[HN Gopher] Show HN: Undetectag, track stolen items with AirTag
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Show HN: Undetectag, track stolen items with AirTag
I developed a device that turns an Airtag on and off at specific
intervals. Current Airtags are detectable right away and cannot be
used to track stolen property. That device allows you to hide an
Airtag in your car, for example, and someone that steals your car
will not be able to use some app to detect it. The Airtag will also
not warn the thief of its presence. After some hours, the Airtag
turns on again and you can find out its location. It's not
foolproof, as the timing has to be right, but still useful. What
do you think?
Author : pompidoo
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-05-15 15:46 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (undetectag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (undetectag.com)
| givinguflac wrote:
| Very cool idea, and I love how compact it is!
|
| My only feedback would be re: the site, specifically this part:
|
| " Airtag is a trademark registered by apple and we have nothing
| to do with apple."
|
| Might want to capitalize Apple; just a nitpick.
| pompidoo wrote:
| Good catch! Thank you I will correct it now.
| wanderer2323 wrote:
| You have also developed a device that allows people to use
| AirTags for stalking.
| _QrE wrote:
| This. Normal AirTags are just fine for tracking your stuff.
|
| > "(thiefs use apps to locate AirTags around, and AirTags will
| warn the thief if an unknown AirTag is travelling with them,
| for example if they steal your car)"
|
| The reason this was introduced is exactly because people used
| AirTags to stalk others. Advertising that your product turns
| that off is basically targeting that specific demographic.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| That's true. But the advertised use case (tracking stolen
| items) is perfectly valid.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| > The reason this was introduced is exactly because people
| used AirTags to stalk others.
|
| There were anti-stalking features from the start. It didn't
| stop the media hysteria however.
| pompidoo wrote:
| As it's 4 hours off / 1 hour on, the device is not very
| suitable for stalking someone. Also once the AirTag is back on
| and the person starts moving, they will be alerted that the
| AirTag is tracking them.
| schmichael wrote:
| That's perfect for finding out where someone lives. Drop it
| in their bag or jacket at a concert/bar/work/whatever-in-the-
| evening, and the place they're likely at in 4 hours is their
| home.
|
| Not trying to be creepy, I'm just trying to demonstrate how
| we all need to think like adversaries (eg creeps) when
| designing products.
| fn-mote wrote:
| You can probably find out where they live from knowing
| their name. This application is not a high level of
| stalking.
| schmichael wrote:
| The concert/bar example allows stalking without knowing
| someone's name.
| andygeorge wrote:
| > not a high level of stalking
|
| imo no level of stalking is appropriate. while this
| device might not do everything a stalker wants it to, it
| surely makes it easier for them
| hangonhn wrote:
| That's not true in all scenarios.
|
| I once donated an infant car seat to a coworker but forgot I
| had put an AirTag on it. After she had taken it home, her
| iPhone told there was an unknown AirTag and she texted me. I
| apologized profusely and she wasn't bothered by it.
| Nonetheless had I been nefarious, I would have been able to
| get her home address.
| cryptonector wrote:
| AirTags are already that. There's videos on YouTube on how to
| disconnect the speaker that allows AirTags to warn the stalking
| victim.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > Events outside our control, such as Apple updating the firmware
| in the future to prevent the device from working, will not
| qualify for a refund.
|
| I fully understand why you would want to do this, but as a
| consumer I would never buy this product with this clause.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| A reasonable solution would be to get to buy the newer model
| half-off if this happens. Obviously the maker can't just have
| his entire biz nuked with refunds if Apple happens to update
| firmware.
| mulmen wrote:
| I think you have your priorities wrong. Why should an
| unsustainable business be prioritized over consumer benefit?
|
| Nobody has a right to a successful business but when
| consumers can trust their purchases they are more likely to
| make additional purchases.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| The lack of trust in the purchase comes from Apple, not
| from this seller. It's apple that's reaching into your
| device and force updating the firmware without your
| consent.
| mulmen wrote:
| No. The product in this case relies on unintended
| functionality in a specific firmware version of an Apple
| device that is specifically designed to not be suitable
| for this application. In this case it is the add-on
| device that is not offering refunds if it stops working.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Yes.
|
| > if it stops working.
|
| It doesn't magically stop working though, it would be
| apple explicitly putting in effort to break this
| functionality and forcing you to update a device you own,
| forcing you to use it only how they want you to use it.
| mulmen wrote:
| It doesn't require Apple deliberately breaking this
| product. They could change the required functionality for
| an unrelated reason.
| spuz wrote:
| Where do you get the idea that Apple specifically
| designed the AirTag to not be suitable for a third party
| device to control when it switches on and off? I can
| understand how they might not approve of this adaptation
| to their product but I don't see any reason to believe
| they specifically designed against it.
| mulmen wrote:
| The AirTag is specifically designed to not be used to
| track people without their knowledge.
| pompidoo wrote:
| I felt like adding that disclaimer was a nice thing to do,
| informing the customer and letting them make their own
| decision. It makes almost no difference to remove that
| disclaimer (well, it would increase sales). it is not to
| protect myself. The price is very low and margin is very
| thin, what happens if Apple bricks the device? There would
| be very little money left to refund the customers, and most
| of the refunds would be eaten by transaction fees. Is it
| worth it for the customers to receive a few cents back? And
| that's assuming I keep all the money in the company and
| don't pay myself.
| mulmen wrote:
| Agree that the transparency is nice but the limitation it
| mentions disqualifies the product for me.
| pompidoo wrote:
| I understand your point. In this case the price point makes
| this a bearable risk, especially to protect much more valuable
| items. A refund is only useful if only a certain % of people
| have issue or the company is big. Since this is my only
| product, an Airtag update that bricks the devices would just
| bankrupt the company and make me unable to refund most people
| as my margin is very low anyway.
