25 ms·

Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors

cma 5y ago
> or any other Amazon device Does this mean wifi kindle? And you have to install the Alexa app to opt out and can't opt out through your browser or you kindle itself?
- cs702 5y ago
  Also, does it include Amazon fire TV sticks?
- Tempest1981 5y ago
  I found a list here. Ring + Echo it appears: https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032492292-Sidewalk-Information https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032492292-Side...
blumomo 5y ago
Welcome to their world where it's not you owning "your" devices, but the mega corps. Klaus Schwab, head of "World Economic Forum" and author of "The Great Reset" [0]: "You'll own nothing and you will be happy" [1] [0] https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/2940631123/ https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEQcyIGH_vQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEQcyIGH_vQ
- djs070 5y ago
  That video is dreadful. How can the producer equate owning nothing with "socialism, communism and totalitarianism" when this is the effect that we're seeing under capitalism?
  - wubbert 5y ago
    Socialist and Communist theories are all rooted in materialism and revolve around material conditions, right? So when the material conditions of capitalism are identical to those conditions promised by Socialism and Communism, then is it really right to still call it capitalism?
    - manicdee 5y ago
      Socialism is about the people owning the means of production, not the mega corporations owning the people. You have a bizarre filter on the world if you think Amazon sharing your Internet with your neighbours without your consent is anything like socialism.
      - wubbert 5y ago
        "Ownership" is an "ideal". I'm talking about material conditions. If the material conditions of a few mega corporations owning the means of production are identical to the material conditions that are said to result from the workers owning the means of production, then what is the difference?
        monkeydreams 5y ago
        In socialism, worker-based ownership leads to better conditions. In this vision of capitalism, workers have no control over their conditions.
        claudiawerner 5y ago
        This is a gross misunderstanding of 'material conditions' in Marx and other philosophers. 'Material conditions' does not mean simply what is - for instance, no socialist would say that the capitalist welfare state is 'socialist' because people have the 'material conditions' of receiving welfare. The 'material conditions', at least as far as socialist/communist/anarchist authors go, refers to the mode of production and the relationship of workers to the means of production. It is not 'measured' in terms of wealth, nor in terms of poverty levels. It is also a mistake to say that socialism 'revolves' around material conditions. Marx himself took swift action to point out that people being happy and well-fed is by no means a 'socialist' society. This is, after all, assuming you subscribe to the theory of historical materialism - which several prominent Marxists today (and in the recent past) do not, at least strictly.
- jpxw 5y ago
  Did Schwab say that? I thought that was some random writer that the WEF had run an op-ed. See also https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2T0 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - leesalminen 5y ago
    Would be curious to know if the book the parent posted authored by Klaus Schwab talks about that at all.
  - deadite 5y ago
    >Danish politician Ida Auken, who wrote the prediction in question (here), said it was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.” >In a written update, she clarified that the piece aimed to “start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.” The "starting a discussion" is bullshit rhetoric under the guise of innocence, and you should be wiser than to believe these people don't have an agenda. No one "starts a discussion" without an agenda.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      An 'agenda' is just a want for either change or preservation - we should be evaluating based on the societal consequences of those agendas, not that the agendas exist. 'Start a discussion' is just a way of saying that we should be talking about said thing.
      - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
        What would be the societal consequences? Ownership is an integral part of free societies and is immensely important for our economic system, which doesn't work any other way. People are not motivated to do their jobs properly without incentives, that's basic human nature and systems that tried going against this have failed every time in history. In a capitalist system, you can have more central authority and planning, but it will lead to inefficiencies and corruption by design. The only way you can sustain such a system then is by increased oppression and censorship of the ill effects. China is a perfect model for this. It works well, granted, at the price of freedom. This is basically what they're steering western countries too as well, only with the billionaires in charge instead of the CCP.
- judge2020 5y ago
  You own the physical device yet you don't get to choose what happens to it. That's only because, when you buy it, you implicitly accept that A) it can be remotely updated to do anything (or stop doing something) and B) you have to use it in the way it's intended. Past that, you can't choose how it works - you have to not buy it if you aren't happy with those terms.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    How it works constantly changes. When you bought it, it didn't share your internet. Now it does. I bought my mom a tv and a few months later she mentioned a new wifi network she didn't understand...turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it. I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that. So instead, if the functionality of the device changes after the fact, the company who updated the app should be liable for cost to replace the device with a new one that doesn't have the new behaviour.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      That's part of my A point. Regardless of how it technically functions, it has the ability to create and receive radio waves and thus might update itself without your knowledge or permission. As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws. > I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that. Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer. As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances? What if someone buys a $1000 laptop for the purpose of playing high-end games, but in 10 years game developers start dropping support for the old architecture it uses or new games simply don't run well on it. Should they be entitled to a refund? What if, on surface devices, Windows moves the start menu to the middle (a la Windows 10X), and you didn't expect that - does Microsoft now have to refund or replace your product? Regarding: > turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it. That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV without a separate wifi network, or part of the setup experience (eg. connect to its wifi, type in your real wifi password, it shuts down the network then connects to your main wifi). They don't just throw extra wifi chips on their boards for no reason, so it's probably one of these.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  Why is this rich guy with rich buddies telling us what to do?
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    Welcome to America where everyone is equal. You can buy all the free speech you can afford, and the rich guy can buy all the free speech he can afford, and we let the invisible hand sort it out.
- airhead969 5y ago
  You own a license to operate it with a license but without any real say as to what it does to you. Oh, and the hardware isn't repairable and only has a 90 day warranty. It broke? Here's a 15%-off coupon to buy another landfill stuffer.
coldcode 5y ago
Good thing I don't have any. I don't trust Amazon to not use this to enable even more dominance of retail. It's like trusting Google to not collect your data in order to sell you even more ads. It's like telling Facebook, well, anything, because it all goes to a huge pile of data they can sell.
- deadmutex 5y ago
  FB sells user data? Good thing I don't rely on HN comments for facts.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Yes, they sell data. To see how this works, start an ad campaign targeted at people who love X. People who click the ad will be directed to you. If they buy stuff from you, you have their info, and you can directly target them for more X, or sell the fact that these people like X to other companies.
    - deadmutex 5y ago
      That is a very twisted way to see it. I don't think that is the definition most people, including the courts, use. If you think the following statement on their site is false, please feel free to sue them: https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583 https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583
      - amelius 5y ago
        This data leak is sneakier than you think. You can target X, but sell Y! Users will not even be aware that X was involved.
  - irrational 5y ago
    I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or naivety.
    - 5y ago
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Is it clear this really shares all your internet? The initial plans were for a trickle - 100kbs or so. I mention this as I'm on 1Gbps, so this would be 0.0001 or so of my bandwidth as far as I can tell. In terms of privacy - my current traffic is monitored by my ISP (and data is sold). They say that this does even more but what - a lot of these systems actually encrypt and hide from ISP.
- pseudosavant 5y ago
  It specifically states that there is an 80kbps max between a Sidewalk bridge and Amazon's servers, and a 500MB/month data cap.
  - rolph 5y ago
    with 80k you can connect to a torrentswarm and seed out[slowly] what? topsite pr0n, perhaps something noone ever wants to be accused of seeding so use nieghbours bandwidth
  - unicornfinder 5y ago
    Indeed, which honestly makes this a bit of a non-story in my opinion. A bit of a misleading headline.
    - alfiedotwtf 5y ago
