Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Bluetooth shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Bluetooth offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Bluetooth at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Bluetooth? Wrong! If the Bluetooth is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Bluetooth then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Bluetooth? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Bluetooth and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Bluetooth wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Bluetooth then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Bluetooth site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Bluetooth, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Bluetooth, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.



Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs). Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, Personal computer, computer printer, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency. The Bluetooth specifications are developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.

Uses Headphones

Bluetooth is a standard and communications protocol primarily designed for low power consumption, with a short range (power-class-dependent: 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters)http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/ based on low-cost transceiver integrated circuits in each device.

Bluetooth enables these devices to communicate with each other when they are in range. The devices use a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough.

{| class="wikitable"! Class! abbr="Maximum power" | Maximum Permitted Power
(milliwatt/dBm)! abbr="Range" ]|-! Version 2.0 + EDR| 3 Mbit/s
(proposed)| 53 - 480 [Mbit/s|}

Bluetooth profiles In order to use Bluetooth, a device must be compatible with certain Bluetooth profiles. These define the possible applications and uses.

List of applications More prevalent applications of Bluetooth include:

Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi in networking Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have slightly different applications in today's offices, homes, and on the move: setting up networks, printing, or transferring presentations and files from PDAs to computers. Both are versions of unlicensed spread spectrum technology.

Bluetooth differs from Wi-Fi in that the latter provides higher throughput and covers greater distances, but requires more expensive hardware and higher power consumption. They use the same frequency range, but employ different multiplexing schemes. While Bluetooth is a cable replacement for a variety of applications, Wi-Fi is a cable replacement only for local area network access. Bluetooth is often thought of as wireless USB, whereas Wi-Fi is wireless Ethernet, both operating at much lower bandwidth than the cable systems they are trying to replace. However, this analogy is not entirely accurate since any Bluetooth device can, in theory, host any other Bluetooth device—something that is not universal to USB devices, therefore it would resemble more a wireless Firewire.

Bluetooth Bluetooth is implemented in a variety of new products such as phones, printers, modems, and headsets. Bluetooth is analogous to USB, and is acceptable for situations when two or more devices are in proximity to each other and don't require high bandwidth. Bluetooth is most commonly used with phones and hand-held computing devices, either using a Bluetooth headset or transferring files from phones/PDAs to computers.

Bluetooth also simplifies the discovery and setup of services. Bluetooth devices advertise all services they provide. This makes the utility of the service that much more accessible, without the need to worry about network addresses, permissions and all the other considerations that go with typical networks.

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is more analogous to the traditional Ethernet network and requires configuration to set up shared resources, transmit files, set up audio links (for example, headsets and hands-free devices). It uses the same radio frequencies as Bluetooth, but with higher power output resulting in a stronger connection. Wi-Fi is sometimes called "wireless Ethernet." Although this description is inaccurate, it provides an indication of its relative strengths and weaknesses. Wi-Fi requires more setup, but is better suited for operating full-scale networks because it enables a faster connection, better range from the base station, and better security than Bluetooth.

One method for comparing the efficiency of wireless transmission protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is spatial capacity, or bits per second per square meter.

Computer requirements dongle (BCM2045A), shown here next to a metric rulerA personal computer must have a Bluetooth adapter in order to be able to communicate with other Bluetooth devices (such as mobile phones, Mouse (computing) and Computer keyboard).While some portable computers and fewer desktop computers already contain an internal Bluetooth adapter, most PCs require an external Universal Serial Bus Bluetooth dongle. Most Macintosh come with built-in Bluetooth adapters.

Unlike its predecessor, Infrared Data Association, in which each device requires a separate dongle, multiple Bluetooth devices can communicate with a computer over a single dongle.

Operating system support Mac OS X has supported Bluetooth since version 10.2 released in 2002. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/jul/17jaguar.html

Of Microsoft platforms, Windows XP#Service Pack 2 and laterreleases have native support for Bluetooth.Previous versions required the users to install their Bluetooth adapter's own drivers, which was not directly supported by Microsoft.http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2netwk.mspx Microsoft's own Bluetooth dongles (that are packaged with their Bluetooth computer devices) have no external drivers and thus require at least Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Linux provides two Bluetooth stacks, with the BlueZ stack included with most Linux kernels. It was originally developed by Qualcomm and Affix. BlueZ supports all core Bluetooth protocols and layers.

Specifications and features The Bluetooth specification was developed in 1994 by Sven Mattisson and Jaap Haartsen, who were working for Ericsson in Lund, Sweden. The specification is based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology.

The specifications were formalized by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Special Interest Group), organised by Mohd Syarifuddin. The SIG was formally announced on May 20, 1998. Today it has over 7000 companies worldwide. It was established by Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, and later joined by many other companies. Bluetooth is also known as IEEE 802.15.1.

Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B Versions 1.0 and 1.0B had many problems, and manufacturers had difficulties making their products interoperable. Versions 1.0 and 1.0B also had mandatory Bluetooth hardware device address (BD_ADDR) transmission in the Connecting process, rendering anonymity impossible at a protocol level, which was a major setback for services planned to be used in Bluetooth environments, such as Consumerium.

Bluetooth 1.1

Bluetooth 1.2 This version is backward-compatible with 1.1 and the major enhancements include the following:

=== Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) ===This version, specified on 10th November 2004http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Technology/Specifications/, is backward-compatible with 1.1. The main enhancement is the introduction of an EDR of 3.0 Mbit/s. This has the following effects:

The practical data transfer rate is 2.1 megabits per second and the basic signalling rate is about 3 megabits per secondhttp://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/629.

The "Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR" specification given at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) includes EDR and there is no specification "Bluetooth 2.0" as used by many vendors. The HTC TyTN pocket PC phone, shows "Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR" on its data sheethttp://www.europe.htc.com/z/pdf/products/1766_TyTN_LFLT_OUT.PDF and another source states Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR is equivalent to version 1.2 with additional bug fixeshttp://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/at-fon-you-stop-being-a-beggarand-so-do-the-homeless.html#comment-1026. In many cases it is not clear whether a product claiming to support "Bluetooth 2.0" actually supports the EDR higher transfer rate.

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.1 + EDR, is fully backward-compatible with 1.1, and was adopted by the Bluetooth SIGhttp://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Technology/Core_Specification_v21__EDR.htm on August 1, 2007. This specification includes the following features:











Future of Bluetooth







Bluetooth technology already plays a part in the rising Voice over IP (VOIP) scene, with Bluetooth headsets being used as wireless extensions to the PC audio system. As VOIP becomes more popular, and more suitable for general home or office users than wired phone lines, Bluetooth may be used in cordless handsets, with a base station connected to the Internet link.

Bluetooth 3.0 The next version of Bluetooth after v2.1, code-named Seattle (the version number of which is TBD) has many of the same features, but is most notable for plans to adopt ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology. This will allow Bluetooth use over UWB radio, enabling very fast data transfers of up to 480 Mbit/s, while building on the very low-power idle modes of Bluetooth.

High speed Bluetooth On 28 March 2006, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced its selection of the WiMedia Alliance Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) version of UWB for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology.

UWB integration will create a version of Bluetooth wireless technology with a high-speed/high-data-rate option. This new version of Bluetooth technology will meet the high-speed demands of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data, as well as enabling high-quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets, and wireless VOIP.

At the same time, Bluetooth technology will continue catering to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards, and mono headsets, enabling devices to select the most appropriate physical radio for the application requirements, thereby offering the best of both worlds.

The Draft High Speed Bluetooth Specification is available at the Bluetooth website.

Ultra Low Power Bluetooth On June 12, 2007, Nokia and Bluetooth SIG announced that Wibree will be a part of the Bluetooth specification as an ultra low power Bluetooth technologyhttp://www.wibree.com/press/Wibree_pressrelease_final_1206.pdf. Expected use cases include watches displaying Caller ID information, sports sensors monitoring your heart rate during exercise, as well as medical devices. The Medical Devices Working Group is also creating a medical devices profile and associated protocols to enable this market.

Technical information Communication and connection A master Bluetooth device can communicate with up to seven devices. This network group of up to eight devices is called a piconet.

A piconet is an ad-hoc computer network, using Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active devices. Up to 255 further devices can be inactive, or parked, which the master device can bring into active status at any time.

At any given time, data can be transferred between the master and one other device, however, the devices can switch roles and the slave can become the master at any time. The master switches rapidly from one device to another in a round-robin scheduling fashion. (Simultaneous transmission from the master to multiple other devices is possible, but not used much.)

Bluetooth specification allows connecting two or more piconets together to form a scatternet, with some devices acting as a bridge by simultaneously playing the master role and the slave role in one piconet. These devices are planned for 2007.

Many USB Bluetooth adapter (computing)s are available, some of which also include an IrDA adapter. Older (pre-2003) Bluetooth adapters, however, have limited services, offering only the Bluetooth Enumerator and a less-powerful Bluetooth Radio incarnation. Such devices can link computers with Bluetooth, but they do not offer much in the way of services that modern adapters do.

