Bluetooth Predators?

[BigEvil]

Here is a post from Bob Sandifer I found on PBN.
Here is a link to the thread. (http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=24209362#post24209362)


ok....I guess the word is out.
First off we waited to announce this until the boards were in production. We also did not list ALL of the boards we will be releasing. The EMAG and several others will be released at the same time. We have been waiting on "something" to come through for us and now we can finish our current projects.

The cheetas can be upgraded and the etek board will be designed within the week we get the gun. The boards will arrive within 3 weeks from that time.

10.0 code will also be released with all of these new boards and ALL current boards can be upgraded for FREE as long as you are the original owner.

For those of you that realized that the faceful article was about our new products, we will not be releasing our bluetooth boards as of yet. Due to the number of teams calling us for "technical" assistance on the field with this new technology we might have to reconsider our position in the release of our "ghost" boards and go in another direction. Our intention was to offer easier updates and have the ability to store players performance stats. That does not seem to be the direction the players would like to go with this technology.



WTF? Anyone know anything about these things? What would the point of having it Bluetooth enabled? I would imagine it would make re-flashing the software a ton quicker, but wouldnt something like this also open up a huge opportunity for cheating? I can see the day where instead of someone sitting up in a tree on the sidelines with a gun shooting at players, I can imagine a guy with a laptop and antena changing gun settings remotely.

What do you think?

[Rudz]

Yeah they had baord with blue tooth, and yeah sure its easier to flash, but u can prolly figure out a way to change settings and other teams settings, bad idea if u ask me, maybe if the worked in connection with a halo, it wouldn't be so bad

[Troen]

id be pissed if they finally decided to release the emag board and have it blue tooth, and i go to shoot and its limited to 3 bps.... :shooting:

[Hexis]

Basically think of bluetooth as a cable replacement technology. Instead of having a usb or serial port that you have to find the right cable for, you use bluetooth and have a standardized interface that's on most current laptops and other devices.

Security is a real concern. Bluetooth has a decent set of security measures, but it's not fully secure (like anything).

[BigEvil]

Basically think of bluetooth as a cable replacement technology. Instead of having a usb or serial port that you have to find the right cable for, you use bluetooth and have a standardized interface that's on most current laptops and other devices.

Security is a real concern. Bluetooth has a decent set of security measures, but it's not fully secure (like anything).


Hmmmm... so if this technology is applied for paintball, then if it theoretically possible, for a Tournament to be able to flash the participating players guns with a legal software?

[warbeak2099]

That is a positive side of it, but it would be just as easy for the coach or other members to reflash the boards from the sidelines with cheater modes.

[BigEvil]

That is a positive side of it, but it would be just as easy for the coach or other members to reflash the boards from the sidelines with cheater modes.

Look at it this way though.. a judge could 'inspect' a suspect marker by hooking it up to a computer. If everyone is playing say Semi-15pbs, an illegal If the software doesnt match - BANG - disqualified. That could actually be very easy to do, if all of this theoretical hardware comes into existence.

[Hexis]

There are some significant issues with using bluetooth to enforce policies. Anytime you query the gun for info, you are asking an unknown peice of software for an answer.

That doen't even begin to address the issues of flashing a board with a wireless technology. (you need to be able to copy a full copy of the software to a secondary buffer and run checks agaist it to make sure it's all ok before actually flashing the image).

Like I said, it's just a cable replacement technology.

[Arstron]

hmmm bluetooth built into a board? hmmm you could make a wireless google system with a HUD now!

Bluetooth on a board just sounds like a really bad idea. Not only could you reprogram a board at the field. You could have somone reprograming somone elses boards while they are playing. As bigevil said though, it would be a nice feature for refs to monitor guns from the side lines.

[RedEyes]

Look at it this way though.. a judge could 'inspect' a suspect marker by hooking it up to a computer. If everyone is playing say Semi-15pbs, an illegal If the software doesnt match - BANG - disqualified. That could actually be very easy to do, if all of this theoretical hardware comes into existence.

I remember reading something on here about bluetooth guns and it would be used to check if ppl were shooting 15bps, 300fps, and etc. I remember someone PS or they had a picture of an Angel with an antena near the feed neck.

