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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

>So what can you do to keep your stuff safe? Putting a device in airplane mode or entirely powering it off will both work [...] For additional protection, you can place those devices in a Faraday fabric sleeve

...or you know, turn off bluetooth.

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Right, but that's the asymmetry of theft: all I have to do is mess up one time. It's the unfairness in Full Metal Jacket when Private Pyle is told if it wasn't for people like him (who forget to lock stuff) there would be no theft in the world.

You can disable Bluetooth by default and enable it only when used.

> You can disable Bluetooth by default and enable it only when used.

You are missing the point.

Ever heard of secure by default?

Expanding on it further, what I mean is that our BT stack should be built from ground up with security in mind. We cannot fight every attack surface but we probably can get to all the low hanging ones that the crims can exploit.

One day in some utopia probably.

I as a user of BT stack do not have to worry about whether it is switched on or off. This is what I mean by _secure by default_.

Downvoter - thank you. I took time to explain what I mean this time :)

test your sleeve, I bought one off amazon years back and when I finally got around to checking if it worked: it didn't. It was just a slightly more expensive pencil case.

Most don't work. I returned some very high dollar items when I discovered this. Turns out, in general, 'conductive fabric' is not enough. It could be as simple as the seams not having continuity, or more likely a textile issue.

Per tfa, many devices still leave a minimal radio active. While not useful for communication, it may emit trace radition at the frequency that is being list3ned for.

Right, but the same article also is saying that thieves are using bluetooth scanning apps, so you should be safe until thieves upgrade to high sensitivity SDR scanners.

Some devices don't turn off bluetooth when you turn off bluetooth.

Can anyone elaborate on this?

Ios and Android keep Bluetooth on to support things like air drop and location services. You have to dig deeper in the settings to fully disable it.

or get a bluetooth device that broadcast 100s of networks, that might scare them off

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