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AirTag Anti-Stalking Measures 'Just Aren't Sufficient' Says Washington Post Report

cmaier said:
It’s easy to muffle while pressing the top! (Um, who is pressing the top to muffle the sound while this attempted stalking is happening. I am very confused)
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I’m presuming this would be something that could happen if the stalker managed to get the AirTag secreted inside a handbag or backpack…

Something that’s relatively heavy – a book, tablet, canister, spectacles case, or a combination of these items – could likely press and muffle an AirTag if placed at the bottom of the bag.
 
randyhudson said:
It’s not a balance if Apple are falsely claiming it can’t be used for tracking someone.
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They have made no such claim. As far as I am aware, they have only claimed to have implemented features to mitigate the situation but not solve it completely.
 
orthorim said:
Is she aware that she is your girlfriend?

Just wondering ... 😂
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I'm not sure. I asked nicely but I can't understand her response with the mouth gag. ;-)

But yeah, we're an item and the AirTag was put there with consent because we were curious about the stalking prevention measures.
 
Tbh these seems like one of these products that ends up doing more bad than good. In the words of Jeff Goldblum you were so obsessed with whether you could you didn’t stop to think whether you should.

Same goes for tile and Samsung.
 
Yeah, to spy on someone you can use an Apple Airtag, that only works when close to an iDevice and can be easily detected and disabled. Or you can buy a 50€ GPS/cellular tracker.
 
I think they should remove the anti tracking feature. I want to be able to find my things if they happen to get stolen. Not having the burglar get messages that there is an airtag around. If someone really want to track a person there must be better products available than the airtag.

And I’m getting a bit tired of reporters trying to find problems instead of focusing on the good things.
 
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I don't get it, "Tile" have been doing this for years as soon as Apple start then its bad, why did they just use Air tag why didn't they also look at tile and others?
 
It would take any amateur electronics interested person 60 seconds to open an AitTag, and solder or pincer out the Piezo-device making the sound. From then on it will never make a sound.
 
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cmaier said:
It’s easy to muffle while pressing the top! (Um, who is pressing the top to muffle the sound while this attempted stalking is happening. I am very confused)
Click to expand...

Tbh, a more realistic argument would have been that if someone wanted to stalk you, based on the teardown, it'd be very easy to just remove the speaker. Then you'd basically have 3 day's worth of stalking time before the user is notified.

It really should be a shorter amount of time. After, say, 15 minutes of having an AirTag in your presence, it could pop up. Why on earth they set it to 3 days I don't know.
 
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I'm pretty sure your stalker already knows where you live... :p

But yeah... I guess these could let your stalker know when you leave the house to go shopping or whatever. That is... if they already got close enough to you to hide a small device inside something you own.

Question: how were we dealing with stalking before AirTags? Like... a couple weeks ago?

But now that everyone is suddenly interested in stalking... I'd love to see another article written about all those GPS trackers on Amazon that everyone keeps mentioning here.

Perhaps we should thank Apple for finally shining light on the stalking epidemic?
 
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Is it possible to remove the speaker without disabling the device entirely ? That would go a long way to making it the ultimate tool for stalking
 
I wonder if all this is going to do it cripple the device to the point where it's not useful for what it's supposed to be used for. If your AirTag is too eager to announce it's presence than perhaps a perspective thief will just ditch the AirTag and move on. Also, is it really the amazing stalking device that people claim? Aren't the AirTags tied to your Apple ID when you set them up? So when they hand over the AirTag to the police who will drive right over to you and say congrats dumbass, you just gave us all the evidence that we need.
Although I guess in the future if you are ever caught stealing someone's wallet you can just claim that actually they're stalking you.
 
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It is new and there will always be the Debbie Downers. A stalker was a stalker before the AirTags were released. Someone wants to track me then go ahead as it will be a waste of $29 and awaiting them will be a funny or nasty surprise, depending on my mood upon discovery, of finding their AirTag attached to some cat's collar in another suburb, a dump truck, a Police car or slide under the front door of some psycho.
 
Oh oh. Somebody wrote something not 100% positive about Apple. Cue all Apple Fanboys. Time to respond with usual knee jerk Apple defense.
 
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Orson Farris said:
Oh oh. Somebody wrote something not 100% positive about Apple. Cue all Apple Fanboys. Time to respond with usual knee jerk Apple defense.
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Well, the problem is that products like this have existed for a while and have even less privacy protection, but no one complained.

Funny enough, said privacy protections make the tags useless for people in normal families where you don't mind if your partner helps you find your tagged ****. As someone complained in a different forum i think, if you put airtags on your dogs' collars only one person will be able to track them at one time. No way to allow your wife and kids to find your dogs.
 
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This article is an anti Apple piece of garbage. Search Amazon for trackers and there are hundreds of products that are actually sold for the purpose of stalking oh I mean tracking. If people think that electronic tracking is now suddenly going to be a problem because Apple releases a product that has been around (same type) for years then it’s all about the clicks. Put apple in the title and people will click to read. The WAPO article should be titled. “If you want to track someone, don’t use air tags. There are better products to buy to do it”. At least Apple built in some safeguards. Not perfect but they at least thought about it. Where is the tile anti tracking feature?? It’s just sad that so called journalists are now concerned with this when tracking products of all shapes sizes and cost have been around for years.
 
I don’t get it. You get home and find an Airtag on your stuff that doesn’t belong to you? Call the cops. All the data of the owner is stored on the airtag. Anyone that wants to use it to stalk someone is a dumbass.
 
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I can't imagine any product of this type will be 100% stalker proof, neither does any company Apple or Tile claim it is.

I think the balance is reasonable. If someone is determined on stalking AirTags may add an element but will not be the only reason.
 
nikaru said:
Airtag should be used to track stolen items, lost pets/keep track on childs or track a lost luggage on the airport for example. These are the most common use cases for any tracker device. Misplacing your keys is far less important (and less likely to happen to a normal adult) than getting your car stolen or having your child disappear in a shopping mall. Apple should chnage the purpose of the Airtag all together to adapt it to what people actually want and need. If someone uses the Airtag for illicit tracking of his cheating wife or stalking someone, then the affected person should go to the police. The Airtag is associated to an AppleID so it will be easy in most cases to find who did it anyway. Millions of cars get stolen every years, childs are abducted, raped and/or killed, pets get lost constantly and luggage is lost on regular basis on aiports, and yet the advertised purpose of the Airtag is to find your missplaced keys or gym bag.
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Yup my wife has had to use it at least 5 times to find her keys that she threw somewhere. The 2 mins it took as opposed the usual 15-20 while getting closer to arriving late is a godsend.
 
MrCrowbar said:
I'm not sure. I asked nicely but I can't understand her response with the mouth gag. ;-)

But yeah, we're an item and the AirTag was put there with consent because we were curious about the stalking prevention measures.
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Well in about 2.5 hrs I’ll tag my mom…..
Wait a sec……no I’ll slip in my…..no damn it…..I’ll drop one of my tags at her house and see what happens. See if my mom or dad texts me first with what the hell is this message
 
Orson Farris said:
Oh oh. Somebody wrote something not 100% positive about Apple. Cue all Apple Fanboys. Time to respond with usual knee jerk Apple defense.
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To be fair, its the same response you would get when anyone questions someones religion.
 
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