices get the AirTag's ID and the distance and
| submit it to Apple for processing. Apple uses the
| distance information to trilaterate the AirTags and sends
| this information to the owner of the tag.
|
| As such, AirTags only work because of Apple's market
| position and extremely wide reach. Put simply, Apple is
| abusing their control over their devices and the trust
| their users have placed in them to perform a form of mass
| surveillance.
| comex wrote:
| AirTags encrypt the location data end-to-end between the
| finding device and the Find My app on the owner's
| devices. There's no mass surveillance, unless you count
| masses of individual users surveilling their own AirTags.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Tile works the same way but just with bluetooth. Any
| phone with a tile app on it is snitching on every tag it
| sees. Apple of course wins here because it's just every
| damn iphone, not just the ones that have an app
| installed.
|
| As someone who has used both the airtag is just plain
| better when it comes to locating it, the uwb stuff is
| awesome. But the tile tags have some upsides as well. I
| love the button on the tile that you can use to ring your
| phone, helps solve ye olde.. i have my keys, where's my
| phone problem.
| belltaco wrote:
| Samsung has smart tags but they probably have the same or
| similar issues as Apple tags.
| glogla wrote:
| How are degoogled phones nowadays?
|
| Last time I tried that, it was very limited. No paying by
| phone, no banking apps (and most banks require app as
| second factor), no proper maps with navigation and
| routing, no streaming music, no "work" apps like Teams or
| Slack, no utility apps like taxis or public transport.
| Even messaging apps wouldn't work well due to lack of
| push notifications.
|
| Degoogled Android was basically touch display dumbphone.
| Which is perfect for some people who want it that way,
| but I like the ability to use public transport, get a cab
| or message people by something else than a text.
|
| edit: I think there might be a difference between
| degoogled as in not registered to play store but still
| having play services install, and degoogled as using shim
| play services? I honestly don't remember.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| >Apple does not spy on me
|
| There's something ironic to find this comment on a video of
| a former cop surrounded by other cops touting the
| surveillance features Apple's product offers exclusively.
| Zircom wrote:
| At least for me a lot of automation and workflow stuff I
| have just doesn't exist on iPhones. I make heavy use of
| buzzkill, taskr and iftt, and the first two have no
| equivalent on iOS and probably never will. Pretty sure home
| screen widgets are next to non-existent as well on iOS.
| catiopatio wrote:
| Thanks for the informative answer. Frankly, it's a shame
| that most consumers have to choose between either
| spyware-computer or privacy-preserving-consumption-
| console.
|
| That said, I simply can't blame someone for considering
| an iPhone to be the default choice for the majority of
| consumers.
| belltaco wrote:
| > I make heavy use of buzzkill, taskr and iftt
|
| What do you use them for? That sounds interesting.
| belltaco wrote:
| Not sure how that's a good response. Nobody is this thread
| is saying you should be forced into not using Apple phones.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Apple does not spy on me
|
| Apple can be compelled to spy on you[0].
|
| > and does not sell my information to advertisers
|
| Apple is an advertiser.
|
| [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They don't even have to be compelled, they can simply be
| asked to share users' private data.
| rr808 wrote:
| > $17.87 for 24 months.
|
| Yeah I'm too cheap to pay that much.
| m463 wrote:
| I think there's another dimension here...
|
| He's also talking to car thieves.
| mxuribe wrote:
| It seems the android comment was a bit of a joke from the
| mayor...at least per this youtube video from the mayor's
| office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuw72THyXsQ&t=945s
| version_five wrote:
| All that stupidity aside, how are AirTags actually supposed to
| help, even if we all had an iPhone and were happy to live under
| apple's benevolent rule? Most cars have a gps tracker now
| anyway. Mine was stolen last year, during the night. I was told
| it would have been put into a shipping container within an
| hour, where it wouldn't be accessible to radio waves anyway.
|
| Maybe they work for casual joyriding. At least where I am, most
| car theft is organized crime shipping them overseas. Gimmicks
| like airtags will do nothing.
| Swizec wrote:
| > At least where I am, most car theft is organized crime
| shipping them overseas. Gimmicks like airtags will do
| nothing.
