FindMy Flipper – AirTag and SmartTag Emulator

Re:FindMy Flipper – AirTag and SmartTag Emulator by nom on Monday August 19, 2024 @08:14AM (#41290354)

If it's not patched yet: I heard you can just power cycle a tag on a timer to evade detection. Add a large battery with a simple timer circuit, remove the beeper and you got yourself an amazing tracking device.

IIRC this came up in the context of tracking shipments with expensive equipment, where it can be in transit for many months. The tags are so power efficient that they work for ages on a large battery, existing GPS solutions just didn't cut it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FindMy Flipper – AirTag and SmartTag Emulator by CPLX on Monday August 19, 2024 @09:15AM (#41290786)

I use them out of the box to track expensive equipment in cases and the batteries are good for 6-12 months or so, sometimes longer.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FindMy Flipper – AirTag and SmartTag Emulator by gruez on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:31AM (#41291375)

>If it's not patched yet: I heard you can just power cycle a tag on a timer to evade detection

I'm not sure how apple could ever patch it. If you were willing to add a power-cycling microcontroller to your airtag, it wouldn't be that much effort to also add a bank of airtags to cycle through, which would make the apparatus totally indistinguishable from a group of airtags coming in and out of range constantly.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FindMy Flipper – AirTag and SmartTag Emulator by teaearlgraycold on Monday August 19, 2024 @12:43PM (#41292549)

Well, not totally indistinguishable. But hard to write hard coded rules for.

[ Parent | on HN ]