[68magOwner]

wow, i feel special now. Bob told me he was sending me a new prototype board, he neglected to tell me it would be bluetooth enabled. Makes me more excited to get this thing than i was before. I should show up soon.

[BigEvil]

wow, i feel special now. Bob told me he was sending me a new prototype board, he neglected to tell me it would be bluetooth enabled. Makes me more excited to get this thing than i was before. I should show up soon.


If you are refering to the Emag boards I dont think they will be. I believe it is something new they are working on, but I havent been able to find anything else yet.

[eNder159]

hexis nailed it on the head its more of a cable replacement technology

Since its a cable replacement technology it allows officials to hook up to a gun and basically peek inside of it instead of running a physical wire into the board to see what settings are there.

as far as bluetooth works there is a passkey that's associated to each device. So when you bring a laptop to the field and you see a bunch of markers discoverable to your laptop you need a passkey in order to pair it with the laptop. Kind of like a home wireless router that uses WEP and/or WPA. Yes you can probably hack into it but i havent seen programs out there that can successfully crack a passkey. Here's just an example of how officials can keep the bluetooth board in check

person brings in their marker for a check they hook up their marker to the laptop and pair the two devices together. Official checks settings and sets everything to semi 15bps cap. Sets marker so its not discoverable to any devices. Log out. Marker is set for tourny play official repeats.

Now people would probably ask well how do you get back into the marker? Both devices are already paired. That one marker is associated with the laptop so there will be a connection between the two when they come in range. But the marker wont be seen by other devices. Kinda like a MAC address filter on your home WiFi router.

Security by Obscurity

Depending on the bluetooth stack technology they're using range is very limited. (30 feet is the current standard range). To cover the ENTIRE field is nearly impossible unless you have repeaters and things like that to boost and extend the signal. It would be pretty obvious if a coach were to be running up and down the field to catch up to players.

[68magOwner]

If you are refering to the Emag boards I dont think they will be. I believe it is something new they are working on, but I havent been able to find anything else yet.

no, its a shocker board

[BigEvil]

no, its a shocker board

Cool. You gotta let me know how it is.

[BerSerK]

Bluetooth might not be 100% secure like a cable connection but they could make a software or hardware on/off for the bluetooth radio like those little switch on a laptop computer for wireless network cards. Could be some type or tourny lock. I think that would be an easy way to protect your settings.

[robnix]

hexis nailed it on the head its more of a cable replacement technology

Since its a cable replacement technology it allows officials to hook up to a gun and basically peek inside of it instead of running a physical wire into the board to see what settings are there.

as far as bluetooth works there is a passkey that's associated to each device. So when you bring a laptop to the field and you see a bunch of markers discoverable to your laptop you need a passkey in order to pair it with the laptop. Kind of like a home wireless router that uses WEP and/or WPA. Yes you can probably hack into it but i havent seen programs out there that can successfully crack a passkey. Here's just an example of how officials can keep the bluetooth board in check

person brings in their marker for a check they hook up their marker to the laptop and pair the two devices together. Official checks settings and sets everything to semi 15bps cap. Sets marker so its not discoverable to any devices. Log out. Marker is set for tourny play official repeats.

Now people would probably ask well how do you get back into the marker? Both devices are already paired. That one marker is associated with the laptop so there will be a connection between the two when they come in range. But the marker wont be seen by other devices. Kinda like a MAC address filter on your home WiFi router.

Security by Obscurity

Depending on the bluetooth stack technology they're using range is very limited. (30 feet is the current standard range). To cover the ENTIRE field is nearly impossible unless you have repeaters and things like that to boost and extend the signal. It would be pretty obvious if a coach were to be running up and down the field to catch up to players.

How do you initiate the initial pairing, and how is the passkey set or changed from the factory default?

[pol]

You know all it would take is an on/off button for the bluetooth adapter and all your security issues go away.

This is just the simplest thing I can think of, the standard includes plenty of security measures to secure the networks. Yes they are breakable, but you have to remember that takes time...not something that you could do realtime on field.

Dont be so harsh...sounds like a nice idea.

[eNder159]

How do you initiate the initial pairing, and how is the passkey set or changed from the factory default?


well it would be like handsfree bluetooth devices. You hold the button down for 10 seconds and then the device enters a pairing mode where it is discoverable by other devices. The laptop picks it up and then pairing is initiated once the passkey is entered.Making hte marker discoverable could be turned on and off once the laptop is paired with the marker.

