At the end of the article they say many of the listings have terrible reviews because the safety features in FindMy were triggered.

If any of these devices use the networks Google and Apple made, they are not gps.

This post is like a kid who grew up in country clubs and gated neighborhoods just finding out that people illegally sell drugs.

This kind of spy tech has been available and marketed the same way for decades. The only difference is that these are small.

Got a link to it on thingiverse?

It has way less to do with the size of the device and more to do with the size of the battery. Not much room left at all between the cell modem and GPS antenna required to make that thing work.

Indeed, the models I have seen have a very short battery life, or check in infrequently, or only check in when movement is detected, or use cell signal triangulation to save battery, etc.

why is tiktok even still a thing. didn't it get banned? can it pls die already?

This is why America is the best nation in the known universe.

Use LoRa instead of sim cards so they can't tell who bought it though

Yeah, but they used to be fairly obvious. Mechanics would routinely pull them off of women's cars and people would get arrested. I think it's good they're keeping this in the public eye.

His logo leaves very little to the imagination

Tik tok submitted to the US government (probably for a massive bribe) so it's here to stay so long as people keep using it.

Yes and electric vehicles too

(ICE is also an acronym used to refer to internal combustion engines in automotive circles)

Mechanics would routinely pull them off of women's cars and people would get arrested.

Really? I'm almost 50 and this is the first time I've ever heard that. Do you have any data to back up that claim?

providing services for their mental illnesses in the states.

Statistics show that this would cost less money than engaging the unwell with police, but then how would we justify huge police budgets?

Google Search

(www.google.com)

I don't think anyone's been keeping stats but it's been a thing ever since GPS was widely available and cheap-ish. It seems to divide up between stalking and scummy car dealerships with a few people under fed surveillance thrown in.

I'm fully aware of how to search the internet, how GPS trackers work, and how they are used.

The part I'm skeptical of is that mechanics routinely pull them off women's cars and that people were arrested. That sounds like FUD to me.

You can buy nitrous ANYWHERE, so I wouldn’t blame TikTok for that.

Best way to detect that?

For airtags there's airguard and similar apps, but more advanced locators? Maybe a SDR to analyse traffic?

Man, what a quandary. Guess we just continue incarcerating the mentally unwell and arming the facists. Sounds like there’s no better option. Glad that’s sorted.

we could, I dunno, quantify which results in better outcomes over time: a jacked up roided police force responding to mental health problems by criminalizing the suffering, or, I guess, maybe... provide some mental health services?

seems fraught with potential.