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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

#271

Post by userbinator »

philwelch wrote: post #139
remarkEon wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought my mom an Echo for Christmas last year for the kitchen, since she likes making lists and setting timers for baking and her hands are starting to show their age (she’s 63, ‘bout that time I guess). Really grating that what was at one time a helpful device for older folks is now retroactively being turned into yet another internet surveillance device.

With all due respect, it’s a microphone connected to the internet that you are meant to install in your home. How are you surprised to see it used as a surveillance device?

Corporate greed tends to do that to people. Younger people are surprised how cynical I am, but IMHO that's just my experience.

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

#272

Post by aplorbust »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #239
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…

Missed a step in that opt-out how-to: 1. Install Alexa App on phone. Why can't I disable this 'account setting' from the Amazon web portal. Plus, if I mistrust Amazon's repurposing of devices, why would I want an Alexa app installed to potentially repurpose my phone? Funnily enough, Sidewalk was just one of 3 surprising anti-security/anti-privacy settings available only in the app.

"Why would I want an Alexa app installed to potentially repurpose my phone?"

You wouldn't. However if you were ambivalent and did not care one way or the other, or unaware of the change, then of course you would not bother to opt-out. This is no doubt Amazon's strategy. And when you opt-out you are forced to install an app that may well have worse consequences than Sidewalk.

This strategy, so often used by "tech" companies, seems to take inspiration from direct mail.1 I have a well-educated friend who, many years ago, found himself working for a direct mail company early in his career. He did not stay long. The people he worked for sounded like dregs, and I think he had a crisis of conscience. Today, ethical standards seem to have fallen. Interesting how the word "hustle", as in "side hustle", has been repurposed by young people as something supposedly respectable. Usually that word implies some sort of con or other underhanded activity.2

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_mail

2. echo -e 'DEFINE all hustle\nQUIT\n'|nc -vvn 199.48.130.6 2628|tr -cd '\12\40-\176'|less

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

#273

Post by thayne »

Spivak wrote: post #214
barbazoo wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. And what, you're gonna rely on some neighbor's AMZN device proxying the internet for you? I hope the availability of that "smart" sensor or whatever isn't too important.

It’s not an Internet proxy. There is so much misinformation about this it’s nuts. It’s a network to talk to AWS IoT API. It’s not giving random devices access to your network.

And IoT has a flawless record of security. There's no way someone could find a vulnerability in a device connected to a sidewalk network. Oh... wait.

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

#274

Post by mike_d »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #267
hermitdev wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems like a genuine customer problem. If you want to set up smart lights through your back yard, or a smart sensor at the edge of your driver, they might not have WiFi connectivity to the rest of your house. That sounds like a "you" problem, not a "me" problem. If "you" are setting up smart devices where "you" don't have connectivity, "you" should provide the connectivity, not "me". (Note: I don't have a problem w…

"You can help me, I can help you". My smart lights work where I don't have connectivity, but you do, and your tile tracker works where you don't have connectivity, but I do. It's really quite similar to Apple's Find My network. I just wish this was going to some open collective where everyone could benefit, rather than just Amazon customers...

Helium is exactly what you describe. People deploy APs that provide coverage and in turn get fractions of pennies for transferring data from random peoples devices.

https://www.helium.com/

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

#276

Post by mike_d »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #269
alsetmusic wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They can get online via any apple device. Airtags don’t “get online.” Apple devices take note of the Airtag’s identifying characteristics (I don’t know how this is defined) and report back to Apple having been in proximity to them. They are “dumb” with respect to the internet. Just Bluetooth beacons.

Isn't that effectively the same thing, though? The airtags are useful because they cause other people's devices to transmit their location.

Apple sells this as a feature on new phones (which people implicitly associate as a communications device). Lights and doorbells are supposed to be dumb devices, not network gateways for the general public.

It would be like Ford announcing that they had been putting USB ports in the bumper of every car for the last 5 years, and starting today you can walk up to any random persons car and charge your phone.

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

#277

Post by mike_d »

geertj wrote: post #240
duped wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm not paying for your infrastructure. Isn't this what 5G is supposed to be used for?

The Sidewalk network has a very low bandwidth of 80kbps with a cap of 500 MB per month. I doubt that it will incur extra cost for most people. Is your concern about the principle of sharing bandwidth or are you worried about the actual cost?

If it is that cheap, why doesn't Amazon do a deal with the power company to hang an Alexa off every power pole to build their network?

I'm sure it would be no big deal if I just took a few cents from you and all your family members every day to buy my coffee each day?

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

#278

Post by URSpider94 »

kstrauser wrote: post #241
secabeen wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a change, certainly, but mobile devices are a much bigger risk to your internal network than a Echo device is. Both are general-purpose computers inside, but the attack surface of a phone is way larger, and there are plenty of recorded instances of phones being compromised. The Echo devices have a good security track record, and I feel they remain much less likely to be compromised than any mobile device. The nu…

I think the Tile bit is a non sequitur. There’s no need for a Tile tag to create a network connection to a remote serve. That functionality could have been implemented without Sidewalk (eg Apple’s Find My is completely differently), so I’m dismissing that justification from Amazon. I have a few Tile tags, too, and I hope their new Amazon partnership makes them start being useful. It didn’t need Sidewalk though.

When a Tile device associates to another device that detects it, that device has to send a network packet to the cloud that says that it found a Tile with a certain serial number. That’s using your network/your bandwidth to transmit proprietary data about someone else’s property, without asking your permission. That’s exactly the same in kind, just maybe not in degree.

New Tile devices can play a sound on command. If you use Sidewalk to send a play-sound command to a Tile, then again you are using this proprietary shared network.

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

#279

Post by ikiris »

prepend wrote: post #168
ikiris wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As exchange for their otherwise unpaid service from those devices, they're using a fraction of your potentially capped internet if you happen to be in a market with such poor competition and/or poor regulatory environment that your service is capped.

> unpaid I paid $200 (although much cheaper now) for my echo years ago. This isn’t a free device and the services it provides cost me actual money to be able to use. Pretty funny to spin this as “you paid $200 for this device, but all the services on it are free.”

Do you think it's stealing your power too?

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

#280

Post by scoopertrooper »

mike_d wrote: post #276
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that effectively the same thing, though? The airtags are useful because they cause other people's devices to transmit their location.

Apple sells this as a feature on new phones (which people implicitly associate as a communications device). Lights and doorbells are supposed to be dumb devices, not network gateways for the general public. It would be like Ford announcing that they had been putting USB ports in the bumper of every car for the last 5 years, and starting today you can walk up to any random persons car and charge your phone.

So you're saying the doorbell that uses machine learning to detect people and objects and the send me videos of them is a dumb device? I'd love to see a smart one!
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