|
| I remember hearing stories as a kid in Slovenia that if your
| is stolen, you'll never get it back because it gets chopped
| into pieces within hours - before you even realize it's gone
| - and the parts make it to Bosnia/Albania/Serbia by next day.
|
| In the early 00's there was even a show on Discovery Channel
| about chop shops in UK - indie garages that make new cars out
| of parts. How the parts are sourced was not discussed, they
| "just show up".
| taffronaut wrote:
| "Chop Shop" was a follow up to the series "Bangla Bangers"
| [1]. It was more like a variant of Scrapheap Challenge and
| nothing to do with organized crime around stolen cars in
| the UK.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangla_Bangers
| firmnoodle wrote:
| AirTags will report their last known location. This is very
| likely to be the point it was driven into a container. If the
| container wasn't moved or loaded onto a ship yet it could be
| found. Additionally, while containers do a really good job
| and of blocking RF, they aren't perfect and they only need to
| get a little Bluetooth to a phone nearby. So even an iPhone
| on a crane operator could expose the stolen car's location.
| It may not be perfect but it could help. I use them on a
| classic car and on hidden on two trailers I own.
| deltree7 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Arrath wrote:
| Perhaps the police could Do Their Jobs without inviting more
| technocrats and outside surveillance into the mix.
| deltree7 wrote:
| [flagged]
| tohnjitor wrote:
| You must not be familiar with American politicians.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Have they always been this way or have they all become wildly
| out of touch more recently? To an outsider, American
| political discourse looks like it is completely divorced from
| reality.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Making a joke about how iPhones are better is basically the
| opposite of out of touch. Most new yorkers agree, and 90%
| of the others are used to the joke.
| rolph wrote:
| how does this not become giveaway stalkerware, instead of vehicle
| tracking, remove the noisemaker thing, and its just a matter of
| victim not having an ios phone to out the stalker airtag.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| I gave up on Airtags. Under the guise of "protecting against
| stalking" Apple has removed all of its useful functionality.
|
| For starters, any family that shares keys can forget about using
| airtags. You'll get spammed with alerts about an airtag following
| you and even if you mute them (for 1 day max) you can't use the
| airtag to find the keys. This also happens if the person next to
| you has an airtag and is riding in the car with you.
|
| If a thief steals your car they'll be alerted about the airtag
| too.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| They'll be alerted to the airtag, but then they'd need to find
| it. You can easily kill the speaker in the airtag to make that
| hard.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Defund the police. Not for any socialist reasons, or because
| they're racist or whatever people are angry about - but because
| they are so incompetent at their job and do _literally nothing to
| help people_ while facing absolutely no consequences for doing
| so. If I was as bad at my job as police were at theirs, I wouldn
| 't have a job anymore. When police are so bad at their job that
| they find it more convenient to do absolutely nothing than to
| actually do what they are paid 6 figures to do, people respond by
| giving them more money.
|
| There's a perverse incentive here. Doing nothing as a cop and
| letting your city go to shit is rewarded by extra funding from
| people who want a stronger police force. But by doing this, you
| are making the police weaker, because you are rewarding
| incompetence and laziness. The way you make a stronger police
| force is by taking away their funding until they actually fucking
| do something.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Police do plenty good behind the scenes, you just never hear
| about it on the media.
|
| In fact, the solution is to increase funding specifically to
| attract quality people and provide adequate training. You want
| quality officers patrolling neighborhoods preventing the car
| theft happening in the first place.
| fdsavalkj wrote:
| > Defund the police. Not for any socialist reasons, or because
| they're racist or whatever people are angry about - but because
| they are so incompetent at their job
|
| Who on Earth thinks the answer to attracting competent people
| to a middle-class job is _lowering_ pay?
| paulddraper wrote:
| I mean....it's not a bad suggestion, right?
|
| Suppose you had the task of limiting and recovering of car
| thefts. Tracking the location from your phone would help, yes?
|
| I'm ideologically opposed to Mayor Adams in pretty much every
| way, but I don't see how this suggestion is a bad one.
