Airtag Imystery

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iomegaman

Well-known member
GDIY Supporter
Joined
Dec 22, 2008
Messages
867
Location
Tucson, Az
So Tucson has a serious theft problem...in the last 3 years I've had 4 bikes stolen, all of them locked and secured and right off my various porches or yard tools buildings...the last 2 in the last 4 months...granted I live nearer to downtown which is always a haven for homeless and down-on-luck-desperados...and within a block of the University which is the same...
I ride "fixies" single speeds and have a particular style of handlebars I prefer, the "bullhorn" style and I'm tall so the bikes need to be larger frames...there are over 100 miles of continuous secure/safe/paved bike paths here so riding is my primary cardio-mind-clear-get-outside activity.
My Big Star bike was stolen in Oct. right off my porch so I bought a State single speed on CL for $150...right size, nice bike and I immediately bought an Apple Airtag and hide it on the bike in such a way as it looks like it is part of the seat post, camouflaged, etc...
Paired it with my iphone...last week someone broke into the maintenance shed and cut the lock off and a neighbor texted me to say she saw a guy hanging a bike on my wall...at around 12:30 PM...I immediately went out to look bike was gone.
At 10:30 I got a ping on the iPhone saying the bike was nearby about a block away...went to the location house was dark no one home...bike tag would not "sound" and phone could not find it.
Next day get another ping at 5:30 PM saying it was nearby this time about 800 feet closer at a church...I went and once again no bike...next day another ping at 6:30 same location...again no bike and tag could not be located...
Since then a pattern has developed: everytime the pastor of the church shows up I get a ping on the phone saying the bike is nearby and it gives the church as the location.
I actually met the pastor and explained the situation, he let me in the church and we looked everywhere for the airtag/bike to no success...he is genuinely interested in the mystery as well now...he's a 77 year old pastor really nice guy with an older iphone...he lives about 13 miles away and takes a specific route to the church every-time because of the "loop" making it faster...
At this point its no longer about the bike...its about why I get a message saying my bike is nearby anytime he's at the church...its like clockwork now...within 20-30 minutes after he arrives I get a notice...I've actually stood right next to him with my phone looking at his phone to see if it could locate the tag but it simply says "try moving around airtag unreachable"

Today is church services so I'm sure there's more than 1 iphone, but so far it was last seen when he got to the church at 8:49 am...
I've actually driven the same route he takes and gone to his house (13 miles away) to see if the tag is somehow in his neighborhood to no avail.
So I've been reading up on the technology behind these tags...they do NOT have any gps capabilities...they depend on Apples own "Find my" network of devices using ultra-wideband-technology...as I understand it the tag sends out a signal to local bluetooth devices (primarily Apple)...then the device sends that encrypted information upwards to the cloud where the location is pinned.
But here's the mystery...it appears that ONLY the pastors iphone is sending location information for the itag...when I go there with my newer iphone (using the U1 chip, his is older so no U1 chip...which means I can get a precise location but he cannot, he can only get a general location, estimated to be around 300-800 feet) I can see the location pinned, it is generally a few feet from his office (which is where the internet connection is)...but when I try to make it sound or try to get an exact location I've had no success, and like I said, its not his phone itself because when trying to find the item standing right next to him my phone says "move around to try and locate marks Bike"...
I've driven the entire neighborhood and walked it as well with my iphone trying to locate the tag...no luck.
In the past when I've gone on bike rides and stopped at a grocery store on the way home I get a message from INSIDE the store every-time saying "Marks bike has been left behind" because its on the bike rack on my car...so I know the technology works up to around 800 feet or so...
It has me wondering about how FAST is the technology? Suppose the pastor is driving by a location where my airtag is at...and his phone only updates when he connects to the internet once he gets to the church...how fast is a bluetooth handshake? The majority of his drive is an expressway going around 50 mph...there are a handful of stop lights once his route takes him to the church, but they pass the University and I'm pretty sure there are a TON of iphones in that area so his would not be the only one getting a ping.
Also why does it seem it is only HIS iphone that is getting my airtags message?
Kind of a mystery...at this point its no longer about the stolen bike, thats just the tax I pay for living in Tucson...but the techn ology mystery is certainly got me wondering...
 
Really sorry to hear Tucson has gotten that way.

So what you're saying is—it's not that when the pastor arrives the bike thief gets spooked and that's what causes the ping—it's like the bike/air tag is arriving as he arrives?
 
