Police Records Show Women Are Stalked With Apple AirTags Across the Country (vice.com) 166
samleecole shares a report from Motherboard: Police records reviewed by Motherboard show that, as security experts immediately predicted when the product launched, this technology has been used as a tool to stalk and harass women. Motherboard requested records mentioning AirTags in a recent eight month period from dozens of the country's largest police departments. We obtained records from eight police departments. Of the 150 total police reports mentioning AirTags, in 50 cases women called the police because they started getting notifications that their whereabouts were being tracked by an AirTag they didn't own. Of those, 25 could identify a man in their lives -- ex-partners, husbands, bosses -- who they strongly suspected planted the AirTags on their cars in order to follow and harass them. Those women reported that current and former intimate partners -- the most likely people to harm women overall -- are using AirTags to stalk and harass them.
Multiple women who filed these reports said they feared physical violence. One woman called the police because a man she had a protective order against was harassing her with phone calls. She'd gotten notifications that an AirTag was tracking her, and could hear it chiming in her car, but couldn't find it. When the cops arrived, she answered one of his calls in front of the officer, and the man described how he would physically harm her. Another who found an AirTag in her car had been wondering how a man she had an order of protection against seemed to always know where she was. The report said she was afraid he would assault or kill her. [...] The overwhelming number of reports came from women. Only one case out of the 150 we reviewed involved a man who suspected an ex-girlfriend of tracking him with an AirTag.
Multiple women who filed these reports said they feared physical violence. One woman called the police because a man she had a protective order against was harassing her with phone calls. She'd gotten notifications that an AirTag was tracking her, and could hear it chiming in her car, but couldn't find it. When the cops arrived, she answered one of his calls in front of the officer, and the man described how he would physically harm her. Another who found an AirTag in her car had been wondering how a man she had an order of protection against seemed to always know where she was. The report said she was afraid he would assault or kill her. [...] The overwhelming number of reports came from women. Only one case out of the 150 we reviewed involved a man who suspected an ex-girlfriend of tracking him with an AirTag.
They're getting caught (Score:5, Insightful)
Criminals who feel the need to stalk someone are going to do it regardless of whether or not AirTags were on the market. Since AirTags are required to be associated with a valid Apple ID in order to work, these low-lives are getting caught and brought to justice. The AirTags aren't creating the stalkers, they're simply revealing a cancer that already existed in society.
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Re: They're getting caught (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: They're getting caught (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: They're getting caught (Score:5, Informative)
Does it notify all users or just users that have an apple device and an apple account?
It's potentially available to devices other than apple. There's an app [cnet.com] which will work with LineageOS [lineageos.org] or Android. That won't work if the person who's being tracked has a dumbphone or other alternative system.
This isn't actually as bad as it sounds. If someone suspects they are being tracked they can borrow an Android phone with the app installed for a couple of days and then know if an airtag is being used. That's better than the alternative with GPS trackers which could be more or less impossible. Even GPS + cellular network trackers would be really difficult because there's no one point which reliably has the data of both the person's mobile device and the tracking device. It's very likely to be spread between two different networks which aren't even allowed to communicate the information.
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Does it notify all users or just users that have an apple device and an apple account?
Who doesn't have an iPhone or an iPad? ( 8-D )
Apple also published an Android App for the few that need it:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Plus, there are several third-party AirTag detection Apps on Google Play. For instance:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
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So great, I now have to proactively verify I am not being tracked by airtags? Why is the burden on me? I had nothing to do with the transaction.
The whole idea we are becoming ok with being live tracked is terrifying.
You don't have to do anything.
And where was your fucking hand-wringing outrage when Tile had its essentially-identical device (with apparently zero anti-stalking feature) on sale for quite some time before AirTags became available?
Hypocritical Apple Hater, as per usual.
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Does it notify all users or just users that have an apple device and an apple account?
In principle, everyone - they start making noise some time after they've been separated from their owner. In practice, this would work much better for someone having an apple phone that will notice it.
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And how exactly TF can they do that unless Apple is stalking you too?
