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Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#101

Post by nanidin »

sokoloff wrote: post #80
vincent-toups wrote: post #14

I'd rather go without internet than have one of these damned smart devices in my house. I can't believe how popular they are.

I have my IoT/IoS devices cordoned off onto their own network locally (with internet access, of course) as a matter of trying to protect my LAN from any exploit. However, I find the convenience of these devices to be extremely high: they play music, they give us convenient timers, they function as a whole house intercom, they tell us the weather and answer (often poorly) some random questions without going to get our…

Can you give any insight into the solution you’re using to achieve this? I’ve got some noisy gadgets on my network that I want to cordon off, but I’m not sure where to begin.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#102

Post by adolph »

failwhaleshark wrote: post #73

94.9% pure, organic, outrage, clickbait FUD. This feels like an "you're either with us or you're against us, Amazon B A D"-article. The central thesis is misleading and wrong because it's NOT "unlimited, direct sharing of your WiFi to whatever Amazon users happen to fall and scrape their knees outside your home because they can't skateboard," it's "likely low-rate connectivity for other Amazon users' devices over Blu…

When youʼve left something far behind, like at the beach or the gym, the Find My network — hundreds of millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices around the world — helps track down your AirTag. And itʼs designed to protect your privacy every step of the way.

I wonder if Apple has opt-out/in for the "Find My network?"

https://www.apple.com/airtag/

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#104

Post by monkeynotes »

titzer wrote: post #96

Big Brother won't be a boot on the face, forever, it will be private enterprise mesh network that comes wrapped in charming corporate market babble. "Telescreens help keep you connected with your friends and relatives. They monitor activity and upload anonymous usage statistics that help make our products even better. Telescreens help make society safe and secure, ensuring that you can enjoy your choice of government…

All of that sounds like a boot stomping to me. Complete oppression and control.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#105

Post by sokoloff »

nanidin wrote: post #101
sokoloff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my IoT/IoS devices cordoned off onto their own network locally (with internet access, of course) as a matter of trying to protect my LAN from any exploit. However, I find the convenience of these devices to be extremely high: they play music, they give us convenient timers, they function as a whole house intercom, they tell us the weather and answer (often poorly) some random questions without going to get our…

Can you give any insight into the solution you’re using to achieve this? I’ve got some noisy gadgets on my network that I want to cordon off, but I’m not sure where to begin.

Dedicated SSID(s) with that/those SSID configured as a guest network goes pretty far. I happen to use Ubiquiti gear, but most any router is likely capable of creating a dedicated guest SSID (or multiple). That covers wireless devices (which is all the IoT stuff that I have).

The one aggravation I had was trying to get the Chromecasts to work correctly (where I wanted to be able to cast from a machine on the main LAN to a Chromecast on the Google IoT SSID). I would periodically get it working and then it would periodically break. I'm not even sure that it's working right now to be honest, mostly because a lot of the need for that use case (video playback) has shifted to FireTV sticks.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#106

Post by urda »

nanidin wrote: post #101
sokoloff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my IoT/IoS devices cordoned off onto their own network locally (with internet access, of course) as a matter of trying to protect my LAN from any exploit. However, I find the convenience of these devices to be extremely high: they play music, they give us convenient timers, they function as a whole house intercom, they tell us the weather and answer (often poorly) some random questions without going to get our…

Can you give any insight into the solution you’re using to achieve this? I’ve got some noisy gadgets on my network that I want to cordon off, but I’m not sure where to begin.

You can place them in a separate VLAN for starters, and block traffic between anything other than the internet.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#107

Post by wearywanderer »

philsnow wrote: post #77
remarkEon wrote: post #68

Article doesn't mention it, but this is how you opt-out (there are others but this one has screenshots). https://www.tomsguide.com/reference/what-is-amazon-sidewalk Added to my list for the next time I'm on the phone with my parents, for our (weekly at this point) how-to sessions on "stopping the industry I work in from spying on you". I really, really wish product managers would understand the kind of ecosystem they…

> what problem does Amazon thinks this solves? Bad connectivity experiences for Ring users? I wrote my guess elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27358758 tl;dr Amazon will resell access to Sidewalk to device manufacturers, allowing them to cost-effectively bridge the "telemetry gap".

No bones about it, this is Amazon's response to

> If you don't want your smart tv to spy on you, then don't give it your wifi password.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#108

Post by celsoazevedo »

failwhaleshark wrote: post #73

94.9% pure, organic, outrage, clickbait FUD. This feels like an "you're either with us or you're against us, Amazon B A D"-article. The central thesis is misleading and wrong because it's NOT "unlimited, direct sharing of your WiFi to whatever Amazon users happen to fall and scrape their knees outside your home because they can't skateboard," it's "likely low-rate connectivity for other Amazon users' devices over Blu…

The problem is that they're using my hardware, my internet connection and my electricity without paying me or asking for my permission.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#109

Post by lucasmullens »

philsnow wrote: post #87

So the opt-out period is only only one week, and I presumably won't be able to opt out later? I don't own any of these devices, but if I want to have the option to buy one later but not have it be a sidewalk bridge, I guess I have to download the Alexa app and... oh in order to opt out, I have to log in to the Alexa app with my Amazon account, and in order to log in, I have to agree to: - Alexa Terms of Use - Amazon…

>in order to opt out, I have to log in to the Alexa app with my Amazon account, and in order to log in, I have to agree to:

If you already have an Alexa device running on your network, you've already agreed to all those terms. That concern seems fairly unrelated.

Also I wouldn't assume you can't opt-out later. Pretty sure you can, actually.

Re: Amazon US customers given one week to opt out of mass wireless sharing

#110

Post by turdnagel »

I could see working on Sidewalk as kind of a dream if you have no morals. A mesh network you can turn on with a flip of a switch, with millions of devices across the world? Seems really cool, if you don't care about privacy or security. But if you do - and we should - it's a disaster.
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