Operation n

I sat at a nearby restaurant called, “Joeys bar and grill” enjoying a succulent medium rare steak. The one perk when doing onsite work from the office was the company paid lunches. I finished my meal and sat quietly sipping on an ice cold Coke. “always seems to taste better in a bottle”, I muttered with a satisfied smile.

I had recently switched my pay as you go mobile phone-if that is what you could call it, for a new 02 XDA II Mini. “It has WIFI capabilities”, I remember the cunning sales clerk saying. It was light, compact and cute I thought. I had been waiting a long while for a reason to upgrade my old piece of rubbish.

I had often used my phone to scan for insecure wireless networks nearby. It was a free and easy way to move around on the Internet and remain anonymous-if done right. Once connected, I could access websites or log into anonymous servers using pocket putty. I am always careful never to access personal resources across these channels, it just isn’t safe. I knew that rogue or malicious access points could be setup and monitored. There is also always the danger that if I chose to play around with something on the Internet they may attempt to track me down. So I stayed away from accessing email and other information that may point to me. I had also changed the hardware or MAC address via the cell phone software. This made it virtually impossible to trace my connection should it be logged on a network device somewhere to be used later by the authorities.

I was getting ready to give a sign to the pretty looking waitress that I was ready for the bill when I heard a beeping sound. I immediately identified the sound and glanced down at my phone. A Bluetooth device was attempting to establish a connection with my phone or to pair - as they call it. Only, the name of the device connecting, identified itself as “hows the meal?”, it also had an array of odd-looking characters appended to the end. “Bluejacking”, I said with a smile, how fun! I remembered reading a oddly titled article, “how to pickup girls with Bluetooth.”

I had often left bluetooth enabled on my phone with varying names just to see if anything would ever happen. Unexpectedly though, this was the first time. I also had a worrying nagging feeling that this may be some kind of worm or virus propogating via the Bluetooth protocol.

I knew that most Bluetooth devices had a limited range of about 10 meters. So I scanned my surroundings. No one was around. I scratched my head and felt rather confused. I looked around again only to find the waitress stairing at me with a smile and a bill in her hand. “It must be her” I thought. This was certainly my day. A cute waitress who understands Bluejacking. What a combination.

References:

• http://www.seeo2.com/product/XdaIImini/template/Product.vm
• http://www.bluejackers.co.uk/