Setting up connections Any Bluetooth device will transmit the following sets of information on demand:

Any device may perform an inquiry to find other devices to which to connect, and any device can be configured to respond to such inquiries. However, if the device trying to connect knows the address of the device, it always responds to direct connection requests and transmits the information shown in the list above if requested. Use of device services may require pairing or acceptance by its owner, but the connection itself can be started by any device and held until it goes out of range. Some devices can be connected to only one device at a time, and connecting to them prevents them from connecting to other devices and appearing in inquiries until they disconnect from the other device.

Every device has a unique 48-bit address. However these addresses are generally not shown in inquiries. Instead, friendly Bluetooth names are used, which can be set by the user. This name appears when another user scans for devices and in lists of paired devices.

Most phones have the Bluetooth name set to the manufacturer and model of the phone by default. Most phones and laptops show only the Bluetooth names and special programs that are required to get additional information about remote devices. This can be confusing as, for example, there could be several phones in range named Sony Ericsson T610 (see Bluejacking).

Pairing Pairs of devices may establish a trusted relationship by learning (by user input) a shared secret known as a passkey. A device that wants to communicate only with a trusted device can cryptography authentication the identity of the other device. Trusted devices may also encryption the data that they exchange over the air so that no one can listen in. The encryption can, however, be turned off, and passkeys are stored on the device file system, not on the Bluetooth chip itself. Since the Bluetooth address is permanent, a pairing is preserved, even if the Bluetooth name is changed. Pairs can be deleted at any time by either device. Devices generally require pairing or prompt the owner before they allow a remote device to use any or most of their services. Some devices, such as Sony Ericsson phones, usually accept OBEX business cards and notes without any pairing or prompts.

Certain printers and access points allow any device to use its services by default, much like unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Pairing algorithms are sometimes manufacturer-specific for transmitters and receivers used in applications such as music and entertainment.

Air interface The protocol (computing) operates in the license-free ISM band at 2.4-2.4835 GHz. To avoid interfering with other protocols that use the 2.45 GHz band, the Bluetooth protocol divides the band into 79 channels (each 1 MHz wide) and changes channels up to 1600 times per second. Implementations with versions 1.1 and 1.2 reach speeds of 723.1 kilobit per second. Version 2.0 implementations feature Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) and reach 2.1 Mbit/s. Technically, version 2.0 devices have a higher power consumption, but the three times faster rate reduces the transmission times, effectively reducing power consumption to half that of 1.x devices (assuming equal traffic load).

Security Bluetooth implements confidentiality, authentication and key (cryptography) derivation with custom algorithms based on the SAFER+ block cipher.In Bluetooth, key generation is generally based on a Bluetooth PIN, which has to be entered into both devices. This procedure might get modified slightly, if one of the devices has a fixed PIN, which is the case e.g. for headsets or similar devices with a restricted user interface.Foremost, an initialization key or master key is generated, using the E22 algorithm .

The E0 (cipher) stream cipher is used for encrypting packets, granting confidentiality and is based on a shared cryptographic secret, namely a previously generated link key or master key.Those keys, used for subsequent encryption of data sent via the air interface, hardly rely on the Bluetooth PIN, which has been entered into one or both devices.

A demonstration of this reduction has been put effort in by Y. Shaked and A. Wool in .An overview of the most important vulnerabilities and the most common exploits to those vulnerabilities is presented in .

Social concerns Security concerns 2003:
In November 2003, Ben and Adam Laurie from A.L. Digital Ltd. discovered that serious flaws in Bluetooth security may lead to disclosure of personal data. It should be noted, however, that the reported security problems concerned some poor implementations of Bluetooth, rather than the protocol itself.

In a subsequent experiment, Martin Herfurt from the trifinite.group was able to do a field-trial at the CeBIT fairgrounds, showing the importance of the problem to the world. A new attack called BlueBug was used for this experiment.

2004:
In April 2004, security consultant firm @stake (now Symantec) revealed a security flaw that makes it possible to security cracking conversations on Bluetooth based wireless headsets by reverse engineering the Personal identification number.

This is one of a number of concerns that have been raised over the security of Bluetooth communications. In 2004 the first purported computer virus using Bluetooth to spread itself among mobile phones appeared on the Symbian OS. The virus was first described by Kaspersky Lab and requires users to confirm the installation of unknown software before it can propagate.

The virus was written as a proof-of-concept by a group of virus writers known as 29A and sent to anti-virus groups. Thus, it should be regarded as a potential (but not real) security threat to Bluetooth or Symbian OS since the virus has never spread in the wild.

In August 2004, a world-record-setting experiment (see also Bluetooth sniping) showed that the range of Class 2 Bluetooth radios could be extended to 1.78 km (1.08 mile) with directional antennas and signal amplifiers. This poses a potential security threat because it enables attackers to access vulnerable Bluetooth-devices from a distance beyond expectation. The attacker must also be able to receive information from the victim to set up a connection. No attack can be made against a Bluetooth device unless the attacker knows its Bluetooth address and which channels to transmit on.

