4 ms·

> What benefit would phone manufacturers have from their devices being trackable via Bluetooth In Google's case, they use bluetooth to track the location of a

> What benefit would phone manufacturers have from their devices being trackable via Bluetooth In Google's case, they use bluetooth to track the location of android users and the bluetooth devices near them. In addition to data collection, it helps their "Find my Device" network. I suspect Apple's system also uses bluetooth to identify nearby apple devices and beacons. Obviously phone manufactures are primarily self-interested, but part of that also means offering extensive data collection opportunities to third parties such as app and accessory developers to attract people to their platform. > Also, I'd love to see an answer to my original question: How exactly do you track a stock iPhone or Pixel with Bluetooth enabled? While I don't have a pixel or an iphone, it does appear that there are ways to passively track these devices via bluetooth: https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/bluetooth_tracking_device/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/bluetooth_tracking_de... https://cec.gmu.edu/news/2025-02/find-my-hacker-how-apples-network-can-be-potential-tracking-tool https://cec.gmu.edu/news/2025-02/find-my-hacker-how-apples-n...

lxgr 2y ago
Both Google's and Apple's "Find my" are services implemented on top of Bluetooth which you can disable independently of it. They're basically pre-installed apps (e.g. Tile used to do the same thing using a third party app before them). Including them to support the statement "Bluetooth itself is intentionally used to track users" seems like moving goalposts. Yes, these services being enabled by default isn't great, but if you're claiming that there's any data collection or intentional device broadcasting happening beyond that, i.e. at the base OS level, I'd be happy to see evidence of that (as I would also find that very concerning). Regarding antenna/transmission chain/baseband fingerprinting: These are indeed concerning, and I hope there will be countermeasures available at some point. But these should theoretically affect all radio technologies, right? In that case, turning off (just) Bluetooth would not help much, given that phones have at least one other permanently enabled radio. It's a different story for devices that have only Bluetooth, of course.

lxgr 2y ago

Both Google's and Apple's "Find my" are services implemented on top of Bluetooth which you can disable independently of it. They're basically pre-installed apps (e.g. Tile used to do the same thing using a third party app before them). Including them to support the statement "Bluetooth itself is intentionally used to track users" seems like moving goalposts. Yes, these services being enabled by default isn't great, but if you're claiming that there's any data collection or intentional device broadcasting happening beyond that, i.e. at the base OS level, I'd be happy to see evidence of that (as I would also find that very concerning). Regarding antenna/transmission chain/baseband fingerprinting: These are indeed concerning, and I hope there will be countermeasures available at some point. But these should theoretically affect all radio technologies, right? In that case, turning off (just) Bluetooth would not help much, given that phones have at least one other permanently enabled radio. It's a different story for devices that have only Bluetooth, of course.