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Spammed by Bluetooth
An Anonymous Reader writes "BBC News is reporting a new craze - using Bluetooth to send unsolicited messages. Apparently lots of phone owners are leaving Bluetooth switched on, meaning that anyone within range can send a short message. The phenomenon is known as "bluejacking". It's not clear at present that this is being done by anyone other than pranksters, but one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on."
Heh. I had a long layover in Amsterdam last month and had hours of gleeful fun sending "boe" notes over bluetooth to all the other bluetooth phones I could see while drinking Heineken at the KLM Crown Lounge.
I've used this feature also to send quick notes to cow-orkers at the office when they were on the phone or we were busy in a meeting. It's handy and saves the absurd ten cent charge applied to an outbound SMS.
It's only a matter of time before it's rendered useless due to spam, I'm sure.
because of the short range of bluetooth i think it'll be difficult to use this as commercial spamming. :)
or maybe we are going to see people wearing jacket or backpack hiding bt equipment in crowded area?
will allow this to stay under the radar of spammers. What better way to keep it secret than inform thousands of people
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
I can see it now, Mom and Pop stores could have messages sent to your device as you walk past or near their entrance
Every bluetooth phone I've ever owned has required a PIN to be set when you activate it. Without the PIN you can't make a connection.
Then, when connection does succeed, a box pops up on the receiving phone asking whether you want to accept the connection.
It's difficult to see how that could be done without the owner knowing about it.
I don't want to sound too mean, but in the story , I read:
The phonomenon, known as "bluejacking".
No verb? What is that?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Bluejacking is on the edge of being cool. Things like this will be used by folks to contact others or be useful for a number of tasks until they become widely available and then the marketers will come in and take advantage of this. At that point, unless it continues to serve a useful function (like email), it will become more of a nuisance and folks will turn off "Bluetooth Discoverable".
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Well, if they're in range, it shouldn't be hard to find someone engaging in commercial "bluejacking", so we can beat the crap out of them in front of everyone.
Or is it the removal of testicles that we're out for? I can never remember what the punishment for spamming is...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As bluetooth operates in the same 2.4 GHz band as WiFi, I'd bet some people are hooking up Bluetooth devices to cantennas for greater bluejacking range.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
While I'm sure this could become a major problem in the future if it reaches critical mass, the beauty of Bluetooth is that it's designed for personal area networks. So, although it's bluetooth spam, it shouldn't reach anyone farther than 30 feet away from you or so. This by itself will make bluetooth spam a little harder to operate than just SMS or email spam.
:)
Unless, of course, Microsoft makes a smartphone that has Outlook on it and bluetooth as an option...
...is that it is fairly short range, so when you identify the spammer you can go punch them.
Existing legislation might be easy to enforce with this...they have to be within Bluetooth range of you to send you a message, and Bluetooth range, for most people, doesn't include foreign countries.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
With the short range of blue tooth.... Identifying who is spamming your phone is a bit easier to do than normal. Most likely its your buddy giggling next to you.
sometimes i leave my toaster on, it burns my toast
The difference here is that bluetooth only works within a couple of metres. Which means that if you do get spammed there's a good chance you can track down the spammer and show them how much you appreciate them.
I'm counting the number of spammers within a 10 metre radius of me right now.
Thanks for giving them the idea Taco!
I claim Prior Art on the technique. I had a plan to transmit messages wirelessly to users of gentlemen's toilets as they were standing there unable to do much else. The original intention was to send advertisements, and it would ideally have been done on a pay-to-view basis so I would be making money three ways: from the advertisers, from the recipients of the adverts and from the patent royalties.
I don't think bluejacking is accurate. You are sending a message to an open communication device. You are not jacking anything. I think such a ballsy move to send unsolicited messages should be called blue balling.
Bluetooth-enabled devices must include an easy hardware switch which allows the convenient shutting off of Bluetooth functionality. An indicator light displaying the current status must also be included on the device. Devices like the Tapwave Zodiac are well designed and include these features.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
I have a bluetooth phone (Nokia 3650), and I've used it to sync my address book on my PowerBook, and also to get my PowerBook online. Whenever I try to connect the two, I get a pop-up on the phone that asks if it's okay for the PowerBook to connect. First I have to enter an authorization code in the PowerBook, and then I have to type the same code into the phone. So, how are the spammers sending the messages without the user authorizing the connection?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on.
