Tracker Detect only scans for AirTags when the user manually requests a scan. Car thieves and other users who do not want to be tracked by AirTags would be better off using the AirGuard app on Android, which scans for AirTags and other Bluetooth tracking devices in the background automatically:
This article throws up many flags for me, not necessarily red, but of a worrying color.
It first celebrates surveillance devices as a net positive and hand-waves away its problems.
But most importantly, it is awfully shortsighted to allow a single company to entrench itself further into societal transactions. However, hearing it is inconvenient, so I am often dismissed for saying so.
> They're made by Apple, which means they're very platform-agnostic.
You mean platform-specific.
> "Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority, and seems to ignore the realities of the world. Perhaps Mayor Adams spends too much time on HN?
Have they always been this way or have they all become wildly out of touch more recently? To an outsider, American political discourse looks like it is completely divorced from reality.
Making a joke about how iPhones are better is basically the opposite of out of touch. Most new yorkers agree, and 90% of the others are used to the joke.
I forget which late night show this was, but the guy said he wouldn't switch from his iPhone even if it punched him in the face every morning. That's not offensive humor anywhere except here and maybe within Google.
Why would I choose an Android phone? Apple does not spy on me, and does not sell my information to advertisers. An iPhone SE is $429, or can be financed at the same price, with zero interest, at $17.87 for 24 months.
Why would I want to join Google’s advertiser-driven ecosystem, and voluntarily make myself into Google’s product?
If that's your main concern you'd be better off with a "degoogled" OS on an Android phone with an unlocked bootloader. iOS is locked down and you can't really see or control what information is being sent.
Here are some other reasons why you or other people might choose Android phones:
- Generally cheaper/better value, especially on the low end
- Less locked down (e.g. you can actually choose what browser engine you want to use, or sideload apps relatively easily)
- More options to choose from
- The core OS is FOSS
If you like iPhones that's fine but it's not true that there's literally no reason for anyone to get an Android phone
There is no alternative to AirTags which doesn't take up additional space or come with major downsides. The way AirTags work is by using low power ultra wideband communications to respond to what are effectively ping packets which get sent out by apple devices in the area. The devices get the AirTag's ID and the distance and submit it to Apple for processing. Apple uses the distance information to trilaterate the AirTags and sends this information to the owner of the tag.
As such, AirTags only work because of Apple's market position and extremely wide reach. Put simply, Apple is abusing their control over their devices and the trust their users have placed in them to perform a form of mass surveillance.
Tile works the same way but just with bluetooth. Any phone with a tile app on it is snitching on every tag it sees. Apple of course wins here because it's just every damn iphone, not just the ones that have an app installed.
As someone who has used both the airtag is just plain better when it comes to locating it, the uwb stuff is awesome. But the tile tags have some upsides as well. I love the button on the tile that you can use to ring your phone, helps solve ye olde.. i have my keys, where's my phone problem.
AirTags encrypt the location data end-to-end between the finding device and the Find My app on the owner’s devices. There’s no mass surveillance, unless you count masses of individual users surveilling their own AirTags.
I fail to see any abuse or mass surveillance. “Find my” is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple does not have access to the device location or anyone’s identity:
Last time I tried that, it was very limited. No paying by phone, no banking apps (and most banks require app as second factor), no proper maps with navigation and routing, no streaming music, no "work" apps like Teams or Slack, no utility apps like taxis or public transport. Even messaging apps wouldn't work well due to lack of push notifications.
Degoogled Android was basically touch display dumbphone. Which is perfect for some people who want it that way, but I like the ability to use public transport, get a cab or message people by something else than a text.
edit: I think there might be a difference between degoogled as in not registered to play store but still having play services install, and degoogled as using shim play services? I honestly don't remember.
microG works well as a substitute for the Google Play Services client. I generally don't have issues with banking apps on microG, though people using apps for banks based in other regions might have different experiences. Navigation, music streaming, Microsoft Teams, Slack, rideshare, and public transit apps work flawlessly. Push messaging is fully functional. As a bonus, microG does not implement any of the advertising features in Google Play Services.
At least for me a lot of automation and workflow stuff I have just doesn't exist on iPhones. I make heavy use of buzzkill, taskr and iftt, and the first two have no equivalent on iOS and probably never will. Pretty sure home screen widgets are next to non-existent as well on iOS.
Thanks for the informative answer. Frankly, it’s a shame that most consumers have to choose between either spyware-computer or privacy-preserving-consumption-console.
That said, I simply can’t blame someone for considering an iPhone to be the default choice for the majority of consumers.
There's janky series of actions I have set up where my phone detects when I get to my office building and sends a text triggers turning my computer on for me, signs in, and then runs a start up script(which starts all my programs and launches an RDP session as well, which has its own start up script as well that gets run) and then locks the screen again, so it's all ready when I sit down. Back when I played WoW I'd also use a similar system to launch the game and wait in the login queue on raid nights for me while I was driving home.
My spouse sometimes will text me from upstairs when she needs something, but I work from the office 2 days a week but she never remembers(she has some memory issues...) so I have it set to send her a reminder that I'm not home the first time she texts me for the day, but doesnt mark the messages as read or dismiss the notification so I can still see what she sent and reply if I need to. Also have it set to replay the notification sounds/buzz for messages from her outside of work hours because I am bad at checking my phone and sometimes forget to text her back. It also stickies the notifications from her in the slide-down menu so I can't accidentally dismiss them without replying.
Our oncall system at work has us dial into a phone tree and punch in some numbers to set it to yourself, I have my phone do it automatically for me.
I have a specific camera shortcut that will automatically text my spouse any pictures taken for that specific session until the app is closed/exited, usually its pictures of our cats but also useful when she's taking pictures with my phone for whatever reason or if we're having someone take a photo of the two of us, saves the trouble of having to send it manually each time.
Whenever the WiFI goes down at the house I have it set to turn my phone hotspot on, then send a text that triggers my computer to connect to the hotspot network, sign into the spectrum website and check for outages so I know what is broken.
So I’m sure you came to that conclusion after using Workflow on iOS (built into the system) and using a modern version of iOS that does have Home Screen widgets?
There's something ironic to find this comment on a video of a former cop surrounded by other cops touting the surveillance features Apple's product offers exclusively.
As far as I am aware, they do not sell information to advertisers. Doing so would be a bad business move for them, anyway (ditching long term brand trust for short term profit?)
On AirTag location privacy, from Apple's site [1]:
> Only you can see where your AirTag is. Your location data and history are never stored on the AirTag itself. Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
Edit: I’m debating deleting this post. It doesn’t have any references to back it up, and I just realized that if the tracking network encrypts the location with the public key such that the private key is required to decrypt the location, it is indeed possible for Apple to not know where devices are because the decryption of the location might be done on your device rather than on Apple’s servers, if they wanted to.
Original post follows: I haven’t read any white papers on how this works, but I’m going to call “slight BS” anyway. Technically, Apple knows the location of the AirTag, that’s how their network works. The payload of airtag data might be encrypted, but Apple also keeps the keys for your AirTags so that you don’t have to associate new AirTags with each Apple device you want to use Find My on. While I don’t doubt that Apple strictly reduces what information they log or identify about AirTags to literally the bare minimum that keeps the service running, it’s a bit ingenuous to suggest Apple doesn’t know. What I mean by this is Apple isn’t lying when they say they don’t know the location of your AirTag (until you use their app to look for it) but it is true they know the location of all AirTags synced to their network, they just don’t know which one is yours until you go looking for it. Encryption probably plays a role in that asymmetric encryption would allow Apple to not know any AirTag details until your devices provide the decryption key. A handshake could be involved too so that your device can’t decrypt the location of the tag without proving they own the associated encryption key. But presumably Apple has a way of issuing or remotely authorizing against such keys. It is likely the case that your password for your phone protects Apple from gaining access to the keys thus justifying the position that Apple doesn’t have access because they don’t have your keys. Apple would have to act maliciously with their software into order to break this system, and it’s not worth it for them to do so. I’m not saying they’re lying but they are simplifying things a bit.
They do have their own advertising business unit which posted a $4b profit recently. They spy on you in their own ways. Whether or not you find that acceptable is subject to your own conditioning and boundaries.
That said the spying aspect makes little sense to discuss in the context of a literal portable surveillance device leveraging their network, which they keep hand waving away in explanations.
They can also use commercially-available hardware like the Greykey to bruteforce iPhone and Android logins without Apple or Google's permission whatsoever.
Apple is very clear about what they have access to, and what they do not. They cannot share what they do not have, or do not have the encryption keys to.
It’s dishonest to equate lawful warrants with Google’s targeted advertising and exploitation of our information.
Furthermore, Apple is clear about what information they have access to, and what information they don’t, and have consistently, year-over-year, reduced the information they actually have access to.
> Apple is an advertiser.
This is another disingenuous false equivalency. Apple does not gather personal information from our devices for advertising, and always requires explicit opt-in before making use of any data provided to them through the use of their services.
> It’s dishonest to equate lawful warrants with Google’s targeted advertising and exploitation of our information.
Is it?
Google has not suffocated the AOSP. If you don't want their advertising or services, you can remove it. No such option exists on iOS, so you're effectively locked into an inherently insecure product. You can claim that you trust the parties with the backdoor key, but that doesn't change the fact that the key exists.
In mainland China, that puts Apple in the awkward situation of complying with lawful warrants that are complicit in human rights violations. Trusting wholesome, benevolent government collaboration is not enough. Apple has to design a transparent and accountable security system if they want their privacy stance to look like something other than a theater scripted on whitepapers.
> This is another disingenuous false equivalency.
Apple is an advertiser, though. You cannot pretend like they don't also have a conflict of interest here. Not to mention, they're equally capricious on the service upsell - the in-OS advertising was one of the reasons I left their ecosystem in the first place.
In the case of AirTags, Apple simply does not have that information to give:
> Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
They can be compelled to spy on you. They have also clearly put systems in place that make it very hard or impossible for them to do so without re-architecting their entire ecosystem of devices
> Apple does not spy on me, and does not sell my information to advertisers.
You have misunderstood privacy. It's not limited to selling of information. It's whether you control your own data. With Apple you certainly don't. You are a product either way.
I assume it was mostly humor, albeit poorly timed humor.
The lack of elaboration to the question shows that there wasn't much thought put into this idea IMO. While a majority of Americans use iPhones, there is still a significant portion of Android users. It's unfortunate that an interoperable solution was not promoted, but I assume this suggestion attempts catering to the majority and puts little thought into what we are all concerned with -- interoperability and being able to target everybody, not just ~60% of the U.S. population (if you want to believe statcounter's numbers).
"Ignorance", "short-sightedess", and "ignores the realities of the world" (and another commenter's "let them eat cake") seems like a stratospherically dramatic reaction to the common "why would anyone use THAT platform" joke.
> Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority
He was making a joke, playing into the Android vs iPhone eternal war.
But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched fully to Android for 5 devices across 4 years, and now back to iPhone..... I actually think the ignorance is the other way (Android users who have never tried iPhone as their full time phone).
> But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched fully to Android for 5 devices across 4 years
Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last Android device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going strong after I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone), and my new device will probably last a long time too.
Each for a fraction of the price charged by Apple.
