An exciting development in the future would be NFC ribbon built into labels adhered to my parcels so I could almost real time track my deliveries with Apple's Find My App.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
AirTag Used to Successfully Track a Mailed Package Across the UK
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
While that might vary between countries, I’m sure it is illegal in many places. But there are probably questions in regard to the degree. Did you know that the EXIF metadata that basically every digital camera embeds in every image file for the vast majority of cameras includes the camera‘s serial number? By using services that crawl the net for these serial numbers by analysing the metadata of images posted online you can indirectly track a digital camera. That is an example at one extreme end that probably isn’t illegal anywhere (because people post the images voluntarily) but already doing face recognition of online images might be illegal in some jurisdictions.
I'm happy to see that most people responding to this article are not thinking like perpetrators.
I was wondering if an AirTag could be used to track luggage, given the safeguards that Apple has been trying to build in. Based on the comments I would say that they can be. When travel resumes, I will definitely buy 4 of them, just for this purpose.
The only reason that people are cracking down on Apple and not on Tile or Samsung, is that Apple has made it possible to really track almost real time, while Tile and Samsung did not. Apple has really changed the game because of its network. If Tile's software had been installed on as many devices, Tile would have been under scrutiny as well. And obviously many people just love to hate Apple, making it even more fun for them to crack down on Apple.
I was wondering if an AirTag could be used to track luggage, given the safeguards that Apple has been trying to build in. Based on the comments I would say that they can be. When travel resumes, I will definitely buy 4 of them, just for this purpose.
The only reason that people are cracking down on Apple and not on Tile or Samsung, is that Apple has made it possible to really track almost real time, while Tile and Samsung did not. Apple has really changed the game because of its network. If Tile's software had been installed on as many devices, Tile would have been under scrutiny as well. And obviously many people just love to hate Apple, making it even more fun for them to crack down on Apple.
Actually, unless you assume that Apple is lying about the technical implementation of the Find My network, they actually have no way of tracking your AirTags. Everything is encrypted, so Apple just sees blobs of unidentifiable data. They know how many AirTags (and other Find My items) are being tracked, but have no idea whose they are.
This is also why Find My Items doesn't work on the web — you need your iPhone, iPad, or MacBook with the matching encryption keys to search through Apple's Find My cloud for your specific AirTag.
Nope. It's iOS 14.5, but as others have already pointed out, you don't get a notification unless the AirTag is found moving around with you. It's unclear how quickly this gets triggered, as Apple hasn't shared much about it, but it does seem to be based more on locations visited and distance travelled than time.
There is, but it's a two-edged sword. You have to go into the Find My settings on your iPhone and turn OFF the "Find My network." However, this will also disable your ability to use AirTags, or even have other Apple devices located your iPhone if it's lost and not connected to cellular or Wi-Fi, since the Find My network is also used for that (and actually already has been since iOS 13 came out in 2019).
Yes and no. If you remove it from your Find My app, then they can reset it to use it themselves, but unless you've removed it first, it's "Pairing Locked" to your iPhone in much the same way as "Activation Lock" works on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
Actually, a travel blog already tried this, and it sort of works, but maybe not in every way you expect.
Review: using Apple’s AirTag for tracking checked luggage
Could Apple’s AirTags be the hottest travel accessory since noise-cancelling headphones? We headed to the airport to find out.
The iPhone already offers this feature, however — as long as you've connected to it via Bluetooth or CarPlay, Apple Maps will show you where you left it.
Precision Finding isn't exactly necessary for something as big as a car either. By the time you get close enough for Precision Finding to kick in, you'll be able to actually see your car.
AirTags are probably thee dream come true for (gangs of) pick-pockets, muggers and stalkers - as well as the usual suspects - when the world opens up again.
A lot of people still use iPhones 6s, 7 and 8; upgrading having been postponed at least the last year, where face-ID is largely unusable in public in most of the world. Untold billions of Android users also exist in this world - some even switched to Android models with under screen touch-ID due to the ability to use contact-less payment systems while wearing a mask.
Will all those billions of phone users be warned, if they are tracked by an un-authorized Apple AirTag expertly - ahem - dumped into a bag by “interested parties”?
I had to pay cash to a taxi driver a few days ago. His payment system had some trouble connecting to center. The last time I paid cash, was paying for a taxi drive from the center of Brussels to the international airport. Late July 2019. More than 21 months ago!