      Sharing more than zero bytes is still sharing.
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      Unless someone figured out how to create a Tor exit node through that system.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
      Hmm. It is not a big story and it is misleading, but it is not a non-story. If Amazon grants itself a right to my bandwidth without compensating me that is not insubstantial. Not all of us ride on fiber with unlimited everything. Giant corp skimming resources off of little guy. And we don't even know if that is all they are doing yet.
jnsie 5y ago
Surely Amazon has no right to do this without explicit consent?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Send them a bill for the bandwidth used, and they sue them for nonpayment.
  - varispeed 5y ago
    Then they'll ban you from using their services...
  - jrockway 5y ago
    Good try, but on the page where you ordered the hardware from, there is white-on-white text that says "By reading this paragraph, you agree to a bunch of terms and conditions that Amazon may change at any time and retroactively. You are not entitled to a copy of these terms and conditions." In those terms and conditions, it says even if Jeff Bezos breaks into your house and kills you in the middle of the night, you're entitled to a maximum of one (1) dollar of compensation. Good try though.
    - IgorPartola 5y ago
      Submit a comment to them on their support forum informing them that the bill is coming. Oh and the rate is at old cell phone bandwidth price levels :)
    - smitty1110 5y ago
      This is a contract of adhesion, and only holds weight in Virginia and Maryland. Of course, they will argue that since the Saracens is in us-east-1, so you might still be screwed.
trav4225 5y ago
This also seems like it would violate ToS for some ISPs.
- perihelions 5y ago
  But Amazon isn't party to that ToS, and the user hasn't taken any positive action because Amazon never asked for their consent. (?) How does this work?
  - trav4225 5y ago
    I suspect a lawyer will say "ignorance is not innocence". :)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
lsllc 5y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809
rolph 5y ago
playing devils advocate, and to put it mildly, there are some neighbours that are not exactly the kind of people i want to have in my network or on my WAN. I hope amazon has some way of making sure that the person being raided searched, and interrogated is the person actually guilty of the crime, and some way of clearing up spoofing or proxying.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  It isn’t giving them access to your connection it simply uses a small amount of bandwidth to connect to amazons servers.
  - Beached 5y ago
    that's giving them access to your network. there is no guarantee except through Amazons 'good word' that these device and connections cannot in any way ever be exploited to do something other than connect to awass. the intern may have coded it to only communicate with awass but the exploit that will undoubtedly drop soon will not care.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      That assumes its making the calls to Amazon servers itself and not delegating calls to the device it connects to which then sends the response back.
  - rolph 5y ago
    that sounds even worse
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      How is asking another device to make a call for you to Amazon’s servers in anyway worse than if they gave you a direct connection to someone else’s internet?
armchairhacker 5y ago
Doesn't Xfinity do the same thing with xfinitywifi?
- MrMember 5y ago
  If you use their modem/router and don't explicitly disable it, yes. One of the many reasons I use my own hardware.
- ncann 5y ago
  Mostly, though there are quite a few differences. xfinity doesn't charge the network owner, and you need to pay and have an account to use it. It also doesn't have a restriction on speed or bandwidth.
- tolbish 5y ago
  Cox too.
peteretep 5y ago
This headline is entirely clickbait
zizee 5y ago
This will work well in countries that have laws in the books where the ISP account holder is responsible for all activities performed using said account. Note: I think such laws are rediculous, but what liabilities is Amazon inviting to their users?
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  There's no law in the books like that in the US that I'm aware of, but law enforcement and courts will still go after whoever owns the account or systems that are involved in crimes.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    For a simple example of police incompetence in this regard in the US, see the family endlessly harassed by law enforcement entirely because their property happens to the be default result for "United States" in some databases: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/10/lawsuit-how-a-quiet-kansas-home-wound-up-with-600-million-ip-addresses-and-a-world-of-trouble/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/1...
- peteretep 5y ago
  Absolutely zero because it’s a tiny stream to Amazon’s servers and not sharing of internet
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Yeah, the argument against this is that they’re using your bandwidth without asking. Pretty much everything else doesn’t hold much water.
  - toyg 5y ago
    It's an obvious slippery slope. Once the network is established, they will likely start offering something like "Amazon Mesh" where Prime subscribers enjoy "additional free WiFi coverage all over the world", because it's just a no-brainer. They might cap speeds as a fraction of what the device enjoys (e.g. 20% max), as to not "disturb" the owner, but that's it. This has already been done by ISPs in several countries, Amazon is not breaking any ground here.
oth001 5y ago
Class action lawsuit
jmspring 5y ago
This seems mainly for Alexa devices? I'm assuming a Kindle will not become a hot spot.
natch 5y ago
I don’t have any Amazon network devices at the moment and would probably never turn on, in my home, an Amazon device that contained a microphone. However, I view this as a fantastic development and will probably buy at least one Amazon network device (IF I can find one without a microphone) because it enables some really useful functionality that I would love to see catch on. It’s easy to bash it. But I hope it achieves critical mass for supporting IoT in most populous areas. If anyone has a hope of pulling this off, it would be Amazon.
- hellotomyrars 5y ago
  Sure. On paper a mesh network that is open to several devices is really cool with a ton of potential. But as you yourself know because you specifically don’t want an Amazon device with a microphone that the positives are for many outweighed by the part where it’s owned and operated by Amazon. Worse, you’re right Amazon is in the limited group that can pull this off (largely because this is explicitly opt-out instead of opt-in) but it’s also this behavior that makes the whole thing gross and unpalatable. We shouldn’t be paying for corporate spy robots in our own homes. We shouldn’t be subsidizing an Amazon-specific mesh network to make Amazon’s products work better. Even if this gets extended to third parties those third parties are going to have to play ball with Amazon to use it. There is a version of this that could benefit everyone but as it is this really only benefits Amazon and that’s a net negative for everyone in my opinion.
  - natch 5y ago
    I would love to see a non-corporate version of it even more, of course. But unfortunately over the last 20 years that has never taken hold.
arbuge 5y ago
> To enable or disable Amazon Sidewalk, use the Alexa app. > Open the Alexa app . > Open More and select Settings. > Select Account Settings. > Select Amazon Sidewalk. > Turn Amazon Sidewalk On or Off for your account. I don't see Amazon Sidewalk listed under Account Settings. Anyone seeing it?
- SomeHacker44 5y ago
  Does not show up in my Amazon Alexa app on android, which is up to date per Google Play.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I do. Maybe you don’t have any devices that qualify?
  - arbuge 5y ago
    Perhaps. I just have an older Echo Dot. Is there any mention anywhere that I missed about what devices qualify for this? Edit: I also have a Ring doorbell - disabling Sidewalk for that was through the "Control Center" section of the Ring app.
    - ivan_ah 5y ago
      I'm guessing your device simply doesn't have a LoRa radio (I think they started added that only in newer devices).
- pedalpete 5y ago
  Yup, I've got it. Android based in Australia. It's possible the app hasn't been updated on all regions on all platforms.
  - webel0 5y ago
    Probable explanation: > The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk "is currently only available in the US."
rektide 5y ago
This sounds extremely cursed but I still expect the actual impact is ridiculously minimal. For most (>75%) of households it will be a under two dozen megabytes. For urban dwellers who see a lot more devices pass them by, I'd back-of-napkin estimate 99.9% will see under 100MB. It's a feel-bad situation, but this IS an example of the press riding what ought to be a non-issue. This really isn't much of a problem. Alas Amazon is also not doing themselves any favors. There doesn't seem to be any visibility afforded to those whose networks they are using. There's no charts, no bandwidth used, nothing. Amazon seems content to just take. I really think Amazon's ask here is very small, especially/at least for the first couple years, and I'm even ok with them just taking- net bandwidth will look like a firmware update or two- but there should at least be some respect, some visibility into what is happening, somewhere. Without being able to see anything, no one is fit to judge whether it's a problem or not. By just taking, by not making a view, Amazon is turning a non-issue into a real issue.
vzaliva 5y ago
From what I understand Amazon is trying to build a low-bandwidth network for roaming devices (similar to AirTags or Lime scooters). It is more about coverage than actual bandwidth sharing.
- ivan_ah 5y ago
