[HN Gopher] How to find a lost phone in a no-cell-coverage campi...
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How to find a lost phone in a no-cell-coverage camping site?
Author : mgarciaisaia
Score : 406 points
Date : 2023-10-25 21:58 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (manas.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (manas.tech)
| gwill wrote:
| this is pretty smart, i didn't realize the hotspot tells you how
| many connections there are although i don't really use mine. my
| mind went straight to bluetooth pairing.
| m463 wrote:
| I thought "find my" on newer iphones could do local non-cellular
| location services, like airtags.
| dan_linder wrote:
| They can, but the AirTag has to be "seen" by another connected
| device and that device must relay the GPS position it was
| "seen" at.
|
| I don't know if Apple IOS is correct enough to log the time and
| position of AirTags when the device itself is disconnected from
| a network...
| solardev wrote:
| The newer devices can locate each other via ultrawideband
| triangulation too, completely detached from the cell network.
| They have special chips for this built-in:
| https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/apple/149336-how-
| app...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I wonder how well the relay phone does store and forward, I
| guess it does otherwise AirTags are useless outside of
| cellular footprint territory.
|
| I guess sometimes a late ping is better than no ping.
| sergers wrote:
| Samsung has their own "offline finding" as they call it, if
| enabled other Samsung devices/wearables can locate it
| somehow, brief on how that's done on their site
| acdha wrote:
| It'll show up in Find My even if it can't connect to the
| internet. BLE and UWB both work offline.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| There were only one or two iPhones among the 12+ people party
| we were - and this specific phone was an Android one.
| marcod wrote:
| So, there is no security feature that prevents a phone from
| connecting to a cloned wifi network??
| dhosek wrote:
| How can you tell a wifi network is cloned if the SSID/password
| match? After all, it might legitimately be a new legitimate
| access point in the network.
| redox99 wrote:
| Obivously using certificates and TOFU. APs would share the
| certificate.
|
| (That's how it should work, not how it does in practice)
| cj wrote:
| I've always wondered how commonly black hats clone and
| exploit mass deployed public SSIDs like the "xfinitywifi"
| network you see in all major US cities with xfinity.
|
| Presumably you could get a lot of random devices to
| automatically connect and then hijack DNS to cause trouble.
| solardev wrote:
| Even if you hijacked DNS, most things are HTTPS now and
| you'd have to get a copy of a certificate from a trusted
| CA.
| lazide wrote:
| At least 50% of such APs I ran across didn't work right.
| I chalk it up to broken implementation on the ISP side,
| but a decent number may be issues like this.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's not that easy, unfortunately: Many networks span more
| than one access point, either simultaneously or across time
| (mediocre CPEs are notoriously being swapped out all the
| time by cable providers, in my experience).
|
| Initially loading and then synchronizing certificates
| across APs would be anything but trivial.
|
| I've surprised my friends a few times by keeping my SSID +
| password constant over the years and across several moves
| within the city (and across ISPs) and even internationally
| - whenever they come to my place, they have Wi-Fi the
| second they step through the door :)
|
| It's also nice not having to re-configure various embedded
| devices, many without a sane user interface to type a
| passphrase or even accept a new TOFU public key, every time
| I set up a new router at my family's place.
| lxgr wrote:
| Exactly, if the SSID and password match, it _is_ the same
| network by definition.
| rkachowski wrote:
| The BSSID won't match
| nineteen999 wrote:
| If the SSID and password are the same, how would the phone tell
| the difference? I don't know.
|
| My Fitbit has a "find my phone" feature that uses Bluetooth to
| tell the Fitbit app on the phone to make a loud whistle. It's
| kind of handy and ive made use of it several times around my
| house, but obviously isn't useful outside Bluetooth range.
| flashback2199 wrote:
| > If the SSID and password are the same, how would the phone
| tell the difference
|
| MAC address, but devices don't care, by design they will
| connect if the SSID and encryption type are the same,
| actually, you can create a mesh wifi network at your house
| with regular routers or access points by doing so, connecting
| them with wired ethernet.
| HPsquared wrote:
| MAC address can of course be spoofed easily as well.
| eternityforest wrote:
| Which is a very good thing, otherwise you wouldn't be able
| to replace a router and have stuff just work.
| pests wrote:
| The last time I did we did a WiFi password change at my
| house there were near 100 devices that had to be updated.
| Such a hassle. Thankfully it's stayed the same over 4
| routers and about 7 years.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Orrrrr the protocol would just be smart enough to say
| "hey, we are thinking of connecting to this network but
| the MAC address is different -- did you recently switch
| base stations?"
| eternityforest wrote:
| As long as screenless devices and other unattended things
| like light bulbs didn't need manual intervention, and it
| was easy to turn off the checks on a Linux server, it
| would be cool.
|
| But it would probably be an annoyance in large multi
| hotspot environments, and could become another thing to
| train people to mindlessly click through like cookie
| prompts.
| namibj wrote:
| ESSID != BSSID. The former meant for UX, the latter to
| uniquely identify. Wpa_didn't allows fixing the latter, for
| example, as needed when you hang out at multiple locations
| where the wifi has the default ESSID, but of course with
| distinct passwords. Causes authentication timeout/lockout
| annoyance if left alone.
| lxgr wrote:
| That's a pretty annoying situation, yes.
|
| Fortunately many default network names at least contain
| some randomness these days, e.g. three bytes of an access
| point's BSSID, to make this less likely.
|
| That's also the proper fix - pinning a WPA password to an
| individual BSSID would go against the concept of
| encryption being scoped to an ESS/ESSID, not individual
| APs.
| nehal3m wrote:
| You can, but if the AP's aren't aware of their shared
| clients they can't hand them off to another AP when signal
| strength degrades. Let's say you connect a client to AP A,
| then walk out of range closer to AP B. Your signal strength
| will suck because you're now farther away from AP A (and
| close to AP B). AP A won't disconnect your client to allow
| it to connect to B for better signal strength (that is,
| until AP A's signal strength is too low to sustain a
| connection).
|
| Networks that are meshed by design take this into account
| and communicate about signal strength per client, handing
| them over when they notice a neighbor would be able to
| serve the client better.
| oynqr wrote:
| While communication between APs (and forwarding of the
| data to clients) helps, it's not strictly needed because
| clients will do background scans, especially when
| reception is getting worse.
| ruined wrote:
| 802.1x eap
| solardev wrote:
| Yeah, back in the day before HTTPS was common, this used to be
| a viable attack where people would set up rogue hotspots at
| cafes and whatnot and intercept all your traffic.
| lxgr wrote:
| That's only possible for unencrypted networks/SSIDs, though.
| solardev wrote:
| I think that's a different attack, where you could
| passively sniff wifi traffic from networks without WEP. I
| meant more just hosting your own hotspot with a popular
| name, forcing clients to connect to it via
| disconnect/reconnect attacks, and then you're essentially a
| tiny MITM ISP that can monitor all their unencrypted
| traffic
| lxgr wrote:
| > hosting your own hotspot with a popular name, forcing
| clients to connect to it via disconnect/reconnect attacks
|
| You can only do that for unencrypted networks or those
| for which you know the passphrase, though.
| solardev wrote:
| Yes, like most public hotspot in cafes, schools,
| libraries, etc where the password is readily shared.
| LordShredda wrote:
| Assuming you kept the password a secret, how would you create
| an identical wifi clone?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| LAX_FREE_AIRPORT_WIFI
| brink wrote:
| 99.9% of people don't consider this an issue, I'd rather there
| not be one in the spec. It's just unnecessary complication. If
| you're the genuinely paranoid 0.1%, write a script.
| darkarmani wrote:
| 802.1x. At least that was what could be used 12 years ago. I
| don't know about state of the art now.
| lxgr wrote:
| There's not really such thing as a cloned wifi network
| conceptually: If you set up a new access point using the same
| SSID and encryption settings, you didn't clone a network - you
| just extended it by one more access point/location where it's
| available!
|
| A Wi-Fi network is the abstract concept of "all access points
| using the same name and passphrase", not an individual instance
| of an access point.
|
| If you connect the two access points (e.g. using wired
| Ethernet), clients can actually roam between the two fairly
| seamlessly without any other setup required, and this even
| works across brands!
| progman32 wrote:
| One thing to keep in mind re: roaming - devices tend to
| "stick" with their current AP even though there's a perfectly
| good same-SSID AP with much better strength available. There
| are protocols that can orchestrate between APs to "kick"
| stubborn devices to better APs: 802.11r, 802.11k, and
| 802.11v.
| JCharante wrote:
| Enterprise networking hardware has protections against this by
| attacking other access points. Example from cisco:
| https://community.cisco.com/t5/wireless/wlc-quot-rogue-conta...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Either "enterprise" WiFi or, if your device supports it,
| locking down the MAC address. That'll give you range issues if
| you use mesh wifi, range extenders, or additional access
| points, though.
|
| I don't know why more devices don't support WPA Enterprise,
| it's not _that_ complicated a protocol. I can imagine a "secure
| router" product with a normal WPA3 network for management and
| an "enterprise" network with a simple username/password list
| selling quite well in some niche circles.
