Anyone pushing ads through bluetooth yet?

So I was scouring the net last nigth for a working copy of smscaster when I came accross the potential to broadcast advertisements in a localized area directly to people's handsets via bluetooth.

Method seems ultra black hat so I am wondering if any of you have done this yet?

If anyone has at least experienced having an ad pushed at them via bluetooth feel free to respond.

Mike

This is all over the uk. If you go to a taxi office in my town you will get bluetooth prompts. Also if you go to the Trafford Center in Manchester, they use it there.

It would be good to go sit in a high traffic area with wifi and see how many mobile leads you can create for a cpa offer for something related to the location. McDonalds perhaps...

It looks like the software and the transmitter are around $400. So far this looks like it has endless possibilities for me but.. it can't be this easy. There has to be something I am missing.. Im afraid like I'll buy this shit and it won't work in the U.S. or something..

Personally not thru BT, but I used to do it via wifi the "other way" around... Anybody familiar with a tool like ettercap might know what I'm talking about. After poisoning the arp cache, you can poison the DNS and get excellent results in a sufficiently crowded area, like a residential one. Hell, miss the times all those wifi networks were open.

There were people talking about this here a while ago at big events like NFL games, etc. and in malls.

wowhaxor said:

There were people talking about this here a while ago at big events like NFL games, etc. and in malls.

Click to expand...

That's an excellent idea. You can easily set up an ad-hoc network in such a place and let all your "prospects" connect to you. You'll NAT them to their original destinations doing whatever you want with the DNS or maybe just injecting ads. Only problem I foresee is sharing the same IP (since you're gonna be the only gateway)...

It just seems, as a general consideration, wifi allows more ways to have fun than BT. But still I guess it would be pretty cool to push ads by means of it where you have enough critical mass.

sirgold said:

That's an excellent idea. You can easily set up an ad-hoc network in such a place and let all your "prospects" connect to you. You'll NAT them to their original destinations doing whatever you want with the DNS or maybe just injecting ads. Only problem I foresee is sharing the same IP (since you're gonna be the only gateway)...

It just seems, as a general consideration, wifi allows more ways to have fun than BT. But still I guess it would be pretty cool to push ads by means of it where you have enough critical mass.

Click to expand...

I could set up at my local tube station and push 100k ads in one rush hour.

I am interested in the wifi.. how were you doing that? You are saying it is no longer possible?

zb.ouykcuf said:

I could set up at my local tube station and push 100k ads in one rush hour.

I am interested in the wifi.. how were you doing that? You are saying it is no longer possible?

Click to expand...

Well, both methods are still possible. The MITM method I mentioned with ettercap is totally feasible even now but you have to find multiple access points that are open and this will guarantee multiple public IPs. Unfortunately people have become more security conscious and they tend to protect wifi APs now. With WPA1/2 you're *normally* out of luck: there are attack vectors but it's tedious and takes too long. Conversely -generally speaking- it's fairly easy to crack WEP based keys with the right tools (wesside, kismet+aircrack, etc), but for me it's just not worth the time it takes, at least in my area.

Method 2 I mentioned is DNS spoofing by means of simulating an ad-hoc / AP on your machine. In order to do that you need to set your PC in a way that's gonna tunnel the traffic (ip forwarding/NAT) acting as their default gw. Once you're there you can literally do whatever you want when it comes to changing DNS associations, dumping all traffic (including SSL) and so forth. Problem with this latter method is that you are gonna be the default gw, therefore the ending IP will be just ONE: yours.

The setup for both methods is mildly trivial to achieve. For method number one you can refer to: http://openmaniak.com/ettercap_filter.php the second one you can start here for ad-hoc: http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl8_iwconfi.htm and here for a full featured AP: http://angerman.net/articles/wap/

Apache used as a transparent proxy might speed things up, depending on what you want to achieve. HTH.

I actually wrote a report about this recently (not released anywhere yet). It's proximity marketing. If I remember right, there's one place you can get everything you need for much less than $400 - I think it was like $150. Plus they have an affiliate program. So if you're looking at helping businesses do this, you can make $49 per sale (I think it was $49, I'd have to go look it up again). It's not as big in the US and so great for the 'small business owner' or the tax consultant, realtor, etc... that work from home - unless they live on the corner in an a loft of busy intersection But they could still use it at events and such.

