this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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I live in a big city in the center. When i activate "Show bluetooth devices without names" in the developer settings of my android 13 phone, there appear loads of this devices. I have no clue what they are. Does anyone know? Are that the bluetooth nanobots of the vaxxinated people? (/s to last question!)

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[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 78 points 1 year ago

All those spiders that you're never more than 10 feet from have started using fitness wearables, and with 8 arms each that's a lot of bluetooth nearby.

[–] nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de 76 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bluetooth devices only broadcast their name when in pairing mode, at other times only the mac address is available. In other words, these are just people's Bluetooth devices like headphones, cellphones, airtags, etc.

[–] coffeebiscuit@lemmy.world 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

… tv’s, soundbars, remotes, keyboards, mouses, media players,… fucking toothbrushes, vibrators, mirrors, etcs.

[–] Waker@lemmy.ml 37 points 1 year ago

Please don't fuck toothbrushes :(

[–] federalreverse@feddit.de 52 points 1 year ago

They may just be other people's various devices. Maybe IoT devices or devices not fully set up. If you're living near a store/above a store, those might be Bluetooth beacons that track people through the store.

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have replaced almost every light bulb in my house with smart bulbs which feature both bluetooth and zigbee connections. It's around 40 devices. If your neighbour has smart bulbs or other devices, I guess that could be a large part of it.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Started with smart bulbs, but very quickly moved to actual smart switches+plugs instead.

Smart bulbs automatically turn on when power goes out and back on. (so you can still control them from the regular switch) This is anoying af with how frequently I get short power outages.

My wife and I used to have some smart switches in a previous house that were set to turn on when we came home. Woke the kids up a few times forgetting to turn that off before coming back from a night out.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Stasi listening devices. We never went away, comrade.

[–] PlexSheep@feddit.de 15 points 1 year ago

Nowadays, people buy them out of free will. They give them names and ask them to play Despacito.

[–] SomeBoyo@feddit.de 12 points 1 year ago

Can confirm (posted from a Stasi listening device)

[–] PixeIOrange@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

God dammit.

[–] I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Our Aldi now has electronic price tags for each product in the centre aisles. I wonder if they're Bluetooth.

[–] EddoWagt@feddit.nl 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're usually e-ink displays that get their power from NFC, so they're probably not Bluetooth

[–] B0rax@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

That’s not correct. They run on coin cells and use their own RF protocol. Most use something like zigbee. Others even use light to transfer data.

[–] PixeIOrange@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago

I have an idea, there are some restaurants around, maybe its these restaurant pagers.

[–] YodaDaCoda@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

It varies. Some of them use Bluetooth Low Energy, some of them use other wireless techniques for lower power and greater range.

[–] B0rax@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Usually they use something (but not exactly) zigbee

[–] ours@lemmy.film 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's perfectly normal, pay no mind to them or the plumber van parked day and night on the other side of the road.

[–] PixeIOrange@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

They are way less undercover around here. Theres a helicopter that spies on everyone 2-3 times a month. No infos on flightradar, no infos directly sent from it. We are all dead soon!

(/s)

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Could be anything, since you're in the middle of a large city center. Could be smart devices, could be FindMys or similar, could be beacons, could be trackers, could be any combination.

[E]. To answer your nanobot question. I guess it could be nanobots, though all of the ones I've ever seen, use NFC. Also, "of the vaxxinated people"? I haven't heard that one before. What is that about?

[–] kzhe@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a reference to conspiracy theories about vaccines containing trackers

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh... didn't realize that was a thing. That's.... a bit disturbing....

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think they realize how small the vaccine needles are or how hard it would be to actually track you with a microscopic device.

[–] OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reality doesn't really matter all that much to antivaxxers.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

It's more about causing friction. It's a physical proof with a whole lot of evidence.

[–] _MusicJunkie@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On the ole 600euro communities you regularly see people posting these screenshots as "proof" of tracking devices in vaccinations.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what 600euro communities are, but I read a bit about it after the previous comment, and I'm appalled that this is a thing. Let's use a bit of logic here: if the government truly wanted to track our every move, nanotech is not how they'll go about doing it, when we all carry smartphone trackers in our pockets every where we go. A little logic would burn their theory to ashes.

[–] _MusicJunkie@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Community to make fun of conspiracy theorists. Used to be wacky, "I think the birds outside my window are working for the government, anyone know a crystal that can help me" sort of thing, became a little sad with COVID.

Interesting. But if it's satire, are you saying the covid conspiracy people took over those communities and made them into "real"/non-satirical communities?

[–] Natanael@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

A ton of devices not currently in discoverable mode too. Smart watches, TVs, etc.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

Smart devices like switches, bulbs, outlets, etc; air tags and other brands of Bluetooth tracker; wireless speaker systems, headphones.

Many of these devices won't broadcast a name at all, or will only broadcast a name while pairing.

[–] MooseBoys@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

I see 21 devices in just my house. Many Sonos speakers (no name when not advertising BT input). Several air monitors. All my TVs. A temperature tracker. Three smart switches…

[–] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So many electronics now have a Bluetooth chip, wether they use it or not. If you have AirPods, that’s up to 3 BY devices (each ear plus case), each phone, each computer (+ mouse, keyboard), TV (+ remote controls), game pads, Bluetooth speakers (plus extra of stereo or 5.1). A lot of small devices too now have Bluetooth like some Arduino boards can Raspberry Pi,

[–] collegefurtrader@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Every single node in any form of β€œsmart home” networks including color changing light bulbs

[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most of those use other networks - Zwave, Zigbee, or WiFi.

[–] collegefurtrader@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many of them use Bluetooth or BLE for setup purposes and im sure some don’t bother to stop advertising

That makes sense.

[–] techwooded@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Just in case

[–] peter@feddit.uk 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try using RamBLE or nRF Connect to see some more info about the devices

[–] PixeIOrange@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Thx for your suggestions, theyll help.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When i activate "Show bluetooth devices without names"

I think that option just shows MAC addresses (or whatever it is BT uses) instead of the devices' names?

[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

It shows all Bluetooth devices in range, whereas normally Android only shows ones which your phone knows the name of, either because they're in pairing mode and thus broadcasting their name, or because you've paired before.

[–] MiserableConstruct@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I had to guess you probably live in a big city in the center. This means when you activate "Show bluetooth devices without names" in the developer settings of your android 13 phone, there appear loads of devices. You probably have no clue what they are because none of them are your devices so why would you know what they are?

[–] PixeIOrange@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess im not smart enough to get what you want...

[–] arefx@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If you live in a city center you are probably in a highly populated area and your phone is receiving the signals from other people's Bluetooth devices in proximity to you and your phone. Basically your seeing the devices of all your neighbors, because that's how wireless Bluetooth transmission works.

[–] kafa@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

or in other words, BT devices broadcast their names only in pairing mode, so you know only the names of devices you are paired with.

all other devices continue to be there, but normally not shown, because you don't know them.

Until you pair, there's no reason for showing them