Researchers come up with better idea to prevent AirTag stalking::Solution relies in part on cryptography practice of secret sharing to maximize privacy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple hasn’t said exactly how long this time interval is, but to create the much-needed alert system, Apple made some crucial changes to the location privacy design the company originally developed a few years ago for its “Find My” device tracking feature.
The idea is that this way other devices can detect potential stalking, but won’t be throwing up alerts all the time if you spend a weekend with a friend who has their iPhone and the AirTag on their keys in their pockets.
In practice, though, the researchers say that these changes have created a situation where AirTags are broadcasting their location to anyone who’s checking within a 30- to 50-foot radius over the course of an entire day—enough time to track a person as they go about their life and get a sense of their movements.
“We had students walk through cities, walk through Times Square and Washington, DC, and lots and lots of people are broadcasting their locations,” says Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matt Green, who worked on the research with a group of colleagues, including Nadia Heninger and Abhishek Jain.
Apple has been working with companies like Google, Samsung, and Tile on a cross-industry effort to address the threat of tracking from products similar to AirTags.
And for now, at least, the researchers say that the consortium seems to have adopted Apple’s approach of rotating the device public identifiers once every 24 hours.
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tinkeringidiot@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Is it “don’t use them and just keep track of your stuff”? Because that seems like the most right answer here.
dfc09@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think the main issue with air tag stalking is somebody else slipping their own air tags into your car, purse, backpack, etc to always know where you are
CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It would be like me telling you “just start having more human empathy”. You can’t just tell someone to do something that doesn’t come naturally.