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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."
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.
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.
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.
blue-jacking is a worse threat than spam is.. i saw a british video on you-tube latly that shows a guy with a PDA automatically dialing peoples blue-tooth phones to pay-per-minute #'s.. costing them apparently almost $100 each, depending on how long it takes them to notice their phone is connected.
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.
Also, here's another video related to advertising from them which may give you all a laugh
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).
I find the discussion for this article a little out of touch with reality... except the post before this which made mention to disabling settings.
All devices (cell phones, PDAs, computers, etc) with bluetooth have two sets of options when you turn the bluetooth in them on. You can choose to make your device discoverable or not, and connectable or not. For any two devices to continually connect to each other they both have to have connectivity enabled (well duh), and they both have to be paired(one exception to the pairing rule, below). To pair devices, at least one must be discoverable, then the other searches for "discoverable devices." When the discovering device finds the discoverable one you exchange a passkey (so you know it's not Joe Blow's phone across the room), and they're paired. Paired devices will always connect to each other so long as connectivity is enabled on both devices. Discoverability never needs to be turned on unless a new device is being paired or you want to receive a business card or something else that uses the object push profile (which is the exception to the pairing rule).
So the way bluetooth transmits information is different depending on the information being sent. Music for instance needs to be continually streamed, while connecting to the net over bluetooth is more sporadic transmission. To acknowledge this, the bluetooth standard has several different profiles that transmit the data in different ways depending on what is being sent. Devices will only have access to the profiles that the manufacturer decides that device needs. As earlier stated, the object push profile is special, it can transmit data to any discoverable (or already paired) device. This is because the object push profile is only used to send short text-based messages, such as that business card I mentioned.
Thus, I'm going to make the safe assumption that these ads are being sent using bluetooth's object push profile as well.
So let's say you want your bluetooth phone to always be connected to its headset but you don't ever want to receive these ads, the solution is simple. Leave your bluetooth turned on, just don't make it discoverable. It's that easy.
"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.
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'.