Bluetooth file sharing....

I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

On 6/28/2019 7:47 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

I suspect that it is possible on the Bitlocked one, but you do not have
the permissions and ownership of the device (Bluetooth) set properly.
The permissions and ownership of the files could also be a problem. (I
don't use Bitlock)

As for the WIFI question. The only thing that Bluetooth and WIFI have in
common is the connections are wireless.

The difference is that Bluetooth is usually easier to set up than WIFI.

I use Bluetooth when my WIFI connection start to act up and I don't have
time to trouble shoot the WIFI connection.

--
Judge your ancestors by how well they met their standards not yours.
They did not know your standards, so could not try to meet them.

Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 6/28/2019 7:47 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

I suspect that it is possible on the Bitlocked one, but you do not have
the permissions and ownership of the device (Bluetooth) set properly.
The permissions and ownership of the files could also be a problem. (I
don't use Bitlock)

As for the WIFI question. The only thing that Bluetooth and WIFI have in
common is the connections are wireless.

The difference is that Bluetooth is usually easier to set up than WIFI.

I use Bluetooth when my WIFI connection start to act up and I don't have
time to trouble shoot the WIFI connection.


Well, let's draw a picture.

Wifi ------------------ Wifi (say, Ad Hoc mode, if you can get the address set)

BT -------------------- BT (piconet, *may* be working in 1903!)

Ethernet -------------- Ethernet (good ole reliable)

These aren't the end of the universe of course. A person
might be using ICS (Internet connection sharing).

WAN ------ comp#1 ------------------- comp#2
Eth ICS (generic)
192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2

There's really no point doing Bluetooth, if the machines
are already connected to a router. No ICS is needed
with this setup. The Bluetooth experiment would only
be needed, if the computers were "sequentially connected"
like the diagram above this paragraph.

WAN ------ router
| \
comp#1 comp#2

The first diagram with all the network options,
could "span" the right-hand portion
of the second diagram. You could have three network
paths between those machines. The "metric" of each
path, can help the OS decide where most of the
traffic goes (which link). Ethernet probably has
a higher metric than Wifi for example, but the
metric can be programmed by the user for a different
outcome.

Bluetooth has five standards. One of the standards
introduced a "BT+Wifi" mode, where the BT part handles
the pairing kinda stuff, but when a bulk transfer is
attempted, it uses the Wifi to do the transfer.
Some would consider this cheating. And hard to
figure, when the "Wifi" part could do all the
lifting, all by itself.

And I don't know how "regular" Wifi feels about
the "BT+Wifi" mode. I expect you can set up one
or the other, but not both.

*******

So the previous diagrams seem to leave a lot of permutations
and combinations. Hardly something for your first ICS
attempt. Too messy.

Let's pretend that the second machine is not using its
Ethernet connector, and the second machine has the
Wifi radio turned off. What can we do with just BT ???

nanoBT nanoBT
WAN ------ comp#1 ------------------- comp#2
Eth ICS (generic)
192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2

That will set up a low-bit-rate connection, probably
not more than a megabit per second or so (the speed
of a floppy diskette - really crappy).

In other words, "we do stuff like this as a bar bet" :-/

This is *not* a practical mode.

Lumping Bitlocker on top of this, is I suppose
"a bar bet on top of a bar bet". We know that
once logged into a Bitlocker volume, the window
in File Manager should function like any other
window. Even if the files come in via File Sharing,
when Explorer does a transfer, the Bitlocker volume
is open and files should be written to the volume
during a file transfer, like any other. The writes
are "encrypted". Once the computer shuts down,
nobody can see that file on the Bitlocker volume,
unless they know the password.

How secure is Bluetooth ?

We know that Windows File Sharing (SMB) hardly ever
uses plaintext. It has a couple of crypto options,
one stronger than the other. This was intended, perhaps,
to cover File Sharing Over The Internet, so you could
not peek at the data in flight. The standards used
are not particularly strong, but better than nothing.
That would help, if someone had a 2.4GHz software
defined radio with the appropriate demodulator and
tracking of channel hop pattern, and was sitting in
a car outside your house, listening for Bluetooth
experiments.

