AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard

by commoner • 5 years ago

298 132 5 years ago

github.com

akomtu4• 5 years ago

Legislation is the proper protection here.

hughes• 5 years ago

Is there a specific policy you think should be legislated that would prevent unwanted tracking?

akomtu4• 5 years ago

A blanket ban on hoarding, storing and selling personal data for any purposes other than natsec. Basically, treat personal data like nuclear materials in the laws.

cascom2• 5 years ago

Civil and commercial penalties would be a start

orangepanda• 5 years ago

Kidnapping is already illegal. Curious, it still happens

akomtu4• 5 years ago

Name one company in the US that's built business around kidnapping.

KingMachiavelli4• 5 years ago

The tracking using Airtags has very little to do with Apple or any entity that could be controlled via legislation. Airtags themselves don't allow a non-owner to access location data anyway.

The tracking via Airtags is just putting a device on someone's person without their knowledge. That is already illegal but unless you know a crime has been committed you are SOL.

katbyte2• 5 years ago

Not to mention you can detect an airtag, cellular devices your out of luck

bloodyplonker222• 5 years ago

Government intervention is not the answer to everything. It is slow and inefficient.

justblender• 5 years ago

If a devices follows you, you will get a notification in less than an hour!

Not sure if this is right for me, my wife could cheat on me faster.

KingMachiavelli4• 5 years ago

Pretty cool but why does it have to be limited to AirTag or any specific devices? It would be easy to expand it to keep track of any nearby Bluetooth device and a corresponding whitelist. (Or do AirTag devices rotate Bluetooth MACs?)

Airtags are just one implementation of a Bluetooth transmitter and a long life battery but anyone could probably build a similar device dedicated to tracking with off the shelf parts.

tinus_hn• 5 years ago

AirTags, like all Apple devices, use randomized Bluetooth addresses, otherwise they allow scanners to follow their users location over time.

ollien2• 5 years ago

I don't think that's an Apple thing, but rather a BLE thing, isn't it (though technically opt-in)?

https://www.bluetooth.com/blog/bluetooth-technology-protecti...

jeroenhd• 5 years ago

Airtags are the only devices (that I know of) that can leverage a worldwide network of iPhones to transmit their location rather than a power intensive LTE or GSM link. They also don't require any external antennae for location determination like those GPS trackers stalkers use.

Those features make make AirTags more practical for any use, good or bad. They do rotate Bluetooth MAC addresses so only you and Apple can follow where the tag has been, supposedly.

Furthermore, if your target has an iPhone, you can partially leverage their phone against them. Of course Apple saw this coming and added a warning. If you're on Android you'll have to rely on apps like these (or the theoretical app Apple promised at some point) to prevent AirStalking

Tile has offered a similar mechanism for years but the lack of a worldwide network of automatic data collection points makes their network a lot less useful for good or bad people.

katbyte2• 5 years ago

Tile will now leverage Amazon sidewalk to have a similar affect - which is all alexa and ring doorbells I think?

politelemon• 5 years ago

It irks me that the onus of not being tracked is on the "target" themselves.

Further, there's no protection if you have no smartphone but are in a dense population area surrounded by devices that are part of this surveillance network.

There is no aspect of this that is privacy friendly except for the hand waving.

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

Airtags are the only devices (that I know of) that can leverage a worldwide network of iPhones to transmit their location rather than a power intensive LTE or GSM link

Sure, but “of iPhones” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Worldwide network of <users of some common hardware or software> generally isn't as uncommon.

btown• 5 years ago

A prominent group of Virtual YouTubers (whose talents use avatars and keep their real identities anonymous) recently needed to stop allowing fans to send gifts to talents, despite them always having been screened, because the gifts might contain AirTags that could ping the sender when they arrive ina talent’s home. It’s not that this wasn’t possible before, but it suddenly became easy for a would-be stalker to execute the attack.

A tool like this that reliably detects AirTags rather than relying on whatever heuristics Apple uses to say “an AirTag is following you” would be invaluable for people’s opsec, be they performers or journalists or anyone else desiring anonymity.

spookthesunset• 5 years ago

Airtags are just one implementation of a Bluetooth transmitter and a long life battery but anyone could probably build a similar device dedicated to tracking with off the shelf parts.

There is nothing Dropbox does that can’t be done with rsync.

manquer• 5 years ago

Nothing the Dropbox client does that rsync can't do.

Running even a NAS storage with remote backups and decent security is not trivial job.

While UX/client features is a factor for buying into Dropbox, the storage and backup costs are the primary cost driver.

eatbitseveryday• 5 years ago

This seems to notify you of nearby tags but does not disable them in some way.

daniel-thompson• 5 years ago

How would an app on device A disable device B?

KingMachiavelli4• 5 years ago

Airtags do allow non-owner devices to disable some functionality such as turning off the alarm. I doubt they let you turn off the tracking since that would completely defeat the anti-theft aspect of Airtags.

herf• 5 years ago

Constant buzzing would presumably make the batteries run out.

smoldesu2• 5 years ago

You need a separate app for that, I think I've heard it called "Ball-peen Hammer"

bloodyplonker222• 5 years ago

Think about what you just suggested. If I could arbitrarily disable airtags around me, I could go around in public and disable everyones' airtags.

TeMPOraL2• 5 years ago

With the app you can play a sound on AirTags and find it easily.

I wonder how it does that. Unauthenticated BLE characteristic? This would imply anyone could force an arbitrary AirTag to make a sound. Obvious application: force all AirTags nearby to keep making sounds.

shreddit• 5 years ago

Seems so, there’s a constant named AIR_TAG_SOUND_CHARACTERISTIC with this value: 7DFC9001-7D1C-4951-86AA-8D9728F8D66C

ollien2• 5 years ago

The small evil part of me wants to extract this part of the source and just bring my phone onto public transit for a while to see what happens.

jdavis7032• 5 years ago

Why annoy people like this? My e-bike has Find My tracking built in to the firmware. As long as you don’t steal my bike you have no privacy concerns from me securing my bike. Even better I can track my bike down without involving the police, so the potential thief doesn’t even have to worry about being shot by some trigger happy cop.

teakettle42• 5 years ago

Is “cop shoots bike thief” something you actually think is common enough to note?

This implies a concerning reality departure.

rubyist5eva• 5 years ago

Great, now instead of getting shot by a cop you’ll get the crap kicked out of you instead.

tdfx2• 5 years ago

In many areas of the US, that trigger happy cop will be the difference between you recovering your property and you being severely beaten when you show up in a rough neighborhood trying to get your bike back.

jcims• 5 years ago

What if someone else is tracking your bike? Or backpack, or car, etc? GPS trackers exist so this doesn't eliminate that concern, but at least if someone tries tracking you with an AirTag you have an option to locate it.

wcoenen• 5 years ago

Why annoy people like this?

Does it matter? Someone is going to do it anyway. They might just think that it's funny that they can make all the tags in the subway car start making noise.

So maybe the question should be "why did Apple design it to allow this?".

xyzzy212• 5 years ago

Apple devices create an encrypted mesh network. So every Apple device nearby potentially can pass encrypted messages from either a "Find my iPhone" or "Find my AirTag" BT beacon. Eventually it finds a device that is connected to the internet and the packets are forwarded to the Apple Account bound to the Air Tag.

I think the encryption and tie to an Apple account prevent arbitrary people from doing that.

azinman2• 5 years ago

Our goal is to protect privacy and to find out how many people are opposed to tracking.

