Bluetooth is an open standard in wireless technology to enable communication between devices. The main aim of the technology is to act as an interface that replaces wires as a medium of communication between devices at low cost. For example, Bluetooth technology allows a desktop or a laptop to communicate with a printer or a scanner wirelessly. Under normal circumstances, the computer has to be connected to the printer or scanner through a physical link with the necessary drivers installed. This principle is the same for existing installations of remote capture and analysis equipment such as enforcement, barrier and surveillance systems.

System Pilot

Actis Media has developed technology to work with Bluetooth to deliver unique functionality in support, maintenance and review of delivered systems.

Running on either PDA devices or laptops the System Pilot software allows engineers and other authorised users to interrogate and control devices across a secure wireless connection.

With System Pilot user are able to perform:

System diagnostics  System control  Pan and zoom with touch screen control  Virtual pan and zoom with touch screen control  Realtime video view  Frame snapshot

As radio signals can be easily intercepted, Bluetooth devices have built-in security to prevent eavesdropping or falsifying the origin of messages (spoofing).

The main security features are:

A challenge-response routine - for authentication, which prevents spoofing and unwanted access to critical data and functions Stream cipher - for encryption, which prevents eavesdropping and maintains link privacy Session key generation - session keys can be changed at any time during a connection

Three entities are used in the security algorithms:

The Bluetooth device address (48 bits), is a public entity unique for each device. The address can be obtained through the inquiry procedure A private user key (128 bits) is a secret entity. The private key is derived during initialisation and is never disclosed A random number (128 bits) is different for each new transaction. The random number is derived from a pseudo-random process in the Bluetooth unit

In addition to these link-level functions, frequency hopping and the limited transmission range also prevent eavesdropping.

Low cost communication combined with System Pilot provides a powerful platform for efficient cost effective support and maintenance of field apparatus.