  You're correct. The key thing to understand is when people talk about "internet" and "connectivity" in the context of LoRa, we're talking about very small packets (like a few bytes), transmitted using "chirp encoding" which is a clever hack to send small packets reliably over long distances). You're not going to be watching youtube on this, and probably not even checking email. Previous discussion about this: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011 https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011 via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809&p=2 The wireless tech behind this is called LoRa (Long Range) radio https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20201208/channels/news/lora-alliance-semtech-in-talks-with-amazon-to-switch-sidewalk-over-to-lorawan https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20201208/channels/news/lor... Most use cases I have head about base don LoRa radio are for tracking (clients send GPS coordinates once every 10 mins), transmitted packets are caught by one (or more?) gateway, which FWDs the packet to a server on the internet. I think ACKs can be sent back from the server, but not required. Further reading - Physical layer = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa - network layer LoRaWAN = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN - helium network is also based on LoRa, see https://www.helium.com/lorawan https://www.helium.com/lorawan and https://docs.helium.com/lorawan-on-helium/ https://docs.helium.com/lorawan-on-helium/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_spread_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_spread_spectrum
  - ashneo76 5y ago
    The key to understanding this is that amazon is making free money. It's like running a Bitcoin mining station without paying electricity costs. Amazon should be paying your electric bill too.
GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
Oh hard no. No one signed up for this
akiselev 5y ago
Coming soon to a smart-tv/oven/toaster/baby-monitor/speaker/etc near you: silent data exfiltration from your unconnected devices as long as you live a few hundred feet from an Amazon or Xfinity or w.e internet connected device. Oh, and the radio? It's integrated with the SoC now.
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  Thought the same thing, that would be the endgame imo, selling access to other providers so all the internet of shit devices would connect to the mesh network even if you dont give them access to your wifi.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  I can't wait until we see Faraday cages for toasters...
brundolf 5y ago
Time for houses with faraday cages built into the external walls?
- cmckn 5y ago
  Oh this is definitely already a thing among conspiracy theorists, I saw an episode[0] of Grand Designs New Zealand recently in which a couple paid thousands of dollars for paint and wire mesh to block electromagnetic radiation. I guess there's still room for improvement though, because in the end, you could still make a cellular call inside. [0] s02e02
  - h2odragon 5y ago
    Ya want windows? ya got signal. Imagine what's available to those who work in multi terahertz bands with joyous abandon.
    - cmckn 5y ago
      They actually purchased drapes for the bedroom that were (allegedly) to address this! But yeah, not a great way to spend 15k. The home was on a large, rural property, so at least they'll escape the Alexanet.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      I don't think a competent conspiracy theorist would run Windows.
      - h2odragon 5y ago
        OpenBSD for many of them, MSDOS for the more hardcore, and things like CP/M or older operating systems depending on obscure hardware for the true freaks. Alphas were good for that, but the financial industry (at least) wanted them too.
- catlifeonmars 5y ago
  Or just, you know, not operating participating Amazon devices. Call me crazy.
EarlKing 5y ago
Great. So when my device suddenly torrents 10 TB of warez from the tracker at bombasswarezpimps.org I can point to Amazon when the feds come knocking, because clearly it wasn't me. Thanks, Amazon!
- smabie 5y ago
  Certainly provides plausible deniability.
  - justahuman74 5y ago
    Some systems are automated. "This IP is creating spam, add to google/cloudflare/aws/whatever disallow-list"
sys_64738 5y ago
There's many reasons I would never allow an Amazon or a Google internet into my home. This is another added to that list.
smackeyacky 5y ago
I like that this makes it easy to completely avoid Amazon devices and to not recommend them to your non-technical friends. I don't care if the data amount is piddlingly small, the simple fact is you let somebody outside your trusted network of friends and family onto your personal broadband, you lose control of what criminal activities get undertaken. There is no way I am exposing myself to that kind of liability and Amazon won't be selling me or my family anything.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  A phone app that did this would be malware. When Alexa does it, this is a feature?
  - efitz 5y ago
    You mean, like AirTag/Find My? I think that Amazon's marketing for this is horrible, reminds me of XBox' failed marketing around their online-only plan for XBox One game purchases [1]. But really all they've done is built AirTags as a platform rather than an application, e.g. Tile is supported by Amazon's new platform. I don't want to give random people with random apps any amount of arbitrary bandwidth; I'd rather that users of the Sidewalk platform would have to register app specific message types publicly (to ensure transparency) and with Amazon (who should enforce message type and payload restrictions). [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/xbox-one-eighty-microsoft-fails-to-sell-the-future-retreats-to-the-past/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/xbox-one-eighty-micro...
    - clajiness 5y ago
      > You mean, like AirTag/Find My? Can you explain your comparison?
      - efitz 5y ago
        Any AirTag owned by anybody can and will communicate with your iPhone over Bluetooth if you have the right features enabled (which are default). Your phone will contact Apple and tell them about the interaction. I haven’t seen protocol details, but last week a security researcher demonstrated that it is possible to use the AirTags protocol as a covert channel (with very low bandwidth).
sunsipples 5y ago
this feels like it should be opt-in and not opt-out we have communal low bandwidth wifi in my area following openwireless.org ideals. That requires trust from both parties. This is trust I couldn't have in Amazon/FB/Google to not fuck me over with a "free" service they provide
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  It is opt-in. You have to buy an Amazon device first.
  - Beached 5y ago
    love this comment. this is so true, not just with Amazon, but with all the major tech garbage out there. I wish there were other options, I'd pay significantly more for a phone that isn't a tap that walks with me everywhere I go.
    - sunsipples 5y ago
      so true, I ended up going a "dumb phone" for my day to day and have just started to tell people I only check email from work. I think it confused more than pissed anyone off. I tried to have back my work phone but still need to take calls when not physically in the office on a work day. While I love the idea of the librem5, I don't love it $1200 more than my dumb phone.
crmd 5y ago
I’m surprised American ISPs aren’t bringing the hammer down on this, as I believe they claim they have the right to prevent users from sharing their internet connection.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  That suggests some kind of sweetheart deal where ISPs stand to benefit in some way.
  - granzymes 5y ago
    Why would ISPs be against customers using their bandwidth? It would be pretty hypocritical for them to complain, since Xfinity and others already do this exact same thing.
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      The more bandwidth gets actually used, the lower the oversubscription ratio can be before customers start complaining.
      - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
        Ah, but if the sheep don't know a chunk of their bandwidth is consumed by someone else it can be used as a dark business pattern to help upsell a higher tier of service.
- 0xC0ncord 5y ago
  I don't think they have any reason to. If a customer wants to share their connection, they're still paying for the bandwidth. If they share it with enough people that they exceed any data caps, that's more money they will need to be paying. Sounds like a win for the ISP to me.
  - tpxl 5y ago
    One 100 megabit connection is cheaper than 10x 10 megabit connections. The less sharing happens the more profit they have.
jrochkind1 5y ago
Comcast XFinity routers have been doing this for years too. https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/16/technology/security/comcast-wifi-hotspot/ https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/16/technology/security/comcast... I wonder how many other companies may be already doing it?
- gnicholas 5y ago
  What Comcast is doing is different because they're the ISP and they're managing the sharing. So the bandwidth that is used by outsiders is not counted against your data cap. Also, the sharing doesn't count against your maximum allowed upload/download speeds. It's possible that Comcast's sharing could contribute to congestion, but this is different from having devices that your ISP doesn't know don't belong to you taking up some of your bandwidth and monthly caps.
  - jrochkind1 5y ago
    oh good point
vaseem 5y ago
I wonder how they plan to handle piracy and DMCA implications
- Spivak 5y ago
  They don’t because all you can do with it is talk to AWS.
  - tokamak-teapot 5y ago
    For a while. Until someone figures out how to escape that restriction.
Black101 5y ago
That is one reason why I don't rent routers from Comcast (because they do share your internet, too)... I buy my own instead and I save $10 a month as a bonus. Soon, every connected device in your home will share your internet? I guess plausible deniability will get easier.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  Last I heard, it was $15/mo. Even more reasons not to rent routers from Comcast! The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment.
  - Black101 5y ago
    > The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment. I would rather buy a second brand new one then pay Comcast an extra $15 per month... and that second router will pay for itself in just a few months. But most of the time, I don't have to do that.
