I'm not fully onboard with the logic that we just have to live with a certain type of criminal behavior because the technology that could prevent it can be misused to enable another type of criminal behavior. We should aim to stop any kind of criminal behavior.

> I'm not fully onboard with the logic that we just have to live with a certain type of criminal behavior because the technology that could prevent it can be misused to enable another type of criminal behavior. We should aim to stop any kind of criminal behavior.

I don’t think anyone is making a claim that we should live with this according to first principles. I think people are saying this trade-off currently exists because it doesn’t seem to be economically or technologically feasible to solve both well.

How do you propose making an improvement to tracking technology that reduces theft while at the same time not assisting stalking?

One idea: if you report your AirTag as stolen, then it can continue to track the item, but you lose the ability to see where it is. In so doing you hand off tracking capability to some authority. This could be an improvement to the extent that the authority is trustworthy and well behaved. Unfortunately, such properties are not guaranteed across the globe. This would create more incentives for bribery for example.

Even in most first world countries the police won't help for the theft of an item of small value like a bag or even a bike.

We should, but also we should prioritise more harmful behaviour being prevented over less harmful behaviour, and stalking/harassment is in my opinion more harmful than property theft.

Not on Earth, no.

It would be if stalking happened at the same frequency as property theft, but the rates are ridiculously lopsided.

So much property theft happens that we don't bother reporting almost any of it.

Frequency isn't really an issue here. I don't care that much if someone steals my luggage. I'd be a little mad if someone took my bike, but I have redundant protection for it, along with other things of more importance, or I keep them on me.

But I'd really, really not like to find out someone was following me around.

If society didn't have to spend the amount of resources that it does dealing with the consequences of personal theft then it would have more resources to direct towards issues like stalking.

I bet Apple could produce some really interesting data from these tools and others that could be used to proactively target stalkers and investigate them before their actions escalate to violence.

Hell yeah, thoughtcrime!

Let's get Tom Cruise in here and whoop some ass!

Now try traveling with $30k of equipment in your luggage, like millions do every year.

You're well beyond the scope of an Airtag at that point. Either you've insured the gear, or you ship it in some more secure fashion, or you have a satellite tracker in it, or whatever other mitigation you can do here. Airtags are great things you might misplace more than anything.

> It would be if stalking happened at the same frequency as property theft, but the rates are ridiculously lopsided.

But the impact of the two activities is also lopsided:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_matrix

Stalking can potentially result in rape and death, even if there's a low probability of stalking happening in general.