Broadcasting A BlueTooth Message?

John wrote:
> Is it possible to broadcast a bluetooth message to any device within a
> certain range? Or do you have to pair with a device before you can
> send a message which they can choose to accept or reject? Is it
> possible to send the message even if you're not paired with a device
> and for them to choose to accept or reject? Or would it just not go
> through unless you are paired?
>
> I am just curious because this could be useful for a number of
> reasons. I am not thinking along the lines of advertising or spamming
> or anything like that in this instance, but was just curious whether
> this is possible?
>
> I am also interested in what the average range is for a bluetooth
> device before it gets out of range?
>
> Thanks very much for your insight on this.
>
> John
>
>

While we are all on the subject of bluetooth, a friend has asked me if
it is possible for him to connect his laptop to his phone via bluetooth
and surf the Internet via his phone, I assume this is possible how would
I go about finding information/ software to accomplish this ?

JD

On this subject there is a software named BlueToothTracker which basically is a utility to tell weather the other mobile is in range or is getting far from you, very good application ive used it on my 6630. But the point here is, when i set a target mobile bluetooth user with bluetooth ON obviously, and start this software, it does not ask the other user for permission to pair up, it simply shows the pairing up signal on the target, without even him knowing it. Its a really advanced thing for me as i cud hardly imagine connecting without the permission of the client, but this thing really worked... Maybe if u all tried it .. u cud see the beauty of it. its available in some forum only..imean u can find anything in this site, thats what makes it the best ive ever seen..

Nokia have some feature that works as a kind of webserver in the phone and
you can set it to deliver a page of your choice when someone nearby requests
it via bluetooth. Can't remember what they call it; found by accident when
looking for something on nokia.com but requires Series 60 phone so lost
interest.


> While we are all on the subject of bluetooth, a friend has asked me if
> it is possible for him to connect his laptop to his phone via bluetooth
> and surf the Internet via his phone, I assume this is possible how would
> I go about finding information/ software to accomplish this ?
>
Reasonably easy to do, works a bit slower than landline dialup but not bad.
Exact method varies depending which network you are on. I have a contract
Vodafone and use their ConnectMe software.
http://www.vodafonebusiness.co.uk/index.php?page=127

What I do,

Is add my own name and contact to my address book, click on send via
Bluetooth and try to send.

Sometimes it says data sent.......sometimes data sending failed.

Would be nice if there was an app to just send contacts without them havin
to accept....its only like an SMS.....

S


--
Shaun Okeefe
Undernet User-Committee
Webmasters / Translators / Promotions
simba@user-com.undernet.org


"John" <mos@isley.com> wrote in message
news:akv1v1dbimi7veuo97kn5n0k898rne0po7@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:38:56 GMT, "computervaleting.co.uk"
> <enquiries@computervaleting.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I was interested in this too, there is a freeware package called
>>MeetingPoint, this allows you to send out a short message as a contact, so
>>you type in your subject and message, and as you walk down the street, it
>>automatically sends it to any bluetooth devices within range - however,
>>they
>>do have to accept the connection. I am not sure if you can override that
>>part of bluetooth.
>
> Before the connection is accepted though does it just tell you who is
> trying to send you something, or does it actually say what the name of
> the file is? If it said the name of the file that would be a good
> thing because you could name the file in a way that would give the
> person a better clue as to what it was regarding, and it may help them
> decipher whether it was spam or not.
>
>>But imagine that you walk into ASDA, and immediately your phone tells you
>>that Garlic Bread in Aisle 14 is Buy One Get One Free?????!!!!
>
> LOL
>
> I'd be more impressed if ASDA gave you a motorised trolley with
> steering wheel and throttle, that you could either stand at the back
> on it, or sit down and it whisked you around at 20 MPH. Have you been
> to that ASDA in Manchester by City's new ground? It's massive! I'm
> sure if you went up and down every aisle you would have covered a few
> miles.
>
>>Is that spamming????!!!
>
> I guess that would be unless it gave you the choice of accepting the
> message or not.
>
> I was thinking more along the lines of broadcasting within the
> neighbourhood for example information about your missing pet, or
> recent burglaries in the area (neighbourhood watch), sex offenders in
> the area, or even at work informing colleagues of people who had been
> robbed or attacked in certain areas after work while on their way
> home. The last one may be a good idea in places of work that are not
> offices or were some employees don't have access to company email or
> online news etc.
>
> I'm not exactly sure what the range is on bluetooth though? I'm sure
> it is only 10 meters for class 2? But I am sure it is 100m for class
> 1? The only thing is I have no idea what the difference is between
> class 1 and class 2, and what sort of files or info you could send via
> these different class standards?
>
> John
>
>

What does annoy me about bluetooth is the phone will not alert you
(vibrate/ring) when asking you to accept the file.

Dan

Moin,

Am Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:58:18 +0000 schrieb John:

> Is it possible to broadcast a bluetooth message to any device within a
> certain range?

From a technical standpoint: no. The usual protocols for sending things
with Bluetooth all work with one-to-one connections and not
one-to-many. (If I recall correctly then the underlying Bluetooth
transport protocols do indeed allow for broadcast, but it's not used.)

However, for your application that doesn't really matter, because you
will be fine when you simply connect to each device in range one after
the other.