    - gnicholas 5y ago
      In my experience, there's never been a problem with my equipment. So I've never had to buy a new modem as a result. The annoyance is that this is their go-to excuse, and it's a waste of time to deal with this excuse every time I call in.
      - Black101 5y ago
        It stinks, but they have a monopoly if you want high speed internet, so they can do whatever they want... because the government gave them a monopoly. I wish the Government would create free ultra high speed Internet for all citizens while the Government is printing all this money.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
Not mine because I don’t own Amazon devices… but maybe I can benefit from access to my neighbors’? Would that be possible?
- Beached 5y ago
  I give it less than a year until someone develops an exploit that lets you piggy back off this sidewalk for free internet access so longnas the sidewalk device hasn't been patched. and we know often people update their iot... just sit tight and wait, it will come soon.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    Why does everyone think this Amazon essentially handing out your Wi-Fi password? It’s Amazon’s FindMy network but slightly more general purpose where the pings can carry a data payload and are directed to a lambda.
  - ThatPlayer 5y ago
    Even if you did manage that somehow, this is still running LoRa for the wireless. IIRC bandwidth is in the single kilobits/s range.
whiddershins 5y ago
There was a previous discussion. Title is a bit misleading. This is a very low bandwidth mesh. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809
- toyg 5y ago
  Anything above 0kb is too much for my taste. I was contemplating switching from Google Home to Alexa but it looks like I'd be jumping from the pan into the fire. I guess I'll have to brush up on Home Assistant hackery, sigh... Why can't we have nice things? Why are corporations so endlessly greedy...?
- tchalla 5y ago
  I am more sure if I’m the only one here but why should anything be enabled automatically? The crux of the issue here is “Informed Consent”.
- ashneo76 5y ago
  Nothing gives Amazon permission to run a service free of cost on your premises and then make money off that. You(not you the poster, but generic you) are providing free money to amazon and Bezos' pet projects by defending Amazon and buying Alexa.
dclowd9901 5y ago
Super surprised Eero devices aren’t part of this lineup. Seems like a natural fit for illegally sharing your internet would be a mesh WiFi network device.
- dbt00 5y ago
  Given the amount of control the Eero team has apparently retained over their product since the acquisition, I'm not surprised at all. I'm heavily invested in Eero and would throw them out if they did this without an opt-in (not opt-out).
heavyset_go 5y ago
This is just insane, especially when there are millions of devices that will connect to this that will never receive security updates, ever.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Eh, it’s not really that insane. All you get with this service is essentially a VPN tunnel to Amazon. There’s no risk to your network unless you believe your device is compromised. So technically it’s worse just because it’s more surface area for an attacker but that’s pretty minor by far usual standards.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > There’s no risk to your network unless you believe your device is compromised Amazon is perfectly capable of shipping exploitable devices, as well as devices that stop receiving security updates.
anonymousiam 5y ago
How would I go about disabling this feature? The ARS article and the Amazon web page say: Opening the Alexa app Opening More and selecting Settings Selecting Account Settings Selecting Amazon Sidewalk Turning Amazon Sidewalk Off What if I have never installed or activated the Alexa app? I do have some Amazon devices such as Ring and Kindle, and I don't want them exposing the networks to which they're connected.
gnicholas 5y ago
> "Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers" Seems like it's operated by customers at no cost to Amazon.
- ashneo76 5y ago
  Precisely.
slaymaker1907 5y ago
IANAL, but this seems legally dubious.
perryizgr8 5y ago
Isn't this very similar to how Apple uses your phone and laptop to locate airtags, even if you don't own any airtag. Same deal. They are using my battery life, my CPU time, my internet connection to provide services to their customers. Not surprised to see Amazon follow suit after Apple normalized the practice, kind of like removing the headphone jack and charger.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  1. You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place. If air tags need to download 100 GiB of data to function then maybe you should ask Apple to improve that. 2. Headphone jacks were never removed. They just replaced the legacy outdated 3.5mm jack with a USB C port instead. Both can handle the exact same analog audio, but one of them can handle much more.
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    > You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place. No, why do you think so? I have bought my hardware from them to fulfil some purpose of mine. That doesn't give them the right to abuse my hardware for their profit. > Headphone jacks were never removed. Yes, they were removed.
beermonster 5y ago
The UK luck out (at least for now) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55059696 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55059696
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  BT, one of the largest broadband suppliers in the UK has had a feature similar to this for many years. By default, a home BT router makes a second Wi-fi network available as a hotspot which any BT customer can log in to. Means that there are maybe 5 million hotspots available to you as a BT customer. https://www.btwifi.co.uk/ https://www.btwifi.co.uk/
xg15 5y ago
Say hello to the next phase in IoT/"smart" anything madness: Devices that are hardwired to the Sidewalk network and are practically impossible to take offline...
oakpond 5y ago
This is just what happens with a market where you can purchase records of people's personal business. Like any other market, it will seek opportunities to grow.
airhead969 5y ago
Skype, Kazaa, Freenet, Alexa.
rcarmo 5y ago
I had already disabled this when I noticed the menu option. Am actually curious as to how legal it is to even have that option available in the EU.
hyko 5y ago
Who is buying Amazon hardware at this point?
jon-wood 5y ago
A lot of people here seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what Sidewalk is, which is understandable with that headline. The key thing to understand is that devices providing access via Sidewalk aren’t broadcasting a wifi SSID. They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network. On top LoRA Sidewalk implements what is essentially a tunnel to specific configured endpoints hosted by AWS. Traffic is routed without you having any control over that, so all a Sidewalk device can do is send packets to an endpoint associated with that device family.
- ashneo76 5y ago
  That doesn't matter. I don't get paid for providing a service to amazon for free. So they can get another billions in tax credits to fund Jeff Bezos' pet projects.
- phone8675309 5y ago
  > They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network. Can we as a society for once stop making the airwaves proprietary?
  - URSpider94 5y ago
    LoRA isn’t a “proprietary” standard. It’s open to everyone to use. It operates at 900 mMHz, though, so the point is that your average WiFi or Bluetooth device can’t transmit or receive it. That 900 MHz spectrum is unlicensed, so buy a dev kit from Adafruit and go make some RF noise!
    - phone8675309 5y ago
      The first sentence on the LoRA article on Wikipedia is: > LoRa (Long Range) is a proprietary low-power wide-area network modulation technique. It is based on spread spectrum modulation techniques derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. It was developed by Cycleo of Grenoble, France and acquired by Semtech, the founding member of the LoRa Alliance and it is patented. It's proprietary, patented, and not open. It shouldn't be on the airwaves.
fredgrott 5y ago
security wise you never ever want this as any neighbor doing a crime using internet puts the felony squarely on you as far as courts, cops, etc.
KoftaBob 5y ago
"How to Opt Out Of and Turn Off Amazon Sidewalk": https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-opt-out-of-amazon-sidewalk-5090421 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-opt-out-of-amazon-sidewalk-5...
mkay581 5y ago
I know they say Ring devices are included in this. But can anyone confirm whether this applies to extremely old Ring devices? Mine can barely stay connected to my wifi, so wondering how it can reliably stay connected or send anything to Amazon's servers.
ashneo76 5y ago
Amazon should be payi g for the free service it is taking from users. Just like google did with Google captcha. I can't understand why people seem to be missing this. Make it optin and give people credit for providing this service to amazon. Seriously,the lack of these two make this whole thing so shady and duplicitous Amazon makes billions upon billions. They could have easily paid the cost to roll this out. Streaming is not owning. Buying a cheap device as a service is not owning. This is why the companies are fighting right to repair. And they don't care about long lived open standards. This is privacy and ownership infriginjng.
husamia 5y ago
there are blockchains that build on wifi.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Not my devices. I barely use Siri on my iphone. Definitely turn all that stuff off on Android phones.
rainhacker 5y ago
Sidewalk is showing as disabled for me. I wonder if they changed the default to disabled after this article came out.
HardwareLust 5y ago
Except I don't have any Amazon devices, and I won't ever be buying any. No way I'm exposing myself to that kind of liability by "sharing" my internet with complete strangers. They can't keep counterfeit items and scams out of their store, what makes you think they can manage who your internet is shared with?

