My Laptop picks up Bluetooth devices I don't have, I live in a house, and my closest neighbor is about 100 feet away so I don't know where these devices are coming from, also the discovered devices vary from time to time. The attached screenshot is from this morning. What really has me curious are the ones that say "Unknown Not set up" and there seems to be quite a few of them.
So, is there something wrong or is the Bluetooth hardware in my laptop better than average?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
Reason:Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Someday, maybe I'll figure out exactly what the hell I'm doing.
I would agree with your statement about Bluetooth signals travelling about 1Km if the devices showed up on all of my computers, I have more than two, but it only happens on my laptop. Now, my other computers are upstairs and the laptop is downstairs, but I would think that the computers upstairs would be more likely to pick up these devices. I guess I could have some fun, this morning it found a JBL charge 4 wireless speaker, I could connect to it and start playing weird music or something, and now it's picking up a Tesla Model S Jolite. Just look at the latest list, it's so long that I couldn't fit it all on one screenshot.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so annoying, because sometimes I have to go through the whole list to find my wireless headphone.
Someday, maybe I'll figure out exactly what the hell I'm doing.
timmn1 wrote: ⤴Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:23 am
I would agree with your statement about Bluetooth signals travelling about 1Km if the devices showed up on all of my computers, I have more than two, but it only happens on my laptop.
Yes, but the key phrase in my statement was "right conditions", and 'other machines' necessarily entails different conditions.
Your latest image is far more informative so, for now, I will accept that we have discounted signal bleed from remote devices, but the question remains because you may very well be picking up transient signals from passing motor vehicles.
Have you done any kind messing around with network security software? Have you done something crazy like installed software from, for example, Kali Linux? Have you been doing penetration testing? Have you installed anything that would have included a package named bluefog or any package similar to it? Could someone have installed something like bluefog as a prank? What does the terminal command whereis bluefog return?
I haven't really installed anything from anywhere else except Hardinfo, Pithos, and Aisleriot Solitaire on the laptop, other than those, it's a stock Mint 20.1 install. I have never even heard of bluefog, but when I get home in the morning, I will try "whereis bluefog" but nobody would be able to get onto my laptop to install software without my knowing about it, so I would be very surprised and worried if it was there.
This has been happening for quite a while, at first, it was mildly entertaining, but now it's just annoying.
Someday, maybe I'll figure out exactly what the hell I'm doing.
timmn1 wrote: ⤴Wed Mar 31, 2021 11:55 pm
This has been happening for quite a while, at first, it was mildly entertaining, but now it's just annoying.
bluefog will certainly do that. If you can't find anything, I can give you a command to delete all connections, but unless what is doing it is found, it will just happen again.
While you're there checking your machine, open a terminal and enter this command:
sudo apt policy *blue* > bt.dump.txt
It will create a file called bt.dump.txt in your home directory. It will help if you can attach that file in your reply.
Kadaitcha Man wrote: ⤴Thu Apr 01, 2021 12:05 am bluefog will certainly do that. If you can't find anything, I can give you a command to delete all connections, but unless what is doing it is found, it will just happen again.
While you're there checking your machine, open a terminal and enter this command:
sudo apt policy *blue* > bt.dump.txt
It will create a file called bt.dump.txt in your home directory. It will help if you can attach that file in your reply.
Now that was Very useful,
and I'm glad to see that my report was 'none'
timmn1 wrote: ⤴Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:04 am
Also, all those things on the previous screenshots I posted were discovered.
I went through the list twice. There's nothing there that should cause the issue. The only thing I can suggest right now is to boot into a live media of Linux Mint and see if the phantom bluetooth discoveries show up still. At least that way we'll have isolated the machine and the external environment. In the meantime, I'll do some research, but that's going to have to wait for 8 or 9 hours. It's 1:30AM here. My concern is that you're either going to have to restore from one or more timeshift snapshots to get to a point in the past, or worse, have to clean install, which grates on me because telling people to clean install makes feel like a Windows tech on a help desk.
Well, I would expect you to get some sleep. I've been told that when Kadaitcha Man is tired, he gets cranky, don't want that!
I was really thinking about backing up the data I have on the laptop, and doing a clean install anyway, I'd just rather not do that if I don't have to. Although, before that I'll make another Mint install thumbdrive and see what happens with the bluetooth when I boot off of that, however, that will have to wait until I get home.
I googled bluefog and got a lot of technical information, most of which I barely understood, but there must be a legitimate use for it, besides screwing around with someone's bluetooth.
Someday, maybe I'll figure out exactly what the hell I'm doing.
I never figured out why my Bluetooth was picking up things I don't have and not discovering the headphones that are less than a foot away, but I found an answer, I uninstalled the bluetooth manager that came with Mint, and installed blueman, and it's working just fine.
Someday, maybe I'll figure out exactly what the hell I'm doing.
