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AirTag harassment victims unconvinced by Apple's fixes

10 Comments
By Khadija ADDA-REZIG

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© 2023 AFP

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10 Comments
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Besides older Apple devices, users of Androids or other smartphone operating systems are also left out,

This seems to give a reason why Apple is so slow doing anything about it, it makes perfect business sense as a strong push to make people buy new apple devices, even if that means putting everybody else at risk, even for their lives.

And in places like Japan the stalker don't even need to have access to the victims' possesions to track them. The victim could change addresses to run away from someone and the stalker simply have to put an airtag in an envelope and send it to the old address. If the new address was reported to the Japan post service they will just redirect the envelope there and by the time the victim opens the mail it would have been enough time for the airtag to report the location.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

The move by Apple to alert people on their phones if a trackable device is following them seems reasonable enough to solve this problem as long as they carry an iPhone…what a way to increase iPhone sales!

By the way, people cry so much for privacy and yet upload their entire life information, videos and photos on social media for the whole world to access!

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Prosecute criminals abusing tech, not the tech or its manufacturer.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

That is a general problem and has almost nothing to do with Apple AirTags. You can also be followed by all those cameras everywhere, especially when there’s an AI or other optical recognition system behind , which focuses on your shape, face, car number, always used handbag, stiletto shoes or whatever else. And of course also your digital traces like payments with credit cards or digital point systems etc can locate you. The stalker , maniac fan, attacker or whatever other following psycho only needs access to a bank computer, becomes a bank employee himself or just tried getting to know someone who is, and so on, of course the same for police , insurances, car rentals, airports and a lot more. Those AirTags are nothing compared Tom the whole thing and talking only about them might even be a marketing strategy to increase sales due to their dual use.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Prosecute criminals abusing tech, not the tech or its manufacturer.

If the manufacturers are facilitating the crimes why should they be protected? not taking precautions to avoid foreseeable misuse of their products should come with repercusions.

That is a general problem and has almost nothing to do with Apple AirTags

But the airtags are a very common and easy way to do it, and making Apple responsible can have a huge impact on other companies that have similar products.

You can also be followed by all those cameras everywhere

By any random person buying one single piece of equipment for $30? no not at all. The article is not talking about multinational companies investing millions of dollars trying to follow someone. Is about regular people that can do the same without problem for a tiny investment of money and time, putting in risk even the life of someone without any difficulty.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

If the manufacturers are facilitating the crimes why should they be protected? not taking precautions to avoid foreseeable misuse of their products should come with repercusions.

Plenty of everyday, widely available items can facilitate crime. Kitchen knives. Mobile phones. Face masks. Should we prosecute the manufacturers of those items?

How about good old government issued cash. Time to prosecute the government?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I can find anybody in the world with a shortwave GPS APRS ,even a shortwave user in Tokyo by putting in GPS Coordinates in this website,even if you are in the middle of the Pacific

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Plenty of everyday, widely available items can facilitate crime

And the people that make or sell them must take reasonable precautions to avoid this facilitation, when the manufacturers or sellers fail to take reasonable precautions they can definetely be prosecuted. Bartenders become responsible for patrons drunk driving, people selling tobacco to minors, weapons, toxic chemicals, etc are restricted in their production and commerce to avoid facilitating crime for profit.

Airtags are not even close to be as necessary as money or knives to the basic functioning of society, limiting their function to avoid these easily foreseeable abuse is something reasonable and desirable. And obviously is not something that would apply for the first time only for this product but something common and already being done for countless other things with regulations and laws.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

California has an IOT law ,internet of things law protection of anybody that has an device connected to the internet,seem like these Chinese had a 90 ft antenna,sucking up all these Chinese routers and phone ip addresses

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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