Triggering AWDL

[ghost]

Triggering macOS/iOS receivers via Bluetooth Low Energy. Apple devices start their AWDL interface and AirDrop server only after receiving a custom advertisement via Bluetooth LE (see USENIX paper for details). This means, that Apple AirDrop receivers may not be discovered even if they are discoverable by everyone.

How do you send this custom advertisement?
I know how to receive it, and how to craft one, but EVERY SINGLE BLE api/wrapper seems to expect you're sending an ibeacon or eddystone and refuses to do otherwise.

[schmittner]

You can use hci or bluez (which appears to have some Python bindings). See, e.g., https://github.com/hexway/apple_bleee/blob/master/adv_wifi.py

[TheLastGimbus]

Hey @ghost... oh, he deleted himself... @schmittner do you maybe know what those magic bluetooth bits are? Can I easly send them by modifing apple_bleee/adv_wifi.py a bit ?

[Sn0wfreezeDev]

Those bits are fairly well documented. The Furios MAC team did a great job gathering all Bluetooth beacons from different sources and adding them to they GitHub: https://github.com/furiousMAC/continuity/blob/master/messages/airdrop.md