NeXT Generation Weapons

Everyone and their mother on Capitol Hill has a Blackberry and/or a cutting-edge phone (yes, people actually do carry both around), most of which, if you're hip, are Bluetooth-enabled. This small article from Foreign Policy's website demonstrates a dark side to the wireless lifestyle.

Bluetooth, the technology that enables devices such as laptops, mobile phones, and personal digital assistants to trade information wirelessly, is one of the hippest technologies around. In Europe, many singles leave the Bluetooth feature on their mobile phones “enabled” at all times, so they can e–flirt by sending electronic business cards to one another. Three million Bluetooth–enabled devices are shipped every week worldwide.

By 2008, more than half of the mobile phones in the world will have the technology. Too bad these savvy systems are so vulnerable to attack. Last year, John Hering and his colleagues at Flexilis, a technology think tank in Los Angeles, shocked industry executives by developing a Bluetooth “sniper rifle.”

Click here for the rest of the article.