Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Bluetooth Cavities (11 Jun 2005) In the harmless-but-creepy department, the unique hardware address assigned to each Bluetooth device provides the impetus behind bluetracking, which is tracking people's whereabouts by following the signal of their Bluetooth devices. (Why anyone would want to do this remains a mystery, but most if not all of these hacks are forged by people who clearly have way too much time on their hands.) Perhaps the weirdest of the recent Bluetooth hacks is the BlueSniper, a Bluetooth scanning device that looks like a sniper rifle with an antenna instead of a barrel. Point the BlueSniper in any direction and it picks up the signals of vulnerable devices up to a kilometer away (compared with the usual Bluetooth scanning distance of 10 meters). And, of course, the BlueSniper also lets you attack those distant devices with your favorite Bluetooth hack. Article URL: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/resource/jun05/0605tech.html Read 87 more articles from IEEE Spectrum sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Bugged Balls For Tough Calls     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy