Photo: Bogdan Popa/autoevolution/Dodge
Apple's AirTag has already demonstrated that it's worth its salt on several occasions, helping people find their lost belongings or assisting the police in recovering stolen cars, but this one case from Nashville could serve as excellent marketing material for the iPhone maker.
The AirTag helped recover a stolen 2016 Dodge Charger, with the Metro Nashville Police Department using the location shared by the device to track the thief from the air in real-time.
The Charger's owner contacted the police in August to report a theft, telling the officers that his vehicle was equipped with an AirTag.
Apple's small device is a tracker that uses the Find My network to communicate with the master iPhone. It doesn't sport a built-in Internet connection, but thanks to nearby iPhones, it can broadcast its coordinates and show its location in nearly real-time on the map.
The pill-shaped device connected to the Charger owner's iPhone and provided the police with location information, with the first officers tracking the car down on Bell Road. An aviation unit was deployed to monitor the vehicle's location in real-time, and using the AirTag data, officers could find the stolen Charger next to a barbershop on Mountain View Road.
Officers in the helicopters scanned the suspect and communicated the description to their colleagues on the ground. 18-year-old Kevonta Brooks was eventually taken into custody and is now held in custody on a $28,500 bond.
If you wonder how he unlocked the Charger, the answer was found in Brooks' backpack. Officers found several illegal items: a vehicle key fob, a vehicle key programming device, and a screwdriver. Most likely, he managed to clone the owner's original key, created a duplicate, and then tricked the car's ECU to authorize it.
The story highlights two essential bits.
First, the AirTag has become a must-have tracking device, not just for small items like wallets and car keys but for vehicles altogether. Police recommend car owners to plant an AirTag into their vehicles, as the shared location information can help find thieves faster.
Second, cloning car keys remains a major problem for the automotive industry and car owners. Thieves typically intercept the radio signal using a scanner, eventually cloning the device and using it to start the car using the signal stored in the memory. The process takes just a few seconds and can be launched from outside your house, as long as the original car key is close to the vehicle (inside the building but next to the door, for example).
Police tell car owners to alert law enforcement the moment they observe the vehicle is missing, as the faster the search begins, the bigger the chances for the car to be recovered if the thief doesn't have enough time to find and remove the AirTag.
The Charger's owner contacted the police in August to report a theft, telling the officers that his vehicle was equipped with an AirTag.
Apple's small device is a tracker that uses the Find My network to communicate with the master iPhone. It doesn't sport a built-in Internet connection, but thanks to nearby iPhones, it can broadcast its coordinates and show its location in nearly real-time on the map.
The pill-shaped device connected to the Charger owner's iPhone and provided the police with location information, with the first officers tracking the car down on Bell Road. An aviation unit was deployed to monitor the vehicle's location in real-time, and using the AirTag data, officers could find the stolen Charger next to a barbershop on Mountain View Road.
Officers in the helicopters scanned the suspect and communicated the description to their colleagues on the ground. 18-year-old Kevonta Brooks was eventually taken into custody and is now held in custody on a $28,500 bond.
If you wonder how he unlocked the Charger, the answer was found in Brooks' backpack. Officers found several illegal items: a vehicle key fob, a vehicle key programming device, and a screwdriver. Most likely, he managed to clone the owner's original key, created a duplicate, and then tricked the car's ECU to authorize it.
The story highlights two essential bits.
First, the AirTag has become a must-have tracking device, not just for small items like wallets and car keys but for vehicles altogether. Police recommend car owners to plant an AirTag into their vehicles, as the shared location information can help find thieves faster.
Second, cloning car keys remains a major problem for the automotive industry and car owners. Thieves typically intercept the radio signal using a scanner, eventually cloning the device and using it to start the car using the signal stored in the memory. The process takes just a few seconds and can be launched from outside your house, as long as the original car key is close to the vehicle (inside the building but next to the door, for example).
Police tell car owners to alert law enforcement the moment they observe the vehicle is missing, as the faster the search begins, the bigger the chances for the car to be recovered if the thief doesn't have enough time to find and remove the AirTag.
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