Why So Many Apps Are Asking To Use Bluetooth on iOS 13 (theverge.com) 51
Apple's new iOS 13 update adds a new privacy measure that requires apps to get your consent in order to use your device's Bluetooth. From a report: After installing the latest version of iOS, trust me when I say you'll be surprised by the number of apps asking for Bluetooth permission the next time you open them. Some might seem very strange (like Dunkin' Donuts in my case), but others probably won't make you think twice about giving the thumbs-up. The reason Apple implemented this is because Bluetooth has enabled companies to sneakily track your location over Bluetooth by using beacons in stores, shopping malls, and even on popular city streets if they're placed within range of a place you'd walk by.
This is entirely separate from your iPhone's location privacy settings, which makes it seem all the more underhanded. A beacon is very easily able to detect your device's Bluetooth chip and log that with a retailer or some other app on your phone. So getting more strict about Bluetooth is a good move by Apple to prevent unwanted tracking of its customers. Similarly, the company is also getting even more transparent about location, showing you on a map how often and where apps have recorded your position. This prompt is much easier to understand, and will probably startle people into slimming down the list of apps that can monitor where they are. As it should!
This is entirely separate from your iPhone's location privacy settings, which makes it seem all the more underhanded. A beacon is very easily able to detect your device's Bluetooth chip and log that with a retailer or some other app on your phone. So getting more strict about Bluetooth is a good move by Apple to prevent unwanted tracking of its customers. Similarly, the company is also getting even more transparent about location, showing you on a map how often and where apps have recorded your position. This prompt is much easier to understand, and will probably startle people into slimming down the list of apps that can monitor where they are. As it should!
I got beat up at Starbucks (Score:2, Offtopic)
they scanned my phone and found out I'd been going to dunking and other coffee shops and kicked my ass in the store
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Fanboy Contortions (Score:5, Informative)
So getting more strict about Bluetooth is a good move by Apple to prevent unwanted tracking of its customers
Apple literally designed the beacons for tracking, so why applaud them for fixing the problem?
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So getting more strict about Bluetooth is a good move by Apple to prevent unwanted tracking of its customers
Apple literally designed the beacons for tracking, so why applaud them for fixing the problem?
Yes, for example so they can be placed around a hospital complex so that an app can help people navigate from one department to another during a visit. Seeing your doctor in one office, blood samples in one lab, x-rays in another, pharmacy for prescriptions, etc.
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Re:Fanboy Contortions (Score:4, Insightful)
In theory. In practice, zero apps use such indoor navigation to any good effect.
In reality I was at a meeting at Apple where members of Apple's healthcare team were working with developers of just such a system regarding how it could be implemented using Apple products.
The fact remains that such scenarios are an example how Apple sees and promotes beacon technology.
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So they were just extremely naive and figured no-one would abuse a system that allows them to track individual's movements with a high level of precision, even to the point of identifying which shelf they are looking at?
Why not (Score:1)
Why not just tattoo a fucking barcode on our foreheads and be done with all this sneaky shit?
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Because people are happy to pay good money for devices that they know for a fact to be recording and monitoring them and put all their most private info on them. Those devices are a lot more capable than barcodes.
No permissions needed for headphones (Score:3)
Bluetooth audio is handled through system settings, is separate from apps, and will continue working for apps that you deny permission for.
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Though some 3rd party headphones have apps that do like Sony that allow setting options like on device eq and anc. But even then they will work without the app.
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I don't know about iOS, but Android 5 (or 6) had switched to listing/scanning Bluetooth LE devices only if location was active. I know because of my connected watch usage (the ones with over 1 month of battery usage). Regular bluetooth (like headphones) were not resticted.
Some might seem very strange... (Score:2)
(like Dunkin' Donuts in my case)
I have bad news [slashdot.org] for you....
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Beacon Listening (Score:4, Interesting)
"A beacon is very easily able to detect your device's Bluetooth chip and log that with a retailer or some other app on your phone."