Might be luck of the draw, but my experience with Android has been similar to OP. Each of my (at the time top of the line) Samsung phones stopped working due to various reasons after a time period ranging from just under an year, to a couple of years.
In comparison, my secondhand iPhone 3G worked for several years—until I left it in a plane by mistake. My iPhone 7plus I used for ~7 years; in fact I still use it, along with my new iPhone 13.
All phones are trash except my unbranded Huawei clone running a custom version of Android I built myself. It's been totally problem-free since I got it 8 days ago (the one before it was also trash).
OnePlus. My 6T still works perfectly. No issues after 4 years of use, even the battery still lasts a good time. Sometime after they dropped support (since it's an old model), I installed DivestOS and it still works great, updates and all. Became my backup phone. I got myself a Nord2T now, and I like it a lot, I have the impression it will last forever too.
I had a Samsung in the past, but I had some issues with it.
I think it's pretty hard to argue that the undefeatable dedicated Bixby button was a good idea, or that Galaxy Folds are awesome. They release basically the same thing constantly to give people FOMO on upgrades because the new Galaxy+ S MegaUltraGigaSuper GigaProPixel 97 with 18 cameras is out. They fake detail on the moon to impress the non-tech-savvy who don't understand how it's just a trick. They're also run by a family that is above the law in Korea and has a large influence on the government because they're such a large part of the economy. Their appliances are also trash quality and not made to be repaired, there have been class action lawsuits about this.
I had a good several year run with the LG G6. Google Maps navigation got too bogged down to be usable, though. That's more Google's fault than LG. Now I'm on a Pixel 6 and it's mostly non-offensive. The fingerprint reader is a bit unreliable, and the lack of a headphone jack is annoying. Other than that, it is responsive and the UI stays out of my way.
My his and hers pair of S5s lasted 6 years despite a fun competitive game we would play where we would try to smack the phone out of others hand which often sent it flying comedically through the air. (good training for phone theives we both have iron grips of our phones now)
> Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last Android device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going strong after I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone), and my new device will probably last a long time too.
They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people do that.
Actually, despite the common wisdom that Apple users are always getting the latest thing and just can't wait to give Apple more money at every opportunity, every person I've known who replaced their phone about annually to chase whatever the just-released flagship phone was so they can always have the shiniest thing, has been an Android user. Though, to be fair, I've also known plenty of Android users who don't do that. I've just not yet seen an Apple user behave that way (but I'm sure some do). I think this has something to do with Android fans having more overlap with computer hardware enthusiasts in general, than Apple fans do.
I've also known a few Android users who get a new phone every year because they think the next $200 phone won't suck just as much as the last one did. And that, sure, is kinda their own fault.
> They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people do that.
I actually don't like to replace my phone a lot. The issue was, with each Android phone, despite great recommendations from others and lots of research I was left wanting. And after being disappointed by each Android phone, another Android expert would tell me that some other newly released hardware would blow me away. I was tricked by this again and again and again. Until eventually releasing I would just be so much happier on iPhone. I was.
Heh—as an ex-Android user who owned a couple of the "good" ones, I definitely get where you're coming from. I'd take a $400 iPhone over any Android phone, no matter how nice, no hesitation, even disregarding existing purchases and such (I don't have a ton of those, anyway)
I know a lot of people that get the latest iphone every year but I think the difference is they don’t advertise it or mention it the way a lot of the android folks do. Perhaps due to the hardware enthusiast overlap you mentioned.
This; I used to build my own custom ROMs for my Android devices to get a close-to-AOSP experience + Google services + rooted app store, but it was a lot of overhead and maintenance, plus still slow and unstable compared to iOS. Now that iPhones have had great battery life + excellent performance for a while, combined with great cameras and apps that are iOS-specific, it'd be very painful to go back to Android.
Serious question: when some app sends you somewhere after a click/tap on iOS, but doesn't leave you the breadcrumb back link in the upper left corner, how do you go back? Is there no shortcut or gesture? Drives me crazy I can't figure it out every time I grab my son's or my parents' phone to help them with something.
To bring up App Switcher, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, then pause in the center of the screen. Then, to browse the open apps, swipe right, then tap the app you want to use.
You can also quickly switch between open apps on an iPhone with Face ID by swiping right or left along the bottom edge of the screen. But try App Switcher first, it'll provide clearer orientation.
Just a note that apps are not responsible for that breadcrumb and have no control over it (if you are meaning the little one that lives in the status bar?). The OS adds that in cases where apps link out to other apps
To go back in all cases you can swipe the home indicator to the right to go back to the previous app you were in. Or you can fling it up to about half way to see all previous apps
I think the ignorance point was more about ignoring the entire Android userbase who wouldn't benefit from these donated AirTags, which is a valid point for a government program.
(I also currently own an iPhone mini 12 but my Galaxy S23 Ultra is my daily driver, no accounting for taste and such).
All that stupidity aside, how are AirTags actually supposed to help, even if we all had an iPhone and were happy to live under apple's benevolent rule? Most cars have a gps tracker now anyway. Mine was stolen last year, during the night. I was told it would have been put into a shipping container within an hour, where it wouldn't be accessible to radio waves anyway.
Maybe they work for casual joyriding. At least where I am, most car theft is organized crime shipping them overseas. Gimmicks like airtags will do nothing.
> At least where I am, most car theft is organized crime shipping them overseas. Gimmicks like airtags will do nothing.
I remember hearing stories as a kid in Slovenia that if your is stolen, you'll never get it back because it gets chopped into pieces within hours – before you even realize it's gone – and the parts make it to Bosnia/Albania/Serbia by next day.
In the early 00's there was even a show on Discovery Channel about chop shops in UK – indie garages that make new cars out of parts. How the parts are sourced was not discussed, they "just show up".
"Chop Shop" was a follow up to the series "Bangla Bangers" [1]. It was more like a variant of Scrapheap Challenge and nothing to do with organized crime around stolen cars in the UK.
As I kid in the UK I heard the same stories, is this still a thing? For the last few years I've been living in Lithuania which has a very big used car parts market, but I've never heard of cars being stolen and chopped up.
Usually parts are sourced from crashed cars, which are bought by breakers who often specialise in a specific model, and resold on online marketplaces. They don't present any form of 'verification' so I don't see why it couldn't be used for stolen parts, but it seems that it isn't.
I have heard about people breaking into BMWs and stealing the media console, but as I understand thefts of the whole car or even easily accessible body parts like wheels are very rare.
I don't feel that it is that security has changed much - if it is organized crime then it's no issue to get a car carrier with a crane and lift the car away. Maybe people have just gotten better morals since the 90s?
AirTags will report their last known location. This is very likely to be the point it was driven into a container. If the container wasn't moved or loaded onto a ship yet it could be found. Additionally, while containers do a really good job and of blocking RF, they aren't perfect and they only need to get a little Bluetooth to a phone nearby. So even an iPhone on a crane operator could expose the stolen car's location. It may not be perfect but it could help. I use them on a classic car and on hidden on two trailers I own.
> All that stupidity aside, how are AirTags actually supposed to help, even if we all had an iPhone and were happy to live under apple's benevolent rule? Most cars have a gps tracker now anyway.
Yeah, I figured the main problem was police not wanting to do anything about theft even when you had a GPS location and videos of the people stealing your stuff. I've seen lots of stories about people who knew exactly where their lost phone/laptop/car/whatever is but police were totally uninterested in recovering the items.
I'm not a fan of Mayor Adams since he's received a lot of "caviar treatment" from leaders of countries like Azerbaijan. The little joke about Android (people laughed) isn't a big deal.
Mayor Adams was asked during the press conference if AirTags work with Android (they don't).
"Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Oh and given that this in New York we're talking about here, the vigilante mob are gonna go wild for this, especially after Citizen worked out so well ....
But by last month, Frame was enthusiastically backing the idea of manhunts, according to screenshots of internal company communications seen by NBC News and first reported by Motherboard [1]
> Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded
This is a New Yorker’s response to a stupid question.
AirTags have a recognised brand. Messaging “buy AirTags” comes through cleanly in a way an inclusive statement would not. Given nobody is burning city funds for this, it’s literally a PSA, a reporter asking the mayor technical questions the answer to which they know is fine to be answered dismissively.
On apple's website, that's about $25 per an airtag and unless they got a deal, this is $12,500 in funds or free assets from Apple to do promotion. Skating close to corruption.
The cost to the city & its residents of dealing with a single car theft can easily be four-to-five figures.
You call it corruption. Is it, or is it just a good ROI?
I think it'll depend on whether this does anything, or whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you report your car's location to them with an AirTag.
> The cost to the city & its residents of dealing with a single car theft can easily be four-to-five figures.
That's ridiculous. At that rate it would be better to just buy the owner a new car.
But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate or VIN as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected. It would be far cheaper and not that different from reporting your credit card as stolen.
The unfortunate thing about property crime is that frequently, $50 worth of gain often results in $500-$5,000 worth of damages and costs. Just ask anyone who's had a catalytic converter stolen, or their copper ripped out.
>
But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected.... It would be far cheaper...
Designing and deploying an automatic system for 'Automatically deploying spike strips', (besides being a bad idea) in a city like NYC will be an eight-figure sort of project. That will assure that in the best-case scenario, a car theft will run four-figures worth of damages. In the worst case, it will do nothing, because the car's been abandoned, or is being taken apart in a Jersey chop-shop by the time you report it stolen.
> Just ask anyone who's had a catalytic converter stolen
The difference is when someone's catalytic converter is stolen, we don't spend $5000 of taxpayer money on it. More often than not, we spend $0 of taxpayer money, and the angry owner spends $5000.
I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
If the police spends any time documenting it, looking for it, or catching and prosecuting the guy who did it, it can run up to that. Even if they do the bare minimum, it'll definitely run a lot more than $50...
> I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars in personal loss, or tens of dollars in taxes that fund measures and mechanisms to prevent or mitigate that loss? It all comes out of your pocket at the end of the day. Whether it comes out of your taxes, or your insurance premiums, or from your pocketbook, you'll still be paying.
I know that all costs being equal, I'd rather live in a world with fewer car, or cat, or copper thefts, or any other negative-sum activity than one with more of them. There's no magic bullet for this, though, which is why each mitigation should be considered on its own costs and merits.
> Even if they do the bare minimum, it'll definitely run a lot more than $50...
The bare minimum is taking a report and checking a file, and that'll take about five minutes. How are you calculating "a lot more than $50"?
And why did you pick $50 anyway? Is that a comparison to how much the criminal makes? If the profit is a small fraction of the damage they do, it makes lots of sense for the police to spend more than the profit.
> Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars in personal loss, or tens of dollars in taxes that fund measures and mechanisms to prevent or mitigate that loss? It all comes out of your pocket at the end of the day.
I disagree. It doesn't take 5 figures to mitigate that loss in a society that has technology. If it does it's a misuse of funds and I'd rather move to another city, state, country than pay 5 figures to mitigate that loss. If they can mitigate the loss in 3 figures, than absolutely yes that's better than paying 4 figures for a new car, and I'd stay and happy contribute toward the 3 figures.
>More often than not, we spend $0 of taxpayer money, and the angry owner spends $5000.
