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

[KeithJenner]

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?

There is quite a significant difference between tile and apple, which is the find my network.

If you put an airtag in someone’s bag then you should be able to track their location fairly regularly as they will often be passing people who are carrying iPhones (if the victim theirselves isn’t).

If you put a tile tag in someone’s bag then they need to be close to people who are part of the tile network, which is a massively smaller number of people.

Basically, put an airtag in someone’s bag and you are able to locate them. Do the same with a tile and you are most likely just giving them a tile.

 

[bklement]

Turning off Find My let’s you disable others tracking you by your iPhone. It doesn’t disable your iPhone reporting someone else’s Airtag location.

How much battery does this use? Does this turn on a turned off bluetooth?

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

Fowler also received regular alerts about an unknown AirTag moving with him from his iPhone, but pointed out those alerts aren't available to Android users.

If android users cared about safety, they wouldn’t be using android.

 

[Corsig]

What safeguards does the Tile have from stalking?

 

[Mojohanna32]

How does one live with their stalker? Are they talking about being in the same apartment building type of thing?

 

[Kilibee]

what I learn from this moaning is that if I want to stalk someone, I should buy a Tile instead of an Airtag.

Well, then you learned the wrong thing.

You will hardly get any external tracking from a Tile, personally I never managed to get a single external reading. There are simply way less people that have the Tile App installed than activated iOS devices.

 

[Kilibee]

What safeguards does the Tile have from stalking?

It. does. not. work.

 

[Kilibee]

I mean I won't buy them until they come with magnets

Actually, amazon already sell magnet holders for them…

 

[dukeblue219]

I know Apple has done research and all, but I still just cannot figure out why anyone would buy these things. Do people really lose stuff this often? It just seems like such a niche market but clearly I'm missing something.

And, they beep when they're away from the owner for a couple days ? So I can expect the luggage area at an airport or bike rack at an apartment to be beeping constantly?

 

[sirozha]

No when you turn off Find My you are off the Find My network. You won't participate. Nobody can track you by your iPhone even if you are on the network. That's not how it works. They can use you to track other items and people that they are allowed to track. If just participating in the Find My network allowed anyone to track anyone participating that right there would be a massive privacy violation. You wouldn't need airtags to worry about stalking.

You are arguing with yourself, not with me. Because your counterargument was not addressing my argument. I never said what you claim I said.

 

[blackcrayon]

I know Apple has done research and all, but I still just cannot figure out why anyone would buy these things. Do people really lose stuff this often? It just seems like such a niche market but clearly I'm missing something.

And, they beep when they're away from the owner for a couple days ? So I can expect the luggage area at an airport or bike rack at an apartment to be beeping constantly?

They only beep if they're moving along with someone else's iPhone after a couple of days or you make them beep with your app. So in your scenarios it doesn't sound like it's going to happen. Even if so, I'm unable to imagine the entire baggage claim overrun with 150 db of ear-shattering AirTag beeps

 

[KeithJenner]

I know Apple has done research and all, but I still just cannot figure out why anyone would buy these things. Do people really lose stuff this often? It just seems like such a niche market but clearly I'm missing something.

And, they beep when they're away from the owner for a couple days ? So I can expect the luggage area at an airport or bike rack at an apartment to be beeping constantly?

They beep if you are out of range of them for 3 days and they are moving.

Luggage areas at airports rarely have items that have been out of range of their owners for 3 days and bikes in a bike rack aren’t moving, so no things in those areas will very rarely, if ever have airbags beeping.

As for their usage, it isn’t just losing items, but mislaying things (there is a distinction). My wife has only lost one item of value in the 25 years we have been married, but I fairly regularly hear her beeping her iPad, for example, as she can’t remember where she put it down. She would easily find it by walking round the house, but it is a convenience for her to be able to just get it to make a noise. Airbags potentially mean that she can do the same with keys/purse if necessary. Unless my friends and colleagues are particularly unusual then I would say that this is most certainly not a niche market.