| andygeorge wrote:
| sure but you've acknowledged that your product is something
| that Apple considers bad and could shut it down. that can
| usually be overlooked for things like emulation, but you've
| developed a product that does something Apple specifically
| added protections against after they learned of its dangerous
| misuse
| birdman3131 wrote:
| That does not read as "something that Apple considers bad"
| but rather "something that Apple COULD consider bad"
| outworlder wrote:
| > sure but you've acknowledged that your product is
| something that Apple considers bad
|
| No. Everyone that builds projects inside someone else's
| ecosystem is subject to this. Even companies that like what
| your are doing might break it if they aren't specifically
| testing against your product.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Wouldn't this also greatly reduce the reliability of tracking,
| especially in rural areas where there might not always be a Find
| My network device nearby?
| pompidoo wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately it would.
| subscribed wrote:
| In rural areas you're always better off with gps+lte+LoRA
| tracker anyways.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Can the time interval be changed by the user or is it hardcoded?
| What are the limits if they can be changed?
| pompidoo wrote:
| hardcoded, but I'm thinking of offering different time
| intervals in the future
| andygeorge wrote:
| > offering different time intervals
|
| your previous response to the stalking concerns was "it's 4
| hours off / 1 hour on, the device is not very suitable for
| stalking someone"; wouldn't this comment - allowing that to
| change - then make it even easier for stalkers?
| pompidoo wrote:
| Well it would warn the person that they are being tracked
| when the airtag turns back on, so I feel like any other
| tracker would be better suited for stalking people, and
| most of the time it wouldn't even track.
| mulmen wrote:
| AirTags aren't meant to get stolen items back. That just isn't
| the use case. How does this compare to actual GPS trackers like
| https://monimoto.com/?
| lostlogin wrote:
| That device you link to is more expensive but would never alert
| the person being stalked, so I suppose that might justify the
| price.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| It's about 10x the size and 4-5x the price.
|
| Probably worth it for a vehicle, but maybe not for a backpack.
| wepple wrote:
| Problems: if the thief steals your item while the AirTag is on,
| they can find and disable it.
|
| Have you experimented with a setup (more complicated to package)
| where you have two AirTags and alternately power one at a time?
| Could that bypass apples detection whilst also broadcasting
| location?
|
| Edit: at sufficiently small time durations to run under apples
| detection radar, but for long enough to be picked up as a
| location
|
| I don't know how Apple detects the tracking; this would easily be
| solved by them.
| pompidoo wrote:
| Yes I think having 2 is a good strategy. I'm also considering
| offering different timings in the future.
| gojomo wrote:
| After I saw third-party "10 year battery enclosure" offerings for
| AirTags, was wondering when other workaround customizations like
| this might appear.
|
| Other impactful variants might be:
|
| * senses whether another 'sibling' AirTag is present, if so,
| stays off. If not, waits X hours & then turns on.
|
| * has its own motion sensor; only after X minutes of being
| stationary, it waits Y hours to turn on briefly
|
| * has its own clock & (original-user-known) randomization seed;
| turns on at pseudorandom intervals the original user can predict
|
| * low-power/low-bandwidth receivers so cheap & tiny now: could
| wait for national or even global unit-specific 'wake' request -
| perhaps even with parameters for duration/intervals - before
| powering-on AirTag portion
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| A while ago saw someone who was working in the tracking space
| said the following.
|
| For stolen items you don't want to track them. You want to be
| able to ask them where they are. The advantage is you can make a
| locator that doesn't reveal itself by transmitting. And it
| doesn't waste power receiving gps signals. You could literally
| have a device that runs for years on a AA battery.
|
| The reason you don't see these on the market is because the
| people that fund products want to sell location data.
| xmodem wrote:
| > You want to be able to ask them where they are.
|
| Through what presently-existing technology, exactly, is this
| idea supposed to work over distances greater than at best a
| couple of miles with say LoRA?
|
| > The reason you don't see these on the market is because the
| people that fund products want to sell location data.
|
| I'm not equipped to analyse their claims in detail, but Apple
| claims the design of their find-my network is end-to-end
| encrypted, and presumably it would be a huge scandal if this
| turned out to be a massive lie.
| Gys wrote:
| > Events outside our control, such as Apple updating the firmware
| in the future to prevent the device from working
|
| There are several much cheaper nock offs that inherently will
| never update the firmware. Why not support those? And just to be
| sure, offer a package deal, include such tracker.
| ale42 wrote:
| Half-related question: the chip on the board looks like an STM32
| microcontroller, wouldn't a 6-pin 8-bit PIC10 or similar uC be
| sufficient and cheaper for the purpose? And possibly use less
| power, a PIC10F322 in sleep mode with the watchdog timer enabled
| is around 0.5 uA, while a small STM32 is more in the 100 uA range
| in the best case.
| turtlebits wrote:
| If its not foolproof, how do you provide any peace of mind that
| this actually works? Where do you get your 95% number from? If
| the stolen item isn't able to be found (ie the airtag was
| removed), do you provide some refund?
| anonymousiam wrote:
| A poor workaround to a problem created by unnecessary
| restrictions. Stalking is already illegal, so why are the tags
| crippled in the first place? This "feature" severely limits the
| usefulness of tags for tracking stolen items. Why not just sell
| some tags that don't alert everyone to their presence? Police and
| intelligence agencies have those already, so who are we
| protecting?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Breaking and entering is already illegal, why do people sell
| locks?
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(page generated 2025-05-15 23:00 UTC)