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Bluetooth Spam In Public Spaces
mrwireless writes with a bellwether from The Netherlands of a problem that is bound to spread. Judging by the CAN SPAM Act, the US would be even less likely than the EU to classify Bluetooth-borne commercial spam as spam. "The Dutch OPTA, a national telecommunications watchdog, has decided not to label commercial Bluetooth messages as spam (in Dutch, but Babelfish works). These messages seem to fall through a loophole in European laws against spam since they do not travel through an 'intermediary network.' The issue was raised last week when a Dutch broadcasting agency outfitted a number of bus stops so they would send a promotional video of an upcoming show to passersby. Although the messages first asked if people wanted to watch the video, the article quotes a lawyer who believes that this does not qualify as 'opt-in' advertising. As more and more people leave Bluetooth turned on to make use of their Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth close-range messaging, such as through bluejacking, is increasingly being exploited for commercial purposes."
As more and more people leave Bluetooth turned on to make use of their Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth close-range messaging, such as through bluejacking, is increasingly being exploited for commercial purposes.
I only engage in bluejacking if I get pr0n spam. and certainly not in public.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Basically you can bluetooth chat with someone in a public place (like a train), then arrange for sex when you reach your destination, or in the train en route. And maybe they're even hot...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Yeah, we all know how effective CAN SPAM has been. My mailbox receives only 1000+ more spam emails a week now then before.
These messages seem to fall through a loophole in European laws against spam since they do not travel through an 'intermediary network.'
:)
Well, the reason for anti-SPAM legislation being written that way is that SPAM passes over an anonymous intermediary network. If you know who sent it, and can identify the sender, you can thus take legal action against them directly, so it probably should be handled in a different way. If it becomes a big enough problem, something will be done about it.
My 2 cents.
This is bound to be counterproductive: how do you think people will react when they get one, two, three, dozens of unwanted messages? just look at how they react when they get unwanted phone calls...
I for one never buy anything from any company that practices obnoxious in-your-face advertisement, unless I have absolutely have no choice. Advertisement is bad enough, but I just can't stand when they try to shove it down my throat. I'm sure I'm not alone.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...a jam-packed train in Öresund, Sweden. A middle-aged man in a suit is sitting down, reading business documents. But occasionally, beeps come from his cellphone. He is visibly more annoyed for each time, and looks around him.
Finally, he's had enough, and gets up and yells...
"WHO THE HELL KEEPS BLUETOOTHING ME GAY PORN ALL THE TIME?!"
toresbe
you have to know that someone uninvited might step inside your house. when a thief actually steps in, he has to know that he might get a bullet in his head. so lock your bluetooth devices and label the bluetooth unsolicited messages as spam.
It would be beneficial if people started getting random spammings.
Hopefully it will reach the mainstream press and people would get taught how to disable the promiscuous phone settings.
I just recently picked up a bluetooth adapter for this computer and I am getting quite good at recognising people who arrive at the house (before they even knock on the door!).
Your Bluetooth personal area network should not operate like RFID, at the moment, businesses can see who comes and goes.
liqbase
My freshman CS professor is from the Czech Republic, and he said back home there was this guy sitting by a mall entrance spamming people's phones with what amounted to a really sketchy personal ad. He said it was about the creepiest thing he's ever seen.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
This sounds like a wonderful idea. Either it's automated, or there's a person doing it, and in both cases, bluetooth is short-range. If it's a little automated box, take a hammer to it.
And if it's a person doing it, dude, I've still got the hammer.
I expect this to be a short-lived phenomenon.
I've got to wonder... is there ANY wireless technology that's worth a damn? Cell phones are finally, after several decades, starting to work well, but even those have massive security holes. (My parents had their personal info stolen on a trip to NYC a year ago via their cell phone, and the cell phone company told them that it's very common, and that there's nothing my parents could have done to prevent it).
I'm not so sure, due to the very nature of data floating around where anybody can grab it, that we'll see any kind of secure wireless connection any time in the near future.
And then there's reliability. Cell phones are probably the most reliable type of wireless connection out there, but even those still aren't great.
(Only a fool would rely on 802.11x for anything even remotely critical.)
Wireless. Blech. Nice idea, but not so hot in practice.
I don't respond to AC's.
0a) rename your BT identity to something not recognizeable
0b) download grossout.jpg, rename to "ctu.mp3"
1) detect someone who might have a BT phone, in a crowded place.
2) send "ctu.mp3". Many people will accept this unconditionally, even if manually
3) enjoy the recipent's face.
Bluetooth devices have to be paired to exchange information. Once you have your laptop, PDA (or anything else) paired, turn off the function. Or put a PIN on pairing.
Problem solved.
Thank God Verizon cares so much about their customers that they have so crippled bluetooth on their phones that the only thing possible with them is headsets and dial-up networking -- maybe.
the second-to-last paragraph in that article notes something important.. the EU directive does not mention anything about needing to be a subscriber - the Dutch version, however, does.
Also, the Opta have already mentioned to NU.nl in a later article that it will be up to the financial department of the government to fix this or not.. a great hint that although Opta would love to label this spam and put a stop to it, their hands are tied, and are asking for them to be untied.
travelling by bus might actually become fun!
going past those shops each with something interesting to sell... hardware, groceries, books, porn...
"CAN SPAM", wouldn't that be used to disambiguate electronic spam from the food? You failed to exploit the pun. Damn you..
if you really want to push the reliable button, amateur radio is about the only form of communication you can rely on when the chips are down. (hurricanes are a great example) Cell reception is spotty in many places and the loss of a single tower could easily disable several square miles of service.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So you're saying that with Bluetooth, any girl can just walk up to me and start bluejacking me? I could even bluejack with a friend on a crowded bus without anyone even noticing?? Truly this is a spectacular technology; no wonder it's being exploited for commercial purposes! The bluejacking market must really be booming!