Perhaps a little longer if you didn't blurt it out loud...
Usually nokia users got bluetooth on and discoverable as default configuration
-- There is four mistake in this sentences.
Penile shrinkage from the electromagnetic field of the phone clipped to your belt.
Penile enlargement spams coming to the phone.
It's a symbiotic relationship, really.
talk time with our new prepaid plans!
If there's money to be made, there's advertising to do. It will continue in whatever medium we create.
lets see they said it on the simpsons and third rock from the sun ... several others but I'm board...
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
What might be more interesting is bluetooth viruses. We're probably fairly safe since we dont have a monoculture in mobile phones like that which exists on the desktop, but you can just imagine bluetooth viruses hopping from phone to phone as their owner travels around :-). Plus the fact that its very difficult to update phones to fix holes could make this a pretty big problem if such security holes were found.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Is slashdot complicit?
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Funny how the lameness filter encourages one to include lame text in messages!
We've been doing this for ages in the UK. See here for Andy's way of doing it ;)
Smegma.
I doubt there would be spam like we have now on email, the range is simply to short. But I can see supermarkets or similar companys using this to send you messages while in there store.
Annoying sure, but at least semi-relevant to what your doing. And at least you can turn it off. (You can, can't you?)
Spam is more effective when it is difficult to distinguish it from genuine messages.
:P
Based on how well short messages I have had sent to me are written, it is sure to be a lot more difficult to filter spam than it is with email -- see those bayesian filter zealots solve this one
I can just imagine how much fun you could have with this though. Hey you, see me over here with the brown hair and the blue eyes, come over and... !!
When the Sony Ericcson's came out with bluetooth they made them come with the bluetooth turned off by default. When Nokia came out with their bluetooth phones they had them ship with it on by default. Soon on the Sony Ericson message boards people found they could discover the nokia's in a crowded place (movie theaters, etc.) and you could create a contact in you contact list and then send them that contact. This has the benifit that you message is actually the contact name which the person on the recieving end will actually see first so they don't have to click OK and then get the message...it's already there. Anyhow, it's much better in Europe for this type of thing as they've had GSM phone and associated cool features such as bluetooth for quite some time while America is just starting to catch on. I've done discoveries with mine and never had any success connecting or seeing any other bluetooth activated phone that wasn't purposly turned on for the connection. I wonder if Nokia has caught on and is leaving bluetooth off on their America bound phones.
Everybody is talking about how the damage will be limited because bluetooth has such a short range, but what happens if the spammers boost the power of their transmittors? Is this possible with Bluetooth (I admit I don't know)? If so, we may be in for more problems then the first few posts let on.
Sure, it may be illegal/immoral, but can we trust spammers to be legal and moral?
On another note how long until this is used to SPAM products designed to defeat this type of SPAM (ala Windows Messenger Service)?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The phonomenon, known as "bluejacking".
Care to finish that thought?
I'd read Slashdot. I'll bet they get all kinds of great ideas from us! :)
You could easily create a small battery powered embedded device running Linux that would just send out bluetooth messages. Drop that on a city bus or subway car and you could spam a ton of people really easily.
;)
Perhaps I should be patenting an idea like that.
From the article, "Bluetooth works over a range of about 10 metres..."
I hardly think spam is going to be a problem. It's not economically feasible for generic spam (no economy of scale) and I think localized messages (for example, a restaurant sending you a message saying "eat here") would annoy rather than entice, thus costing the offender business. The blujackq.com faq says
On most models the phone will bleep the same tone as when a text message is received, and it will show a message similar to "name of contact has just been received by Bluetooth". If the user then accepts it, the contact will appear in their phonebook. From here the user can see what is written in the other fields too.
The potential to drive away customers by angering them is enormous. Of course, this could be used to good advantage by a competitor...
You look like you could use a Guinness!
-jfedor
...the spammer is not there at all. This could be done by installing a small transmitter in a shop, for example, which broadcasts messages to all and sundry who pass by.
Sounds like you have a very, very, boring life.
Of course someone did it. People leave those things on by default. It's one of the first bt projects I did just to learn and it was easy and pretty cool. Blue tooth sucks though, to slow to do much more then messages, and at least in my area, there are not enough people around to make it worth it. I don't even have carrier signal at my house.
