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How secure is sending files over Bluetooth?
(lemmy.ml)
It’s actually entirely horse shit.
Only the very newest products that are on the latest standard are secure.
It all look secure and sounds secure and feels secure with all the encryption….
But about 2 years ago there was a downgrade attack that was proven to affect basically everything.
Bluetooth security might as well be a flashing neon sign of your data.
Now it’s not quite that simple and some people have updated their devices etc……
But almost nobody actually has done that because Bluetooth devices are “fire and forget”
I mean when’s the last time you updated the firmware on your headphones or keyboard?
Mostly “never”
You have to be pretty close to sniff Bluetooth data though. So fine at home, less so in a busy public space. (The chances of someone there trying to hack your Bluetooth is still astranomically small)
Low odds because “you aren’t worth the effort required” agreed.
But the distance officially is like 33 feet to 300 feet depending on the adapter.
It is extremely unlikely that there would be a motivated enough attacker to target you. And if someone is not targeting you, but just attacking everyone in range, it's unlikely the files you are transferring are of any value to them.
You can't be too sure. Last thing anyone wants is someone to get ahold of their legendary Pepes.
Nobody sane is transferring legendary pepes unencrypted over Bluetooth. I use an encrypted USB delivered by courier with key provided upon proof of receipt (and payment, of course). Other than that they stay on an airgapped machine or cold storage.
You can only send encrypted files over bluetooth if you manually encrypt them
It is encrypted, but the security of the encryption varies between implementations (some have been found to generate keys insecurely or screw up session management, etc). For most modern devices it's decent, as long as you're not actively targeted by some kind of intel agency
How can you send files over bluetooth when you are not home? You are confusing it with something else. Bluetooth has a 10 meter radius. Also, it is not secure at all, if you send important files and suspect that someone might be eavesdropping within 10 meters, don't use it
... I assume they have both the phone and laptop with them when they are away from home?
I've been using Flying Carpet, and it works pretty well. You can read about the encryption decisions further down the ReadMe.
https://github.com/spieglt/FlyingCarpet?tab=readme-ov-file
It utilizes the LocalOnlyHotspot API, and the data is encrypted in transit (and any potential hacker would have to be on the WPA2-protected network that's generated, anyway). I recommend reading more about it yourself and not just taking my word for it.
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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Privacy
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