Just for the sake of consideration, you know, walking in the other guy’s shoes, it’s easy for law enforcement agencies to say “We didn’t ask Apple or any other tracking device manufacturers to build these things, so why are you asking us to clean up their mess?”
Just for the sake of consideration, you know, walking in the other guy’s shoes, it’s easy for law enforcement agencies to say “We didn’t ask Apple or any other tracking device manufacturers to build these things, so why are you asking us to clean up their mess?”
Because when people do illegal things (against current laws), it's law enforcements job to, you know, enforce the law, right?
Doesn't matter what tool the person uses to break the law (gun, knife, screw driver, hammer, baseball bat, crow bar, AirTag, etc.) - law enforcement still needs to do their job just the same.
Technology is always neutral on human beings. AirTags just employ the ability of device communication which is always designed as a two-way. Tracking and stalking is a duality. You can use AirTag to prevent vehicle theft. At the same time AirTag will notify you if a mysterious AirTag is with you. So, a thief can be notified if there is a foreign AirTag in the vehicle. Of course, this can be a deterrent if the thief cannot quickly found where is it.
How do we solve stalking? A separated couple can ask police to issue an order forbidding the stalking partner to be near the other. So, the solution always lie on the judicial department to make a judgement.
We have got ourselves some apple lovers here. While I agree that the media probably wants to make a story of this more than investigate the matter, this device apple made is dangerous. It leverages the entire apple ecosystem! You know, those 1 billion devices. What other device can tap into that? It's $30. Discreet. It has been shown that it's firmware can be hacked. Apple has released several new security measures since it came out. Why?? Cause it's so freaking easy to use it to track people. All I gotta do is go to Target. Yah it's tied to my ID but if I'm a stalker I don't care. Don't blame this on law enforcement. They were blindsided by a tracker expertly crafted by one the world's most capable companies. Wtf, mate?
Apple includes an anti-stalking feature to their AirTags = Apple bad No one else has this feature despite cheap and simple easy to track people without their knowledge has existed for long time = It's still Apple's fault
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I mean I'm not super passionate about this argument. I don't know if actual criminals will ever figure out a way to gainfully jailbreak airtags.
But one thing to consider, I have no idea how or where I could buy a good stalking device. Like I know tile is an alternative but I think we airtags and the kind of devices this thread is referring to are much more capable.
But buying an airtag is easy. Yah dedicated criminals had access to these tools for a long time. But your regular dumb, jealous, angry, or resentful average person wants convenience. Airtags give them incredible convenience. Yah anybody can make em. But only apple has the ubiqituous network that enables such accurate tracking.
Google "GPS Trackers" and they come up right away, with images and where to buy them. Heck, you get pretty much the same result by simply searching for "trackers".
The only issue is that most of them don't last very long. The better ones can track people for about a ten days before their batteries run out, but they are certainly small enough to hide in a car, and a few days is more than enough for plenty of nasty purposes. A few days is longer than an AirTag will sit idle before alerting people nearby to its presence.
Apple has made very clear that they will work with law enforcement to track down stalkers, and with their anti-stalking features, there is a decent chance that someone being stalked will find an AirTag, while there is very little chance they will find one of these: https://spytec.com/collections/all-gps-trackers
All this anti-stalking stuff makes the AirTag a lot less useful as an anti-theft device, unfortunately. If Apple keeps tightening the AirTag anti-stalking capabilities, what use cases will be left? Just finding stuff in your house?
All this anti-stalking stuff makes the AirTag a lot less useful as an anti-theft device, unfortunately. If Apple keeps tightening the AirTag anti-stalking capabilities, what use cases will be left? Just finding stuff in your house?
That is the unfortunate downside to AirTags since their launch. They are for misplaced or lost items, not stolen ones. If you want to track stolen items you need to go with a company that doesn't care about stalking.
I live in Santa Fe, NM. A friend had her house broken into and her computer and iPad we taken. She went to the police and using “Find my devices” showed the police where her property was. She was told they did not have the resources to recover her property. So I am not surprised they won’t do anything for possible crimes.