Bluejacking relys on a couple of things to be in place to work. 1. Other end (jack-ee) has to have Bluetooth, and switch it on. Some phones come with it on by default 2. You have to agree to accept what your being sent, This can be worked around as you can set your Bluetooth devices name to be "Hi! you've been BlueJacked" 3. For the "total" jack experience OBEX Push profile has to be on either end, for the business card (vCard, same format as with IR on Palms etc.) exchange (when accepted(?) by the confused jack-ee) then they have a semi-permanent record on their phone. The ideas been around for a while, in singles bars (where techies lurk), and school playgrounds (where kids always have right ideas for mischief).
When he's going out somewhere and bored, he starts sending messages like: "this phone has been reported stolen. your number has been registered, deliver it at the local police station"
Some people look like they're thinking: "oh shit, I'm fucked"
Apparently lots of phone owners are leaving Bluetooth switched on, meaning that anyone within range can send a short message.
Hmm... could this be used to set up an ad-hoc local network, e.g. in a cinema? Can you get a remote bluetooth phone to forward a message to another?
I'll be honest with ya, the first time something like that happens to me i know the guy will be with in looking distance, and I'll beat his ass
Oh, puhleeeze let it be soon! With the range of Bluetooth, they'll have to send so many spams to get their 0.00001% hit rates that their fingers will fall off through exteme RSI and the bastards won't be able to send us email spam either. ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I understand that some bluetooth phones are used to connect your PDA or laptop to the Internet.
Is it possible to place a laptop next to a phone, somehow hijack the connection, get the IP address, send 1000 spam messages and disconnect?
Should not take more than 30-50 seconds.
I am sure this was the mentality when Spam first started clogging our inboxes, wasting our bandwidth and dDoSing our mailservers. Yet, to this day people still do it and I hardly think it is for the fun or the incredible popularity Spammers bask in. Some pinheads somewhere actually enjoy and like this kind of pestering (same with telemarketing). Which means it cannot be repulsing all that much business (grounds for immediate lifetime boycott in my book) and somebody is cashing in on it.
Should the victim have to pay for this solicitation I can see a very bitter court battle as we all still get commercials(advertisments) on most channels we pay for on cable or for dish owners when they have reception.
-1 Overrated (Too many big words for me to comprehend)
"all your phone are belong to us"
What can it mean?
*all* bluejacking is: turning on your bluetooth and scanning for nearby devices who's idiot owners haven't turned "discoverable" off. that's what "discoverable" means: your phone can be discovered and messaged. Nokia ships with this on by default.
it's not some cool hack, or anything, it's just a setting within bluetooth for exchanging information without pairing.
... as drive by spamming??
Dunstan
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
My phone has a blue LED that indicates, yes, you guessed it, that I'm using bluetooth. It *doesn't* mean I've been dumb enough not to realise that if you don't put a tick in the "discoverable" box that you can get short range messages from strangers.
Blue tooth is a remarkably secure system requiring PIN numbers and autentication to do any form of connection.
:O
WHat is actually happening here is the OBEX transfer part is beign utilised. Any Bluetooth phone that is set to discoverable will accept certain OBEX information (usually just vCards, and vCal files, and maybe notes). The phone ideally will accept the information and ask the user if he/she woudl liek the add the recieved infomation into their phonebook/calendar/notes. it is EXACTLY like the beam facility of Palm units, and others, just using Bluetooth for non-line of sight transfers.
What people do in "BlueJacking" is create a dummy addressbook entry, and send it to the unsuspecting user (usually Nokia users.. more on that later). I did it beofre once, when i was at a resteraunt and this idiot with a Nokia camera phoen was showing off and making a nuisence in front of some girls he was entertaining. So i sent a address "vCard" with the name "Stop Playing with yr BRICK" from my phone to his (his phone was discovered as "poser"?!!?!??!?!) SHoudl haev seen the look on his face.. especially in front of the girls..
However (unless you are a Nokia 7650/6310i/6xxx user) You have nothign to worry. Most phoens ship with bluetooth off or in none discoverable mode. The SOny Ericssons only stay "discoverable" for a maximum of three minuites. The blueJackign craze started in the (Sony)Ericsson community when it was discovered some (if not most) Nokia Bluetooth phones were shipped default with Bluetooth on and discoverable, so it was a prank to those users!
