Ok
But AirTags are not anti theft devices….they are for finding lost keys ? or bags ?.
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Apple Announces AirTag Updates to Address Unwanted Tracking
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But then you'll be supporting stalker technology. ?
Track her? I've been trying to loose her for years but she keeps finding her way home. Aye-ooo ?
Seriously though, which happens more often. Stuff gets stolen and we want to be able to find it? Or someone wants to stalk someone else. All this talk about stalking is creepy. Are there really that many people out there worried about it/doing it?
There seems to be a bunch of reports of women finding they're being tracked with an AirTag...
‘Extremely Scary’: Nashville woman says unknown AirTag tracked her
Several women in Nashville claim they are being tracked by unknown devices, fearful they are being targeted by criminals.
www.wkrn.com
Arkansas women tracked with Apple AirTag, how to stay safe
AirTags can be used on your keys or wallet, and if you lose them the device will help you find its location, but some Arkansas women found them on their cars.
www.thv11.com
'It was a little scary': SoCal women believe they were tracked by an Apple AirTag
There are concerns that the devices can be dropped in your purse or placed in your coat pocket for someone to track you - which is what 2 women believe happened to them in Orange County.
Are Apple AirTags Being Used to Track People and Steal Cars?
Privacy groups sounded alarms about the coin-sized location-tracking devices when they were introduced. Now people are concerned those fears are being realized.
Of course we don't know how many were previously tracked with inexpensive GPS+cellular trackers since there's no alert or notification in those instances, yet per the NYT article the LandSeaAir company sells 15,000 devices per month. Verizon and T-Mobile both sell such devices as well, again with no means to notify someone if they're being tracked. Samsung has their SmartTags as well which would be invisible to iPhone users. A search on Amazon shows all sorts of devices available, including this one with 26000 reviews.
If anything, Apple has raised people's awareness of something that'd already been going on with the various existing devices. If Apple were to choose to abandon the market it'd likely have little to no impact on the folks up to no good.
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You can find a number of varying stories of folks being stalked using electronic gadgets. Heck there are stores, websites, even industries around gadgets that facilitate this. based on ease of use, is it any wonder Air Tags would be utilized for this?
I get it, but the warnings in our specific case are a little annoying.
My wife gets these because I have a set of AirPods in my pocket most of the time, and we often go places together (go figure).
You'd think that us being in a family together (and doing location sharing) and those being paired to me would be enough to squelch these warnings.
My wife gets these because I have a set of AirPods in my pocket most of the time, and we often go places together (go figure).
You'd think that us being in a family together (and doing location sharing) and those being paired to me would be enough to squelch these warnings.
Unless they don't own a smartphone. (and an Apple one at that for now)
The notification actually said that it was an AirPod rather than an "unknown" device. My interpretation of the article was that the fact that it said "unknown" was the issue rather than the notification itself.
Get access to the cellular network. It can triangulate the location of any phone, dumb or smart.
Yes I know that, but if a bag gets stolen I'd like to find/track them while calling the police without alarming the person that took it.
Presently you have a window of time before the thief might be alerted, and while that window may be reduced there'd likely still be some window of time.
Or maybe the thief doesn't have an iphone.
Or maybe they get the alert and if the airtag is difficult find/remove maybe they just ditch the item and you end up being able to recover it.
I'm not thinking the "off-label" use as a stolen-item-tracker is completely eliminated at this point, we shall see going forward though.
It's unfortunate that what makes something good for surreptitiously tracking your stolen item also happens to make it good for a stalker/robber/rapist to surreptitiously track their intended prey. Google "woman finds airtag" and it's kinda chilling. Makes you wonder how many of the inexpensive gps trackers have also been in use before now without ever being found since they never alert anyone.
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The problem with that is it means people can stalk other people or track their cars, just so you can take your chances and stalk someone with your bag, which is not the best idea either and VERY dangerous.
I really don't see any way around what they can be abused to do.
There seems to be a bunch of reports of women finding they're being tracked with an AirTag...
‘Extremely Scary’: Nashville woman says unknown AirTag tracked her
Several women in Nashville claim they are being tracked by unknown devices, fearful they are being targeted by criminals.Arkansas women tracked with Apple AirTag, how to stay safe
AirTags can be used on your keys or wallet, and if you lose them the device will help you find its location, but some Arkansas women found them on their cars.'It was a little scary': SoCal women believe they were tracked by an Apple AirTag
There are concerns that the devices can be dropped in your purse or placed in your coat pocket for someone to track you - which is what 2 women believe happened to them in Orange County.abc30.com
Are Apple AirTags Being Used to Track People and Steal Cars?
Privacy groups sounded alarms about the coin-sized location-tracking devices when they were introduced. Now people are concerned those fears are being realized.www.nytimes.com
Of course we don't know how many were previously tracked with inexpensive GPS+cellular trackers since there's no alert or notification in those instances, yet per the NYT article the LandSeaAir company sells 15,000 devices per month. Verizon and T-Mobile both sell such devices as well, again with no means to notify someone if they're being tracked. Samsung has their SmartTags as well which would be invisible to iPhone users. A search on Amazon shows all sorts of devices available, including this one with 26000 reviews.