*******

How can I have some fun ?

Plug a Bluetooth Nano USB dongle into each machine.

Find the Bluetooth section in Windows 10 1903 Setup.

See if one machine will give a six digit number or
so, to "pair" with the other machine.

From here on, it's an experiment. Piconet didn't work
when I tested it a year and a half ago. Whether
the machine will do ICS on its own, and span the
gap, and assign 192.168.1.2 to the right-hand computer
in the diagram, I don't know if that will work.

BT dongles come in three classes. The BT-400 I bought,
works at a distance of six feet. And with the
low low datarate involved, It's just "bar bet material",
a kind of computer joke. But, if you want to try it,
I'd love to hear how it turns out with two 1903
machines, to see if MSFT did any work on this.

Paul

On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 09:47:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

No, but why not use why-fi? Much faster.

On Fri, 28 Jun 2019 21:41:33 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 6/28/2019 7:47 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

I suspect that it is possible on the Bitlocked one, but you do not have
the permissions and ownership of the device (Bluetooth) set properly.
The permissions and ownership of the files could also be a problem. (I
don't use Bitlock)

As for the WIFI question. The only thing that Bluetooth and WIFI have in
common is the connections are wireless.

The difference is that Bluetooth is usually easier to set up than WIFI.

I use Bluetooth when my WIFI connection start to act up and I don't have
time to trouble shoot the WIFI connection.


Well, let's draw a picture.

Wifi ------------------ Wifi (say, Ad Hoc mode, if you can get the address set)

BT -------------------- BT (piconet, *may* be working in 1903!)

Ethernet -------------- Ethernet (good ole reliable)

These aren't the end of the universe of course. A person
might be using ICS (Internet connection sharing).

WAN ------ comp#1 ------------------- comp#2
Eth ICS (generic)
192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2

There's really no point doing Bluetooth, if the machines
are already connected to a router. No ICS is needed
with this setup. The Bluetooth experiment would only
be needed, if the computers were "sequentially connected"
like the diagram above this paragraph.

WAN ------ router
| \
comp#1 comp#2

The first diagram with all the network options,
could "span" the right-hand portion
of the second diagram. You could have three network
paths between those machines. The "metric" of each
path, can help the OS decide where most of the
traffic goes (which link). Ethernet probably has
a higher metric than Wifi for example, but the
metric can be programmed by the user for a different
outcome.

Bluetooth has five standards. One of the standards
introduced a "BT+Wifi" mode, where the BT part handles
the pairing kinda stuff, but when a bulk transfer is
attempted, it uses the Wifi to do the transfer.
Some would consider this cheating. And hard to
figure, when the "Wifi" part could do all the
lifting, all by itself.

And I don't know how "regular" Wifi feels about
the "BT+Wifi" mode. I expect you can set up one
or the other, but not both.

*******

So the previous diagrams seem to leave a lot of permutations
and combinations. Hardly something for your first ICS
attempt. Too messy.

Let's pretend that the second machine is not using its
Ethernet connector, and the second machine has the
Wifi radio turned off. What can we do with just BT ???

nanoBT nanoBT
WAN ------ comp#1 ------------------- comp#2
Eth ICS (generic)
192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2

That will set up a low-bit-rate connection, probably
not more than a megabit per second or so (the speed
of a floppy diskette - really crappy).

In other words, "we do stuff like this as a bar bet" :-/

This is *not* a practical mode.

Lumping Bitlocker on top of this, is I suppose
"a bar bet on top of a bar bet". We know that
once logged into a Bitlocker volume, the window
in File Manager should function like any other
window. Even if the files come in via File Sharing,
when Explorer does a transfer, the Bitlocker volume
is open and files should be written to the volume
during a file transfer, like any other. The writes
are "encrypted". Once the computer shuts down,
nobody can see that file on the Bitlocker volume,
unless they know the password.

