Position Location of Remote Bluetooth Devices

The recent proliferation of Bluetooth Devices has caught the attention of hackers. With Bluetooth devices being put in everything from cell phones to PDAs to laptops, the abuse of this technology could have an even bigger impact than the viruses and malware running rampant on the internet. Bluetooth is a short range wireless technology intended to interconnect consumer electronics devices of all kinds. The same features that make Bluetooth so attractive to manufacturers, also makes it attractive to hackers. Bluetooth devices can quickly setup up ad-hoc networks with other, previously unknown devices. Hackers have started to take advantage of the ease with which a connection can be established along with the average user's lack of computer security knowledge to break into PDAs, cell phones to steal address books and credit card numbers.

One of the largest obstacles that must be overcome in Bluetooth security is the mobility of devices and the relatively short duration of connections. In the Internet, threats can often be traced back to a source, and in many cases the source of the threat can be shut down. However, in a Bluetooth Network devices connect directly to one another, and there are no wires to follow to pinpoint the offending device. This thesis will explore the techniques for the location of Bluetooth Devices. An ideal position location system would be one that operates completely within the Bluetooth Specification. Such a system will be able to use any available Bluetooth Device to find the location of other devices. The primary focus of this thesis will be on such a system, with an overview of traditional radio position location techniques and Bluetooth so that we might gain some insight into how these techniques can be applied to Bluetooth. Data are presented from an extensive set of measurements to relate Bluetooth RSSI and distance on CSR BlueCore02 devices. Finally the results of the data are analyzed to give a rough estimate of the range error that would be incurred in the implementation of such a system.