| wskish wrote:
| I wish more hardware products supported the "embedded airtag"
| feature enabled by the Apple Find My program that enables 3rd
| party manufactures to effectively embed airtags into their
| products.
|
| https://mfi.apple.com
| MikeKusold wrote:
| I wish Apple supported that in their Airpod case.
| stereo wrote:
| Do any hardware products support it at all?
| mataug wrote:
| Yea Vanmoof bikes and a few other products support this. TBH
| not enough products support it
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211331
| bastard_op wrote:
| Then directly before this article I see posted from slashdot
| "Apple and Google Team Up To Stop Unwanted AirTag Tracking". So
| which is it.
| Logans_Run wrote:
| From TFA
|
| _Mayor Adams was asked during the press conference if AirTags
| work with Android (they don 't).
|
| "Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams
| responded._
|
| Oh and given that this in New York we're talking about here, the
| vigilante mob are gonna go wild for this, especially after
| Citizen worked out so well ....
|
| _But by last month, Frame was enthusiastically backing the idea
| of manhunts, according to screenshots of internal company
| communications seen by NBC News and first reported by
| Motherboard_ [1]
|
| [1] "Inside Citizen: The public safety app pushing surveillance
| boundaries" https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/citizen-
| public-safety...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]? " Mayor Adams
| responded_
|
| This is a New Yorker's response to a stupid question.
|
| AirTags have a recognised brand. Messaging "buy AirTags" comes
| through cleanly in a way an inclusive statement would not.
| Given nobody is burning city funds for this, it's literally a
| PSA, a reporter asking the mayor technical questions the answer
| to which they know is fine to be answered dismissively.
| stefan_ wrote:
| NYC is burning tons of city funds on police to solve ever
| fewer cases.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| How is that relevant?
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Did you miss the part where the city is giving away 500 air
| tags? It's right at the start of the article. You did read
| the article, didn't you?
| tehjoker wrote:
| On apple's website, that's about $25 per an airtag and
| unless they got a deal, this is $12,500 in funds or free
| assets from Apple to do promotion. Skating close to
| corruption.
| vkou wrote:
| The cost to the city & its residents of dealing with a
| single car theft can easily be four-to-five figures.
|
| You call it corruption. Is it, or is it just a good ROI?
|
| I think it'll depend on whether this does anything, or
| whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you
| report your car's location to them with an AirTag.
|
| Time will tell.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 'll depend on whether this does anything, or
| whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you
| report your car's location to them with an AirTag_
|
| Which is affected by the mayor, a former cop, name
| dropping AirTags in relation to car thefts in the press.
| dheera wrote:
| > The cost to the city & its residents of dealing with a
| single car theft can easily be four-to-five figures.
|
| That's ridiculous. At that rate it would be better to
| just buy the owner a new car.
|
| But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your
| license plate or VIN as stolen and have traffic cameras
| automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate
| is detected. It would be far cheaper and not that
| different from reporting your credit card as stolen.
| vkou wrote:
| > That's ridiculous.
|
| No, it's just how the world works.
|
| The unfortunate thing about property crime is that
| frequently, $50 worth of gain often results in
| $500-$5,000 worth of damages and costs. Just ask anyone
| who's had a catalytic converter stolen, or their copper
| ripped out.
|
| > But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report
| your license plate as stolen and have traffic cameras
| automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate
| is detected.... It would be far cheaper...
|
| Designing and deploying an automatic system for
| 'Automatically deploying spike strips', (besides being a
| bad idea) in a city like NYC will be an eight-figure sort
| of project. That will assure that in the _best-case_
| scenario, a car theft will run four-figures worth of
| damages. In the worst case, it will do nothing, because
| the car 's been abandoned, or is being taken apart in a
| Jersey chop-shop by the time you report it stolen.
| dheera wrote:
| > Just ask anyone who's had a catalytic converter stolen
|
| The difference is when someone's catalytic converter is
| stolen, we don't spend $5000 of taxpayer money on it.
| More often than not, we spend $0 of taxpayer money, and
| the angry owner spends $5000.
|
| I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5
| figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in
| which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that
| money and distribute them for free to people who had
| stolen cars.
