• rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        Yeah, says so right there in the brochure. “Video capability” AND it’s got bluetooth, which is a famously promiscuous protocol so if you’re anywhere near one of these things with BT enabled on your fone it’s fucking in your BT, seeing your status

        edit: I bet it can even tag me driving by listening to Spotify on my earbuds. I can get a lot further from my phone than I’d be from the drink machine in who knows how many fast food spots before service drops.

        That’s actually pretty terrifying now that I think about it and I’ve long been a fan of BT earbuds but damn, these drink machines and any number of unknown nodes could just be watching me drive around

        • real_squids@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          Anyone with a spectrum analyzer can see people using their earbuds, they can’t deduce any useful information from that. Several analyzers? Yea, can triangulate signals, so what. They still can’t know for sure who they belong to, since BT doesn’t transmit identifying info unless you’re pairing (aka discoverable), and even then it can be randomized.

          Also I posted in in a different comment but I’ll leave this here too.

          I can get a lot further from my phone than I’d be from the drink machine in who knows how many fast food spots before service drops.

          A typical fast food restaurant has dozens, if not hundreds of wifi and bt devices. Nothing surprising when your phone has to fight to get loud enough for your buds.

          From a quick search, bluetooth classic has 79 channels, and if there’s 2.4Ghz Wifi in use, it has 14 in damn near the same frequency range.

          If you’re worried about tracking - there are far easier ways to do that than hope your BT devices are discoverable and then try and match the (possibly randomized) device IDs to you.

          • real_squids@sopuli.xyz
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            1 day ago

            Depends on the device, there was a story recently of a Nissan infotainment system that was perma-pairing as long as you had the options screen open afaik. If your earbuds are pairing close by, as is the machine - you can probably make some rudimentary motion tracking. Gonna be inaccurate as hell though, and it relies on both devices permanently being in pairing mode.

            I can get a lot further from my phone than I’d be from the drink machine in who knows how many fast food spots before service drops.

            This part though is way easier to explain with interference. A typical fast food restaurant has dozens, if not hundreds of wifi and bt devices. Nothing surprising when your phone has to fight to get loud enough for your buds.

            • AnAverageSnoot@lemmy.ca
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              15 hours ago

              But you have to accept the pairing in the first place. Bluetooth doesn’t work without a handshake between devices. If you never use the Bluetooth feature in their app, you don’t have to worry about it. Also apparently these machines have been out since 2018…

              • real_squids@sopuli.xyz
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                9 hours ago

                You don’t have to accept pairing, if both devices are discoverable they can see each other. It doesn’t have to be some app, you can be discoverable with 0 apps installed. That’s what I’m talking about with rudimentary tracking.

                edit: pairing mode = discoverable, accepting pairing is not required, and obv the machine has to be perma discoverable for “tracking” to work

        • tyler@programming.dev
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          2 days ago

          That isn’t the one from the picture and I’ve never seen one of those in the wild. Not that they don’t exist, but the comment I replied to said “those” referring to the one in the image, which clearly doesn’t have a pinhole camera.