[wolfy]

hi, a worrying thing has come to my attention. A friend came round to show me his new phone and sat in my lounge with his sony erricson k700i and browsed through my phone and downloaded stuff to his phone using bluetooth.
Nothing new i hear you say BUT.........

All this despite my bluetooth being in HIDDEN mode and SWITCHED OFF! I have never paired with his phone and even when my bluetoooth was switched ON and in hidden mode, he could STILL do this!
I rang Nokia who told me they are aware of this problem but they cannot be responsible for what other manufacturers put into their phones (which is a fair comment) and there are talks of making this illegal, as at best, it IS immoral!

I always thought that bluetooth was a secure encrypted link between devices and you had to authorise a link. Apparently NOT. They cant PUT stuff onto your phone but they CAN take stuff off, which is very worrying. Basically, your phone is NOT secure... BEWARE! Apparently, there are a few top level phones that have this capabillity.

Has anyone else come across this?
As i said, Nokia are aware of this and advised me there are 3rd party applications to 'beef up' your phones security.

[gadgetdude]

I remember this being said about the Samsung D600 so I tried a little experiment, here are my findings:

Units used:

Nokia 6680 & Samsung D600 (Not Paired)

Tests in order of use:

B/T On & Visable - Connected and asked if I want to rcv.

B/T On & Hidden - Connected and asked if I want to rcv.

B/T Off - Could not find phone.

Turned B/T back on at this point:

B/T On & Hidden - Could not find phone.

Hope this helps.

Gadget

[wolfy]

Hey gadgetdude, i KNOW you know what you're talking about but believe me, he sat there in front of me and did it! as i said, after ringing nokia, even THEY said its possible and mentioned possible legislation coming into place to make it illegal.
Another thing, a friend showed me a tape of Richard and Judy that was aired last week. somebody had a handheld computer and the software somehow 'took' money off the other persons phone (possibly sending something to the sim to credit themselves for services they werent providing). they didnt really explain how it was done, for obvious reasons, but they did manage to find phones despite them having the bluetooth off or hidden.
Quite frightening to think that you could get a huge bill because some1 has managed to 'crack' the bluetooth on your phone and done something to get money from you.
There is always a way to do something that 'cant be done', and theres always some1 who'll find the way

[seraphim]

richard and judy are full of **bleep**. one of my neighbours has a se k750i and i asked him to try this out. without pairing and with my bluetooth switched off he couldnt find me. with bt switched on and hidden he couldnt find me. it wasnt untill i was visible that he could find me. after that i went hidden again and he couldnt find me. I use an n90.

at no point did i allow him to pair with me

[wolfy]

As for the Richard and Judy, i only saw what was on tv.
Regarding the se k700, he sat there in front of me and did it. At no point had i paired with it as it was a brand new phone and thats why he was there, to show it to me.
As iv already stated, Nokia informed me they ARE aware this so it IS possible. Even to the point of advising me to look at the possibility of getting 'nhanced' security for my phone

[slitchfield]

I'm with seraphim on this one. I simply don't believe that one mobile can access another when the latter's Bluetooth is switched off completely. It's impossible, no matter what you think you saw and what Nokia and Richard and Judy say...

Sorry.

Steve

[teurastaja]

Well,

There are several methods to "hack" a phone via bluetooth without you knowing about it.

I haven´t heard that this should be possible in that new device that you are saying though since the bluetooth security was mostly vulnerable in older devices. In the case of a security risk the manufacturers usualy fix this with upgrades in the software.

To be able to "take over" another phone and browse and see the content the bluetooth MUST be turned on. There is no way it is otherwise possible to connect to the phone via bluetooth. It would be the same thing to try to hack a computer that is not connected to any network - impossible.

[mobile_maniac]

lol... this sounds like a standard case of "Do you really believe everything you read in the paper and see on the TV"?!

I'll have to go with Seraphim on this one too. Connecting to a phone via Bluetooth that has Bluetooth switched off is like you talking to your friend on MSN messenger when he's not even connected to the Internet! ... not possible.

As far as I know, when Bluetooth is switched off, the Bluetooth transmitter is also switched off which would render it impossible to find or be connected to anything via this method of connectivity.

[gadgetdude]

You'll probably find out later that the guy on Richard and Judy will be selling a Bluetooth Firewall to unsuspecting public who now have a fear of getting hacked via bluetooth.

I'm also with Seraphim and think that although older phones were prone to B/T access the newer handsets are a lot more secure.

We will no doubt be seeing legislation to protect peoples privacy via bluetooth.

Gadget

[mobile_maniac]

... all this said, any kind of wireless connectivity is to-date relatively insecure in comprison to the wired versions.