No, the angry owner makes an insurance claim, and then car insurance rates go up for everyone who lives a mile away from the angry owner(s) who got their catalytic converter(s) stolen
For the cost of the city, if they stopped going after car theft it would simply become more prevalent. We don't need to decriminalize and make safe cities for car thieves.
Regarding your second point, many modern cars have kill switches the police can access. This might be a better solution if these can't easily bypass them. That said, I don't personally want a car with a kill switch.
I don't advocate for decriminalizing it at all. But it shouldn't take 5 figures to catch a car thief with some minimal technology.
It the very least it should be a fundamental axiom of a society that {catching a thief of an item, fixing an item} should cost less than or equal to replacing the item, and I believe that to be largely true if technology is maximally utilized.
I don't think that's a reasonable Axiom because thieves rarely steal a single item over a lifetime. There's also the deterrent effect which is very important. If you didn't catch at least some car thieves, you couldn't have a society with cars.
> it'll depend on whether this does anything, or whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you report your car's location to them with an AirTag
Which is affected by the mayor, a former cop, name dropping AirTags in relation to car thefts in the press.
>The Association for a Better New York (ABNY), a nonprofit founded by New York real estate developer Lewis Rudin in the 1970s and responsible for the "I <3 NY campaign," paid for the 500 AirTags.
It's a legitimate question. Why is the mayor of NYC shilling a product? NYC is one of the worlds largest city governments so It's not out of the realm of possibility that this is a native ad for I-Phones.
I use Airtags for this purpose with my car and my bicycle, but they're not designed for this purpose. You can pull the speaker coil out of them fairly easily, but they will still notify the thief that they're being tracked if they have an iPhone on them. Not ideal, but it beats having a huge epidemic of stalking.
They will also notify an Android phone if they have installed the app which Apple created for this purpose. I have to imagine thieves would know about this.
A thief can use the Apple provided app to discover if there is a tag, but I don't know that I would say it notifies them since unlike on an iPhone it would require the thief to actively open the app and perform a manual scan for the tag.
That's true for Apple's Tracker Detect app, but any thief or other user could simply use the free and open source AirGuard app on Android, which has more functionality than both Tracker Detect and the AirTag anti-tracking features built into iOS:
For example, AirGuard lets the user activate the alarm on any AirTag in range immediately without waiting any period of time. iOS and Tracker Detect only let the user do this if they determine that the AirTag is following the user, and Tracker Detect adds another 10 minute waiting period for no good reason.
I always found it a bit rediculous that Apple seemingly admits stalking is a problem they have to solve it, and they solve it by requiring you to buy an iPhone. To solve a problem they created, you have to give them money.
It's worse in my opinion than just going with 'we're not responsible for how our product is used' defense.
I don't want to carry any phone, among other reasons because I do not want to be tracked 24/7.
Now Apple has made it trivial for anyone to buy persistent, highly accurate dystopian stalker gear that could easily be surreptitiously placed on my person or vehicle. Having no phone, I would have no idea. The AirTag tracking system escalates the technological arms race and dramatically expands my threat model.
All I want is the right to be a human with my human dignity respected, without requiring "techno upgrades" to enforce my rights, and the best response I've seen from the pro-surveillance crowd boils down to, "well you've gotta carry a tracking device if you don't want to get tracked".
First, you can totally carry a phone in airplane mode or a tablet without cellular capabilities. Or you can scan with a tablet from a known location (e.g. the office) and regularly do so.
Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
So we're back to, "carry a tracking device if you don't want to get tracked."
Even if I had a phone, or could afford one, then I will still be carrying a tracking device. Do you really think airplane mode will prevent tracking? Apple's AirTag fuckery works even when devices present as in the "off" state! And of course there's no longer any easy way to remove phone batteries now.
I don't want to be tracked by the AirTag snitch network, I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking, and finally I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech in order to ensure my safety and rights.
> Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
It is new. Those devices are bigger and use way more power. AirTags turn everyone's iPhone into an automated snitch reporting the precise location of these ultra-low-power beacons. It's an escalation of the technological arms race. But you're right, these tracking devices should all be prohibited items for commercial sale.
> But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
Laws like those can't prevent misuse, they can only punish, maybe, after misuse. Of course, the violation must be detected first ("buy our tracking products if you don't want to get tracked"). And at which point it's potentially too late for the victim, anyway.
Banning easily-concealable low-power global mesh network snitch devices would not impact other people's rights except to protect them. Where do you get the idea that you have some right to these devices that balances with my right to safety, human dignity, and privacy?
Regulation of commercial products is absolutely par for the course, especially when those products can have such severe negative externalities for people who aren't the users of the products.
A lot of people want cheap, easy access to machine guns. At least in the US, unlike easily-concealable tracking devices we actually do have a right to bear arms--and yet machine guns are not so trivial to obtain. Why is that?
I respect your desire not to be tracked. But you are just wrong about a lot of the technology you are talking about.
AirTags can be read using Apple software for either Apple or Google hardware, you don't have to opt into Apple's ecosystem at all. Airplane mode prevents tracking by carriers the most passive method and what most people object to when they call phones tracking devices. It of course also prevents any other methods (e.g. GPS) from calling home. Apple AirTag-like tracking of iDevices (while off) only works on newer iDevices that have a special BLE chip that runs in the "off" state and that behavior is easily disabled from the settings menu, so it can be disabled when your device is off or always. Between those two settings, you can set any Apple device into something that does not transmit anything about you.
This 100% answers your "I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking"
As for " I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech", you may not want to have any kind of technology, and that's your right, but it does seem like a trivial burden. The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
You don't seem to know what a Tile is. It's the same thing as an AirTag released for a similar price point years ago that is similar in size. The difference is, only phones that opted into downloading the Tile software scanned for and reported them to home base. But it was a fairly complete network with all the same tracking concerns.
Meanwhile, GPS receivers with 4G transmitters are under $30 on Amazon with the same physical footprint as an AirTag. Those devices are no longer bigger or significantly more power hungry than AirTags. But of course, they also make ones designed to be wired into a vehicle for power, which would last longer than the 10 month (nominal) battery life I found. And GPS avoids the "scanning with a phone" detection.
Meanwhile, you seem to ignore the use cases that many people have for finding keys or their own property. Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them. Meanwhile, detecting malicious trackers is easy enough that it doesn't seem to impose a cost on everyone else.
And, of course, people would be far less concerned about anyone owning a machine-gun if there was an app you could run on your phone that would prevent the bullets from hurting you.
If you trust Apple's software, and the firmware of every discrete SoC/IP core to be truthful and bug-free. And obviously this does not require cellular tracking, which is frankly unlikely to be prevented in airplane mode. Once again, regardless of your justifications: I refuse to carry a tracking device, so stop arguing that I should because "It'll totally be fine, trust me bro."
> Tile and GPS receivers with 4G transmitters
I'm aware of Tile and the physical and power footprint of other trackers. The AirTag is a substantial leap in capability. If you disagree: Why do so many people prefer AirTag over Tile or these other devices? But again: All these surreptitious trackers should be banned from commercial sale. The risks far outweigh the benefits, and the risks are entirely externalized to the rest of society.
> The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
So, just straight up, "Fuck your human dignity. Carry a tracking device or GTFO and forget your right to a normal life in society." Human rights are apparently not important to you; I should just bend over and accept my lot, because that's the "societal arc".
Once again: Unacceptable. And moreover: A miserable and weaselly dismissal not only of my human dignity but also of your own.
> Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them.
I disagree with that frankly ridiculous characterization. Legal surreptitious trackers impose a very large cost to other members of society.
But this entire issue would go away overnight if Apple designed their system only to detect and find lost items instead of as a generalized surreptitious global tracking system.
Simply only report beacons back to the mothership if the user of the tracking device (the "phone") has previously manually added the tracking device ("AirTag"). Allow up to 10 devices to add an AirTag, so everyone in your family/friend group can help find your lost property. No more snitching back to Apple when the tracking device sees any beacon at all.
This will satisfy the vast majority of use cases where you lose a physical possession ("where are my keys?") while preventing the vast majority of stalking and targeted muggings, rape, and burglaries, etc.
Precisely what I did when I got my first car. Though I often wonder how effective it will be, wouldn't be surprised if the thief notices the AirTag's presence fairly quickly.
i am unsure how AirTags can be recommended by anyone in any situation to prevent theft.
their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in any situation where theft is involved (or theft happens after loosing the item). the thief is alerted to their presence automatically and can disable them quickly. perfect for thieves!
AirTags can only be used for misplaced items, any utility for situations involving theft is completely negated by their "anti tracking" features.
another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..
I have a 'family' setup in our iphones for my wife and kids. My wife bought some airtags and put them in the cases for our kids expensive musical instruments, her keys, etc.
We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times, etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has her purse with her.
They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.
And if your kids are young enough not to have their own phone, when they go to school with an AirTag it'll start beeping a while later just to make sure nobody is stalking them.
It was a nice idea until all the people worried about stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.
I'm glad someone brought this up. I'm the CEO of Tile and we launched an anti-theft feature for this reason. We allow you to turn off anti-stalking features if you agree to strict penalties for misuse and verify yourself with a real ID.
Apple in most cases already has our real ID.
And stalkers are already determined to commit crimes. Agreeing to civil penalties isn’t going to deter someone who already doesn’t fear criminal imprisonment.
How much customer data are you giving to your corporate owners? How much are you selling to third parties? How much are your owners selling to third parties?
How do you verify the government ID used belongs to the person disabling the anti-stalker feature? There's a huge market for fake state IDs and stolen/leaked photos of various gov't IDs
Checking an ID in person is a bit different than uploading a picture of it. US IDs are designed for in person verification with security features like holograms, laser perforations and microprinting. Also don't think it's a high bar if they're allowed to use one ID to unlock multiple tiles
Thank you for this. We switched back to Tile specifically because Apple's anti-stalking features make it impossible to eg; share keys. For any household with several cars this is an obvious must-have.
Not to mention most people want to, you know, be able to track something that got stolen.
Yeah after buying a few AirTags early on, I've largely given up on them. Too much of a hassle as it tries not to be usable to stalk, so I can't use it for the other handy use cases.
Best use-case by far. I was traveling internationally, and the airline left my luggage back in Europe. The airline had no idea where my bags were but, I was able to tell them exactly which terminal my bags got loaded onto. (where they lost signal) They looked up which flight departed that terminal at that time and were then able to route my bags to my final location and I had them within 24 hours.
who here can already see clearly the NYPD officer's completely blank stare when you show them exactly where the car thief took your car. "did you see them do it? otherwise it's not our problem"
I had someone steal my keys with an airtag on them in Seattle. Cops said they were going to send someone after making me file a police report, screenshots of Find My, etc. Call them an hour later, "oh yeah, no officers responded, we are too busy, good luck!" and this was on a slow-ass sunday around Greenlake. Recovered the keys myself. Good thing they have a 355M budget.
SPD does much the same for me. I had my laptop tracked using Prey software (prior to Airtags) and they refused to send cops to a location I personally scouted out, took pictures of, and identified my equipment.
When I told them I might confront the thief on my own, they strongly cautioned against it.
Basically they aren't interested in doing their job, or anyone taking action themselves.
This is the best argument for defunding the police - their budgets have largely stayed flat or even gone up, and they aren't doing their jobs. Why are we paying for it?
