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AirTag Used by Federal Agents to Bust Illegal Narcotics Manufacturer
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Which makes sense in a certain PoV. If the company phone is an iPhone, then one might want to diversify and use something else for their personal phone. Notably things not available from an iPhone.
It's funny how people think just cause you work in the govt you automatically cannot exist online nor can you say anything.
There is something called classification and clearances folks, even if someone is given confidential and top secret clearances they can speak as they wish as long as the information does not compromise any classified information.
This is how you lose that job. Posting stuff like this on the internet makes you a target and depending on what you’ve said over time across various places, you create risk. If you actually have this job and don’t understand why this is an issue, you are going to get yourself in trouble. We’ve terminated techs for this sort of stuff in the MSP world,as MSPs are huge targets. Don’t underestimate the ability of people who want to find you or where you work. Wanting to sound relevant, important, or cool isn’t worth it and you may accidentally expose something you don’t realize is important to someone. That comment might be used to prove something in the case against those people (or create doubt about something) and lets them off. You just don’t know.
Assuming you are smarter than the person who wants to find you is a mistake. Assuming the information you sharing is harmless or yours to give away is a mistake.
I say this for your benefit, it’s not worth it.
That would only track the phone. The AirTag tracks the package, which in itself, is the evidence.
Dude, that's so 90's.
Cell phones from this century have their own GPS chips and that whole cell tower triangulation stuff just isn't relevant.
In other news - it's okay to hold your phone during a lightning storm now too!
As for this case - I suspect it's a lot easier to get whatever warrants are needed to track an AirTag inserted into an intercepted package than it is to get warrants to track the cell phones of individuals whose identities you're not quite sure about. Yes the package may be addressed to Wilma Flintstone at 123 Granite Block, but that doesn't mean she lives there with Betty & Barney.
Plus, once the AirTag's location provides justification for a search warranty at the location, the precision-finding feature would help locate wherever the package were hidden within the residence.
Damn, I hope they're not tipped to my shipment of weed totally legal substances that are not suspicious in any way.
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There are not a lot of intelligent people working in the gov't, especially when it comes to protecting their own information in the cyber realm.
Very unlikely adjustment by Apple. Feds wanted to find where the package goes. Package has an address on it, obviously, but apparently that wasn't good enough. Probably because package was being sent to some sort of package receiving business. Maybe it pings someone's iPhone at that store, but what can they do? The whole building is filled with packages and none of them are for the guy working at the store. Feds watch the package get picked up and driven back to some location, then bust that location.
This seems to fly in the face of all the anti-stalking measures.
But reading between the lines it seems it was only in the package while it was in transit with the postal service.
It would have to be some lazy drug dealers not to notice. “WTF is that beeping?!”
But reading between the lines it seems it was only in the package while it was in transit with the postal service.
It would have to be some lazy drug dealers not to notice. “WTF is that beeping?!”
But on the flip side, wouldn’t the courier have to have an iPhone for the tracking to work?
This seems to be the major weakness. Someone near that package had an iPhone or it wouldn’t have worked. And if they had an iPhone it should have alerted them.
Most seem to be cheering this action. I find it appalling. It's not illegal to buy a pill press. Even if an evil, nasty criminal bought a pill press, it's quite the legal leap to assume it will be used to manufacture illicit drugs. They could raid the machine's final destination only to find it making legal supplements for sale on Amazon. Smells of overreach to me.
If the shipment itself were illegal, that's a different ballgame.
If the shipment itself were illegal, that's a different ballgame.
Tell us you have no experience with AirTags without actually saying so...
#1 - the alert beep is not constant, and the speaker is easily disabled making the AirTag virtually silent.
#2 - no need for the courier to have an iphone, there's lots of iphones driving up and down every street in the US
#3 - alerts to an unknown airtag are not immediate; can take several hours of the AirTag being nearby to occur - by which time the location is already noted on Apple's servers and available as the "last seen" location.
Tell us you have no experience with AirTags without actually saying so...
#1 - the alert beep is not constant, and the speaker is easily disabled making the AirTag virtually silent.
#2 - no need for the courier to have an iphone, there's lots of iphones driving up and down every street in the US
#3 - alerts to an unknown airtag are not immediate; can take several hours of the AirTag being nearby to occur - by which time the location is already noted on Apple's servers and available as the "last seen" location.
I've never heard the beeping except when I told it to do it myself (which by the way wtf is with the new ping sound, it's terrible. It goes up and down in pitch and volume, the exact opposite of what you want when trying to echolocate) but when I have borrowed keys with AirTags I get alerted in less than an hour.
If a package is in a delivery van I would think the courier would need an iPhone for it to work well, as any other contact would be far away and fleeting, if it worked at all from inside a metal box (the delivery van.)
That sounds like an incredible experience to be a part of!
And the comment about Android users tracks to corporate America. Dells are the computer of choice for my company and when you walk through the Cyber Security building it's entirely a Mac shop. Something about good for the goose and good for the gander didn't make it to IT. lol
Package couriers are generally surrounded by hundreds of packages at any given time so a notification wouldn't offer much help to anyone. This story works the other way around too. We work with law enforcement that need to track AirTags in packages being used illegally by drug dealers too. Except what do you do when you have an entire warehouse full of unopened packages and a few of them have AirTags hidden inside? You don't wait for Apple's notifications and try to hear a chime. You hire my company to figure out Apple's algorithm and invent an AirTag (also works with Tile, Samsung, Chipolo, etc.) detector with direction finding capabilities. https://www.bvsystems.com/product/bluesleuth-pro-bluetooth-and-ble-device-locator/
Apple is too restrictive for them loading their own code? I'll bet if Apple allowed side loading, that would change.