Comment on Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking

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PierceTheBubble@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I understand you’ve read the comment as a single thing, mainly because it is. However, the BLE part is an additional piece of critique, which is not directly related to this specific exploit; neither is the tangent on the headphone jack “substitution”. It’s, indeed, this fast pairing feature, which is the subject of the discussed exploit; so you understood that correctly (or I misunderstood it too…).

I’m however of the opinion, BLE being a major attack vector, by design. These are IoT devices that, especially when “find my device” is enabled (which in many cases isn’t even optional: “turned off” iPhones for example), do announce themselves periodically to the surrounding mesh, allowing for the precise location of these devices; and therefore also the persons carrying them. If bad actors gain access, to for example Google’s Sensorvault (legally in the case of state-actors), or would find ways of building such databases themselves; then I’d argue you’re in serious waters. Is it a convenient feature, to help one relocate lost devices? Yes. But this nice-to-have, also comes with this serious downside, which I believe doesn’t even near justifying the means. Rob Braxman has a decent video about the subject if you’re interested.

It’s not even a case of kids not wanting to switch, most devices don’t even come with 3.5mm jacks anymore…

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