> who here can already see clearly the NYPD officer's completely blank stare when you show them exactly where the car thief took your car. "did you see them do it? otherwise it's not our problem"
With NYPD, it's even worse: "if we didn't see it, we can't do anything about it". This is, of course, entirely false, but good luck trying to argue with a cop and getting them to do their job.
Heck, NYPD refuses to even take police reports on stolen property (which is a huge hassle because insurance usually requires a police report as a prerequisite to filing claims). You literally have to argue with them just to get them to file the report - not even do anything about the issue, mind you, just to get them to fill out the form.
The NYPD can bend crime stats by controlling the number of reports that get made. Want to make it seem like crime is going down in a neighborhood (so they can take credit for it)? Stop filling out so many reports. Want to convince people that there is a crime wave before an election to stymie any "defund" efforts? Fill out more reports. Neither requires doing any actual investigations.
It’s really rather ironic that those types of cops are usually also located among the very same kind of people who demand that we only rely in the police for all things like some kind of parent as if they could be a good parent at that.
It’s always struck me as a kind of underdevelopment, a continuation of the infantilism that so many never get over as the move from being taken care of their parents to Taken care of by school and then Taken care of by universities and then taken care of by Acme corporation that claims to really care about them. Of course that works love being taken care of by big government and its plantation formen called police.
Portland Police Bureau are in good company, it seems.
The only reason to file a police report for a stolen vehicle these days (in Portland) is documentation for insurance. I very rarely hear about people getting their cars back via PPB without it being months later (and in pieces with mysterious stains everywhere) due to being incidentally swept up in a rare chop shop bust.
And yes, this is a policing problem. It’s also a city council problem. And a DA problem. And a homeless/drug problem (both direct results of voter referendums).
But we have a two party system so urbanite Oregonians will never vote these idiots out.
Portland city political positions are nonpartisan. Portland "democrats" can range from center right (rene gonzalez) to progressive left (no one). I'm hopeful RCV will help.
Eric Adams may have a D next to his name but he's a traditional Republican according to his policies (cutting libraries/schools, more funding for cops).
> spokesperson with the Orange County Sheriff's Department reminded victims of crime to let local law enforcement take over the recovery of stolen items
> did you see them do it? otherwise it's not our problem
If we're trading anecdotes, I had two laptops lifted from my apartment. The NYPD's detectives followed up with the building for footage, identified a suspect, followed up with the resident they were seen with, got the suspect's Instagram and got an arrest warrant. That resulted in them nabbing the guy when he was ticketed for jumping a subway turnstile.
I actually know multiple people who were robbed and NYPD caught them when they used the victims metro card. Wild that thieves haven't realized that the cards can be tracked and the stations are under surveillance, but maybe that's why they turned to crime.
if your building had "footage"...and the NYPD actually cared about a non-violent theft, with "detectives" no less....wow....well we would assume you were living in a pretty "uptown" neighborhood.
where we lived, there were of course lots of "detectives", but they had a single purpose which was to arrest black people for drug possession. Other than murders, that was pretty much it.
> well we would assume you were living in a pretty "uptown" neighborhood
No. And off plumb. Adjust your priors. (Obviously no doormen.)
> where we lived
Where?
We have so many generic hypotheticals with loose calls for policy. Let the folks who feel the brawn and brunt of crime and law enforcement speak solutions. This topic has lost relevance because it was diluted.
"good cops" look the other way regarding all the "bad cops" around them so to the degree they are "good" while protecting corruption is not very compelling. The "good cops" that actually have a problem with things tend to not stay cops for long.
I know it's a nearby city but when I used Orbicule Undercover to find my laptop's thieves the Newark fuzz had it back to me very fast. They of course did not chase down anything else that was stolen and fenced elsewhere because the crime was solved with my thing. Crazy.
how does this not become giveaway stalkerware, instead of vehicle tracking, remove the noisemaker thing, and its just a matter of victim not having an ios phone to out the stalker airtag.
Police do plenty good behind the scenes, you just never hear about it on the media.
In fact, the solution is to increase funding specifically to attract quality people and provide adequate training. You want quality officers patrolling neighborhoods preventing the car theft happening in the first place.
> Defund the police. Not for any socialist reasons, or because they're racist or whatever people are angry about - but because they are so incompetent at their job
Who on Earth thinks the answer to attracting competent people to a middle-class job is lowering pay?
I wish more hardware products supported the "embedded airtag" feature enabled by the Apple Find My program that enables 3rd party manufactures to effectively embed airtags into their products.
I've been doing this for a while with my car. Removed the speakers. Hid them in an inconvenient location that requires some minor disassembly of the car.
I use it all the time to figure out where my car is since my wife and I share and have street parking and live in a busy area.
I also slip airtags into my somewhat expensive jackets when going to events with coat check.
How is car theft in 2023 still a problem? What happens to a stolen car? It doesn't seem feasible or realistic to try to sell it for parts (where are you going to store all these cars before/after parting them out), and there's no way you can just sell the car and expect it not to get flagged. WTF is going on?
body panels and related polymer. interior re-options, operations like that have established shops, and compounds. they just have to be wary of buying from a "heatscore" with cops on thier tail.
On the contrary, pulling apart a car and selling it for parts is frequently worth more than the car itself on the used market. It's especially profitable when you've stolen the car. The hardest part is probably getting rid of the parts of the shell that have VINs stamped into them.
Used to be that they would drive it somewhere quiet, pull parts off, and leave the carcas on the side of the road. At least, that's what happened to my cars a few times in the early 2000's.
This is a terrible suggestion because Apple has effectively removed the anti-theft features of Airtags in favor of protection against stalking.
The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email address.
The original Airtag use case included theft but you'll notice any mention of that has now been removed from the marketing material. It's really just for people who lose things.
> The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email address.
To be fair, 45-60 minutes to track a stolen car is still a lot better than nothing.
I'm not sure how the notification stops the thief. If you're half decent at hiding things they won't be able to find it in less than half an hour, so they either stop and look during which time you can catch them or they abandon the car and you get it back since it's still being tracked.
I don’t recommend going and confronting a car thief.
And I doubt the police will be there in half an hour. You’ll be lucky to convince them you have the location sometime the next day, when it’s far too late.
Eric adams does recommend confronting a car thief I guess. Really it just depends on the situation, plenty of New Yorkers would be game. Might even prefer it to hoping the cops deal with it. Personally if my only choice was ask cops for help I'd consider the car gone. I can round up a few of the boys and confront the thief given an hour or two, and at least I'd get my car back. No idea if NYPD is as worthless as my pd though.
> Supreme Court says guns aren’t only for the rich in nyc anymore.
That law evens the playing field for law abiding citizens. But hey man, you wanna cosplay Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey then by all means. Just hope the NYPD and DA are cool with your vigilantism.
If everyone chooses not to confront car thieves, then car thieves have successful careers stealing everyone's cars. If everyone chooses to confront car thieves (preferably with friends, preferably armed), then car thieves quickly choose another career.
Getting the police to do their job would be ideal, but that won't happen so we only have these two options.
> The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email address.
In the article, they recommended that you "hide the airtag well", so it's most likely that the thief will receive the notification after a while, and decide to just dump the car.
So sick of Adams. There have been some legendary lightweight NYC Mayors (and some heavyweights as well of course) but in modern times Adams takes the cake.
Many do... Although mine doesn't function anymore, since it is a 3G cell modem and well after 4G/LTE had become normalized (car companies and dated tech, who would figure). I never used it, so didn't bother to update last year when they finally offered an upgrade option.
My SO's new car definitely has it (OnStar) although the Android Auto UX is better IMO.
Better idea. Maybe car manufacturers could introduce 2 factor to start your car.
Of course one could disable this. But when you feel you are in a shady spot. Your car prompts your phone to enable two factor to start etc
Here's an even better idea: car theft should be practically non-existent in a modern, western city and instead of the mayor telling people to put airtags in their car he should be announcing how the literal armed police force he commands will be dealing with the issue.
After years of being subjected to property crime including multiple car breakins, getting threatened at knife point by crazy folks on the street, and seeing a woman on my street get forcibly abducted into a car with the police refusing to even report the crimes in all cases we left San Francisco. What's worse is bringing up how this is not OK gets you called some extremist nutjob.
Sad to see NYC is now in a similar state where they'd rather penalize the victims than the perpetrators.
> What's worse is bringing up how this is not OK gets you called some extremist nutjob.
I'm going to go ahead and bet you said something other than "this is not OK" about crime and bad policing, if you got that reaction. Or you put that statement somewhere with very bad context.
If they could implement this on an open protocol, that'd be great too. The last thing I need is some proprietary cloud service that goes down twice a month to start my car.
But what would be even better is just enabling a password.
LoJack used to be the go-to company for this. No more.
Classic LoJack had good privacy. It's a box hidden somewhere in the car, with a connection to vehicle power. It has a transmitter, but normally doesn't transmit. If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack. That broadcasts an ID over a subcarrier of some local FM broadcast station. The receiver in the Lojack unit listens for those IDs, and if its own ID comes up, it turns on. It starts loudly transmitting to units in police cars, giving approximate direction and range. If you see a police car with four short whip antennas on the roof in a square pattern, that's a Lojack-equipped vehicle. It's uses radio direction finding. The vehicle box has no idea where it is.
It's a totally independent system - no cellular, no GPS.
So this only tracks vehicles which have flagged as stolen. It's not constantly phoning home.
Classic Lojack is a one-time charge, with no annual fees.
The current product, LoJack AnalProbe™, which they call "Connected Car", constantly phones home, reporting your location, battery level, etc. to the mothership. There's an app to review where you've been. And, inevitably, the EULA says that Lojack may "share information with LoJack’s affiliated companies, Service Providers and/or third parties in conjunction with the Software and Services and for the purpose of providing You with any promotional offers and marketing materials as may be permitted by applicable law."
my first 'nice' car had lojack installed in it. i remember it was about $200, and that's all, but this was 10+ years ago. i wonder if it's still out there...
Can you even get a car in the US these days that doesn't have a GPS and cellular connection? My 8-year-old BMW has both even though they're not exposed as features in the head unit. (I know because the thing malfunctioned last year, called the cops, and gave them my GPS coordinates.)
Today you see four antennas on police cars for digital diversity reception, originally desirable for minimizing multipath issues but today just about required for P25 "phase II" operation of multiple repeaters on the same channel. These are usually 900MHz radios, one of the factors in the decline of traditional Lojack was many police departments shifting to 900MHz for P25 and no longer equipping all vehicles with VHF radios. Depending on the department, vehicles may not have any radio capable of receiving Lojack transponders. Whether or not they're programmed for it is also a question.
When direction finding was used Doppler DF based on multiple antennas was rare due to the high cost of the electronics package, which also consumed a lot of trunk space. Most police departments did it the old fashioned way with a handheld log periodic they waved around. Another part of the decline of the original Lojack system was the high price of providing good DF receivers to police departments, so not many had them. LoJack never got big into having their own DF "hunters" on staff like other companies using transponders did.
The whole thing about the mayor and NYPD telling everyone who watches or listens to the news to buy a 30 dollar gps patch that someone can put under some car carpeting anywhere in said car should be enough to discourage most car thieves with 2 or more active brain cells, but hey, I'm an idealist.