Note though that in order to connect to a device you must know its
Bluetooth address. In Bluetooth these are acquired though a process
called inquiry, but in order for that to succeed the other device must
be in inquiry scan mode (usually called "visible" in layman's terms).

Due to the tremendous amount of Bluetooth related security
vulnerabilities these days most Bluetooth devices can be expected to be
switched to 'invisible', which will make them virtually inaccessible to
you.

> Or do you have to pair with a device before you can send a message
> which they can choose to accept or reject?

That really depends on what you are trying to do with which target
device. "Pairing" is the process of establishing authentication keys
which allow for secure (authenticated and/or encrypted) connections,
and thus is mostly only necessary for connections that require such
security (synchronizing your address book, etc.).

What you want to do can usually be accomplished by OBEX push, which
usually is possible anonymously and unauthenticated/unencrypted
(typical use case: if you want to push your business card to a random
acquaintance you just met you won't want to go through the pairing
procedure). However: The security policy is determined and enforced by
both devices, and I did see mobile phones that required a pairing just
for OBEX push (which is broken behavior, if you ask me).

If the other device doesn't want to play along with you, you really
can't do anything about it. (Well, some of the time you can, because
mobile phone Bluetooth stacks tend to have security vulnerabilities
more often than not, but that's a different story.)

> Is it possible to send the message even if you're not paired with a
> device and for them to choose to accept or reject?

That is precisely what OBEX push is for. It allows you to send
arbitrary objects (business cards typically, but audio files etc. might
be possible, depending on the phone at the other side) and have the
recipient chose to accept them or not. Again: there are countless
variations on this theme: some phones simply accept everything and
store it temporarily in an inbox for the owner to chose from; most
phones ask their owner for permission, but the amount of detail in that
question varies greatly (typical information that is given in the
question includes the remote device's name, the file's name and the
file's size, though some phones do not show some or all of these
infos.) And some devices, Windows PCs using Microsoft's Bluetooth stack
for example, will require their owner to initiate the receive procedure
on his side of the connection first (again: broken behavior if you ask
me).

> I am also interested in what the average range is for a bluetooth
> device before it gets out of range?

Depends (again) on your device and the other device. Below 10 meters is
a fairly safe bet. There are devices spec'd for up to 100 meters, but
these typically aren't mobile phones but rather PC dongles. Normally
you won't get the range advantage if not both devices are of the 100
meter variety ("class 1" in Bluetooth terminology), but it has been
shown that you can greatly increase your range if you just use a huge
directional antenna, see http://trifinite.org/trifinite_stuff_lds.html

> Thanks very much for your insight on this.

I'd recommend you read some more on Bluetooth basics. The wikipedia
might not be the worst place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBEX

--
Henryk Plötz
Grüße aus Berlin
~~~~~~~ Un-CDs, nein danke! http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/ ~~~~~~~
~ Help Microsoft fight software piracy: Give Linux to a friend today! ~

Moin,

Am Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:38:12 +0000 schrieb JD:

> While we are all on the subject of bluetooth, a friend has asked me
> if it is possible for him to connect his laptop to his phone via
> bluetooth and surf the Internet via his phone, I assume this is
> possible how would I go about finding information/ software to
> accomplish this ?

Depends on your friend's phone and its capabilities as well as on you
friend's laptop's Bluetooth stack and its capabilities. Simply read the
phone's fine manual. These tend to describe the process in excruciating
detail. (Or at least: Tell us the exact make of the phone you're
talking about so that we can read the manual for you.)

--
Henryk Plötz
Grüße aus Berlin
~~~~~~~ Un-CDs, nein danke! http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/ ~~~~~~~
~ Help Microsoft fight software piracy: Give Linux to a friend today! ~

Moin,

Am Tue, 14 Feb 2006 03:14:07 +0530 schrieb mehtab:

> But the point here is, when i set a target mobile bluetooth user with
> bluetooth ON obviously, and start this software, it does not ask the
> other user for permission to pair up, it simply shows the pairing up
> signal on the target, without even him knowing it.

If it's not asking for permission, then it's not pairing.

> Its a really advanced thing for me as i cud hardly imagine
> connecting without the permission of the client, but this thing
> really worked...

You need to differentiate. Bluetooth is not one big monolithic block
but rather a stack composed of several layers (as are all of today's
communications protocols). Without going too much into the details: at
the bottom there is basic connectivity which just gets packets (data
and control information) from one device to the other. There also is
some management to control the establishment and teardown of connections
and transmission of some meta-data (for example the remote device's
name and similar information). On the top of all that are application
protocols that allow you to do useful things like transferring files
and the like.

Obviously the file transfer is subject to access control restrictions.
But the underlying functions are not. (And can't be, because "I want
you to authenticate" or "Go away" are pieces of meta-data that must be
transferred to the other device, wherefore you need basic connectivity.)

> Maybe if u all tried it .. u cud see the beauty of it. its available
> in some forum only..imean u can find anything in this site, thats
> what makes it the best ive ever seen..

This really is simple and you don't need some questionable piece of
dubious code to do it. These are really basic functions of your
Bluetooth stack and for example the command line tools of the BlueZ
stack will allow easy access to that functionality.

--
Henryk Plötz
Grüße aus Berlin
~~~~~~~ Un-CDs, nein danke! http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/ ~~~~~~~
~ Help Microsoft fight software piracy: Give Linux to a friend today! ~