• @TrickDacy
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    3 months ago

    Tile? The brand that predates airtags and where apple stole the idea from and just made it proprietary to their ecosystem

    Edit: what a bizarre thing to downvote

      • @TrickDacy
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        153 months ago

        Which happens to practically all companies eventually.

        The hacker gained access to a customer support platform. Credit card numbers, passwords, and location data are not at risk, says parent company Life360.

        • @[email protected]
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          73 months ago

          There are 2 types of companies, the ones who have been hacked the the ones which don’t know they’ve already been hacked g about to be hacked.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 months ago

          True yet still not OK.

          That’s also why a lot of us do try to avoid, as much as is realistically feasible, to provide any data to any company that should store it. Hence why a lot of questions here are about self hosting, no cloud, etc. It’s not paranoia, it’s because companies cut corners and as you correctly point out, fail to keep us safe. So it’s not about Tile specifically, they are just yet another poor example. Let’s not defend them nor this kind of practices. If people in the Privacy community are OK with that, we have a rather deep problem.

          • @TrickDacy
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            23 months ago

            They asked for an alternative to airtags. I provided one. Doesn’t matter if they were compromised because like I said, everyone is eventually. The data leaked is almost certainly super redundant for almost every user anyhow

            • @[email protected]
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              3 months ago

              They asked for an alternative to airtags. I provided one.

              And even though I’m not OP I’m genuinely grateful for that.

              Doesn’t matter if they were compromised because like I said, everyone is eventually.

              No! That’s the whole point of this Privacy community! If someone is using, using home automation as an example, Apple HomeKit or Roomba or Google Home they will eventually get compromised BUT if they are using something local, e.g Zigbee with HomeAssistant they WILL never get compromised because by the very local only architecture of that solution no data is leaving the home and thus can NOT be compromised.

              The ENTIRE reason d’etre of this community is not to say “Oh well… the default solutions are imperfect, we have to shrug and accept the statu quo” but rather provide genuinely alternative.

              I understand a lot of people can enter into a learned helplessness mindset imagining that only poor solutions exist and thus, better pick the least worst one, but by doing that we are giving power to Big Tech, surveillance capitalism, etc.

              Please do NOT say that “everybody gets compromised” when you actually mean that “the vast majority of people who accept to use a popular solution with trade offs that are not good for privacy”. It sounds like a finicky difference but it’s actually totally different because it shows that it’s not inevitable.

              By taking shortcut in your language you limit what’s conceived as possible by others who are asking for help, again, in a Privacy focused community.

              • @TrickDacy
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                13 months ago
                1. I didn’t realize what community it was because they weren’t specific at all. They just asked for an alternative.
                2. You don’t seem to realize that it is literally true: everyone gets compromised. I mean not only companies but it also applies to self hosted systems. One example was that my home server got hacked a few years ago. Magically virus filled executables showed up in thousands of my directories. This was a Linux server. Any open port will get hijacked if it is open for long enough.
                3. This type of product asked about literally does not and cannot exist in a self hosted situation. The only way they can work is if a critical mass of other users are near the device, also using the supporting app, with Bluetooth enabled, that way you have any chance of its location being reported.
                4. The data breach that happened in this case affected data that almost every citizen has out there anyhow from a dozen other data breaches. Yes it obviously is sometimes due to irresponsible practices but there isn’t much to be done about it now that the data has been out there for a decade.

                I know you mean well here but you’re off base and it’s coming across as lecturing me about something you aren’t fully informed about. I am not saying people shouldn’t care about privacy. I’m saying if you want this type of product, all the concerns you’re mentioning here are literally impossible to avoid. The best you could do is find the company with the least number of breaches and then pray they remain that way. But that doesn’t really get you very far.

                • @[email protected]
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                  3 months ago

                  I must express myself quite poorly. It is not a point about technical knowledge, in fact if you were to know more about the topic than I do, I would expect you to even more be upheld to higher standards and thus not promote a bad solution, even more so assume it’s the only one. I can’t imagine that even a PhD student who is supposedly at the frontier of knowledge in their very narrow field would assume no alternative is possible, or will ever be. This even more the case without having both a complete understand of the landscape but also about OP’s actual needs, which is probably hard to express clearly and thus leading to a lot of assumption. Here maybe a simple loud alarm from a BT speaker going out of range might be enough.

                  My whole point is that abandoning hope, and leading others to do so, is worst than actively finding for a barely OK compromise.

                  Anyway I don’t want to invest more energy on this discussion unfortunately so simply wishing you the best, thanks for the clarifications.

                  • @TrickDacy
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                    03 months ago

                    Wow. No one is abandoning hope by simply recognizing what options exist

      • @TrickDacy
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        83 months ago

        …airtags* are what were asked about an alternative for. Autocorrect.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 months ago

          Yes, I know and I’ve seen them before but you said apple stole their idea, no? I’m curious to know more

          • @TrickDacy
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            3 months ago

            Tile (stylized as tile) is an American consumer electronics company which produces tracking devices that users can attach to their belongings such as keys and backpacks. A companion mobile app for Android and iOS allows users to track the devices using Bluetooth 4.0 in order to locate lost items or to view their last detected location.[1] The first devices were delivered in 2013.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile_(company)

            AirTag was announced on April 20, 2021,[3][4] made available for pre-order on April 23, and released on April 30.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirTag

            Apple has stolen most ideas they ever execute. A lot of people believe they do the best job of execution but I don’t buy that in most cases. I mean here’s a perfect example. A product that has been working great with any device for 8 years and here they come with a version that locks you into their ecosystem. I’m good on that.

            • @[email protected]
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              03 months ago

              Uh thanks. I was curious about it, It didn’t really surprise me to know apple stole the idea from someone (like any other big company). Thanks for your answer and time!

              • @TrickDacy
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                3 months ago

                Not sure where the disconnect is. You weren’t very clear with your question but yes I did take time to attempt to clear up what you seemed to be asking about.

                And no, not every big company flat out steals ideas. Apple is notorious for doing this, but other companies are not. At least none I can think of.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    23 months ago

                    Apple is (rightfully IMO) far more notorious for taking something that’s been around for years already, adding it to their product line (or as a feature in a product), and then pretending they invented it. Almost every company will copy features/products from other companies, but they don’t usually pretend to have invented the whole thing.

                    Example: Gmail. It was revolutionary, but not because Google really invented much (or indeed claimed to). Rather, it was revolutionary because it provided features that already existed in paid options (e.g. full IMAP support, large mailbox sizes) for free, with a good web interface.

                  • @TrickDacy
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                    3 months ago

                    Maybe I’m wrong but I remember the old days of jailbreaking an iPhone (4s my last iPhone) and I know some tweaks are now in implemented on iOS their own way soo you’re correct (does this count??)

                    Rereading our exchange multiple times even, I’ve no idea what you’re saying or what this has to do with anything.

                    Apple and google? They kinda copy each other right?

                    No. You aren’t listening. Apple is known especially for stealing ideas. It’s their whole business model, in fact. Steve Jobs bragged about it.

                    I don’t really know if a tile is “good for privacy”. It depends on a lot of things and you should research it yourself. Since my goal for the tile is to be able to find my devices, keys, bags, etc, I expect there to be personal info asked for and that’s true. I highly doubt an airtag would be any better for privacy.