How secure is Bluetooth ?

We know that Windows File Sharing (SMB) hardly ever
uses plaintext. It has a couple of crypto options,
one stronger than the other. This was intended, perhaps,
to cover File Sharing Over The Internet, so you could
not peek at the data in flight. The standards used
are not particularly strong, but better than nothing.
That would help, if someone had a 2.4GHz software
defined radio with the appropriate demodulator and
tracking of channel hop pattern, and was sitting in
a car outside your house, listening for Bluetooth
experiments.

*******

How can I have some fun ?

Plug a Bluetooth Nano USB dongle into each machine.

Find the Bluetooth section in Windows 10 1903 Setup.

See if one machine will give a six digit number or
so, to "pair" with the other machine.

From here on, it's an experiment. Piconet didn't work
when I tested it a year and a half ago. Whether
the machine will do ICS on its own, and span the
gap, and assign 192.168.1.2 to the right-hand computer
in the diagram, I don't know if that will work.

BT dongles come in three classes. The BT-400 I bought,
works at a distance of six feet. And with the
low low datarate involved, It's just "bar bet material",
a kind of computer joke. But, if you want to try it,
I'd love to hear how it turns out with two 1903
machines, to see if MSFT did any work on this.

Paul

The dongle thing on my old machine cost $14. Perhaps I should have
bought the $48 one?

Peter Jason wrote:


The dongle thing on my old machine cost $14. Perhaps I should have
bought the $48 one?

:-)

I tried the bar bet challenge.

I got my moneys worth.

This happens *every time* I try to use Bluetooth.

After many trials, *zero* Bluetooth success :-/

*******

There is a thing in the Settings panel, for "sending files
via Bluetooth". I didn't bother pursuing that, because
that's not necessarily going to give a general purpose
Internet connection.

The Bluetooth list of profiles, had about five items,
and none of them reminded me of "PAN" (personal area network).

I paired the two PCs. I used the Direct Connect function,
although there is no help text to tell me exactly what
that does, and how an "InDirect" connection would be
any different.

The ICS service was turned off. I turned that on in Services.

I plugged in my USB3 to GbE NIC adapter, to add a *third*
network to the computer. That causes the Sharing tab on
my main Internet connection to show up. In principle,
enabling that is supposed to enable ICS.

But, because the "drop down" menu is missing, there is no
way to assign 192.168.1.1 to the Bluetooth interface.

Since my plugin NIC wasn't connected to the router,
that's part of the reason it could not make an appearance
in the dropdown menu (of the Sharing tab).

Then, when some network activity started up on the PC I
was working on, it appeared to be DoSvc, I couldn't find
a way to stop it... I stopped my experiment. The
PC had already been checked in Windows Update and after
many ****ing reboots and clicking that ****ing button,
it was "up to date", but it just could not stop itself.
So I shut the experiment down, pulled the SSDs, put
all the nano BTs in their boxes, and now I'm back
to "normal config" again.

When I run Win10 on this machine, I have to unplug
all the other hard drives, so Win10 won't ruin the
NTFS partitions (mess up $MFTMIRR, mess up $BITMAP
or so). Honestly, working with Windows 10
is like working with Ebola in a microbiology lab.

Good luck with your bar bet experiment :-)

And no, spending more money on BT dongles,
isn't going to help. I was assured by the software
that it could "see" the other PC, because it knew
the name of the PC and everything. Each PC could
see the other PC. The RF part of this is working.
The software stack is a mess. And you can tell 7000
employees are working on this, because controls are
all over the place.

Now I'm going to have to backtrack, and see if I
can find the reference that claimed MSFT had been
working on the networking over BT part of this.
Because I believe when I tried a similar experiment
to this a year and a half ago, I got about as
far as I did this time.

