6 ms·

Bluetooth 5

123 points by MrQuincle 10y ago

matthewmacleod 10y ago
I've been really fascinated recently by whipping out my smartphone in public and using a Bluetooth LE explorer app to look at what's being advertised, and it's brilliant. We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. Bluetooth 5 seems to increase the range of LE communications, but since I'm almost sure we're going to have some horrible public hack of one of the platforms at some point, I hope there is increased focus on the security of devices that use it!
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  > We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. It's also terrible that people, and their clothing, are so detectable in the visible light spectrum. Where's the 'tarnkappe' when you need it? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloak_of_invisibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloak_of_invisibility ) Also appreciate the "will be marketed as 'Bluetooth 5.' [no dot zero]". Sounds like a band name, or a gang. Good thinking there - the Bluetooth 5 are now taking over the neighborhood ...
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    It's also terrible that people, and their clothing, are so detectable in the visible light spectrum. I wasn't completely clear above, but there are a couple of differences: - Your clothing doesn't contain unique identifiers (yet!) :) - The devices seem to often be happy to broadcast their information in the clear. Your clothes don't advertise your position or heart rate to the whole world either!
    - Frank2312 10y ago
      They do "broadcast" where you shop (if someone knows where your clothes are from), what kind of job you have, your social class and many other informations about the person.
      - matthewmacleod 10y ago
        Well, that's very true. At least its easy for everyone to see what they're sharing there though!
    - tremon 10y ago
      Your clothing doesn't contain unique identifiers But your face does...
      - nileshtrivedi 10y ago
        Which requires a camera being pointed at you, whereas bluetooth isn't based on line-of-sight.
  - heeen2 10y ago
    And ubiquitous public surveillance is just as troublesome. Even more so with face/movement pattern recognition or paired with other information such as MAC broadcasting.
- BuildTheRobots 10y ago
  What app have you been using?
  - pdjstone 10y ago
    Not sure what the GP is using, but on Android the Nordic BLE app is very good - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nordicsemi.android.mcp https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nordicsemi.... I'm also one of the authors of RaMBLE, another BLE app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contextis.android.BLEScanner https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contextis....). It can run in the background, and can export logged BLE advertising packets and geolocation data to a SQLite DB.
    - yoodenvranx 10y ago
      I installed Ramble half an hour ago on my 2014 Moto G and it seems to be working as advertized! The only thing which confuses me is the empty list under the history tab. Is this a bug or is this feature not implemented yet?
      - pdjstone 10y ago
        The history tab is pull-to-refresh, but it's not particularly discoverable :) I've implemented a UI hint to make this more obvious, which will be in the next version of RaMBLE.
        yoodenvranx 10y ago
        You are right, pull-to-refresh was not very discoverable ;) Somehow I an auto-update function for a tab called "history". Another thing I just realised is the number of new devices in the notification label. Let's say I put ramble in the background. After 10 minutes it tells me that there are n_1 new devices. I click on the notification in order to check them out. If I then put ramble in the background and it finds n_2 new devices then the notification says that there are now n_1 + n_2 new devices. I would expect that it says n_2 devices.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. Perhaps you would like to explain what the problem with this is? Broadcasting presence in itself is not a security hole - unless you think "Do not broadcast SSID" is a WiFi AP security feature (it's not). If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different?
