I don’t know if turning off Bluetooth protects against flipper attacks (Edit: Nah.), but unless something has changed, it (sadly) doesn’t preserve your privacy.
It’s not really documented, as far as I can tell, but Bluetooth low energy stays on, even when you toggle Bluetooth off for both iOS and Android. As of iOS 15, even turning off iPhones means the phone is still trackable. (Unsure about Android on that front.) Apple’s ‘Find my’ network uses Bluetooth low energy, same as Bluetooth beacons.
I mean, it sucks for everyone that can’t or don’t want to run homebrew OS’s.
The “One” link I shared above indicates the behavior became standard in Android 8 and iOS 11. They were released in August and September 2017, respectively.
You should probably keep your wifi and bluetooth set to switch off automatically anyway, what with how much they’re used for tracking.
Doesn’t work if you have Bluetooth devices on all the time (like a smartwatch or earbuds).
Earbuds aren’t on all the time, so you can enable when needed and set it to disable after a few min of activity.
I can see that smart watches might be a problem. They should perhaps use a dedicated protocol for always on devices like that.
deleted by creator
Tracking my HR and steps via smartwatch!
I don’t know if turning off Bluetooth protects against flipper attacks (Edit: Nah.), but unless something has changed, it (sadly) doesn’t preserve your privacy.
It’s not really documented, as far as I can tell, but Bluetooth low energy stays on, even when you toggle Bluetooth off for both iOS and Android. As of iOS 15, even turning off iPhones means the phone is still trackable. (Unsure about Android on that front.) Apple’s ‘Find my’ network uses Bluetooth low energy, same as Bluetooth beacons.
Confused developers: one, two, three.
That sounds like disabling Bluetooth on iphones doesn’t disable Bluetooth LE. Sucks for iPhone users.
I mean, it sucks for everyone that can’t or don’t want to run homebrew OS’s.
The “One” link I shared above indicates the behavior became standard in Android 8 and iOS 11. They were released in August and September 2017, respectively.
Yeah I’d like to think AOSP doesn’t have that flaw.