AirTag – the moral maze

lol… if there’s no iPhone nearby, what is relaying the AirTag signal back to the crim? It’s not magic 😀 If there’s something to relay it, there’s something to detect it!

True, and we’re now at the point in the argument where I need to get all frothy simultaneously proving that not enough people have iPhones to stop the tags being detected and that enough have them to make the enterprise worthwhile.

I’m not going to, because that would be silly, but the chances of someone strolling by a driveway with an iPhone are still high enough that I reckon it could work. I think it’s something potentially worthy of being concerned about until proven otherwise.

Back to the originally posed quandry – the moral quandry of purchasing these things to use legitimately, whilst being aware of the nefarious possiblities for other users.

I would argue that buying airtags has zero effect on the actions of others – so go ahaed, buy yourself and your friends and family as many as you can afford, guilt free.

But… owning an iphone (especially 11 and later) and walking around in public with it, you are potentially helping criminals, stalkers, terrorists etc. Best to dispose of your phone as soon as you can.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60004257

Pretty damming really – and having an airtag slipped in you bag is absolutely not the same as having a phone about your person.

“Perfect” except for all the limitations and ways they get found.

The genuinely nefarious can buy far better devices (that won’t try to tell the target) for similar money.

But the point is they CAN’T find them. They know they are there but have no way to actually find them.

My money is in a scuttle panel or glued to the inside of a bumper.

Are any of the devices you are thinking of anywhere near as cheap and disposable? I bet they’re not.

yep, or crucially do these ‘other’ devices actually leverage off millions of OIS devices to precisely track wherabouts? I suspect that when you drill down there aren’t that many easily available devices that work as well in a reliable manner for similar money.

agree, without the ios hookup, you are likely to need:

GPS,
cellular transmission of that data,
and the substantially larger battery required for the above

drastic increase of cost and size of the device

remember early seasons of Breaking Bad, hiding GPS trackers on cars featured quite a bit, but only ones that you had to retreive, and download the data at a later point, not real time tracking.
People with no technical knowledge whined that it was a clunkly plot device.

Who the hell can be arsed to keep turning BT on and off all the sodding time! What a waste of time. Nobody I know with a smartphone bothers to do that, I would never consider it because it would be a major inconvenience.

Unless you’re one of those sad people who believe that someone sitting at a cafe table with a laptop can scan your phone fifty feet away and steal all your secrets.

I have bluetooth and location turned off all the time unless I am using it.  Both are off by default.  Its no inconvenience at all and I rarely use either.

Dunno where the moral question is here?  Surely anyone using apple products has already set their morals aside?  😉

Unless you’re one of those sad people who believe that someone sitting at a cafe table with a laptop can scan your phone fifty feet away and steal all your secrets.

Who would possibly be that paranoid….Oh!

I’m not that bothered.  Its just easier to have it off.  😉

No secrets anyway – Id just rather not be tracked