cma 5y ago

> or any other Amazon device Does this mean wifi kindle? And you have to install the Alexa app to opt out and can't opt out through your browser or you kindle itself?

cs702 5y ago
Also, does it include Amazon fire TV sticks?
Tempest1981 5y ago
I found a list here. Ring + Echo it appears: https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032492292-Sidewalk-Information https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032492292-Side...

blumomo 5y ago

Welcome to their world where it's not you owning "your" devices, but the mega corps. Klaus Schwab, head of "World Economic Forum" and author of "The Great Reset" [0]: "You'll own nothing and you will be happy" [1] [0] https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/2940631123/ https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEQcyIGH_vQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEQcyIGH_vQ

djs070 5y ago
That video is dreadful. How can the producer equate owning nothing with "socialism, communism and totalitarianism" when this is the effect that we're seeing under capitalism?
- wubbert 5y ago
  Socialist and Communist theories are all rooted in materialism and revolve around material conditions, right? So when the material conditions of capitalism are identical to those conditions promised by Socialism and Communism, then is it really right to still call it capitalism?
  - manicdee 5y ago
    Socialism is about the people owning the means of production, not the mega corporations owning the people. You have a bizarre filter on the world if you think Amazon sharing your Internet with your neighbours without your consent is anything like socialism.
    - wubbert 5y ago
      "Ownership" is an "ideal". I'm talking about material conditions. If the material conditions of a few mega corporations owning the means of production are identical to the material conditions that are said to result from the workers owning the means of production, then what is the difference?
      - monkeydreams 5y ago
        In socialism, worker-based ownership leads to better conditions. In this vision of capitalism, workers have no control over their conditions.
      - claudiawerner 5y ago
        This is a gross misunderstanding of 'material conditions' in Marx and other philosophers. 'Material conditions' does not mean simply what is - for instance, no socialist would say that the capitalist welfare state is 'socialist' because people have the 'material conditions' of receiving welfare. The 'material conditions', at least as far as socialist/communist/anarchist authors go, refers to the mode of production and the relationship of workers to the means of production. It is not 'measured' in terms of wealth, nor in terms of poverty levels. It is also a mistake to say that socialism 'revolves' around material conditions. Marx himself took swift action to point out that people being happy and well-fed is by no means a 'socialist' society. This is, after all, assuming you subscribe to the theory of historical materialism - which several prominent Marxists today (and in the recent past) do not, at least strictly.
jpxw 5y ago
Did Schwab say that? I thought that was some random writer that the WEF had run an op-ed. See also https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2T0 https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- leesalminen 5y ago
  Would be curious to know if the book the parent posted authored by Klaus Schwab talks about that at all.
- deadite 5y ago
  >Danish politician Ida Auken, who wrote the prediction in question (here), said it was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.” >In a written update, she clarified that the piece aimed to “start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.” The "starting a discussion" is bullshit rhetoric under the guise of innocence, and you should be wiser than to believe these people don't have an agenda. No one "starts a discussion" without an agenda.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    An 'agenda' is just a want for either change or preservation - we should be evaluating based on the societal consequences of those agendas, not that the agendas exist. 'Start a discussion' is just a way of saying that we should be talking about said thing.
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      What would be the societal consequences? Ownership is an integral part of free societies and is immensely important for our economic system, which doesn't work any other way. People are not motivated to do their jobs properly without incentives, that's basic human nature and systems that tried going against this have failed every time in history. In a capitalist system, you can have more central authority and planning, but it will lead to inefficiencies and corruption by design. The only way you can sustain such a system then is by increased oppression and censorship of the ill effects. China is a perfect model for this. It works well, granted, at the price of freedom. This is basically what they're steering western countries too as well, only with the billionaires in charge instead of the CCP.
judge2020 5y ago
You own the physical device yet you don't get to choose what happens to it. That's only because, when you buy it, you implicitly accept that A) it can be remotely updated to do anything (or stop doing something) and B) you have to use it in the way it's intended. Past that, you can't choose how it works - you have to not buy it if you aren't happy with those terms.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  How it works constantly changes. When you bought it, it didn't share your internet. Now it does. I bought my mom a tv and a few months later she mentioned a new wifi network she didn't understand...turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it. I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that. So instead, if the functionality of the device changes after the fact, the company who updated the app should be liable for cost to replace the device with a new one that doesn't have the new behaviour.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    That's part of my A point. Regardless of how it technically functions, it has the ability to create and receive radio waves and thus might update itself without your knowledge or permission. As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws. > I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that. Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer. As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances? What if someone buys a $1000 laptop for the purpose of playing high-end games, but in 10 years game developers start dropping support for the old architecture it uses or new games simply don't run well on it. Should they be entitled to a refund? What if, on surface devices, Windows moves the start menu to the middle (a la Windows 10X), and you didn't expect that - does Microsoft now have to refund or replace your product? Regarding: > turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it. That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV without a separate wifi network, or part of the setup experience (eg. connect to its wifi, type in your real wifi password, it shuts down the network then connects to your main wifi). They don't just throw extra wifi chips on their boards for no reason, so it's probably one of these.
bobthechef 5y ago
Why is this rich guy with rich buddies telling us what to do?
- phone8675309 5y ago
  Welcome to America where everyone is equal. You can buy all the free speech you can afford, and the rich guy can buy all the free speech he can afford, and we let the invisible hand sort it out.
airhead969 5y ago
You own a license to operate it with a license but without any real say as to what it does to you. Oh, and the hardware isn't repairable and only has a 90 day warranty. It broke? Here's a 15%-off coupon to buy another landfill stuffer.

coldcode 5y ago

Good thing I don't have any. I don't trust Amazon to not use this to enable even more dominance of retail. It's like trusting Google to not collect your data in order to sell you even more ads. It's like telling Facebook, well, anything, because it all goes to a huge pile of data they can sell.

deadmutex 5y ago
FB sells user data? Good thing I don't rely on HN comments for facts.
- amelius 5y ago
  Yes, they sell data. To see how this works, start an ad campaign targeted at people who love X. People who click the ad will be directed to you. If they buy stuff from you, you have their info, and you can directly target them for more X, or sell the fact that these people like X to other companies.
  - deadmutex 5y ago
    That is a very twisted way to see it. I don't think that is the definition most people, including the courts, use. If you think the following statement on their site is false, please feel free to sue them: https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583 https://www.facebook.com/help/152637448140583
    - amelius 5y ago
      This data leak is sneakier than you think. You can target X, but sell Y! Users will not even be aware that X was involved.
- irrational 5y ago
  I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or naivety.
  - 5y ago

whoknowswhat11 5y ago

Is it clear this really shares all your internet? The initial plans were for a trickle - 100kbs or so. I mention this as I'm on 1Gbps, so this would be 0.0001 or so of my bandwidth as far as I can tell. In terms of privacy - my current traffic is monitored by my ISP (and data is sold). They say that this does even more but what - a lot of these systems actually encrypt and hide from ISP.

pseudosavant 5y ago
It specifically states that there is an 80kbps max between a Sidewalk bridge and Amazon's servers, and a 500MB/month data cap.
- rolph 5y ago
  with 80k you can connect to a torrentswarm and seed out[slowly] what? topsite pr0n, perhaps something noone ever wants to be accused of seeding so use nieghbours bandwidth
- unicornfinder 5y ago
  Indeed, which honestly makes this a bit of a non-story in my opinion. A bit of a misleading headline.
  - alfiedotwtf 5y ago
    Sharing more than zero bytes is still sharing.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    Unless someone figured out how to create a Tor exit node through that system.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    Hmm. It is not a big story and it is misleading, but it is not a non-story. If Amazon grants itself a right to my bandwidth without compensating me that is not insubstantial. Not all of us ride on fiber with unlimited everything. Giant corp skimming resources off of little guy. And we don't even know if that is all they are doing yet.

jnsie 5y ago

Surely Amazon has no right to do this without explicit consent?

throwawayboise 5y ago
Send them a bill for the bandwidth used, and they sue them for nonpayment.
- varispeed 5y ago
  Then they'll ban you from using their services...
- jrockway 5y ago
  Good try, but on the page where you ordered the hardware from, there is white-on-white text that says "By reading this paragraph, you agree to a bunch of terms and conditions that Amazon may change at any time and retroactively. You are not entitled to a copy of these terms and conditions." In those terms and conditions, it says even if Jeff Bezos breaks into your house and kills you in the middle of the night, you're entitled to a maximum of one (1) dollar of compensation. Good try though.
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    Submit a comment to them on their support forum informing them that the bill is coming. Oh and the rate is at old cell phone bandwidth price levels :)
  - smitty1110 5y ago
    This is a contract of adhesion, and only holds weight in Virginia and Maryland. Of course, they will argue that since the Saracens is in us-east-1, so you might still be screwed.

