Bluetooth Spam In Public Spaces 90
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."
whoa there (Score:4, Funny)
I only engage in bluejacking if I get pr0n spam. and certainly not in public.
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Not all bad, google for 'toothing' (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not all bad, google for 'toothing' (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the original article on 'toothing' was a hoax.
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There is a piece of software to help you against this, but now to avoid getting infected in the first place I wrapped my phone in a condom. If I do get infected again, at least it can't reproduce. It also means that if I do get lucky with young hotties I have a (slight
That phenomenon was a fraud, a hoax, a lie, etc (Score:2)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bu
CAN SPAM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:CAN SPAM? (Score:5, Funny)
There's a reason it's not called CAN'T SPAM...
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I think now that most windows exploits have been discovered, and used to the full extent possible, the hackers are mo
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No intermediary (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation [wikipedia.org]
http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/241460.html [findlaw.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark [wikipedia.org]
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/policy/ec omm/index_en.htm [eu.int]
Have you been living in a barn for the past 160 years?
A spammer you can see? Instant Death Assured. (Score:2)
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 enou
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Ok Great idea. I'll use that then...
One little problem. If it's not illegal, what do I sue them for? The 30 seconds it takes me to get my phone out of my pocket, to hit "no"? That's about EUR 1.- , provided I can convince the judge that I should be earning EUR 120.- an hour....
There is no problem if I get bothered by a bluetooth ad once every year. Then I'll cover the costs myself. But as spamming is so very cheap per "delivered message", the same is lik
I don't understand advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:I don't understand advertisers (Score:5, Informative)
For further proof, you should watch this video [youtube.com] 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 [youtube.com] related to advertising from them which may give you all a laugh
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Not only offtopic, but also stupid.
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And yet somehow, all those big companies manage to stay in business without your support.
Why do Slashdotters find it so hard to get past the assumption that everybody thinks they way they do?
True story... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, he's had enough, and gets up and yells...
"WHO THE HELL KEEPS BLUETOOTHING ME GAY PORN ALL THE TIME?!"
Re:True story... (Score:5, Funny)
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Bus, Västerås
Two guys ~17 talking. Girl ~14 sits down next to them.
Guy 1: Ey, what the hell is 56 minus 34?
Girl starts giggling.
Guy 2: What the hell, that's impossible! Hang on I'll check on my cellphone...
Girl (laughing): You don't have to do that. It's 16!
Elderly man (shakes head angrily): Your math teachers should be burned at the stake!
Everyone is suddenly silent on the
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Please start doing it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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My Treo 650 requires me to whitelist any bluetooth devices I want to use. Is this not standard with other phones? Or should I hold on to this phone, because it protects me from BlueSpam?
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this is why programs like BTCrawler for Windows Mobile devices are p
Re:Please start doing it. (Score:5, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org](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 [wikipedia.org] 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.
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Creepy guy at the mall (Score:1)
Not for long! (Score:5, Insightful)
And if it's a person doing it, dude, I've still got the hammer.
I expect this to be a short-lived phenomenon.
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You have to figure ONE of the jurors has a BT-enabled phone. Just arrange to have someone send that person 2386523897 copies of goatse, tubgirl et al during the trial using dozens of different BT device names and lots of enticing filenames.
He/she will hang the jury guaranteed (at worst).
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I don't think juries take kindly to the LART defense.
You don't have to hurt anyone, you just need to destroy the spam device. Given the level of hatred most people have for spam, you will never be arrested much less convicted by a jury. The local police will probably help you hold the loser down as you happily hammer the device into bent pieces.
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Any reliable wireless technology? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not so sure, due to the very nature of data floating around where anybody can grab it, that
reliable (Score:3, Informative)
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Re: sporting (Score:2)
enjoy
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Er, I'm gonna have to call BullShit on this one. My celphone, for example, doesn't know any of my personal info (other than that related to making phone calls). That's by far the easiest way to prevent it from being stolen. Why are you putting banking/SS#/whatever into your phone in the fir
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Fun with bluetooth (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Thank you Verizon (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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I know that you meant this in jest, but this is the first thing I thought of when reading the article. I just got a new RAZR V3m from Verizon and was pretty pissed to find out that I couldn't transfer files to and from the phone via my laptop's Bluetooth connections. It never even occurred to me that other people might be able to access my phone via Bluetooth (why the hell did I enter
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Not EU - NL... (Score:2)
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.
fun public transport? (Score:1)
travelling by bus might actually become fun!
going past those shops each with something interesting to sell... hardware, groceries, books, porn...
Bluejacking? (Score:1)
gonna make some adv $$$ (Score:1)
d^$_$^b
Let there be 3 options... (Score:1, Informative)
- 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.
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The Bluetooth devices I've seen come with BT on and visible, but the access to the setting is somewhat complicated (my cellphone has at least "BT on/off" in the quick menu).
Note that the "On but hidden" state is far from foolproof - it just stops the device from broadcasting its presence (which has (so far) been enough for me in most cases - security by obscurity?).
Hmm (Score:2)
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A bluetooth ad I received (Score:1, Redundant)
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 adve
Solution (Score:2, Informative)
bluetooth spamming? (Score:1)
Never rely on Babelfish (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Complaints.... (Score:2)
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....
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How about... (Score:2)
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 dev
why are you leaving bluetooth open? (Score:2, Informative)