I know you are thirsting for a reason to dump on Apple, but don't be so naive. If you have a Bluetooth tag, any Bluetooth tag that uses cloud based crowd-sourcing to enable you to track your tag when it is out of the range of your phone that service provider is 'stalking you'. In fact your mobile phone provider is 'stalking you' because they can track where you are cell by cell and they can calculate (easily) where in the cell you are. Your credit card company is 'stalking you' by the mere act of logging th
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Right but they're not actively doing it. Apple dog tags connect with nearby devices and force tracking of those devices. There's a big difference between being able to passively go back and look shit up (generic phone data bs) and actively recording and keeping track of how often your devise was pinged by random nearby apple dog tags. Whether or not that is problematic to you, it's fucking problematic to me and I won't own an apple device for that reason, It's fucking Orwellian which is ironic considering Apple's commercial history.
Still sticking to your naivete? There is a whole legion of tech companies that are 'stalking you' way more outrageously than Apple. If you want to avoid being 'stalked' by tech companies move into a hut in the woods and downgrade to stone tools. I know the urge to make like Captain Ahab and hate on Apple is strong but what they are doing with those tags is a moon cast shadow in terms of 'stalking you' compared to the 'stalking' that Google and Facebook for example are doing and getting your panties in a twi
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Still sticking to your naivete? There is a whole legion of tech companies that are 'stalking you' way more outrageously than Apple. If you want to avoid being 'stalked' by tech companies move into a hut in the woods and downgrade to stone tools. I know the urge to make like Captain Ahab and hate on Apple is strong but what they are doing with those tags is a moon cast shadow in terms of 'stalking you' compared to the 'stalking' that Google and Facebook for example are doing and getting your panties in a twist over it is akin to getting pissed over some teenager littering while ignoring the couple of crackheads stealing your car.
Why yes officer I stole this here box of cheerios but don't get your panties in a twist over it. I stole all this other shit too, even my car is stolen and all that costs way more than a cheap box of cheerios.
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Still sticking to your naivete? There is a whole legion of tech companies that are 'stalking you' way more outrageously than Apple. If you want to avoid being 'stalked' by tech companies move into a hut in the woods and downgrade to stone tools. I know the urge to make like Captain Ahab and hate on Apple is strong but what they are doing with those tags is a moon cast shadow in terms of 'stalking you' compared to the 'stalking' that Google and Facebook for example are doing and getting your panties in a twist over it is akin to getting pissed over some teenager littering while ignoring the couple of crackheads stealing your car.
Why yes officer I stole this here box of cheerios but don't get your panties in a twist over it. I stole all this other shit too, even my car is stolen and all that costs way more than a cheap box of cheerios.
No, more like: Why yes officer I did drop this here candy wrapper on that there pavement but shouldn't you be paying more attention to those two crackheads over yonder that are stealing you police cruiser?
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Why yes officer I stole this here box of cheerios but don't get your panties in a twist over it. I stole all this other shit too, even my car is stolen and all that costs way more than a cheap box of cheerios.
No,
Why? What is the difference?
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So Sad. There always has to be one apple apologist around whos only contribution to the conversation is "you must be an apple hater"
'Apple apologist' ... hmmm ... do you live in your parent's basement in Wyoming [wordpress.com]?
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You are the retard, as you do not grasp it has nothing to do with Apple or an Apple device but the fact that you are carrying (or the stalker is carrying) a bluetooth tag
So by not having an Apple device, or an Android device with the app: you do not know that you get stalked. Stupid idiot.
And that with your stupid nick name, lol rofldi rofldi.
Re: They're getting caught (Score:5, Informative)
What more could you ask for? Really?
A decent Android app. The one they made is next to useless as you have to open it and manually scan, it doesn't work in the background.
The responsible thing would have been to create an open standard for these kinds of tracking devices and make sure Google was on-board and implementing support in Android, like they did with COVID-19 contact tracing.
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The one they made is next to useless as you have to open it and manually scan, it doesn't work in the background.
Agree with most of what you say but "Next to useless" is an overstatement. Without Google's agreement to fundamentally change Android to include much more aggressive location tracking there's almost no way they could reliably have passive checking on all Android devices. That means this will only ever be installed by a person who's actively afraid of being tracked, probably because they realised that their stalker knew where they were at a point where they shouldn't. In this case, an active scan is a very
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Android does allow this kind of background scanning. AirGuard seems like a decent app for this purpose, I'm testing it out.
Most importantly it lets you play a sound on an AirTag that is tracking you. So what I'm thinking is that it must be possible to make any AirTag play a sound on command, and it should be possible to make an app that just makes all AirTags play a sound as soon as you come near them.