2005:
In April 2005, University of Cambridge security researchers published results of their actual implementation of passive attacks against the PIN-based pairing between commercial Bluetooth devices, confirming the attacks to be practicably fast and the Bluetooth symmetric key establishment method to be vulnerable. To rectify this vulnerability, they carried out an implementation which showed that stronger, asymmetric key establishment is feasible for certain classes of devices, such as handphones.

In June 2005, Yaniv Shaked and Avishai Wool published the paper "Cracking the Bluetooth PIN1," which shows both passive and active methods for obtaining the PIN for a Bluetooth link. The passive attack allows a suitably equipped attacker to eavesdrop on communications and spoof if they were present at the time of initial pairing. The active method makes use of a specially constructed message that must be inserted at a specific point in the protocol, to make the master and slave repeat the pairing process. After that, the first method can be used to crack the PIN. This attack's major weakness is that it requires the user of the devices under attack to re-enter the PIN during the attack when the device prompts them to. Also, this active attack probably requires custom hardware, since most commercially available Bluetooth devices are not capable of the timing necessary.

In August 2005, police in Cambridgeshire, England, issued warnings about thieves using Bluetooth-enabled phones to track other devices left in cars. Police are advising users to ensure that any mobile networking connections are de-activated if laptops and other devices are left in this way.

2006:
In April 2006, researchers from Secure Network and F-Secure published a report that warns of the large number of devices left in a visible state, and issued statistics on the spread of various Bluetooth services and the ease of spread of an eventual Bluetooth worm.

In October 2006, at the Luxemburgish Hack.lu Security Conference, Kevin Finistere and Thierry Zoller demonstrated and released a remote root shell over Bluetooth on Mac OSX 10.3.9 and 10.4. They also demonstrated the first Bluetooth PIN and Linkkeys cracker, which is based on the research of Wool and Shaked.

Bluejacking:
Bluejacking allows phone users to send business cards anonymously using Bluetooth wireless technology. Bluejacking does NOT involve the removal or alteration of any data from the device. These business cards often have a clever or flirtatious message rather than the typical name and phone number. Bluejackers often look for the receiving phone to ping or the user to react. They then send another, more personal message to that device. Once again, in order to carry out a bluejacking, the sending and receiving devices must be within range of each other, which is typically 10 meters for most mobile devices. Phone owners who receive bluejack messages should refuse to add the contacts to their address book. Devices that are set in non-discoverable mode are not susceptible to bluejacking.

Health concerns Bluetooth uses the microwave radio frequency spectrum in the 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz range. Maximum power output from a Bluetooth radio is 1 mW, 2.5 mW, and 100 mW for Class 3, Class 2, and Class 1 devices respectively, which puts Class 1 at roughly the same level as cell phones, and the other two classes much lower. Accordingly, Class 2 and Class 3 Bluetooth devices are considered less of a potential hazard than cell phones, and Class 1 may be comparable to that of cell phones.

Origin of the name and the logo Bluetooth was named after a late tenth century king, Harald I of Denmark King of Denmark and Norway. He is known for his unification of previously warring tribes from Denmark (including now Sweden Scania (region), where the Bluetooth technology was invented), and Norway. Bluetooth likewise was intended to unify different technologies, such as computers and mobile phones.

The name may have been inspired less by the historical Harald than the loose interpretation of him in The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson, a Swedish Viking-inspired novel.

The Bluetooth logo merges the Nordic Runic alphabet analogous to the modern Latin H and B: hagall and bjarkan from the Younger Futhark runes forming a bind rune.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group In 1998, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, formed a consortium and adopted the code name Bluetooth for their proposed open specification. In December 1999, 3Com, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, and Motorola joined the initial founders as the promoter of Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). Since that time, Lucent Technologies transferred their membership to their spinoff Agere Systems, and 3Com has left the promoter group. Agere Systems was later merged with LSI Corporation and left the Bluetooth promoters group in August 2007.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a privately held, not-for-profit trade association with headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. As of September 2007 the SIG is composed of over 9,000 member companies that are leaders in the telecommunications, computing, automotive, music, apparel, industrial automation, and network industries, and a small group of dedicated staff in Hong Kong, Sweden, and the USA. SIG members drive the development of Bluetooth wireless technology, and implement and market the technology in their products varying from mobile phones to printers. The Bluetooth SIG itself does not make, manufacture, or sell Bluetooth enabled products.

See also

References External links Official

Other

Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks (PANs). Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, Personal computer, computer printer, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency. The Bluetooth specifications are developed and licensed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group.

