As is known in the art, Bluetooth is a wireless technology that allows short range communications between Bluetooth enabled computing devices. Bluetooth enabled computing devices can include portable and/or fixed computing devices.
Accordingly, Bluetooth provides short range radio communications between computing devices located within a predefined physical range. Typically, the short range of Bluetooth technology is application specific and can be pre-defined. Bluetooth operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM radio frequency band. Typically, Bluetooth computing devices operate in a master-slave configuration such that a master Bluetooth computing device can communicate with a number of slave computing devices (i.e. within a piconet or Bluetooth communication network of devices). In turn each of the slave computing devices can act as a master within a separate piconet and connect to a number of designated devices.
Conventionally, Bluetooth security measures have been limited to a few main modes of security. In one mode, no authentication means is defined for the computing device such that anyone can access the device. In another mode, a user can switch the Bluetooth connection mode to “non-discoverable” and avoid being discovered by other Bluetooth computing devices entirely. In this mode, the device could also be set such that the non-discoverable mode occurs for a predefined period of time. In yet another mode, users of different Bluetooth computing devices may need to authenticate by exchanging a password or PIN number between one another after which a connection can be established.
However, all these types of security are limited in their capabilities and in some cases could still allow unwanted connections to be made. Also, it may not be desirable for a computing device to define themselves as non-discoverable as this would limit the connections that occur subsequently. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an improved method of controlling access between a computing device and other computing devices in a Bluetooth communication network.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a solution that obviates or mitigates at least some of the above mentioned disadvantages.