Fired up my bluetooth thing in Pearson International, and this is what I got:
Only a couple of these were protected with a password. Others I could just connect and check out. I didn’t want to push it too far (you don’t break into a house just because the door isn’t locked!) but I was able to directly access files. One could check out photos and contact info on people’s phones (if one were to be that kind of person). One also could use somebody’s phone to make calls remotely.
Gotta love how companies and people make data security a priority 
Well most people are just plain uneducated about all this stuff. They have no idea that some curious person can sit there and enter thier phone. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people with bluetooth on thier phones don’t even know what bluetooth is. I blame the companies that make the phones. Sure the consumer has some responsibility to educate themselves, but that shouldn’t take more than reading the manual. Somone who buys a phone should not have to spend a couple of hours on the internet scanning for potential threats to thier security. The companies need to take it upon themselves to educate thier consumers and design these things so that security is the default.
Mike
Well, to be fair, my girlfriend’s phone has bluetooth disabled out of the box. She needs to turn the feature on before it will work. And then it can do device-pair security (with a password), or prompt for each connection to allow / disallow.
I think most manufacturers do the same thing – bluetooth isn’t on by default, and it has to be activated.
[quote=“CrazyMike”]Well most people are just plain uneducated about all this stuff. They have no idea that some curious person can sit there and enter thier phone. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people with bluetooth on thier phones don’t even know what bluetooth is. I blame the companies that make the phones. Sure the consumer has some responsibility to educate themselves, but that shouldn’t take more than reading the manual. Somone who buys a phone should not have to spend a couple of hours on the internet scanning for potential threats to thier security. The companies need to take it upon themselves to educate thier consumers and design these things so that security is the default.
Mike[/quote]
the problem with out of the box security is then the big selling points are “too hard” to setup. In many cases security takes a backseat to ease of use a perfect example is wireless routers. Why do they not have a default wep key? why do they have SSID broadcasting turned on by default? Because 99% of the users wont buy it if it doesnt work out of the box.
I blame both the users and the companies 
As for bluetooth I havnt ever used a bluetooth device so I have nothing further to say on that topic 
This is interesting. My blue tooth Motorola V3 razor phone is pretty secure too. The first time i scanned it with my powerbook with blue tooth turned on it came up on the phone asking for a scurity code. blue tooth is pretty fast to transfering file off the phone to the laptop was quick. I have seen lot’s of mac mini’s out now that have blue tooth on and no security enabled. Why would some one do such a thing… They have a secure connection on there wirless but wide open on the blue tooth. Weird.
Why do they have unsecured blue tooth, because there hasnt been enough news stories on the hazards yet thats why. That and bluetooth is short range so its not really an issue if you’re in your home.
ok i think you should have stopped when you said you didn’t know about blue tooth. Blue tooth has wicked range… my apple mouse i could go across the street from my house and it works with my laptop… you should read more about it. 
The mac mini i detected with blue tooth is 2 building;s over from where i work at the car lot… don’t say blue tooth has low range.
[quote=“jleaman”]
ok i think you should have stopped when you said you didn’t know about blue tooth. Blue tooth has wicked range… my apple mouse i could go across the street from my house and it works with my laptop… you should read more about it. 
The mac mini i detected with blue tooth is 2 building;s over from where i work at the car lot… don’t say blue tooth has low range.[/quote]
Ok smart ass Bluetooth is short range mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#g1
Also the range is 10m/30 ft however high powered devices can hit 100m, but lets be honest these are best case scenarios.
mobileinfo.com/Bluetooth/FAQ.htm#t6
Like I said I havn’t used the technology but I have read about it and it is designed to be “short range” .