Talk:Bluetooth/Archive 2010

Security?
The "history of security concerns" section is looking very dated. I think it should be drastically shortened. Have there been no concerns since 2007? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Bright blue light
Is there something in the BT spec that says "all devices that use the BT logo must have an exceptionally bright blue light, as large as possible, optionally blinking, that cannot be turned off by the user and is such a shape that it is difficult to cover with electrical tape"?

If not, why do device designers feel the need to include this feature? It's found on almost every Bluetooth device.


 * You can't listen to a movie on a Bluetooth headset because the huge blinking blue light is visible reflected on the screen, even if the room is not darkened.
 * If you have a BT dongle plugged into the side of your laptop, then any extended use will leave the image of the light burnt into your eye for some time.
 * It's a personal security issue: walking along with your ear glowing blue yells "I have a phone and a BT headset, please mug me".
 * It's an advantage for hackers: "The advantage hackers have is the simple fact that majority of Bluetooth devices (nearly all are mobile phones today) have bright blue LEDs on them which indicate if Bluetooth is enabled or not. If a hacker sees a mobile phone with a large blue diode and he cannot find such a device using the standard Bluetooth discovery process, then he can assume that the device has Bluetooth enabled but it is in non-discoverable mode."
 * In an in-car headset, it's a potentially dangerous distraction. A bright light in a car could also be dangerously dazzling.
 * Blinking blue lights in non-emergency vehicles are also illegal for non emergency cars throughout the US, the UK

I'm far from the only person that's noticed this annoyance. People discuss registry hacks, removing LED leads, sanding the LEDs, black markers and covering with cloth, electrical tape, paper, etc to resolve the problem.

So, this issue is probably notable enough to deserve mention and explanation on the page. If it's not required by the spec as some kind of distinctive branding thing, then perhaps a new section is needed to cover this strangely ubiquitous design fetish. DewiMorgan (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * To add to the above, it has been pointed out that this could result in [blue-light hazard].
 * But perhaps it's not a Bluetooth thing. Maybe it's more widespread, and the blue LEDs are just more noticeable because they tend to be brighter? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DewiMorgan (talk • contribs) 17:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Important stuff missing and incorrect statements
The article says nothing about media access control/multiple access schemes. Within a certain PAN, all nodes follow the same hopping sequence, and only one node at a time is sending, thanks to a multiple access scheme. From what I have learned, Bluetooth has a packet data mode, based on CSMA/CA multiple access, and a circuit switched mode for voice, based on dynamic TDMA multiple access. This should be mentioned. Now the article says that Bluetooth always is packet based, which from what I remember is not the case. Am I wrong? Mange01 (talk) 20:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think you're wrong (if I've understood what you are saying). Bluetooth has the basic link structure - ACL - which I think is what you're thinking of packet mode - and SCO (Synchronous Connection-Orientated; the A of ACL is Asynchronous but I forget what the CL is - connection-less, perhaps; or eSCO) - which is usually used for voice (but doesn't have to be). Perhaps this is the circuit switched mode you mean? But SCO data goes over ACL links; it uses different packet types but they are still packets that fit into the basic slot structure William M. Connolley (talk) 21:38, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

V2.1 (etc)
I've just radically trimmed the V2.1 section (did anyone really care about "Non-Automatically-Flushable Packet Boundary Flag (PBF)"?). I think in the old version it was easy to miss the important stuff for the trivia.

I plan to do the same for the other sections too, so scream if you dislike this William M. Connolley (talk) 21:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Secure Simple Pairing (SPP)
In the section on SPP it is written that, "for use-cases not requiring MITM protection, user interaction has been eliminated."

The user no longer has to enter a PIN, but don't they have to initiate the pairing process? Otherwise - if pairing can happen spontaneously - then the authentication becomes meaningless, doesn't it?

Qwavel (talk) 19:12, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Implementation section.
I don't understand the relationship between the 'implementation' and 'technical information' sections. Both appear to contain technical information about the protocol, and I would think they should be combined.

The only reason for having a separate 'implementation' section would if this was about implementation details as distinct from the definition of the standard, but I doubt that such a section would be suitable here.

Qwavel (talk) 22:28, 6 June 2010 (UTC)