As far as settings the passkey it could be done through the laptop or probably programming from within the marker like how you would program the firing mode etc. on an electronic marker.

[spwz99]

i dont have much experience with bluetooth personally, but i have seen before on G4 tech tv where they successfully hacked into a blue tooth enabled cell phone from over a mile away. this of course required a huge "blue tooth sniper rifle" and would immediately be noticed on the sidelines of a tourney, but a smaller less noticible short range antennae could be devised to hack the boards. would it be a problem, probably not. maybe, but probably not.

[egb groupie]

In addition to what everyone is saying, doesn't board manufacturers write their own specific "code" for their boards? If so, it would be extremely impratical for officials to know code from every single board out there. A standardized code would have to be written for every board so it would show up the same way every time for every marker.

[jsdatjsd]

There are a bunch of tech issues here.

1) the 30 ft limit for bluetooth won't stop anything. You only need 2 "crowd" cheaters. One hangs out near the referee booth thet checks the software, and if a gun comes in for a check, he pushes a button on his palm-pilot, and boom, software is turned back into the tournament legal software. The second hangs out in the back, as the players walk onto the field.

2) The players themselves carry a palm pilot, or other bluetooth device. Easy enough to hide. A referee comes to check your marker? hand it over, stick your hand in your pocket, push the reset button while the ref walks away with your marker.

3) Using paired encryption kets is about the only way that would work. But the problem is that the referees would have to have a special program for every board out there that was bluetooth enabled. That won't happen.

Therefore, I suspect that one of two things will happen: people will complain, but to no avail. bluetooth cheaters will show up on occasion, and find out that they are concentrating on changing software during a game, rather then marking the opponents.

Maybe bluetooth board manufacturers will create a tech solution to a tech problem.

You know, bluetooth might earn a "not tournament legal" status, which I would suspect is the most likely case.

And, it would be fairly trivial for an electronic engineer(a few dozen hours of work, perhaps less) to create a setup on ANY single programmable board that would change the software at the push of a button, remote or otherwise. Heck, you don't even need bluetooth, use a garage door opener, and add a second smaller board, with a couple wires running to the first board. Push the opener, legal, push again, not legal.

Hey, everyone will start showing up at tourneys with garage door openers!!!

[paintballonthebrain]

if you dont want people chaning there setting on the feild just put up copper mesh around the feild. or the manufactures can make the bluetooth transmite the singal on the same frequence and the refs/officals can moniter everygun.

[jsdatjsd]

if you dont want people chaning there setting on the feild just put up copper mesh around the feild. or the manufactures can make the bluetooth transmite the singal on the same frequence and the refs/officals can moniter everygun.


Nah...won't work. My garage door opener can still transmit without using a bluetooth frequency, and it goes through copper mesh. Heck, it goes through a 1/16" sheet of aluminium.....

I read an article about a guy that got a wireless netwrok, then got worried about peole pirating his bandwidth. SO he lined a room with several layers of metallic mosquito netting, and put his router in there.

Of course, that kinda eliminates the whole reason for a wireless network, don't you think?

[robnix]

3) Using paired encryption kets is about the only way that would work. But the problem is that the referees would have to have a special program for every board out there that was bluetooth enabled. That won't happen.



Once the list of key pairs gets out, they become useless. Short range IR would be the way to go if you wanted to avoid cables. Bluetooth does sound cool though.

[CKY_Alliance]

Here is a post from Bob Sandifer I found on PBN.
Here is a link to the thread. (http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?p=24209362#post24209362)



WTF? Anyone know anything about these things? What would the point of having it Bluetooth enabled? I would imagine it would make re-flashing the software a ton quicker, but wouldnt something like this also open up a huge opportunity for cheating? I can see the day where instead of someone sitting up in a tree on the sidelines with a gun shooting at players, I can imagine a guy with a laptop and antena changing gun settings remotely.

What do you think?

Intelli...with the cheetah board...

[paint magnet]

*Begins working on plans for attaching an EMP emitter to a .68 Automag*

On a side note, with bluetooth wouldn't it be theoretically possible to even go so far as to fire the gun remotely?