|
| You can build such a network yourself, though, with almost any
| OpenWRT device, though it's clearly not something most end
| users can manage themselves:
| https://github.com/ouaibe/howto/blob/master/OpenWRT/802.1xOn...
| monsterofcookie wrote:
| Wait until dark, shine a flashlight around and look for
| reflection off the glass. Or use a metal detector...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Note to self: put a piece of retroreflective tape on my phone.
|
| (I already have a roll of DOT stuff for bicycles, required on
| the front and rear forks if riding at night)
| kgabis wrote:
| I did that with my dji drone, figured that when I eventually
| crash it and it ends up in some dense foliage, I could just
| go back at night and look for it with my torch looking for
| shiny 3M reflective tape.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| It was dark already. We did a lot of grass-searching with
| flashlights - but the phone was on top of the ATV, in a tough-
| to-spot location (by the handlebar or something, between some
| cables).
| smortaz wrote:
| not directly relevant, but was riding my motorcycle in the
| boonies, and lost the phone which was on the handlebar (bumpy
| rocky path).
|
| Looked for it several times on the path with no luck. Then I
| remembered my old iPhone was in the backpack. Did a Find my phone
| on the backup phone and it showed exactly where it had lost touch
| with the primary phone. This is all without cell or Wi-Fi
| service. Saved me a $1000.
| lxgr wrote:
| Oh, wow, I didn't realize "Find my" worked even when both
| devices are offline! But it makes sense - all that's really
| needed is GPS and Bluetooth.
|
| Were you able to access it right there without signal, or did
| you need to move to an area with coverage for it to sync?
| oldbbsnickname wrote:
| Not really. The phone only appears "off" but is in-fact in a
| low power mode providing beacons. It won't work if the
| battery were removed.
|
| Also, modern iPhones use tower-assisted GNSS (GPS, GLONASS,
| Galileo, QZSS, BeiDou, and NavIC) so the satellite isn't
| necessarily Navistar. With fewer or no towers, and positioned
| in an odd orientation on the ground, a good fix becomes much
| less likely, and the range can increase from <1m to
| 10's-100's of m.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Not really. The phone only appears "off" but is in-fact
| in a low power mode providing beacons. It won't work if the
| battery were removed.
|
| Sure, how else would it work? But people usually don't
| disassemble their phone before losing it on a train/in a
| taxi etc.
|
| > modern iPhones use tower-assisted GNSS
|
| Yes, but GP says they didn't have cell coverage where they
| lost it, so that wouldn't help.
| JCharante wrote:
| You might not want to mount your phone on the handlebar. See:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37230198
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| It might also fall off while riding on a bumpy trail and be
| lost forever unless you have a backup phone in your backpack.
| jojobas wrote:
| Having anything to distract you on a motorcycle is a bad
| idea.
|
| Best to put your phone in DND, if you need directions have
| them in voice only.
| progman32 wrote:
| Back when I rode, I made a little arrangement of LEDs
| around the speedometer in 3 concentric rings of ~32 lights.
| The blue LED closest to pointing North would light, the
| green LED would always point towards my home, and the red
| LED would point towards my destination (programmable before
| the trip). That's all I really needed. Basically a small
| version of a navigation arrow above video game characters.
| It meant that one glance at the speedometer gave me all
| critical information in one instant. The brain is really
| good at intuitively figuring out parallax, so if I was
| moving, two glances gave me a good idea of distance as
| well, though I experimented with lighting 1,3,5,7,9 LEDs as
| the destination got closer.
| teekert wrote:
| Sounds like a business idea.
| mdpye wrote:
| Here you go (2015):
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ridebeeline/beeline-
| sma...
|
| I thought it looked fun, but no way to justify the price.
| dmurray wrote:
| PS40? I guess if they get popular you will see the
| Chinese version at half that price, but it's hard to
| imagine a niche product at much cheaper.
|
| The cheapest Garmin watch is about 4x the price.
| mdpye wrote:
| Huh, last time I thought about it was the kickstarter in
| 2015,and I remember it being closer to PS120.
|
| PS40 is very reasonable :D
| p1nkpineapple wrote:
| PS99.99 https://beeline.co/products/beeline-velo-2
| jojobas wrote:
| Sounds cool, even if somewhat likely to get you into a
| dead-end now and then.
| megablast wrote:
| You had an old iphone you rarely used that still had a working
| sim in it? So you were paying for two phones every month?
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Internet access is not necessary for Find My to work. Your
| devices all broadcast their public key over Bluetooth and
| NFC, and your devices all also have your own private key, and
| so are identifiable / visible in Find My.
|
| Even if they hadn't had the local map, they can still get
| some useful signals from Find My (and they can still push
| Ring requests). However, in their case, their old phone still
| had the log of the last seen location. Again, no Internet
| required.
| withinboredom wrote:
| He said no service at all. When traveling, and you have an
| old phone with eSIM support, carrying it with you in a
| backpack (with eSIM information ready to go) is a good idea.
| Especially when traveling alone, you never know what will
| happen. Your primary phone can be stolen, you drop it, or it
| simply dies and you need rescue.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| I assumed it would be Bluetooth. Walking/driving around with
| headphones powered on waiting to pair.
|
| WiFi network mirroring is smart.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| >wifi network mirroring is smart
|
| Yep, so smart that I used to name my WiFi "McDonald's Free
| WiFi" when I lived half a block from McDonald's. Everyone's
| phones would connect but to my goatse'd image network.
|
| I thought devices would start remembering the base station MAC
| addresses to avoid hijacking but I guess not.. maybe I should
| start doing this again at my local Home Depot
|
| Edit: just remembered I used to do this on planes too. I would
| MiTM the AP and people would connect to my WiFi device. Then I
| would serve an obvious incorrect Bank of America page. No one
| logged in to it though :(
| userbinator wrote:
| _I thought devices would start remembering the base station
| MAC addresses to avoid hijacking_
|
| The use of multiple APs with the same SSID is a feature, not
| a bug. It enables roaming between them.
| deathanatos wrote:
| ... I suppose an unprotected network is always unprotected,
| but it is still possible1 to have AP roaming while
| detecting that you're switching to a different _network_ of
| APs, even if the name is the same.
|
| 1within a protocol design "possible". WiFi can't, AFAIK,
| actually do it.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| The client could be made to drop a connection if various
| things are too different (default gateway not matching,
| for example) but it would be pretty janky with false
| positives and false negatives...
| oldbbsnickname wrote:
| Creating rogue APs is criminal-adjacent, unethical behavior
| because it denies and interferes with a network. It could
| even be criminalized in some jurisdictions.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Tell that to Xfinity.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Well they are exempt from most laws.
| oldbbsnickname wrote:
| Comcast can die screaming, fiery deaths with rapid
| reincarnation between them.
|
| The were the only ISP in a certain suburban wooded area.
| During _planned_ power outages they would go out after
| ~16 hours because they failed to engineer survivability
| (choice of electrical circuits and backup power) as the
| cell phone networks, municipal water, and other critical
| services did.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| > WiFi network mirroring is smart
|
| Thanks!
|
| I don't usually use bluetooth _that much_ so I didn't think
| about it. My cousin's truck was around, which was indeed paired
| with the phone - but it would have been a bit more cumbersome
| to use in the search anyways.
| eternityforest wrote:
| I wonder how cheap and low power we could make tracking beacons
| if we didn't actually have to send any data and could accept some
| privacy risk.
|
| Imagine like, an airtag, but the ID only needs to be 1 byte long,
| or even just a simple presence signal.
|
| You'd put it on everything you own that's portable and easy to
| lose. When you want to find it you just search for signals. Maybe
| it could have an NFC silencing feature. Perhaps it could only
| activate after 10 minutes of not detecting movement, while also
| not being near a base station (The base stations would mark a
| location as the "safe place you won't forget").
|
| So you won't get any interference from anything people are
| carrying. You won't pick up anything safely stashed where it
| actually belongs.
|
| But you can quickly sweep an area for any lost property (Which
| could be good or bad, depending on if it's a helpful security
| guard or someone who believes in finders keepers looking...).
|
| You wouldn't ever have to receive any data, except to detect base
| stations, which would only need maybe a 2ft range.
|
| But it wouldn't solve the big issue with losing stuff, detecting
| when you leave a location without a thing.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Imagine like, an airtag, but the ID only needs to be 1 byte
| long,
|
| Well, then you could only ever track 255 different tags :)
|
| AirTags are already pretty minimal. Their battery lasts about a
| year, and I imagine an open source equivalent should be
| possible to build for under $5.
|
| This is purely guesstimated based on the fact that I have a
| couple of Bluetooth LE thermometer/hygrometers that cost me
| about $3 a piece that last about a year on the same battery
| (CR2032) - and these run custom firmware and need to run a
| display and data logger (to on-chip flash) as well!
| juanuicich wrote:
| Apparently there are Find My compatible generic tags coming
| out of China already, and they cost less than $5, shipping
| included. I say apparently because I'm still waiting for one
| to arrive and test.
| lxgr wrote:
| Interesting! I would have thought that Apple would add some
| sort of tamper-proof hardware authentication mechanism,
| given how expensive and privacy-sensitive AirTags are.