As was pointed out, it is extremely easy to make a phoen none discoverable, and most ppl have cottoned on.
So as for "spam" via blue tooh, it isnt going to happen, unless you are EXTREMELY stupid... then again..... there is a hell of a lot of stupid people
Have a nice day!
Phone: *beep* You have a new message!
Me: What! Lousy bluejackers! Wait, herbal viagra for only $19.95? How could I lose?
Yeah right. I didn't buy the stuff from spam, I filtered it out. I didn't buy the stuff from junk mail, I threw it away unopened. I'm on a no-call list. I configured my computer to stop showing ads from the internet. I use a pvr to avoid commecials. Why oh why will I buy stuff from a phone message?
I'm so sick of advertising like this. I like ads that keep me informed as to what is availible or make me laugh. I dislike repition, ads designed to make me feel bad, and local car dealership commercials. Given that balance, I'll choose to avoid any ads but the ones on google and in my phonebook.
We were all suposed to sell mindshare in exchange for radio, tv, and websites. But I'm sick of it. It's my mind. Give it back. I need all of it. Find another business model and leave me alone.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
Hi-tech drug dealers could use this technology to quietly advertise dope on the streats without being to conspicuous.
A friend of mine uses Bluetooth in this way to distribute his freeware Symbian games such as Vexed to other Symbian phones.
Watch out for a manic Scotsman on the London tube system waving a Nokia 7650...
Too bad the first people to use this Bt feature are socially maladjusted geeks, who will probably alienate any "normals" from using it. It would really enhance "in the flesh" socializing if your phone could whisper to another in the room, without having exchanged info before.
"Waiter, we need silverware"
"Is there a doctor in the house?"
"Are those 2 seats next to you taken?"
"Hi, my name's Steve - over by the Christmas tree, in the black shirt. Touch your shoulder if you want me to rescue you from that jock."
"Who wants my drink ticket? Starting bid $0.25"
"8th level CN human male fighter ISO C* elvish illusionist"
Phones could allow people to meet, without the overhead of checking them out too much, and in a form that's easier to deflect than traditional approaches. If rude Bt ambushes disabuse everyone from allowing access, and spammers rush into the breech, what's a usable protocol to allow strangers to make an introduction, while weeding out unwanted advances. This is the middle ground between address book whitelists and spammer blacklists - how can we navigate it?
--
make install -not war
Seems like it would be hard to mass msging like spammers because of the short range. I guess you could had a "transmitter" in crowded public places, but its no where near as cheap as good old SMTP spam.
Bluerage: noun
Meaning: The act of finding and beating of a person who uses a bluetooth enabled device to send people with bluetooth enabled devices unsolicated messages.
Other Notes: Due to local regulations, you may only beat the person with your phone. However, if your phone is integrated into a pair of brass knuckles, all the better.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
A commercially viable use for bluetooth. Perhaps this is the first truly successful use of bluetooth. However, like all of the other hype surrounding bluetooth it will no doubt be driven totally from a marketing machine.
The only difference I see between this and all of the other uses for bluetooth is that it didnt start with marketing hype and no usability... just the oposite. Usability that will soon directly benefit the marketing and ads companies.
Bluetooth may have been more successful if it were developed this way in the first place. Usable concept first, release the hounds second.
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
Perhaps they indeed have read Dilbert, but they have also seen a Gateway computer box.
You don't seem quite as deep as you think you are.
Look, as Bluetooth becomes more and more integrated into devices two things will happen:
1. Non-geeks will use increasingly more Bluetooth enable devices. Do you think they will have any idea what "discoverable" is? Do you think they will want to wade through software menus to turn Bluetooth on and off?
2. More sophisticated methods will be discovered to take advantage of people who unwittingly leave the Bluetooth window open. This includes spam or viruses and other as-yet undiscovered threats. This means it will become increasingly important to be able to *quickly* and *efficiently* turn off Bluetooth when required (ie. not through some crappy menu).
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
That I can send short text messages from my PC (which has a bluetooth dongle thingy) to my mobile while I'm in meetings close by? For free...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Spam from a bookstore
"Read a book, gain some knowledge"
But you walk on by
Dog doo spelling skills
Are commonplace on Slashdot
Generation Duh
Karma is burning
It is mine but I don't care
It has to be said
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Posting this on slashdot doesn't help.. The people who read this already know about (and do) turn bluetooth off on their devices. Any I'm sure that spammers read this as well...