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Well, if you're an Android user, you shouldn't have any reason to have an AirTag on you at all, or near you. So when you get in the car, do a scan. If you have an AirTag, the thing is useless to you, so you should deactivate it.
Sure Apple could make it notify and everything, but then it would be fairly useless because it would be going off constantly as it detected them on o
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Air-Tags are not invented by Apple.
Long before them a company called "Tiles" sold Air-Tiles.
The real issue is being able to spot if the same Bluetooth "ID" pops up around you all the time.
Obviously in your neighbourhood that will be your neighbours, and in your favourite pub it will be the regular customers.
So a bit tricky what to make out of that information ... oh noes, the post delivery guy is stalking me, he walks down the same road!! Every day!!
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What more could you ask for? Really?
A decent Android app. The one they made is next to useless as you have to open it and manually scan, it doesn't work in the background.
The responsible thing would have been to create an open standard for these kinds of tracking devices and make sure Google was on-board and implementing support in Android, like they did with COVID-19 contact tracing.
There are third-party Apps, too. Surely one of those will be more than happy to suck your battery dry.
Apple was actually thinking of you poor, stupid Android Victims by not making this a Backgrounded App. Afterall, it's not like that hypothetical AirTag is going to suddenly jump into your car while you sit at the McDonald's Drive-Thru, or at a Traffic Light.
There is simply no reason to require always-on Tracking for anti-stalking purposes.
None.
Get in the car, launch the App. Check. Close the App. Done!
Anyth
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What more could you ask for? Really?
One other thing I thought of. They could detect if the speaker has been tampered with. At a minimum they could measure the current going through it, which would detect when it has been drilled out/removed/epoxied, and ideally they could install a microphone with narrow bandpass filter that can hear the speaker beep.
Also make the frequency of the beeps much higher, say once an hour.
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What more could you ask for? Really?
One other thing I thought of. They could detect if the speaker has been tampered with. At a minimum they could measure the current going through it, which would detect when it has been drilled out/removed/epoxied, and ideally they could install a microphone with narrow bandpass filter that can hear the speaker beep.
Also make the frequency of the beeps much higher, say once an hour.
The problem is, if someone disabled the speaker, how can it Notify a putative Stalkee that has decided not to use a Discovery App? Maybe it could simply shut down it's Tracking function completely, if it detected speaker-tampering.
Problem with making the beeps more often comes down to battery-life. I agree, however, that a much shorter "chirp" could be done more often (short enough to just sound like a click), for the express purpose of tamper-detection.
BTW, I think the reason that AirTags aren't offered fo
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There is no good solution with the beeps. At the moment they don't even start until after 3 days of not seeing the owner's iPhone. If they are abused by a spouse the beeps will probably never be triggered, because the tag returns home every day.
A better solution would have been to not make any tracking data available until after 3 days of no-contact with the owner, at which point they enter lost mode and beep once every 30 minutes for at least a day. After that the owner can get the current location, with n
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There is no good solution with the beeps. At the moment they don't even start until after 3 days of not seeing the owner's iPhone. If they are abused by a spouse the beeps will probably never be triggered, because the tag returns home every day.
A better solution would have been to not make any tracking data available until after 3 days of no-contact with the owner, at which point they enter lost mode and beep once every 30 minutes for at least a day. After that the owner can get the current location, with no history.
Obviously that would make them much less useful for stolen property, but people need to be protected.
The obvious solution is simple: If you are an Android victim that is concerned you are being Tracked, don't rely on your ears. Install and use one of the many AirTag Discovery Apps on the Google Play Store. Or just use Apple Devices for mobile. They have "foreign AirTag?Detection" built into the OS since iOS 14.3 was released, 2 years ago. And iOS 15.4 (just released last week) apparently improves on that anti-stalking detection to better distinguish between stalking-patterns and regular "hits".
So, Problem
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That all relies on the victim knowing about the threat in the first place.
It really should have been an open standard, with simultaneous roll out on Android and iOS.
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That all relies on the victim knowing about the threat in the first place.
It really should have been an open standard, with simultaneous roll out on Android and iOS.
How long do you think it would take for an "Open Standard" to be created, approved, and adopted?
I'd kinda like having the product in less than a decade, thanks!