| sroussey wrote:
| They opened it up to avoid anti-trust issues.
| r00fus wrote:
| This sounds awesome - got a link?
| Guest71022 wrote:
| https://a.aliexpress.com/_mrvl4Xq
| ornornor wrote:
| Interesting. Although your link is 11.70$ with 50% off
| for me, but if you search for "find my Apple" you get
| many more results with lots of options around 5$
| hrrsn wrote:
| They seem to come up in the home page deals section quite
| often for me. I grabbed a couple that were $3.50 a pop,
| and so far they've behaved exactly like an Airtag (albeit
| with a worse speaker)
| ornornor wrote:
| Neat. Are they also water resistant (splashes/rain)?
| petemir wrote:
| That link is less than 2usd (1.62chf) for me. I'll never
| understand Ali's pricing.
| petemir wrote:
| fyi: apparently that's only a welcome (e.g., first-time
| user) offer. As soon as I logged in, it changed the price
| to ~11usd per piece.
| eternityforest wrote:
| You'd just have to have IDs repeat, and software that could
| tell the difference based on signal strength. If you have two
| on the same ID that have different RSSI, show them as two
| tags.
|
| You'd have to do some guesswork though to figure out what's
| going on but it would be better than nothing, and you might
| be able to get the size down below what CR2032 allows.
| lxgr wrote:
| But why only send a single byte if you can send a full UUID
| within a rounding error of the same resource usage?
|
| If you want it to be compatible with most smartphones,
| you'll need Bluetooth LE anyway, and that already uses at
| least 10 bytes on header fields for broadcast packets.
| imp0cat wrote:
| A year is a long time, but you can also get a CR2032 to USB
| converter and use that as a constant power source.
|
| Why? If you're using your smart tag to track your car, you
| can hide it somewhere deep inside and connect it to the
| vehicle's battery so it always has power. Then you never have
| to worry about changing batteries.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Walk around shouting Hey Siri
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| WOW. I love this approach. Didn't think of it since I don't
| usually use Siri (nor Google Assistant, since I'm on Android -
| as my cousin).
|
| SO steampunk to see a group of adults shouting around "HEY
| GOOGLE" in the woods to find a lost phone.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| (I've just asked my cousin, and he says Google Assistant is
| not enabled)
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Done this in my car to find my phone when it slipped under a
| seat.
| askvictor wrote:
| What's the difference in signal strength between bluetooth and
| wifi? I had assumed since they use the same frequency, and
| usually the same chip and antenna, they would be much the same
| (perhaps there are regulatory differences between them?) If
| anything, I'd guess that BLE would be more useful in this case as
| there is less handshaking, which means on a very poor connection
| you've got more of a chance of getting some data through.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > What's the difference in signal strength between bluetooth
| and wifi?
|
| Big in my experience. 15 - 20 feet vs 100+ feet for wifi out in
| the open like that.
| lxgr wrote:
| Depends on the Bluetooth device class.
|
| Most devices are Class 2, with a maximum transmit power of only
| 2.5 mW; that's not a lot compared to Wi-Fi's ~20-30 mW.
|
| AirPods are notably Class 1, which goes up to almost 20 mW!
| They accordingly have much better range as a result.
|
| Bluetooth LE in newer version has new low-bitrate coding
| methods to allow for even greater ranges (called "Coded PHY").
| Assuming Bluetooth LE classes are the same as for EDR (I don't
| know if they are!), this source [1] claims a 4 times greater
| range using coded PHY, which would be in the range of several
| hundred meters.
|
| [1] https://www.bluetooth.com/blog/exploring-
| bluetooth-5-going-t...
| sllabres wrote:
| I've been using three AirTags and two of the cheaper clones
| mentioned above. I can activate both about 100m away in the
| forest, if there is a line of sight.
|
| On the other hand, i can walk an entire day through the forest
| (with some other people around every now and then) without a
| single position update from the tag.
| Someone wrote:
| > I had assumed since they use the same frequency, and usually
| the same chip and antenna
|
| Yes and no. Bluetooth is 2.4GHz, WiFi has many bands, including
| one around 2.4GHz. Those can share an antenna, but I think that
| means only one can be sending at a time (they could mix the
| signals, but I guess that would mean connection would fail for
| the less powerful Bluetooth signal)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth:
|
| _"It employs UHF radio waves in the ISM bands, from 2.402 GHz
| to 2.48 GHz"_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels:
|
| _"The 802.11 standard provides several distinct radio
| frequency bands for use in Wi-Fi communications: 860 /900 MHz,
| 2.4 GHz, 3.6 GHz, 4.9 GHz, 5 GHz, 5.9 GHz, 6 GHz, 45 GHz and 60
| GHz. Each range is divided into a multitude of channels. In the
| standards, channels are numbered at 5 MHz spacing within a band
| (except in the 45/60 GHz band, where they are 0.54/1.08/2.16
| GHz apart), and the number linearly relates to the centre
| frequency of the channel. Although channels are numbered at 5
| MHz spacing, transmitters generally occupy at least 20 MHz, and
| standards allow for channels to be bonded together to form
| wider channels for faster throughput.
|
| Countries apply their own regulations to allowable channels,
| allowed users and maximum power levels within these frequency
| ranges. The ISM band ranges are also often used."_
| askvictor wrote:
| FWIW I was referring to 2.4GHz Wifi, which shares is
| basically exactly the same frequency range as bluetooth (14
| Channels in 2412-2484MHz vs 80 channels in 2400-2483.5MHz).
| The devices I've been working with share a chip and antenna,
| though they can't typically do both at the same time without
| multiplexing.
|
| I'm interested in, for this particular problem (finding a
| device using just wifi or bluetooth), which one would have
| the greater effective range.
| jukea wrote:
| I once found my phone buried in the sand on a beach with no
| coverage. I had a year worth of pictures on it, so I stewed in
| anguish for almost a day until we thought about installing a
| Bluetooth signal monitor on a friend's phone . Given the sluggish
| update frequency, we resorted to triangulating the phone's
| position. As we were pulling it from its sandy grave, I swear it
| felt like we were cheating fate itself.
| lxgr wrote:
| I recovered a lost device (satellite messenger in my case) via
| Bluetooth as well! It had just fallen into some ferns a meter
| or so off the trail, but without Bluetooth I'm sure I'd have
| never found it again.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| Not to nitpick but I think you mean trilaterate ;)
| lxgr wrote:
| If we're being nitpicky it was probably neither -
| multilateration requires taking multiple measurements,
| drawing circles/lines of equal signal strength (or timing
| advance) and then intersecting these.
|
| If you just want to home in on a transmitter, there's a much
| simpler algorithm: Try walking into various directions and
| keep heading into the one that makes the signal strength
| nunber go up :) Not sure if there's a name for that.
| dharmab wrote:
| Direction finding!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_finding
| lxgr wrote:
| I was looking at that too, but doesn't that usually imply
| using a directional antenna, rather than just measuring
| the received signal strength at different locations?
| aarghh wrote:
| Nope - as everyone who has looked for a buried avalanche
| beacon knows. As a matter of fact, depending on the
| number of burials and the searchers, your optimal search
| technique may be different.
| jffry wrote:
| > Not sure if there's a name for that.
|
| Hill climbing! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing
|
| Basically: Go in any direction that makes the number go up.
| Repeat.
| fsckboy wrote:
| you need a second rule: "Don't go in any direction that
| makes the number go down." That way, when you're on top
| of it, you know to stop.
| freshboy69 wrote:
| No you don't. Go in the upward direction implies don't go
| in the downward direction
| fsckboy wrote:
| I don't agree that that wording is as precise as you
| think it is. if you move in the direction where the
| signal goes up, when it stops going up, you are still
| moving in the same direction. Move "so long as the signal
| goes up" would tell you to stop, but it wouldn't tell you
| the direction, is the type of clarity I'm looking for.
| petemir wrote:
| Gradient ascent?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Or gradient descent if you mentally negate the number in
| question. It's the same thing.
| WanderPanda wrote:
| I think hill-climbing rejects updates that would worsen
| the objective while gradient descent usually doesn't
| smegsicle wrote:
| "warmer colder"
| jukea wrote:
| Nice one, Yep this is it. We drew 3 rough circles and found
| the intersection
| tkk13909 wrote:
| And this, kids, is why we back up _everything_
| janus wrote:
| Ha, last winter I lost my phone while snowboarding in the last
| 300-500m before mountain base. I noticed because I was listening
| to music with my airpods when I got to the bottom the music had
| gone silent. Thankfully I had my Apple watch with me, so I
| immediately got off the board and start running uphill while
| incessantly spamming the "ping my phone" button. At some point I
| saw in the watch screen it briefly connected and then immediately
| disconnected again. I realized somebody had probably grabbed it
| and skied by me. I went back running to the chairlift while still
| spamming the button and finally found the person who had grabbed
| it, a few seconds before he got into the chairlift. I felt that
| day that the watch investment had been worth it hah.
| lxgr wrote:
| My friend was able to retrieve his phone that had just been
| pickpocketed out of his backpack that way!
|
| "Hey, did you just grab my phone" can take some courage to say
| to a stranger; "Hey, I can hear my phone ringing in your bag
| when I press this button!" was much more convincing.
| pestatije wrote:
| can you not power-off an iphone without unlocking?
| lxgr wrote:
| You can; the thief just didn't get to do that because they
| were busy getting away in a non-conspicuous way.
|
| But even turned off, "Find my" stays active these days
| (although you can no longer make it ring, I believe).
| oldbbsnickname wrote:
| That option can be disabled by turning off "Find My
| network" such that the phone will be off and radio
| silent. With it on, it will continue to beacon until the
| battery reaches the final BMS low voltage point.
| klinquist wrote:
| but turning it off requires your password/PIN.
| wincy wrote:
| Yeah but turning on airplane mode does disable find my
| oldbbsnickname wrote:
| Disassemble and remove the battery. I can do this in about
| 1-2 minutes, others more skilled can do it in <30 seconds.
| okr wrote:
| And then? You can not turn it on again, without also
| activating the beacon.
|
| I wonder if stolen iphones have any value except for
| hardware parts.
| teekert wrote:
| Yeah I also wonder what a thief would do with it? Maybe
| the recycle value is enough for her? Or she gets it to a
| store where they don't check and recycle parts?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Didn't iphones start to have DRM on the individual
| components?
| layer8 wrote:
| 1) Faraday cage.
|
| 2) If the thief knows or can guess your passcode, you are
| screwed, because they can take over your iCloud:
| https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-
| iphon...
| jamespo wrote:
| they don't have many guesses to do that, how would they
| know the code given almost everyone unlocks via camera?
| layer8 wrote:
| Read the link? Apple requires you to enter the passcode
| every now and then, and thieves exploit when that happens
| in public.
| neves wrote:
| In Brazil the thief menaces you till you give him your
| password
| lxgr wrote:
| While walking and without alerting the person you just
| bumped into to the fact that you just took their phone?
| More realistically, a well-prepared/tech-savvy thief
| could just drop the phone into a Faraday bag in their
| backpack/pocket, or alternatively just turn off the
| phone!
|
| Fortunately, the one that my friend encountered didn't do
| any of that.
| InSteady wrote:
| This reads like an ad.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Lost my FRS radio up on the mountain once. I started calling it
| from my friends radio... "Hello, I'm a lost radio, please find
| me" and someone called me back and met up with me to return the
| radio.
| amatecha wrote:
| hahaha, that's great! I can imagine hiking along and hearing
| this scratchy voice emanating from "nowhere", tracking it
| down and finding this lonely radio on the ground, pleading
| for help to be brought back to its owner! :)
| subarctic wrote:
| Was he stealing it? I found a phone on the slopes last year,
| but I gave it to the liftee - figured I'd let them figure out
| how to get it back to the owner.
| andromaton wrote:
| If all else fails, build your own Stingray.
|
| https://www.hackers-arise.com/post/software-defined-radio-pa...
| gauravphoenix wrote:
| This reminds me of the kind of hack I came up with, almost 20
| years back. I used to work in Bangalore, and now and then, we
| would have a power outage in the evening that lasts for a few
| hours. I was single and used to live alone. I did not want to go
| home from the office and find myself without power. So how do I
| find out there is power at home? During those days, there were no
| IOT devices so checking them is that's out of the question. But I
| did have a landline phone that was powered by electricity and had
| a replaceable battery as a backup. I used the phone only to
| connect to the internet. So I just removed the batteries and when
| the power goes out, my phone wouldn't 't work. So before leaving
| work, all I had to do was call my landline. If it rings, it means
| there is power.
| codetiger wrote:
| Good one, Living in a place like that, I can understand how
| important it is. :)
| darkwater wrote:
| How long was the commute from office to home? Depending on this
| you still had risks of phone working while at the office, power
| out when back home, no?
| gauravphoenix wrote:
| 10-15 mins walk. ~5 mins by motorbike
| bonton89 wrote:
| I used the same trick recently where a long power outage had me
| staying at my relatives until power was restored. My answering
| machine doesn't work without power but the phone does so if it
| doesn't pick up I know the power is out.
|
| Since the central office switch is usually powered by
| generators I was used to the phone always working even during
| outages. But I found that the landline phone only stays
| functional for only a day now. I believe the deployment of
| fiber to the node means there are battery backups at the nodes
| that only last that long.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Here in Argentina people sometimes leave inside the freezer an
| ice cube with a coin on top of it, so they can check if the
| power went off for a long while - because the coin would be
| lower in the cube even if it froze back.
| theendisney2 wrote:
| In my job I regularly wonder how to get a found phone laptop or
| notebook back to their owner. The notebook is the easiest. The
| apple laptop the most stupid. I have the locked laptop i have my
| iphone you would think, with the closed eco-system, there to be
| some magic ritual i can perform for the laptop to register on the
| owners "find my device"???? Or at least let me type a number for
| them to call?
|
| Sometimes, (if i charge the phone) eventually contacts real names
| appear on the home screen. This seems just the information one
| shouldn't be sharing?
|
| It is really odd how garbage the tech is here.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| On my Android phone, the homescreen can have a short message, I
| changed it to "If found, call {wife's phone number}"
| theendisney2 wrote:
| I know, great in theory but i havent seen one where it was
| configured. You can also configure a phone number to call. No
| one apparently does that.
|
| The solution needs to not require any configuration.
|
| You can call your own phone of course but then i have to keep
| it charged. If it dies the sim locks.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Whenever I go to big concerts or gatherings, I set my lock
| screen to a screenshot of a WhatsApp story (that I never
| publish) saying something like that.
| manwe150 wrote:
| Do they usually have guest account access disabled, and would
| that help if enabled? I once saw a theory that guest account
| access can help because it grants the third party the ability
| to connect it to any WiFi network, allowing it to "phone home"
|
| On iPhones, there is the ability to get the medical id (their
| name and emergency contact) from the Lock Screen too, if people
| set that up. I set my notifications privacy setting to show
| preview only when unlocked, so that it won't show names of my
| contacts or one-time PIN codes texted to me
| userbinator wrote:
| Before reading, I thought it would be about a
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_junction_detector ; but
| then again, that can find not just lost phones but other
| electronics too.
| aaron695 wrote:
| >I've learnt to save battery by switching my phone's wifi off
| whenever I go into the woods or mountain
|
| I feel like this is not true.
|
| Walking in a city it'd be even worse since there would be 100's
| networks to check to see if it can connect too. Which I don't
| think matters much.
|
| Bad cellular reception which you'll hit if you are coming and
| going out of coverage would matter.
|
| Similarly a wifi you can connect to will drain the battery with
| background apps and if reception sucks also bad.
|
| But zero wifi you can connect to, I can't see mattering.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Rationale is "I will be offline, so don't even try to connect".
| When I'm hikking in the mountains, maybe spending a couple of
| days up there, I only use my phone for GPS and/or photos - so
| everything else goes off.
| bayesianbot wrote:
| I use this sometimes when I can't find my daughter in a large
| shop - just turn on my wifi tethering and when I have a device
| connected, I know she's nearby.
| Agent766 wrote:
| Here's a fun question, after the device connected to the wifi
| hotspot, would the "find my" feature work?
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| The hotspot didn't provide real Internet connectivity, since
| there was no service - only the places' WiFi, but out of reach,
| and the phone can't connect to the WiFi _and_ provide the
| hotspot at the same time.
|
| So probably not. But if the lost phone was an iPhone, walking
| around with another iPhone would have reported it (once the
| walking one was connected to the WiFi back again).
| wslh wrote:
| A few years ago I also found my mobile phone in Mar del Plata,
| Argentina, after a young horse passed over my daughter... it was
| using the find me option in a Fitbit watch linked to a Samsung
| mobile phone.
|
| My daughter was perfectly fine, but that is another story:
| fingers crossed, she has some special powers.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Te abrazo, hermano
| secsubsc wrote:
| I did something very similar to connect my Amazon Fire-stick with
| my new TV at a different place when I had lost the remote (of
| Fire-stick). The TV remote was helpful, but only after I could
| connect the Fire-stick with a working Internet connection.
|
| I remembered my old home's wifi SSID and password, so created a
| hotspot on my phone with the same SSID and password, and the
| Fire-stick got connected. All went good after that.