That’s what this is for most people, a convenience item to save them from having to search for the mislaid item. For $29 it is much cheaper than many convenience items that people buy.

 

[sirozha]

How much battery does this use? Does this turn on a turned off bluetooth?

If you turn off Bluetooth, your Apple watch is still paired via Bluetooth. I don’t know if your phone will still participate in reporting the location of all Airtags it comes in contact with if your Bluetooth is turned off.
The amount of battery power this feature uses is probably very small.

 

[blackcrayon]

How much battery does this use?

Negligible according to Apple. I guess your phone is already detecting/aware of BLE and NFC devices and ignoring them anyway.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Can any stalkers chime in and state whether it is better to use AirTags, or go the more traditional method of stalking by sending Echos to those you want to know everything about?

 

[ipwTiYon2190Y]

And this issue really goes beyond having an Android phone because some people don't have phones at all and that should be addressed. I think they're a useful product for a lot of people but in their current state they're going to lead to a lawsuit that Apple will probably lose.

 

[KeithJenner]

They only beep if they're moving along with someone else's iPhone after a couple of days or you make them beep with your app. So in your scenarios it doesn't sound like it's going to happen. Even if so, I'm unable to imagine the entire baggage claim overrun with 150 db of ear-shattering AirTag beeps

You are confusing two different things.

If an airtag is moving with someone else and the owner isn’t there, then that person will get a warning that the tag is nearby. In that case, the person who has received the warning can make it beep to help locate it. This time it takes for this warning is still not clear, and seems to have at least as much to do with locations as with time, so could potentially happen a lot sooner than a couple of days.

A separate thing is that if an airtag is away from its owner for 3 days and then moves then it will start to beep (for something like 15 seconds I believe).

 

[fuchsdh]

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)

The more realistic idea is that someone tapes something on it to muffle it when they drop it somewhere, and/or someone just opens the thing up and disconnects the speaker.

As the Post notes, Apple has more privacy safeguards than Tiles and similar products. There's no way to make a "track this item"-type product impossible to use nefariously without also ruining its utility to be useful, so Apple was always going to have to strike a balance. Is this the right one? We'll find out.

 

[fuchsdh]

How does one live with their stalker? Are they talking about being in the same apartment building type of thing?

It's not hard for significant others to be abusive and controlling. It's a lot easier (and common) than a perfect stranger stalking you.

 

[blackcrayon]

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.

That's why Apple sells them in packs of 4. You put a tag and collar around your own neck, that way your wife and kids can find you first, and then ask you to find the dog.

 

[sirozha]

That’s not how any of this works. The greatest concern is with people who *aren’t* on the network, Tile or Find My, unknowingly being tracked using a tag from either company. As the article states Apple’s solution is superior but still could be used by an abusive partner.

You can’t track anyone with a Tile unless they have a Tile app installed, running in the background, and has background app refresh enabled. Chances of your lost Tile tag to be located by someone’s phone are very small to none. I have four Tile tags but I don’t run the Tile app in the background.

 

[sirozha]

How long do you think the Find my network has been a thing? It's been active for two years ... if you're saying Apple silently turned it back on after you had turned it off, that is indeed bad.

Find My feature has been around for at least 10 years.

 

[xraydoc]

If you put a tile tag in someone’s bag then they need to be close to people who are part of the tile network, which is a massively smaller number of people.

My xfinity cable modem apparently has a bluetooth beacon in it that is connected to the Tile network. One must dive into the settings to be able to turn it off (defaults to on) -- if you even know it's there to begin with (which I didn't at first).

If someone wanted to learn my home address, all they had to do was plant a Tile on me and they would have learned where I live the second I retuned home.

And if my xfinity cable modem has that in it and I didn't know about it, guess how many others' have it too...

 

[thenahon]

Android users complaining that their tech isn't good enough? 😂

 

[xraydoc]

You can’t track anyone with a Tile unless they have a Tile app installed, running in the background, and has background app refresh enabled. Chances of your lost Tile tag to be located by someone’s phone are very small to none. I have four Tile tags but I don’t run the Tile app in the background.

See my post above...