Does anyone know how Apple’s privacy protocol for AirTags combines with their anti-tracking features? Seems like the two should be incompatible. (I have some guesses but I’m wondering if it’s officially documented.)
My guess is that the AirTag cycles its broadcast pseudonym at a slower rate than your phone can scan, so if your phone detects many broadcasts of the same pseudonym within some time window it says “ah, an AirTag is near me.” And it links this over many windows.
In other words, Apple is taking advantage of a weakness in their anti-tracking protocol to do tracking, in the service of preventing a different kind of tracking.
There are other ways to do this by adding features to the protocol. The trick is to keep them from being abused. So this one seems like easiest approach, since the flaw is already present.
Gagh if this is true, no wonder Apple can track the damn things. Their anti-tracking features are a joke.
https://twitter.com/naehrdine/status/1472678622599258119
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