I'm not sure what you're seeing but you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13. More likely you're seeing the AirTag holders for that price.
> you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13
I didn't see anything in the comment which suggested they were. It is specifically points out there are devices not produced by Apple. Third parties can create compatible devices:
The advantage of AirTags is the large phone tracking network: every recent iPhone defaults to tracking them. That's hundreds of millions of devices globally, with probably even more density in the US. The main competitors (Tile and Samsung) have much smaller networks. I'm not sure what network you'd get with generic "Bluetooth Tracker" tags: technically it could be Apple but I can't find any evidence for such products online.
> That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.
What is the clear reference? One person said they searched GPS tracker tags on Amazon and the other gave a link to Apple’s licensing program which in turn links to NDAs and contractual agreements as well a multi-step design and approval process. There seem to be some knock-offs claiming they work with Find My, but there’s all sorts of weird counterfeit crap on Amazon. Do you have links to a product that’s actually licensed/supported by Apple (ie works and will keep working), because that’s what surprised me.
I own one, and it works just like an airtag and appears in the find my app. It doesn't have precision feature but everything else works(like using the apple/iphone network to find it)
How? Airtags only work because Apple uses any iPhone with BLE support as a detector, whether or not an app is installed. An off-brand BLE beacon would require an app to work at all, and I highly doubt Apple would make it easy for a third party app to run all the time in the background.
According to https://developer.apple.com/find-my/ manufacturers of third party hardware CAN leverage the iPhone BLE network to connect to the FindMy network.
I've been using atuvos tags, which work on the find my network (no third-party app required) and appear to work exactly the same as airtags with the exception of the LF radio for precise location finding - you just don't get the radar mode in the find my app.
Only if the police were actually interested in seeing the location of your stolen property & going there to look for it, which is not a typical experience when reporting a theft to an urban police department.
For what it's worth my car was stolen last year and the Orlando police response was swift, professional, and effective.
I called in with my report, dispatch quickly verified that the car had not been towed then asked me some preemptive questions to make sure it really was stolen (no one else had keys to it, etc).
My car a tracker that the thieves disabled but I sent the dispatcher the last known flair location before the tracker shut off.
The police sent one officer to get my statement while three other cars of officers canvassed the area around the the flair location building by building until they found the car inside of a gated community.
Then they took me to it to confirm it was mine, dusted everything for fingerprints, and gave me a business card with the officer's name, department, etc. and a case number I could use to for reference with insurance or to follow up and see if they managed to catch the people who stole it.
The entire process only took about an hour and the police went above and beyond. I'll forever be grateful for their efforts.
I don't know anything about the trade of stolen vehicles and the people who do it, but i imagine advertising that will let smart thieves and chop shop types know what to look for and quickly remove.
From that perspective it's probably better for people to not know you have lojack, conceal it, and make them work harder to check for it.
Then get a second hand Shit-Box 2000 like I do. Nobody will ever steal it, as no self respecting thief will want to be seen driving that, and it costs me less to buy and own.
Win-win I'd say.
I'm struggling to understand why people who aren't Bezos wealthy buy expensive cars. The depreciation is insane and you're always anxious someone will steal it or ding it in a parking lot. But then if people weren't frivolous with their money, half of us wouldn't have jobs ;)
It ain't about $$$ value. Your shitbox could* be stolen if at any point that platform or it's parts become desirable for any context whatsoever.
for example, the fabled acura integra. While not cheap, it's certainly not going to make a thief rich. At the end of the day it's a vtec honda civic with 2 doors and standard transmission.(I'd argue that a 97 Acura Integra IS your definition of a shitbox.)
Because of that desirable engine, they are still the most GTA vehicle in US.
Used cars are actually much more likely to be stolen, especially if lack modern features like chip keys, immobilizers, and GPS tracking services. In US cities, the most stolen cars are all 15-20+ year old models. If you buy a new Toyota for instance, you don’t need an AirTag because it comes with location tracking services built in.
Just because most stolen cars are used, that does not necessarily mean that a used car is more likely to be stolen than a new car. You've got to consider the base rate, otherwise, you're committing the base rate fallacy. Since most cars are used, of course it's not surprising or meaningful that most stolen cars are used.
It doesn't take comprehensive statistical analysis to conclude that a brand new car that comes with an electronic immobilizer, alarm system, and remote GPS-based location monitoring is less likely to be stolen than your 1999 Honda Accord, 2001 Subaru Forester, or 2020 Kia Soul that comes with none of those features. The advice to buy a used car to avoid theft is demonstrably stupid.
I suspect people at multiple points on the 'car cost ladder' look at everyone who has perched higher up on it with that same level of bafflement.
I have purchased a couple new cars in my life, but in the sub-$35k range. While, looking at the amount a payment would be on an $80,000 car, I'm aware I could definitely afford it -- especially at that 6-7 year term that is so popular now -- it is wild to me that anyone would derive enough marginal utility to justify the cost. I'll take my car plus a briefcase full of money over a Mercedes, thanks.
It's possible though that the person with that $80k car also thinks they're quite rational and only the person with the $150,000 car is a lunatic.
Just a thought here... Why not just write a simple script that collects GPS location, host it on a private server, point an old Android phone at that page, and wire the phone under the dashboard?
That could work fine, but dedicated GPS tracker hardware isn't that expensive and will be more robust and reliable than an old phone (simpler software, heat and vibration tolerant) - plus there's usually IOT-NB/LTE Cat-1 support so you can use less expensive cellular providers and most trackers have at least one dry contact output for remote immobilization. The main downside to hardware GPS trackers is that they're mostly sold "to the trade," so you get a reference manual for their often AT-based communications protocol and you're left to your own devices. There are open-source backend servers around but I feel they're often too genericized to work well with the features of any one tracker, so big incentive to write your own software.
My boy had this in his integra ,it got broken into the other day, he has a kill switch on the ignition though, so the thief kinda just sat there in the car.
It could be far simpler than that, effectively a stripped basic currently available phone wired into operating power that could be called to send GPS payload via SMS. It would simply power up on start and only ever send the coordinates based on an authenticated call or sms itself.
The first one is... incredibly convoluted. Like reaching your right arm over your head to touch your left esr (try it!). The second one sounds like it sucks.
With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief yourself and shoot them.
That's probably the only solution because from the stories I've seen, when someone has something stolen that's airtagged and they tell police, the police basically just tell them to fuck off
Police will take more notice if they get to charge someone with Grand Theft. Tracking down a thief for a low-mid dollar item is seen as a waste of time because they'll be back out on the street in no time.
The issue with the old lowjack is that whilst it was better for privacy it was far worse for actual recovery.
Cars that were outfitted with low jack would have the devices removed or disabled before the tracking could be enabled and as they didn’t report their position the police would have nothing to go by.
Whilst I agree that the information sharing is pretty despicable since you are already paying for that service the new model is more useful at least in a situation where the police actually has resources for recovery instead of doing the bare minimum because most vehicles are insured.
There probably is a market for a solution that would be more reliable than an airtag but one that you can control.
One can probably build one fairly easily with a low power SBC with cellular capability and one of those IOT global sim plans.
What a silly comment. Those are assets purchased by the cops to enable them to provide the services they do to the public.
On the other hand, we have a private for-profit company that is piggybacking off the cops vehicles in order to make profit for it's shareholders. That would never be allowed in any democratic country, but then neither would bribery/lobbying so [insert shrug emoji]
This seems more like a company was providing a service to the cops. I assume the police departments had to buy the lojack receivers, but after that it probably doesn't cost them anything. No different than the cops buying any product or service that helps them do their job.
"In March 2016, the company was acquired for $134 million by CalAmp, an Irvine, California-based provider of Internet of things (IoT) software applications, cloud services, data intelligence and telematics products and services.[4]
In March 2021, the vehicle intelligence company Spireon announced it had acquired the LoJack U.S. Stolen Vehicle Recovery business from CalAmp, joining LoJack users with "nearly 4 million active subscribers from over 20,000 current Spireon customers".[5]
Under Spireon, LoJack technology moved from RF-based location to GPS and cellular-based technology, growing availability of the solution throughout the U.S. and Hawaii and expanding the solution from only stolen vehicle recovery into connected car technology for both dealers and consumers."
> If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack.
By which time it is already chopped up for parts or, in the case of places like Phoenix, is already in Mexico.
I used to have a roommate who grew up in NYC, had a somewhat dubious past and was talking about LoJack one day. He claimed it doesn’t work well enough in dense urban areas to get a precise location fix to actually impede theft. IIRC they would have enough time to disable it as long as they stayed around tall buildings. Something like they would park the car in an alley between buildings and find the LoJack before doing whatever with the car.
I’ve known a few youthful car thieves over the years with some interesting stories.
I really just remember the part about LoJack not working in urban areas so I probably just interpreted that part. Or it could have been all made up, who knows?
Like this whole Kia Challenge thing, I’m sure a bunch of them are going to grow up and say they were crack auto thieves because they got six months community service for jacking their neighbor’s car with a usb cable.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 312 ms ] thread"Why would anyone have one?"
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
AirGuard is a FOSS project developed by the Technical University of Darmstadt.
It first celebrates surveillance devices as a net positive and hand-waves away its problems.
But most importantly, it is awfully shortsighted to allow a single company to entrench itself further into societal transactions. However, hearing it is inconvenient, so I am often dismissed for saying so.
> They're made by Apple, which means they're very platform-agnostic.
You mean platform-specific.
> "Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Again... this level of ignorance and short-sightedness is surprising coming from someone in such a position of authority, and seems to ignore the realities of the world. Perhaps Mayor Adams spends too much time on HN?
1. NYPD-affiliated material on your car
2. Plate cover
3. Plate holder with strategically placed leaves attached
If you pay for parking in NYC you're a sucker.
Around 15:50: https://youtu.be/Vuw72THyXsQ?t=942
They were laughing at it. So hilarious, I'm in stitches over the ignorance.
Why would I want to join Google’s advertiser-driven ecosystem, and voluntarily make myself into Google’s product?
Here are some other reasons why you or other people might choose Android phones:
- Generally cheaper/better value, especially on the low end
- Less locked down (e.g. you can actually choose what browser engine you want to use, or sideload apps relatively easily)
- More options to choose from
- The core OS is FOSS
If you like iPhones that's fine but it's not true that there's literally no reason for anyone to get an Android phone
As such, AirTags only work because of Apple's market position and extremely wide reach. Put simply, Apple is abusing their control over their devices and the trust their users have placed in them to perform a form of mass surveillance.
As someone who has used both the airtag is just plain better when it comes to locating it, the uwb stuff is awesome. But the tile tags have some upsides as well. I love the button on the tile that you can use to ring your phone, helps solve ye olde.. i have my keys, where's my phone problem.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
Last time I tried that, it was very limited. No paying by phone, no banking apps (and most banks require app as second factor), no proper maps with navigation and routing, no streaming music, no "work" apps like Teams or Slack, no utility apps like taxis or public transport. Even messaging apps wouldn't work well due to lack of push notifications.
