But note this paragraph in the article:

The ironic truth is, privacy extensions make you more unique, since fewer people have them. So a smart tracker could detect that, ignore the signals disrupted by the extension and focus on the ones that are not.

The tracking mechanisms that this article uses are not the only ones available to actual bad actors.

I just can’t trust anything vibecoded

This is bespoke software that has not been shared publicly. You don’t have to trust it, because the only person who will ever use it is Simon Green.

The article’s not really about the software, it’s about the capabilities of UWB radios. Don’t skip out on the article just because of a passing mention of vibecoding.

And that’s only, like, the most basic part of an industrial e-stop. On top of directly disconnecting the energy source, it also has to include redundant circuits (since it’s possible for a contactor to break and fail open, or weld and fail closed), and some even need to have signal pulses constantly going through them to actively confirm they haven’t been pressed. They absolutely should not just send a signal to a Linux computer, because general-purpose operating systems are too complex to be rated for safety.

This isn’t even my area of expertise yet I know this stuff. The fact that they failed at the very first requirement is really messed up.

Even if you press that big red emergency stop button on the mower itself, a hacker can send another command to unlock it, Makris says.

Holy cow. I work in factories, and I know enough about industrial safety to know that would not fly.