[jxcole]

Apple's stance on air tags is ridiculous. For one thing, you will only know if someone is criminally tracking you if you are an apple user. Android users have no luck.

Secondly if this is true and you stole a bag, all you need to find the air tag would be to hold an iphone close to it for a few minutes. So what's the point of it then?

[samueldr]

While it won't provide "at rest" detection, Apple has released an app for Android devices.

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...

[commoner]

Apple's Tracker Detect app for Android does not automatically scan for AirTags. Users must open the app and manually initiate each scan, then wait at least 10 minutes after detecting an AirTag before causing it to emit a noise.

A much better alternative is the free and open source AirGuard app developed by the Technical University of Darmstadt. It automatically scans for AirTags, Tiles, and other Bluetooth tracking devices in the background. When AirGuard detects an AirTag, the user can immediately force the AirTag to emit a sound without having to wait.

- AirGuard: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard

[wonderbore]

> wait at least 10 minutes after detecting an AirTag before causing it to emit a noise

Wait, anyone in my building can make an AirTag go off? Can't wait to annoy a few people at 3am /s

[nullc]

Are you aware of any equivalent to AirGuard that can run on a linux host with a Bluetooth adapter rather than a phone?

[commoner]

The closest thing I can find is BlueHydra, which was last updated in August 2019:

- BlueHydra: https://github.com/pwnieexpress/blue_hydra

- Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/09/hands...

[thefz]

But why do I have to install another application to defend myself against a foreign corporation's wrong doing?

Airtags should be illegal, at least in Europe.

[mehphp]

For one, tracking devices aren’t new and none of the others alert you id they are following you.

[sva_]

I think there is a clear difference between traditional tracking devices and airtags, as the former has always been a lot more shady than the latter, which has more legitimate use-cases.

[mholm]

If I find an airtag among my things, I'm not going to believe there's a benign or legitimate use-case.

[jackvalentine]

> So what's the point of it then?

I mostly use mine to find my keys or wallet, or be reassured that they're in my office and not lost when I've gone home without them.

[duxup]

Also: I put them all in my bag, also my kids when I travel… and on one occasion an elderly father in law.

Worked great.

[Gigachad]

The airtag will start making noise if its away from its owner too long and moving around. When you find it you can bring it to a police station and they can use the serial number to get the owners details from Apple.

Sure its not bullet proof, but I really don't know they had any better options. Apple is currently by far the best at attempting to stop tracking of all the tracker tile products.

An end game solution would be all the OEMs working together one some anti tracking notification spec but that isn't easy to arrange.

[sva_]

I've never used an airtag, but from what I've read, it is quite trivial to disable the speaker on a hardware level.

[Gigachad]

At this point people have worked out how to just reflash the firmware on the devices. It's just not really possible to make something impossible to abuse, its just up to the legal system now.

It's impossible to make a knife that isn't trivial to abuse but we accept that the utility makes it worth allowing them and use the legal system to go after the abusers.

[Timshel]

The problem is that we probably do not agree on the usefulness of the device versus it's abuse potential.

It's not like someone gleefully commented that they are tracking their father with it without clarifiying if the father in question is aware ...

[st-keller]

looks trivial on youtube, but has do be done very carefully, because you can easily damage it in the process

[jfoster]

> An end game solution would be all the OEMs working together one some anti tracking notification spec but that isn't easy to arrange

Apple could just publish their spec so that Android can also implement it.

[fmajid]

There are also third party AirTag compatible trackers like the Chipolo. They are just as expensive as the AirTag so I’ve never seen the point.

[xenospn]

they did - however, the only devices able to seamlessly detect airtags are ios devices.

[jfoster]

What's unique about iOS device hardware that enables them to seamlessly detect AirTags? Pretty much all Android devices have Bluetooth.

[theshrike79]

Android manufacturers (Google and Samsung mostly) don't want to support Apple gear by default.

There are no technical reasons why they couldn't add all their phones to the Find My network. Only political.

[londons_explore]

There are technical reasons... Uploading data to Find My requires a connection to apple.com which is authentic (ie. Uses crypto keys from the apple device, and apple won't give those keys to an android manufacturer).

[Gigachad]

There are android apps that can detect AirTags. It’s just iOS is the only OS that has this built in and enabled by default.

[LeoPanthera]

If your Android phone can read NFC tags, tapping the tag with your phone will tell you who owns it.

[thefz]

> Apple is currently by far the best at attempting to stop tracking of all the tracker tile products.

What about not designing or selling products that can be used to violate the privacy of others?

[xsmasher]

From my POV Apple has bent over backward to prevent the "stalker" use case, to such a degree that it degrades the "stolen item" use case.

[futuroptimist]

I think while bad actors now have another thing for their mental checklist and could easily detect an airtag, there would still be a non-zero number of cases where the airtag helps.

[duxup]

> Secondly if this is true and you stole a bag, all you need to find the air tag would be to hold an iphone close to it for a few minutes.

It’s not that simple. I have some AirTags that I keep in my kids school backpacks and they don’t trigger other people’s phones at school.

Nobody at my office gets warned about mine…

I believe it takes much longer than a few minutes and other factors into consideration.

[JKCalhoun]

> Secondly if this is true and you stole a bag, all you need to find the air tag would be to hold an iphone close to it for a few minutes. So what's the point of it then?

The point appears to be that someone is going to trial for theft.

[mccorrinall]

Take a look at this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...

[beart]

Some comments suggest this application only works while it is open, and will not passively notify you of trackers in the background. I don't know if that's true, or if it's just due to some phone OS killing the background process to prop up battery metrics.

[charcircuit]

>to prop up battery metrics

The primary reason is to increase user privacy from apps constantly logging everything they see while in the background.