Degoogled Android was basically touch display dumbphone. Which is perfect for some people who want it that way, but I like the ability to use public transport, get a cab or message people by something else than a text.
edit: I think there might be a difference between degoogled as in not registered to play store but still having play services install, and degoogled as using shim play services? I honestly don't remember.
https://microg.org
Operating systems that have microG preinstalled include CalyxOS, /e/, and LineageOS for microG.
That said, I simply can’t blame someone for considering an iPhone to be the default choice for the majority of consumers.
What do you use them for? That sounds interesting.
There's janky series of actions I have set up where my phone detects when I get to my office building and sends a text triggers turning my computer on for me, signs in, and then runs a start up script(which starts all my programs and launches an RDP session as well, which has its own start up script as well that gets run) and then locks the screen again, so it's all ready when I sit down. Back when I played WoW I'd also use a similar system to launch the game and wait in the login queue on raid nights for me while I was driving home.
My spouse sometimes will text me from upstairs when she needs something, but I work from the office 2 days a week but she never remembers(she has some memory issues...) so I have it set to send her a reminder that I'm not home the first time she texts me for the day, but doesnt mark the messages as read or dismiss the notification so I can still see what she sent and reply if I need to. Also have it set to replay the notification sounds/buzz for messages from her outside of work hours because I am bad at checking my phone and sometimes forget to text her back. It also stickies the notifications from her in the slide-down menu so I can't accidentally dismiss them without replying.
Our oncall system at work has us dial into a phone tree and punch in some numbers to set it to yourself, I have my phone do it automatically for me.
I have a specific camera shortcut that will automatically text my spouse any pictures taken for that specific session until the app is closed/exited, usually its pictures of our cats but also useful when she's taking pictures with my phone for whatever reason or if we're having someone take a photo of the two of us, saves the trouble of having to send it manually each time.
Whenever the WiFI goes down at the house I have it set to turn my phone hotspot on, then send a text that triggers my computer to connect to the hotspot network, sign into the spectrum website and check for outages so I know what is broken.
There's something ironic to find this comment on a video of a former cop surrounded by other cops touting the surveillance features Apple's product offers exclusively.
On AirTag location privacy, from Apple's site [1]:
> Only you can see where your AirTag is. Your location data and history are never stored on the AirTag itself. Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
I don't think they're lying about this.
[1] https://www.apple.com/airtag/
Original post follows: I haven’t read any white papers on how this works, but I’m going to call “slight BS” anyway. Technically, Apple knows the location of the AirTag, that’s how their network works. The payload of airtag data might be encrypted, but Apple also keeps the keys for your AirTags so that you don’t have to associate new AirTags with each Apple device you want to use Find My on. While I don’t doubt that Apple strictly reduces what information they log or identify about AirTags to literally the bare minimum that keeps the service running, it’s a bit ingenuous to suggest Apple doesn’t know. What I mean by this is Apple isn’t lying when they say they don’t know the location of your AirTag (until you use their app to look for it) but it is true they know the location of all AirTags synced to their network, they just don’t know which one is yours until you go looking for it. Encryption probably plays a role in that asymmetric encryption would allow Apple to not know any AirTag details until your devices provide the decryption key. A handshake could be involved too so that your device can’t decrypt the location of the tag without proving they own the associated encryption key. But presumably Apple has a way of issuing or remotely authorizing against such keys. It is likely the case that your password for your phone protects Apple from gaining access to the keys thus justifying the position that Apple doesn’t have access because they don’t have your keys. Apple would have to act maliciously with their software into order to break this system, and it’s not worth it for them to do so. I’m not saying they’re lying but they are simplifying things a bit.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
That said the spying aspect makes little sense to discuss in the context of a literal portable surveillance device leveraging their network, which they keep hand waving away in explanations.
Apple can be compelled to spy on you[0].
> and does not sell my information to advertisers
Apple is an advertiser.
[0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
Isn't modern technology fun?
It’s dishonest to equate lawful warrants with Google’s targeted advertising and exploitation of our information.
Furthermore, Apple is clear about what information they have access to, and what information they don’t, and have consistently, year-over-year, reduced the information they actually have access to.
> Apple is an advertiser.
This is another disingenuous false equivalency. Apple does not gather personal information from our devices for advertising, and always requires explicit opt-in before making use of any data provided to them through the use of their services.
Is it?
Google has not suffocated the AOSP. If you don't want their advertising or services, you can remove it. No such option exists on iOS, so you're effectively locked into an inherently insecure product. You can claim that you trust the parties with the backdoor key, but that doesn't change the fact that the key exists.
In mainland China, that puts Apple in the awkward situation of complying with lawful warrants that are complicit in human rights violations. Trusting wholesome, benevolent government collaboration is not enough. Apple has to design a transparent and accountable security system if they want their privacy stance to look like something other than a theater scripted on whitepapers.
> This is another disingenuous false equivalency.
Apple is an advertiser, though. You cannot pretend like they don't also have a conflict of interest here. Not to mention, they're equally capricious on the service upsell - the in-OS advertising was one of the reasons I left their ecosystem in the first place.
> Devices that relay the location of your AirTag also stay anonymous, and that location data is encrypted every step of the way. So not even Apple knows the location of your AirTag or the identity of the device that helps find it.
They can be compelled to spy on you. They have also clearly put systems in place that make it very hard or impossible for them to do so without re-architecting their entire ecosystem of devices
Yeah I'm too cheap to pay that much.
You have misunderstood privacy. It's not limited to selling of information. It's whether you control your own data. With Apple you certainly don't. You are a product either way.
The lack of elaboration to the question shows that there wasn't much thought put into this idea IMO. While a majority of Americans use iPhones, there is still a significant portion of Android users. It's unfortunate that an interoperable solution was not promoted, but I assume this suggestion attempts catering to the majority and puts little thought into what we are all concerned with -- interoperability and being able to target everybody, not just ~60% of the U.S. population (if you want to believe statcounter's numbers).
It was a joke. Maybe an off-color, inappropriate, unfunny, bad taste, etc.
But it was a joke, not ignorance.
Speaking of too much time on HN (:
Delivery is too important, and every politician knows that a hostile media can turn the best of jokes into a brand new hoax / manufactured scandal.
He was making a joke, playing into the Android vs iPhone eternal war.
But as someone who spent years on iPhone, then switched fully to Android for 5 devices across 4 years, and now back to iPhone..... I actually think the ignorance is the other way (Android users who have never tried iPhone as their full time phone).
Perhaps you don't know how to pick phones? My last Android device lasted 4 years (in fact it is still going strong after I installed DivestOS, became my backup phone), and my new device will probably last a long time too.
Each for a fraction of the price charged by Apple.
In comparison, my secondhand iPhone 3G worked for several years—until I left it in a plane by mistake. My iPhone 7plus I used for ~7 years; in fact I still use it, along with my new iPhone 13.
I had a Samsung in the past, but I had some issues with it.
Btw, I never buy top of the line phones.
Google pixel running grapheneos
Also no, I have never owned an apple device and I never will
They might just replace their phone a lot. Some people do that.
Actually, despite the common wisdom that Apple users are always getting the latest thing and just can't wait to give Apple more money at every opportunity, every person I've known who replaced their phone about annually to chase whatever the just-released flagship phone was so they can always have the shiniest thing, has been an Android user. Though, to be fair, I've also known plenty of Android users who don't do that. I've just not yet seen an Apple user behave that way (but I'm sure some do). I think this has something to do with Android fans having more overlap with computer hardware enthusiasts in general, than Apple fans do.
I've also known a few Android users who get a new phone every year because they think the next $200 phone won't suck just as much as the last one did. And that, sure, is kinda their own fault.
I actually don't like to replace my phone a lot. The issue was, with each Android phone, despite great recommendations from others and lots of research I was left wanting. And after being disappointed by each Android phone, another Android expert would tell me that some other newly released hardware would blow me away. I was tricked by this again and again and again. Until eventually releasing I would just be so much happier on iPhone. I was.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-dis...
Right. They’re doing it wrong?
More than I can say about the old iPad I have here, that became essentially a paperweight. First and last shit I bought from Apple.
That's part of the problem with Android...
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/switch-between-open-a...
You can also quickly switch between open apps on an iPhone with Face ID by swiping right or left along the bottom edge of the screen. But try App Switcher first, it'll provide clearer orientation.
To go back in all cases you can swipe the home indicator to the right to go back to the previous app you were in. Or you can fling it up to about half way to see all previous apps
The most recently used app is usually immediately to the left of the one you’re currently in.
On older iPhones with the Home button, double tap the Home button to get to the app switcher.
(I also currently own an iPhone mini 12 but my Galaxy S23 Ultra is my daily driver, no accounting for taste and such).
He's also talking to car thieves.
Maybe they work for casual joyriding. At least where I am, most car theft is organized crime shipping them overseas. Gimmicks like airtags will do nothing.
I remember hearing stories as a kid in Slovenia that if your is stolen, you'll never get it back because it gets chopped into pieces within hours – before you even realize it's gone – and the parts make it to Bosnia/Albania/Serbia by next day.
In the early 00's there was even a show on Discovery Channel about chop shops in UK – indie garages that make new cars out of parts. How the parts are sourced was not discussed, they "just show up".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangla_Bangers
Usually parts are sourced from crashed cars, which are bought by breakers who often specialise in a specific model, and resold on online marketplaces. They don't present any form of 'verification' so I don't see why it couldn't be used for stolen parts, but it seems that it isn't.
I have heard about people breaking into BMWs and stealing the media console, but as I understand thefts of the whole car or even easily accessible body parts like wheels are very rare.
I don't feel that it is that security has changed much - if it is organized crime then it's no issue to get a car carrier with a crane and lift the car away. Maybe people have just gotten better morals since the 90s?
Yeah, I figured the main problem was police not wanting to do anything about theft even when you had a GPS location and videos of the people stealing your stuff. I've seen lots of stories about people who knew exactly where their lost phone/laptop/car/whatever is but police were totally uninterested in recovering the items.
Mayor Adams was asked during the press conference if AirTags work with Android (they don't).
"Why would anyone have one [an Android phone]?" Mayor Adams responded.
Oh and given that this in New York we're talking about here, the vigilante mob are gonna go wild for this, especially after Citizen worked out so well ....
But by last month, Frame was enthusiastically backing the idea of manhunts, according to screenshots of internal company communications seen by NBC News and first reported by Motherboard [1]
[1] "Inside Citizen: The public safety app pushing surveillance boundaries" https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/citizen-public-safety...
This is a New Yorker’s response to a stupid question.
AirTags have a recognised brand. Messaging “buy AirTags” comes through cleanly in a way an inclusive statement would not. Given nobody is burning city funds for this, it’s literally a PSA, a reporter asking the mayor technical questions the answer to which they know is fine to be answered dismissively.
That’s a publicity stunt, not a crime-fighting measure. I do not count five hundred AirTags as “burning city funds.”
You call it corruption. Is it, or is it just a good ROI?
I think it'll depend on whether this does anything, or whether NYPD will tell you to go pound sand when you report your car's location to them with an AirTag.
Time will tell.
That's ridiculous. At that rate it would be better to just buy the owner a new car.
But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate or VIN as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected. It would be far cheaper and not that different from reporting your credit card as stolen.
No, it's just how the world works.
The unfortunate thing about property crime is that frequently, $50 worth of gain often results in $500-$5,000 worth of damages and costs. Just ask anyone who's had a catalytic converter stolen, or their copper ripped out.