Isn't a beacon, be definition sending out the chirps? I'm there there are radio doing listening, but the system i installed (meridian) you install beacons which you phone then listens for to triangular itself on a map. The App then phones home with the location it has determined. This is the opposite of what they described above.
Most companies are doing what they describe above with WiFi when they look for probe requests.
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Isn't a beacon, be definition sending out the chirps?
Exactly that. Your device can detect the beacon. The beacon cannot detect your device, and it cannot know that your device detected it. So the author of this article either didn't understand how beacons work, or is intentionally trying to produce panic.
If there is a million apps using beacons, and you have two of these apps installed, none of these beacons will ever detect you. And only the two apps on your device will detect beacons belonging to these two apps, and no others. And one would assume that e
The beacons are a great solution that save battery (Score:2)
What people aren't seeming to get here about the beacons is they are a great way for a device to recognize when you are at a particular place, without the heaviness and greatly reduced privacy implications of allowing location access.
Take Duncan Donuts. The app could do useful things for you, like alerting you to specials, if it knows you entered a store. Would you rather it be tracking you 24x7, or that it detects known Duncan donuts bluetooth beacons and reacts to that?
It's a huge power and privacy win
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What people aren't seeming to get here about the beacons is they are a great way for a device to recognize when you are at a particular place, without the heaviness and greatly reduced privacy implications of allowing location access.
LOL you had me for a second. I thought you were being serious.
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This is serious.
Almost every smart OR dumb phone out there, with the exception of iOS devices, sends out a consistent identifier to cell towers nearby, and there is a device that business owners can buy and install in their store that is capable of triangulating these requests AND harvesting the unique identifiers within. For a subscription fee to a data service the businesses can then resolve these identifiers to other services, including registered owners of phone numbers, names, billing addresses, Faceb
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What you should have said "They don't have to track you; they should just make an app that offers you stuff when you open it, instead of an app that tracks you at all."
For example: they don't need to know where you are if they make an app that offers you a coupon when you open it.
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For example: they don't need to know where you are if they make an app that offers you a coupon when you open it.
That can only offer generic coupons, not specials specific to a store.
Also I find it handier if an app is basically ready to go when I get to a store. I would like the Starbucks app better if it sent a notification when I entered one of their stores because then it would make it more quick to open the app, which sometimes I've forgotten to do by the time I hit the register. Or maybe Siri could
Re:The beacons are a great solution that save batt (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you seriously trying to say that it's better to have to install an app and allow it to use battery looking for Bluetooth beacons or using location services, and pull your phone out of your pocket when you get a notification, than to read a specials board? There's no good reason to install an app for your coffee shop, besides allowing them to slurp up data and send you intrusive ads.
Disabled bluetooth (Score:3)
This is why I have bluetooth disabled, but every iOS update enables it again. It would be nice if operating systems would keep their paws of settings which I changed.
Turn Off the Radio (Score:4, Informative)
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I turn off cellular, location, wifi, and BT when not needed. I turn them on when needed.
Bluetooth auto-turn on (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bluetooth auto-turn on (Score:5, Informative)
And that's because people don't really intend to turn off Bluetooth when they turn off Bluetooth. They really mean "Don't allow Bluetooth devices to connect". This is an important difference because many services do use Bluetooth to operate for proximity detection, like AirDrop, Handoff, etc. Potentially even parts of HomeKit to detect your smart home stuff. Yes, Apple could do a lot of this via the cloud, but it shouldn't need to, so Apple uses Bluetooth for that functionality. Problem is, people turn it off and don't realize they're also disabling many convenience features.
So the drop down is for the obvious "I don't want any device connecting via Bluetooth", while the one in the Settings app is "I am smart enough to know I do not want Bluetooth on at all even though it may break stuff")
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Oh holy fuck, you people really did believe "until tomorrow" meant forever, didn't you?!
pffft tomorrow never comes my AC.
