I wonder if this modification could at least be made harder by having some kind of heartbeat. Build in a microphone whose sole purpose is to receive inaudible, high frequency impulses (maybe a hash signal?) from the speaker every once in a while. If the signal does not arrive in time, the AirTag shuts off.
Of course, no measure can beat physical access to the device but you could at least make the tampering about as expensive as building your own device from scratch.
It wouldn't be hard to make a silent container for an airtag that'd let the audible signal reach the mic but not the alarm. Personally I think they'll eventually have to link every Airtag to a real identity so anyone detecting one knows who it really belongs to.
> Why even involve the cops - if you have an airtag, you should be able to scan it's code and it reveals the account holder's name.
That's easy. If you find my house keys, I'd rather you couldn't just look up my address.
I don't know if Apple makes it easy or not, but I'd certainly like to be able to push a notification to the AirTag owner if I have found one of their things. At least so I can send them a message "I dropped this off at the local police station so you can pick it up" etc, or something along those lines.
Of course, no measure can beat physical access to the device but you could at least make the tampering about as expensive as building your own device from scratch.