AirTags are being used by organised crime groups to track luxury cars in Canada

[Silent Node]

Summary

 York Regional Police have issued an advisory indicating that criminals are using Apple AirTags to track luxury vehicles for eventual theft.

 

Quotes

Quote

 The police specifically mentioned the AirTags which are placed by the criminals in hidden locations of the car when parked in high-traffic areas or a parking lot. The vehicles are subsequently tracked to the owner’s houses, where the tech-savvy criminal syndicate will then use a raft of devices to gain access into the vehicles and drive them out of the parking lot.

 

My thoughts

 There isn't an obvious way to protect yourself against this if you must public-park your car. While it mentions that Apple is testing out an iOS update that may allow users to track AirTags that don't belong to you, how does that help Android users?

Also, how might this effect trying to hide in Linus' house undetected?

 

Sources

 https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/12/05/apple-airtags-track-luxury-cars-criminal-syndicate-canada/

[WhitetailAni]

4 minutes ago, Silent Node said:

While it mentions that Apple is testing out an iOS update that may allow users to track AirTags that don't belong to you

That's really stupid. I hope I don't need to explain why.

[Srijan Verma]

Can airtags connect to android phones? if not that's probably the only way of preventing urself from being tracked.

[Quackers101]

EEEEMMMMPPPP!!! get down! it's WW3!

ofc this would be abused, just have your own iphone and track it, tracking you

but I mean, all the expensive cars in criminals hands? won't they stand out more? and leave your own tracker in the car?

also if all criminals did this, bring them all down with expensive car bait.

[Silent Node]

3 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

That's really stupid. I hope I don't need to explain why.

I'm glad you reacted that way as well, I was worried that I was going to be the only one who saw this as an even bigger potential security issue.

Want to find other peoples important stuff? There's an app for that!

[xAcid9]

They don't see this coming when they stole copied created the airtag? 

[poochyena]

There are already laws against this and will easily add ~12 months to a jail sentence and thousands in fines. Seems smarter to just watch the car from a distance than to risk extra jail time if caught.

42 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

That's really stupid. I hope I don't need to explain why.

wait, how so? If it can inform you that there is an airtag within ~5 meters of you, then I don't see the negatives?

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, poochyena said:

wait, how so? If it can inform you that there is an airtag within ~5 meters of you, then I don't see the negatives?

It’s literally letting you track other

people’s stuff, and even if it’s configured to only report if stuff is nearby, that’s:

1. Only for iPhones

2. What’s to stop people from finding a way to read specific location data instead of just proximity, as unless Apple has proximity sensors on the AirTags they’re probably using location data to find how close an object is.

[poochyena]

15 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

It’s literally letting you track other

people’s stuff, and even if it’s configured to only report if stuff is nearby, that’s:

1. Only for iPhones

2. What’s to stop people from finding a way to read specific location data instead of just proximity, as unless Apple has proximity sensors on the AirTags they’re probably using location data to find how close an object is.

If it only alerts you of when an airtag is within ~5 meters, then I don't really see it as tracking, and idk how someone would get specific location data from that.

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, Srijan Verma said:

Can airtags connect to android phones? if not that's probably the only way of preventing urself from being tracked.

Well yer they use bluetooth, any BLE device can detect that a given AirTag is around I'm surprised people have not already written an android apps to do this.  Some android phones even have UWB so could do the finding system as well.

[hishnash]

53 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

2. What’s to stop people from finding a way to read specific location data instead of just proximity, as unless Apple has proximity sensors on the AirTags they’re probably using location data to find how close an object is.

Current the AirTag transmits a ID (well a cryptography rotating ID so its not the same all the time) iPhones in the area collect this and record there approach location then as a bundle upload that to apples servers (without any info about the iPhone that captured it just the hashes of AirTags the iPhone detected and the locations it detected them at). Then the owner of the AirTag is able to use the other part of the crypto handshake is able to download these location events (that could have been captured by many different iPhones). 

The AirTags do have a proximity sensor to the iPhone but only use this when the user is trying to find them that is what the ultra wide band chip provides very accurate positioning (based on time of flight!). 

[Forbidden Wafer]

8 hours ago, hishnash said:

[...] the ultra wide band chip provides very accurate positioning (based on time of flight!). 