trav4225 5y ago

This also seems like it would violate ToS for some ISPs.

perihelions 5y ago
But Amazon isn't party to that ToS, and the user hasn't taken any positive action because Amazon never asked for their consent. (?) How does this work?
- trav4225 5y ago
  I suspect a lawyer will say "ignorance is not innocence". :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

lsllc 5y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809

rolph 5y ago

playing devils advocate, and to put it mildly, there are some neighbours that are not exactly the kind of people i want to have in my network or on my WAN. I hope amazon has some way of making sure that the person being raided searched, and interrogated is the person actually guilty of the crime, and some way of clearing up spoofing or proxying.

edgyquant 5y ago
It isn’t giving them access to your connection it simply uses a small amount of bandwidth to connect to amazons servers.
- Beached 5y ago
  that's giving them access to your network. there is no guarantee except through Amazons 'good word' that these device and connections cannot in any way ever be exploited to do something other than connect to awass. the intern may have coded it to only communicate with awass but the exploit that will undoubtedly drop soon will not care.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    That assumes its making the calls to Amazon servers itself and not delegating calls to the device it connects to which then sends the response back.
- rolph 5y ago
  that sounds even worse
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    How is asking another device to make a call for you to Amazon’s servers in anyway worse than if they gave you a direct connection to someone else’s internet?

armchairhacker 5y ago

Doesn't Xfinity do the same thing with xfinitywifi?

MrMember 5y ago
If you use their modem/router and don't explicitly disable it, yes. One of the many reasons I use my own hardware.
ncann 5y ago
Mostly, though there are quite a few differences. xfinity doesn't charge the network owner, and you need to pay and have an account to use it. It also doesn't have a restriction on speed or bandwidth.
tolbish 5y ago
Cox too.

peteretep 5y ago

This headline is entirely clickbait

zizee 5y ago

This will work well in countries that have laws in the books where the ISP account holder is responsible for all activities performed using said account. Note: I think such laws are rediculous, but what liabilities is Amazon inviting to their users?

heavyset_go 5y ago
There's no law in the books like that in the US that I'm aware of, but law enforcement and courts will still go after whoever owns the account or systems that are involved in crimes.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  For a simple example of police incompetence in this regard in the US, see the family endlessly harassed by law enforcement entirely because their property happens to the be default result for "United States" in some databases: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/10/lawsuit-how-a-quiet-kansas-home-wound-up-with-600-million-ip-addresses-and-a-world-of-trouble/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/1...
peteretep 5y ago
Absolutely zero because it’s a tiny stream to Amazon’s servers and not sharing of internet
- Spivak 5y ago
  Yeah, the argument against this is that they’re using your bandwidth without asking. Pretty much everything else doesn’t hold much water.
- toyg 5y ago
  It's an obvious slippery slope. Once the network is established, they will likely start offering something like "Amazon Mesh" where Prime subscribers enjoy "additional free WiFi coverage all over the world", because it's just a no-brainer. They might cap speeds as a fraction of what the device enjoys (e.g. 20% max), as to not "disturb" the owner, but that's it. This has already been done by ISPs in several countries, Amazon is not breaking any ground here.

oth001 5y ago

Class action lawsuit

jmspring 5y ago

This seems mainly for Alexa devices? I'm assuming a Kindle will not become a hot spot.

natch 5y ago

I don’t have any Amazon network devices at the moment and would probably never turn on, in my home, an Amazon device that contained a microphone. However, I view this as a fantastic development and will probably buy at least one Amazon network device (IF I can find one without a microphone) because it enables some really useful functionality that I would love to see catch on. It’s easy to bash it. But I hope it achieves critical mass for supporting IoT in most populous areas. If anyone has a hope of pulling this off, it would be Amazon.

hellotomyrars 5y ago
Sure. On paper a mesh network that is open to several devices is really cool with a ton of potential. But as you yourself know because you specifically don’t want an Amazon device with a microphone that the positives are for many outweighed by the part where it’s owned and operated by Amazon. Worse, you’re right Amazon is in the limited group that can pull this off (largely because this is explicitly opt-out instead of opt-in) but it’s also this behavior that makes the whole thing gross and unpalatable. We shouldn’t be paying for corporate spy robots in our own homes. We shouldn’t be subsidizing an Amazon-specific mesh network to make Amazon’s products work better. Even if this gets extended to third parties those third parties are going to have to play ball with Amazon to use it. There is a version of this that could benefit everyone but as it is this really only benefits Amazon and that’s a net negative for everyone in my opinion.
- natch 5y ago
  I would love to see a non-corporate version of it even more, of course. But unfortunately over the last 20 years that has never taken hold.

arbuge 5y ago

> To enable or disable Amazon Sidewalk, use the Alexa app. > Open the Alexa app . > Open More and select Settings. > Select Account Settings. > Select Amazon Sidewalk. > Turn Amazon Sidewalk On or Off for your account. I don't see Amazon Sidewalk listed under Account Settings. Anyone seeing it?

SomeHacker44 5y ago
Does not show up in my Amazon Alexa app on android, which is up to date per Google Play.
azinman2 5y ago
I do. Maybe you don’t have any devices that qualify?
- arbuge 5y ago
  Perhaps. I just have an older Echo Dot. Is there any mention anywhere that I missed about what devices qualify for this? Edit: I also have a Ring doorbell - disabling Sidewalk for that was through the "Control Center" section of the Ring app.
  - ivan_ah 5y ago
    I'm guessing your device simply doesn't have a LoRa radio (I think they started added that only in newer devices).
pedalpete 5y ago
Yup, I've got it. Android based in Australia. It's possible the app hasn't been updated on all regions on all platforms.
- webel0 5y ago
  Probable explanation: > The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk "is currently only available in the US."

rektide 5y ago

This sounds extremely cursed but I still expect the actual impact is ridiculously minimal. For most (>75%) of households it will be a under two dozen megabytes. For urban dwellers who see a lot more devices pass them by, I'd back-of-napkin estimate 99.9% will see under 100MB. It's a feel-bad situation, but this IS an example of the press riding what ought to be a non-issue. This really isn't much of a problem. Alas Amazon is also not doing themselves any favors. There doesn't seem to be any visibility afforded to those whose networks they are using. There's no charts, no bandwidth used, nothing. Amazon seems content to just take. I really think Amazon's ask here is very small, especially/at least for the first couple years, and I'm even ok with them just taking- net bandwidth will look like a firmware update or two- but there should at least be some respect, some visibility into what is happening, somewhere. Without being able to see anything, no one is fit to judge whether it's a problem or not. By just taking, by not making a view, Amazon is turning a non-issue into a real issue.

vzaliva 5y ago

From what I understand Amazon is trying to build a low-bandwidth network for roaming devices (similar to AirTags or Lime scooters). It is more about coverage than actual bandwidth sharing.

ivan_ah 5y ago
You're correct. The key thing to understand is when people talk about "internet" and "connectivity" in the context of LoRa, we're talking about very small packets (like a few bytes), transmitted using "chirp encoding" which is a clever hack to send small packets reliably over long distances). You're not going to be watching youtube on this, and probably not even checking email. Previous discussion about this: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011 https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/b?node=21328123011 via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809&p=2 The wireless tech behind this is called LoRa (Long Range) radio https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20201208/channels/news/lora-alliance-semtech-in-talks-with-amazon-to-switch-sidewalk-over-to-lorawan https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20201208/channels/news/lor... Most use cases I have head about base don LoRa radio are for tracking (clients send GPS coordinates once every 10 mins), transmitted packets are caught by one (or more?) gateway, which FWDs the packet to a server on the internet. I think ACKs can be sent back from the server, but not required. Further reading - Physical layer = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa - network layer LoRaWAN = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa#LoRaWAN - helium network is also based on LoRa, see https://www.helium.com/lorawan https://www.helium.com/lorawan and https://docs.helium.com/lorawan-on-helium/ https://docs.helium.com/lorawan-on-helium/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_spread_spectrum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirp_spread_spectrum
- ashneo76 5y ago
  The key to understanding this is that amazon is making free money. It's like running a Bitcoin mining station without paying electricity costs. Amazon should be paying your electric bill too.

GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago

Oh hard no. No one signed up for this

akiselev 5y ago

Coming soon to a smart-tv/oven/toaster/baby-monitor/speaker/etc near you: silent data exfiltration from your unconnected devices as long as you live a few hundred feet from an Amazon or Xfinity or w.e internet connected device. Oh, and the radio? It's integrated with the SoC now.

drexlspivey 5y ago
Thought the same thing, that would be the endgame imo, selling access to other providers so all the internet of shit devices would connect to the mesh network even if you dont give them access to your wifi.
Qub3d 5y ago
I can't wait until we see Faraday cages for toasters...

brundolf 5y ago

Time for houses with faraday cages built into the external walls?

cmckn 5y ago
Oh this is definitely already a thing among conspiracy theorists, I saw an episode[0] of Grand Designs New Zealand recently in which a couple paid thousands of dollars for paint and wire mesh to block electromagnetic radiation. I guess there's still room for improvement though, because in the end, you could still make a cellular call inside. [0] s02e02
- h2odragon 5y ago
  Ya want windows? ya got signal. Imagine what's available to those who work in multi terahertz bands with joyous abandon.
  - cmckn 5y ago
    They actually purchased drapes for the bedroom that were (allegedly) to address this! But yeah, not a great way to spend 15k. The home was on a large, rural property, so at least they'll escape the Alexanet.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    I don't think a competent conspiracy theorist would run Windows.
    - h2odragon 5y ago
      OpenBSD for many of them, MSDOS for the more hardcore, and things like CP/M or older operating systems depending on obscure hardware for the true freaks. Alphas were good for that, but the financial industry (at least) wanted them too.
catlifeonmars 5y ago
Or just, you know, not operating participating Amazon devices. Call me crazy.

EarlKing 5y ago

Great. So when my device suddenly torrents 10 TB of warez from the tracker at bombasswarezpimps.org I can point to Amazon when the feds come knocking, because clearly it wasn't me. Thanks, Amazon!

smabie 5y ago
Certainly provides plausible deniability.
- justahuman74 5y ago
  Some systems are automated. "This IP is creating spam, add to google/cloudflare/aws/whatever disallow-list"

sys_64738 5y ago

There's many reasons I would never allow an Amazon or a Google internet into my home. This is another added to that list.

smackeyacky 5y ago

I like that this makes it easy to completely avoid Amazon devices and to not recommend them to your non-technical friends. I don't care if the data amount is piddlingly small, the simple fact is you let somebody outside your trusted network of friends and family onto your personal broadband, you lose control of what criminal activities get undertaken. There is no way I am exposing myself to that kind of liability and Amazon won't be selling me or my family anything.

unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
A phone app that did this would be malware. When Alexa does it, this is a feature?
- efitz 5y ago
  You mean, like AirTag/Find My? I think that Amazon's marketing for this is horrible, reminds me of XBox' failed marketing around their online-only plan for XBox One game purchases [1]. But really all they've done is built AirTags as a platform rather than an application, e.g. Tile is supported by Amazon's new platform. I don't want to give random people with random apps any amount of arbitrary bandwidth; I'd rather that users of the Sidewalk platform would have to register app specific message types publicly (to ensure transparency) and with Amazon (who should enforce message type and payload restrictions). [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/xbox-one-eighty-microsoft-fails-to-sell-the-future-retreats-to-the-past/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/xbox-one-eighty-micro...
  - clajiness 5y ago
    > You mean, like AirTag/Find My? Can you explain your comparison?
    - efitz 5y ago
      Any AirTag owned by anybody can and will communicate with your iPhone over Bluetooth if you have the right features enabled (which are default). Your phone will contact Apple and tell them about the interaction. I haven’t seen protocol details, but last week a security researcher demonstrated that it is possible to use the AirTags protocol as a covert channel (with very low bandwidth).

sunsipples 5y ago

this feels like it should be opt-in and not opt-out we have communal low bandwidth wifi in my area following openwireless.org ideals. That requires trust from both parties. This is trust I couldn't have in Amazon/FB/Google to not fuck me over with a "free" service they provide

SkyMarshal 5y ago
It is opt-in. You have to buy an Amazon device first.
- Beached 5y ago
  love this comment. this is so true, not just with Amazon, but with all the major tech garbage out there. I wish there were other options, I'd pay significantly more for a phone that isn't a tap that walks with me everywhere I go.
  - sunsipples 5y ago
    so true, I ended up going a "dumb phone" for my day to day and have just started to tell people I only check email from work. I think it confused more than pissed anyone off. I tried to have back my work phone but still need to take calls when not physically in the office on a work day. While I love the idea of the librem5, I don't love it $1200 more than my dumb phone.

crmd 5y ago

I’m surprised American ISPs aren’t bringing the hammer down on this, as I believe they claim they have the right to prevent users from sharing their internet connection.

bobthechef 5y ago
That suggests some kind of sweetheart deal where ISPs stand to benefit in some way.
- granzymes 5y ago
  Why would ISPs be against customers using their bandwidth? It would be pretty hypocritical for them to complain, since Xfinity and others already do this exact same thing.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    The more bandwidth gets actually used, the lower the oversubscription ratio can be before customers start complaining.
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      Ah, but if the sheep don't know a chunk of their bandwidth is consumed by someone else it can be used as a dark business pattern to help upsell a higher tier of service.
0xC0ncord 5y ago
I don't think they have any reason to. If a customer wants to share their connection, they're still paying for the bandwidth. If they share it with enough people that they exceed any data caps, that's more money they will need to be paying. Sounds like a win for the ISP to me.
- tpxl 5y ago
  One 100 megabit connection is cheaper than 10x 10 megabit connections. The less sharing happens the more profit they have.

jrochkind1 5y ago

Comcast XFinity routers have been doing this for years too. https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/16/technology/security/comcast-wifi-hotspot/ https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/16/technology/security/comcast... I wonder how many other companies may be already doing it?

gnicholas 5y ago
What Comcast is doing is different because they're the ISP and they're managing the sharing. So the bandwidth that is used by outsiders is not counted against your data cap. Also, the sharing doesn't count against your maximum allowed upload/download speeds. It's possible that Comcast's sharing could contribute to congestion, but this is different from having devices that your ISP doesn't know don't belong to you taking up some of your bandwidth and monthly caps.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  oh good point

vaseem 5y ago

I wonder how they plan to handle piracy and DMCA implications

Spivak 5y ago
They don’t because all you can do with it is talk to AWS.
- tokamak-teapot 5y ago
  For a while. Until someone figures out how to escape that restriction.

Black101 5y ago

That is one reason why I don't rent routers from Comcast (because they do share your internet, too)... I buy my own instead and I save $10 a month as a bonus. Soon, every connected device in your home will share your internet? I guess plausible deniability will get easier.

gnicholas 5y ago
Last I heard, it was $15/mo. Even more reasons not to rent routers from Comcast! The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment.
- Black101 5y ago
  > The only downside is that if you use your own equipment, the first thing they will do when you call for tech support is tell you that it is the fault of your equipment. I would rather buy a second brand new one then pay Comcast an extra $15 per month... and that second router will pay for itself in just a few months. But most of the time, I don't have to do that.
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    In my experience, there's never been a problem with my equipment. So I've never had to buy a new modem as a result. The annoyance is that this is their go-to excuse, and it's a waste of time to deal with this excuse every time I call in.
    - Black101 5y ago
      It stinks, but they have a monopoly if you want high speed internet, so they can do whatever they want... because the government gave them a monopoly. I wish the Government would create free ultra high speed Internet for all citizens while the Government is printing all this money.

andrei_says_ 5y ago

Not mine because I don’t own Amazon devices… but maybe I can benefit from access to my neighbors’? Would that be possible?

