Bluejack City - A
new wireless craze is spreading through Europe
- by Tom Dibble - Dec. 29, 2003
Just as SMS was spawned, there's a new
craze that's spreading across parts of Europe. Reportedly, it's
more prominent in the UK, but popular elsewhere too.
Bluejacking, as you may have guessed, involves
the Bluetooth standard to send anonymous messages to other Bluetooth-capable
handsets with security disabled. This is as close to hand-to-hand
mobile combat as you're going to get.
Bluetooth's range on average is 10 meters, and
handsets with Bluetooth on board can be made to search for other
handsets in this proximity that will accept messages sent to
them.
Early adopters have been bluejacking for a while
now, but the trend and media reports are set for it to become
much more widespread in the coming months, especially as more
Bluetooth-enabled handsets hit the market. Research carried
out for the Bluetooth SIG claims more than one million Bluetooth-enabled
devices are being shipped every week, worldwide.
Bluejacking seems to have originated on message
boards at Esato, a popular destination for Sony Ericsson owners.
It's a very simple process of creating a contact in your address
book using the message you want to send as the name for the
entry. On most Bluetooth phones it's possible to send this contact
as a message or electronic business card.
Sound familiar? It should. Palm made this popular
with IR transmission of business cards on one handset to another.
However, Palm has never been as mainstream or accessible to
the average consumer as Bluetooth-enabled devices. Also IR had
the line-of-sight issues, which meant sender and recipient had
to know they were doing it. Bluetooth, with its omni range,
means that this type of activity can be done anonymously. It
seems the buzz for bluejacking is seeing the reaction and puzzlement
from the recipient.
The bluejacking craze seems to be catching on
as numbers of page views on sites dedicated to bluejacking are
increasing day by day. It's fun for kids at school and even
for adults on the train if they're bored. In fact, anywhere
there's a large crowd of people - airports, bars, malls - you
can bluejack to your heart's content...
Simple How-to Bluejack Guide
- Enable Bluetooth on your handset or device.
- Ensure your device is broadcasting Bluetooth
acceptance.
- Create a contact using the message you
want sent as the name for that entry.
- Choose to send this contact via Bluetooth.
- Sit back while your device tries to locate
available Bluetooth devices in range to connect to.
- Pick a victim from the devices within
range and send the contact. (Ideally this will be a PDA or
phone and not a printer in the office!)
And that's it, you have now officially either
been a bluejacker or been bluejacked.
Fun? Maybe. Novelty? Definitely. Short change
MNOs? Good possibility if it becomes the new fad. Although not
publicly expressing concern, feeling from the industry is that
this is something to be addressed. Rather than MNOs getting
revenue for messages sent, they are now going to miss out. You
just need to look at the profiles of high-volume SMS users in
Europe. Good news for MNOs is that you have to be within range.
You have to have a Bluetooth-enabled device and you need a good
imagination to make the process interesting.
Copyright © 2006 SYS-CON Media.
All Rights Reserved.
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