> But seriously, there should be mechanisms to report your license plate as stolen and have traffic cameras automatically deploy spike strips when that license plate is detected.... It would be far cheaper...
Designing and deploying an automatic system for 'Automatically deploying spike strips', (besides being a bad idea) in a city like NYC will be an eight-figure sort of project. That will assure that in the best-case scenario, a car theft will run four-figures worth of damages. In the worst case, it will do nothing, because the car's been abandoned, or is being taken apart in a Jersey chop-shop by the time you report it stolen.
The difference is when someone's catalytic converter is stolen, we don't spend $5000 of taxpayer money on it. More often than not, we spend $0 of taxpayer money, and the angry owner spends $5000.
I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
If the police spends any time documenting it, looking for it, or catching and prosecuting the guy who did it, it can run up to that. Even if they do the bare minimum, it'll definitely run a lot more than $50...
> I read the parent comment as meaning we're spending 4-5 figures of taxpayer money every time a car is stolen, in which case I'd rather we just buy 2-3 more cars with that money and distribute them for free to people who had stolen cars.
Do you want to pay hundreds of dollars in personal loss, or tens of dollars in taxes that fund measures and mechanisms to prevent or mitigate that loss? It all comes out of your pocket at the end of the day. Whether it comes out of your taxes, or your insurance premiums, or from your pocketbook, you'll still be paying.
I know that all costs being equal, I'd rather live in a world with fewer car, or cat, or copper thefts, or any other negative-sum activity than one with more of them. There's no magic bullet for this, though, which is why each mitigation should be considered on its own costs and merits.
The bare minimum is taking a report and checking a file, and that'll take about five minutes. How are you calculating "a lot more than $50"?
And why did you pick $50 anyway? Is that a comparison to how much the criminal makes? If the profit is a small fraction of the damage they do, it makes lots of sense for the police to spend more than the profit.
I disagree. It doesn't take 5 figures to mitigate that loss in a society that has technology. If it does it's a misuse of funds and I'd rather move to another city, state, country than pay 5 figures to mitigate that loss. If they can mitigate the loss in 3 figures, than absolutely yes that's better than paying 4 figures for a new car, and I'd stay and happy contribute toward the 3 figures.
No, the angry owner makes an insurance claim, and then car insurance rates go up for everyone who lives a mile away from the angry owner(s) who got their catalytic converter(s) stolen
Regarding your second point, many modern cars have kill switches the police can access. This might be a better solution if these can't easily bypass them. That said, I don't personally want a car with a kill switch.
It the very least it should be a fundamental axiom of a society that {catching a thief of an item, fixing an item} should cost less than or equal to replacing the item, and I believe that to be largely true if technology is maximally utilized.
Which is affected by the mayor, a former cop, name dropping AirTags in relation to car thefts in the press.
>The Association for a Better New York (ABNY), a nonprofit founded by New York real estate developer Lewis Rudin in the 1970s and responsible for the "I <3 NY campaign," paid for the 500 AirTags.
https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard
For example, AirGuard lets the user activate the alarm on any AirTag in range immediately without waiting any period of time. iOS and Tracker Detect only let the user do this if they determine that the AirTag is following the user, and Tracker Detect adds another 10 minute waiting period for no good reason.
Does it, though? And are those really the only two possible outcomes?
I blame reactionary click-bait journalism for forcing Apple to take these steps.
It's worse in my opinion than just going with 'we're not responsible for how our product is used' defense.
You do have to run Apple software, but it'd be a bit much to expect them to make things work with no code at all.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...
Now Apple has made it trivial for anyone to buy persistent, highly accurate dystopian stalker gear that could easily be surreptitiously placed on my person or vehicle. Having no phone, I would have no idea. The AirTag tracking system escalates the technological arms race and dramatically expands my threat model.
All I want is the right to be a human with my human dignity respected, without requiring "techno upgrades" to enforce my rights, and the best response I've seen from the pro-surveillance crowd boils down to, "well you've gotta carry a tracking device if you don't want to get tracked".
Unacceptable.
Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
Even if I had a phone, or could afford one, then I will still be carrying a tracking device. Do you really think airplane mode will prevent tracking? Apple's AirTag fuckery works even when devices present as in the "off" state! And of course there's no longer any easy way to remove phone batteries now.
I don't want to be tracked by the AirTag snitch network, I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking, and finally I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech in order to ensure my safety and rights.
> Second, the threat model isn't new. Tiles have had the same capability for a long time. GPS trackers that use cellular to report your location are about as big as an AirTag (although more expensive).
It is new. Those devices are bigger and use way more power. AirTags turn everyone's iPhone into an automated snitch reporting the precise location of these ultra-low-power beacons. It's an escalation of the technological arms race. But you're right, these tracking devices should all be prohibited items for commercial sale.
> But finally, this is something a lot of people want to have. We need laws to punish their misuse, but ultimately banning them would impact other people's rights.
Laws like those can't prevent misuse, they can only punish, maybe, after misuse. Of course, the violation must be detected first ("buy our tracking products if you don't want to get tracked"). And at which point it's potentially too late for the victim, anyway.
Banning easily-concealable low-power global mesh network snitch devices would not impact other people's rights except to protect them. Where do you get the idea that you have some right to these devices that balances with my right to safety, human dignity, and privacy?
Regulation of commercial products is absolutely par for the course, especially when those products can have such severe negative externalities for people who aren't the users of the products.
A lot of people want cheap, easy access to machine guns. At least in the US, unlike easily-concealable tracking devices we actually do have a right to bear arms--and yet machine guns are not so trivial to obtain. Why is that?
AirTags can be read using Apple software for either Apple or Google hardware, you don't have to opt into Apple's ecosystem at all. Airplane mode prevents tracking by carriers the most passive method and what most people object to when they call phones tracking devices. It of course also prevents any other methods (e.g. GPS) from calling home. Apple AirTag-like tracking of iDevices (while off) only works on newer iDevices that have a special BLE chip that runs in the "off" state and that behavior is easily disabled from the settings menu, so it can be disabled when your device is off or always. Between those two settings, you can set any Apple device into something that does not transmit anything about you.
This 100% answers your "I don't want to be tracked by a phone carried to prevent AirTag tracking"
As for " I don't want to and should not have to carry any tech", you may not want to have any kind of technology, and that's your right, but it does seem like a trivial burden. The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
You don't seem to know what a Tile is. It's the same thing as an AirTag released for a similar price point years ago that is similar in size. The difference is, only phones that opted into downloading the Tile software scanned for and reported them to home base. But it was a fairly complete network with all the same tracking concerns.
Meanwhile, GPS receivers with 4G transmitters are under $30 on Amazon with the same physical footprint as an AirTag. Those devices are no longer bigger or significantly more power hungry than AirTags. But of course, they also make ones designed to be wired into a vehicle for power, which would last longer than the 10 month (nominal) battery life I found. And GPS avoids the "scanning with a phone" detection.
Meanwhile, you seem to ignore the use cases that many people have for finding keys or their own property. Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them. Meanwhile, detecting malicious trackers is easy enough that it doesn't seem to impose a cost on everyone else.
And, of course, people would be far less concerned about anyone owning a machine-gun if there was an app you could run on your phone that would prevent the bullets from hurting you.
If you trust Apple's software, and the firmware of every discrete SoC/IP core to be truthful and bug-free. And obviously this does not require cellular tracking, which is frankly unlikely to be prevented in airplane mode. Once again, regardless of your justifications: I refuse to carry a tracking device, so stop arguing that I should because "It'll totally be fine, trust me bro."
> Tile and GPS receivers with 4G transmitters
I'm aware of Tile and the physical and power footprint of other trackers. The AirTag is a substantial leap in capability. If you disagree: Why do so many people prefer AirTag over Tile or these other devices? But again: All these surreptitious trackers should be banned from commercial sale. The risks far outweigh the benefits, and the risks are entirely externalized to the rest of society.
> The number of things like parking that seems to require a phone is growing. While I dislike that as a societal arc, this is within that arc.
So, just straight up, "Fuck your human dignity. Carry a tracking device or GTFO and forget your right to a normal life in society." Human rights are apparently not important to you; I should just bend over and accept my lot, because that's the "societal arc".
Once again: Unacceptable. And moreover: A miserable and weaselly dismissal not only of my human dignity but also of your own.
> Yes, you don't want to be tracked. But I own things and I want to track them. So do companies. Outlawing trackers imposes a very large cost on them.
I disagree with that frankly ridiculous characterization. Legal surreptitious trackers impose a very large cost to other members of society.
But this entire issue would go away overnight if Apple designed their system only to detect and find lost items instead of as a generalized surreptitious global tracking system.
Simply only report beacons back to the mothership if the user of the tracking device (the "phone") has previously manually added the tracking device ("AirTag"). Allow up to 10 devices to add an AirTag, so everyone in your family/friend group can help find your lost property. No more snitching back to Apple when the tracking device sees any beacon at all.
This will satisfy the vast majority of use cases where you lose a physical possession ("where are my keys?") while preventing the vast majority of stalking and targeted muggings, rape, and burglaries, etc.
their "anti-tracking" features make them completely useless in any situation where theft is involved (or theft happens after loosing the item). the thief is alerted to their presence automatically and can disable them quickly. perfect for thieves!
AirTags can only be used for misplaced items, any utility for situations involving theft is completely negated by their "anti tracking" features.
another case where giving a 0.01% case too much attention makes the normal 99.99% use case completely impossible..
We are configured as a family to share apps, set screen times, etc, but I can't see where those tags are, only my wife can on her phone. Worse, I get warnings every time I use her car for the day, that it found an uknown airtag riding with me. Or when she rides with me in the passenger seat of my vehicle, and has her purse with her.
They are essentially less than worthless, and cause a ton of false alerts, so 3/4ths of our family have them blocked and ignore any airtag alert, because we assume its one of hers.
It was a nice idea until all the people worried about stalking got involved. Never mind that a skilled stalker won't waste time or take the risk with an AirTag.
https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...
It's all just posturing by Apple and all to the detriment of 99.99% of their user base.
You can do a tremendous amount of banking with a scanned photo ID.
Furthermore, the use case we're talking about here is disabling third-party detection for a tile you already have.
Not to mention most people want to, you know, be able to track something that got stolen.
But the 0.01% will give Apple horrible press, so it's more important than anything else.
The fact that tags aren't useful to you isn't the issue.
- "It's too risky"
- "not valuable enough"
- "could be dangerous"
- "can't prove your stolen item is where the GPS says"
- "can't dispatch an officer or detective just because you have a GPS location"
etc etc
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/FinanceDepartm...
When I told them I might confront the thief on my own, they strongly cautioned against it.
Basically they aren't interested in doing their job, or anyone taking action themselves.
With NYPD, it's even worse: "if we didn't see it, we can't do anything about it". This is, of course, entirely false, but good luck trying to argue with a cop and getting them to do their job.
Heck, NYPD refuses to even take police reports on stolen property (which is a huge hassle because insurance usually requires a police report as a prerequisite to filing claims). You literally have to argue with them just to get them to file the report - not even do anything about the issue, mind you, just to get them to fill out the form.