Beached 5y ago
I give it less than a year until someone develops an exploit that lets you piggy back off this sidewalk for free internet access so longnas the sidewalk device hasn't been patched. and we know often people update their iot... just sit tight and wait, it will come soon.
- Spivak 5y ago
  Why does everyone think this Amazon essentially handing out your Wi-Fi password? It’s Amazon’s FindMy network but slightly more general purpose where the pings can carry a data payload and are directed to a lambda.
- ThatPlayer 5y ago
  Even if you did manage that somehow, this is still running LoRa for the wireless. IIRC bandwidth is in the single kilobits/s range.

whiddershins 5y ago

There was a previous discussion. Title is a bit misleading. This is a very low bandwidth mesh. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27115809

toyg 5y ago
Anything above 0kb is too much for my taste. I was contemplating switching from Google Home to Alexa but it looks like I'd be jumping from the pan into the fire. I guess I'll have to brush up on Home Assistant hackery, sigh... Why can't we have nice things? Why are corporations so endlessly greedy...?
tchalla 5y ago
I am more sure if I’m the only one here but why should anything be enabled automatically? The crux of the issue here is “Informed Consent”.
ashneo76 5y ago
Nothing gives Amazon permission to run a service free of cost on your premises and then make money off that. You(not you the poster, but generic you) are providing free money to amazon and Bezos' pet projects by defending Amazon and buying Alexa.

dclowd9901 5y ago

Super surprised Eero devices aren’t part of this lineup. Seems like a natural fit for illegally sharing your internet would be a mesh WiFi network device.

dbt00 5y ago
Given the amount of control the Eero team has apparently retained over their product since the acquisition, I'm not surprised at all. I'm heavily invested in Eero and would throw them out if they did this without an opt-in (not opt-out).

heavyset_go 5y ago

This is just insane, especially when there are millions of devices that will connect to this that will never receive security updates, ever.

Spivak 5y ago
Eh, it’s not really that insane. All you get with this service is essentially a VPN tunnel to Amazon. There’s no risk to your network unless you believe your device is compromised. So technically it’s worse just because it’s more surface area for an attacker but that’s pretty minor by far usual standards.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > There’s no risk to your network unless you believe your device is compromised Amazon is perfectly capable of shipping exploitable devices, as well as devices that stop receiving security updates.

anonymousiam 5y ago

How would I go about disabling this feature? The ARS article and the Amazon web page say: Opening the Alexa app Opening More and selecting Settings Selecting Account Settings Selecting Amazon Sidewalk Turning Amazon Sidewalk Off What if I have never installed or activated the Alexa app? I do have some Amazon devices such as Ring and Kindle, and I don't want them exposing the networks to which they're connected.

gnicholas 5y ago

> "Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers" Seems like it's operated by customers at no cost to Amazon.

ashneo76 5y ago
Precisely.

slaymaker1907 5y ago

IANAL, but this seems legally dubious.

perryizgr8 5y ago

Isn't this very similar to how Apple uses your phone and laptop to locate airtags, even if you don't own any airtag. Same deal. They are using my battery life, my CPU time, my internet connection to provide services to their customers. Not surprised to see Amazon follow suit after Apple normalized the practice, kind of like removing the headphone jack and charger.

charcircuit 5y ago
1. You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place. If air tags need to download 100 GiB of data to function then maybe you should ask Apple to improve that. 2. Headphone jacks were never removed. They just replaced the legacy outdated 3.5mm jack with a USB C port instead. Both can handle the exact same analog audio, but one of them can handle much more.
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  > You already are giving Apple your CPU time, battery life, and internet bandwidth by using their software in the first place. No, why do you think so? I have bought my hardware from them to fulfil some purpose of mine. That doesn't give them the right to abuse my hardware for their profit. > Headphone jacks were never removed. Yes, they were removed.

beermonster 5y ago

The UK luck out (at least for now) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55059696 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55059696

jonwinstanley 5y ago
BT, one of the largest broadband suppliers in the UK has had a feature similar to this for many years. By default, a home BT router makes a second Wi-fi network available as a hotspot which any BT customer can log in to. Means that there are maybe 5 million hotspots available to you as a BT customer. https://www.btwifi.co.uk/ https://www.btwifi.co.uk/

xg15 5y ago

Say hello to the next phase in IoT/"smart" anything madness: Devices that are hardwired to the Sidewalk network and are practically impossible to take offline...

oakpond 5y ago

This is just what happens with a market where you can purchase records of people's personal business. Like any other market, it will seek opportunities to grow.

airhead969 5y ago

Skype, Kazaa, Freenet, Alexa.

rcarmo 5y ago

I had already disabled this when I noticed the menu option. Am actually curious as to how legal it is to even have that option available in the EU.

hyko 5y ago

Who is buying Amazon hardware at this point?

jon-wood 5y ago

A lot of people here seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what Sidewalk is, which is understandable with that headline. The key thing to understand is that devices providing access via Sidewalk aren’t broadcasting a wifi SSID. They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network. On top LoRA Sidewalk implements what is essentially a tunnel to specific configured endpoints hosted by AWS. Traffic is routed without you having any control over that, so all a Sidewalk device can do is send packets to an endpoint associated with that device family.

ashneo76 5y ago
That doesn't matter. I don't get paid for providing a service to amazon for free. So they can get another billions in tax credits to fund Jeff Bezos' pet projects.
phone8675309 5y ago
> They’re using LoRA, a low bandwidth (kilobits/second at the most) long range radio protocol. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t connect to the network with standard consumer hardware to compromise your network. Can we as a society for once stop making the airwaves proprietary?
- URSpider94 5y ago
  LoRA isn’t a “proprietary” standard. It’s open to everyone to use. It operates at 900 mMHz, though, so the point is that your average WiFi or Bluetooth device can’t transmit or receive it. That 900 MHz spectrum is unlicensed, so buy a dev kit from Adafruit and go make some RF noise!
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    The first sentence on the LoRA article on Wikipedia is: > LoRa (Long Range) is a proprietary low-power wide-area network modulation technique. It is based on spread spectrum modulation techniques derived from chirp spread spectrum (CSS) technology. It was developed by Cycleo of Grenoble, France and acquired by Semtech, the founding member of the LoRa Alliance and it is patented. It's proprietary, patented, and not open. It shouldn't be on the airwaves.

fredgrott 5y ago

security wise you never ever want this as any neighbor doing a crime using internet puts the felony squarely on you as far as courts, cops, etc.

KoftaBob 5y ago

"How to Opt Out Of and Turn Off Amazon Sidewalk": https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-opt-out-of-amazon-sidewalk-5090421 https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-opt-out-of-amazon-sidewalk-5...

mkay581 5y ago

I know they say Ring devices are included in this. But can anyone confirm whether this applies to extremely old Ring devices? Mine can barely stay connected to my wifi, so wondering how it can reliably stay connected or send anything to Amazon's servers.

ashneo76 5y ago

Amazon should be payi g for the free service it is taking from users. Just like google did with Google captcha. I can't understand why people seem to be missing this. Make it optin and give people credit for providing this service to amazon. Seriously,the lack of these two make this whole thing so shady and duplicitous Amazon makes billions upon billions. They could have easily paid the cost to roll this out. Streaming is not owning. Buying a cheap device as a service is not owning. This is why the companies are fighting right to repair. And they don't care about long lived open standards. This is privacy and ownership infriginjng.

husamia 5y ago

there are blockchains that build on wifi.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Not my devices. I barely use Siri on my iphone. Definitely turn all that stuff off on Android phones.

rainhacker 5y ago

Sidewalk is showing as disabled for me. I wonder if they changed the default to disabled after this article came out.

HardwareLust 5y ago

Except I don't have any Amazon devices, and I won't ever be buying any. No way I'm exposing myself to that kind of liability by "sharing" my internet with complete strangers. They can't keep counterfeit items and scams out of their store, what makes you think they can manage who your internet is shared with?