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What your Bluetooth devices reveal

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Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#71

Post by AlotOfReading »

scottlamb wrote: post #62
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

> We had a discussion that it would be easy to determine who was passing by at what times due to these especially when you can "de-anonymize" the data for example link it to a numberplate. You could also read the numberplate directly with OpenALPR. It can be finicky to set up a camera to do this reliably in all conditions (particularly at night and high speed) but once done you could detect any car passing, not just…

There's a difference between public and Public. I go outside with my face visible and I don't mind if my neighbors see me. I do mind if my neighbors stand outside my door with a notepad sketching faces every time they see me or anyone else, especially if they're selling the data. Systematic tracking that isn't subject to the constraints of human memory and apathy fundamentally changes the equation.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#72

Post by jorvi »

trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

> I believe shopping malls often use such signals (wifi, bluetooth) to track what your travel pattern through the mall is. They know what section of the store you spend most of your time in and what storefronts you stall at

In the EU this is forbidden unless they explicitly ask your permission. They can still gather aggregate stats but they cannot build a profile on you.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#73

Post by xaldir »

Fnoord wrote: post #36
trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

Don't worry about Tesla's being tracked. Via Bluetooth this has existed for at least 7 years [1] (was mentioned on HN as well). Tesla know (also for 7 years), Musk doesn't care 'since license plates can also be tracked'. I used it in train stations, and get hits when passing highways via train or bus. Esp. fun if you stand still due to traffic lights or traffic jam, since you can try to get a visual. The only lesson…

> Not allowed in EU.

I'm surprised, I know for a fact that some stores definitely have the ability to do that on their hardware.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#74

Post by mcosta »

officeplant wrote: post #51
SoftTalker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disable bluetooth on my phone, though periodically I find that it's back on. Edit: iOS

With iOS the easiest way to make sure it off and stays off is to build a shortcut to cut off wifi/bluetooth. Otherwise it's typically off until you get geolocated as being back home/work and wifi comes back on. I have a "store mode" button that just kills wifi/bt that I hit before I go into any store.

what do you gain doing this?

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#76

Post by reaperducer »

nofunsir wrote: post #67
tskulbru wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe shopping malls often use such signals (wifi, bluetooth) to track what your travel pattern through the mall is. They know what section of the store you spend most of your time in and what storefronts you stall at. Yes, I remember Cisco had a product like this all the way back in 2011. They could pinpoint a customer to an exact position inside a store using triangulation, they would know which shelf you spe…

iBeacon. They know what shelf you're standing in front of. What products you touch and read. Ever been in an Apple store? Look up. In the dark voids between the edge-to-edge backlit ceiling. There are secrets there. Watching you.

Macys pioneered it before there even were Apple Stores. Back when most people didn't even know their phones had Bluetooth.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#78

Post by luma »

trashb wrote: post #9

> We’ve normalised the idea that Bluetooth is always on. Phones, laptops, smartwatches, headphones, cars, and even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence. The standard response to privacy concerns is usually “nothing to hide, nothing to fear.” I guess anything you send out can be used to profile you. Some of my friends live on a farm near a semi busy road, however far enough from other farms to not be ab…

You can do this for much cheaper - all four of your tires are broadcasting a unique ID to report tire pressure, the radio to pick it up is cheap (because cars), and TPMS has no facility to randomize or otherwise secure this.

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#79

Post by [deleted] »

0x1ch wrote: post #19
pixl97 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even medical devices constantly broadcast their presence I mean yes, said medical devices are a whole lot less useful to me if they are not transmitting data. For some of this stuff you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I was wardriving my neighborhood and realized my elderly neighbor's CPAP machine is broadcasting some type of BT signal 24/7. I imagine it's transmitting some important stats, but it did make me have a 2nd thought about medical devices being IoT or BT enabled.

[deleted]

Re: What your Bluetooth devices reveal

#80

Post by thedrexster »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #71
scottlamb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We had a discussion that it would be easy to determine who was passing by at what times due to these especially when you can "de-anonymize" the data for example link it to a numberplate. You could also read the numberplate directly with OpenALPR. It can be finicky to set up a camera to do this reliably in all conditions (particularly at night and high speed) but once done you could detect any car passing, not just…

There's a difference between public and Public. I go outside with my face visible and I don't mind if my neighbors see me. I do mind if my neighbors stand outside my door with a notepad sketching faces every time they see me or anyone else, especially if they're selling the data. Systematic tracking that isn't subject to the constraints of human memory and apathy fundamentally changes the equation.

> constraints of human memory and apathy

i like that a lot, brother, thank you!

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