[VFX_Fenix]

Here's another question, don't Blue Tooth devices need to "talk" to eachother to be able to transfer information? So far as I was aware there is a Blue Tooth class which is limited to 3' as opposed to 30'. If this were the case (devices being able to hand-shake that is) then what would the problem be if one of these super short range BT devices were installed to do things like a wireless intelifeed or even reflash boards? Or am I completely in the dark as to how these things work?

[eNder159]

simple change the passkey so the ref/official only know the passkey...once passkey is disassociated with other devices those other devices need to reenter the passkey


There are a bunch of tech issues here.

1) the 30 ft limit for bluetooth won't stop anything. You only need 2 "crowd" cheaters. One hangs out near the referee booth thet checks the software, and if a gun comes in for a check, he pushes a button on his palm-pilot, and boom, software is turned back into the tournament legal software. The second hangs out in the back, as the players walk onto the field.

2) The players themselves carry a palm pilot, or other bluetooth device. Easy enough to hide. A referee comes to check your marker? hand it over, stick your hand in your pocket, push the reset button while the ref walks away with your marker.

3) Using paired encryption kets is about the only way that would work. But the problem is that the referees would have to have a special program for every board out there that was bluetooth enabled. That won't happen.

Therefore, I suspect that one of two things will happen: people will complain, but to no avail. bluetooth cheaters will show up on occasion, and find out that they are concentrating on changing software during a game, rather then marking the opponents.

Maybe bluetooth board manufacturers will create a tech solution to a tech problem.

You know, bluetooth might earn a "not tournament legal" status, which I would suspect is the most likely case.

And, it would be fairly trivial for an electronic engineer(a few dozen hours of work, perhaps less) to create a setup on ANY single programmable board that would change the software at the push of a button, remote or otherwise. Heck, you don't even need bluetooth, use a garage door opener, and add a second smaller board, with a couple wires running to the first board. Push the opener, legal, push again, not legal.

Hey, everyone will start showing up at tourneys with garage door openers!!!

[Hexis]

simple change the passkey so the ref/official only know the passkey...once passkey is disassociated with other devices those other devices need to reenter the passkey

That's not how bluetooth security works. The security is not like traditional encryption setup. On a device that has a hardcoded PIN for pairing, there is no way to secure the device if the BD_ADDR is discovered (possible a number of ways). At that point you can predict the frequency hopping and snoop traffic. If you can figure out the PIN (like if it's hardcoded) now you can fake authentication. The link and application level encryption are not often used, and even if they are used, they are not that strong. Wanna know why the encryption is not used? Want that headset to cost $100 or $200?

[Pha|anx]

I can see the day where instead of someone sitting up in a tree on the sidelines with a gun shooting at players, I can imagine a guy with a laptop and antena changing gun settings remotely.I had went over this idea a while back... Basically cheating would be unstopable, except by regulating board design.

[jsdatjsd]

Once the list of key pairs gets out, they become useless.

sry, I accidentally turned into a re-poster there.

FOrtunately, I had a bottle of troll-b-gon and I sprayed myself.

Yah, ditto on the bluetooth statements above.

And, yeah, it would be pretty hilarious to take contolr of the opponents markers, and rip a couple hundred shots 30 seconds before the game starts.




jd

[Hexis]

You are not going to find asymetric encryption (pub/priv key) on embedded devices. We still don't use it for most VPN style applications because of the overhead costs vs stream encryption. It's really not realistic to expect to see anything like real encryption in an embedded controller.

Bluetooth is not going away anytime soon. There are efforts in process to up the bandwidth and provide other refinements. As a cable repalcement technology BT has been hugly sucessful. It's the must have feature on cell phones and other related devices. I don't see if having much function in paintball devices. Most boards don't have any sort of link feature. In addition, many embedded controllers have a USB port. You may not see it represented as a physicial port, but many have the port in hardware and can be used if the board designer wants to provide the connector on the PCB.

[SlartyBartFast]

You may not see it represented as a physicial port, but many have the port in hardware and can be used if the board designer wants to provide the connector on the PCB.

And as part of the stupidity of Paintball related patents, making the USB or any other port physically available and using it in any manner has been patented.

I believe it is part of the WDP patents. :rolleyes: