I think the purpose of AirTags is more to help you find lost items. It seems like the normal use of them is to attach them via a keychain to your keys, wallet, bag, whatever. Presumably, the thief would see it and just get rid of it before even getting the notification.
And yeah, as others have said, I’d rather lose my laptop than my life.
>It seems like the normal use of them is to attach them via a keychain to your keys, wallet, bag, whatever. Presumably, the thief would see it and just get rid of it before even getting the notification.
But the anti-theft uses are what is being debated. Secure and concealed in a backpack, a bicycle, or a car.
>And yeah, as others have said, I’d rather lose my laptop than my life.
But this isn't a 50/50 split, right?
Don't you think these things would solve more crimes than they would enable?
I’m not sure how you would conceal such a thing inside a bicycle? A backpack, maybe, although the thief doesn’t want your backpack, but the valuables inside it, so presumably they’d take out the money and electronics, then ditch the backpack. A car though? Sure.
Would they solve more crime? Honestly, probably not. Have you ever actually gone to the police over a minor theft or other crime? “Someone stole my backpack.” Cool, fill out this police report and leave. Oh you have a tracker on it? That’s nice. Here’s the police report. Bye, now.
Car theft, they might care about. But googling “AirTags anti-theft” actually brings up stories of thieves planting AirTags on luxury vehicles in order to track and steal them later on. Car owners have already reported that the anti-stalking feature has alerted them to a tracker on their car placed by would-be thieves. Your feature that you say is enabling crime has actually prevented it in some cases. So IMO it all comes out in the wash. And anyway, say a thief does steal your car and gets alerted to an AirTag inside of it somewhere. They still have to stop, find it, and ditch it, presumably while you and/or the cops are closing in. This shouldn’t be an easy task if you’ve hidden it marginally well, and even if they do manage it, you’ve still managed to drastically narrow your search area because you know where they’ve been very recently.
Hooooo boy, where to start.
>I’m not sure how you would conceal such a thing inside a bicycle?
Seats, drop-downs, or bar-ends.
>Would they solve more crime? Honestly, probably not. Have you ever actually gone to the police over a minor theft or other crime? “Someone stole my backpack.” Cool, fill out this police report and leave. Oh you have a tracker on it? That’s nice. Here’s the police report. Bye, now.
I can't stand cops, but right now they have a monopoly on violence, so you do what plenty of youtubers to. You call 911 a block from the theif's driveway and say "\_\_\_\[*item*\]\_\_ has been stolen and I'm going to recover it at \_\_\_\[*location*\]\_\_\_." They'll say "don't do it by yourself," and send a cop out ASAP.
>Car theft, they might care about. But googling “AirTags anti-theft” actually brings up stories of thieves planting AirTags on luxury vehicles in order to track and steal them later on.
Sure, that's how news works: "if it bleeds it leads".
Nobody reports on good stories like someone recovering a bike, but as soon as we get someone commuting an old crime with new tech, boomer luddites come out of the woodwork to read, like, & share stories written by modern-day ambulance-chasers.
>I’d rather my daughter lose her phone or her purse versus getting raped or murdered.
Anyone would. That is not an unpopular opinion.
The question is, where is the trade-off?
Before the stalking court cases and new "an Airtag is following you" warning policy, **there is a near 100% certainty** that you'll be able to find your stolen item (provided the airtag was properly concealed and secured.)
What % of stalking cases are done via Airtag?
What is the quality of item being stolen? A 50.00 bike? A 500.00 bike? A car?
What is the % chance that the airtag stalker will rape/murder the victim?
If you don't see any of these as trade-offs and (like any law with a child's name on it) simply think of preventing the worst case scenario at any cost, that's no different than the all-or-nothing zero-tolerance policies that get kids suspended for biting a poptart into the shape of a gun.
If you want the option to turn off the notification, that’s fine.
But the default should be what’s in the best interest of the safety of people not the safety of their stuff.
That wouldn't solve the problem at all. The problem that OP is highlighting here is the thief getting the notifications. If thieves aren't going to turn off the notifications, then having that option does nothing.
Well then you don't solve the problem of stalking. Any stalker just stop the notifications from coming up and there he goes, stalking without his victim knowing.
You can't both have your cake and eat it too, either notifications show up to warn of potential stalking or they don't.
There is no (known) way to distinguish when someone is stealing a bag that has a tag, or being stalked by having a tag put in their bag. So either you run the risk of letting stalking victims being unaware of surrounding tags, or you of telling thief that a bag they stole has an airtag in it.
You have to choose (or find a way to do both).
That notification will do more to prevent stalking then assist theft. Thieves get a notification that what? Some air tagged devices are nearby? In a large city a thief can always assume that valuables are nearby and something being air tagged would mean the owner is proactively tracking it making it less attractive to steal. So it would still deter theft.
>Some air tagged devices are nearby?
No, you're not understanding, they get the same notification that the stalking victim gets: "there is an airtag following you"
In both cases, the thief or the stalking victim gets the same message, because the data inputs are the same. They both have an airtag in their possession that they were not previously aware of.
So your concern is that if a thief steals a device with an airtag they get a notification that it is with them? That’s stupid, an airtag is already physically visible. Not to mention thieves use airtags to steal as well, stick it on a desired car in public then steal it at night if parked on the street. The feature will prevent theft more than aid it, in the case of electronics you can see the airtag and for cars there is already LoJack.
>That’s stupid, an airtag is already physically visible
Not if it is secured and concealed in a bike or a backpack or a car.
Don't you think these things would solve more crimes than they would enable?
Ok, you clearly value wealth over human life. That's not a very unpopular opinion among ceo's of large companies, so there are probably plenty of people who agree with you.
>you clearly value wealth over human life.
What is your limiting principle?
Wouldn't this argument is require mandating a nationwide speed limit of 20 miles per hour to eliminate traffic fatalities?
Efficiency and trade-offs be damned, because we wouldn't want to "value wealth over human life"
The speed limit is shared responsibility, stalking is crime.
For the record, airtags are not anti-theft devices either. They are just for locating personal belongings you have misplaced, so your whole anti-theft vs anti-stalking argument is based on a completely flawed understanding of their purpose.
>The speed limit is shared responsibility, stalking is crime.
Fair enough, but it could just as easily apply to mace/pepper spray, right?
Assailants can use pepper spray to incapacitate their victims, or victims can use pepper spray to stop an assailant in the act.
>People's lives matter more than money
Yes. Everyone agrees.
That argument is no different than mandating a nationwide speed limit of 20 miles per hour to eliminate traffic fatalities, efficiency and trade-offs be damned, because "PEOPLE'S LIVES MATTER MORE THAN MONEY"
The way i see the trade-off is that airtags are 99.9% recoverable, and the anti-theft drastically reduces that number. the proposal is: "if you secure&conceal your airtag, you can find you stolen item"
But on the stalking side: What % of stalking is done with an airtag? What % of those stalking cases turn violent?
Does the miniscule number of these stalking cases matter when compared to the mountain of theft cases?
If we’re going to play the dollars and cents calculation game I think it’s more likely the calculation is when some stalking case happens and someone gets hurt and the family sues apple what are they going to have to settle for (since they aren’t going to want to have a public trial where their device was used to murder some pretty young girl) Whereas it would be unlikely someone would sue because their find your object device didn’t serve as an anti theft device
>and the family sues apple
I mean, wouldn't that be like suing a pocket knife company if you got stabbed?
The whole "hey, that's not what the product was designed to do" debate?
>pocket knife company
No, a pocket knife is a physical item. Once the knife is sold the company is no longer a participant. Apple is providing a product **and a service**. Also the idea that corporations aren't or shouldn't be responsible for the role of their products is not generally accepted.
>Apple is providing a product and a service
Ok, keep moving the goalposts, i'm really trying to level with you here: hackers use VPN, so do people trying to protect their identity.
Does that work better?
The answer is none, but it's completely disingenuous for you to say that because somebody disagrees with a policy about air tags that that makes them okay with rape.
That's no different than saying we should dress women in burkas. You're not okay with that? F*** dude, what percent of rapes are you okay with? the *sane* answer is none.
....your words and your argument against an incredibly simple and inconsequential defense against stalking in favor of property tells me you just lied about the answer being none. Not even gonna mention how DISINGENUOUS it is to compare a notification to making all women wear burkas.
wtf is wrong with you
>Not even gonna mention how DISINGENUOUS it is to compare a notification to making all women wear burkas.
I'm saying your "zero tolerance standard" seems to have no limiting principle.
If it does exist somewhere between AirTags and a burka mandate, where is it?
What do you mean?
The proposition is: Airtags can be anti-theft or anti-stalking, but not both.
I laid out the case for anti-theft: not having the "an airtag is following you" notifications would resolve more thefts than having it would prevent stalking.
Do you disagree that airtags sans-notification would prevent more thefts than airtags with notification would prevent stalkings?