The victim doesn't have to know; they just have to suspect. And if they have an iPhone running iOS 14.3 or above, they don't even have to suspect, AFAICT.
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It could notify Apple, then Apple can disable it. Airtags don't allow *users* to track things; it allows *Apple* to. Then Apple shares that information with the user.
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It could notify Apple, then Apple can disable it. Airtags don't allow *users* to track things; it allows *Apple* to. Then Apple shares that information with the user.
I'm not arguing the point because I think it is effectively true however it is worth everyone knowing only the owner of the tag gets the actual location data sent from the crowd sourced phone. Location is encrypted with the public key of the tag before it is sent to Apple so that apple does not know it.
While I very much doubt this makes any difference in the real world some seem to have the wrong impression about how the technology works.
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These reports are because Apple did a good thing by mitigating the damage these AirTags could cause by notifying people that an AirTag they do not own is following them
In fact, in changing the AirTag software to notify of stalking, Apple made the tags useless for tracking stolen items. Both Apple users and stalkers are turning to non-notifying trackers for either usage.
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What I never understood is that there are tons of third-party GPS trackers available that will not rat you out if you try to use them to track or stalk people as an AirTag will. When will people wise up and start using the right tool for the job?
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The problem is these things are harder to connect up to the purchaser than they should be.
In my opinion, they should only be treated the same way we should treat a rifle.
Re:They're getting caught (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is these things are harder to connect up to the purchaser than they should be.
An AirTag is a paperweight until activated with an Apple ID. Apple made reciprocal tracking a requirement of enabling the "Find My network" on iOS. If you join the network to track an AirTag, Apple also receives the location of the device you're using to do the tracking.
The stalkers should just call the jail and make reservations.
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Re:They're getting caught (Score:5, Informative)
No, the reciprocal part means that you can't track an AirTag without also agreeing to allow Apple to track you. There's a "in Soviet Russia" in there somewhere.
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Re:They're getting caught (Score:4, Insightful)
Every apple device will forward AirTag pings. So driving by somebody will an iPhone will update it.
Re: They're getting caught (Score:2)
There is zero reason for apple to give the owner near real time data about its location. Apple should be charged as an accessory.
Re: They're getting caught (Score:2)
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There is zero reason for apple to give the owner near real time data about its location. Apple should be charged as an accessory.
Really?
What repetition rate would suit Your Highness?
How long should you have to wait to find out where you left your keys? Or where the person who stole your backpack is?
Moron.
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And what do you need to gat an Apple ID? A disposable email address?
Re: They're getting caught (Score:2)
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An AirTag is a paperweight until activated with an Apple ID.
An Apple ID is only needed to access the data for your tag. Apple does not know which tag belongs to which user.
Apple made reciprocal tracking a requirement of enabling the "Find My network" on iOS. If you join the network to track an AirTag, Apple also receives the location of the device you're using to do the tracking.
Find my network is opt out not opt in and Apple does not receive location.
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The AirTags aren't creating the stalkers, they're simply revealing a cancer that already existed in society.
Agreed. Just like guns don't kill people, they're simply revealing a cancer that already existed in society.
Think different, think stalking. (Score:2)
Think different, think stalking.
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Criminals who feel the need to stalk someone are going to do it regardless of whether or not AirTags were on the market. Since AirTags are required to be associated with a valid Apple ID in order to work, these low-lives are getting caught and brought to justice. The AirTags aren't creating the stalkers,
They are most certainly enabling it by minimizing cost. Crowd sourced location tracking is inherently evil like an army of a hundred million snitches anyone can enlist for free to do their bidding because this is exactly what airtags are. It just isn't stalkers that is the problem it is also granting one company access to data nearly all end users with iphones have no clue even exists. They don't understand their iphones are constantly uploading all beacons they see to Apple using their phones data plan
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If the real goal was creating a tracking thing to find your keys or whatever you wouldn't need a crowdsourced army to do that.
But then your tracker would need its own GPS receiver, which is inherently more bulky and expensive.
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But then your tracker would need its own GPS receiver, which is inherently more bulky and expensive.
No it wouldn't. In addition to Bluetooth airtags have a UWB radio for direction finding. They don't need crowdsourced armies of iPhones to operate locally to find things at a location. This is only needed for global coverage to find things anywhere.
