quasinfinity - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Please start doing it. (Score 5, Informative) 90

by quasinfinity on Monday January 29, 2007 @01:39AM (#17795996) Attached to: Bluetooth Spam In Public Spaces

I find the discussion for this article a little out of touch with reality... except the post before this which made mention to disabling settings.

All devices (cell phones, PDAs, computers, etc) with bluetooth have two sets of options when you turn the bluetooth in them on. You can choose to make your device discoverable or not, and connectable or not. For any two devices to continually connect to each other they both have to have connectivity enabled (well duh), and they both have to be paired(one exception to the pairing rule, below). To pair devices, at least one must be discoverable, then the other searches for "discoverable devices." When the discovering device finds the discoverable one you exchange a passkey (so you know it's not Joe Blow's phone across the room), and they're paired. Paired devices will always connect to each other so long as connectivity is enabled on both devices. Discoverability never needs to be turned on unless a new device is being paired or you want to receive a business card or something else that uses the object push profile (which is the exception to the pairing rule).

So the way bluetooth transmits information is different depending on the information being sent. Music for instance needs to be continually streamed, while connecting to the net over bluetooth is more sporadic transmission. To acknowledge this, the bluetooth standard has several different profiles that transmit the data in different ways depending on what is being sent. Devices will only have access to the profiles that the manufacturer decides that device needs. As earlier stated, the object push profile is special, it can transmit data to any discoverable (or already paired) device. This is because the object push profile is only used to send short text-based messages, such as that business card I mentioned.

Thus, I'm going to make the safe assumption that these ads are being sent using bluetooth's object push profile as well.

So let's say you want your bluetooth phone to always be connected to its headset but you don't ever want to receive these ads, the solution is simple. Leave your bluetooth turned on, just don't make it discoverable. It's that easy.

Bluetooth Spam In Public Spaces 90

Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 28, 2007 @06:31PM from the unwelcome-intrusions dept.

mrwireless writes with a bellwether from The Netherlands of a problem that is bound to spread. Judging by the CAN SPAM Act, the US would be even less likely than the EU to classify Bluetooth-borne commercial spam as spam. "The Dutch OPTA, a national telecommunications watchdog, has decided not to label commercial Bluetooth messages as spam (in Dutch, but Babelfish works). These messages seem to fall through a loophole in European laws against spam since they do not travel through an 'intermediary network.' The issue was raised last week when a Dutch broadcasting agency outfitted a number of bus stops so they would send a promotional video of an upcoming show to passersby. Although the messages first asked if people wanted to watch the video, the article quotes a lawyer who believes that this does not qualify as 'opt-in' advertising. As more and more people leave Bluetooth turned on to make use of their Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth close-range messaging, such as through bluejacking, is increasingly being exploited for commercial purposes."

Jack Thompson Files Take-Two, Rockstar Lawsuit 451

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday August 15, 2006 @08:22PM from the think-of-the-children dept.

rtt writes "Jack Thompson is back on the video game scene and has followed through with his threat to file a law suit against Rockstar, Take-Two and Walmart for Rockstar's upcoming "Bully" title. bit-tech was sent a copy by the man himself which started as follows "Take-Two has until five o'clock p.m., Eastern time, Monday, August 14, 2006, to inform me in writing that it will forthwith provide me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat violence in our schools.""

Bill Gates to Step Down from Microsoft 742

Posted by Zonk on Thursday June 15, 2006 @05:00PM from the i'm-sure-you-have-more-to-say-than-i dept.

Geoffreyerffoeg writes "According to Microsoft PressPass, Bill Gates will be leaving his role at Microsoft in July 2008. He'll be staying with the company, but is also moving to a more fulltime position with the Gates Foundation. 'Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates' daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company's chairman and an adviser on key development projects.' CTO Ray Ozzie will assume Gates' role of Chief Software Architect, and CTO Craig Mundie will also take on more leadership responsibility."

China Passes Internet Copyright Legislation 215

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday May 30, 2006 @08:18AM from the pendulum-politics dept.

Turtlewind writes "According to the Peoples' Daily Online, the Chinese government has passed new legislation regarding copyright on the internet. As well as increasing the penalties for online infringement and forcing ISPs to remove illegal content if given written notice, the law also bans "the production, import and supply of devices capable of evading or breaching technical measures of copyright protection". While everyone wants to see China improving its enforcement of IP rights, is this a step too far?"

Stereotyping the Horde 217

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday May 17, 2006 @05:36PM from the zug-zug-indeed dept.

Terra Nova is having a discussion today entitled Cultural Borrowing in WoW, looking at the cultural references made in relation to the Horde (Jamaicans for the Trolls, Native Americans for the Tauren) and what that means given the Horde's reputation as Evil. From the article: "I want to talk about how science fiction and fantasy often engage in this type of borrowing -- most 'new' things are just old things recoded. For instance, the Wikipedia entry on Klingons points to the Soviets, Mongolians, and Japanese Samurai. In most cases, I think this whole process of cultural encryption, mash-up, and recoding is fun -- perhaps what good art is all about. Looking particularly at WoW, though, I have to wonder sometimes..."

Next in Browser Development, High DPI Websites? 447

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sunday April 23, 2006 @02:23AM from the more-dots dept.

Joost de Valk writes "In a post at the WebKit blog, Dave Hyatt raises interesting points about the future of web development and browsers. He says, that with screens getting more and more pixels, it is imperative website design takes the next step: High DPI Website rendering. This could mean that a CSS pixel (px) is rendered as a 2x2 pixelblock. In the article he also mentions WebKit will be providing possibilities to use SVG for all kinds of purposes, like backgrounds. He calls upon other browser developers to take part in the discussion so that 'concrete standards in this area can be hammered out.'"

US Intensifies Fight Against Child Pornography 663

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Saturday April 22, 2006 @11:32PM from the embarrassing-repositories dept.

TechnoGuyRob writes "BBC News is reporting that the Bush administration has recently stepped up its measures against child pornography. From the article 'Sadly, the internet age has created a vicious cycle in which child pornography continually becomes more widespread, more graphic, more sadistic, using younger and younger children. [...] Mr. Gonzales also said that he is investigating ways to ensure that ISPs retain records of a user's web activities to track down offenders.'"

Chinese Telecom Company Launches 'RedBerry' 287

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday April 11, 2006 @05:43PM from the friends-in-your-corner dept.

Ubergrendle writes "The Globe&Mail is reporting that Chinese telecom company China Unicom Ltd. is launching a new wireless device unapologetically named 'Redberry'. This comes in the wake of an almost 2 year regulatory delay blocking the introduction of RIM's Blackberries to mainland China. Certainly this delay was convenient to China Unicom, if not deliberately staged to allow for domestic competition."

Microsoft To Construct iPod/DS/PSP Killer 318

Posted by Hemos on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:21AM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

Karsten writes "According to The Mercury News Microsoft is developing a PSP/DS/GBA/iPod-killer. J. Allard is leading the project." J. Allard is the man behind the Xbox, and from looking at the article it sounds like it's at least a year before this device, if it hits daylight, would be coming.

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