Posted on 12/24/2021 6:04:34 AM PST by Salman
A Bluetooth phone designed to evoke the carefree days of early childhood has been found to instead threaten the very adult prospect of being surveilled in your home.
The phone is the Fisher Price Chatter Special Edition, a device that adds Bluetooth and a speaker to the smiling, brightly coloured, wheeled, rotary dial phone on which it's previously been possible to make calls only by using one's imagination.
The phone also bears the name “60G LTE” – which stands for “60 great years, Let’s Talk Everywhere” and an infomercial for the handset opens with “The past has finally arrived” before lampooning mobile phone ads quite nicely.
The 2021 version of the device connects to a smartphone and can be used as a speaker phone, or to make calls. Even the rotary dialler works for outbound calls.
Before you try to find a vendor capable of delivering this before Christmas, consider this post from security firm PenTest Partners, because it says the Chatter has security problems that can turn it into a spy phone.
The post states that the Chatter uses Bluetooth classic without secure pairing, which means it agrees to any pairing request.
Anyone within range could therefore hook up a Bluetooth device, and tune in to whatever is said within range of the Chatter’s microphone.
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(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.com ...
“… uses Bluetooth classic without secure pairing”
Good thing they saved that penny on the older cheap Bluetooth chip.
This is good slave training for the children to familiarize them with the State looking out for their interests by listening in to their conversations.
Damn, how innocent it looks….
Perfect example of a deliberately biased article. It does not mention that the range of Bluetooth is about 30 feet. That omission is deliberate.
So someone standing outside the house might be able to connect, or might not.
True but people in apartments are vulnerable.
I believe that the adult’s phone has to be set open to pairing, and they generally aren’t.
their excuse. newer chips are not available. chip shortage and all.
doesn’t need the adult phone.
the toy is what they pair with. assuming the toy is on, and does not have a current bluetooth connection going it will be open to pairing.
as others have mentioned the range is very short, so if someone was able to pair that should not be. They would be very close to the toy.
The range of Bluetooth is 30 feet with a cheap chipset. Wanna guess how far someone can connect to Bluetooth with a custom surveillance setup?
Or even a relatively cheap range extender?
instead threaten the very adult prospect of being surveilled in your home.
If you want to listen to a baby babbling on a phone, go ahead an listen in from the street.
“It does not mention that the range of Bluetooth is about 30 feet.”
We use locator equipment with Bluetooth at work that has a range of 1,400ft.
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