6 ms·
It's a change, certainly, but mobile devices are a much bigger risk to your internal network than a Echo device is. Both are general-purpose computers inside,
by secabeen 5y ago
It's a change, certainly, but mobile devices are a much bigger risk to your internal network than a Echo device is. Both are general-purpose computers inside, but the attack surface of a phone is way larger, and there are plenty of recorded instances of phones being compromised. The Echo devices have a good security track record, and I feel they remain much less likely to be compromised than any mobile device.
The number of prior vulnerabilities is totally relevant. Your threat model required a vulnerability to be found in these devices allowing them to access your network maliciously. I am presenting data showing that the such a threat is unlikely, especially when compared to mobile devices that you (presumably) already grant unfettered access to your network.
Sure, if you feel that an Echo device is now a larger threat than it was before this feature was enabled, you may want to get rid of the device. I don't feel that way, I think the small increased threat to my network is outweighed by the value of being able to find my dad's keys when he drops them (and the attached Tile locator) outside the home of someone with an active Sidewalk device.
- kstrauser 5y agoI think the Tile bit is a non sequitur. There’s no need for a Tile tag to create a network connection to a remote serve. That functionality could have been implemented without Sidewalk (eg Apple’s Find My is completely differently), so I’m dismissing that justification from Amazon. I have a few Tile tags, too, and I hope their new Amazon partnership makes them start being useful. It didn’t need Sidewalk though.
- URSpider94 5y agoWhen a Tile device associates to another device that detects it, that device has to send a network packet to the cloud that says that it found a Tile with a certain serial number. That’s using your network/your bandwidth to transmit proprietary data about someone else’s property, without asking your permission. That’s exactly the same in kind, just maybe not in degree. New Tile devices can play a sound on command. If you use Sidewalk to send a play-sound command to a Tile, then again you are using this proprietary shared network.
- katbyte 5y agoif this was doing for tile what find my did for airtags i don't think there would be such an uproar - this is open internet for whatever the device and manufacturer want to do not an encrypted "hey katbyte your airtag is here" that only the user at the other end can read - i trust apple, and maybe i trust amazon, but i don't; trust the flood of rando devices that will use and abuse this
- secabeen 5y agoPerhaps, but Apple didn't even ask about airtags, they just quietly broadened the "Find My network" across all Apple hardware to support this new feature. And there's nothing stopping apple from generalizing their "Find My" network to pass the same type of data that Amazon is.
- katbyte 5y agofind my is airtag location -> owner and sidewalk is device <-any data-> amazon/device owner. airtags has privacy built in and anti stalking, tile and amazon sidewalk does not. Sidewalk is enough bandwidth you could easily drop a location track & voice recorder on someone and have it spy - voice can go as low as 30kbps. one of these is not like the other