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Find My came to the rescue when my wife unknowingly dropped her
| phone during a pullover to take some pix. The turnout was on New
| Priest Grade, the best way to Yosemite from our home.
|
| Next morning, after the frenzied "Where's my phone" search
| petered out, we remembered Find My. No way, I thought. Rural
| road, many miles away, etc. Which new phone would you like, Dear?
|
| Find My immediately found it 43 miles away. My wife looked at
| Google Earth, identified the likely turnout and high-tailed it.
| She found it about five minutes after stopping at that turnout.
|
| There were enough passers-by with iOS devices that Find My worked
| as hoped. It amazed me that we got a little piece of our property
| back through operation of planetary-scale infrastructure.
| Maxion wrote:
| Even with all the hate Apple gets in the tech sphere, they do
| have a lot of very handy features in their products.
| simondotau wrote:
| IMHO the volume of hate isn't so much once you calibrate for
| Apple setting high expectations for its products, and Apple
| selling these products by the metric crap-ton.
| psd1 wrote:
| Thought: hate for a product is at least partially a factor
| of who buys it - or, more precisely, how often you see
| dickheads with it.
|
| Self-infatuated people are attracted to premium brands, and
| entitled people and premium brands are both more visible
| than the converse. Hands up if you've never been cut up in
| traffic by a BMW? Likewise, when someone cuts in line at a
| cafe and then sits down with a macbook, it's going to
| sensitise you to the failings of Apple
| simondotau wrote:
| Perhaps next time someone holding an Apple device acts
| like a dick, maybe also take a look at what brand of
| shoes they're wearing. It's possible their dickishness is
| actually a consequence of being a Nike fanboy. It might
| sensitise you to the failings of Nike.
|
| _Oh come now, that 's ridiculous. Let's be real for a
| moment. No serious person would ever say that Nike is
| responsible for the coffee shop etiquette of people who
| wear their products. It's not the Nike shoes, it's
| obviously the Apple laptop._
| ulucs wrote:
| They have leveraged their userbase into an (admittedly very
| useful) spy network
| brookst wrote:
| Have you read up on how Find My works? I don't see how it's
| a spy network when only the device owner can see where a
| device is.
|
| Lots of people imagine that every Apple user, or at least
| Apple themselves, can track devices. But it doesn't work
| that way.
| ulucs wrote:
| The implementation seems reasonable, but how are the
| private keys shared between devices? It should pass
| through Apple some time since a phone can decrypt a
| laptop's location. Or do they use bluetooth whenever
| near?
| zie wrote:
| Generally, they have special computers that basically
| self-destruct when tampered with, that handle
| transferring key material. It's in the Apple design docs
| if you read them.
|
| Apple really tries to get this right. Some countries(like
| China) require the computers to physically live in the
| country, so there could be special implementation details
| that alleviate some of those security guarantees, but we
| don't really know.
|
| Of course, if you live in China and rely on any vendor
| that operates in China to protect you from the Chinese
| govt, you probably are wrong.
| rem1313 wrote:
| If Apple can access your account, they can see any device
| location the same as you. Which means that three letter
| agencies also have access
| 93po wrote:
| This is true of literally everything with a modem in it.
| Tracking via tower triangulation has been around for 20
| years or longer. Also the entirety of your browsing
| history is tracked and logged by your ISP and also given
| to three letters agencies. And companies like Google give
| basically unrestricted access to all your data. Nothing
| is private anymore.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Also the entirety of your browsing history is tracked
| and logged by your ISP
|
| Presumably a) this is websites, not web pages, and b) a
| VPN negates this?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > only the device owner can see where a device is
|
| Apple itself can also see where it is. This automatically
| means the NSA can also see where it is.
| dotancohen wrote:
| What should I read?
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > infrastructure
|
| Imagine if anyone, not just Apple, could build on that,
| creating an automatic sneakernet. Populous areas without cell
| towers would come online, with ultra high latency. Throughput
| would also need to be throttled by the owner of each device to
| accommodate battery consumption preferences.
| audunw wrote:
| We're not that far off from the planet being covered with low
| bandwidth internet anyway.
|
| NB-IOT and LTE-M, along with the possibility that SpaceX can
| use Starlink satellites to provide low bandwidth LTE
| coverage, seems to give a viable path for global coverage
| soon
|
| Only problem is that in the short term NB-IoT/LTE-M devices
| are rather expensive, both upfront and monthly costs. Guess
| that will come down over time though
| GTP wrote:
| > Only problem is that in the short term NB-IoT/LTE-M
| devices are rather expensive.
|
| I never heard of those before, but maybe LoRa gateways
| could work as a low-cost solution if having a very low
| bandwith isn't an issue?
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > _Throughput would also need to be throttled by the owner of
| each device to accommodate battery consumption preferences._
|
| Ay, there's the rub!
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Tile did exactly that. Except of course according to the
| privacy policy they track where everything and everyone is.
| fastball wrote:
| Apple let's you build products for the Find My network.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Third parties are allowed to use the Find My network. I have
| a Find My "credit card" in my wallet made by Chipolo.
| stavros wrote:
| No they are not. They are allowed to _create devices that
| can be found_ , but I can't use my Android phone to find an
| AirTag.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yes you can, there's an official Apple app to do it: http
| s://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac.
| ..
|
| And a 3rd party tool that does even more: https://play.go
| ogle.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seemoo.at_t...
| paddez wrote:
| This does a different thing
|
| What OP means is that I cannot purchase an
| Airtag/Chipolo, and then subsequently find that Airtag
| using the Find My Network with my Android device.
|
| I can identify airtags around me with that App, but I
| cannot locate a missing Airtag.
| neckro23 wrote:
| I was about to correct you saying "icloud.com works on
| any browser, even an Android phone", but then I went and
| looked and you can't locate AirTags (or people) using the
| Web version of Find My, just Apple devices. An odd
| omission on Apple's part.
| spuz wrote:
| > There were enough passers-by with iOS devices that Find My
| worked as hoped
|
| I'm not sure I understand why you would need nearby devices to
| locate your phone. The phone itself already had GPS and a
| network connection, right?
| katbyte wrote:
| Find my works without a network connection. So if the phone
| is lost without signal and another iOS device comes in range
| it will remember seeing it, and then upload the location to
| apple for the devices owner to see when it has internet
| again.
| spuz wrote:
| Oh really. Wow that's pretty amazing. I thought it worked
| by piggy-backing off the connection of nearby devices
| meaning that those nearby devices would still need to have
| an active network connection while near to your device. I
| didn't know that it would remember the location of a device
| and then upload that location later on.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's like 50-100 bytes of data per device seen to cache,
| not exactly data cap shattering amounts :)
|
| Timestamp + GPS coordinates + device ID is about what
| gets sent to the cloud for each device.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| > There were enough passers-by with iOS devices that Find My
| worked as hoped.
|
| Wouldn't the phone tell Apple servers where it was? No need for
| passer-bys.
| brookst wrote:
| Without cell coverage?
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Okay let's say there wasn't any. Why would passer-bys have
| coverage?
| cybrjoe wrote:
| Maybe a different carrier with different coverage?
|
| I'm also wondering if Find My will save the "find",
| including GPS coordinates at the time, and report it out
| when it has connection?
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Find My doesn't require the passerby to have connectivity
| _at the time it passes by_. They record where they were
| when they saw the lost phone, and whenever they get
| connectivity back, they report that to the owner.
| joshvm wrote:
| I have a couple of Tile fobs from before Apple moved into the
| space. They're still good enough for checked bag tracking while
| flying (at least to confirm the bag has made it to the
| terminal). Tracking is pretty limited without the subscription,
| but enough to sanity check. It would also work as a "last seen"
| location, which might be enough for your example (you don't
| need the network unless your device moves).
|
| Find My should also give you a push notification if you leave a
| device somewhere? But you'll get false positives if you turn
| off Bluetooth.
| klinquist wrote:
| >Find My should also give you a push notification if you
| leave a device somewhere?
|
| It does.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| I thought he was going to find it by its local oscillator
| emissions like the TV detector vans
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
| semireg wrote:
| I had AirPods Max stolen from our car a few months ago. A week
| later they popped up on Find My a block away. I hopped on my bike
| and tracked to a small apartment building. Using Find My will
| show you a "warmer ... warmer ... colder" kind of UI and whenever
| I lifted my phone to a particular window (shades drawn) Find My
| would say "Nearby." I called the police and they were genuinely
| excited to knock on the door. A guy answered and denied having
| headphones that fit the description. Another police officer
| brought me around to the window and had me "play sound to locate"
| and sure enough you could hear the beep-boops through the window.
| The officer went back and said "listen, we know they are in your
| apartment, we can hear them, either go get them or we are getting
| a search warrant." The guy said "ohhhh well I did have a party
| last week and there's this backpack..."
|
| Uh huh. Headphones returned.
|
| Another officer returned to this scene and asked if we got the
| headphones back. I held them up and he says: "OH $&@# YEAH!"
| ahepp wrote:
| What city do you live in?
| layer8 wrote:
| From his company, probably Winona, Minnesota.
| chrischen wrote:
| Wasn't expecting that. Was expecting an "even if you located
| them the cops won't bother to help you recover just $XX dollars
| worth of stolen goods.
| eru wrote:
| I think that attitude really depends on where you are, and
| how overworked your local police is.
| megablast wrote:
| And the police you get. And when in the shift they are.
| eiiot wrote:
| San Francisco
| gosub100 wrote:
| You're surprised real-world accounts dont match common
| internet stereotypes?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >I had AirPods Max stolen from our car a few months ago. A week
| later they popped up on Find My a block away.
|
| >The officer went back and said "listen, we know they are in
| your apartment, we can hear them, either go get them or we are
| getting a search warrant." The guy said "ohhhh well I did have
| a party last week and there's this backpack..."
|
| >Uh huh. Headphones returned.