Everything else was either paid by using Apple Pay (iPhone 8 plus 256 GB) or Google Pay (Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 512GB). Touch-ID - “button” or “under screen” - is not hampered in any way by the requirement to wear a mask in public places or transport.
Imagine central Rome. One or a few “controllers” of multiple AirTags. Spotters placed strategically, just dumping one, single AirTag into the bag of an unsuspecting, promising victim leaving the Pantheon in a crowd of other people, walking in the Piazza della Rotonda and leaving through one of the many, smaller, often darker but less trafficked side streets. Elderly couple? Two women chatting? Their movements tracked.
Spotter to control. Lady in pink, blue rinse. Man brown jacket, stick. Toward Via della Rotonda. Over!
The “collector” placed somewhere near the crossing Via della Palombella gets a heads-up from control, when needed.
Personal experience with parts of the “retrieval process” indicate, that the whole “transaction” of releasing bag(s), smartphones (modern iPhones with face-ID are often left unlocked for obvious reasons these days), money, "papers" and obvious jewelry like watches, necklace and earrings only takes a few seconds, when pro’s are involved. Screams or trying to fight just adds a few seconds due to swift “incentives”.
Unless trainee pick-pockets are involved, the cost being only a bit of excitement, and if luck is on their side the “harvest” was a couple of (un)locked(?) fairly new smartphones, some cash, passports and ID’s maybe jewelry to be appraised later. In a few cases even a new Canon, Nikon, Sony or Panasonic FF camera with “bazooka” bought specifically for the trip of a lifetime.
AirTag retrieved. Proceeds transferred to a “runner” within seconds. Ready for the next “customer” in less than a minute.
Later the whole endeavor moves some hundreds of yards to a new, prospected hunting ground. Turnover? Hmm. Late start until noon? Thousand(s) of Euros (tourists still not having discovered cashless payments), a score or two of smartphones. Some watches, miscellaneous jewelry, many passports, ID’s, drivers licenses and a plethora of credit cards. All available data read and transferred “somewhere else” within the hour for expedited use to cover “running expenses”, maybe some needed long term investments, where Platinum Cards or better will come handy.
Since phone is gone, alerting banks immediately - maybe in vastly different time zones - may be difficult, and certainly before any police theft report has even been signed and filed to never… ahem!
The designers of the AirTag obviously live in the US, commute by car due to lack of public transport, seldom go to inner cities, barely mingles with others in airports (stays in business or first class lounges) and…and… generally does not live a life “exposed to riff-raff” (meaning "other people" ;-)
No need to imagine terrorists and their victims, with even the newest Android models, not able to issue any warning about “unauthorized” tracking. It could be too bloody...
Tim Apple et al. are obviously moving in circles, where use of current iPhones is required for corporate survival ;-)
Will Apple AirTags be the new “all inclusive” device? Expand the realm of Apple users to include a whole new clientele of “street entrepreneurs”? What a legacy for Tim Apple. The first Apple CEO to promote business opportunities for illicit activities? Called “IA” - not “AI” - henceforth? New marketing headline “The best IA available to budding entrepreneurs in Rome!”
Apple AirTags. A product potentially just waiting to be pulled from the market, when it’s far too late. Or?
A lot of people still use iPhones 6s, 7 and 8; upgrading having been postponed at least the last year, where face-ID is largely unusable in public in most of the world. Untold billions of Android users also exist in this world - some even switched to Android models with under screen touch-ID due to the ability to use contact-less payment systems while wearing a mask.
Will all those billions of phone users be warned, if they are tracked by an un-authorized Apple AirTag expertly - ahem - dumped into a bag by “interested parties”?
I had to pay cash to a taxi driver a few days ago. His payment system had some trouble connecting to center. The last time I paid cash, was paying for a taxi drive from the center of Brussels to the international airport. Late July 2019. More than 21 months ago!
Everything else was either paid by using Apple Pay (iPhone 8 plus 256 GB) or Google Pay (Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ 512GB). Touch-ID - “button” or “under screen” - is not hampered in any way by the requirement to wear a mask in public places or transport.
