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Shake a Secure Bluetooth Connection
heilbron writes "The Austrian researcher Rene Mayrhofer of the British Lancaster university and his colleague Hans Gellersen developed a technology to simplify a secured wireless connection of mobile devices. With the so-called shake-to-connect technology an authenticated Bluetooth connection between two mobile phones is established by rhythmic shaking. Integrated oscillation sensors, contained in some mobile phone models, form the basis.
The two researchers sketched out a prototype, which is intended for Nokia mobile phones. An example is documented in this YouTube video clip. If two mobile phones are shaken together, the software in both devices registers the same shaking frequency and authenticates the radio link.
The principle is summed up in a four page PDF document."
I want to see you shake your bluetooth enabled car so you can sync with your phone, or spend the time shaking your keyboard and mouse ( and not look like an idiot ).
I can see a PDA getting loose during shaking and sending it flying under a bus. *crunch*
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is a solution looking for a problem...
"I need to shake my Wii."
Introducing the new 007 Martini Phone! I prefer mine shaken, not stirred!
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I wonder if she'll believe me, when I tell her my wang is bluetooth?!?
The idea of the authentication system being two devices being shaken together seems like a weak idea. There are plenty of times when multiple devices will undergo the same accelerations as each other, and the owners of the respective devices do not necessarily intend for them to be paired. For example, sit next to someone on a bus.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
My wee-wee has been asking authorization from my hand every night for ages!
I should definitely claim prior art for this technology.
Thinking about my use of Bluetooth:
a) Headset to phone auth - Done once when I bought the device, why would I want to make the headset heaver and more expenive.
b) Computer/phone auth - Done twice once with my home computer (a desktop-replacement laptop) and works desktop computer (not likely to pick that up and shake it)
c) Snyc with friends phone (share numbers) - I think I have done this once, normally I just send them a text message or quickly call them etc, but if I were to do it again I'd have to either let a friend shake my phone (top of the range smart phone) or a friend will let me shake his/hers (jokes abound). Mostly also top of the range smart phones. That is not likely to go down well.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Shake that thing Babe
SLAP!
DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Boom! Shake The Room
The Beatles - Hippy Hippy Shake
Mariah Carey - Shake It Off
Seal Paul - Shake that thing
Ying Yang Twins - Shake
Eminem - Shake That: Edited Version
Howlin' Wolf - Shake It For Me
Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump
Savage Garden - Break and shake me
It's only a matter of time till you'll have to dunk both deviced into a cup of tea.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
How about plugging them into each other with USB, etc.
They could exchange tokens.
Then future Bluetooth communication would be pretty secure.
Oh wait, that's too sane.
Looks cool but I wonder how secure it is.
- A video camera might be used to defeat it
- Beams invisible to the naked eye such as infrared, sonic, or microwave/wlan could be used with reflectors to create a compromised space in which shaken objects' movements could be recorded
- Powered units in motion could induce current/magnetic fields might be detectable
- When upgrading a device your keys are copied by a terminal in the phone company's office or at a kiosk belonging to a private company, presumably, as part of the address book. Implementation will require a secure partition/encrypted file on the device or its removable memory card.
- Phones look the same from the outside. How to prove it's your phone? Perhaps a thumbprint (like with PGP) using that musical tune feedback would be useful.
I'd like to see Bluetooth accommodate a request to connect two phones that are held by people with no preexisting relationship. Like when you see someone cute at a party, you can send a request to their phone, with your picture attached, asking to talk. Maybe attach tags to the request, with some common interests, or some mutual friends. Before you even get their phone#. With an "ignore" button that can also blacklist permanently.
That would work great not only for meeting dates, but also at conventions. Phones could replace the greeting card, and really make social networks work.
Does the current Bluetooth protocol have any features to support that kind of app? Or does the protocol need some revision to make it work?
--
make install -not war
Now all they need to invent is the Etch-A-Sketch phone, PDA, and laptop, where you turn the device upside down and shake it to erase its memory. It'll be only a short time before everyone gets used to the idea of turning your laptop over and shaking it to erase your private browsing information after making an Internet banking transaction.
This is useless until I can use it with my Wiimote.
This is just one more example that the guys in the Bluetooth SIG do not understand the problems that are really there with Bluetooth. I mean honestly, how many times does anyone pair with a second phone? I would say almost never. 99% of Bluetooth users are using it for headset profile, or to sync their handset to the the computer. We will see much more phone book access profile stuff coming from car kits which enable you to control your phone in a better way, but not phone to phone. I work with Bluetooth for a living, and it can even take me more than an hour to get a Bluetooth stack working properly on a PC. I have heard so many stories that people can get their PC to pair with the headset the first time, but after a reboot, or standby, forget about it. These "interoperability" issues are what holds the tech back. This and the bonding procedure.
Shake and squirt! shake and squirt! to share your load!
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
As if the Bluetooth coomunicating Wiimotes weren't doing enough damage yet...
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Must be great at an amusement park: You get off the roller-coaster with dozens of new friends.
Let's not contemplate what happens during an earthquake.
[I knew Bluetooth was in deep doo-doo in the late 90s, when I first saw a 900pp book on the protocols involved. Why is it that wireless-specific protocols are all garbage?]
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Why just limit yourself to shaking, when you could use:
Simpler solutions include a simple IR transmission, since they would have to be line of sight. Truth is there are many technologically simpler solutions that can use existing and are less expensive to implement.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
... if you shake it more than three times, it's masturbating.
Anyone got a light for my sig?
Someone was demonstrating this for key exchange (though I don't remember if it was Bluetooth) back at WMCSA 2003 in Monterey, and it was published at MobiSys 2005 in Seattle. So how's this news?
Is this going to be a new way to meet a one night stand at a club? Place your phone in your back pocket, and if it pairs with someone, you take them home?
What if your phone pairs with the same gender, and you are not gay? So you become offended, or shake again?
Wouldnt it be better if you just touched the two items together shortly after or while pressing a pairing button on each.
I always wished that phones would exchange numbers just by touching them together. Would make things a hell of a lot eaasier.
Hey ! Where's the 'dontshakemebro' tag ?
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
seriously, why is this not in use? It would make harder to access a bluetooth device without authorization, as it would require physical access...
In my dream bluetooth world, devices would only "pair" when connected with some sort of hermaphrodite interface (and would work wirelessly thereafter). Much like my wifi router: its initial setup was only accessible by its ethernet interfaces. This is the only way to rule out spoofings, man-in-the-middle attacks.
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Shake_20N_20Bake_20Cryptophone
... :(
Sorry, couldn't resist
Imagine if merely walking or running triggers this. Imagine how easy it would be to connect two devices.
You think two humans are going to be perfectly synced up when they shake phones? No...
as long as the shaking you do to the car is small enough that the phone doesn't roll around the passenger cabin, I think you would be fine...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Nokia already offers means of BT pairing by simply touching with phone using Near Field Communication. It seems more reasonable and usable to me than some shaking...
everyone with rhythm will sync at the club when they're dancin
this sounds gimmicky, like a answer looking for a problem...
Just stop trying to make things more complicated. Enter a 4 or 10 digit, or whatever string of numbers....easy...done! Don't make it more complicated to make a secure connection just "cuz".
So they propose shaking two devices to prove that the synchronization is intentional. Why not just use a tiny plug? It seems like it should be fairly easy to build in a standardized contact surface with a few conductors on it (4 should be enough, looking at something like USB). Then if you want to sync 2 devices, touch them together.