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Hot new security threat! - technology breakthrough turns industry upside down...

In a revolutionary development which has utterly stunned all wireless engineers, a "security expert" has demonstrated a previously un-dreamed of  gadget which may destroy all wireless communications: a high-gain antenna.

By building a high-gain Yagi antenna onto the end of a gun, instead of the barrel, John Hering is able to aim his wireless device precisely at distance transmitters, and pick up a signal which normally would be out of range.

The device is called BlueSniper, and a security magazine SC Magazine  has been writing the device up in  enthusiastic doomsday terms.

"The so-called BlueSniper consists of a directional "Yagi" antenna mounted on a shotgun stock. The stock contains a Bluetooth module and processor in its magazine. It can also be linked up to a laptop," wrote reporter René Millman ominously. And because it has a Bluetooth module in it, "BlueSniper can scan and attack Bluetooth devices up to a mile away," the report added.

It quotes Hering as saying that "it would be possible to track a single Bluetooth phone as a person walked round but this would require multiple BlueSnipers to work."

We get a "threat" like this once a month, from some up-and-coming security operative who has started a "consultancy" and wants some headline presence. The same week as we're asked to marvel at the discovery that you can pick up weak signals a long way away with a high gain antenna, we're also told that London's businesses are  "leaking data" over wireless LANs - or that "evil twin" hotspots are a serious threat.

It never ends. It is all rubbish, but it just keeps getting written about. And it's "top story of the day" on several search sites. But let's stop and ask:

If, for example, I wanted to hack into your cellphone, what is more likely:

1) I stand on a remote rooftop holding something which looks suspiciously like a weapon, and point it at you, hoping you respond to a Bluesnarfing trick and reveal your phone number list or

2) I wait till you're in the toilet and pinch your phone?

If I want to hack into your corporate IT server, what am I seriously going to do:

1) park a van in a restricted area in the metropolitan City of London, and spend a couple of hours hoping nobody gives me a ticket while I download meaningless wibble off your email server or

2) take advantage of the 70% of European IT networks which are vulnerable to a completely anonymous Internet-based attack?

It is like writing about the dangers posed by the huge numbers of rats in London. Nobody has ever tried to count the rats in London, and the statistics are based on figures left behind when some bureaucrat decided to "deem" that the population of rats would be the same as that for human beings in any geographical area.

Result: as the human population rises, so the rat "threat" increases. It worked for years, selling exciting stories penned by hungry freelance journalists. It's enough to make even the most enthusiastic wireless maven feel cynical. And it isn't going to stop, is it?