It’s always struck me as a kind of underdevelopment, a continuation of the infantilism that so many never get over as the move from being taken care of their parents to Taken care of by school and then Taken care of by universities and then taken care of by Acme corporation that claims to really care about them. Of course that works love being taken care of by big government and its plantation formen called police.
The only reason to file a police report for a stolen vehicle these days (in Portland) is documentation for insurance. I very rarely hear about people getting their cars back via PPB without it being months later (and in pieces with mysterious stains everywhere) due to being incidentally swept up in a rare chop shop bust.
And yes, this is a policing problem. It’s also a city council problem. And a DA problem. And a homeless/drug problem (both direct results of voter referendums).
But we have a two party system so urbanite Oregonians will never vote these idiots out.
Eric Adams may have a D next to his name but he's a traditional Republican according to his policies (cutting libraries/schools, more funding for cops).
> spokesperson with the Orange County Sheriff's Department reminded victims of crime to let local law enforcement take over the recovery of stolen items
If we're trading anecdotes, I had two laptops lifted from my apartment. The NYPD's detectives followed up with the building for footage, identified a suspect, followed up with the resident they were seen with, got the suspect's Instagram and got an arrest warrant. That resulted in them nabbing the guy when he was ticketed for jumping a subway turnstile.
where we lived, there were of course lots of "detectives", but they had a single purpose which was to arrest black people for drug possession. Other than murders, that was pretty much it.
No. And off plumb. Adjust your priors. (Obviously no doormen.)
> where we lived
Where?
We have so many generic hypotheticals with loose calls for policy. Let the folks who feel the brawn and brunt of crime and law enforcement speak solutions. This topic has lost relevance because it was diluted.
That's my point. I'm don't know what the solution is. But dismissing good cops the way you did certainly isn't one.
> dont say "give them more money" because that's certainly not it
Nobody did. In this entire thread. You made an incorrect assumption and are doubling down on it.
In fact, the solution is to increase funding specifically to attract quality people and provide adequate training. You want quality officers patrolling neighborhoods preventing the car theft happening in the first place.
Who on Earth thinks the answer to attracting competent people to a middle-class job is lowering pay?
https://mudcompany.thecomicseries.com/comics/148/
https://mfi.apple.com
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211331
I use it all the time to figure out where my car is since my wife and I share and have street parking and live in a busy area.
I also slip airtags into my somewhat expensive jackets when going to events with coat check.
Suppose you had the task of limiting and recovering of car thefts. Tracking the location from your phone would help, yes?
I'm ideologically opposed to Mayor Adams in pretty much every way, but I don't see how this suggestion is a bad one.
The thief will be notified of the tag in less than an hour usually. I see the alert anytime I mind my friends dog. Typically within 45-60 minutes of my friend leaving, I get an alert which includes a map of where I was tracked and my friends email address.
The original Airtag use case included theft but you'll notice any mention of that has now been removed from the marketing material. It's really just for people who lose things.
To be fair, 45-60 minutes to track a stolen car is still a lot better than nothing.
And I doubt the police will be there in half an hour. You’ll be lucky to convince them you have the location sometime the next day, when it’s far too late.
You kiddin me? Hell no. There are a lot of guns out there and we know it.
That law evens the playing field for law abiding citizens. But hey man, you wanna cosplay Dirty Harry or Paul Kersey then by all means. Just hope the NYPD and DA are cool with your vigilantism.
Getting the police to do their job would be ideal, but that won't happen so we only have these two options.
In the article, they recommended that you "hide the airtag well", so it's most likely that the thief will receive the notification after a while, and decide to just dump the car.
My SO's new car definitely has it (OnStar) although the Android Auto UX is better IMO.
Sad to see NYC is now in a similar state where they'd rather penalize the victims than the perpetrators.
I'm going to go ahead and bet you said something other than "this is not OK" about crime and bad policing, if you got that reaction. Or you put that statement somewhere with very bad context.
But what would be even better is just enabling a password.
Classic LoJack had good privacy. It's a box hidden somewhere in the car, with a connection to vehicle power. It has a transmitter, but normally doesn't transmit. If your car is stolen, you report this to the police, which report it to LoJack. That broadcasts an ID over a subcarrier of some local FM broadcast station. The receiver in the Lojack unit listens for those IDs, and if its own ID comes up, it turns on. It starts loudly transmitting to units in police cars, giving approximate direction and range. If you see a police car with four short whip antennas on the roof in a square pattern, that's a Lojack-equipped vehicle. It's uses radio direction finding. The vehicle box has no idea where it is. It's a totally independent system - no cellular, no GPS.
So this only tracks vehicles which have flagged as stolen. It's not constantly phoning home.
Classic Lojack is a one-time charge, with no annual fees.
The current product, LoJack AnalProbe™, which they call "Connected Car", constantly phones home, reporting your location, battery level, etc. to the mothership. There's an app to review where you've been. And, inevitably, the EULA says that Lojack may "share information with LoJack’s affiliated companies, Service Providers and/or third parties in conjunction with the Software and Services and for the purpose of providing You with any promotional offers and marketing materials as may be permitted by applicable law."
You get to pay a subscription fee for this.
my first 'nice' car had lojack installed in it. i remember it was about $200, and that's all, but this was 10+ years ago. i wonder if it's still out there...
When direction finding was used Doppler DF based on multiple antennas was rare due to the high cost of the electronics package, which also consumed a lot of trunk space. Most police departments did it the old fashioned way with a handheld log periodic they waved around. Another part of the decline of the original Lojack system was the high price of providing good DF receivers to police departments, so not many had them. LoJack never got big into having their own DF "hunters" on staff like other companies using transponders did.
> you're definitely not seeing genuine AirTags 5 for $13
I didn't see anything in the comment which suggested they were. It is specifically points out there are devices not produced by Apple. Third parties can create compatible devices:
https://developer.apple.com/find-my/
That person specifically noted and gave you a reference to how those 3rd party tags use Apple's own network.
What is the clear reference? One person said they searched GPS tracker tags on Amazon and the other gave a link to Apple’s licensing program which in turn links to NDAs and contractual agreements as well a multi-step design and approval process. There seem to be some knock-offs claiming they work with Find My, but there’s all sorts of weird counterfeit crap on Amazon. Do you have links to a product that’s actually licensed/supported by Apple (ie works and will keep working), because that’s what surprised me.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HQF72ZM/A/chipolo-card-sp...
I own one, and it works just like an airtag and appears in the find my app. It doesn't have precision feature but everything else works(like using the apple/iphone network to find it)
So like, if you left your keys somewhere, you'd know where they were when you walked away, but not where they are afterwards.
They cost half as much as legit airtags
I called in with my report, dispatch quickly verified that the car had not been towed then asked me some preemptive questions to make sure it really was stolen (no one else had keys to it, etc).
My car a tracker that the thieves disabled but I sent the dispatcher the last known flair location before the tracker shut off.
The police sent one officer to get my statement while three other cars of officers canvassed the area around the the flair location building by building until they found the car inside of a gated community.
Then they took me to it to confirm it was mine, dusted everything for fingerprints, and gave me a business card with the officer's name, department, etc. and a case number I could use to for reference with insurance or to follow up and see if they managed to catch the people who stole it.
The entire process only took about an hour and the police went above and beyond. I'll forever be grateful for their efforts.
With all the dubious “stalkers put an airtag on my car” stories from a while ago they are also trivial to find and disable.
Apple isn’t stupid, they are good for finding your lost keys but not for finding your lost girlfriend.
From that perspective it's probably better for people to not know you have lojack, conceal it, and make them work harder to check for it.
Then get a second hand Shit-Box 2000 like I do. Nobody will ever steal it, as no self respecting thief will want to be seen driving that, and it costs me less to buy and own.
Win-win I'd say.
I'm struggling to understand why people who aren't Bezos wealthy buy expensive cars. The depreciation is insane and you're always anxious someone will steal it or ding it in a parking lot. But then if people weren't frivolous with their money, half of us wouldn't have jobs ;)
for example, the fabled acura integra. While not cheap, it's certainly not going to make a thief rich. At the end of the day it's a vtec honda civic with 2 doors and standard transmission.(I'd argue that a 97 Acura Integra IS your definition of a shitbox.)
Because of that desirable engine, they are still the most GTA vehicle in US.
https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/most-stolen-cars/
https://wblk.com/most-stolen-vehicles-ny/
I have purchased a couple new cars in my life, but in the sub-$35k range. While, looking at the amount a payment would be on an $80,000 car, I'm aware I could definitely afford it -- especially at that 6-7 year term that is so popular now -- it is wild to me that anyone would derive enough marginal utility to justify the cost. I'll take my car plus a briefcase full of money over a Mercedes, thanks.
It's possible though that the person with that $80k car also thinks they're quite rational and only the person with the $150,000 car is a lunatic.
"Warning: Small active tracker device hidden somewhere in the car. Good luck!"
thieves spend 3 hours literally tearing the car apart and then give up but your car is ruined anyway
Kick your local thief in the face, ya?
With the pay-once AirTags you can just find the car thief yourself and shoot them.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/02/texas-man-used-apple-airtag-to...
Outstanding name! Their marketing team has a wicked sense of humor.
Cars that were outfitted with low jack would have the devices removed or disabled before the tracking could be enabled and as they didn’t report their position the police would have nothing to go by.
Whilst I agree that the information sharing is pretty despicable since you are already paying for that service the new model is more useful at least in a situation where the police actually has resources for recovery instead of doing the bare minimum because most vehicles are insured.
There probably is a market for a solution that would be more reliable than an airtag but one that you can control.
One can probably build one fairly easily with a low power SBC with cellular capability and one of those IOT global sim plans.
Capitalism, you scary.
On the other hand, we have a private for-profit company that is piggybacking off the cops vehicles in order to make profit for it's shareholders. That would never be allowed in any democratic country, but then neither would bribery/lobbying so [insert shrug emoji]
"In March 2016, the company was acquired for $134 million by CalAmp, an Irvine, California-based provider of Internet of things (IoT) software applications, cloud services, data intelligence and telematics products and services.[4]
In March 2021, the vehicle intelligence company Spireon announced it had acquired the LoJack U.S. Stolen Vehicle Recovery business from CalAmp, joining LoJack users with "nearly 4 million active subscribers from over 20,000 current Spireon customers".[5]
Under Spireon, LoJack technology moved from RF-based location to GPS and cellular-based technology, growing availability of the solution throughout the U.S. and Hawaii and expanding the solution from only stolen vehicle recovery into connected car technology for both dealers and consumers."
By which time it is already chopped up for parts or, in the case of places like Phoenix, is already in Mexico.
I used to have a roommate who grew up in NYC, had a somewhat dubious past and was talking about LoJack one day. He claimed it doesn’t work well enough in dense urban areas to get a precise location fix to actually impede theft. IIRC they would have enough time to disable it as long as they stayed around tall buildings. Something like they would park the car in an alley between buildings and find the LoJack before doing whatever with the car.
I’ve known a few youthful car thieves over the years with some interesting stories.
Fun fact. Very few alleys in NYC
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortlandt_Alley
Like this whole Kia Challenge thing, I’m sure a bunch of them are going to grow up and say they were crack auto thieves because they got six months community service for jacking their neighbor’s car with a usb cable.