Jun 06 2007
A Novel Use for Bluejacking
Are you aware of Bluejacking? It’s a form of close proximity messaging via bluetooth. Basically the term isn’t as bad as it sounds, because as annoying as it is, it’s relatively harmless. I wouldn’t be surprised if incidence of this rises (particularly in populated city regions) as a source of push advertising.
My son’s school has decided to crack down on mobile phone usage at school. They told the students that they could monitor messages that were being sent and received. And they seriously expected the students to believe this.
Next they got some sort of bluetooth enabled device (maybe a phone?). Apparently this device could tell who had bluetooth enabled on their phones and also push a message saying “Report to Mr X’s Office” (the teacher was named – the X is mine) along with a photo of the named teacher. I think they were hoping to find a few kids silly enough to fall for it, but my son tells me no one has yet (well, not that they’ve admitted to).
In typical teenage fashion, many students renamed their phones to the name of the principal. So the bluetooth monitor would have the option to send numerous bluetooth messages to the principal!
I don’t think this one will last long, somehow.
Have you ever been bluejacked? I’ve had a couple of attempts, but haven’t accepted the message.
7 Responses to “A Novel Use for Bluejacking”
I think it’s hilarious that schools believe they can outsmart the students at technology. In my experience (admittedly – nearly 10 years ago now), more than half the time teachers had to ask a student for help to set something up.
Blind Bluetooth-Push to random phones? I’m sure it’ll catch a few parents too.
As for being bluejacked – sort of. Last year I’d been fiddling with Bluetooth stuff on my PDA a few days before, and had it set up to auto-accept files. At the trainstation someone pushed a short (~10 second) video clip to my PDA…
The video clip was err… ‘of an adult nature’, and I’m fairly sure I know which group of Year-11 boys it was that sent the clip.
At a conference last week, one of the speakers was demonstrating something on their laptop, and had Bluetooth enabled and visible to all. At least one other person noticed, and had renamed their phone to “{competing company} is better”. Allegedly they were about to send a pairing request when his colleagues stopped him.
FWIW: There are, or were, some ‘smart’ advertising signs in the UK/Europe/US that had Bluetooth and IR so that passers by could receive free ring tones, backgrounds, and discount coupons from the ad.
From memory, It was based on a ‘request’ model though – i.e you had to send a (Bluetooth) message to the billboard for it to send you the content. I’m not sure of the success rate though.
Hi Will
I could just imagine some confused parents turning up at Mr X’s office
Hehe I wonder how the presenter would have taken it.
I don’t think I’d be at all receptive to bluetooth advertising. My phone is sacred turf – email’s bad enough, but not my phone. I’ve got a blackberry and occasionally get spam to my blackberry email, which annoys the crap out of me!
When the kids are generally more tech-savvy than the schools, this kind of thing falls very flat and the school and teachers lose whatever credibility as an authority figure. Don’t lie to people you want respect from, regardless of their age.
Hi Cait
Nice to hear from you
What you say is very true.
I must agree with Will and Cait – young people will not fall for this sort of deception and will not respect anyone who tries it. My school has taken a very open position on phones, it is just too difficult to crack down on them in any meaningful way. We have added to our list of standard instructions for exams “Take your mobile phone out of your pocket and place it on the floor next to you”. It is quite amusing to see 100 or so phones sitting on the floor but it seems to work ok.
hi,
nearly the exact same thing happened to me! My school has this rule that all students need to put their phones in a box in the secretary’s office first thing when they get to school. But of course, 99% of us have phones (probably 100%) and Nearly everyone brings them into school, and of course, almost NOBODY hands anything in.
So this morning, in assembly, the head says “I don’t believe for a second That you lot have stopped bringing your phones, WE WILL KNOW IF YOU HAVE THEM”
then there was a load of whispering, and my friend standing next to me says “Turn your bluetooth off, ASAP! That’s how they’ll know” so then I said I would.
I was standing at the end of my line, on the back row, right by the door, when my french teacher, Mrs.T, walks in, phone in hand, walks over to me, and then stops and apparently points at me (I wasn’t looking). My friend whispered “Mrs. T just ….Something …….something……” I couldn’t hear her, so I remained blissfully unaware.
As fate would have it, I had Double French Straight after assembly. I am still unaware that she knows I have my phone in my pocket. About half way through the lesson, she asks me, out of the blue, “Do You have your Phone on you right now?……..FRIZZ JR?” (frizz jr. is what I named my phone! embarrasing!!) She’s one of those nicer teachers who I hate lying to, so I confessed because I knew she wouldn’t be angry because that’s not the first time she caught me with my phone in school.
The other time was when I was making excuses as for why I hadn’t learned (or even written) a french oral, she told me to go to the office and put a memo on my phone, which was infact in my pocket, so I was like “oh, wait, I must have FORGOTTEN to hand it in, sorry, here it is!” But she didn’t mind, infact she let me walk back into French Class, phone in hand, bleeping on full volume as I typed in the memo, much to the envy of everyone else, AND she even let me keep it!
But anyway, Today, because I had “cracked under the pressure” she told the class she would “earch for nearby bluetooth’s” and that they’d show up even if the bluetooth was turned off or hidden, the phone was turned off, and even still if the battery and sim card was removed. So before she did that the whole class surrendered their phones
Well, It’s my own fault for being stupid enough to call my phone “Frizz Jr.” …….BUT, I have a plan! this new method of phone detecting is no reason for me to have a dull phone name like “orange user” or “phooone!!” so my new Phone name is something which she (or any other teacher) won’t recognise as me, but everyone else will know who it is, so Tommorrow will be interesting when there will be no “Frizz Jr.” but instead a “Pickle’s Frazzled Lemon-Killing Lover” nearby. On the other hand, If she realises that’s me, it will be far more embarrassing, and on Monday I might as well call it “Guess who!! Catch me if you can!!”
I’m not sure, but is this Bluejacking?
Hi Frazz / Frizz
Thanks for your story (still chuckling)! I guess it’s along the same lines as Blujacking, but a little less sophisticated because they only read the phone rather than pushed a message to it.
I seriously doubt the teacher would be able to detect a phone that had bluetooth switched off, and even more so with the phone turned off…
I hope there’s no limit to the characters you can name your phone otherwise your plan will be quashed!
I like the Guess Who? hehe 😀