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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

#141

Post by adrr »

rudyfink wrote: post #20
shiado wrote: post #7

What will happen is some high profile company that has a few Amazon devices on their network will have these devices exploited to gain network access and get hit with some ransomware/data theft/etc... and then there will be a big legal battle between Amazon and the hacked company and this whole idea will be shut down and consumers will get a $10 class action settlement for each device.

Maybe not? Most consumer arbitration agreements these days ban asserting class claims. This has been on the rise since 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc... . In my opinion, this legal change is a huge sleeper story that is behind a number of changes in how customers are getting treated. Since customers can no longer economically avail themselves of the courts to protect themselves en-…

Depends who clicked the agreement and what the company bylaws of who can agree to terms. Some low level IT person will not have the authority to bind the company into an agreement and the injured party is the company.

https://www.binadox.com/blog/clickwrap-held-unenforceable-na...

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

#142

Post by [deleted] »

rudyfink wrote: post #20
shiado wrote: post #7

What will happen is some high profile company that has a few Amazon devices on their network will have these devices exploited to gain network access and get hit with some ransomware/data theft/etc... and then there will be a big legal battle between Amazon and the hacked company and this whole idea will be shut down and consumers will get a $10 class action settlement for each device.

Maybe not? Most consumer arbitration agreements these days ban asserting class claims. This has been on the rise since 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc... . In my opinion, this legal change is a huge sleeper story that is behind a number of changes in how customers are getting treated. Since customers can no longer economically avail themselves of the courts to protect themselves en-…

[deleted]

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

#144

Post by a3n »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #131
xboxnolifes wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality is, most people who own these devices wouldn't know how or be aware it's even an option, and a mass marketing campaign would need to go into effect to just make people aware of it and why they would potentially want to do it. Or they can just make it automatic.

If Amazon wants to release a feature that they make a bunch of money off of selling it to advertisers, that uses customer resources and doesn't benefit them, and many/most customers actively don't want it, then they need to convince people to say yes. How is people not wanting to do it justification for Amazon doing it? If they want it done they can offer credits

I'm not saying it's justified. It's not. But low likelihood of opting in would be a reason why they'd make it out out. See, for example, UMN vs Linux.

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

#145

Post by detaro »

bbatsell wrote: post #85
rubyfan wrote: post #60

The article reads a little alarmist honestly. They have created a low bandwidth mesh network for mostly IOT devices. I don’t get how this is suddenly compared with sharing internet. The later of which, Comcast actually did and does.

Far be it from me to defend Comcast, but it's not equivalent in the slightest. Comcast creates a separate network, with a separate IP, using their cable modem and the DOCSIS bandwidth available on their network. Its third-party usage does not count against your data cap, and any nefarious usage would not be associated with your own account and possibly subject you to civil or criminal sanctions.

Devices can only talk to specific Amazon APIs (which then hand the request to manufacturer APIs) with Sidewalk, they don't get to arbitrarily use your internet connection either.

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

#146

Post by surround »

A thread from last year describing this tactic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22798118

Stack overflow’s TOS has a binding arbitration clause, [1] despite overwhelming user feedback to the contrary. [2] Y Combinator’s TOS has an arbitration clause. [3] This also applies to Hacker News.

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service/public

[2] https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/309756

[3] https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/

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

#147

Post by mikem170 »

buildbuildbuild wrote: post #66
shiado wrote: post #7

What will happen is some high profile company that has a few Amazon devices on their network will have these devices exploited to gain network access and get hit with some ransomware/data theft/etc... and then there will be a big legal battle between Amazon and the hacked company and this whole idea will be shut down and consumers will get a $10 class action settlement for each device.

This could be somewhat mitigated by VPN tunneling all traffic through Amazon’s edge, not sure of their implementation here but I highly doubt that Amazon overlooked this threat model. The exploit attack vector mentioned is already a risk to any device connected to a sensitive network. VLAN your consumer devices, conference room screens, at minimum.

I'm more worried about this amazon mesh network being used for access by other internet devices.

For example, it's not easy to get a dumb TV. If I had one I wouldn't want it online. It appears that Amazon would sell access to the TV manufacturer so that it could spy on me via my neighbours Amazon Sidewalk device.

To me this is new threat vector. I don't take kindly to corporations spying on me.

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

#148

Post by local_dev »

monkeynotes wrote: post #103

Why the dickens isn't this opt-in? Now we live in a world where a corp can sit on your own home network and do business using your bandwidth without you explicitly agreeing. Not to mention the potential for security issues.

We all know the answer to this. It absolutely should be opt-in, but they know that around 96% of people will never opt-in. See: iOS 14.5 privacy changes.

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

#149

Post by foobiekr »

Retric wrote: post #26
snegu wrote: post #13

I'm curious - is it an altruistic act to leave this functionality enabled? I'm all for making wifi access easier for people.

It’s so “smart” TV’s etc can send data home even if you don’t connect them to the internet. Longer term expect random devices you own to inject even more advertising into your daily life.

It is exactly this. It just takes one idiot in the neighborhood to now defeat my "don't connect them to the network" approach to not sharing my data.

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

#150

Post by stingrae »

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".

100% this. as a device maker, sidewalk is a potential game changer for low power connectivity and finally a path to lorawan finding wide spread adoption
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