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Spammed by Bluetooth

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the begin-the-torture dept.

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."

12 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, I've done this. by Nugget · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. How does this work? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:How does this work? by mtg101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In normal operation, say between a PC and phone, you do need to 'pair' devices using a PIN. However for certain operations - like sending a vCard phone2phone, phones will allow connections to be made and messages to be sent without authorisation.

      This allows a vCard (which may just be a message in the 'name' field) to be sent without authentication, or the target having to confirm receipt.

      Worse than vCards, you can send pics this way. It may be funny to take a pic of someone with your phone and then 'bluejack' it too them - but I know people who've received some pretty nasty porn over bluejacking too.

    2. Re:How does this work? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In that case the proper word is not 'bluejacking' it's 'using bluetooth precisely in the way it was designed'. Sending short-range messages is one of its main purposes.

      The article implies they're actually using the victims phone to do something nefarious.

  3. Bluetooth directional antennas. by G4from128k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  4. Prior Art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

  5. range vs power? by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
  6. Could you imagine bluejacking bombs? by Refried+Beans · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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. ;)

  7. what about Internet connection over BT phone? by BigGerman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  8. Re:Mom and Pop Stores by kjs3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As I recall, this was one of the intended applications of Bluetooth.

  9. Software distribution by Bluetooth by TonkaTown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...

  10. Re:Bluetooth viruses by bobthemuse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Forget viruses, what if someone discovers a way to send a malformed message which crashes the phone?

    Even worse, some of the new phones offer 'over the air' programming updates. The right bug, and someone could render your phone useless....