| vkou wrote:
| > we don't spend $5000 of taxpayer money on it.
|
| If the police spends any time documenting it, looking for
| it, or catching and prosecuting the guy who did it, it
| can run up to that. Even if they do the bare minimum,
| it'll definitely run a lot more than $50...
|
| > I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5
| figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in
| which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that
| money and distribute them for free to people who had
| stolen cars.
|
| Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars in personal loss,
| or tens of dollars in taxes that fund measures and
| mechanisms to prevent or mitigate that loss? It all comes
| out of your pocket at the end of the day. Whether it
| comes out of your taxes, or your insurance premiums, or
| from your pocketbook, you'll still be paying.
|
| I know that all costs being equal, I'd rather live in a
| world with fewer car, or cat, or copper thefts, or any
| other negative-sum activity than one with more of them.
| There's no magic bullet for this, though, which is why
| each mitigation should be considered on its own costs and
| merits.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Even if they do the bare minimum, it'll definitely run
| a lot more than $50...
|
| The bare minimum is taking a report and checking a file,
| and that'll take about five minutes. How are you
| calculating "a lot more than $50"?
|
| And why did you pick $50 anyway? Is that a comparison to
| how much the criminal makes? If the profit is a small
| fraction of the damage they do, it makes lots of sense
| for the police to spend more than the profit.
| briandear wrote:
| https://www.choicehacking.com/2022/01/04/what-is-the-
| cobra-e...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| For the cost of the city, if they stopped going after car
| theft it would simply become more prevalent. We don't
| need to decriminalize and make safe cities for car
| thieves.
|
| Regarding your second point, many modern cars have kill
| switches the police can access. This might be a better
| solution if these can't easily bypass them. That said, I
| don't personally want a car with a kill switch.
| bell-cot wrote:
| By the standards of either the NYC budget, or Apple's
| finances, $12,500 is a rounding error.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| They can send all their rounding errors to me then, I'll
| happily take them.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Okay. Note that half of them will be negative. Have fun.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Did you miss the part where the city is giving away 500
| air tags?_
|
| That's a publicity stunt, not a crime-fighting measure. I
| do not count five hundred AirTags as "burning city funds."
| asldkfjaslkdj wrote:
| [flagged]
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The city didnt even buy them. A non profit did.
|
| >The Association for a Better New York (ABNY), a nonprofit
| founded by New York real estate developer Lewis Rudin in
| the 1970s and responsible for the "I <3 NY campaign," paid
| for the 500 AirTags.
| [deleted]
| platevoltage wrote:
| I use Airtags for this purpose with my car and my bicycle, but
| they're not designed for this purpose. You can pull the speaker
| coil out of them fairly easily, but they will still notify the
| thief that they're being tracked if they have an iPhone on them.
| Not ideal, but it beats having a huge epidemic of stalking.
| catiopatio wrote:
| > Not ideal, but it beats having a huge epidemic of stalking.
|
| Does it, though? And are those really the only two possible
| outcomes?
|
| I blame reactionary click-bait journalism for forcing Apple to
| take these steps.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I always found it a bit rediculous that Apple seemingly admits
| stalking is a problem they have to solve it, and they solve it
| by requiring you to buy an iPhone. To solve a problem they
| created, you have to give them money.
|
| It's worse in my opinion than just going with 'we're not
| responsible for how our product is used' defense.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| You don't have to buy an iPhone. Apple publishes a free app
| in the Google Play Store[1].
|
| You do have to run Apple software, but it'd be a bit much to
| expect them to make things work with no code at all.
|
| [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.t
| rac...
| pnw wrote:
| They will also notify an Android phone if they have installed
| the app which Apple created for this purpose. I have to imagine
| thieves would know about this.
| tssva wrote:
| A thief can use the Apple provided app to discover if there
| is a tag, but I don't know that I would say it notifies them
| since unlike on an iPhone it would require the thief to
| actively open the app and perform a manual scan for the tag.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's a distinction that doesn't really matter, because a
| thief is going to have that app installed and open after
| they've stolen something.