Posting this here is silly for the same reason that posting detailed instructions of an how to exploit the latest buffer overrun is silly...
So long, bluetooth!
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Given the range of bluetooth is something like 10 meters, and given the wrath many of use feel about spam, I tend to think this won't catch on. Most spammers like to keep more distance for good reason.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
I've also seen reports of phones susceptible to viruses. Now if you have a virus that propagates over Bluetooth, phones would be literally contagious. If someone has a sick phone you'd have to tell them not to get too close to you.
I love slashdot stories that point to a site with a page counter - it's like watching the dials go around at the gas pump.
Have you seen my stapler?
I turn bluetooth on when I sync my phone with my Mac, and turn it off again when I'm finished. Why would anyone keep bluetooth on all the time?
JP
You are right and the grand-parent post is wrong. A directional antenna is bidirectional -- it both directs power to toward the distant reciever and amplifies power from a distant transmitter. If this was not true, then cantennas would not work for Wifi because Wifi, like bluetooth, requires bidirectional communications.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Meet brutus, he's the bluetooth honeypot. When someone sends a message he doesn't like he pummels everyone within 15 feet.
It's not clear at present that this is being done by anyone other than pranksters, but one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on.
...?
I wonder how many commercial spammers began their careers as pranksters
-kgj
...on Slashdot without trolling, but I've definetly seen my friends on a college campus be able to pick up all the Bluetooth phones in a 10-meter sphere around their dorm rooms, and the little bastards have definately send a picture message with the goatse man to anyone and everyone...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I can imagine some useful stuff being exchanged in this way. Let's say you walked into a bar or someother social setting, glance down at your phone and saw the Friendster profiles of everyone there. Instead of wasting time doting after some flashy eye candy who thinks Brittany Spears is deep you could spend your time getting to know someone who's more compatible with you. In more formal situations one might share parts of their professional portfolio.
The key will probably be metadata about whatever is advertising itself that you can trust. That way you can filter out most things and choose which one's interest you.
Been at it for a while. Some suggestions for good places to attack:
1) Nightclubs. It's dark, there's hundreds of potential victims on the dancefloor, and there's always somebody faffing with their phone so the likelihood of you getting caught is fairly slim. Plus, if your receiver turns out to be a tasty member of the opposite sex, well, it's an inroad, isn't it?
2) Gym locker rooms. All those lockers around you with phones safely locked away while their owners are off exercising. Send something appropriately spooky and put the shits up them when they come back. It's unlikely that you'll see their reaction to the message, of course, but the mere prospect of it's amusing enough for me.
Of course, one drawback is the potential for shops etc. to set up a bluetooth-enabled PC in the window and spam everybody walking past...
Look at sman:
http://renegade.w3xs.com/droll.htm
automates sending a "blackjack" vCard to all devices it can find in the area.
Devices in Bluetooth Security mode 3 will fail, and those in sec mode 2 may require user confirmation before receiving the object.
Mom and Pop stores by and large live and die on their regular customers. You treat them like gold, and never annoy them.
.001% that respond.
Spam annoys 99.999% of the people that receive it, but it "works" because that majority can't retaliate effectively, and they make money off the
Advertising that annoys 99.999% of people that receive it would kill a Mom and Pop store, because the annoyed customers would retaliate by taking their business elsewhere.
Bluejack ads would only work for businesses with no repeat customers, and there are damn few of those.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
only if they have blueballs. of course anyone knowing how to do this is likely a geek, and therefore suffering a serious case, so this physical form of 'bluejacking' might be appropriate...
At least in Copenhagen this phenomenon is quite common. It seems, every other time I get in a taxi I get a bluetooth transmitted business card from the company or sometimes specifically the driver of the taxi. The first time this happened it was a slightly novel new thing I didn't mind much - but now I find myself cursing the people who implemented this standard for not doing it like on Palm where you have to 'accept' the infrared beamed cards. On the Nokia cellphones it's just stored without question so if this practice gets more widespread, soon your address book will be seriously burdened with unwanted business cards. Just finding them will be a big hassle. That's when you switch off bluetooth I guess.
Range of bluetooth is about 10m. So unless spammer is within that range, can't do anything to/with you via bluetooth.