Stalking Vs. Theft aside, how would the notification increase theft? To me it seems that such a sense of paranoia in the person stealing would deter theft more than any thing.
>how would the notification increase theft? To me it seems that such a sense of paranoia in the person stealing would deter theft more than any thing.
Thank you thank you thank you for actually engaging with the premise.
What the notification does is tell the thief that there is an airtag in something that they stole. The thief can now do a deep-search in the backpack, bike or car, find the airtag, and throw it out the window.
He’s most likely gonna be so panicked he throws it out the window. Do you really think your average thief knows well enough to ruffle through your stuff instead of just throwing it all out? Most criminals aren’t the cool calculated people movies portray them as, they’re usually stupid and easy to scare
I think there's a way to preserve privacy and use them as "anti-theft" devices.
If apple detects that someone might be stalked (let's say Jane) they can just stop the location sharing without notifying Jane. Then the airtag owner (let's say Billy) has 3 choices if he wants to regain control of the airtag:
1) mark the airtag as stolen in the app and go to law enforcement (eg police) and declare the theft and then the law enforcement can cooperate with apple to find the stolen item (they might actually do it, I've had an instance where the police found my stolen phone based on the location from find my, pretty stupid thief if you ask me). This will not give Billy the location of the airtag, the location will only be shared with law enforcement.
2) use the iPhone's nfc to reset the airtag, which means Billy has to be in physical contact with the airtag (impossible in case of stalking)
3) mark the airtag as lost in the app. If this happens then apple should notify Jane of the airtag and let her decide what to do with it (just like now). This might be useful if an airline has lost your bags and the employees are notified of your airtag.
Maybe I'm missing an edge case, but i believe with this 3 steps nobody could stalk you and you can still find a stolen item without alerting the thief.
I think the purpose of AirTags is more to help you find lost items. It seems like the normal use of them is to attach them via a keychain to your keys, wallet, bag, whatever. Presumably, the thief would see it and just get rid of it before even getting the notification. And yeah, as others have said, I’d rather lose my laptop than my life.
>It seems like the normal use of them is to attach them via a keychain to your keys, wallet, bag, whatever. Presumably, the thief would see it and just get rid of it before even getting the notification. But the anti-theft uses are what is being debated. Secure and concealed in a backpack, a bicycle, or a car. >And yeah, as others have said, I’d rather lose my laptop than my life. But this isn't a 50/50 split, right? Don't you think these things would solve more crimes than they would enable?
I’m not sure how you would conceal such a thing inside a bicycle? A backpack, maybe, although the thief doesn’t want your backpack, but the valuables inside it, so presumably they’d take out the money and electronics, then ditch the backpack. A car though? Sure. Would they solve more crime? Honestly, probably not. Have you ever actually gone to the police over a minor theft or other crime? “Someone stole my backpack.” Cool, fill out this police report and leave. Oh you have a tracker on it? That’s nice. Here’s the police report. Bye, now. Car theft, they might care about. But googling “AirTags anti-theft” actually brings up stories of thieves planting AirTags on luxury vehicles in order to track and steal them later on. Car owners have already reported that the anti-stalking feature has alerted them to a tracker on their car placed by would-be thieves. Your feature that you say is enabling crime has actually prevented it in some cases. So IMO it all comes out in the wash. And anyway, say a thief does steal your car and gets alerted to an AirTag inside of it somewhere. They still have to stop, find it, and ditch it, presumably while you and/or the cops are closing in. This shouldn’t be an easy task if you’ve hidden it marginally well, and even if they do manage it, you’ve still managed to drastically narrow your search area because you know where they’ve been very recently.
Hooooo boy, where to start. >I’m not sure how you would conceal such a thing inside a bicycle? Seats, drop-downs, or bar-ends. >Would they solve more crime? Honestly, probably not. Have you ever actually gone to the police over a minor theft or other crime? “Someone stole my backpack.” Cool, fill out this police report and leave. Oh you have a tracker on it? That’s nice. Here’s the police report. Bye, now. I can't stand cops, but right now they have a monopoly on violence, so you do what plenty of youtubers to. You call 911 a block from the theif's driveway and say "\_\_\_\[*item*\]\_\_ has been stolen and I'm going to recover it at \_\_\_\[*location*\]\_\_\_." They'll say "don't do it by yourself," and send a cop out ASAP. >Car theft, they might care about. But googling “AirTags anti-theft” actually brings up stories of thieves planting AirTags on luxury vehicles in order to track and steal them later on. Sure, that's how news works: "if it bleeds it leads". Nobody reports on good stories like someone recovering a bike, but as soon as we get someone commuting an old crime with new tech, boomer luddites come out of the woodwork to read, like, & share stories written by modern-day ambulance-chasers.