All this anti-stalking stuff makes the AirTag a lot less useful as an anti-theft device, unfortunately. If Apple keeps tightening the AirTag anti-stalking capabilities, what use cases will be left? Just finding stuff in your house?
AirTags are specifically marketed as NOT being an anti-theft device. You and others thought otherwise and now want the anti-stalking feature gone. Nope, it’s not going away because it wasn’t designed as an anti-theft device .End of story.
Just for the sake of consideration, you know, walking in the other guy’s shoes, it’s easy for law enforcement agencies to say “We didn’t ask Apple or any other tracking device manufacturers to build these things, so why are you asking us to clean up their mess?”
Because when people do illegal things (against current laws), it's law enforcements job to, you know, enforce the law, right?
Doesn't matter what tool the person uses to break the law (gun, knife, screw driver, hammer, baseball bat, crow bar, AirTag, etc.) - law enforcement still needs to do their job just the same.
I agree from a law enforcement perspective. However, these devices do impose an additional burden on law enforcement staffing, resource management, budgeting, and bandwidth since the affected agencies were probably not part of the conversation prior to deployment. The availability of these tracking devices does increase the attack surface for certain types of crimes, including but not limited to stalking and robbery.
I have never (knowingly) been involved in a product development that involved the potential for criminal mischief. Every product development that I've been part of always involved all kinds of assessments, from user safety, to security, electrical safety, to energy consumption. The "owner" of those concerns was typically borne by the product buyer. Products that have a potential for misuse and illegal application, like AirTag, bring another party - law enforcement, into the scope of concern even though they were never part of the product vendor/product buyer relationship. They were likely clueless and unaware.
You can argue screwdriver/hammer cases at an abstract level, but something like AirTag is much more concrete and recognizable as an existential threat. The fact that Apple directly addressed anti-stalking use cases with AirTag indicates that Apple was genuinely concerned. Whether they communicated their concerns to law enforcement in a way that would allow law enforcement agencies to prepare themselves prior to deployment is something that we don't know. In any case, law enforcement will catch up eventually. It's not really fair to point the finger of blame them right now for the current limitations of these products and the technology. Even though other trackers using various implementations have been on the market for some time, Apple's entry into this market means that this technology will be used at massive levels and at scales that require law enforcement to make accommodations in resources, staffing, and operations that were not necessary up until now.
Just for the sake of consideration, you know, walking in the other guy’s shoes, it’s easy for law enforcement agencies to say “We didn’t ask Apple or any other tracking device manufacturers to build these things, so why are you asking us to clean up their mess?”
Because when people do illegal things (against current laws), it's law enforcements job to, you know, enforce the law, right?
Doesn't matter what tool the person uses to break the law (gun, knife, screw driver, hammer, baseball bat, crow bar, AirTag, etc.) - law enforcement still needs to do their job just the same.
I agree from a law enforcement perspective. However, these devices do impose an additional burden on law enforcement staffing, resource management, budgeting, and bandwidth since the affected agencies were probably not part of the conversation prior to deployment. The availability of these tracking devices does increase the attack surface for certain types of crimes, including but not limited to stalking and robbery.
I have never (knowingly) been involved in a product development that involved the potential for criminal mischief. Every product development that I've been part of always involved all kinds of assessments, from user safety, to security, electrical safety, to energy consumption. The "owner" of those concerns was typically borne by the product buyer. Products that have a potential for misuse and illegal application, like AirTag, bring another party - law enforcement, into the scope of concern even though they were never part of the product vendor/product buyer relationship. They were likely clueless and unaware.
You can argue screwdriver/hammer cases at an abstract level, but something like AirTag is much more concrete and recognizable as an existential threat. The fact that Apple directly addressed anti-stalking use cases with AirTag indicates that Apple was genuinely concerned. Whether they communicated their concerns to law enforcement in a way that would allow law enforcement agencies to prepare themselves prior to deployment is something that we don't know. In any case, law enforcement will catch up eventually. It's not really fair to point the finger of blame them right now for the current limitations of these products and the technology. Even though other trackers using various implementations have been on the market for some time, Apple's entry into this market means that this technology will be used at massive levels and at scales that require law enforcement to make accommodations in resources, staffing, and operations that were not necessary up until now.
