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Thieves caught stealing political yard signs (files.catbox.moe)

submitted 4 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Does it only have to be phones (and specifically iPhones) or can it triangulate from wifi, like a ton of other tracking things do? Even if you don't connect to the wifi, the polling for available Wi-Fi connections can still be used to triangulate position.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

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 devices will 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

Reminds me a bit about how the German covid app worked. Obviously not for location tracking, but to track whether you got in contact with someone who's potentially infected.