Personal and insecure
By Greg Harris
Bluetooth is the new buzz word in the network world. This is a standard
endorsed by dozens of the world's largest computer corporations. It allows
two computerised devices near each other to communicate.
That mightn't sound like much. After all, two CB radios have been able
to do that for decades. Two mobile phones do this all the time. One of
the main uses for mobile phone messages is for school students to send
each other notes across a classroom.
But Bluetooth does more than that. It lets all sorts of different devices
talk to each other. In one current marketing commercial, a user with a
portable laptop computer in a bag walks down a hallway and the computer
silently communicates with devices along the way.
Other applications being proposed include small payments. For example,
you could walk up to a soft drink dispenser, point your mobile phone at
it and get a soft drink delivered to you and charged to your telephone
bill.
Bluetooth is seen as allowing a whole new type of communications, the
“personal area network”. At present there are “wide area networks” that
span the globe or a city and “local area networks” that cover a building
or school. A personal area network is something like electronically enabled
personal space, linking you to all sorts of paid services.
But the path to electronic personal space is not smooth, and recent
reports indicate that Bluetooth can't keep a secret. It is fairly important
if anyone is going to buy a Bluetooth-enabled phone or computer that they
are confident of its security. Otherwise an unfriendly outsider could take
advantage of it to scan all your computer information and run up bills
on your phone account.
The problem isn't really surprising. As each new technology that promises
security comes along, the strength of that security is tested. When (not
if) it fails, the problem gets fixed. After a while, as the number of security
failures declines, the technology is generally accepted to have good enough
security for whatever it is needed for.
So why is the Bluetooth world in such a fuss? Traditionally the path
from idea to development to real world implementation takes years. Today
in the fast world of internet e-business (where, according to its supporters,
time moves four times as fast as in the rest of the world) there is no
time any more.
Today a bright (or apparently bright) idea can go from a scholarly technical
journal to a computer company marketing brochure in weeks. In recent years
it is common to find Microsoft, Cisco or IBM promising that their products
are compatible with things that don't yet exist.
Under current market pressure there is no time left to get things right.
Technologies are being marketed before their problems are sorted out. This
has long been the tradition of software organisations such as Microsoft.
When the same thing is done with standards, however, the effect is likely
to kill the technology before it can get established,
So you might have to wait a little longer for that can of soft drink.