Uses Headphones

Bluetooth is a standard and communications protocol primarily designed for low power consumption, with a short range (power-class-dependent: 1 meter, 10 meters, 100 meters)http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/ based on low-cost transceiver integrated circuits in each device.

Bluetooth enables these devices to communicate with each other when they are in range. The devices use a radio communications system, so they do not have to be in line of sight of each other, and can even be in other rooms, as long as the received transmission is powerful enough.

{| class="wikitable"! Class! abbr="Maximum power" | Maximum Permitted Power
(milliwatt/dBm)! abbr="Range" ]|-! Version 2.0 + EDR| 3 Mbit/s
(proposed)| 53 - 480 [Mbit/s|}

Bluetooth profiles In order to use Bluetooth, a device must be compatible with certain Bluetooth profiles. These define the possible applications and uses.

List of applications More prevalent applications of Bluetooth include:

Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi in networking Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have slightly different applications in today's offices, homes, and on the move: setting up networks, printing, or transferring presentations and files from PDAs to computers. Both are versions of unlicensed spread spectrum technology.

Bluetooth differs from Wi-Fi in that the latter provides higher throughput and covers greater distances, but requires more expensive hardware and higher power consumption. They use the same frequency range, but employ different multiplexing schemes. While Bluetooth is a cable replacement for a variety of applications, Wi-Fi is a cable replacement only for local area network access. Bluetooth is often thought of as wireless USB, whereas Wi-Fi is wireless Ethernet, both operating at much lower bandwidth than the cable systems they are trying to replace. However, this analogy is not entirely accurate since any Bluetooth device can, in theory, host any other Bluetooth device—something that is not universal to USB devices, therefore it would resemble more a wireless Firewire.

Bluetooth Bluetooth is implemented in a variety of new products such as phones, printers, modems, and headsets. Bluetooth is analogous to USB, and is acceptable for situations when two or more devices are in proximity to each other and don't require high bandwidth. Bluetooth is most commonly used with phones and hand-held computing devices, either using a Bluetooth headset or transferring files from phones/PDAs to computers.

Bluetooth also simplifies the discovery and setup of services. Bluetooth devices advertise all services they provide. This makes the utility of the service that much more accessible, without the need to worry about network addresses, permissions and all the other considerations that go with typical networks.

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is more analogous to the traditional Ethernet network and requires configuration to set up shared resources, transmit files, set up audio links (for example, headsets and hands-free devices). It uses the same radio frequencies as Bluetooth, but with higher power output resulting in a stronger connection. Wi-Fi is sometimes called "wireless Ethernet." Although this description is inaccurate, it provides an indication of its relative strengths and weaknesses. Wi-Fi requires more setup, but is better suited for operating full-scale networks because it enables a faster connection, better range from the base station, and better security than Bluetooth.

One method for comparing the efficiency of wireless transmission protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is spatial capacity, or bits per second per square meter.

Computer requirements dongle (BCM2045A), shown here next to a metric rulerA personal computer must have a Bluetooth adapter in order to be able to communicate with other Bluetooth devices (such as mobile phones, Mouse (computing) and Computer keyboard).While some portable computers and fewer desktop computers already contain an internal Bluetooth adapter, most PCs require an external Universal Serial Bus Bluetooth dongle. Most Macintosh come with built-in Bluetooth adapters.

Unlike its predecessor, Infrared Data Association, in which each device requires a separate dongle, multiple Bluetooth devices can communicate with a computer over a single dongle.

Operating system support Mac OS X has supported Bluetooth since version 10.2 released in 2002. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/jul/17jaguar.html

Of Microsoft platforms, Windows XP#Service Pack 2 and laterreleases have native support for Bluetooth.Previous versions required the users to install their Bluetooth adapter's own drivers, which was not directly supported by Microsoft.http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2netwk.mspx Microsoft's own Bluetooth dongles (that are packaged with their Bluetooth computer devices) have no external drivers and thus require at least Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Linux provides two Bluetooth stacks, with the BlueZ stack included with most Linux kernels. It was originally developed by Qualcomm and Affix. BlueZ supports all core Bluetooth protocols and layers.

Specifications and features The Bluetooth specification was developed in 1994 by Sven Mattisson and Jaap Haartsen, who were working for Ericsson in Lund, Sweden. The specification is based on frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology.

The specifications were formalized by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Special Interest Group), organised by Mohd Syarifuddin. The SIG was formally announced on May 20, 1998. Today it has over 7000 companies worldwide. It was established by Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, and later joined by many other companies. Bluetooth is also known as IEEE 802.15.1.

Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B Versions 1.0 and 1.0B had many problems, and manufacturers had difficulties making their products interoperable. Versions 1.0 and 1.0B also had mandatory Bluetooth hardware device address (BD_ADDR) transmission in the Connecting process, rendering anonymity impossible at a protocol level, which was a major setback for services planned to be used in Bluetooth environments, such as Consumerium.

Bluetooth 1.1

Bluetooth 1.2 This version is backward-compatible with 1.1 and the major enhancements include the following:

=== Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) ===This version, specified on 10th November 2004http://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Technology/Specifications/, is backward-compatible with 1.1. The main enhancement is the introduction of an EDR of 3.0 Mbit/s. This has the following effects:

The practical data transfer rate is 2.1 megabits per second and the basic signalling rate is about 3 megabits per secondhttp://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/629.

The "Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR" specification given at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) includes EDR and there is no specification "Bluetooth 2.0" as used by many vendors. The HTC TyTN pocket PC phone, shows "Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR" on its data sheethttp://www.europe.htc.com/z/pdf/products/1766_TyTN_LFLT_OUT.PDF and another source states Bluetooth 2.0 without EDR is equivalent to version 1.2 with additional bug fixeshttp://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/at-fon-you-stop-being-a-beggarand-so-do-the-homeless.html#comment-1026. In many cases it is not clear whether a product claiming to support "Bluetooth 2.0" actually supports the EDR higher transfer rate.

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) Bluetooth Core Specification Version 2.1 + EDR, is fully backward-compatible with 1.1, and was adopted by the Bluetooth SIGhttp://www.bluetooth.com/Bluetooth/Learn/Technology/Core_Specification_v21__EDR.htm on August 1, 2007. This specification includes the following features:











Future of Bluetooth







Bluetooth technology already plays a part in the rising Voice over IP (VOIP) scene, with Bluetooth headsets being used as wireless extensions to the PC audio system. As VOIP becomes more popular, and more suitable for general home or office users than wired phone lines, Bluetooth may be used in cordless handsets, with a base station connected to the Internet link.

Bluetooth 3.0 The next version of Bluetooth after v2.1, code-named Seattle (the version number of which is TBD) has many of the same features, but is most notable for plans to adopt ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology. This will allow Bluetooth use over UWB radio, enabling very fast data transfers of up to 480 Mbit/s, while building on the very low-power idle modes of Bluetooth.

High speed Bluetooth On 28 March 2006, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced its selection of the WiMedia Alliance Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) version of UWB for integration with current Bluetooth wireless technology.

UWB integration will create a version of Bluetooth wireless technology with a high-speed/high-data-rate option. This new version of Bluetooth technology will meet the high-speed demands of synchronizing and transferring large amounts of data, as well as enabling high-quality video and audio applications for portable devices, multi-media projectors and television sets, and wireless VOIP.

At the same time, Bluetooth technology will continue catering to the needs of very low power applications such as mice, keyboards, and mono headsets, enabling devices to select the most appropriate physical radio for the application requirements, thereby offering the best of both worlds.

The Draft High Speed Bluetooth Specification is available at the Bluetooth website.

Ultra Low Power Bluetooth On June 12, 2007, Nokia and Bluetooth SIG announced that Wibree will be a part of the Bluetooth specification as an ultra low power Bluetooth technologyhttp://www.wibree.com/press/Wibree_pressrelease_final_1206.pdf. Expected use cases include watches displaying Caller ID information, sports sensors monitoring your heart rate during exercise, as well as medical devices. The Medical Devices Working Group is also creating a medical devices profile and associated protocols to enable this market.

Technical information Communication and connection A master Bluetooth device can communicate with up to seven devices. This network group of up to eight devices is called a piconet.

A piconet is an ad-hoc computer network, using Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active devices. Up to 255 further devices can be inactive, or parked, which the master device can bring into active status at any time.

At any given time, data can be transferred between the master and one other device, however, the devices can switch roles and the slave can become the master at any time. The master switches rapidly from one device to another in a round-robin scheduling fashion. (Simultaneous transmission from the master to multiple other devices is possible, but not used much.)

Bluetooth specification allows connecting two or more piconets together to form a scatternet, with some devices acting as a bridge by simultaneously playing the master role and the slave role in one piconet. These devices are planned for 2007.

Many USB Bluetooth adapter (computing)s are available, some of which also include an IrDA adapter. Older (pre-2003) Bluetooth adapters, however, have limited services, offering only the Bluetooth Enumerator and a less-powerful Bluetooth Radio incarnation. Such devices can link computers with Bluetooth, but they do not offer much in the way of services that modern adapters do.