|
| I mean from your description sounds like the guy was telling
| the truth, or is your theory that he stole your airpods, went
| on vacation and came back home after several weeks - which of
| course is also a possibility, but I think backpack left over
| from party sounds also reasonable.
|
| on edit: hmm, early in the morning, so now I understand it was
| a week after being stolen they showed up on Find My..guess need
| more coffee.
| ant6n wrote:
| Or perhaps resist the ,,well actually"-urge ;-)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| As you do?
|
| I think my point still holds, guy lives in range of Find
| My, Find My notices it a week later - ah ha this guy
| definitely stole it? Seems a logical disconnect.
| dihrbtk wrote:
| you don't need to be "in range" for Find My to work, all
| it takes is someone with an Apple device to be nearby
| semireg wrote:
| I didn't want to muddy the original story, but I had nest cam
| footage of the actual theft but too blurry to make a positive
| ID. I saved the footage. The guy was very tall and built like
| a football player. With sandals.
|
| When I met the guy that night a week later he opened the door
| and it was pretty obvious he was the guy. Same sandals.
|
| Beyond a reasonable doubt? Eh, probably not.
| baz00 wrote:
| Lucky there. UK here. A couple of years back I had a macbook
| pro delivered to me. It was delivered to the correct number on
| a different road. The POD had a photo of the front door and the
| person. I recognised the front door as it was on a local
| estate. Phoned delivery company up (DPD) and they said that
| they delivered it to the correct location and wouldn't do
| anything about it. Went round there and the guy said _" um,
| it's mine now. Finders keepers. What are you going to do about
| it?"_.
|
| So I phoned the police. They never turned up.
|
| I opened up a credit card chargeback. But I was complaining
| about this to someone in the school playground and someone else
| overheard it. Turns out she was his next door neighbour. Said
| _" I'll get it back for you"_. Sure enough that afternoon she
| turned up with it! Turns out the guy was a convicted paedophile
| and she knew that and said if he didn't give it back she'd tell
| everyone on the estate.
|
| You need leverage or a good police force against criminals. The
| latter is rare so I suspect that taking matters in to your own
| hands is sometimes required.
| hinkley wrote:
| You did a cryptographically secure deletion of that hard
| drive, right? Even odds there were bad things in that drive.
| baz00 wrote:
| It was still sealed. It was probably on Facebook
| marketplace.
| gadders wrote:
| This is like an episode of Shameless. Sounds a lot like when
| I grew up. Except we didn't have macbooks or online shopping.
| squokko wrote:
| I hope she still told everyone on the estate...
| INTPenis wrote:
| >a good police force
|
| What do you expect the police to do in this situation? They
| can't just walk into people's homes over your word. OP at
| least had a noise which in the states I assume is probable
| cause or something. And even then they'd have to come back
| with a warrant but got the headphones because the suspect
| felt defeated.
|
| Your situation is bizarre, the helpless feeling of knowing
| where your stolen item is and not be able to do anything
| about it. But it's not solvable by the police unless you have
| more evidence. For example you could have recorded your
| neighbor saying those things to you.
|
| Here in Sweden petty theft is 99% an insurance issue. I even
| heard one case where their boat was stolen with an airtag on
| it and it was traced to a particular driveway.
|
| The police here won't even pick up the case, it goes into a
| pile of other theft cases and the owner can use the ID to
| file an insurance claim.
|
| It's very sad on the surface. But maybe they have their
| reasons.
| guntherhermann wrote:
| >The POD had a photo of the front door and the person. I
| recognised the front door as it was on a local estate.
|
| What more evidence do you need?
| INTPenis wrote:
| Ok I just read on a delivery company website that they
| have in fact started taking photos of the moment of
| delivery. Wow. That is incredible.
|
| Here I always opt for delivery at a pick up location and
| use my electronic ID to pick it up so I had never
| expected delivery drivers to take, and store, photos of
| people.
| 4ndr3vv wrote:
| Had a delivery yesterday where the driver (Evri) had to
| wave his handheld around for a bit, as it wouldnt let him
| confim delivery as it thought he was 100m down the road!
| baz00 wrote:
| Evri / Hermes have got their act together recently. Least
| unreliable delivery company.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I had this happen with FedEx a couple weeks ago for the
| first time. We get a lot of packages so I was surprised.
|
| The delivery person gave me the box then ran back to me
| as I was walking away. "I have to take a photo to prove I
| delivered it." He puts it down on the ground and
| photographs it. Not sure what a picture of a box on a
| nondescript driveway would prove, but I guess he had to
| do it.
| bloqs wrote:
| They have no reasons other than budget induced apathy. The
| evidence of a crime is available and their lack of
| willingness to act is seriously telling
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > They have no reasons other than budget induced apathy
|
| I'm not sure that's the case - the UK police are
| rigorously judged on the amount of cases they solve. If
| it was a slam dunk they would have done it.
| oynqr wrote:
| Is that why they book butter knives as real weapons?
| stef25 wrote:
| > They can't just walk into people's homes over your word
|
| Officer I was kidnapped, taken to this address and
| violently raped. "Sorry we just walk in to people's homes
| over your word" ? Half a dozen other scenarios come to
| mind.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sure, there are emergency circumstances exceptions (not
| the case in this scenario). In general you would need a
| warrant with probable cause. That probable cause to get
| the warrant could be your sworn statement.
|
| So they can't just walk in over your word. I has to be
| your word plus either a warrant or exigent circumstance.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > But maybe they have their reasons.
|
| Like what reasons? It's somewhat understandable that police
| might not want to investigate theft of relatively cheap
| item because they have to prioritize. But a stolen boat? At
| the very least it warrants some further investigation. Them
| dismissing it outright just seems bizarre since they do
| have some evidence they at least should come and talk to
| the owner.
| yardstick wrote:
| > OP at least had a noise which in the states I assume is
| probable cause or something.
|
| Isn't a signal that is within a few feet of the door you
| want to enter good enough? It's more authenticate than some
| random noise - you know it's your device and not some
| random device emitting find my data.
|
| Sounds like policing or judicial approach is outdated. If a
| police officer sees the stolen goods inside via a window,
| they can enter right? How are RF waves that they can see
| coming inside the property, and uniquely identify the
| property, any different?
| giantg2 wrote:
| It's not a random noise if you can trigger it. Better to
| have the signal and the controlled noise if possible. You
| can't see the RF waves in the same way as sight. It is
| possible that the RF is ducting or has some other
| propagation phenomenon. And that's assuming you are even
| able to connect to the device and not just viewing it's
| location through the network, which could have precise
| location issues. Two sources are better than one.
| baz00 wrote:
| I had a POD, invoice, proof of purchase with serial number
| on it.
|
| Basically evidence.
|
| If the police can't take evidence and solve a crime then
| fuck 'em.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| That's not really enough since you could for example have
| sold the device to him and then call the police.
| baz00 wrote:
| I could have indeed but that would be his risk if he
| didn't obtain proof of purchase or take an invoice or
| sales receipt from me.
|
| Paperwork exists for a reason.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Right. The point is that it would require a full police
| investigation, interviews, etc...
|
| In my view at fault in these cases is the delivery
| company, they are in a hurry and don't bother doing a
| proper job. If they would be forced to eat the cost, this
| wouldn't happen anymore. Basically they are outsourcing
| their job to the police force.
| baz00 wrote:
| AFAIK I pay for taxes to get a police force that does
| this no?
| coldtea wrote:
| > _What do you expect the police to do in this situation?
| They can 't just walk into people's homes over your word._
|
| He had ordered it, so had the order, he had the delivery
| picture, and so on.
|
| And even if people can't just "walk into people's homes
| over your word" they could still knock on them, question
| the person, and investigate the theft complaint.
| EGreg wrote:
| Sad? Non-violent crime such as parking tickets, littering,
| playing the music too loud and petty theft should _not_
| involve armed officers showing up. This presents needless
| chances for escalation.
|
| The "defund the police" movement was onto something - but
| it has to be spelled out. - offload many of their jobs to
| metermaids and other ticket-issuers and keep armed POLICE
| for things like robberies, no-knock raids, breaking up
| fights and arresting violent criminals etc.
|
| Most civil disputes can be - and are - handled by banks and
| insurance companies. This includes auto accidents and
| credit card chargebacks. Not even the justice system
| (public courts) need to get involved, they handle thousands
| of cases a day.
|
| But don't let everyone write tickets or it will go too far:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYaXy5mmA8
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > The "defund the police" movement was onto something -
| but it has to be spelled out. - offload many of their
| jobs to metermaids and other ticket-issuers and keep
| armed POLICE for things like robberies, no-knock raids,
| breaking up fights and arresting violent criminals etc.
|
| This is hugely different to what I understood from anyone
| in favour of defunding the police to mean.
| Angostura wrote:
| Just a small note, but your contract is with the retailer -
| if it's not delivered, tell Apple or whoever. It is up to
| them to get the goods to you.
| baz00 wrote:
| Try that with most retailers and the conversation ends at
| delivered. Your only option is to hit them with a summons
| and that's not a guarantee.
|
| So with due respect that reality doesn't exist.
