But are AirTags private?
Might they leak private information and let other people find you?
“It cant be worse than an Apple Watch.”
Dmitry Ratushny / Unsplash
Finding a lost phone is easyin principle.
Thanks to GPS, the iPhone always knows where it is.
And if connected to the internet, it can tell you.
Apple’s Find My iPhone lets you track your lost device and provides you with multiple options.Apple
Find My lets you track your deviceseven when they have no internet connection.
It can also work with items that never, ever connect to the internet.
Things like Bluetooth tracking tags.
AirTags, in other words.
It works like this: The AirTag (or your phone) broadcasts an always-changing public key via Bluetooth.
The strangers iPhone uploads this encrypted location, plus acryptographically hashedversion of that public key, to Apples servers.
The trick is, only you might decrypt that data, so only you might see the location.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
If we assume that Apples tech is bulletproof, there are still some possible exploits.
This seems perfect for stalkers and a dream come true for the police.
But Apple already has thwarted that schemeas long as you carry an Apple gear.
If your iPhone detects that an AirTag is following you, it will send you an alert.
The Find My prefs also have a section for adding “items” to your tracking setup.
See the screenshots below.
The “help” links in these setup screens currently lead to blank pages on Apples site.
Ultimately, the test is in how well this performs in public.
One can imagine short-term stalking would still work until the victim receives the alert.
Otherwise, this seems like an incredible way not to lose your keys ever again.