Setting up connections Any Bluetooth device will transmit the following sets of information on demand:

Any device may perform an inquiry to find other devices to which to connect, and any device can be configured to respond to such inquiries. However, if the device trying to connect knows the address of the device, it always responds to direct connection requests and transmits the information shown in the list above if requested. Use of device services may require pairing or acceptance by its owner, but the connection itself can be started by any device and held until it goes out of range. Some devices can be connected to only one device at a time, and connecting to them prevents them from connecting to other devices and appearing in inquiries until they disconnect from the other device.

Every device has a unique 48-bit address. However these addresses are generally not shown in inquiries. Instead, friendly Bluetooth names are used, which can be set by the user. This name appears when another user scans for devices and in lists of paired devices.

Most phones have the Bluetooth name set to the manufacturer and model of the phone by default. Most phones and laptops show only the Bluetooth names and special programs that are required to get additional information about remote devices. This can be confusing as, for example, there could be several phones in range named Sony Ericsson T610 (see Bluejacking).

Pairing Pairs of devices may establish a trusted relationship by learning (by user input) a shared secret known as a passkey. A device that wants to communicate only with a trusted device can cryptography authentication the identity of the other device. Trusted devices may also encryption the data that they exchange over the air so that no one can listen in. The encryption can, however, be turned off, and passkeys are stored on the device file system, not on the Bluetooth chip itself. Since the Bluetooth address is permanent, a pairing is preserved, even if the Bluetooth name is changed. Pairs can be deleted at any time by either device. Devices generally require pairing or prompt the owner before they allow a remote device to use any or most of their services. Some devices, such as Sony Ericsson phones, usually accept OBEX business cards and notes without any pairing or prompts.

Certain printers and access points allow any device to use its services by default, much like unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Pairing algorithms are sometimes manufacturer-specific for transmitters and receivers used in applications such as music and entertainment.

Air interface The protocol (computing) operates in the license-free ISM band at 2.4-2.4835 GHz. To avoid interfering with other protocols that use the 2.45 GHz band, the Bluetooth protocol divides the band into 79 channels (each 1 MHz wide) and changes channels up to 1600 times per second. Implementations with versions 1.1 and 1.2 reach speeds of 723.1 kilobit per second. Version 2.0 implementations feature Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) and reach 2.1 Mbit/s. Technically, version 2.0 devices have a higher power consumption, but the three times faster rate reduces the transmission times, effectively reducing power consumption to half that of 1.x devices (assuming equal traffic load).

Security Bluetooth implements confidentiality, authentication and key (cryptography) derivation with custom algorithms based on the SAFER+ block cipher.In Bluetooth, key generation is generally based on a Bluetooth PIN, which has to be entered into both devices. This procedure might get modified slightly, if one of the devices has a fixed PIN, which is the case e.g. for headsets or similar devices with a restricted user interface.Foremost, an initialization key or master key is generated, using the E22 algorithm .

The E0 (cipher) stream cipher is used for encrypting packets, granting confidentiality and is based on a shared cryptographic secret, namely a previously generated link key or master key.Those keys, used for subsequent encryption of data sent via the air interface, hardly rely on the Bluetooth PIN, which has been entered into one or both devices.

A demonstration of this reduction has been put effort in by Y. Shaked and A. Wool in .An overview of the most important vulnerabilities and the most common exploits to those vulnerabilities is presented in .

Social concerns Security concerns 2003:
In November 2003, Ben and Adam Laurie from A.L. Digital Ltd. discovered that serious flaws in Bluetooth security may lead to disclosure of personal data. It should be noted, however, that the reported security problems concerned some poor implementations of Bluetooth, rather than the protocol itself.

In a subsequent experiment, Martin Herfurt from the trifinite.group was able to do a field-trial at the CeBIT fairgrounds, showing the importance of the problem to the world. A new attack called BlueBug was used for this experiment.

2004:
In April 2004, security consultant firm @stake (now Symantec) revealed a security flaw that makes it possible to security cracking conversations on Bluetooth based wireless headsets by reverse engineering the Personal identification number.

This is one of a number of concerns that have been raised over the security of Bluetooth communications. In 2004 the first purported computer virus using Bluetooth to spread itself among mobile phones appeared on the Symbian OS. The virus was first described by Kaspersky Lab and requires users to confirm the installation of unknown software before it can propagate.

The virus was written as a proof-of-concept by a group of virus writers known as 29A and sent to anti-virus groups. Thus, it should be regarded as a potential (but not real) security threat to Bluetooth or Symbian OS since the virus has never spread in the wild.

In August 2004, a world-record-setting experiment (see also Bluetooth sniping) showed that the range of Class 2 Bluetooth radios could be extended to 1.78 km (1.08 mile) with directional antennas and signal amplifiers. This poses a potential security threat because it enables attackers to access vulnerable Bluetooth-devices from a distance beyond expectation. The attacker must also be able to receive information from the victim to set up a connection. No attack can be made against a Bluetooth device unless the attacker knows its Bluetooth address and which channels to transmit on.