Just reminded me of a paper of people adding a protocol on top of the Wi-Fi spec to be able to calculate the TOF for indoor localization. It just made users hop between frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz following a certain pattern, plus some clever calculation and boom, distance between nodes with 10-30 cm of precision. 

Here is the link to the paper if anyone is interested: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/nsdi16/nsdi16-paper-vasisht.pdf

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, FakeKGB said:

It’s literally letting you track other

people’s stuff, and even if it’s configured to only report if stuff is nearby, that’s:

1. Only for iPhones

2. What’s to stop people from finding a way to read specific location data instead of just proximity, as unless Apple has proximity sensors on the AirTags they’re probably using location data to find how close an object is.

The airtags already emit signals so if you wanted to check that there are airtags nearby you already kind of can do that.  It's not that it will let you track AirTags that you don't own, but rather that it would just likely allow you to see that there are airtags nearby.

 

1 hour ago, poochyena said:

There are already laws against this and will easily add ~12 months to a jail sentence and thousands in fines. Seems smarter to just watch the car from a distance than to risk extra jail time if caught.

It's smarter using AirTags.  You can canvas a high-traffic parking lot getting 10's of high valued vehicles, and then target them when they are stopped in a non-busy area.  To put an AirTag on a vehicle would literally just take some putty on the back of an AirTag and sticking it in the wheel well...so a lot less chance of seeming suspicious (can literally do it while walking by a car).  If you really wanted to as well, you could also just jam it in an upper seem (like the trunk hatch, or the front intake of the vehicle) so if someone did find it, they would be more likely to think it had just fallen on the vehicle or been caught up in the vehicle.

 

A decent amount of people would notice someone following them to a non-busy street anyways (and then you can only target a single vehicle).  So yea, it's probably more efficient to use AirTags

[poochyena]

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's smarter using AirTags.  You can canvas a high-traffic parking lot getting 10's of high valued vehicles, and then target them when they are stopped in a non-busy area.

I'm not really understanding what that accomplishes exactly. Why not just wait around in the non-busy area? What are the odds that a random car in a busy parking lot ends up parking at some secluded back alley or whatever? Makes sense to stalk someone, but I don't see how its beneficial in car theft.

[wanderingfool2]

22 minutes ago, poochyena said:

I'm not really understanding what that accomplishes exactly. Why not just wait around in the non-busy area? What are the odds that a random car in a busy parking lot ends up parking at some secluded back alley or whatever? Makes sense to stalk someone, but I don't see how its beneficial in car theft.

It's simple numbers.  A high traffic area you are can find more vehicles that match what you are looking for.  From there you can easily track people to when they park in a low-traffic area (or better yet their house).  There is a decent amount of people who would end up parking in a driveway...or in an area that could be easily stolen.

[Thaldor]

4 hours ago, poochyena said:

I'm not really understanding what that accomplishes exactly. Why not just wait around in the non-busy area? What are the odds that a random car in a busy parking lot ends up parking at some secluded back alley or whatever? Makes sense to stalk someone, but I don't see how its beneficial in car theft.

Watch the beginning of the movie Death Wish.

 

In short if you have a nice car, you most likely have a nice home with nice things in it and it would be pretty bad if someone was to find out your address, wait outside until you're gone and take your nice things. With AirTags no one needs to break into your car to check your address from the navigator (you should never have your home address in your navigator but some public address close-by where it's trivial to find your home but for someone who doesn't know where you live impossible), steal your wallet or something to find out your address or just stalk you to your home. Even better for the criminals is that they don't need to stalk your home, the AirTag happily tells them when at least your nice car isn't at your nice home and most likely you aren't in your nice home guarding your nice things. Cherry on the top would be that you have cool smart home alarm that sends 24/7 data to internet and you haven't done the advanced setup and have default passwords and whatelse in it (most likely you have 2-3 years old stuff and full of security holes like every product done just to fill in the need for new stuff) so when the criminals find out your address, they can almost just drive-by, connect to your WiFi and now they also can use your smart home (or just go good old barbaric and cut the powerline of your home, it's pretty hard to connect to a camera feed if the camera doesn't have internet).

