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Sunday, June 18, 2006 10:55 PM PT Posted by Harry McCracken
Land Rover Spams My Phone in Times Square
So I was in Times Square this weekend, and wandered by this giant billboard for Land Rover:"Make your Bluetooth handset discoverable and get the whole story now?" The statement was vague but intriguing, which I guess was its intent, and so I pulled out my Treo. And discovered that it was already in the process of downloading something from Land Rover, which was apparently using some sort of Bluetooth broadcasting technology to bombard everyone in the environs.
Land Rover was able to start transferring data to my phone without my explicit permission because I'd left it on the "Discoverable" setting, meaning that other nearby Bluetooth devices were able to detect its presence. I guess I'd been lulled into not looking at this as a security issue because hookups of two Bluetooth devices normally require a pairing process that requires human intervention, even though I know of the hackish prank known as Bluejacking. But it hadn't dawned on me that a discoverable phone could be discovered by an advertising broadcast.
Anyhow, once the Land Rover download had completed, my Treo asked me if I wanted to accept it. I did, and found it was a tiny video with dim audio--which, especially in Times Square, was too puny to make much of an impression.
But the experience did leave me annoyed...and philosophical. Is there any circumstance under which it's kosher for a legit company (Land Rover is, by the way, part of Ford) to transfer video onto the phones of people who happen to wander by its billboard? Does the fact that you have to accept the video once it's downloaded--at least on my phone--make this OK? If you leave your phone set to be discoverable, are you basically asking for it? Did whoever came up with Bluetooth's discoverable setting design it to be used in this way? Could a malicious person use the same techniques that Land Rover did to mess up phones?
If I'd managed not to see the Land Rover billboard--a perfectly plauible possibility--I would have been confronted by my Treo's message later, whenever I next used my phone. Given that the message on the Treo didn't make clear that it was an ad, or that it involved video, I'd probably have been utterly mystified, and maybe worried that I'd been hacked. Seems to me that that in itself is reason enough to make this a bad idea.
Land Rover, it seems to me, could have avoided irritating any prospective customers by doing its phone advertising via some system that involved interested passers-by sending an SMS message and receiving an ad in return.
Before anybody brings it up: Yup, the ads on PCWorld.com can be annoying, too. But you see them when you've chosen to visit our site--and with this Land Rover ad, all I'd chosen to do was to be in the proximity of a billboard with my phone on a particular setting.
Your thoughts?
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That's horrible! Im literally scared of what they will think of next...
Just not setting a device on the "Discoverable" setting seems a better solution than asking to send you even more annoying advertising by SMS.
Bluetooth is free, SMS often is not. How would the SMS process work, Send SMS and receive an SMS telling you to turn on Bluetooth. Or LR, sends you a small video that your carrier will charge you for bandwidth usage?
What if the bluetooth message was for a coupon to the Starbucks store below the billboard? Why would you turn on discovery mode unless you want to be contacted?
PS I note that I visited this site, however your ads are hiding links to scripts to atdmt.com, akamai.net. Bit of jacking of data as well.
BIG BROTHER has arrived !
If you leave your device on "discoverable" at all times, it's like disabling all the spam filters in your email app. You may not like the results in your inbox, but you colluded in getting them there.
Leaving a Bluetooth device on "Discoverable" is like broadcasting your SSID and leaving your network open. You have by default made it a public connection.
It's like saying, I'm suprised to pick up a radio signal when I my radio is in fact on. That's what happened, they've sent out a signal. And you brought your "radio" in range of the signal, and left it blaring and unattended.
So I think your "upset" is misplaced. You're the one who's left your trap wide open. When one is unprotected and open to all comers, one often catches things unawares.
I also can't believe your site is inconsiderate enough to hotlink people's email addresses in these posts! (Now that is upsetting.) And you complain of being spammed? Wow!
Getting upset that your phone rings at inopportune moments because you didn't have it in the "off" or "vibrate" position is equally absurd. The choice is yours, you want privacy? Then take the time to set your security and even your general settings. We have become an upgrade crazy society when it comes to tech toys and no one bothers to read the manuals and/or warnings.
Well..., that's just it... buy all those gadets, get online in various ways, leave your scent in cyber space..., get connected...
People will find you and exploit any and every way to get information to you. No sence in getting upset about it. It is a choice.., you can turn everything off.
And b.t.w., Big Brother has been here for ever, he just gets connected as well. You're always being watched.
Isn't this in violation of the Patriot Act. You know the part where they can arrest a guy sitting in his car because he accessed someone's open WiFi network. Bluetooth is a network connection too. So, Land Rover should be taken to task for attacking your network.
hey AD,
what's your gripe with hotlinking email addresses. They are not required. Heck nothing is reguired to post except the reply.
A real public service would be to give us an address to direct complaints to the source of this incredibly rude and thoughtless form of advertising
Try anything electronic it sends a heartbeat homeso there's always always a backdoor for the big guys and little microsoft ,mac, telephones etc.why do you think we are always gone to be hacked or exploited!