Centris660avUser

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Centris660avUser
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  • Researchers successfully use AirTag network to send messages

    Centris660avUserCentris660avUser
    If the article is correct, and Apple doesn't find a way to fix it, this will be a great solution to a difficult problem. As the article states, "I would imagine the most common use case to be uploading sensor readings or any data from IoT devices without a broadband modem, SIM card, data plan or Wi-Fi connectivity."

    Any device which needs a small amount of data send to your iPhone without building it with a SIM, WIFI or MODEM. So for example someone could build a garage door opener which tells me whether it's opened or closed using the FIND MY network by talking to anyone's nearby iOS device using Bluetooth. (My garage door is out of range of my home, several flights downwards, but it's in range of other people's homes, cars and garages.)

    However as I've said before, once people realize that strangers are using their paid bandwidth to transmit data for free, using Apple's FIND MY network on their iOS device, there will be some pushback towards Apple from the public. Apple will be unlikely to want to make third party signalling a "supported feature" because it opens up this free piggybacking making people more likely to object to paying for someone else's data on their own data plan.
    The supported bandwidth is so low that this seems a silly concern. 

    This kind of thing is inevitable if the Find My network is opened up, it doesn't seem like either a security risk (outside of possible use for covert channels for obscurely placed sensors, which doesn't seem like a big deal), and it is highly unlikely to become anything remotely like a bandwidth hog. 

    So this is interesting, but not surprising, and not scary. 

    "once people realize that strangers are using their paid bandwidth to transmit data for free"

    I worked at a large telco when the iPhone was launched and when the iPad was launched. At that time, a condition of being a launch partner for each iPhone model was enabling an unrated APN which allowed data connectivity for the device even before/without a paid data allowance. This was required for the iPad use case of having an online sign up experience on the device for a data plan (it solved the chicken and egg problem). It may have changed since then but I can't imagine Apple have given up that amazing beachhead into telco land. I expect the telemetry data for the Find My network is routed over this APN so wouldn't be using a consumers paid bandwidth.

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