What's to stop an advertising company from installing a little box in Times Square or any other heavy traffic and then selling message time on it? What are you going to do, punch the box?
I own one of the most popular BT phones (the Sony Ericsson T68i) and I have to explicitly make it discoverable and if I do it's for no more than 3 minutes.
Theres *no* way to make it permanently discoverable, to my chagrin.
This BT spam sounds like a very theoretical problem to me.
X.
Where the world is heading? One day some desperate salesperson could send millions of emails...
Bluetooth kills the battery life on my mobile phone so I never leave it switched on. It only takes a second to flip it on and off anyway...
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
DUH! Did anyone ever look at the bluetooth "server-client" protocol? This was designed by sales people to operate exactly the opposite than normal server-client schema - just for the use you're describing in the article.
In normal server-client, the client contacts the server for the requested service (HTTP,SMTP,whatever)- With bluetooth, the server knows there are clients around it, and is allowed to contact them to initialize a service (in this case - sending you a message). This is a protocol-level feature, and today is only stopped (or filtered) at application level.
Imagine you're surfing the net, and instead of you contacting a web server, web servers are contacting you asking you: "do you want to surf here?" That is how bluetooth was designed to work. It is the ultimative sales tool by design.
Hey, dude! Look! They posted the solar flare story!! Now, my life is even LESS boring! Cool!
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Just a thought I had while reading this article...
Why not have a bluetooth relay, sort of like a chain letter except that it doesnt replicate. In other words the person that starts the relay hands it off to the next person, they hand it to the next person, and so forth...
Just think of all the interesting data you could come up with this way...
Of course that brings up all the horrible Ideas you could use it for too...
Well Im off to think about using this for an orineteering meet.
Jainith
So how hard is it to go the next step and actually hijack a Bluetooth phone conversation? This could be huge fun...
FROM: MR ABU LAWRENCE
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO.
REPLY TO THIS: (abu_lawrence@rediffmail.com)
Dear Sir,
SEEKING YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. Please permit me to make your acquaintance in so informal a manner. This is necessitated by my urgent need to reach a dependable and trust wordy foreign partner. This request may seem strange and unsolicited but I will crave your indulgence and pray that you view it seriously. My name is. ABU LAWRENCE of the Democratic Republic of Congo and One of the close aides to the former President of the Democratic Republic of Congo LAURENT KABILA of blessed memory, may his soul rest in peace. Due to the military campaign of LAURENT KABILA to force out the rebels in my country, I and
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Crashing cellphones? Making them useless? I would see that as a public service against yappers on trains, shows, etc.
(NT)
If someone would just get a process/method patent on this idea, and protect their IP, they could either be millionaires or keep this from happening much in the US. Use our horrible IP patenting system to an advantage.
I've used this feature also to send quick notes to cow-orkers at the office
Easily identified by their Gateway workstations.
And their sunlight intolerance. (You know, being orks.)
"Orker". That spelling is about as strange as "Virii" or "Microsoft".
On second thought, apparent sunlight intolerance wouldn't make anybody stand out among other nerds.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Just spam those idiots with their cellphones to death before the movie starts. They will be so anoyed they will turn them off!
Everyone store a goatse, tubgirl, weightlifter, whatever pic on their phone. You get bluejacked reply with the pic. When someone barfs or throws their phone/whatever you know whos ass to kick.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I have public Bluetooth hotspot on my university. It's a PC with iTec USB Dongle (100 m range) running Debian GNU/Linux, BlueZ stack and my Java utility, which scans for Bluetooth devices and sends them "welcome on our university" note. Additionally it serves LAN/Internet access using PPP over Bluetooth.
When I'm bored I'll change my iPaq 5450 BlueTooth device identification to ABigHairyDick and then look for phones.
Great fun when someone's phone beeps, and on the screen they see "Accept connection from ABigHairyDick?"
Puzzeled frowns usually result although after this article I'm sure to get my smirking ass beat good.
A message from our sponsor
If I walked by a business and got spammed, I would make it a point to go into the business, ask to see the manager, and chew him out as loudly as possible.
