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seemoo-lab
openhaystack
Swift2021–2026
seemoo-lab / openhaystack

openhaystack

Build your own 'AirTags' 🏷 today! Framework for tracking personal Bluetooth devices via Apple's massive Find My network.

Systems & InfrastructureScience & EngineeringMobile & DesktopNetworking
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
31Distinct people
39Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
14KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Build your own 'AirTags' 🏷 today! Framework for tracking personal Bluetooth devices via Apple's massive Find My network.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:59:53 AM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year39 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2021-03-04 14:01:25 UTC to 2026-10-10 04:46:28 UTC.

02468102021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 1 submissions, 7 comments20212022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments20232024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 1 submissions, 9 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 1 submissions, 4 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 2 submissions, 2 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC817
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC707
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1019
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC514
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC422

What Hacker News says

10 sources
denysvitali·Aug 24, 2024
Yes, with a strong emphasis on the proprietary part. Apple and Google both have their own networks. All the Apple devices (and now, rolling out, all the Google Play Services enabled devices) scan for nearby Bluetooth LE beacons (that use their protocol) and upload (with some cryptographic operation) the location of the device who found the beacon, together with the accuracy (signal strength) to a proprietary server (Google or Apple). Then, with the respective apps, the key holder can retrieve the reports for a given key hash and decrypt them to get the previous location. Technically speaking, anyone with the key hash can fetch the encrypted location reports from Apple / Google servers, but they can't decrypt them. On top of that, the key is rotating every 15 minutes (AirTag in paired mode) and there is no way to know that two keys are con
Read the rest
nected... unless you own the main key that is used to derive the rolling keys (see "update" and "diversify" in the linked paper). Now, all of this is fantastic, until you think of this as a monopoly. Apple and Google get an interesting tax on every device that gets built and joins this network (IIRC it's 4$ for partner devices in the Apple network). My problem with this is that no-one else other than Google and Apple can build an "open" network - you'd have to find a way to push your code to everyone's devices. I'm surprised no-one is investigating this unfair practice. See: https://doi.org/10.2478/popets-2021-0045 and https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
In Did you lose your AirPods?
windexh8er·Jul 31, 2024
It's trivial to build these containers by grabbing the install images from Apple directly. Beyond that this is all covered in the documentation. I guess I'm curious why you're so focused on this violating anything? Apple clearly doesn't care as folks like myself have used it for years. Apple's target market is hardware buyers, not people who do things like this. If this actually impacted sales, sure - but Apple doesn't sell OSX anymore. As an aside the sickcodes work is great for people wanting to leverage Apple's "Find My" network with non-Apple devices by leveraging OpenHaystack [0]. [0] https://github.com/seemoo-lab/openhaystack
In macOS in QEMU in Docker

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