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Criminals who feel the need to stalk someone are going to do it regardless of whether or not AirTags were on the market. Since AirTags are required to be associated with a valid Apple ID in order to work, these low-lives are getting caught and brought to justice. The AirTags aren't creating the stalkers, they're simply revealing a cancer that already existed in society.
That's a fun tag line but I don't think it has much basis in reality.
The easier you make X the more people will do X, that's such basic human behaviour one doesn't even need to call it economics.
Sure, all of these guys had problems, and some of these guys would have been stalkers anyway, but by making it so convenient the AirTags not only triggered them to cross the line, but they make them that much more effective at the actual stalking.
That doesn't mean that AirTags are a bad thing, but you can't pretend
Must everything be sensationalized? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Are there no other technologies that could track people?? Is AirTag the first such invention? Or are people who would track women so lazy that they only consider Apple-approved tech?
2) Why oh why must they bring sex trafficking into the story? Because if it bleeds it leads? The article actually says that there is no evidence, but only AFTER a whole paragraph on the possibilities of it being used.
Re:Must everything be sensationalized? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Are there no other technologies that could track people??
Yes. GPS trackers that broadcast their position over GPRS (in the past). Or 5G enabled devices today (since that's the native protocol for IoT and device to device data communication).
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You're mixing up some technologies here when you talk about both GPS trackers and IoT devices. For GPS trackers, they need to broadcast their location as they move about in a wide area and the best way to be sure they can transmit that information while on the road is to use cell technology. I haven't researched GPS trackers specifically, but I would suspect they are still using LTE technology for the best coverage in all areas. 5G is still limited to areas of high population and wouldn't necessarily be
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I don't know of any mainstream small devices that use cell technology as their primary communication method.
There are a number of excellent very long battery life GPS + multi-radio cellular network devices build specifically with the idea of logistics tracking of valuable packages. They aren't aimed at the consumer market since the main use is e.g. tracking containers as they travel from China to Europe, but I'm sure you could buy many of them easily. They are more expensive than standard IoT devices for sure but there are also mobile network subscriptions for them.
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GPS trackers have relatively short battery lives and need an active SIM to report back though. The ones that don't use the cellular network last longer. GPS reception is also quite poor, e.g. it often doesn't work in covered car parks or urban canyons. AirTags are much more effective in many cases, and also much cheaper.
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GPS trackers have relatively short battery lives and need an active SIM to report back though.
For the embedded trackers "relatively short" can easily mean a month or so as long as you are willing to accept data points no more than once every 10 minutes or so and an hour or so latency. This is perfectly fine for an jealous ex-boyfriend type stalker trying to check who his former partner is meeting.
You are right about airtags working better though. Fundamentally all this suggests a quite scary future.
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Re:Must everything be sensationalized? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are occasions technologies transition from a professional level technology to consumer technology. It's usually associated with a decrease in price, decrease in technical proficiency required to use and ready availability. I think Air Tags represent such a transition. I do think many potential criminal abusers of tracking devices are lazy, or at least disorganised and an inexpensive simple to use device will appeal to them
I would expect that the number of abuse cases to increase as the number of legitimate users increases. Many new technologies cause a level of societal disruption. While I think this story is newsworthy, I don't think it's a cause for alarm. The first estimate I found is that 25 million Air Tags have been sold [nbcnews.com]. If that's the case the numbers of abuse cases are small in comparison.
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If that's the case the numbers of abuse cases that have been caught so far are small in comparison.
All it takes not to get caught is to break the speaker and make sure that you don't track someone who has an iphone. What if half of those tags are being used for abuse but the anti-tracking mechanisms are failing because most of the trackers aren't completely stupid? There's an assumption that criminals are stupid because the criminals that get caught are stupid. That's not actually the same thing.
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If that's the case the numbers of abuse cases that have been caught so far are small in comparison.
All it takes not to get caught is to break the speaker and make sure that you don't track someone who has an iphone. What if half of those tags are being used for abuse but the anti-tracking mechanisms are failing because most of the trackers aren't completely stupid? There's an assumption that criminals are stupid because the criminals that get caught are stupid. That's not actually the same thing.
There are several AirTag Discovery Apps for Android, including one by Apple. They don't care if the stalker has disabled the speaker. At least one of them works in the background, for the ultra-paranoid.
If you care, Install one of those Apps and use it; or you are the one who is stupid.
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If you care, Install one of those Apps and use it; or you are the one who is stupid.
