Does bluetooth pairing leave any permanent traces that are traceable?

[ricoue]

I silo all my online identities and connections. I do not use my phone for accessing anything except email and mainstream social media, and I keep my laptop away from anything that could identify me as me.

However, I do sometimes pair my phone to my laptop and I wonder, can this pairing be trackable? For example, if Google is keeping tack of all connection my phone makes, can they track that laptop and any web activity originating from it?

 

[mikeymikec]

I silo all my online identities and connections. I do not use my phone for accessing anything except email and mainstream social media, and I keep my laptop away from anything that could identify me as me.

When I read "mainstream social media", I couldn't help but interpret this statement as, "I'm really careful with my security, but I do like to leave my spare house key with my local drug dealer/pimp". On second reading I think you mean that you consider your phone to be of minimal security so you do social networking there and try to keep your laptop clean of 'tracking' stuff, which makes more sense if that's what you meant.

However, I do sometimes pair my phone to my laptop and I wonder, can this pairing be trackable? For example, if Google is keeping tack of all connection my phone makes, can they track that laptop and any web activity originating from it?

While I would assume with a reasonable level of confidence that your smartphone OS maker will keep note of what devices your device interacts with (after all, your device does), I don't see any plausible way that your device pairing with another automatically allows your device's manufacturer (OS or hardware) to track usage of the other device (and even if there was a way, there'd have to be some kind of licence agreement for the other device's owner to agree to when they agree to pair the devices). If say you have an Android/Apple phone and logged into your Google/Apple account on that other device, then sure you're giving that company more information about that other device.

 

[ricoue]

What i meant is that I use my phone to access services that I signed upto in my real name, such as Facebook, whatsapp and email. While I use the laptop to post on websites that I would not want to be associated with my real identity, such as 4chan, reddit and other similar forums(including this one)

When I read "mainstream social media", I couldn't help but interpret this statement as, "I'm really careful with my security,but I do like to leave my spare house key with my local drug dealer/pimp"

Why?

 

[mikeymikec]

Why?

Companies like Facebook and Google are information dealers. They have proven track records of hoovering up as much information about you as they can and selling it off without being honest/explicit about it. It's their business model. It's fast becoming the primary business models of many tech companies, probably because the world is like the wild west atm with regard to data privacy: The biggest companies lobby to make the rules that suit them, and they'll likely use their influence to shut down smaller competitors on comparative technicalities.

If you're looking to compartmentalise for privacy reasons, IMO you're far better off using a 'social network only' browser on your computer for that stuff. Personally I run a single browser configuration that dumps almost everything when I close the browser, and even then I try to avoid major browsing while I'm logged into FB. If you like using Firefox you can run separate profiles simultaneously with the correct command-line switches (and turn those into shortcut icons), if the idea of separate browser products doesn't appeal to you.

 

[JackMDS]

Maybe this can Help.

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bluetooth_viewer.html

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bluetooth_log_view.html