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
great idea. hope it's not patented yet.
d^$_$^b
Do not. Touch. Down.
If this is going to become common, I can see a need for phone makers to provide three easy to access options:
- Bluetooth off
- Bluetooth on for paired devices
- Bluetooth on
If its not paired, its ignored.
Maybe there is even room for a fourth 'whitelist' option, where friends devices prompt rather than being ignored or just allowed.
Given the short range of Bluetooth, I would think it would be fairly easy to locate the piece of equipment responsible and give it a quick kicking.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I was 1.walking down Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and my 2.RIM started vibrating. I was really surprised to find I had received an advertisement. An advertisement that I did not request, and definitely did not want to see. It was just a link to a web page but even still, it was very upsetting.
3.I think we need to get on top of this problem before it gets out of hand. Bluetooth marketing is going to go viral in very short time. 4.Once someone realizes that they can offer this type of advertising medium to the less-tech-savvy businesses out there with simple technology, everybody is going to jump on board. Not because it's particularly effective, but because it is particularly CHEAP. Just like mass email marketing ; but technically-involved enough to cut out the average small and even medium-sized businesses from doing it themselves. Instead of silently advertising, the concept of bluetooth spamming is going to be promoted and marketed by marketing companies.
----
Footnotes:
1 : This never happened.
2 : RIM sounds like a synonym for anus.
3 : I don't really think that, I hardly care.
4 : Surprisingly, this statement is actually true.
Ace
connecting (their poster) to an unauthorised network (my bluetooth) is a crime isnt it ?
even if it asks permission its too late as they have initiated a connection in order to ask you
this is like connecting to an unsecured wifi then using netsend to ask the owner for permission, technically its too late as you have already broken the law by connecting to the AP in the first place
perhaps you could also message the poster saying "by sending data to this phone you agree to the EULA posted at hxtp://tinurl/myexpensiveeula
if the poster doesnt understand the message is that your fault ?
invoice advertiser for network resources
profit !!
If you know who sent it, and can identify the sender, you can thus take legal action against them directly, so it probably should be handled in a different way. If it becomes a big enough problem, something will be done about it.
Great logic - because you know who did it and can do something about it, the existing laws should not be enforced and you can't do anything about it. Legally, that is.
Spam kiosks will be vandalized. Some kind of EMP device would be nice but the kiosks won't last long enough. If the pure psychic energy of spam hatred does not destroy the kiosk instantly, it will be kicked over, smashed by a vehicle or burnt within seconds of being turned on.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There is a solution to the problem that will owrk most of the time. If you already have your phone and headset paired, then just turn off your phone's and headset's Bluetooth visibility setting. When this is turned on, basically, the device is broadcasting its ID so that you can pair or send stuff to that device. You only need this turned on when you are pairing devices or trying to send data to/from devices that don't know each other (for example, sending contact information or pictures).
For further proof, you should watch this video from 'The Chaser's War On Everything' (comedy show over here) - they go to busy areas with $20 notes, calling "Free money? Free money?" waving it in people's faces - everyone ignores them, says no, or tries extremely hard to avoid them.
It's sad and perverse that people have been screwed over so often by advertisers that an honest person can't give money away on the street. It's as if the monopolist's bad behavior makes people less likely to look elsewhere. Ah yes, wiki has the name for it, battered person syndrome.
That describes the majority of Windoze users.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy
Wow, keep up this kind of pro-Linux advocacy. We're counting on you.
Regards,
Steve Ballmer
Not only offtopic, but also stupid.
Search for "toothing".
s iness/columnists/gmsv/11316894.htm
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bu
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
And yet people forget bluetooth was designed for spamming
"The Dutch OPTA, a national telecommunications watchdog, has decided not to label commercial Bluetooth messages as spam"
The OPTA hasn't formally decided anything. In TFA an OPTA spokesperson (when asked by a reporter) claims that bluetooth spam is probably not covered by current Dutch legislation, but it DOES "go against the spirit of the law". The OPTA so far hasn't investigated matters further, because it (apparentely) needs a formal complaint to be able to do so, and no one has filed one yet.
They claimed last week that they hadn't gotten any complaints. So I complained.
;-)
I also offered to forward my spam to them. Not immediately the commercial messages themselves, only just the subject and a question wether they want to recieve the full message. They only have to hit "NO" or "Delete" not recieve the full message.
Funny how they didn't seem to be interested in my offer....
Any time I looked at my phone during the day, there'd be an alert on it asking if I wanted to accept the transfer. Of course, by then, the perp trying to spam me was out of range so I couldn't take the message just to figure out whose ass needed kicking.
Still, I think this is a great opportunity! How often do you have a spammer close enough to strangle them?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It'll still work with all your paired devices but no one else can bluejack or annoy, hide it or get teh ads.
I dont hav any bluetooth devices, nor have I ever used or even seen one up close.
However, the post seems to suggest that you can either have it on, and your device promiscuously communicates with everything, or off, and it talks to nothing.
It seems odd to me that there wouldnt be some soft of 'device whitelist', where you could first start with it promiscous, have it negotiate and identify communication with specific devices (such as a headset), and then switch it to 'on, but only for already-identified devices', where it would still work with your headset, but would automatically ignore/refuse communication from anything else.
Why are you leaving bluetooth open? Close it to only allow connections with trusted devices, like your headset and your computer. Common sense.
Opinions expressed above are mine, and not my employees'.
http://vftp.net/catandmouse/
enjoy
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.