2005:
In April 2005, University of Cambridge security researchers published results of their actual implementation of passive attacks against the PIN-based pairing between commercial Bluetooth devices, confirming the attacks to be practicably fast and the Bluetooth symmetric key establishment method to be vulnerable. To rectify this vulnerability, they carried out an implementation which showed that stronger, asymmetric key establishment is feasible for certain classes of devices, such as handphones.

In June 2005, Yaniv Shaked and Avishai Wool published the paper "Cracking the Bluetooth PIN1," which shows both passive and active methods for obtaining the PIN for a Bluetooth link. The passive attack allows a suitably equipped attacker to eavesdrop on communications and spoof if they were present at the time of initial pairing. The active method makes use of a specially constructed message that must be inserted at a specific point in the protocol, to make the master and slave repeat the pairing process. After that, the first method can be used to crack the PIN. This attack's major weakness is that it requires the user of the devices under attack to re-enter the PIN during the attack when the device prompts them to. Also, this active attack probably requires custom hardware, since most commercially available Bluetooth devices are not capable of the timing necessary.

In August 2005, police in Cambridgeshire, England, issued warnings about thieves using Bluetooth-enabled phones to track other devices left in cars. Police are advising users to ensure that any mobile networking connections are de-activated if laptops and other devices are left in this way.

2006:
In April 2006, researchers from Secure Network and F-Secure published a report that warns of the large number of devices left in a visible state, and issued statistics on the spread of various Bluetooth services and the ease of spread of an eventual Bluetooth worm.

In October 2006, at the Luxemburgish Hack.lu Security Conference, Kevin Finistere and Thierry Zoller demonstrated and released a remote root shell over Bluetooth on Mac OSX 10.3.9 and 10.4. They also demonstrated the first Bluetooth PIN and Linkkeys cracker, which is based on the research of Wool and Shaked.

Bluejacking:
Bluejacking allows phone users to send business cards anonymously using Bluetooth wireless technology. Bluejacking does NOT involve the removal or alteration of any data from the device. These business cards often have a clever or flirtatious message rather than the typical name and phone number. Bluejackers often look for the receiving phone to ping or the user to react. They then send another, more personal message to that device. Once again, in order to carry out a bluejacking, the sending and receiving devices must be within range of each other, which is typically 10 meters for most mobile devices. Phone owners who receive bluejack messages should refuse to add the contacts to their address book. Devices that are set in non-discoverable mode are not susceptible to bluejacking.

Health concerns Bluetooth uses the microwave radio frequency spectrum in the 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz range. Maximum power output from a Bluetooth radio is 1 mW, 2.5 mW, and 100 mW for Class 3, Class 2, and Class 1 devices respectively, which puts Class 1 at roughly the same level as cell phones, and the other two classes much lower. Accordingly, Class 2 and Class 3 Bluetooth devices are considered less of a potential hazard than cell phones, and Class 1 may be comparable to that of cell phones.

Origin of the name and the logo Bluetooth was named after a late tenth century king, Harald I of Denmark King of Denmark and Norway. He is known for his unification of previously warring tribes from Denmark (including now Sweden Scania (region), where the Bluetooth technology was invented), and Norway. Bluetooth likewise was intended to unify different technologies, such as computers and mobile phones.

The name may have been inspired less by the historical Harald than the loose interpretation of him in The Long Ships by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson, a Swedish Viking-inspired novel.

The Bluetooth logo merges the Nordic Runic alphabet analogous to the modern Latin H and B: hagall and bjarkan from the Younger Futhark runes forming a bind rune.

Bluetooth Special Interest Group In 1998, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Toshiba, and Nokia, formed a consortium and adopted the code name Bluetooth for their proposed open specification. In December 1999, 3Com, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, and Motorola joined the initial founders as the promoter of Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). Since that time, Lucent Technologies transferred their membership to their spinoff Agere Systems, and 3Com has left the promoter group. Agere Systems was later merged with LSI Corporation and left the Bluetooth promoters group in August 2007.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) is a privately held, not-for-profit trade association with headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. As of September 2007 the SIG is composed of over 9,000 member companies that are leaders in the telecommunications, computing, automotive, music, apparel, industrial automation, and network industries, and a small group of dedicated staff in Hong Kong, Sweden, and the USA. SIG members drive the development of Bluetooth wireless technology, and implement and market the technology in their products varying from mobile phones to printers. The Bluetooth SIG itself does not make, manufacture, or sell Bluetooth enabled products.

See also

References External links Official

Other

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