You are saying that Apple AirTags are increasing work load for law enforcement. Any evidence of that? AirTags used for stalking are in the news because, "Apple!"
I don't accept the premise that AirTags are causing an increased work load for law enforcement. If anything, they are making it easier for law enforcement to find the stalker - the AirTag is linked to an Apple ID. Find the owner of the Apple ID, and done - this could be done through the courts/Apple. Of course you won't find that mentioned in any of the news...
With a generic GPS tracker (available on Amazon for about the price of an AirTag), it's not so easy to identify the "owner".
1. Tracking devices have been around for years. Apple just introduced theirs, and was the first to include anti-stalking features. I'll say that again. Unlike the makers of all the other existing tracking tags and devices, Apple included an anti-stalking feature from the start. This is suddenly in the news because a) Apple's tracking devices work better than the competition, because they communicate through all the iPhones already out there and b) specifically because Apple included the anti-stalking features. All these people are discovering potentially misused AirTags because the anti-stalking feature works. If that feature wasn't there (like it wasn't with all the other tracker tags that have been out there for some time), there'd be no stories until it came out in an investigation or court case that someone used a device to track a victim and do something horrible to them. Whether or not the police are following up after someone is alerted and finds a wayward AirTag, people are finding the things and disabling the stalkers' ability to use the device to track the victim. The feature is working.
2. Even with the anti-stalking feature, AirTags are useful for finding stolen items. A lot of the time -probably most of the time- you realize your purse or backpack has been stolen soon after it was stolen. In that timeframe, you can still track and go after it yourself (or with the police) and find it. Even when the Tag does start chiming or sending alerts to the person who stole it, they may drop the item rather than have it continue tracking them to their home or crime lair. Additionally, if police get repeated reports of AirTags showing a specific place as 'last known location' of numerous stolen items, that helps build a case for surveilling that location and/or getting a warrant and searching that place, resulting in arrests, etc.
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Doesn't matter what tool the person uses to break the law (gun, knife, screw driver, hammer, baseball bat, crow bar, AirTag, etc.) - law enforcement still needs to do their job just the same.
it’s not a problem. But if someone attempts to use it to stalk, immediate jail time should be in order.
How do we solve stalking? A separated couple can ask police to issue an order forbidding the stalking partner to be near the other. So, the solution always lie on the judicial department to make a judgement.
The only issue is that most of them don't last very long. The better ones can track people for about a ten days before their batteries run out, but they are certainly small enough to hide in a car, and a few days is more than enough for plenty of nasty purposes. A few days is longer than an AirTag will sit idle before alerting people nearby to its presence.
Apple has made very clear that they will work with law enforcement to track down stalkers, and with their anti-stalking features, there is a decent chance that someone being stalked will find an AirTag, while there is very little chance they will find one of these: https://spytec.com/collections/all-gps-trackers
I don't accept the premise that AirTags are causing an increased work load for law enforcement. If anything, they are making it easier for law enforcement to find the stalker - the AirTag is linked to an Apple ID. Find the owner of the Apple ID, and done - this could be done through the courts/Apple. Of course you won't find that mentioned in any of the news...
With a generic GPS tracker (available on Amazon for about the price of an AirTag), it's not so easy to identify the "owner".
2. Even with the anti-stalking feature, AirTags are useful for finding stolen items. A lot of the time -probably most of the time- you realize your purse or backpack has been stolen soon after it was stolen. In that timeframe, you can still track and go after it yourself (or with the police) and find it. Even when the Tag does start chiming or sending alerts to the person who stole it, they may drop the item rather than have it continue tracking them to their home or crime lair. Additionally, if police get repeated reports of AirTags showing a specific place as 'last known location' of numerous stolen items, that helps build a case for surveilling that location and/or getting a warrant and searching that place, resulting in arrests, etc.