Secure Your Mobile Phone with Bluetooth and Related Technologies

The mobile phone is about to become much more secure as the result of new Bluetooth and related technologies. A number of new innovations have been made to both beat mobile phone thieves and to make monetary transactions using a mobile phone a much more secure process.
These new innovations are designed to warn the phone owner when the phone is more than a few meters away, to make the phone inoperable if it is stolen, to enable the phone to be used securely as a credit card, and to lock the pone to a specific SMS card. These innovations are the i-migo, the Security Lock, the Touch Safe and the Tie.

i-migo
The i-migo is essentially a Bluetooth alarm which is carried by the user on his or her person. It is paired to the Bluetooth phone and if the phone and i-migo are separated by moe than the range of the device, nominally 10 metres, then the i-migo sounds an alarm alerting the user.

Security Lock
The Security Lock can work in unison with the i-migo or in fact with any Bluetooth device such as a Bluetooth Headset. Security Lock is an application that is installed in a mobile phone. The phone is then paired with the mobile Bluetooth device. If the phone and Bluetooth device ever go out of range, then the phone will lock down and remain locked down until the device and phone again come within range. The phone is completely locked so that no access can be gained to any data stored on it and all the phone�s functions are locked.

  TouchSafe
TouchSafe is a security system designed for future mobile phone applications that are in the pipeline; an example is the plan to allow the mobile phone to be used for monetary transactions, in effect turning the mobile phone into a credit card. The TouchSafe is a security card than is used to authorise the phone to act as a credit card. The card is carried by the person just as is a credit card. When the card and phone are brought into contact, an authorisation signal is passed to the phone enabling to make a monetary transaction. Touch Safe does not use Bluetooth but instead uses Near Field Communication technology. This is a short range wireless technology which has a range of just a few centimetres. It uses magnetic induction in the 13.56 MHz radio frequency band as is used in the Oyster travel card system.

The advantage of NFC over Bluetooth is that it is easier to set up and has a much shorter range which makes it more secure for this kind of application. Furthermore, it uses far less power than current Bluetooth devices however, with the imminent introduction of Bluetooth Low Energy; this advantage may soon be lost.

The Tie
The Tie is a mobile phone application that pairs a handset with a specific SIM card. Essentially it is an advanced encryption system that has two functions. Should the phone by stolen, then it will not work with an alternative SIM card and the phone applications and functions cannot be accessed without a user controlled PIN. It is likely that this will be combined with the above wireless and Bluetooth technologies in order to provide a belt and braces approach to mobile phone security.

Conclusion
Over recent years mobile phones have progressively become more like computers than phones and as a result many more aspects of our life have become dependent on them. They are likely to contain significant personal information on us that potentially would be of great benefit to criminals and that we might not want to be accessible to others. The innovations described in this article will serve to increase our security and protect our valuable data, though as always happens with these type of innovations, criminals become cleverer and find new ways to overcome them thus creating a never ending game of cat and mouse. It is important that we keep one step ahead and ensure that we make the best use of the modern secure technologies as they are developed.

Article written by: Gary Shorthouse