If anything, Apple has raised people's awareness of something that'd already been going on with the various existing devices. If Apple were to choose to abandon the market it'd likely have little to no impact on the folks up to no good.
More importantly how many of these stories are real? There's a lot of fake {insert outrage here} crimes being reported nowadays. Wouldn't put it past certain companies that don't have as big of a tracker footprint to make something like these up.
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Although I'm sure one could find that some of the stories are faked, it's quite likely many (if not most) are quite real.
Note that per the NYT article, the LandSeaAir company receives regular calls (and ~30 subpoenas per year) related to people finding one of their trackers.
Presumably if ill-intentioned people are buying those and paying the subscription fee to track someone without their knowledge, they'd also be inclined to use AirTags with their lack of monthly subscription.
Weird, I finally bought some AirTags last week. So far my wife has yet to get an alert.
This morning she was freaked out by one of the news stories so I tried to show her how the alerts work. I took an AirTag from my bag and gave it to her to carry to the gym (about 4 blocks away). She’s at the gym and just finished her workout. She just texted saying she still hasn’t received an alert.
Anyone know how how long these alerts take to show up? As of now I’m pretty sure a stalker could’ve followed a woman home and busted into her place.
I also think the left behind alerts come far too late.
Intentionally with her full knowledge. She wanted to see the notification.
So the notification finally showed up about 2 hours later on her way back from the gym.
This seems problematic if you’re trying to prevent stalking. A LOT could happen in those 2 hours.
Wonder how long until the various cheap small GPS/cellular trackers notify the person they’re following…
Oh right, that’d be “never”…
Would you rather a two hour notification or never?
Maybe we focus on the never-notify devices?
I’m trying to address my wife’s concerns about AirTags. If you don’t have anything useful to offer regarding AirTags then perhaps just scroll on by.
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The point was that if she is concerned about stalkers using AirTags, she should also be concerned about all the other small GPS & cellular trackers - as cheap as $17 - which never provide any notification at all.
What exactly are you looking for that you'd consider "useful"? You've demonstrated that there will be an alert after a period of time. Yet you can't adjust the time for an alert, and AFAIK you can't actively check if one's with you.
IMHO better to have a broad awareness of the wide availability of concealable trackers - and if concerned about being tracking, take measures such as checking pockets, keeping bags/purses closed, not leaving anything unattended, etc.
If you don't find that "useful", then perhaps follow your own advice to just scroll on by.
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I have a simple idea on how to make the AirTag actually useful for those that want to protect their valuables and address some of these “stalking” concerns.
If an AirTag has been away from the owner for >24 hours and not in a location specifically marked as do not notify (narrow range), automatically flag the AirTag as lost/stolen and notify the owner. If the owner fails to recover the AirTag within 24 hours of it being flagged as lost/stolen, send a command to the AirTag to power down fully in the next 24 hours. Make it such that once powered down, it is not possible to power on the AirTag unless it’s physically retrieved and it’s battery has been taken out and reinserted. With these changes in place, remove the ability to locate AirTags for 3rd parties to actually have it be useful for retrieval of lost/stolen goods or nefarious theft through precision discovery. These changes effectively limit the AirTag function to three days after which the tag is toast unless retrieved while actually making it useful for truly finding lost or stolen items. Is it a perfect solution, no, but no solution is perfect and stalking being the main issue here is likely not a 24 hour activity so having a time limit on the function of the tag in addition to the warnings Apple is posting should be enough to essentially eliminate this problem.
I also don’t want to forget, the owner must be able to mark an AirTag as lost/stolen manually which also starts the countdown clock. This ensures that somebody who genuinely loses an AirTag can deactivate it remotely. Better yet, add a kill switch to deactivate it remotely and immediately but just add a double confirm prompt to it to avoid accidental shutdowns.
If an AirTag has been away from the owner for >24 hours and not in a location specifically marked as do not notify (narrow range), automatically flag the AirTag as lost/stolen and notify the owner. If the owner fails to recover the AirTag within 24 hours of it being flagged as lost/stolen, send a command to the AirTag to power down fully in the next 24 hours. Make it such that once powered down, it is not possible to power on the AirTag unless it’s physically retrieved and it’s battery has been taken out and reinserted. With these changes in place, remove the ability to locate AirTags for 3rd parties to actually have it be useful for retrieval of lost/stolen goods or nefarious theft through precision discovery. These changes effectively limit the AirTag function to three days after which the tag is toast unless retrieved while actually making it useful for truly finding lost or stolen items. Is it a perfect solution, no, but no solution is perfect and stalking being the main issue here is likely not a 24 hour activity so having a time limit on the function of the tag in addition to the warnings Apple is posting should be enough to essentially eliminate this problem.
I also don’t want to forget, the owner must be able to mark an AirTag as lost/stolen manually which also starts the countdown clock. This ensures that somebody who genuinely loses an AirTag can deactivate it remotely. Better yet, add a kill switch to deactivate it remotely and immediately but just add a double confirm prompt to it to avoid accidental shutdowns.