LOL..

Tell me where I can buy it for $149! I already presold the idea to a client. I could push thousands of these. There are so many places near me where people congregate in Mass.

Pull up outside a football stadium and take a slow ride around it.. NICE.

it is not as easy as it sounds..

i purchased a phone modified to do that...

I figured i would go to clubs and push it on people..

it did not work... i returned the device...

that was about a year or more ago...

maybe i was ahead of my time...
maybe now it works....

keep us updated..

Virus1 said:

it is not as easy as it sounds..

i purchased a phone modified to do that...

I figured i would go to clubs and push it on people..

it did not work... i returned the device...

that was about a year or more ago...

maybe i was ahead of my time...
maybe now it works....

keep us updated..

Click to expand...

See this makes me not want to spend the $. I am looking for more actual users. Anyone else?

creative idea, but could work WONDERS

I still have not managed to come up with the $ to try this out. I would still love to get more feedback on it and am disappointed I did not get a response to the PM I sent to the guy claiming it could be done for under $100

Sup? Come at me bro!

Virus1 said:

it is not as easy as it sounds..

i purchased a phone modified to do that...

I figured i would go to clubs and push it on people..

it did not work... i returned the device...

that was about a year or more ago...

maybe i was ahead of my time...
maybe now it works....

keep us updated..

Click to expand...

Why didn't it work? Was your message going through to the phones? Could it maybe have been a bad message or poorly targeted? Im more concerned that the messages won't actually be seen instead of people seeing the message and acting upon it.

I looked into this a couple years ago. I never did any real tests.

Bluemagnet.com is the software I was looking at.
Couple the software on a laptop with a high power antenna and bolt the antenna on your car. Go for a cruise

I am just wondering if most phones are even listening for these messages. Wouldn't the user first get a prompt to 'accept a connection from xyz"?

Bluemagnet says then you can push out a video, business card...

I would think it would work especially well with sports (click here to get half price NFL tickets) broadcast into a football game..

This works in places where people is bored and constantly looking at phones.. I have 1km bluetooth dongle next to me, not using it at the moment cause i need something to offer...Direct finnish CPA offers are scarce nowadays

Though ive never tried blue tooth marketing but from what i can understand most phones have BT as well as new laptops

This issue i see with this is im almost positive the victim would have to have his or her BT turned on in order to receive these messages i wanna send IE an cpa offer

but to be honest i have a EVO 4g and have never once had the desire to jus turn on my BT so i can only think that other people might be the same way

no on the other hand i always have my wifi on and i get notifications every where i go telling me if there is a network open or locked

again this is jus my opinion

mrunknown said:

Though ive never tried blue tooth marketing but from what i can understand most phones have BT as well as new laptops

This issue i see with this is im almost positive the victim would have to have his or her BT turned on in order to receive these messages i wanna send IE an cpa offer

but to be honest i have a EVO 4g and have never once had the desire to jus turn on my BT so i can only think that other people might be the same way

no on the other hand i always have my wifi on and i get notifications every where i go telling me if there is a network open or locked

again this is jus my opinion

Click to expand...

LOL thanks for sharing this info. I was wondering this myself but I remember specifically reading in a few places that most new phones have the blutooth set to on by default? Not true? I like the idea of just throwing a WIFI transmitter in my car and naming it something like "Vote Mike Carter for Revere city Council" but does your phone chime and do you look at it when it detects a network? Also how many phones have wifi? Will the phone keep an alert for you to see that it was alerted to the presence of an open wifi network? or do you have to look at the phone immediately?

I had this idea about four years ago, when I saw an example of very simple blue tooth marketing at one music festival in Europe.

The plan was to place a strong transmitter to a center of a big shopping mall, give a clear offer to the shop owners and bill them monthly for using the service.

Of course, the banners stating "turn your Bluetooth on to receive a discount coupon on your phone" were also the part of the plan. It was a very complex plan and we even had a poor seo-ed website that time ago. (I had no idea about creating websites 4 years ago). Funny that still blue tooth marketing isn't utilized in that many countries around the world...