Thefts from civilians, looting of stores… In Ukraine, the Russians seized smartphones, iPads, headphones and computers. But the “Locate” function makes it possible to track devices, and therefore Russian soldiers.
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No need to hide an AirTag in a bag to track someone… or rather something. In Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers had the good idea to use function FindMy (“Locate” in French) ofApple. Usually, it allows you to find your iPhone or AirPods when they’ve been misplaced. On the front lines of the war in Ukraine, this function is doubly useful.
First, it identifies Apple devices stolen by the Russians, whether from civilians or from stores. And therefore, it allows to spot the Russian battalions since a soldier is rarely alone. ” The Ukrainians locate their devices on the territory of the Homiel region, in Belarus, where part of the Russian army has retreated »recently tweeted Franak Viacorka, adviser to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskay, the main opponent of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Ukrainians are locating their devices on the territory of the Homiel region, Belarus, where part of the Russian army retreated. pic.twitter.com/JsdhltRZ5E
— Franak Viacorka (@franakviacorka) April 5, 2022
Any connected device with a GPS chip is trackable
Our colleagues from Cult Of Mac analyzed the comments of Viacorka’s tweet, and Internet users praised the ingenuity of Ukrainian soldiers in detecting stolen equipment, and at the same time spotting Russian troops. They are no longer in Ukraine, but the information is valuable. “It reminds me of the days when you discovered secret military bases abroad by looking at public data from Fitbit people, ”wrote one of the Internet users.
This function also exists for Android, and it is ” Find my device “. It is accessible in the Security tab of the Settings. As for the function FindMy from Apple, we obtain the exact position of the device with its GPS coordinates.
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