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What Ever Happened to 'Toothing'?
Jim Hanas excertps from his very funny article on the quiet disappearance of last-year's promised digital bacchanal. "Remember 'toothing'? It was a craze that was sweeping England last year as bored commuters arranged sexual encounters using Bluetooth-enabled cellphones. You probably read about it over at Wired or Reuters or the BBC. There's a decent chance you even blogged about it. Well. What happened?" Update: 04/05 00:10 GMT by T : Hanas writes with a followup: "The original source on the whole toothing thing has just admitted it was a hoax -- in response to my email and your picking up of my post."
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
i remember when i was in high school, i would occasionally scan a room for other bluetooth receivers which had their port open, then create a contact whose name was what i wanted the message to be, ie "Boyaa Wazzap" or something. then i would send the contact, via bluetooth, to the detected phone. free, short-range SMS kinda :)
i know, not setting up sexual encounters... but still a fun use for bluetooth
Three rings for the Elven-kings in the sky
Isn't that what you do in a club or bar? Or even, to a lesser extent, a house party? I doubt toothers would just accept blindly anyone who replied (say, if upon seeing them, they were a hideous, snaggle-toother beast). So in a way, yes, I can say I have engaged in that kind of risky behavior (avec condom). Wouldn't do it again, tho.
You obviously haven't been to the UK. I would say per capita London has more hotties than any U.S. city. On top of that the population over there is a lot more lean than us fat asses in the U.S. What really happened was that the news made the story up or greatly exagerrated the extent of "toothing" as they tend to do with tech stories.
I've not done this myself, and /. is not the best place for an honest discussion of sexuality by damn sight.
First: There is one criterion for hooking up: looks. Man, woman or otherwise, you know whether you'd screw person x within a half second of meeting them. Chatrooms are a waste of time. thefacebook.com and okcupid.com are a bit better because of the addition of pictures, but those can be faked or obfuscated and the whole process isn't immediate enough, which is key if you're looking to do impulsive.
Second: There is a reason this happened in England. Mainstream American women have tons of hangups about sex that British women simply do not.
This is an excellent example of my last point. Some people, especially women, only acknowledge three roles for women: the virgin, the mother and the slut. That's pretty sad. It's not about doing anybody, it's about finding someone mildly attractive who wants the same thing as you do, and it's more conveniant if you're a commuter than going to a bar.
Here's a little article from @Stake about Bluetooth, as well as some other insecurities.
;)
I believe that even if the phone is in 'hidden' mode, on some models, one can still find a user's address by testing out every address. Redfang does that. This is brute force however and quite slow. In fact it could take up to a few years, as it takes about 20 seconds per address.
One thing I noticed while living in an apartment and playing with Bluetooth.. it is possible to tell when other people are in their homes or not. I was tempted to make a little app and compile statistics as to when/where people came and left, but then I remembered I wasn't the US federal government
There are a bunch of other programs available to the Googler.