Spam works so well because those of us that don't want it can't retaliate publicly, even though we outnumber the morons that respond to it by one hundred to one. Same with telemarketing or fax spamming, for that matter.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Recipe for Taco Mountain Oysters
With a sharp knife, cut and pull away the skin surrounding each of the testes and remove. Cover in salted water for one hour and drain. Add to pan of salt water, with just enough water to float the teste. Parboil, drain and rinse. Allow testes to cool and cut into chip sized oval slices. Season well.
Mix one cup of flour, 1/4 cup of corn meal and finely chopped or dried garlic in a bowl. Roll each of the "oysters" into this breaded mixture. Dip each in a cup of red wine or beer and fry immediately in hot oil. (pure hog lard is authentic, peanut oil will do). Add Lousiana hot sauce to brown the oysters and then remove from the pan. Drain of oil on paper towels.
Serve immediately with chips and beer.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
I just got a brand new 15" G4 PowerBook (I love it, but that's another story), and the default setting for any installation of Mac OS X 10.2.7 (Jaguar) or 10.3 (Panther) is Bluetooth turned on and discoverable. Now the new iBooks ship with Bluetooth as well.
Knowing that most users don't bother to turn off services that are on by default, how long do you think it will be before people start spamming wi-fi hotspots where people are using a lot of computers.
Knowing that Microsoft tends to follow Apple's lead and most Wintel notebook manufacturers will start bundling Bluetooth with their systems I expect this will soon be a more serious issue.
Now, combine all of this information and predict that some innovative hacker will discover a buffer overrun exploit in the MS Bluetooth stack (of course there are probably several, it's MS after all) and now you have a new and innovative method of infection for the next Windows worm of the day...
Either that, or some really annoying Popups similar to the Windows messenger popup style ads you see today.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
It's not clear at present that this is being done by anyone other than pranksters, but one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on."
I think they just did.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
This is similar to one of Bluetooths intended features. I recall something about being able to work down a street or through a Mall, and get a bluetooth message about what special are happening in each store as you pass. Although the idea of having someone drive a car all day sending bluetooth messages, sounds interesting, thats where I would start calling the feature spam.
Just switch Bluetooth off! Right now it doesn't have too many uses apart from getting data to and from personal devices. So whenever you're in the street/tube/bus/etc turn it off. Just don't forget to turn it on whenever you need it :)
R.I sometimes search for bluetooth devices and chat for fun, but the first time i want to comunicate with someone the other person must allow me to add it's device to my device list. After that i can freely send all the messages, sounds, or images i want. (Tested with NOKIA a SONY ERICSSON)
Yeah, I believe this is called the "reciprocity principle" or something. If you design something that has a particular RF radiation pattern (i.e. Tx) then it will have a corresponding absorbtion pattern (Rx).
My Nokia has a function where to select visibility where you can choose "visible" or "hidden". mine is always on hidden, and my paired devices still can connect.
(As for unwanted use, I've mapped the Bluetooth control panel to my right function key -- I can enable and disable in two clicks, if you spam me, it's easy fixed. Anyway, I can always detect your device and retaliate.)
So you can smack'em!
Wifi/Bluetooth etc are going to be the next trends, with phones being more like PDAs there will be all sorts of things like file sharing on the street and people sitting on the tube in silence chatting to the stranger 3 seats down by text. All those dating/friendship things that beep when someone with similar interests walks past will actually take off because it will only be a software download away, and gangs of geeks will go around DoSing shops that spam passers by, gaming has just started to take off with the nokia thing and that will get much bigger and, then there'll be the standard media hype and Microsoft will do something stupid that allows some worm to spread or for anyone to accesses private data on certain phones or pedophiles will use it and then suddenly more media hype and people turning bluetooth off and so stupid trends continue.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"It's not clear at present that this is being done by anyone other than pranksters, but one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on."
Okay, so spam annoys us all, but is it really relevant to scaremonger about commercial spamming in this context, given
I presume the writer imagined some situation where a commercial spammer goes into some crowded place, searches for Bluetooth phones and uses some automated Bluetooth send device. I think the simple requirement for a person (or device) to be in the vicinity of the 'spammed' makes that very unlikely.
..."but one can't help wondering, how long before commercial spammers catch on."
Thanks alot buddy!
Massive increase in visitors to bluejackQ
What a day! By the second week, bluejackQ was averaging around 500 page views a day. I thought I was doing well in the third week when we saw 8,000 page views, but today the traffic increased to well over 115,000 page views!
I wonder why the hits went up? A post to slashdot?