Sorry, we aren't talking about the situation where I care. We are talking about the situation where some random, probably non-technical, stalked woman probably doesn't even know that she needs to care until the point that she's about to be murdered. You can't reasonably be calling her "stupid" for not knowing that she's being stalked by a murderous psycho. This goes beyond victim blaming and "gaslighting" almost to the level of deliberate complicity.
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If you care, Install one of those Apps and use it; or you are the one who is stupid.
Sorry, we aren't talking about the situation where I care. We are talking about the situation where some random, probably non-technical, stalked woman probably doesn't even know that she needs to care until the point that she's about to be murdered. You can't reasonably be calling her "stupid" for not knowing that she's being stalked by a murderous psycho. This goes beyond victim blaming and "gaslighting" almost to the level of deliberate complicity.
Despite the overt sexism in your Post, I agree that, if the Stalkee is a victim of Android, s/he needs to have a non-zero tech-savvy-quotient (or have a friend/family-member that does) to know how to download and use any one of several AirTag Detection Apps to check for a Bluetooth Stalker; and I agree that is potentially a "Bad Thing".
But at 150 possible cases out of some 25 million AirTags sold so far (and apparently that 150 actually includes Police reports with any mention of the term "AirTag"), the cha
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Every time I've been stalked and knew about it, it was with a car. In those cases, it made it pretty easy to figure out who was doing the stalking by looking at the person sitting in the driver seat. It was always females doing the stalking in my case. No idea if they wanted to sex traffic me too, but it did creep me out and instigated me asking them to stop.
--
Every once in awhile, a girl has to indulge herself. - Sarah Jessica Parker
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I do not wish to diminish the importance of this article, but:
1) Are there no other technologies that could track people?? Is AirTag the first such invention? Or are people who would track women so lazy that they only consider Apple-approved tech?
Apple isn't the first by a long shot with this tech. But they are arguably the best selling. The tech it self cost about 0.25cents at most per tracker tag. The tag is super brain dead. The innovation that Apple and a number of other companies use is simple. It's the use of software on billions of phones can see a tracker tag when it does a bluetooth or wifi broadcast blip. Then the software uploads the tag ID and the geolocation. Then the server matches that id up with an account and bam you have a t
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A trafficker would simply have to say I've put a tracker on you and I know where you are.
Pray tell, please inform us where on a person an AirTag could be "put" that wouldn't be immediately (and likely painfully!) apparent to the Tagee?
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1) Are there no other technologies that could track people?? Is AirTag the first such invention? Or are people who would track women so lazy that they only consider Apple-approved tech?
It is by far the cheapest and lowest maintenance option.
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What were the remaining 99 out of 150? (Score:3)
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
As I read it they're police reports mentioning airtag but not concerning suspected stalking.
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
As I read it they're police reports mentioning airtag but not concerning suspected stalking.
The last time everyone made a big deal out of this, people were tracking cars they wanted to steal. So maybe it was those.
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
As I read it they're police reports mentioning airtag but not concerning suspected stalking.
The last time everyone made a big deal out of this, people were tracking cars they wanted to steal. So maybe it was those.
My money would be on lost/stolen property that had a tag that was removed, deactivated or is somewhere the owner can't get it as this would reasonably follow the intended use.
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
This article will be totally taken out of context by the femnizis.
Women are just as stalky as men, it's just that the men are more likely to use Apple tech.
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The end result of women stalkers doesn't generally end in rape and/or murder however.
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
This article will be totally taken out of context by the femnizis.
Women are just as stalky as men, it's just that the men are more likely to use Apple tech.
Really?
I thought that the typical Slashtard believes that only women and gay men used Apple!
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100 men that had an AirTag placed on them because their wives don't trust them to not be cheating pigs.
Perfectly normal.
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Out of 150 cases, 50 stalking women, 1 stalking a man, what about the remaining majority of the cases?
Not to mention that, with 25 meelion AirTags already sold, that 150 cases amounts to around 0.0006% of AirTags possibly being "stalked".
[rolls eyes]
150 out of? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without some context and proper comparative stats it is stupid to try to ban or stifle a useful service. 40,000 people are killed in the US in motor vehicle accidents, should road vehicles be banned? What about the men who used alternate ways to stalk and got away with it, never getting caught.
