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Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

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Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#171

Post by Lammy »

NoiseBert69 wrote: post #11
raverbashing wrote: post #7

Ah yes, the removal of headphone jacks, the gift that keeps on giving Funny that there were always some people here pushing bt audio as "the future", whom I can only assume were the technically shallow but very opinionated people that would die on the smallest technical hills

Thanks god the headphone jacks died in smartphones. I switched to USB-C soundcard cables which are dirt cheap and survive much much more plug-unplug-cycles. They easily can be replaced.

USB-C is creepy in its own way, because it lets the host computer uniquely identify each pair of headphones. Even my USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter has a USB descriptor field whose key is a UUID and whose value is the adapter's manufacture time in an ISO timestamp down to the second it got programmed at the factory.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#172

Post by Larrikin »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #4

Meanwhile all the phones dropping jack because Apple started it. Official reason is to "waterproof phones"

This has been a lie since day one. The Sony Xperia line has been waterproof for over 10 years and continues to have a headphone jack and an SD card slot. That with their minimal Android tweaks is the main reason to even consider their phones.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#173

Post by aidenn0 »

raverbashing wrote: post #16
NoiseBert69 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks god the headphone jacks died in smartphones. I switched to USB-C soundcard cables which are dirt cheap and survive much much more plug-unplug-cycles. They easily can be replaced.

The epidemic of people not wearing headphones has been directly caused by the lack of headphone jacks

I see more people with headphones now that BT headphones are everywhere...

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#174

Post by sva_ »

jader201 wrote: post #70
sva_ wrote: post #67

I previously posted the repo here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46406310

Why not just link to the repo directly? That post only has one comment. Here’s the repo (to save everyone a click): https://github.com/auracast-research/race-toolkit

It is somewhat of a custom that the person who posts about a thing first gets the Karma, but it is seldom respected, and I won't beg for it. But I do sometimes hint at it.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#175

Post by makeitdouble »

kalleboo wrote: post #158
simpaticoder wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the loss of the 3.5mm jack is a short-sighted and poor decision. There is at least one mitigation, which is the ability to recover the jack through a USB-C DAC. Apple sells them for USD10. I have several, in the car and in my backpack. It's not a good solution though. In particular I find the USB-C port gets worn out pretty quickly. Its also easy to lose the dongle and of course it's more complicated to setup…

Can't you just leave a dongle on any wired headphones you have? Assuming you only use them with your phone and computer and don't have a CD player or something.

> Assuming you only use them with your phone

This is really where it hits. Every other device has a proper jack, so the dongle needs to be kept somewhere every other time.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#176

Post by makeitdouble »

wat10000 wrote: post #147
makeitdouble wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"few customers care" is not the democratic ideal you make it sound to be. It's the same as glued batteries, unrepairable phones. Few customers making it an absolute criteria for their phone choice still doesn't make mean the majority sees it as a positive thing nor they agree. At the time on the android side, only Pixel and Samsung's lines were serious about the camera or international NFC support, moving to other ph…

It’s a competitive market. If removable batteries mattered to a lot of people, some company would take advantage of that to make a lot of money. Feature combinations aren’t immutable facts of nature. Manufacturers make a conscious choice about what to include. If a good camera and international NFC combined with a headphone jack would attract a lot of buyers, don’t you think Samsung or Google would make a phone like…

> It's a competitive market.

Is it ?

We have a paper trail of lawsuits telling another story.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#177

Post by pamcake »

avidiax wrote: post #170
willnix wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the researchers here. Many people seem to prefer text to videos, which I sympathize with. So please excuse me hijacking the top comment with links to our blog post and white paper: Blog: https://insinuator.net/2025/12/bluetooth-headphone-jacking-f... Paper: https://ernw.de/en/publications.html

Did you look into whether the spoofed device can also be "upgraded" to be used as an HID device, like a mouse or keyboard? That upgrade would be several CVEs against the OS vendors. That would make the attacks potentially silent, since the attacked could simulate keypresses to dismiss notifications, or can at least keep the target unable to respond by spamming home/back or pressing power and simulating a swipe to shu…

I believe this would in any case require repairing and the new functionality would be visible in the pairing UI? I would be surprised if a device once paired as a headset can suddenly start acting like a keyboard if it feels like it.

EDIT: Covered in the talk at 33min. No keyboard but the Hands-Free Profile would allow you to place calls and interact with a voice assistant if one is enabled.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#178

Post by pamcake »

andai wrote: post #26
macintux wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Glad this submission is finally receiving upvotes. Speaking for myself, I have very little patience for technical videos, so I don't believe I've ever upvoted a YouTube submission.

I would read it if it was an article of identical length! One second thought I think this is called a transcript... --- Edit: Auto-Transcript! (No timestamps, sorry) https://jsbin.com/jiqihuveci/edit?html,output

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457307

Blog: https://insinuator.net/2025/12/bluetooth-headphone-jacking-f...

Paper: https://ernw.de/en/publications.html

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#179

Post by j16sdiz »

avidiax wrote: post #170
willnix wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the researchers here. Many people seem to prefer text to videos, which I sympathize with. So please excuse me hijacking the top comment with links to our blog post and white paper: Blog: https://insinuator.net/2025/12/bluetooth-headphone-jacking-f... Paper: https://ernw.de/en/publications.html

Did you look into whether the spoofed device can also be "upgraded" to be used as an HID device, like a mouse or keyboard? That upgrade would be several CVEs against the OS vendors. That would make the attacks potentially silent, since the attacked could simulate keypresses to dismiss notifications, or can at least keep the target unable to respond by spamming home/back or pressing power and simulating a swipe to shu…

You can't change the device class.

It would be an vulnerability on the host stack to accept that.

Re: Bluetooth Headphone Jacking: A Key to Your Phone [video]

#180

Post by bgbntty2 »

avidiax wrote: post #169
bgbntty2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote audio surveillance probably be accomplished on wired headphones with TEMPEST [0]/Van Eck phreaking [1]. Not sure about which has a better range and which would be stealthier - TEMPEST or the Bluetooth attack. The Bluetooth attack just requires a laptop. Not sure if the TEMPEST attack would require a big antenna. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phre…

I doubt that audio-spectrum RF/magnetic frequencies emanate strongly from wired headphones. They are simply not a long enough antenna at 200-3,000 Hz. Also, the loop area is quite low. The ground wire runs parallel to the L/R wires, so the only loop to receive is the magnetic coils in the headphones, which are small. Only near field would work, IMO.

Thanks!
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