  - hueving 10y ago
    >If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different? I suspect the GP is just referring to the stuff they happen to be transmitting in the clear right now because they weren't thinking about the risks. Basically like early days 802.11 when you needed to pay big money for something like wireshark.
  - wastedhours 10y ago
    OP doesn't seem to insinuate any problem with being surrounded by devices screaming data about themselves though?
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    Perhaps you would like to explain what the problem with this is? Broadcasting presence in itself is not a security hole - unless you think "Do not broadcast SSID" is a WiFi AP security feature (it's not). If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different? Well, there are a couple of reasons I think this is different: 1. APs are static and not mobile, versus Bluetooth devices – which can move, and are more importantly personally associated with a person. That inherently provides opportunities for more leakage on information, since device addresses can now be used to track people. 2. Devices aren't just advertising their existence. They're also advertising their services, and in some cases actually just sending whatever data a client asks for. There's a particular brand of iPad stylus which seems to just open up and send it's accelerometer readings to any device which connects. There seem to be heart-rate monitors that do the same. For me, it's much more worrying that devices happily broadcast personal information without authentication – I don't actually think device advertisement is a big deal in comparison!
- MrQuincle 10y ago
  The advantage of Bluetooth is that it runs on every smartphone out there. There is quite some incentive to have the basics right. This can not be said about chips that are not present on smartphones. I'm not saying that Bluetooth cannot be hacked, before 4.2 they didn't use proper key exchange, so e.g. you could use Ubertooth (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10573 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10573) to capture the exchange. However, with Elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman it became pretty standard. The requirements from Apple for HomeKit are even so ridiculously high that your gadgets might be safer than your bank account. My bet is that indoor positioning is gonna be the game changer in the coming years (not robotics, not AI, not voice recognition, not yet, at least). So, I'm particularly looking forwards to see what's in store on the Bluetooth roadmap in that respect. The only thing I wish is that they would be faster in rolling out mesh functionality...
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Lets keep in mind that bluetooth, unlike wifi, has made use of channel hopping from day one. Ubertooth had to be custom built to sniff bluetooth traffic, while just about any old dongle will do for wifi. And IMO, a big advantage with bluetooth is that it has profiles for common usage scenarios. Meaning that you have defined standards for how to do things like file transfers over bluetooth, while it is wild west when it comes to wifi.
- homero 10y ago
  What app
kozak 10y ago
Isn't it time for uncompressed A2DP audio at last? It would solve both quality (generation loss) and latency issues.
- ricardobeat 10y ago
  aptX already allows high-quality audio streaming over BT and has both a lossless and a low-latency mode. Device support is also already here, I saw a few last time I was in an electronics store.
  - zx2c4 10y ago
    Do you know of any free software implementations of it?
    - rasz_pl 10y ago
      http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2531440 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2531440 reusing proprietary library is as close as you can get without paying Qualcomm tax
  - kozak 10y ago
    aptX support different modes, but not all of them can run within the constraints of a Bluetooth link. There simply isn't enough bitrate in the old Bluetooth for uncompressed audio. If there was enough of it, you wouldn't need aptX or any other specialty codec, you would just run PCM and that's it. Even ADPCM at half the bitrate would be a big improvement (particularly, for latency), but there is not enough bitrate even for that.
- kayoone 10y ago
  I switched to high quality bluetooth headphones (Sony MDR-XB950BT) last year that use aptX codecs and the quality is superb (i am not an audiophile though). In the past i had problems with audio lag when using bluetooth while watching movies, but even that is so low now that i don't notice it and forget about it, while before i was very sensitive about audio not being perfectly in sync with the frames on the screen.
IshKebab 10y ago
Increased advertising length will be very useful. 31 bytes is rather stingy, especially with Eddystone-URL (you only get something like 16 bytes for the URL currently).
- bnmfsd 10y ago
  yes, 17 bytes for the URL.
melling 10y ago
What will it take for wireless keyboards and mice to use Bluetooth? Most ship with their own custom dongle. A single port MacBook, for example, doesn't really make sense until Bluetooth devices become more popular.
- m_eiman 10y ago
  I suspect the problem is that many (most?) PCs don't have Bluetooth built-in, so to sell PC peripherals you'll need to either bundle a BT dongle, be very explicit about requiring one, or bundle a (probably cheaper) non-BT dongle. Seems to be getting better though; a quick look at the local price comparison site gave 419 wireless keyboards, 296 of which are using Bluetooth.
- cjblomqvist 10y ago
  Quite often nowadays devices have BT support but also offer a "dongle" or usb connection point as well (in case your computer doesn't have BT). It's a solved problem I believe since BT LE (low energy) I believe. Now it's just a matter of market adoption.
- moron4hire 10y ago
  Microsoft makes a Bluetooth keyboard that is ok. Not great, but there aren't many options. Dell makes a Bluetooth "travel" mouse that is actually pretty good. A little small, but lots of buttons. I've also found that many proprietary dongle keyboards work over USB-OTG on Android phones.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  bluetooth hid profile requires a software stack rivalling IPv4 in complexity. Legacy Bluetooth is really bad for anything other than BT hardware manufacturers profits. LE simplified everything and made things bearable again, no more encapsulation 4 layers deep just to send 5 bytes.
- BostonEnginerd 10y ago
  The problem with Bluetooth for peripherals is that they on PCs, the pairing happens in user space so they're useless when you need to adjust the BIOS settings or select a different operating system from GRUB.
sundvor 10y ago
Yay, even better opportunities for government and corporations to track my whereabouts through my Bluetooth signature. ;) Tongue-in-cheek, well mostly but not entirely .. I do appreciate e.g. accurate travel times, yet refuse to believe they won't take it to the next step. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-vicroads-tracks-your-every-move-to-keep-you-moving-20160219-gmyll3.html http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-vicroads-tracks-your-e...
- mtgx 10y ago
  Yet nothing new on the security side. Figures. How many cars can be hacked now thanks to Bluetooth-based locks? Millions?
- runholm 10y ago
  Modern Bluetooth devices, including all smart phones running Windows, iOS or Android, does not use static addresses that can be used as a signature to track you. Instead, they use private resolvable keys for all handshakes with devices around them. A new key is generated every few minutes, and only a device which you have previously bonded with is able to resolve your key through data exchanged in the bonding process.
  - randomfool 10y ago
    Many BLE devices do not advertise with random addresses. iOS and Android do, but last I checked Fitbit and Tile do not.
MBCook 10y ago
Announced a week before the Apple event. I wonder....
- marvel_boy 10y ago
  yeah, I guess next Apple devices will be Bluetooth5 compatible.
- lm2s 10y ago
  I doubt it, the specification is still being finalized. Only after that will the chipmakers begin their process.
fithisux 10y ago
I wish they created a developer's only documentation to write drivers and apps for FOSS systems since the documentation is already huge.