Asking how many ppl are opposed to tracking is a silly question that won’t get you anywhere — it’s answer in a vacuum doesn’t make sense as it needs to be contextualized. “Are you ok with google seeing your IP so they can sell you ads to give you free YouTube” is an example of context where people see trade offs. Most people won’t understand the full spectrum of what’s going on, and if it all in the end results in just ads, many are fine with that as long as they’re getting free stuff with it.

The bigger questions on societal level trade offs shouldn’t be answered by lay people but rather regulation in the name of public interest.

bogwog3• 5 years ago

Google doesn't just "see your IP" to sell you ads. They collect a lot more information about you than that, so I don't know why you consider your question to be more useful than the one you quoted.

Neither one provides enough information for the average person to give an informed answer. They're both equally biased/leading, but in opposite directions.

jounker• 5 years ago

Great. So you just made an app that helps bike thieves find the airtag hidden in my bicycle.

bogwog3• 5 years ago

Why would you assume the bike thief doesn't have an iPhone?

withinboredom2• 5 years ago

Because the bad guys never have one in the movies /s

kelnos4• 5 years ago

Won't the AirTag start beeping if your bike is stolen (that is, if the tag is away from your iPhone for too long)? I think that will alert them much better than this app will.

nikau2• 5 years ago

Some people are disabling the speaker by opening the airtag and and removing its connection.

Jcowell2• 5 years ago

No the time for that mechanism to activate is longer than a thief who has this app and checks immediately.

paxys• 5 years ago

I understand using it for keys and stuff, but attaching airtags to valuables and carrying them out in public has to be the stupidest idea ever. Apps like these are soon going to turn them into "steal me!" beacons.

psychometry2• 5 years ago

Please explain to me how a thief is going to use the existence of this tech to enable theft.

schrodinger• 5 years ago

I think their point is that knowing there’s an air tag on something nearby indicates it’s probably something of value worth stealing.

Jcowell2• 5 years ago

I’m confused about the difference between keys and valuables (as if keys aren’t valuables). Both suck to misplace and it’s helpful being able to find their pinpoint location or event of separation.

bogwog3• 5 years ago

This is something Apple should be providing themselves (edit: for Android). They already have "Apple TV", "Apple Music", and a "Move to iOS" app. Is it really so much to ask for a stalking prevention app?

hypothesis• 5 years ago

I can see those cheery iStalking ads already, telling you to get anti-stalking subscription.

And, of course, for adventurous devs they’re going to introduce a StalkingKit!

judge20203• 5 years ago

This already is the case. iOS alerts you of any airtag it detects for a long enough time.

celsoazevedo• 5 years ago

Since this app is for Android and the Apple apps mentioned by the parent comment are for Android, I think he's saying Apple should be the ones providing their own AirTag app for Android, not university students.

ajdude• 5 years ago

Apple should provide a “find my” app on android that not only detects rouge airtags but lets you participate in tracking your, and other’s, airtags like an iPhone can.

foxpurple3• 5 years ago

This has to be at the OS level or it will either be killed by the OS or ruin your battery life.

mrpoopy• 5 years ago

So if someone steals my air tagged device they can just turn it off. Nice

Thorrez2• 5 years ago

I think the marketed goal of AirTag isn't to prevent theft, it's to help find lost (but not stolen) objects, like if you left your keys somewhere.

kelnos4• 5 years ago

If someone steals your AirTagged device, after it's away from whatever you paired it with for a while, it'll start beeping, which will quickly alert the thief that they need to find the AirTag and throw it out. So I don't think AirTags were meant to deter theft; I think they're just there to help people find stuff they've misplaced.

eh9• 5 years ago

Does Apple have any incentives to release a first party tool to handle this? There’s precedent for Apple releasing Android tools and if anything should get sherlocked it’s this.

Causality1• 5 years ago

Don't AirTags already start beeping if they spend too much time around a single phone other than their owner's?

joeguilmette• 5 years ago

Yup. When other people get into my truck the AirTag in the glove box beeps.

AirGuard: Protect yourself from being tracked by AirTags and Find My accessories

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