Imagine central Rome. One or a few “controllers” of multiple AirTags. Spotters placed strategically, just dumping one, single AirTag into the bag of an unsuspecting, promising victim leaving the Pantheon in a crowd of other people, walking in the Piazza della Rotonda and leaving through one of the many, smaller, often darker but less trafficked side streets. Elderly couple? Two women chatting? Their movements tracked.
Spotter to control. Lady in pink, blue rinse. Man brown jacket, stick. Toward Via della Rotonda. Over!
The “collector” placed somewhere near the crossing Via della Palombella gets a heads-up from control, when needed.
Personal experience with parts of the “retrieval process” indicate, that the whole “transaction” of releasing bag(s), smartphones (modern iPhones with face-ID are often left unlocked for obvious reasons these days), money, "papers" and obvious jewelry like watches, necklace and earrings only takes a few seconds, when pro’s are involved. Screams or trying to fight just adds a few seconds due to swift “incentives”.
Unless trainee pick-pockets are involved, the cost being only a bit of excitement, and if luck is on their side the “harvest” was a couple of (un)locked(?) fairly new smartphones, some cash, passports and ID’s maybe jewelry to be appraised later. In a few cases even a new Canon, Nikon, Sony or Panasonic FF camera with “bazooka” bought specifically for the trip of a lifetime.
AirTag retrieved. Proceeds transferred to a “runner” within seconds. Ready for the next “customer” in less than a minute.
Later the whole endeavor moves some hundreds of yards to a new, prospected hunting ground. Turnover? Hmm. Late start until noon? Thousand(s) of Euros (tourists still not having discovered cashless payments), a score or two of smartphones. Some watches, miscellaneous jewelry, many passports, ID’s, drivers licenses and a plethora of credit cards. All available data read and transferred “somewhere else” within the hour for expedited use to cover “running expenses”, maybe some needed long term investments, where Platinum Cards or better will come handy.
Since phone is gone, alerting banks immediately - maybe in vastly different time zones - may be difficult, and certainly before any police theft report has even been signed and filed to never… ahem!
The designers of the AirTag obviously live in the US, commute by car due to lack of public transport, seldom go to inner cities, barely mingles with others in airports (stays in business or first class lounges) and…and… generally does not live a life “exposed to riff-raff” (meaning "other people" ;-)
No need to imagine terrorists and their victims, with even the newest Android models, not able to issue any warning about “unauthorized” tracking. It could be too bloody...
Tim Apple et al. are obviously moving in circles, where use of current iPhones is required for corporate survival ;-)
Will Apple AirTags be the new “all inclusive” device? Expand the realm of Apple users to include a whole new clientele of “street entrepreneurs”? What a legacy for Tim Apple. The first Apple CEO to promote business opportunities for illicit activities? Called “IA” - not “AI” - henceforth? New marketing headline “The best IA available to budding entrepreneurs in Rome!”
Apple AirTags. A product potentially just waiting to be pulled from the market, when it’s far too late. Or?
Last edited:
But then they’d get a “traveling with you” notification because they’d have to take it home? So isn’t this argument a moot point?
We already have GPS + Cellular trackers that can do that with no iPhones required. They're used to track expensive shipments like machines and such.
The biggest question is whether they'd get this notification before they arrived home. Apple has already confirmed that the iPhone will definitely trigger the alert when the user visits their home or other frequented location, but if it doesn't sound before then, that could be too late, as victim's home address would have already been reported.
With Chipolo's ONE Spot now available for pre-order, the bigger question is whether the anti-stalking features in Find My work with third-party tags.... Obviously the three-day alert is specific to the AirTag, but there's no reason that the "Item Moving With You Alert" shouldn't extend to third-party Find My tags, since it's handled by the iPhone and not the tag.... and if it doesn't, well, we've just found an even bigger weakness in the system.
Update: Apple implies in the iOS 14 user guide that "item safety alerts" work with third-party products. Although Chipolo doesn't list this as a feature for the ONE Spot, it stands to reason that this would be a function of the iOS and the Find My technology, and not limited to any one specific product.
Update: Apple implies in the iOS 14 user guide that "item safety alerts" work with third-party products. Although Chipolo doesn't list this as a feature for the ONE Spot, it stands to reason that this would be a function of the iOS and the Find My technology, and not limited to any one specific product.
