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Amazon Sidewalk

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Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#21

Post by konschubert »

ivanhoe wrote: post #17
konschubert wrote: post #2

I think that's great. Unless you have a shitty internet connection with data caps it should not be an issue. On a more fundamental note, I think it's pretty ridiculous that every apartment in the building I live in runs its own wifi network, screaming at the top of its lungs to be heard in the noise.

Well, having a bathroom in each apartment could also be seen as a total waste of space and water, just as wifi is, but there are good reasons why people prefer having their own reserved resources and privacy - in both cases.

You can have private networks and multiple access points within the same wifi channel.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#23

Post by livinginfear »

I would be curious to know what kind of consumer response Amazon anticipates from this. Are consumer privacy, security and freedom factors that were considered in Amazon's decision making process when developing this product?

I know it's not in the spirit of discussion on Hacker News, however I feel I must just add the rhetorical remark: "Is everyone else concerned yet?"

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#24

Post by Nextgrid »

Havoc wrote: post #9

I wouldn't mind opening up even higher b/w wifi. I've got way more than needed so seed linux distros all day long anyway ...however if someone does something illegal with it that'll still trace back to my IP and police will kick down my door, correct?

> however if someone does something illegal with it that'll still trace back to my IP and police will kick down my door, correct?

This is a big concern with all the major "public WIFI" systems like this one and others such as Comcast's Xfinity WiFi and it's pretty much never actually true.

For actual Wi-Fi provided by an ISP, the public network will usually come out of a completely different IP (your modem will internally have 2 IPs, or tunnel the public network's traffic straight into the ISP's infrastructure and it will only talk to the public internet from there with a different IP).

For this one, I'm not sure if this is even IP-based at all and allows access to the internet. Seems like all it allows is to talk to Amazon (using some proprietary protocol) and offers no access to the outside internet anyway.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#25

Post by selfhoster11 »

diveanon wrote: post #8

I would say this is a privacy concern, but they are already echo customers.

Two privacy vulnerabilities are worse than one. If I buy an Echo, I may well be aware what I'm getting into and accept the risk of an always-on voice assistant, but do not want the additional risk of that assistant sharing my Internet connection.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#26

Post by lullibrulli3 »

wilde wrote: post #7

TBH the title is a bit misleading. Amazon plans to use your internet for API calls related to its devices, similar to Apple’s Find My network. I’m more curious about the location sharing bit.

sometimes I would love to see an A/B test on HN: swap Amazon and Apple here, call it "Find my Homepod" and see the reactions.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#27

Post by londons_explore »

It's a real shame that human selfishness means everyone has to have their own mini WiFi point rather than all sharing.

I wish the 2.4Ghz band had some kind of "at least half the bandwidth of any network connection over 2.4Ghz must be available for use by any member of the public, for free".

That would effectively be the licensing cost for your use of the WiFi band - you use up bandwidth in 2.4Ghz, but provide for free bandwidth to the internet for other people to use.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#28

Post by intricatedetail »

londons_explore wrote: post #27

It's a real shame that human selfishness means everyone has to have their own mini WiFi point rather than all sharing. I wish the 2.4Ghz band had some kind of "at least half the bandwidth of any network connection over 2.4Ghz must be available for use by any member of the public, for free". That would effectively be the licensing cost for your use of the WiFi band - you use up bandwidth in 2.4Ghz, but provide for fre…

The problem is that when you share your internet with a neighbour partaking in illegal activities, you may get yourself in trouble.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#29

Post by peteretep »

dan1234 wrote: post #10
BrentOzar wrote: post #4

"when you share your Bridge’s connection with Sidewalk, total monthly data used by Sidewalk, per account, is capped at 500MB" Given that it's US-only, where most internet plans have pretty high caps, it's hard for me to get upset about this. I would have expected my Echoes alone to use more than that during normal monthly operation, playing music, fetching news, etc.

My main concern with sharing like this isn't the bandwidth usage, but what happens when someone abuses the connection (downloading/sharing child porn as an example). I don't want anything to do with it if there's even the slightest chance I'd end up on the hook for someone else's crimes.

My understanding is that you aren’t sharing a general connection to the internet, you’re specifically letting Amazon devices tunnel some data back to Amazon’s parent servers. You’d also likely have a pretty good case against Amazon if using their product as directed caused your trouble with the po po

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#30

Post by nathancahill »

londons_explore wrote: post #27

It's a real shame that human selfishness means everyone has to have their own mini WiFi point rather than all sharing. I wish the 2.4Ghz band had some kind of "at least half the bandwidth of any network connection over 2.4Ghz must be available for use by any member of the public, for free". That would effectively be the licensing cost for your use of the WiFi band - you use up bandwidth in 2.4Ghz, but provide for fre…

I ran an OpenWireless guest network for a while when I lived in Colorado with no adverse effects. https://www.eff.org/pages/openwirelessorg
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