If you have bluetooth on your phone, there’s yet another reason to turn it off when you don’t use it. Besides saving battery life (which is always a good thing), and just general security you’ll be seeing more and more spam as time goes on if you keep it on. It’s already a problem in some places. Here’s an auto translated version of the linked article in English.
It’s to easy to just spam cell phones with phone book entries, video’s, text messages, pictures, etc. Even if you don’t accept them, your phone will still go off to let you know you have an incoming request. I would bet it won’t take long befor apps exist for PDA’s to automatically spam any bluetooth device in range. Then a spammer can just walk through the streets, malls or stores to send spam. Talk about discrete marketing.
What a mess, and I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon. We’re still getting email spam with no end in site.
1 reply on “Coming Soon: Bluejacking”
Bluejacking was popular here about 3-4 years ago when Bluetooth phones were new and only a few people had them. But you hardly hear about it nowadays.
I know at least one billboard campaign which would send data to a phone or PDA with Bluetooth if it was in range, but I haven’t seen any since, and that was in May 2005. I imagine not enough people have Bluetooth turned on – I think most people either keep Bluetooth turned off or just don’t know how to use it. I certainly have it off on mine, mainly to save battery power.