5 ms·

Tangential, sort of: in the early days of mobile phones for the masses, when there was no WiFi/3G in the underground, I will often enable Bluetooth in my phone,

Tangential, sort of: in the early days of mobile phones for the masses, when there was no WiFi/3G in the underground, I will often enable Bluetooth in my phone, look for nearby devices and try to match names and looks. That was before everyone had their "John's IPhone" or "Samsung A55" boring names everywhere and some of us cared to personalise our device's name. Anyone else played this game?

mytailorisrich 7mo ago
I do the reverse. I set my wifi hotspot or bluetooth to "MetPoliceUnit355" and I look for people making faces or looking around.
tonetegeatinst 7mo ago
Yep 100% did the same. It was interesting to see what people named stuff as even back then I figured you could use that metadata for tracking devices...but even more interesting was looking at the Mac address to see the manufacturer and try and find some rare or cool device.
oarla 7mo ago
Yeah, but it stopped pretty soon stores figured out that they could flood you with advertisements over Bluetooth. In some places it was bad enough that I had to turn off Bluetooth.
- patja 7mo ago
  How did this play out? Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed? Or did they spam you over SMS because they associated your bluetooth info with an account you have with the store, or contact info they bought from a third party?
  - dylan604 7mo ago
    > Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed? This is my main concern over installing apps in general but specifically store apps. I've noticed that grocery stores are moving past existing loyalty cards and want you to use their apps for exclusively available digital coupons. The prices I'm seeing are very compelling and are on top of existing loyalty card discounts, and I could see lots of people using the app because of it. The assumed amount of abuse keeps me from lemminging my way through the store.
    - nonamenoslogan 7mo ago
      Kroger here has done that with their app. The loyalty card/phone number still works for many of the specials, but the "digital deals" thing by using the app and scanning a QR code on the price sticker gives BIGGER discounts. Its not the most convenient way to shop, but I am willing to save 15-20% more usually.
  - edent 7mo ago
    Neither. They used to discover your device and then send a Bluetooth push. "Would you like to receive a file from …" It was usually an image, movie, or audio file.
    - patja 7mo ago
      Wow that is wild. Thanks for explaining. I've never seen a prompt like that on my phone and would not have guessed this.
  - oarla 7mo ago
    As someone explained it below in this thread, walk into a mall with Bluetooth turned on and phone starts chiming with multiple "... wants to send you a media/audio/image etc." Not just ads, some bad actors would try to infect the phone with malware. Luckily never happened to me, but I heard from my acquaintances.
styfle 7mo ago
Did you ever try to communicate with them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejacking
jjkaczor 7mo ago
Hah, I change my device name and wifi hotspot all the time... "[Agency-acronym] Surveillance Van #43/44/etc.."
herghost 7mo ago
hmmmmm... 2006, sat in a job interview. Interviewer says he'll Bluetooth over a file to me - what's by phone's name? 2006, the year that Tool's 10,000 Days had been released, which I was enjoying and, being a bit of an Edge Lord, I'd named my device after a lyric from Vicarious - which, IIRC fit perfectly into the name space and made me very happy: > ILikeToWatchThingsDie Excellent. Still got the job though!
fer 7mo ago
What I remember is that you could push OBEX calendar objects without much refusal from the phones and make people have alarms ringing at 3am, fun times!
keraf 7mo ago
When I set up my iPhone and it asked who's iPhone it is, I thought it would be funny to put in Kim Jong Un. Now it shows up as "Kim Jong Un's iPhone" when I enable my hotspot. Or even better, it says it out loud when I connect to some Bluetooth speakers.

mytailorisrich 7mo ago

I do the reverse. I set my wifi hotspot or bluetooth to "MetPoliceUnit355" and I look for people making faces or looking around.

tonetegeatinst 7mo ago

Yep 100% did the same. It was interesting to see what people named stuff as even back then I figured you could use that metadata for tracking devices...but even more interesting was looking at the Mac address to see the manufacturer and try and find some rare or cool device.

oarla 7mo ago

Yeah, but it stopped pretty soon stores figured out that they could flood you with advertisements over Bluetooth. In some places it was bad enough that I had to turn off Bluetooth.

patja 7mo ago
How did this play out? Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed? Or did they spam you over SMS because they associated your bluetooth info with an account you have with the store, or contact info they bought from a third party?
- dylan604 7mo ago
  > Were the ads from an app from the store that you had installed? This is my main concern over installing apps in general but specifically store apps. I've noticed that grocery stores are moving past existing loyalty cards and want you to use their apps for exclusively available digital coupons. The prices I'm seeing are very compelling and are on top of existing loyalty card discounts, and I could see lots of people using the app because of it. The assumed amount of abuse keeps me from lemminging my way through the store.
  - nonamenoslogan 7mo ago
    Kroger here has done that with their app. The loyalty card/phone number still works for many of the specials, but the "digital deals" thing by using the app and scanning a QR code on the price sticker gives BIGGER discounts. Its not the most convenient way to shop, but I am willing to save 15-20% more usually.
- edent 7mo ago
  Neither. They used to discover your device and then send a Bluetooth push. "Would you like to receive a file from …" It was usually an image, movie, or audio file.
  - patja 7mo ago
    Wow that is wild. Thanks for explaining. I've never seen a prompt like that on my phone and would not have guessed this.
- oarla 7mo ago
  As someone explained it below in this thread, walk into a mall with Bluetooth turned on and phone starts chiming with multiple "... wants to send you a media/audio/image etc." Not just ads, some bad actors would try to infect the phone with malware. Luckily never happened to me, but I heard from my acquaintances.

styfle 7mo ago

Did you ever try to communicate with them? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluejacking

jjkaczor 7mo ago

Hah, I change my device name and wifi hotspot all the time... "[Agency-acronym] Surveillance Van #43/44/etc.."

herghost 7mo ago

hmmmmm... 2006, sat in a job interview. Interviewer says he'll Bluetooth over a file to me - what's by phone's name? 2006, the year that Tool's 10,000 Days had been released, which I was enjoying and, being a bit of an Edge Lord, I'd named my device after a lyric from Vicarious - which, IIRC fit perfectly into the name space and made me very happy: > ILikeToWatchThingsDie Excellent. Still got the job though!

fer 7mo ago

What I remember is that you could push OBEX calendar objects without much refusal from the phones and make people have alarms ringing at 3am, fun times!

keraf 7mo ago

When I set up my iPhone and it asked who's iPhone it is, I thought it would be funny to put in Kim Jong Un. Now it shows up as "Kim Jong Un's iPhone" when I enable my hotspot. Or even better, it says it out loud when I connect to some Bluetooth speakers.