Comment on Thieves caught stealing political yard signs

• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Does it only have to be phones or can it triangulate from wifi, like a ton of other tracking things do?

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  • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    All the tracker does (to my knowledge) is sending out a Bluetooth signal every Bluetooth-capable device that has been backdoored the appropriate software running and Bluetooth enabled, which is at least all IPhones, as well as many Android smartphones, will pick up those Bluetooth signals, calculate the rough distance based on the delay, and then send the rough location to the Apple servers. The Airtag itself does not calculate anything.

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    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      My understanding is that most modern iPhones, iPads, and Mac laptops will respond to Air Tags and forward their pings to Apple.

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• Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  How far is “close”? Unless these people left their phone in their car, it eould have to be more than 30 feet like bluetooth, right?

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  • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    10-30 meters to the random apple device, pending environment conditions.

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  • fishpen0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    They don’t need to leave their phone in their car or even have a phone themselves. If any iPhone sees the device from ~30 feet away it reports back to Apple where it saw it. So even passing traffic was likely to report where the tracker was. Unless the tracker is moved while no phones are near it, Apple knows where it is

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