Apple’s tiny trackers have been used creatively once again.
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There’s no disputing that Apple’s AirTags have benefits and issues. Sure, the handy little devices can be used to keep tabs on luggage and important items, but likewise they can also be used to track people without them knowing, as model Brooks Nader has previously claimed. With this quite harrowing story in mind, an activist in Germany has used an AirTag to uncover a German intelligence agency that she has been attempting to expose for some time now.
As reported by Apple Insider, Lilith Wittmann has been researching and attempting to shine a light on Germany’s Federal Telecommunications Service, an organisation that she is certain is actually a “camouflage authority” for an intelligence agency.
To confirm her claim, Wittmann decided the best method was to simply send the organisation some post and to see where it ended up, as she was convinced that the Federal Telecommunications Service was actually part of an intelligence agency called the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as she talks about in her blog post.
“To understand where mail ends up,” said Wittman (after translation), “[you can do] a lot of manual research. Or you can simply send a small device that regularly transmits its current position (a so-called AirTag) and see where it lands.”
With this in mind, Wittmann discovered that the AirTag was sent to a sorting office in Berlin and then was transferred to a sorting office in Cologne, where it was delivered to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the same city. Meaning a parcel that was addressed to one organisation in one city, actually ended up in a different city in the hands of an organisation with a different name.
Despite Wittmann’s efforts, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s existence is still officially not confirmed.
Keyword: Activist uses an Apple AirTag to locate a German intelligence agency