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Android 15 really doesn't want you to turn off Bluetooth - Android Authority
(www.androidauthority.com)
Any way to turn that off? Bluetooth is very insecure.
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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Android
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If you read the article they say there's a toggle to enable/disable auto Bluetooth on.
In what ways is having bluetooth on but not doing anything insecure?
I mean it was not too long ago there was a bug which could lead to an unauthenticated RCE against Bluetooth on Android.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2022-20345
So yea, reducing surface area of attack when a feature is not needed is kinda important.
When we do defcon, Bluetooth is one of the easiest protocols to take control of. It's funny. It's also easy to spoof, easy to mess with, and generally very insecure.
was at 37c3 and people were constantly spamming BLE pairing requests lmao
I'm curious, what about Bluetooth makes it insecure? Is it that vendors create insecure implementations, like Android, or is it a human issue like connecting to things by default? I recall the Bluetooth spec being unbelievably complex and verbose, which obviously increases risk and makes it harder to audit, but it doesn't get many updates, and I don't recall seeing many issues with the spec itself. I mean it's not like it's fixing a CVE every quarter like with netty packages.
It’s too complicated. Bluetooth is complicated. It tries to do way too much, and not even the experts can implement it in a consistent fashion because different Bluetooth stacks are forced to make assumptions where the specification is unclear.
When you have a large, complex, and poorly designed specification, you’re going to get bugs. The main limiting factor has been the short range of Bluetooth preventing widespread exploitation.
Its more complex than I can talk about here in any kind of depth, but it comes down to it being a very old protocol. It has known security issues that are just not fixed as it would break backwards compatibility with a lot of devices. So the same issues that were chosen to not be fixed are still out there. You can, with very little effort, take control of just about any Bluetooth device(or partial). Or at least knock it out if commission.
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People lock their door when lock picks and axes exist. Making criminals work harder to access your belongings is pretty important in a lot of aspects.
tracking!
I mean, just look at what happened over in ios land. Every time there is a new security issue or denial of service attack on their bluetooth stack, apple has to scramble to fix it because bluetooth is always on in their devices. Android at least has some respite by turning off bluetooth, especially on old devices that no longer receiving security updates.
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Bluetooth has one of the largest network stacks. It's bigger than Wifi. This means some parts of the stack probably aren't tested and may have bugs or vulnerabilities. It has duplicate functionality in it. This opens up the possibility that flaws in how different parts interact could lead to vulnerabilities or exploits.
A number of years ago some security researchers did an analysis of the Windows and Linux stacks. They found multiple exploitable vulnerabilities in both stacks. They called their attack blue borne, but it was really a series of attacks that could be used depending on which OS you wanted to target. Some what ironically, Linux was more vulnerable because the Linux kernel implemented more of the protocol than Windows.
What? The kernel only implements HCI - a way to talk to hardware
The Bluetooth stack and its protocols are implemented in BlueZ or on Android in Gabeldorsche
Yeeeaaah, that makes more sense. 😅 That would be a giant gaping vulnerability if everything was in kernel space.
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I'm so fucking sick of it. I just want to go back to old Android and Windows. Fuck both these bloated corps who keep inching away at shit they know goddamn well they're doing. Seriously. Leave my shit alone. Let me root it and customize and fuck it up as I please. Leave me the fuck alone. /rant
So that the phones can ping each other in order to find lost phones
That's their excuse.
Better be an opt-in feature instead of an opt-out, because I'm tired of needing to turn off new 'features' I don't need that are said to be for something that sounds kind of reasonable but ends up being because they want to track more things and have more control over you.
Ya I don't like the idea either. But what really grinds my gears is that misleading headline that makes it sounds like they are doing it suddenly with no apparent reasons.
I prefer neutral headlines that don't promote what is likely to be a lie without the context of the article.
They say it is for finding lost phones, but I don't really believe that is the actual reason. They are probably doing some kind of tracking that uses bluetooth and too many people are turning it off for their preferences.
Let the reader be the judge. You can be neutral without hiding information. How about "Android 15 can turn Bluetooth on automatically and Google says it's for finding lost devices"?
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If you read the article, it does have a toggle to enable or disable the feature
If the default setting is on, then it is opt-out.
It wouldn't be either without the toggle.
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Don't complain too much about it. They can already do that part, really. I'm just happy the find my device network is finally about to go live do I can have non apple air tag like things that will actually work really well.
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Ha jokes on them I always keep it off. Wired headphones all the way baby
Doing the dishes while listening to podcasts with low battery makes me wish my wireless earphones didn't break so soon. The amount of times I took my phone out, put it on a table and walked away to tow it off the table is staggering. Or forgetting to turn down the amplifier before unplugging just to get blasted with static noise isn't something I miss.
Not having to bother with reconnecting bluetooth headphones and instead plugging in a cable is great tho, so I understand everyone who still likes their wired headphones.
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Google is taking a page from Apple, iOS does exactly that kind of shit. It's annoying.
And probably for the same reason. Google is rolling out an update to their device tracking network and if it's anything like Apple's, it relies on as many phones as possible having blue tooth enabled.
The UI strings make it pretty clear this is an option the user can choose.
It is informative, but how often does the average person read this kind of information? Especially when they are set on doing something simple, such as turning off Bluetooth. What if you never use the settings menu, and only turn it off from the notification drawer? They never see that information. Not to mention that it’s such a small option (even though it’s a big paragraph) that they make it seem like they don’t want the user to disable it completely.
What they should do, is when the user disables Bluetooth the first time (anywhere on the phone), a pop up is at least shown to instruct the user that it is still scanning in the background. That way the user is informed. OR, hear me out, have background scanning disabled by default and prompt the user to enable it the first time they disable Bluetooth.
Honestly this is probably for the average user... Because Google doesn't want to receive calls that XYZ (that uses Bluetooth) is broken from those that are tech illiterate in the general public and accidentally turned Bluetooth off.
My grandpa as an example would also not read your pop-up.
The general public is not concerned with disabling Bluetooth for more than a power saving or troubleshooting step... And even then, it's going to be an accident more than a choice for a lot of people.
I think the primary motivation for this change is to keep bluetooth active on significant portion of android users so google's upcoming "find my" network can take off. They don't want people to permanently turn off bluetooth from the drawer because there is a chance that they forgot about it and won't turn it on again, which is bad for their upcoming network. Adding popups to inform the users will increase the chance of users deciding to permanently deactivating bluetooth.
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My April fools prank ~~you~~ on my friends was a fake news article. It would've worked if any of them actually read past the headline.
In the same regards, it's a toggle if you want it to come back automatically. You can still turn off Bluetooth and leave it off. The feature is there so you don't turn off Bluetooth and lose your device & the only way to track it
Edit: fixed typo
Probably Google wants to create a new surveillance web using Bluetooth LTE on devices like Apple did with its AirTags
Did you even read the article? That's literally what they're planning.
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It will be a really sad day when they kill Termux and Tasker. At the same time, maybe it will be the push for people smarter than me to write a proper competitive OS that we can flash.
Latest MIUI 14 (Android 13) is already doing this shit.
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