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My (subsidized) FireTVs (as in, built into the TV) require an internet connection for HDMI-CEC to work (I use Apple TV via HDMI.) I do not sign into my Amazon a

My (subsidized) FireTVs (as in, built into the TV) require an internet connection for HDMI-CEC to work (I use Apple TV via HDMI.) I do not sign into my Amazon account, and using PiHole, I block almost all traffic originating from the FireTV (one or two domains are needed as to not cause some error dialogs or break features like HDMI-CEC.) The FireTVs are consistently some of the chattiest devices on my network, trying to phone home thousands of times per day, and even more when the HDMI input is active. It’s pretty gross, but I should have known better when purchasing them.

ByQuyzzy 3y ago
You don't need to connect it to the network for it to spy on you, Amazon Sidewalk provides the network.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Only in the US luckily. It's not around in Europe. But I've always thought this was not about convenience for the user but for easier access to datamining yes
- soganess 3y ago
  Has anyone done an audit of sidewalk's capabilities? Both in terms of raw bandwidth and in terms of information/surveillance possibilities at scale? Like I can't imagine it has a huge bandwidth (outside of bt range) or amazon would monetize it as a actual network, but I would still like to know (order-of-magnitude) how many bits of data per unit time it can handle and how much information can we pack into that bandwidth. Any spying is terrible, but there is a big difference between "ids of what shows you watched yesterday" and "compressed audio clips from 20 minutes ago". EDIT some information: 500MB per account per month & 80kbps per bridge device ... https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazon-sidewalk https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need...
  - gruez 3y ago
    >but there is a big difference between "ids of what shows you watched yesterday" and "compressed audio clips from 20 minutes ago". If they do voice recognition first then send the recognized text, that cuts down on the required bandwdith significantly.
    - soganess 3y ago
      Yeah, course of, but you lose contextual/emotional info that way. To be clear I'm definitely never buying a sidwalk enable device. That said, (puts on black hat) If you are trying to tell when someone is open to impulse buying out sadness or anger or whatever, voice information is probably better than just doing sentiment analysis of the text. On a low bandwidth network, getting at that same information means you'd have to try to running the analysis locally on the hub device. A device that is, in theory, servicing many clients. Maybe the device can manage TTS, but it seems less likely to be able to run a large ML model. Plus bandwidth limitations means amazon is less likely to get that information until later than they would from an Alexa device connected directly to the internet. My goal was to gauge how bad of a security nightmare sidewalk is, not be an apologist for it.
randm_sequence 3y ago
My suggestion is that we should all be streaming bogus ad data to wherever the Smart TVs are trying to transmit our personal information. If we can't stop the TV for monitoring us, we can at least make the data less valuable and even nonsensical.
- iamdamian 3y ago
  I wonder if there are any projects that facilitate that? Like Pi-Hole but with obfuscation baked in.
- Phemist 3y ago
  Great idea, in the same vein as the "Ad Nauseam" browser extension, which was the result of an art project by https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/ https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/.

ByQuyzzy 3y ago

You don't need to connect it to the network for it to spy on you, Amazon Sidewalk provides the network.

wkat4242 3y ago
Only in the US luckily. It's not around in Europe. But I've always thought this was not about convenience for the user but for easier access to datamining yes
soganess 3y ago
Has anyone done an audit of sidewalk's capabilities? Both in terms of raw bandwidth and in terms of information/surveillance possibilities at scale? Like I can't imagine it has a huge bandwidth (outside of bt range) or amazon would monetize it as a actual network, but I would still like to know (order-of-magnitude) how many bits of data per unit time it can handle and how much information can we pack into that bandwidth. Any spying is terrible, but there is a big difference between "ids of what shows you watched yesterday" and "compressed audio clips from 20 minutes ago". EDIT some information: 500MB per account per month & 80kbps per bridge device ... https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazon-sidewalk https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need...
- gruez 3y ago
  >but there is a big difference between "ids of what shows you watched yesterday" and "compressed audio clips from 20 minutes ago". If they do voice recognition first then send the recognized text, that cuts down on the required bandwdith significantly.
  - soganess 3y ago
    Yeah, course of, but you lose contextual/emotional info that way. To be clear I'm definitely never buying a sidwalk enable device. That said, (puts on black hat) If you are trying to tell when someone is open to impulse buying out sadness or anger or whatever, voice information is probably better than just doing sentiment analysis of the text. On a low bandwidth network, getting at that same information means you'd have to try to running the analysis locally on the hub device. A device that is, in theory, servicing many clients. Maybe the device can manage TTS, but it seems less likely to be able to run a large ML model. Plus bandwidth limitations means amazon is less likely to get that information until later than they would from an Alexa device connected directly to the internet. My goal was to gauge how bad of a security nightmare sidewalk is, not be an apologist for it.

randm_sequence 3y ago

My suggestion is that we should all be streaming bogus ad data to wherever the Smart TVs are trying to transmit our personal information. If we can't stop the TV for monitoring us, we can at least make the data less valuable and even nonsensical.

iamdamian 3y ago
I wonder if there are any projects that facilitate that? Like Pi-Hole but with obfuscation baked in.
Phemist 3y ago
Great idea, in the same vein as the "Ad Nauseam" browser extension, which was the result of an art project by https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/ https://rednoise.org/~dhowe/.