If I do "ipconfig" in Command Prompt, both adapters
had APIPA addresses (169...), so they *did* appear
to be interested in networking. But unless I can get
ICS working, and get the BT to show up in the dropdown
menu of "Sharing" (ICS), I'll never be able to route
proper IP addresses in there.

And I did have to turn on the ICS service, and that's
the reason the "Sharing" tab finally showed up. I can't think
of what else to turn on. If the BT wants to "play" as
a network, it should register to be in that damn
drop down menu (that is missing). I think as soon
as one of the networks is a candidate, then the
dropdown would appear. I would much rather always
have the dropdown appear, and the list be empty or
something, as at least then I could be sure it
hadn't registered. This "peek-a-boo" design style
these idiots are using, *really irritates me*.
*Now I wanna punch somebody*

Paul

Paul wrote:

I tried the bar bet challenge.
I got my moneys worth.
This happens *every time* I try to use Bluetooth.
After many trials, *zero* Bluetooth success :-/

I just run fsquirt.exe and t' job's a good'un

Probably only applies when using the MS BT stack.

Lucifer wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 09:47:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

No, but why not use why-fi? Much faster.

Ditto. I treid that in 2016. It was SO slow. Frak BT 4 file transfers. :P
--
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Cartman in South Park's Damien Episode (Season 1; Episode 8)
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Ant wrote:
Lucifer wrote:
On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 09:47:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

B has two instances of Win10 installed, one Bitlocker protected.

I can transfer files successfully except for the Bitlocker-protected
one; is Bitlocker a factor mounted or not?

Is WiFi-on necessary for Bluetooth transfers?

No, but why not use why-fi? Much faster.

Ditto. I treid that in 2016. It was SO slow. Frak BT 4 file transfers. :P

What profile did you use ?

Was it a transfer between a Windows PC and an Android mobile ?

I get the feeling that connections to SmartPhones would "just work",
whereas my attempts to get two PCs to do anything meets
with nothing but "resistance".

Paul

On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 09:47:55 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I have one computer 'A' and another 'B' all with Bluetooth available.

The aim is to transfer files between them.

Transfer them _slowly_.

--
s|b

Andy Burns wrote:
Paul wrote:

I tried the bar bet challenge. I got my moneys worth.
This happens *every time* I try to use Bluetooth.
After many trials, *zero* Bluetooth success :-/

I just run fsquirt.exe and t' job's a good'un

Probably only applies when using the MS BT stack.

Well, I didn't win the bar bet challenge.

And all I could manage is a runner-up prize.

1) I managed to use pcattcp to check transfer
rate between the two BT dongles. The dongles
claimed 3Mbit/sec, and I got around 175KB/sec
of actual measured transfer over TCP/IP.

2) I tried your fsquirt. Which does not register
as "network bandwidth" on the BT entry in
Task Manager. That suggests some other profile
is used for that.

What I'd hoped, is that somehow the setup of this
would be "easy-peasy". It wasn't particularly.

https://i.postimg.cc/W3WtBTNm/transmit.gif

https://i.postimg.cc/jdJCFpGN/receive.gif

And I still couldn't get ICS working properly,
which is why I had to use static addresses for
the TCP/IP tests. The BT is enough of a device
to earn a "networking" entry in Task Manager,
but isn't a candidate for the ICS drop-down menu.

What I wanted to see, was an absurdly slow file
listing of a file share :-)

The test file I fed to FSQUIRT threatened to
take 1.5 hours to transfer over BT, so I shut
it all down again.

Paul

Paul wrote:

I tried your fsquirt. Which does not register
Â*Â* as "network bandwidth" on the BT entry in
Â*Â* Task Manager.

as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty rare to configure a network stack
(realistically TCP/IP) over the virtual bluetooth network adapter, which
is what I believe it would need to show up an NIC bandwidth in task manager.

The test file I fed to FSQUIRT threatened to
take 1.5 hours to transfer over BT

It's kind of ok for photo sized files, then it gets silly, nowadays I
just let my phone sync all photos to a cloud provider, and they're
accessible from PCs before you can blink.