| tssva wrote:
| Since cars are being located even with automatic
| notification to iPhones the higher barrier is likely to
| have some impact.
| AustinDev wrote:
| You're vastly overestimating the competency of the
| majority of thieves.
| grumple wrote:
| I've been doing this for a while with my car. Removed the
| speakers. Hid them in an inconvenient location that requires some
| minor disassembly of the car.
|
| I use it all the time to figure out where my car is since my wife
| and I share and have street parking and live in a busy area.
|
| I also slip airtags into my somewhat expensive jackets when going
| to events with coat check.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I mean you can also go low tech with stuff like a hidden kill
| switch and all sorts of things that would actually prevent the
| theft.
| balls187 wrote:
| I drive a standard.
|
| That's basically a kill switch at least in the US.
| dom96 wrote:
| Precisely what I did when I got my first car. Though I often
| wonder how effective it will be, wouldn't be surprised if the
| thief notices the AirTag's presence fairly quickly.
| dinkblam wrote:
| i am unsure how AirTags can be recommended by anyone in any
| situation to prevent theft.
|
| their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in
| any situation where theft is involved (or theft happens after
| loosing the item). the thief is alerted to their presence
| automatically and can disable them quickly. perfect for thieves!
|
| AirTags can only be used for misplaced items, any utility for
| situations involving theft is completely negated by their "anti
| tracking" features.
|
| another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes
| the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..
| briffle wrote:
| I have a 'family' setup in our iphones for my wife and kids. My
| wife bought some airtags and put them in the cases for our kids
| expensive musical instruments, her keys, etc.
|
| We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times,
| etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on
| her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for
| the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when
| she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has
| her purse with her.
|
| They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of
| false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and
| ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And if your kids are young enough not to have their own
| phone, when they go to school with an AirTag it'll start
| beeping a while later just to make sure nobody is stalking
| them.
|
| It was a nice idea until all the people worried about
| stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker
| won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.
| DaveExeter wrote:
| What if the thieves don't have an iPhone?
| dinkblam wrote:
| thieves using Android can just install the "air tag anti
| tracking" app for Android.
| bsder wrote:
| > another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention
| makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..
|
| But the 0.01% will give _Apple_ horrible press, so it 's more
| important than anything else.
|
| The fact that tags aren't useful to _you_ isn 't the issue.
| crhulls wrote:
| I'm glad someone brought this up. I'm the CEO of Tile and we
| launched an anti-theft feature for this reason. We allow you to
| turn off anti-stalking features if you agree to strict
| penalties for misuse and verify yourself with a real ID.
|
| https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...
| true_religion wrote:
| Apple in most cases already has our real ID. And stalkers are
| already determined to commit crimes. Agreeing to civil
| penalties isn't going to deter someone who already doesn't
| fear criminal imprisonment.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| And those stalkers could just buy any other GPS tracker out
| there which would be more effective than an airtag anyways.
|
| It's all just posturing by Apple and all to the detriment
| of 99.99% of their user base.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Thank you for this. We switched back to Tile specifically
| because Apple's anti-stalking features make it impossible to
| eg; share keys. For any household with several cars this is
| an obvious must-have.
|
| Not to mention most people want to, you know, be able to
| track something that got stolen.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| How much customer data are you giving to your corporate
| owners? How much are you selling to third parties? How much
| are your owners selling to third parties?
| sigmar wrote:
| How do you verify the government ID used belongs to the
| person disabling the anti-stalker feature? There's a huge
| market for fake state IDs and stolen/leaked photos of various
| gov't IDs
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Seems like a pretty unrealistic bar to set. You can use
| government ID to empty a bank account and air and tile
| stocking seems way lower Stakes.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yeah after buying a few AirTags early on, I've largely given up
| on them. Too much of a hassle as it tries not to be usable to
| stalk, so I can't use it for the other handy use cases.
| asdff wrote:
| Good for checked luggage or bags you might leave behind
| somewhere.