Last edited:
Will they? For sure? What if they don't see it until they get home (or until the next morning), or just ignore it because they don't know what it is? Or are a bit too drunk? There are plenty of potential scenarios for this to go wrong - for an airtag tracker to track an android user home, for example, given the ubiquity of apple devices.
Making such sophisticated, miniaturised tracking so available/affordable carries with it a massive risk for Apple - it's going to get tested in court very quickly, very often and in every juristiction. Apple are a huge litigation target, and any use of an airtag in a crime is going to mean a potential lawsuit for them.
I genuinely hope that apple have closed the door on any way that these trackers could be used nefariously - but people are sneaky.... they will invariably find a way.
I've had Fedex steal two Maxed out 16" MacBook Pros and a PS5 shipped to me. The packages were scanned into the truck then marked as delivered when no one came to my house. For damn sure next time I'm going to ask my sister to shove an AirTag in the box so when it disappears from the truck I can tell the police the location.
It's a very difficult line to draw, and I"m convinced people will find a way around it. Apple execs have already said they're hoping the features are more of a deterrent than anything else, and while not everybody is going to care, the fact that an AirTag is completely traceable back to its original owner via its serial number will help as well — once people realize that.
Sadly, it may have to be tested in court before that becomes scary enough for potential abusers. I'm hoping that the first time an AirTag gets used for any kind of stalking, the courts throw the book at the perpetrator to make an example of them and demonstrate that anybody using an AirTag in this manner will get caught, and will pay a stiff penalty.
I was thinking mostly about the last use cases that do seem to work. I can spot my bag once it is on the carousel. But I would like to know that my bag is in the same airport as where I am. Delta and American do provide options to track you luggage somewhat by scanning RFID on the bag. But other airlines that I frequently fly (well, used to fly as Europeans are not welcome in the US just yet) don't have the status on your bags in their apps just yet. Especially when they still depend on the paper tags, that is not a good idea when in rainy areas. I have had my bags recovered quite a few times only because I have a plastic frequent flyer tag on my bags, and they just call me.
Can anyone explain why this is interesting or worthy of an article?
"Tracking device, when placed in a parcel, can be used to track the movements of the parcel in shipment."
Yeah, I think we're all aware of what a tracking device is. Am I missing something?
"Tracking device, when placed in a parcel, can be used to track the movements of the parcel in shipment."
Yeah, I think we're all aware of what a tracking device is. Am I missing something?
I give it about 5 minutes before governments push Apple to come up with some sort of area denial for FindMy so that it won't work in similar situations.
I don’t participate in the Google network, but I DO appreciate those that do to let me know when a business I plan to visit is busy.
You should have added that companies track by cellular location, so they’d want to turn off location services. Oh, and that cellular data they use for surfing the web can provide their location, too. Best to turn off Cellular data. Finally, to be really secure according to every security researcher, turn off the device and leave it in a locked safe. That’s the ONLY way it can’t be used in any way.
The article includes “AirTag” which is guaranteed to get you lots of hits without trying hard.
Actually, it doesn't get much criticism because it doesn't really work anymore. Apple took steps years ago to prevent this by implementing address randomization on both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Most modern Android phones also support these same technologies, although its a bit of a mixed bag with so many different manufacturers. While a group of security researchers found weaknesses in the randomization algorithms back in 2017, these have long since been addressed. This is the same technique AirTags use to prevent short-range tracking by ID.
Older iPhones may still be vulnerable to limited tracking, as this was a hardware flaw, and not something that could be patched in an iOS update. However, even in those cases, the security flaw only made tracking possible to achieve, but it still wasn't as easy as just keeping track of a list of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth addresses. Monitoring systems would have to be intelligent enough follow and keep track of all the random address changes by reading the low-level control frames that were sent out every time a device's address changed. More importantly, however, persistent tracking across multiple visits to a location would still be impossible, since the flaw required picking up every control frame to get the next address in the chain — miss even one address update and you've lost the persistent identity.
Note that all of this is somewhat different from the new Wi-Fi Privacy features in iOS 14. Apple has been randomizing Wi-Fi MAC addresses since iOS 8, but only when it's sniffing around for nearby Wi-Fi networks. The new feature in iOS 14 allows you to use a randomized MAC address every time you actually connect to a Wi-Fi network, which wasn't possible before iOS 14.
"Royal Mail" and "Successfully delivered" is the real story here.