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Location permission (Score:4, Informative)
FYI, this sort of location-tracking is the reason that Android apps must request location permission in order to use Bluetooth. Many app developers who'd like to use the Bluetooth APIs to scan for nearby devices that they'd like to communicate with complain about the fact that they have to request location permissions, because it's not obvious to users that location is related to Bluetooth. But Bluetooth and Wifi device scanning can both reveal the device's location with a high degree of accuracy.
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FYI, this sort of location-tracking is the reason that Android apps must request location permission in order to use Bluetooth.
Android permissions are effectively demands. If they were requests apps would install and function anyway when the user denied request.
Your complaint is outdated. Since API level 23 (Android 6.0, released in 2015) apps do install and function anyway when the user denies the request. This is only for apps using API level 23 so older apps can continue working unchanged. The Google Play store requires new apps to target API level 28 or above, and all app updates to target API level 26 or above, so the number of apps targeting <23 is declining rapidly.
But Bluetooth and Wifi device scanning can both reveal the device's location with a high degree of accuracy.
Meanwhile there is not even a user facing permission for granting applications Internet access which by far poses the greatest aggregate risk to the end user.
Internet access doesn't pose any inherent risk to the user. An app that has no access to
Look at the silly monkey! (Score:4, Insightful)
While everyone's distracted about Bluetooth beacons they're completely ignoring that Wi-Fi exposes you in exactly the same way.
Wi-Fi devices constantly broadcast their Preferred Network List with the device's Wi-Fi MAC address trying to reconnect to known networks - and there's no app-specific settings that will ever fix this for you.
Re: Look at the silly monkey! (Score:5, Informative)
Apple doesnâ(TM)t allow apps to directly access the WiFi device. Getting the AP names already requires going through the location services APIs for precisely this reason.
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I think you missed something: it's the operating system doing this, not the apps, and that's why no app-specific setting will ever fix it.
To fix something like this requires changing how the operating system handles Wi-Fi connections, for example:
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Yeah...so I barely use wifi on my phone, even at home. I have enough data to not need it and I've seen the battery life difference on my last phone.
But I think you have a misunderstanding: no client devices broadcasts a (known) list (BT, WLAN or GSM). Only BT and WLAN tethering broadcast, and it's only their own MAC and name (as they act as stations to other clients). Your known networks are NOT broadcasted. It's for the phone to listen and connect to a known network.
Now, I'm talking about local broadcastin
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Don't they all randomize the MAC address when sending out queries anyway now? So any logging on the AP end just gets spammed with random MACs unless the user actually connects.
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Getting the AP names already requires going through the location services APIs for precisely this reason.
The permissions on the phone are irrellevant. Your phone transits information that makes it trackable over wifi and Bluetooth anytime they're turned on.
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Preferred networks are only broadcast for networks with hidden SSID. This is one of the reasons hiding your SSID is bad for security [howtogeek.com]. If you have no hidden SSID networks configured, the phone will send occasional broadcast probe requests. However, for a few years now both iOS and Android have used randomised MAC addresses for probe requests, and only switching to the real MAC address when connecting to a network.
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While everyone's distracted about Bluetooth beacons they're completely ignoring that Wi-Fi exposes you in exactly the same way.
Wi-Fi devices constantly broadcast their Preferred Network List with the device's Wi-Fi MAC address trying to reconnect to known networks - and there's no app-specific settings that will ever fix this for you.
And that's why newer iPhones broadcast a fake MAC address until it actually is connecting...
For (Score:1)
The purpose of beacons (Score:2)
The reason Apple implemented this is because Bluetooth has enabled companies to sneakily track your location over Bluetooth by using beacons in stores, shopping malls, and even on popular city streets if they're placed within range of a place you'd walk by.
But that is exactly the reason for using beacons. To enable an app to detect a beacon, to know that it is near a point of interest to the app, and to react appropriately. The best possible use case would be beacons in a museum, where you step near an exhibit and the app shows you the information about the exhibit. You can call that "tracking" obviously, but in this case it would be the reason why you downloaded the app. This is like ordering things online and not giving them a delivery address for privacy