The use of AirTags raises several privacy issues. At the end of 2022, we learned that two women filed a complaint against Apple after their ex-partner spied on them using this accessory. Although there are several ways to detect stalking, researchers from Johns Hopkins and California universities have developed a solution aimed at enhancing the security of these tracking devices. Made in Cupertino.
As a reminder, AirTags relies on the encrypted and anonymous Locate network, made up of hundreds of millions of Apple devices around the world, which interact with it via Bluetooth to indicate its location in iCloud. The data belongs only to the user, and to his private life as well. However, the system that Apple envisions has been hijacked several times by malicious people (thieves, jealous husbands, etc.).
Several researchers therefore designed an encryption solution, which, according to them, would prevent a person from being tracked by an unscrupulous person using AirTag. Currently, the accessory rings after a certain period of being away from its owner, and the latter is even alerted to the situation on his iPhone, but this does not slow down stalkers who take advantage of this period of time to act.
Confidential sharing is preferred by researchers
The researchers' encryption solution is called “secret sharing,” a method that protects confidential information by making it available only when specific conditions are met. For AirTags, this will be the true persistent identity of the accessory, hidden under a public identifier that may change frequently for privacy reasons.
Quite simply, it is as if the accessory has a mask that is constantly changing so as not to be recognized. This mask is the public identifier. The true persistent identity is only revealed when certain conditions are met to ensure user confidentiality and security. This solution will therefore make it very difficult for a malicious person to track the AirTag over a certain period, because they will lose track of it due to the ever-changing public ID.
Not only do experts suggest sharing secrets, they advocate it “Error correction code”a coding technology designed to separate useful data from noise to preserve signal quality, even in the event of error or interference.