|
| One reason I buy stuff from Amazon mostly is they are big
| enough to eat the issues and I put enough business through
| one service to be a customer worth keeping. Everyone else,
| not so much. I won't go into how shit Apple are on this
| front.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Just do a chargeback then
| jeromegv wrote:
| That charge back might ask for tracking number, which
| will also says delivered. So they will ask you to call
| your insurance instead if your stuff got stolen on your
| porch.
|
| It's a very tricky situation.
| wombat-man wrote:
| but there's a picture from the delivery company of it
| delivered to the wrong home.
| watersb wrote:
| I'm in the middle of a problem with an item either mid-
| delivered or not delivered, with unresponsive retailer.
|
| I started a dispute with my credit card company, but
| yesterday they emailed to tell me that they had
| "concluded their investigation" and that the item had
| indeed been delivered.
|
| No further information. Just "it was delivered, you owe
| the retailer".
|
| Apple Card uses Goldman Sachs for the bank and the
| customer service. While Apple may be an experienced
| provider of retail services, this sort of thing is
| relatively new to Goldman Sachs.
|
| I contacted customer service and they believe that a
| report regarding the investigation will be sent to me.
| They might even have a delivery address. The order was
| placed four months ago...
|
| Good luck getting through a situation like this with good
| outcome. It depends on all the players involved.
| Angostura wrote:
| With due respect, I had exactly that issue with a pair of
| Airpods supplied by Apple that were apparently delivered
| to the wrong address. I had the carrier's photo of not my
| door. Apple sent a replacement the next day
| anamexis wrote:
| In the US, I've had to do this probably 5 times, and each
| time the retailer sent a replacement.
| Zenst wrote:
| That's shocking and also lucky. Had that neighbour not
| overheard or intervened, you would have had a known
| paedophile using a computer that could be tracked to you via
| sales used for a crime that the police would have acted upon
| and caused you more pain and suffering.
|
| I've also learned the hard way, there again I have had police
| make so many mistakes for crimes in the past and ignore hard
| evidence that I lost faith in them years ago sadly. But this
| is the UK.
|
| Though in your case, at stage it was at, once you had asked
| the recipient for it back and they said no, the police should
| have intervened due to the law of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding and acted.
|
| Equally, the onus to prove delivery is upon the courier and
| again, you had a case there with them, so shouldn't of had to
| go thru that.
|
| I agree, taking the law into your own hands alas seems to be
| the best solution in so many matters in the UK from my
| experience, sad and wrong but heck, we all want a simple
| life.
|
| Also note from experience, the police (from a UK perspective)
| are not as aware of the laws as you would expect and had them
| tell me a matter was a civil matter and not criminal and
| raised complaint and had that upheld (lots of those) as they
| were wrong and the common laypersons expectations of the
| police is far short from reality, so always stand your ground
| and don't let anything slide as I used to do as it only
| erodes you away and enables incompetence to prevail.
|
| That all said there are some good police (those that care and
| do their job properly) but sadly not as common as one would
| expect.
| p00dles wrote:
| I had a similar situation in Paris with an iPhone. The Police
| were so helpful, knew exactly what to do, and were also very
| excited, but ultimately the Find My location wasn't granular
| enough to find the phone. In an urban environment like Paris
| with big apartment buildings directly adjacent to each other, I
| think Find My is difficult. I'd have to be lucky and catch the
| phone during transit from one place to another, I think.
|
| Edit: being able to use my iPad with Find My was an amazing
| experience, it's almost worth having one just for that
| situation, where I didn't have to bumble around with 2FA and
| logging in from my laptop, which isn't Apple. I could also
| erase my stolen phone remotely, which gave me so much peace of
| mind.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" but ultimately the Find My location wasn't granular enough
| to find the phone"_
|
| Depends on the generation, the new ones with ultra wideband
| (UWB) are really awesome, you can locate the item to tens of
| centimeters. I think you already have to be in a certain
| range for UWB to kick in. So might not really help if you
| could not identify the apartment otherwise.
| gorbypark wrote:
| The only real "problem" with UWB is the range. It might
| work better in North American homes (with hollow drywall
| walls), but in my Spanish home with brick interior walls,
| UWB doesn't even work one room over. It'll say "nearby",
| but completely lack any sort of direction information
| unless in the same room. I'd suspect in a situation like
| the OP was in in Paris, it would be very difficult to
| distinguish and exact location using UWB unless you got
| really lucky (like the phone was being stored directly next
| to an exterior door or something).
| dghughes wrote:
| There should be an app people can download and you share the
| location data of your lost device. Multiple devices can all
| home in on it increasing resolution of the location via
| triangulation.
| radres wrote:
| Really would like to know which city this is. As others
| commented many of the police force would've responded "tough
| luck"
| semireg wrote:
| Small town Minnesota, USA
| api wrote:
| Lots of high theft products should come with a stink bomb mode
| that sprays some disgusting sulfur based compound.
| enb wrote:
| How close did you have to be to the window for it to say
| "nearby"? With my airtags you have to be within several metres.
| semireg wrote:
| I was standing in the grass of apartment complex. Find My app
| says "distant" and I move phone over window "nearby" ... back
| and forth it would toggle between distant and nearby.
|
| Open and shut case, Watson.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Did you go buy a bunch of lottery tickets afterwards? Cops
| doing their job when you give them the entire breadcrumb trail
| is incredibly rare. I have many stories from friends and that
| I've seen online of the cops refusing to do anything even when
| you can guide them directly to the location of your stolen
| property.
|
| I've personally experienced their lack of competency when they
| refused to follow up on stalking/harassment of a friend. They
| said there was nothing they could do even after I'd tracked
| down what free texting service was being used and gave them the
| abuse email address for law enforcement to use. They just
| straight up refused to do anything. Finally I was able to get
| my friend's number blacklisted from the free text message
| service's side to stop the abuse (the scumbag would change
| phone numbers every time he was blocked so we couldn't just
| block the number). We even knew who was behind it and they
| wouldn't do anything. And before you think this was mild he was
| sending 100's of texts a day and calling multiple times. He
| also keyed the victim's car but again, cops wouldn't do
| anything about it.
| eloisant wrote:
| TBH having a few police officers drive to the place then
| spend that time probably costs more than the price of the
| device.
| gwright wrote:
| Are you suggesting that police services should operate like
| a service for hire? It isn't clear to me if you think the
| victim should hire the police to investigate (and thus
| decide if their price is lower than re-purchasing the item)
| or if you think the police are only expected to investigate
| based on the value of the item.
|
| In either case it doesn't sound like a sound way to operate
| a police department. It seems like a good way to
| incentivize vigilantism though.
| weast wrote:
| Kind of a moot point? Enforcing the law operates on a
| different level of desired outcome than the goods itself
| are worth. imagine you get your phone stolen and instead of
| retrieving it they bought you a new one creates a pretty
| perverse incentive structure!
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Yes, but then you can push this logic to everything. Should
| firefighters intervene? This person dead is cheaper than
| alive.
|
| Public services cannot think about making a profit,
| otherwise it gets dark pretty quickly.
| sushid wrote:
| You're looking at it from a single transaction cost-benefit
| perspective but that's not how it works societally. If
| everyone in the society knew that cops will be in their
| front door steps with a warrant every time a phone or a
| laptop was stolen, they're not going to be stealing them
| from the get-go.
|
| So to translate, there may be a high up front cost but the
| return on invest will outweigh in the long run (for higher
| value products, admittedly). Even if that's not the case,
| you're not valuing the societal cost at all!
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Police officers doing anything to protect individual safety
| or private property costs the government money.
|
| Whether they're helping track down a smartphone or a
| private jet, the victim isn't expected to reimburse them.
|
| The benefit to society of having police spend time and
| money to enforce the laws in theory, is that we get to feel
| some sense of security in our ability to continue owning
| things without having to fight off raiders, or walk down a
| street without getting assaulted/robbed.
|
| Past a certain point of late-stage capitalism, there might
| be some resultant net negative effects to society, like
| when the masses are starving and the police are enforcing
| the property rights of the top 0.1% who are hoarding 90% of
| wealth/food/medicine. But in that scenario the top 0.1% are
| unlikely to be getting involved directly to track down a
| single laptop
| koheripbal wrote:
| Stolen property with an address and evidence will always get
| actioned. It's easy and rewarding for them.
|
| Online or telephone stuff won't. It is much more complex and
| requires system knowledge.
|
| It's that simple.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| That is contrary to my experience tracing a stolen MacBook
| Pro to a specific apartment over find my and being told by
| the San Mateo police I could file a report if I really
| wanted to, but not to expect anything to happen.
|
| I'd expect it depends on the context of your jurisdiction,
| and so really is not that simple.
|
| (I never got that MacBook back).
