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Build Your Own Bluetooth Sniper Rifle
Jim Buzbee writes "I don't think I'd do it, but these guys built a Bluetooth Sniper rifle, went to the roof of a downtown Los Angles skyscraper and pointed it at nearby buildings. See what they found, and if you're so inclined, they'll show how to build your own and maybe, just maybe, you too can snag Paris Hilton's address book." (Which was not snagged via Bluetooth snooping, as the article points out.) This version looks a bit more polished than the one mentioned last August.
After the DC Sniper incident, this gave me a fright as I thought someone has built a bluetooth-guided sniper rifle, which indicates when your bullet is aligned perfectly with your target's bluetooh tag, and those who auto-accept Bluetooth pairing are in trouble.
Seriously though, I wonder how many people do auto-accept BT connections? My PDA only accepts known pairs, so you need to physically talk to me to pair you up for the first time.
The friendly article seems to mentioned the "success" in BT detection, but didn't go in details of successful connection. It's like car thieves claim to detect 20,000 cars in the city centre, but didn't say how many were unlocked.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
It seems like Bluetooth is in almost EVERYTHING these days (the Power Book I recently ordered, my new cell phone, etc. all are enabled). Is this merely an extention of the ubiquitousness of the technology? Or is there some inherent flaw that makes Bluetooth vulnerable? I'm inclined to believe the former -- that a properly secured Bluetooth system would be safe -- but I don't know much about the technology.
Any experts in the house (of course there are, we're on Slashdot!).
This way the secret service could have identified him, he's the guy with the annoying blue spotlight shining out of his ear while yelling "Can ya shoot her now?"
In other words, users are generally right in their expectance of some form of protection of their privacy. You could argue that BT devices should have been built in a way that would prevent any of that from happening, but it's easy to criticize with hindsight. I think some line in the sand would have to be drawn on this one too, the problem is that it would be technologically ignorant lobbying-prone politicians who would do the drawing. It's enough to look at the case of good, old-fashioned radio scanners to foresee results.
To add the parent's correct posting, sonic booms do occur subsonically local to the aircraft. The airflow is often accelerated to sonic levels as it travels over portions of the aircraft wings. This is actually one of the major causes of the "sonic barrier." These local sonic exceedences can screw with the lift, causing the aircraft to lose control.
A gentleman by the name of Chuck knew this and said, "So what. It's worth the risk."
When connecting something to my phone, I have to enter a pin code. Like my PowerBook, I have to physically tell the phone to allow a contaction via bluetooth, then enter a pin code that the PB gives into the phone to have them conneted to eachother. I even had to enter a pin code into my phone when connecting my headset. So which providers just let anything connect via bluetooth, or am I still open to attack?
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True the airwaves are free and many times the courts have supported the rights of individuals to intercept open, unencrypted broadcasts. But the key is the unencrypted and the broadcast. Look at the old satelite dishes, you could latch on to most signals, but if they tried to scramble it then it was stealing.
If it is encrypted, you cannot decrypt it, because it is obviously not yours. If it is not broadcast, i.e. you use RF to gain access to a system and gather information that is not being broadcast, in this case anything other than basic ID info, it is illegal.
On the other hand, courts are also starting recognize leeching WiFi as theft as well, so who knows where this is gonna end up.
If they had made this look like a telescope rather than a weapon, and mounted it on a tripod, they could have pointed it just about anywhere they wanted and nobody would have paid a whole lot of attention to them. The rifle-like appearance only served to make the device look much more dangerous than it was.
There are times when the form factor of a rifle makes perfect sense (rifle stocks for cameras, for example), but many others where it just DOESN'T. This is one of the latter group.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
For a different take on the antenna "gun", check out our "Trackmaster 2000" 802.11/ATV rocket tracking antenna for the PSAS launch vehicle.
It's supposed to be a Bluetooth snooper rifle! Heh!
Is it just me, or does it seem a little dangerous to be lurking on city rooftops with a very realistic looking rifle, pointing it at nearby buildings? It seems like a good way to find yourself surrounded by very real rifles that fire very real bullets and they are not aiming at your Bluetooth!
There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come.