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Track your devices via Apple FindMy network in Go/TinyGo
- a12k 2y agoIncredibly cool. I am constantly amazed by these efforts and the find my network is a really impressive thing. What’s stopped me from using anything like this ever is the fact that I’m confident that at some point Apple will either embrace this sort of piggybacking on the network and open it up more officially, or it will ban any Apple ID that has ever been associated with such things. Right now they know about this and are not commenting either way. Hope in the future either Apple supports this more officially, or there is a way to use it with no direct link to my Apple ID or account. Until then, I am a spectator in these things.
- jcutrell 2y agoI think there is some positive effect potential for Apple to let this slide. The broader this network is, the more adoption it receives. P2P as a super-structure has always been a bigger than vendor problem; adoption by any means is likely an allowable tradeoff, especially since Apple doesn't have to do the work here. Eventually they will capitalize more on the mesh density, rather than crushing the adoption now.
- malmeloo 2y agoExcept that custom tags like these do not require an Apple device in order to use them, so the size of the network is not increased. They only increase the load on the network. FindMy is not a P2P/mesh network; all these tags do is broadcast keys which are picked up by iDevices, which then upload those reports to Apple.
- koolba 2y agoAre the keys not tied to known apple products? Or do you make them up when you first register a device? Trying to understand why apple doesn’t (or can’t?) already reject broadcast data from keys that are not apple products.
- prepend 2y agoI would guess because they don’t care. The marginal cost is zero and I think they would only bother if someone ddoses or it becomes an issue. Until then, more devices are probably positive for reducing potential pitchforking.
- malmeloo 2y agoTwo master secrets are randomly generated when pairing the AirTag for the first time, which are then saved to the iCloud keychain. Those secrets are then used to generate a new keypair every 15 minutes (at most), and the public key is broadcasted by the tag. Not only does Apple not know what the master secrets are in the first place (because they're stored in the keychain), but that's also an insane number of keys to compare against, with no real possibility to precompute them. And that's a big win in terms of privacy.
- malmeloo 2y agoThe process of requesting locations for a certain tag is not tied to any Apple Account. In the instructions in the README, when logging into macless haystack, you can just use a burner account.
- mmooss 2y agoHow is privacy protected? I wouldn't want everyone tracking my airtags.
- menzoic 2y ago>I wouldn't want everyone tracking my airtags. That’s kind of how the whole system works.
- mmooss 2y agoI thought it was designed to prevent unwanted people from tracking you. If I bought an airtag, you could track it? Without authentication or authorization?
- malmeloo 2y agoOnly if you have the private key belonging to the AirTag at the time of location capture. Anyone can download encrypted location reports for any AirTag found in the wild, but only the owner can decrypt them with the private key.
- nobunaga 2y agoIs it just me or this whole find my network capability is a security nightmare? I mean I understand its usefulness but can the [insert authority here] just request apple to tell them where this person is even without cellular coverage? Ive decided to move away from the apple ecosystem either way because of this but it just seems to me to be a surveillance nightmare.
- rgovostes 2y agohttps://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-sec6cbc80fd0/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
- nobunaga 2y agoInteresting thanks. I understand that its designed to be anonymous, but I guess it requires faith in Apple not complying to any forceful request from a security authority in the US to not modify it in secret.
- CubsFan1060 2y agoOf course that can be said for nearly anything you own. iPhone, android, tablet, anything that is Bluetooth (for instance, your car), etc.
- givinguflac 2y agoGiven apples outright refusal to help the FBI previously I have more faith than other companies that they’ll do the right thing. But nothing’s perfect.
- rgovostes 2y agoCryptographers who design these systems do consider the threat of a malicious future iteration of the company and thus try to reduce the trust in a centralized authority. Apple did fight in court to not have to crack the San Bernardino shooter’s phone, which probably didn’t garner much sympathy with the general public, specifically against government power to compel them to make changes to subvert security. They also publish a Transparency Report about government requests they’ve received and how many they’ve responded to.
- bloopernova 2y agoI hope in the future we can determine the position of beacons to within a cubic metre or less. My wife has ADD and she loses items often. Tiles aren't very loud and are flaky, we don't have an iPhone to use Airtags. I'm too exhausted to try to master the math needed to locate Bluetooth beacons, but I wish I could. I'd love for there to be a "just add 4 small Bluetooth boards" kind of software project, but it doesn't seem to scratch that itch for most open source devs.
- stackskipton 2y agoThat’s AirTags with modernish iPhone now.
- lolinder 2y agoI also have ADHD, am also constantly losing things, and I've had success with the Pebblebee tags. I have a tag on my keys and a card in my wallet. The noise is loud enough that I can hear it on a different floor in an old home with thick brick walls.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y agoIf you know that the item is inside your apartment, you only need the UWB part, which is quite orthogonal to this project.
- namibj 2y agoI'm looking at setting up a trial system for 39c3 to allow hunting down tools given out from the logistics department (pallet jacks, ladders, if cheap enough pallets that get left unattended). Timeline for that is 10-11 months from now for when hardware has to exist and work. I'd think of 2 or 3 AA batteries stuck to a small UWB PCB and stuck with tape of suitable type to the tool. Are 10$ each doable? I don't see why not, but can't find any board akin to a Bluepill or ESP32-VROOM or PiPico containing the HF part. The idea would be with base stations that can see each other well enough to synchronize and perform role-reversed pseudoranging to the tracker.
- 2y ago
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y agohttps://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-find-my-101 https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-find-my-101
- wkat4242 2y agoOoooh it looks like you can now use it without a Mac? That would be amazing. Because Apple trackers cost only a few euro (aftermarket ones of course)
- tomr75 2y agoAny recommendations?
- wkat4242 2y agoI just buy them in the shop. We have this shop called "Action" that sells a brand called "Fresh 'n' Rebel". They sell a pack of 3 tags for 16€. They work well. I have a bunch of them and also put some in some of my more expensive electronics so I can track them when they get stolen (with the speaker disabled of course)
- CPLX 2y agoTrying to parse this and can't tell. Can you use this with Apple's AirTags or do you have to create your own tracking devices?
- iJohnDoe 2y agoI was wondering the same thing.
- deadprogram 2y agoYou do need to create your own tracking beacon using one of of the devices supported by the TinyGo Bluetooth package: https://github.com/hybridgroup/go-haystack?tab=readme-ov-file#build-your-own-beacon https://github.com/hybridgroup/go-haystack?tab=readme-ov-fil...
- _-_-__-_-_- 2y agoStory time. My wife and I were vacationing in Portugal last summer. She left her purse in a uber car on the way to the airport. The driver found the purse and dumped it after taking 20$ and some costume jewellery. We tracked it to an abandoned parking lot later that day using an AirTag and we ended up finding it using the Location app. We have AirTags in every bag now and we change the batteries on a schedule.
- averageRoyalty 2y agoAll my bags also now have airtags. I was at Sydney airport lost baggage area a few years ago waiting for a bag I'd found was there after hours of speaking to the airline and airport. Another gentlemen there told them that his item was there. They'd been evacuated from a plane in New Zealand a month before and left his iPad in the seat pocket, and had tracked it back using Find My to Sydney. He travels internationally multiple times per month and said airtags were the best thing he owned. I've since added them into all my cars, bags and a few honeypots embedded into high value items that might be stolen.
- marci 2y agoHow do you know it was the driver and not someone they picked up after you?