123 points by MrQuincle 10y ago

I've been really fascinated recently by whipping out my smartphone in public and using a Bluetooth LE explorer app to look at what's being advertised, and it's brilliant. We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. Bluetooth 5 seems to increase the range of LE communications, but since I'm almost sure we're going to have some horrible public hack of one of the platforms at some point, I hope there is increased focus on the security of devices that use it!

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
> We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. It's also terrible that people, and their clothing, are so detectable in the visible light spectrum. Where's the 'tarnkappe' when you need it? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloak_of_invisibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloak_of_invisibility ) Also appreciate the "will be marketed as 'Bluetooth 5.' [no dot zero]". Sounds like a band name, or a gang. Good thinking there - the Bluetooth 5 are now taking over the neighborhood ...
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  It's also terrible that people, and their clothing, are so detectable in the visible light spectrum. I wasn't completely clear above, but there are a couple of differences: - Your clothing doesn't contain unique identifiers (yet!) :) - The devices seem to often be happy to broadcast their information in the clear. Your clothes don't advertise your position or heart rate to the whole world either!
  - Frank2312 10y ago
    They do "broadcast" where you shop (if someone knows where your clothes are from), what kind of job you have, your social class and many other informations about the person.
    - matthewmacleod 10y ago
      Well, that's very true. At least its easy for everyone to see what they're sharing there though!
  - tremon 10y ago
    Your clothing doesn't contain unique identifiers But your face does...
    - nileshtrivedi 10y ago
      Which requires a camera being pointed at you, whereas bluetooth isn't based on line-of-sight.
- heeen2 10y ago
  And ubiquitous public surveillance is just as troublesome. Even more so with face/movement pattern recognition or paired with other information such as MAC broadcasting.
BuildTheRobots 10y ago
What app have you been using?
- pdjstone 10y ago
  Not sure what the GP is using, but on Android the Nordic BLE app is very good - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nordicsemi.android.mcp https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.nordicsemi.... I'm also one of the authors of RaMBLE, another BLE app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contextis.android.BLEScanner https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contextis....). It can run in the background, and can export logged BLE advertising packets and geolocation data to a SQLite DB.
  - yoodenvranx 10y ago
    I installed Ramble half an hour ago on my 2014 Moto G and it seems to be working as advertized! The only thing which confuses me is the empty list under the history tab. Is this a bug or is this feature not implemented yet?
    - pdjstone 10y ago
      The history tab is pull-to-refresh, but it's not particularly discoverable :) I've implemented a UI hint to make this more obvious, which will be in the next version of RaMBLE.
      - yoodenvranx 10y ago
        You are right, pull-to-refresh was not very discoverable ;) Somehow I an auto-update function for a tab called "history". Another thing I just realised is the number of new devices in the notification label. Let's say I put ramble in the background. After 10 minutes it tells me that there are n_1 new devices. I click on the notification in order to check them out. If I then put ramble in the background and it finds n_2 new devices then the notification says that there are now n_1 + n_2 new devices. I would expect that it says n_2 devices.
sangnoir 10y ago
> We are all constantly surrounded by devices which are screaming data about themselves everywhere they go. Perhaps you would like to explain what the problem with this is? Broadcasting presence in itself is not a security hole - unless you think "Do not broadcast SSID" is a WiFi AP security feature (it's not). If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different?
- hueving 10y ago
  >If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different? I suspect the GP is just referring to the stuff they happen to be transmitting in the clear right now because they weren't thinking about the risks. Basically like early days 802.11 when you needed to pay big money for something like wireshark.
- wastedhours 10y ago
  OP doesn't seem to insinuate any problem with being surrounded by devices screaming data about themselves though?
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  Perhaps you would like to explain what the problem with this is? Broadcasting presence in itself is not a security hole - unless you think "Do not broadcast SSID" is a WiFi AP security feature (it's not). If WiFi can be secured (with devices that "scream data about themselves"), why would Bluetooth be any different? Well, there are a couple of reasons I think this is different: 1. APs are static and not mobile, versus Bluetooth devices – which can move, and are more importantly personally associated with a person. That inherently provides opportunities for more leakage on information, since device addresses can now be used to track people. 2. Devices aren't just advertising their existence. They're also advertising their services, and in some cases actually just sending whatever data a client asks for. There's a particular brand of iPad stylus which seems to just open up and send it's accelerometer readings to any device which connects. There seem to be heart-rate monitors that do the same. For me, it's much more worrying that devices happily broadcast personal information without authentication – I don't actually think device advertisement is a big deal in comparison!
MrQuincle 10y ago
The advantage of Bluetooth is that it runs on every smartphone out there. There is quite some incentive to have the basics right. This can not be said about chips that are not present on smartphones. I'm not saying that Bluetooth cannot be hacked, before 4.2 they didn't use proper key exchange, so e.g. you could use Ubertooth (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10573 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10573) to capture the exchange. However, with Elliptic curve Diffie–Hellman it became pretty standard. The requirements from Apple for HomeKit are even so ridiculously high that your gadgets might be safer than your bank account. My bet is that indoor positioning is gonna be the game changer in the coming years (not robotics, not AI, not voice recognition, not yet, at least). So, I'm particularly looking forwards to see what's in store on the Bluetooth roadmap in that respect. The only thing I wish is that they would be faster in rolling out mesh functionality...
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Lets keep in mind that bluetooth, unlike wifi, has made use of channel hopping from day one. Ubertooth had to be custom built to sniff bluetooth traffic, while just about any old dongle will do for wifi. And IMO, a big advantage with bluetooth is that it has profiles for common usage scenarios. Meaning that you have defined standards for how to do things like file transfers over bluetooth, while it is wild west when it comes to wifi.
homero 10y ago
What app

kozak 10y ago

Isn't it time for uncompressed A2DP audio at last? It would solve both quality (generation loss) and latency issues.