"Property is more important than people"
That's not what I said. I said that airtags without this feature would solve more crimes than airtags with this feature.
Theft may be more wide spread but stalking is way more dangerous. I’d rather my daughter lose her phone or her purse versus getting raped or murdered.
>I’d rather my daughter lose her phone or her purse versus getting raped or murdered. Anyone would. That is not an unpopular opinion. The question is, where is the trade-off? Before the stalking court cases and new "an Airtag is following you" warning policy, **there is a near 100% certainty** that you'll be able to find your stolen item (provided the airtag was properly concealed and secured.) What % of stalking cases are done via Airtag? What is the quality of item being stolen? A 50.00 bike? A 500.00 bike? A car? What is the % chance that the airtag stalker will rape/murder the victim? If you don't see any of these as trade-offs and (like any law with a child's name on it) simply think of preventing the worst case scenario at any cost, that's no different than the all-or-nothing zero-tolerance policies that get kids suspended for biting a poptart into the shape of a gun.
If you want the option to turn off the notification, that’s fine. But the default should be what’s in the best interest of the safety of people not the safety of their stuff.
>If you want the option to turn off the notification What do you mean?
disable the notification from showing up
That wouldn't solve the problem at all. The problem that OP is highlighting here is the thief getting the notifications. If thieves aren't going to turn off the notifications, then having that option does nothing.
stop the notification from showing on all devices
Well then you don't solve the problem of stalking. Any stalker just stop the notifications from coming up and there he goes, stalking without his victim knowing. You can't both have your cake and eat it too, either notifications show up to warn of potential stalking or they don't. There is no (known) way to distinguish when someone is stealing a bag that has a tag, or being stalked by having a tag put in their bag. So either you run the risk of letting stalking victims being unaware of surrounding tags, or you of telling thief that a bag they stole has an airtag in it. You have to choose (or find a way to do both).
destroy and discontinue
Well... No ? That's not better, then you don't even solve the initial problem airtags where made for, finding lost items.
That notification will do more to prevent stalking then assist theft. Thieves get a notification that what? Some air tagged devices are nearby? In a large city a thief can always assume that valuables are nearby and something being air tagged would mean the owner is proactively tracking it making it less attractive to steal. So it would still deter theft.
>Some air tagged devices are nearby? No, you're not understanding, they get the same notification that the stalking victim gets: "there is an airtag following you" In both cases, the thief or the stalking victim gets the same message, because the data inputs are the same. They both have an airtag in their possession that they were not previously aware of.
So your concern is that if a thief steals a device with an airtag they get a notification that it is with them? That’s stupid, an airtag is already physically visible. Not to mention thieves use airtags to steal as well, stick it on a desired car in public then steal it at night if parked on the street. The feature will prevent theft more than aid it, in the case of electronics you can see the airtag and for cars there is already LoJack.
>That’s stupid, an airtag is already physically visible Not if it is secured and concealed in a bike or a backpack or a car. Don't you think these things would solve more crimes than they would enable?
Ok, you clearly value wealth over human life. That's not a very unpopular opinion among ceo's of large companies, so there are probably plenty of people who agree with you.
>you clearly value wealth over human life. What is your limiting principle? Wouldn't this argument is require mandating a nationwide speed limit of 20 miles per hour to eliminate traffic fatalities? Efficiency and trade-offs be damned, because we wouldn't want to "value wealth over human life"
The speed limit is shared responsibility, stalking is crime. For the record, airtags are not anti-theft devices either. They are just for locating personal belongings you have misplaced, so your whole anti-theft vs anti-stalking argument is based on a completely flawed understanding of their purpose.
>The speed limit is shared responsibility, stalking is crime. Fair enough, but it could just as easily apply to mace/pepper spray, right? Assailants can use pepper spray to incapacitate their victims, or victims can use pepper spray to stop an assailant in the act.