| AustinDev wrote:
| Best use-case by far. I was traveling internationally, and
| the airline left my luggage back in Europe. The airline had
| no idea where my bags were but, I was able to tell them
| exactly which terminal my bags got loaded onto. (where they
| lost signal) They looked up which flight departed that
| terminal at that time and were then able to route my bags
| to my final location and I had them within 24 hours.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| So sick of Adams. There have been some legendary lightweight NYC
| Mayors (and some heavyweights as well of course) but in modern
| times Adams takes the cake.
| pnw wrote:
| This is a terrible suggestion because Apple has effectively
| removed the anti-theft features of Airtags in favor of protection
| against stalking.
|
| The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour
| usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically
| within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which
| includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email
| address.
|
| The original Airtag use case included theft but you'll notice any
| mention of that has now been removed from the marketing material.
| It's really just for people who lose things.
| WWLink wrote:
| > The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour
| usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog.
| Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an
| alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my
| friends email address.
|
| To be fair, 45-60 minutes to track a stolen car is still a lot
| better than nothing.
| xur17 wrote:
| > The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour
| usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog.
| Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an
| alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my
| friends email address.
|
| In the article, they recommended that you "hide the airtag
| well", so it's most likely that the thief will receive the
| notification after a while, and decide to just dump the car.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I'm not sure how the notification stops the thief. If you're
| half decent at hiding things they won't be able to find it in
| less than half an hour, so they either stop and look during
| which time you can catch them or they abandon the car and you
| get it back since it's still being tracked.
| 2c2c2c wrote:
| I believe you can turn the sound on it when you get that
| alert, although there's guides on how to remove the speaker
| jtbayly wrote:
| I don't recommend going and confronting a car thief.
|
| And I doubt the police will be there in half an hour. You'll
| be lucky to convince them you have the location sometime the
| next day, when it's far too late.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Eric adams does recommend confronting a car thief I guess.
| Really it just depends on the situation, plenty of New
| Yorkers would be game. Might even prefer it to hoping the
| cops deal with it. Personally if my only choice was ask
| cops for help I'd consider the car gone. I can round up a
| few of the boys and confront the thief given an hour or
| two, and at least I'd get my car back. No idea if NYPD is
| as worthless as my pd though.
| whoisstan wrote:
| His infamous search your home video comes to mind as well:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk2Wc4Y5CxE
| bagels wrote:
| Who is putting all these drugs and guns in his house? Weird.
| TheDudeMan wrote:
| I assumed all new cars had GPS devices in them already, phoning
| home to the manufacturer. Is this not the case?
| tracker1 wrote:
| Many do... Although mine doesn't function anymore, since it is
| a 3G cell modem and well after 4G/LTE had become normalized
| (car companies and dated tech, who would figure). I never used
| it, so didn't bother to update last year when they finally
| offered an upgrade option.
|
| My SO's new car definitely has it (OnStar) although the Android
| Auto UX is better IMO.
| lancesells wrote:
| If you're a thief you could theoretically find the AirTags with
| the help of this article right? https://support.apple.com/en-
| us/HT212227
| vtashkov_oblon wrote:
| [flagged]
| yieldcrv wrote:
| make sure to get a decoy airtag, so that your other airtag
| doesn't get found
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I wanted to try to understand more context behind the "'Why would
| anyone have one [an Android phone]?' Mayor Adams responded."
| quote. Here is the relevant video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vuw72THyXsQ&t=949s
|
| So, I get that he's making a joke, but given that everyone just
| laughs and there is no follow up, it's clear to me it's one of
| those "The reason this joke is funny is because I actually think
| it's true" jokes.
|
| I've been an Android user for about a decade now, but I think I'm
| finally going to have to throw in the towel. Between iMessage
| (especially iMessage) and things like this, in the US having an
| Android essentially marks you as a second class citizen. And to
| be clear, I'm not saying this from an "Androids are uncool" or
| some silly "green bubbles" perspective, I'm saying from the
| perspective that owning an Android actually makes it more
| difficult to interact with friends and, in this case, with
| government services.
|
| No, I'm not happy about it, and I f'ing hate how Apple has used
| these walled garden techniques to force people onto their
| platform. But from a simple utilitarian perspective, owning an
| Android puts you at a distinct disadvantage in the US.
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