How does the application "Find my" in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina

Apple at WWDC has unveiled a new "Find My" application, available on its Mac and iOS platforms. Find My on iOS replaces Find My Friends and Find My iPhone, and on Mac, it introduces for the first time a native application "Search" as an alternative to using iCloud on the Web.

Find My offers a useful feature designed to help you locate lost devices, even if they are not connected to WiFi or a cellular network, by using nearby Bluetooth devices. Your lost iPhone, iPad or Mac will be able to communicate via Bluetooth with any nearby Apple device, giving you its location.

Apple described the function on stage Monday, but today provided additional details to Cable for those interested in an overview of how it works.

Apple designed the Find My feature with privacy in mind. It uses an encryption system that prevents users from abusing it for tracking purposes, thus rendering your personal location unavailable for people trying to intercept the Bluetooth signal from your device and Apple itself.

Apple's encryption solution requires "Find My" users to have at least two Apple devices. As relayed by Apple to Cable, each device issues an ever-changing public key used by nearby Apple devices to encrypt and upload your location-based data. Only other Apple devices you have (linked to your Apple ID and protected by two-step authentication) can decrypt these locations.

Since only your own devices can decrypt the encrypted location signal sent from a lost device, no one, not even Apple, can intercept it and locate you or your devices.

Apple says that "Find My" uses only tiny data pasted on existing network traffic. There is therefore no impact on the battery life, data use or confidentiality. Cable contains a specific set of steps on how Find My works, from setup to what happens when a device is lost, which is worth checking for those who are interested.

Basically, when a device you own disappears, it will broadcast the aforementioned public key, which can be retrieved by any other Apple device belonging to anyone.

Say that someone steals your MacBook. Even if the thief transports it closed and disconnected from the Internet, your laptop will emit its rotating public key via Bluetooth. The iPhone of a nearby unknown, without owner interaction, will pick up the signal, check its own location and encrypt this location data with the help of the public key extracted from the laptop. The public key does not contain any identifying information and, as it runs frequently, the iPhone from abroad also can not connect the laptop to its previous locations.

The iPhone from abroad then uploads two items on the Apple server: the encrypted location and a hash of the public key of the laptop, which will serve as the ; identifier. As Apple does not have the private key, it can not decipher the location.

The Find My app is currently available on iOS 13, iPadOS and macOS Catalina, but it will not be a fully functional system until these software updates are installed on millions of devices around the world. .