RIP SMS: Long live bluejacking...

Bluetooth, the connectivity technology most commonly found in mobiles and PDAs, looks like it could be spawning a new craze – and possibly a new outlet for spammers.

Bluetooth enables devices within a few metres of each other to exchange information wirelessly – a technology that users with Bluetooth-enabled mobiles are making the most of to send text messages to strangers anonymously.

This drive-by messaging has been dubbed 'bluejacking'.

But why would somebody bluejack a stranger's phone? The motive behind the craze is to freak out other Bluetooth users that you might encounter in public – for example, a bluejacker will check out other Bluetooth users on the tube and drop them a message that only someone in the same place will appreciate, for example, their choice of newspaper or colour of their top or just a message to let them know that they've been bluejacked.

How do you bluejack? By saving a message in the 'name' field of your phone, for example, "Nice tweed trousers", then choose to send it via Bluetooth – a list of enabled hardware in the vicinity should appear on your phone, select the device you want and off you go.

While bluejacking may turn out to be another game for teenagers to waste a few minutes on, one theory goes that it's the latest way for spammers to get their messages straight to consumers and unlike SMS spam, which never really got going, it's free to bluejack someone. Businesses such as bars for example may decide to send out messages to customers, or businesses may bluejack phones with special offers as people pass their shop in an attempt to lure them in.

However, it looks like bluejacking won't go straight to the top of spammers' love lists straight away. Apart from the obvious restrictions posed by needing to be within a 10m radius of your subject, a lot of owners of Bluetooth enabled devices, having found no use for the technology, have just switched it off.