How many people lost their livelihood or economic well-being because they lost something important? I mean, if you are a poor college student and you lose your backpack with your laptop that could cause you to F up in school.
We have to look at it from the perspective of the fact that stalkers are getting caught. Stalkers who would have used a less convenient stalking mode and then raped or killed their victims.
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Stalkers are a cancer, but so is banning every technology that may possibly be abused by a bad actor. Out of 330 million people, almost anything imaginable has 50 instances of occurring in that time period. Being struck by lightning is several times more likely. Risks of being tracked by a stalker with an Airtag appear closer to having an aircraft crash onto your house, or being injured or killed by a defective toilet.
According to sales figures vs. stalking reports, you are something like 0.0006% in danger of being stalked by an AirTag.
New tech needs new laws (Score:3)
Almost any new useful technology is going to give bad apples more new ways to be bad apples (lower case). That's generally not a reason to ban it; otherwise, we'd be stuck in the stone age. Make that pre-stone, since stones were used to knock victims unconscious in order to rape.
I would hope new laws are passed that make it a felony to use tracking devices on people without their permission (with some practical exceptions).
Re:New tech needs new laws (Score:4, Insightful)
I would hope new laws are passed that make it a felony to use tracking devices on people without their permission (with some practical exceptions).
Lol, good idea. Make this illegal activity MORE illegal and nobody will do it.
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Tip of the iceberg (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine how high the numbers on AirTag stalking would be if the police included situations where abusive cops were using them to stalk and harass women.
Self-selection bias (Score:2)
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The reason we *see* so many reports of airtag stalking
So Many?!?!?
150 cases out of 25 Meelion AirTags ostensibly deployed is the exact opposite of "so many"!
The whole bullshit article is there solely to take advantage of Slashdot's near-universally-demonstrated Anti-Apple bias, to generate Clicks.
Period.
What about Tile and other brands you say? (Score:2)
Tile, a tracker similar to AirTags, announced last month that it was implementing new anti-stalking features in its app.
I use Tile to track our cars and suitcases. Will be interesting to see how this works out.
Apple has an advantage that all iphones can warn you of a stalker. For Android you would have to install the Tracker Detect app to find the AirTag.
Tile on the other hand, to be able to detect a stalker you need the Tile app I assume.
And the other lesser known bluetooth LE trackers? Who knows if they w
Smart homes could scan for malicious tags (Score:4, Interesting)
I just added malicious Airtag detection to an open source smart home system I work on.
That's because the problem with these stories of people saying "I was notified by my phone that an Airtag was tracking me" only works on iPhones. Android phones cannot continously scan for these tags, so if you're using an Android phone you're out of luck. That's why I felt smart homes, which can continously scan, should be able to do some useful work here.
Note that Tile trackers don't even rotate their mac addres, so they are very poorly protected against tracking through public space by third parties.
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That's because the problem with these stories of people saying "I was notified by my phone that an Airtag was tracking me" only works on iPhones. Android phones cannot continously scan for these tags, so if you're using an Android phone you're out of luck.
Does this not, effectively, do exactly that?
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobi... [cnet.com]
Ironically this is good (Score:2)
Before we had less auditable means to track and prove stalking.
All we need to do is build the safety measures that allow for an immutable audit trail.
how do you define "woman", again? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, there's a clearer narrative here that since it's women, it's a worse thing, right?
But in 2022 we no longer are able to say with certainty what a woman is, yet they are still flogged as particularly vulnerable victims. Curious, no?
Tile or Samsung Tags or Trackr tags or... ??? (Score:2)
And how many were being stalked with Tile, TrackR, Samsung, or others, and simply did not know it?
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"An issue that men need to address" - Really? How? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm. I hear this "it's a problem men need to solve" about lots of things. Violence. Sexual Assault. Rape. And so on. As a man who doesn't rape, sexually assault or use violence against anyone, and knows no-one who does, what should I "as a man" be doing about them? I'm already not doing them, and nor is anyone I know, so what more could I do?
I don't think that as a society (at least in the UK and maybe even the US) we give out a message that rape is a good thing, so I suggest the actual 'solution' is that it's an issue that violent, rapey men need to address. Or perhaps you can suggest something I can do "as a man" to stop people I don't know raping and being violent that a woman can't?
It's so easy saying "men need to address X" without actually proposing *how* a 'normal' man can go about doing that in a way that is exclusive to men.