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Is this conclusion purely theoretical, or based on any
| experience at all?
|
| Because anecdotally, the cops that interacted with me and
| people around me where completely uninterested in doing any
| kind of work, no matter how easy it was.
| zymhan wrote:
| > It's that simple.
|
| You clearly don't understand what you're talking about if
| you think it's simple.
| meetingthrower wrote:
| Ok we have opposite situation than stolen headphones. We found
| some on a trail in the woods. They are "Alan's Airpods". We
| connected to them from our nearby house, hoping he would come
| by using Find My.
|
| There is no other way to contact them that I can see?
| aembleton wrote:
| You could take them to a police station and hand them in.
| sushid wrote:
| You might as well as gift it directly to the police
| officer's kid if you're going to do that.
| xkekjrktllss wrote:
| Where are you located? Here in a busy midwest city, the police
| are too short staffed to even respond to a 3 car pile up in the
| middle of a busy intersection sooner than 2 hours after the
| fact.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Opposite anecdote. I had my phone stolen from the gym. I showed
| up with the police and the guy denied having it - ended up he
| was telling the truth.
|
| Then I saw the phone was at someone else's house right by the
| one I showed up to the following evening. I used public records
| to track down the owner and he said it was a rental. He called
| his tenants and they said they didn't have it. They were also
| telling the truth. Once I told them where it was stolen they
| said that another neighbor actually worked at the gym.
|
| He did have my iPhone and returned it once his manager told him
| to. I worked at the gym part time as a fitness instructor.
|
| This was back in the iPhone 4 days admittedly when Find My
| relied on GPS.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Embedding a LoRa module in the phone could come handy in similar
| situations; it could trigger a timed transmission of the latest
| known position before a given event, say a big bump followed by
| no movement or usage for X time, too long exposition to
| temperature and humidity incompatible with a house, etc. LoRa
| allows transmission at impressive distances using very low power
| compared to WiFi and other systems; a phone configured to turn
| itself off and use just the LoRa module to repeat a very short
| <phone code>+<position> say every 10 minutes wouldn't tax the
| spectrum too much (RF in that context is a _very_ scarce
| resource) and its battery would likely last weeks.
| stevage wrote:
| Wow, that's pretty creative.
| jen729w wrote:
| Back in the mid-90s my dad lost his car keys. Turns out they were
| in his dressing gown (we're British) pocket, in the wardrobe.
|
| So he bought one of those keyrings where you whistle and it
| beeps. This was a Saturday and we were visiting my grandparents,
| his parents. He told his dad, by now with a mild case of the
| Alzheimers, that he'd got this thing and that "you beep and it
| tells you where your keys are".
|
| Well my grandad, who never drove a car let alone used a computer,
| his mind was blown. He just had no idea how this thing could do
| that.
|
| This went on for a few minutes.
|
| Dad, increasingly frustrated: "you just beep and it tells you
| where your keys are!"
|
| Grandad, increasingly confused: "... but ... how?!"
|
| It turns out that my grandad was imagining that you whistled and
| that this little device shouted out, "they're in your dressing-
| gown pocket!"
| stavros wrote:
| To be fair, if someone said to me "you just beep", I'd also be
| confused as to how exactly I can beep.
| psd1 wrote:
| printf(0x07) or similar
| Blahah wrote:
| No wonder he was confused - how does a person beep? Surely you
| whistle and it beeps?
| Reubachi wrote:
| Am I crazy? are beep/whistle interchangable?
| atoav wrote:
| My brother dropped his iPhone during a powder snow traversal down
| the back of the mountain to a hut.
|
| We found it accidentally during a hike in the summer, when the
| snow was gone.
|
| Always be prepared to lose everything.
| psd1 wrote:
| I'm so paranoid about dropping my shit from a ski lift that
| I've taken to a chestpack, lanyards and karabiners. It makes me
| feel better.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| Watch out for any of those dangly bits getting caught on the
| lift, I almost got dragged by my backpack strap a few years
| ago. IMO better to lose the gear.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If you ever connected to a network with a hidden SSID (or one
| where the phone _thought_ the SSID was hidden for some reason),
| the phone will actively beacon for that WiFi, including the
| "hidden" SSID.
|
| This is obviously harder to use for searching for the phone than
| the method they used, but it's a privacy nightmare you should be
| aware of. Hiding SSIDs is almost always a really bad idea for
| this reason.
| speedgoose wrote:
| That's an interesting design flaw. You connect to a hidden wifi
| network once and then your device will emit the ssid when you
| are not connected to a wifi network, or all the time?
| Ayesh wrote:
| Basically, yes. There was a really nice article here in HN
| about it, I couldn't find it but hopefully someone will point
| at it.
| derelicta wrote:
| This is surprisingly smart
| nehal3m wrote:
| >Largely beautiful as this country is, as you get into more rural
| areas, there's a high chance you won't have cell phone coverage
| there - I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to choose if
| that's a feature or a bug.
|
| >We'd already called and sent some WhatsApp messages, so we knew
| the phone wasn't reachable.
|
| How did they do that without coverage?
| speedgoose wrote:
| You call from an area with coverage. Sometimes it's enough to
| walk a little bit to be on the other side of a hill for
| example.
| nehal3m wrote:
| But if that's the case then the test is invalid: The point is
| to determine whether the lost phone is in coverage range. If
| you can get in range by moving around a bit then the lost
| phone might also be in such a place.
| Liquid_Fire wrote:
| The purpose of calling is probably to hear it ring, rather
| than to guess where it is based on the lack of signal.
| itpcc wrote:
| Maybe with their place's Wi-Fi?
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| The place had Wi-Fi, but the phone was just enough apart from
| the router to not reach it. The calls were WhatsApp Calls
| because we knew there was no cell service to make a standard
| call (don't know if the phone has VoLTE).
| yanovskishai wrote:
| On a somewhat related note, due to the ongoing war in Israel, GPS
| is being heavily jammed to deter terrorist drone attacks. An
| intriguing side effect of this is that services like "Find My
| Phone" and AirTag are experiencing disruptions. This interference
| sometimes results in devices appearing to be located in
| neighboring countries, hundreds of miles away from their actual
| location. Here's an article detailing the jamming situation:
| https://www.gpsworld.com/gps-jamming-in-israel/.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| In Korea too "Find My" is disabled.
|
| As soon as I landed my family member couldn't see the AirTag I
| carry anymore, nor my phone.
| pnw wrote:
| That's allegedly due to a Korean law which requires 6 month
| retention of location information, which Apple thankfully is
| not OK with.
| 93po wrote:
| There's ongoing military conflicts happening inside Israel?
| williamdclt wrote:
| Find My is great. I hid an AirTag in my bike, which got promptly
| stolen (as bikes tend to be in London): I had near-zero hope but
| police _actually_ was keen to retrieve it, it evolved into a
| multi-week adventure where they tried to retrieve it several
| times but the thief just rode away. Ended up finding it in a
| shady bike shop, with a fresh new coat of bright silver paint.
|
| I was skeptical when I bought the airtag, I thought I'd just lose
| a bike _and_ an airtag, but now I can't recommend it enough!
| klinquist wrote:
| I recommend removing the speaker from the airtag for this use
| case. Plenty of youtube videos showing you how.
| williamdclt wrote:
| I do too. I'm not sure how the thief hasn't heard it over
| several weeks... it was very well hidden and the sound was
| pretty muffled, but still
| kebsup wrote:
| There are apps that show Bluetooth signal strength of all nearby
| devices. I've used that to find phones a few times.
| _giorgio_ wrote:
| ??Phones *identify the wifi by name* only, and try to use the
| same password??
| grav wrote:
| TL;DR: created a wifi-network on another phone with same SSID and
| password as the one that the lost phone usually connects to,
| walked around waiting for the phone to connect, receive the "Find
| my phone" notification and send out a sound.
|
| Cool :)
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| This, but without the "Find my". Not sure if my cousin would
| have been able to log into his account from another phone
| (maybe MFA would be a blocker if he tried), and my hotspot
| didn't actually provide Internet anyways.
|
| I thought about "relaying" the place's Wi-Fi connection through
| a chain of phones sharing via bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but luckily
| we could find the phone without having to try that. The setup
| would have been something like:
|
| Router <-Wifi-> Phone <-Blutooth-> Phone <-WiFi-> Phone <-....
| sschueller wrote:
| If I had 2 wifi access points a meter apart would that me enough
| to be able to locate the device either behind or in front of the
| two antennas?
|
| I assume I would need two wifi USB dongles for my PC and some
| sort of way to determine the time a beacon packet arrived but I
| don't know if the time difference is granular enough to be able
| to tell a difference in time between the two.
|
| Has anyone tried something like this with wifi?
| neves wrote:
| I've had this exact same problem last week while going to Mount
| Roraima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Roraima
|
| If I had just read this message before. This is an ingenious
| solution. He created a thetering wifi network with the same name
| and password of a network the phone would recognize. When there's
| a connection, it means the phone is near:
|
| "I've used my own phone's tethering feature to create a wifi
| network with the same name & password as my cousin's home network
| - and we started walking around the place. We made sure the other
| guy helping us with the search had his own wifi off, to avoid
| false positives, and waited to find a new connection to the
| hotspot. And it worked! The connection was made when walking
| nearby the parked truck, but it turns out that the phone wasn't
| in the truck - it was lying on one of the ATVs that was parked by
| its side."
| SandroG wrote:
| If you have an Apple Watch, there is a nifty trick of pressing
| and holding the "Locate Phone" button in the Control Center.
| Doing so also engages the phone's flashlight so you can find it
| at night.
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