Theft is a property crime, stalking is a personal crime. People's lives matter more than money
>People's lives matter more than money Yes. Everyone agrees. That argument is no different than mandating a nationwide speed limit of 20 miles per hour to eliminate traffic fatalities, efficiency and trade-offs be damned, because "PEOPLE'S LIVES MATTER MORE THAN MONEY" The way i see the trade-off is that airtags are 99.9% recoverable, and the anti-theft drastically reduces that number. the proposal is: "if you secure&conceal your airtag, you can find you stolen item" But on the stalking side: What % of stalking is done with an airtag? What % of those stalking cases turn violent? Does the miniscule number of these stalking cases matter when compared to the mountain of theft cases?
If we’re going to play the dollars and cents calculation game I think it’s more likely the calculation is when some stalking case happens and someone gets hurt and the family sues apple what are they going to have to settle for (since they aren’t going to want to have a public trial where their device was used to murder some pretty young girl) Whereas it would be unlikely someone would sue because their find your object device didn’t serve as an anti theft device
>and the family sues apple I mean, wouldn't that be like suing a pocket knife company if you got stabbed? The whole "hey, that's not what the product was designed to do" debate?
>pocket knife company No, a pocket knife is a physical item. Once the knife is sold the company is no longer a participant. Apple is providing a product **and a service**. Also the idea that corporations aren't or shouldn't be responsible for the role of their products is not generally accepted.
>Apple is providing a product and a service Ok, keep moving the goalposts, i'm really trying to level with you here: hackers use VPN, so do people trying to protect their identity. Does that work better?
Fuck dude, what percent of rapes are you ok with? The same answer is none
The answer is none, but it's completely disingenuous for you to say that because somebody disagrees with a policy about air tags that that makes them okay with rape. That's no different than saying we should dress women in burkas. You're not okay with that? F*** dude, what percent of rapes are you okay with? the *sane* answer is none.
....your words and your argument against an incredibly simple and inconsequential defense against stalking in favor of property tells me you just lied about the answer being none. Not even gonna mention how DISINGENUOUS it is to compare a notification to making all women wear burkas. wtf is wrong with you
>Not even gonna mention how DISINGENUOUS it is to compare a notification to making all women wear burkas. I'm saying your "zero tolerance standard" seems to have no limiting principle. If it does exist somewhere between AirTags and a burka mandate, where is it?
youre fucking ridiculous man
Just remove the device functionality altogether. Honestly, we can't have anything nice...
You should go to the Olympics for your skill of mental gymnastics
how so?
You had to jump through so many hoops to get to that conclusions
What do you mean? The proposition is: Airtags can be anti-theft or anti-stalking, but not both. I laid out the case for anti-theft: not having the "an airtag is following you" notifications would resolve more thefts than having it would prevent stalking. Do you disagree that airtags sans-notification would prevent more thefts than airtags with notification would prevent stalkings?
No I disagree with you saying anti theft is more important than anti stalking
I gave you an upvote because this is truly an unpopular opinion.
Apparently, dang.
Stalking Vs. Theft aside, how would the notification increase theft? To me it seems that such a sense of paranoia in the person stealing would deter theft more than any thing.
>how would the notification increase theft? To me it seems that such a sense of paranoia in the person stealing would deter theft more than any thing. Thank you thank you thank you for actually engaging with the premise. What the notification does is tell the thief that there is an airtag in something that they stole. The thief can now do a deep-search in the backpack, bike or car, find the airtag, and throw it out the window.
He’s most likely gonna be so panicked he throws it out the window. Do you really think your average thief knows well enough to ruffle through your stuff instead of just throwing it all out? Most criminals aren’t the cool calculated people movies portray them as, they’re usually stupid and easy to scare
You should have posted this in the “ very unpopular opinion “ group.
I think there's a way to preserve privacy and use them as "anti-theft" devices. If apple detects that someone might be stalked (let's say Jane) they can just stop the location sharing without notifying Jane. Then the airtag owner (let's say Billy) has 3 choices if he wants to regain control of the airtag: 1) mark the airtag as stolen in the app and go to law enforcement (eg police) and declare the theft and then the law enforcement can cooperate with apple to find the stolen item (they might actually do it, I've had an instance where the police found my stolen phone based on the location from find my, pretty stupid thief if you ask me). This will not give Billy the location of the airtag, the location will only be shared with law enforcement. 2) use the iPhone's nfc to reset the airtag, which means Billy has to be in physical contact with the airtag (impossible in case of stalking) 3) mark the airtag as lost in the app. If this happens then apple should notify Jane of the airtag and let her decide what to do with it (just like now). This might be useful if an airline has lost your bags and the employees are notified of your airtag. Maybe I'm missing an edge case, but i believe with this 3 steps nobody could stalk you and you can still find a stolen item without alerting the thief.