[SADS]

If the crims were already determined to track someones location, surely they could just be taping cheap smartphones or R-Pi style devices to vehicles.

It feels like airTags just make this kind of crime easier/more accessible...not that this is a good thing.

 

I think having a local search for these things would be useful... and a little reassuring tbh.

It does seem a bit odd to me that Apple would develop that as a feature... the ability to find an airTag near you, that you don't own.

Its basically a feature for someone that isn't a customer

[Taf the Ghost]

Should be noted that GPS trackers aren't exactly new. It also isn't the first time they've been used to track and steal cars. Airtags are just cheap and available. 

[Dracarris]

Doesn't the airtag system have an anti-stalking feature exactly for this? If an Airtag is following you along that isn't yours, it will a) sound an alarm (can easily be disabled) and b) inform the corresponding phone. Now of course this only works on iphone, but what are the chances owners of high-end cars having an iphone?

 

There you go:

Quote

AirTag is designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your stuff, your iPhone will notice it’s traveling with you and send you an alert. After a while, if you still haven’t found it, the AirTag will start playing a sound to let you know it’s there.

Of course, if you happen to be with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train with a whole bunch of people with AirTag, don’t worry. These alerts are triggered only when an AirTag is separated from its owner.

That really is annoying for the use case as an anti-theft device. I wanted to hide a few in/around my bike. But if it ever gets stolen and the thief has an iphone I am straight out of luck.

[Fasterthannothing]

Why not just have air tags disabled after 24hrs if they are not in x amount of range? If someone loses something with an air tag on it they will come find it within 24hrs I can guarantee you that. However in this case they would have a high chance of sitting on a vehicle for more than 24hrs. 

[RejZoR]

Who ever thought these devices totally won't be used for such stuff lol? I totally knew it'll happen. And so it has.

[Dracarris]

51 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Who ever thought these devices totally won't be used for such stuff lol? I totally knew it'll happen. And so it has.

Which is why Apple has built in an anti-stalking protection, as I pointed out above but no one seems to care here, so far.

 

Also, GPS trackers have been around since forever and ofc also been abused. But now that the devices in question have a fruit logo on it, ofc everyone and their dog goes haywire. Same story literally every time.

[StDragon]

10 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

They don't see this coming when they stole copied created the airtag? 

 

1 hour ago, SlidewaysZ said:

Why not just have air tags disabled after 24hrs if they are not in x amount of range? If someone loses something with an air tag on it they will come find it within 24hrs I can guarantee you that. However in this case they would have a high chance of sitting on a vehicle for more than 24hrs. 

Done! 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57351554

If the owner is separated from the Airtag between 8 and 24 hour, it makes an audible chirp to alert others of potential stalking. Though apparently it knows via GPS from other iPhones or last known location that if it's at home, it won't chirp.

For those looking to keep tabs on a pet (like a cat that will often stays away from home days at a time before coming back), or track a stolen bicycle, this will not help you.

"Later this year, we will also introduce an Android application that will enable users to detect an AirTag or Find My network-enabled accessory separated from its owner that may be travelling with a user,"

[Dracarris]

I might have to consider the possibility that my posts are invisible to other forum members.

[poochyena]

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's simple numbers.  A high traffic area you are can find more vehicles that match what you are looking for.  From there you can easily track people to when they park in a low-traffic area (or better yet their house).  There is a decent amount of people who would end up parking in a driveway...or in an area that could be easily stolen.

A 4 pack is $100. Thats a lot of money tracking a lot of cars just for the small odds one might be parked in a low populated area.
If you are tracking cars to their house.. why not just drive around neighborhoods looking for car? Plenty of cars are parked outside, not in a locked garage. You could even look on google maps street view. I don't understand the advantage of tracking a car to a certain location. Why not just camp out in that location to begin with and wait for a car to show up?

 

4 hours ago, Thaldor said:

In short if you have a nice car, you most likely have a nice home with nice things in it and it would be pretty bad if someone was to find out your address, wait outside until you're gone and take your nice things.

but why track the car? Why not just go to the home to begin with? I can pull up zillow right now to find out where the million dollar homes are in my city. I don't have to elaborately track any cars. This only makes sense if you are looking for a VERY specific car or person, and not just stealing whatever expensive car you find.