I'm not sure...I think his phone gets the airtag "ping" and once his phone connects to the church internet it uploads the data but now the location is ambiguous...

Apple is trying to walk a tightrope here...they've already been sued for stalkers using airtags to track victims...so they keep exact data location via the "find my " network sort of obscured until you are in range...I do not believe the thief is actually in the neighborhood with the bike...the ONLY pings I get are from the pastors phone, my phone won't find it...other apple phones are apparently not seeing it...
However an hour ago I got a quick pop up message that said the bike was at a different location, when I opened my phone app o look it defaulted back to the church location...fortunately I saw enough to google the location which is by the University...I'm now wondering if there's some sort of glitch that makes the pastors phone be the primary locator since his was the phone closest when the tag went missing?
 
I also do not know the real extent of Tucsons theft issue...it might just be a cultural development of the last few years and not isolated to here, however the close proximity to the border, the year round "no winter" and the drug corridor certainly amplify any cultural bent towards stealing as a form of underbelly capitalism...
 
Have you considered asking Apple for product support?

It seems they would be motivated to have an application victory to brag about.

JR

PS: I once saw two pukes stealing my motorcycle out of my garage (not as secure as Joe Biden's). I was able to see their license plate number and give it to the police. The police were able to find my motorcycle within a day or two, but kept it as evidence for several months. I guess the police thought I was a young puke too. :rolleyes: After I was subpoenaed to testify and showed up for court (I was used as a pawn to pressure the criminal), the miscreant took a plea deal, and did some time in the gray bar hotel.This entire ordeal did not leave me very happy.
 
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Good idea John, however I don't think Apple supports "theft prevention" as a product feature...but you never know, Apple is generally customer oriented...as much as any billion dollar corporation can be...
 
The one thing I have opinions about is the actual tracking history is not available...in other words it won't show more than the last "pinged" location...the one off pattern location I got an hour ago is no longer visible in any of the apps...I get it Apple...you don't want stalkers tracking movement...but I'm pretty sure the Law Enforcement Industry has your ear.

Just for reference my daughter who is a D.A. in California sent a guy to prison for murdering his girlfriend because they were able to track his iPhone which he had turned off while he shopped for a hunting knife in Walmart...they knew exactly where he was standing and for how long in front of the knife case and then tracked his phone to within 3 feet of where the body was found 6 months later.
They knew even with the phone off where it was...also it didn't help that he googled "How to kill someone" 6 hours before he committed the murder.

She told me I wouldn't believe how much data they get and use in investigations from our devices and social media...she even said they can get all the encrypted data from our devices its just the phone companies don't want us to know that.
 
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Apple may have more data than they are willing to share with consumers. Maybe ask your local police. If there are multiple similar thefts they might have enough leverage to get more useful data from Apple.

That said Apple is not known for cooperating with law enforcement. Good Luck...

I wonder what the bicycle theft sitch is like in the no-bail cities?

JR

PS; I used to loop a very heavy steel chain and padlock through my (motorcycle) rear wheel.
 
Yeah the last theft they broke my padlock left the chain...I've used bike locks, bike cables and this time it was in a wrought iron maintenance cage with a locked wrought iron gate that they apparently leveraged open...there's always a little bit of give in every hinge made...one theft off my porch they broke a concrete decorative pillar...I suppose there's a certain amount of adrenaline addiction for these people... this theft was in broad daylight at noon.
 
The two guys who stole my motorcycle back in the 80s, did it while I was home working. One puke knocked on my front door and tried to keep me busy with a line of blarney about offering to paint my house, while his buddy was dragging my motorcycle to his van... I became suspicious, and after I shoo'd the guy away from my front door I looked out my window and saw my motorcycle was missing from my garage. I saw them in enough time to get the license plate tag.
===
Another time when some different puke tried to steal my motorcycle from the condo where I was living. There was a pretty long driveway into back apartments where I lived. The puke had muscled it about half way out the driveway toward the street before abandoning it. I suspect some neighbor came home late at night and the headlights scared him away. I found it the next morning where he abandoned it.