ricardobeat 10y ago
aptX already allows high-quality audio streaming over BT and has both a lossless and a low-latency mode. Device support is also already here, I saw a few last time I was in an electronics store.
- zx2c4 10y ago
  Do you know of any free software implementations of it?
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2531440 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2531440 reusing proprietary library is as close as you can get without paying Qualcomm tax
- kozak 10y ago
  aptX support different modes, but not all of them can run within the constraints of a Bluetooth link. There simply isn't enough bitrate in the old Bluetooth for uncompressed audio. If there was enough of it, you wouldn't need aptX or any other specialty codec, you would just run PCM and that's it. Even ADPCM at half the bitrate would be a big improvement (particularly, for latency), but there is not enough bitrate even for that.
kayoone 10y ago
I switched to high quality bluetooth headphones (Sony MDR-XB950BT) last year that use aptX codecs and the quality is superb (i am not an audiophile though). In the past i had problems with audio lag when using bluetooth while watching movies, but even that is so low now that i don't notice it and forget about it, while before i was very sensitive about audio not being perfectly in sync with the frames on the screen.

IshKebab 10y ago

Increased advertising length will be very useful. 31 bytes is rather stingy, especially with Eddystone-URL (you only get something like 16 bytes for the URL currently).

bnmfsd 10y ago
yes, 17 bytes for the URL.

melling 10y ago

What will it take for wireless keyboards and mice to use Bluetooth? Most ship with their own custom dongle. A single port MacBook, for example, doesn't really make sense until Bluetooth devices become more popular.

m_eiman 10y ago
I suspect the problem is that many (most?) PCs don't have Bluetooth built-in, so to sell PC peripherals you'll need to either bundle a BT dongle, be very explicit about requiring one, or bundle a (probably cheaper) non-BT dongle. Seems to be getting better though; a quick look at the local price comparison site gave 419 wireless keyboards, 296 of which are using Bluetooth.
cjblomqvist 10y ago
Quite often nowadays devices have BT support but also offer a "dongle" or usb connection point as well (in case your computer doesn't have BT). It's a solved problem I believe since BT LE (low energy) I believe. Now it's just a matter of market adoption.
moron4hire 10y ago
Microsoft makes a Bluetooth keyboard that is ok. Not great, but there aren't many options. Dell makes a Bluetooth "travel" mouse that is actually pretty good. A little small, but lots of buttons. I've also found that many proprietary dongle keyboards work over USB-OTG on Android phones.
rasz_pl 10y ago
bluetooth hid profile requires a software stack rivalling IPv4 in complexity. Legacy Bluetooth is really bad for anything other than BT hardware manufacturers profits. LE simplified everything and made things bearable again, no more encapsulation 4 layers deep just to send 5 bytes.
BostonEnginerd 10y ago
The problem with Bluetooth for peripherals is that they on PCs, the pairing happens in user space so they're useless when you need to adjust the BIOS settings or select a different operating system from GRUB.

sundvor 10y ago

Yay, even better opportunities for government and corporations to track my whereabouts through my Bluetooth signature. ;) Tongue-in-cheek, well mostly but not entirely .. I do appreciate e.g. accurate travel times, yet refuse to believe they won't take it to the next step. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-vicroads-tracks-your-every-move-to-keep-you-moving-20160219-gmyll3.html http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-vicroads-tracks-your-e...

mtgx 10y ago
Yet nothing new on the security side. Figures. How many cars can be hacked now thanks to Bluetooth-based locks? Millions?
runholm 10y ago
Modern Bluetooth devices, including all smart phones running Windows, iOS or Android, does not use static addresses that can be used as a signature to track you. Instead, they use private resolvable keys for all handshakes with devices around them. A new key is generated every few minutes, and only a device which you have previously bonded with is able to resolve your key through data exchanged in the bonding process.
- randomfool 10y ago
  Many BLE devices do not advertise with random addresses. iOS and Android do, but last I checked Fitbit and Tile do not.

MBCook 10y ago

Announced a week before the Apple event. I wonder....

marvel_boy 10y ago
yeah, I guess next Apple devices will be Bluetooth5 compatible.
lm2s 10y ago
I doubt it, the specification is still being finalized. Only after that will the chipmakers begin their process.

fithisux 10y ago

I wish they created a developer's only documentation to write drivers and apps for FOSS systems since the documentation is already huge.