JR
 
I talked to my daughter the D.A. today...she told me they actually see certain bikes traded around by the local druggies and they are called "the community bike" by the cops because of the way that culture works...same bike gets written up in crime reports all the time (this is in Oroville)...she said she's about 90% sure it was a druggie who stole it, it's part of the way they live...said "Be patient these people are not using their brains at all, they can't"
 
That almost sounds like a hippie commune with bikes shared. Almost, but not really.
===
About a year ago a teen girl knocked on my door asking about my spare bike sitting on my front porch. She was asking if she could borrow the bike, I said she could have it, but the bad news was that both tires were flat, so I had to do some work just to give it away. I topped up the tires and she pedaled away.

JR
 
That almost sounds like a hippie commune with bikes shared. Almost, but not really.
===
About a year ago a teen girl knocked on my door asking about my spare bike sitting on my front porch. She was asking if she could borrow the bike, I said she could have it, but the bad news was that both tires were flat, so I had to do some work just to give it away. I topped up the tires and she pedaled away.

JR
Did she return it? That's what I would understand "borrow" to mean...
 
That almost sounds like a hippie commune with bikes shared. Almost, but not really.
===
About a year ago a teen girl knocked on my door asking about my spare bike sitting on my front porch. She was asking if she could borrow the bike, I said she could have it, but the bad news was that both tires were flat, so I had to do some work just to give it away. I topped up the tires and she pedaled away.

JR
My initial reaction after seeing my bike stolen was the usual pissed off anger and disgust but those emotions are expensive to carry around for long so by Tuesday I was looking in the shed for bikes I could repair and give away if I found the criminizer...after talking to my daughter it seems it would not matter, but the shift in attitude was for me and not for them.

All possessions are temporary, everything breaks...only carry what your heart can handle.
 
I am not so chill about tolerating theft of personal property.

I was glad to gift my surplus bike, but stealing my primary ride would be another matter.

In many cases I am glad to give away things I no longer need, rather than trying to sell them. In recent years I have given away two lawnmowers that surely had value greater than zero. The recipients were happy with getting free stuff....

JR
 
The unfortunate reality is that in any German city a quality bike left unattended, locked or not, will get stolen very quickly. The only remedy is not to leave it outside.
 
We have an airtag on our cat (in his collar), in case he escapes. We were never able to get a precise location on where he was the last time he got out late at night: on my roof with the iPad, we would get intermittent signals that would place him in various parts of the neighborhood, and we could never ring it, until he appeared the next morning at the front door.

It comes down to how these devices work: normally, they act as 'beacons' and transmit a BT packet in a passive manner (passive meaning they do it without a connection), containing at least a unique ID (like a MAC address on a network port), and some other data like if they are stationary, moving, etc. BT beacons can travel thousands of feet in free air with line of site, because they are transmitted fairly frequently.

The BT system on a phone passively scans the various BT channels for these broadcast beacons, and if it can 'hear' them, it notes the receiving devices approximate location, and transmits a report to Apple. If the ID is one associated with the phone, it will take note of how strong the signal was as reported by the BT radio, and try to place it on the map as best as it can. The weaker the signal, the larger the area of error (and the larger the circle will be on the map). Obviously, the best case scenario is that many different phones hear the beacon, and you can much more accurately triangulated the position since you have many different test reports to use.

In order to ring the AirTag, it must establish a BT session so that it can instruct the AirTag to ring. This requires negotiating a link with the tag, establishing a connection, and then sending an instruction. This means the tag must be relatively close, and have a good enough signal with the phone in order to pass messages back and forth. Most phones don't run continuously with the GPS running, so even a devices location is an approximation (at best), unless you are doing something the requires precise location, like navigating.

It is entirely possible that the preacher is receiving one of these passive beacons sometime when his phone doesn't have a precise location for itself (very likely when the phone is moving, such as driving in the car, without navigating), so when the beacon is received, a precise location isn't being attached to the report before it is being sent to Apple. An average phone with passive location services can have errors of several hundred feet when it is moving rapidly (e.g. driving, biking). I think the fact that the report appears when he is at the church might be a red herring, as it may be favoring WiFi networks before transmitting it's report.

If he consistently reports a connection with the tag on a daily basis, you might ask him to run navigation back and forth to his house (or wherever he is traveling to and from), because foreground navigation will force on the GPS radios, and the location of the phone will be far more precise. If you get lucky, his phone will hear the beacon when the device has a precise location (e.g. is navigating), and when it transmits the report to Apple it will have a much more accurate fix at the time it is received.
 
I think it means you're supposed to go back to church. :)

Can you add cameras? They are great at deterrence. Add object/motion detection to your NVR, and triggers can be sent over your network, which means SMS texts to your cell.
 

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