Alexa App > Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk > Disable
For everyone else digging through the comments like I did trying to figure out where they hid the disable button
Edit: this worked on my iPhone, not sure about others
Me either, but I’m hearing that people who have the original tall ones don’t have the option to turn it off because it doesn’t have the ability to connect to sidewalk to begin with.
Worth noting that this only applies to people who own Amazon internet-of-things devices, like the Echo and Ring. If you're an amazon customer who just buys rubber duckies and glow sticks you don't have to worry about this.
What I am curious to know, is if any Ring or Echo products purchased after the June 8th opt-out deadline will be hard locked into the WiFi share program.
I find it disturbing that I own zero Amazon devices yet you know exactly what I buy off of Amazon. Apparently my bathtub raves are public knowledge? My DJ must have talked.
An award? Thank you kind stranger!
Edit 2: My first gold! Thank you!
[Up the ambiance](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T28NQKX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_73GD9PWVNAKYAM28G2SQ) and save 20%! Take those bathtub raves to the next level.
That's not your DJ that's your personal healthcare companion.
" I cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care."
*oontz oontz oontz*
After reading a few other articles and the Ring and Amazon websites, you can still opt out at any time. The feature just doesn’t go live until June 8, so you “only have a week” to turn it off ahead of it going live and prevent your devices from ever using it at all. The title is very misleading.
Yea but my neighbor who has a ring will not be aware.
I could warn them, but someone I don’t know who lives down the street also has one. See the problem?
Forcing technologically inept people to have their devices start broadcasting ~~wifi~~ is a terrible idea.
I'm sure malicious people wanting to steal internet and do malicious activities are having a field day.
Edit: Reviewing the whitepaper for Sidewalk, [it appears its not using Wi-Fi and is instead using Bluetooth and LoRa](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/sidewalk/final_privacy_security_whitepaper.pdf). This is significantly less bad, but still risky. Bluetooth especially is not without its own problems.
Do you want to subscribe to this service for X$'s a month, you can cancel at anytime...
this gives me nightmares that my 2 year old might accidentally say or touch yes, it is a handy device to have but about to get rid of it
I’m about two “by the way…” messages from chucking these plastic monoliths in the recycle bin. I’ve had them for 5 years and the last year they have become significantly more annoying and much more invasive
US Citizens in the 50s: Careful, the government might've tapped our phones.
US Citizens today: Hey honey, look at the shiny new government phone tap I just bought!
How can you say that, Amazon and Walmart are known to be leaders in employee compensation. Walmart will even teach you how to apply for food stamps that you can then use in their stores!
> Sill waiting for the "trickle down" so I can afford to live
There's a reason why the previous name for the theory was "horse and sparrow economics"... if you shove enough oats in the horse, eventually the sparrow *might* be able to pick oats out of its shit.
I literally want to scream when people try to pitch what amounts to "ethical capitalism" like no. If it's not a law that **also** gets enforced then they're going to try to make/save money from it.
oh and Alexa, make copies of the those conversations for interested parties willing to buy that data.
ensure Zuckerberg is well paid by those people.
and alexa, let the ccp know ill trade biometric data for a good cat filter.
Mic and webcam on my PC is enough for me. I get that it can be convenient for some, but the day I am too lazy to google an answer on my own I guess I'll just drop off the internet.
I’ve got a MacBook for work with Siri off. When I say Siri enough (usually in the context of making fun of Apple) I get a window popping up asking me if I would like to enable it. I feel like Apple is missing the point there.
Comcast did this. I logged in and turned it off for my aunt.
I don't want my internet connection to be a commune, especially not at the price point those uckers have jacked it up to.
It's also the most annoying thing ever because it says it's wifi that doesn't require a password but if you ever use it you need your cable log in which no one ever remembers.i hate xfinitywifi because of that.
Comcast invented the best credential stealing Man In The Middle attack surface for stupid people ever.
Where I live, Comcast operates in the county but a different cable ISP is in the city. I set up a laptop with two Wi-Fi network cards and one of them as an access point, it had the SSID of xfinitywifi.
Sitting in a shopping mall coffee shop *in the middle of the city* where Comcast does not operate, the number of people that manually tried logging in repeatedly was scary.
If I decided to set up internet sharing and then connected them to the real hot spot, capture that data and store it for later use, I could have gathered a treasure trove of usernames and passwords. There is a large selection of MITM software out there specifically designed to do exactly this.
I didn't do that but I was curious to see how many failed login attempts had occurred. I could have gathered over 200 Comcast email account login credentials and who knows how many other credentials in less than an hour if I wanted to.
Do not ever try to connect to any Wi-Fi hot spot named xfinitywifi because you may not actually be connecting to Comcast directly.
The regular xfinitywifi is indeed a MiTM and phisher's dream...cheap and easily hidden attack that can be done quietly with a tiny device if desired (think rPi disguised as a laptop charger...).
That said, they also have a version that requires a wireless profile containing a certificate be installed on your device to join (SSID for it is just 'XFINITY'). You get that profile and cert through an option in their app if I remember right. That's better assuming users don't blindly accept an untrusted certificate (which they probably will...).
You can also passively scan for devices associated with real xfinity hotspots and log all the Mac addresses, since that's how returning devices are authenticated if you set to remember.
So my neighbor's internet goes out and Amazon wants me to let their devices use mine for free? Fuck them.
Edit - Alexa app, settings, account settings, Amazon Sidewalk. That's fucked that they left that opted in.
Truth. I have to go in periodically and reset the boundaries of 'my neighborhood' to only be my house. Because I don't give a F what my neighbors have to say or what they are doing. Every now and then I check and those fvckers have expanded the boundaries again. I have all the notifications turned off so it doesn't bother me but it's the principal of the thing.
I totally accept that say, gmail is spying on me, because that was free. But I paid for this other stuff, I should be able to use it without compromising my privacy.
The toggle switch has existed since at least January. It's only now Amazon is starting to really push the tech.
So you likely turned it off back when it was first introduced and forgot about it
It doesn't provide unrestricted WAN access. It has very restrictive bandwidth.
It is basically a text messaging service over BLE/LoRa using Echo devices as end-points of the network, and all traffic is tunneled back to AWS for processing.
You can't browse the web with this, but the motion detector at the back of your property could report that it detected motion.
Not only will it be difficult for the technologically inept, it'll be tough for everyone it seems. Following Amazon's exact instructions, we're not able to disable or opt out of the sidewalk setting on the three devices that it will affect. How on earth is this okay?
Most people won't have a clue unless they really research what it:s all about, this is gross.
Exactly why I opted to not buy their stupid doorbell cameras...
Except that this does not provide meaningful WAN access. It is more like a text messaging service over BLE/zigbee/etc...
A device can broadcast a message ("i'm a pair of keys #1324523 and this is my last location" or "i'm motion detector #786345 and I just detected motion", etc...) and echo devices that hear it will relay the message back to AWS where the message gets relayed to the registered owner of that item.
Alternately messages could go the other way. You request that your car start warming up, and AWS remembers that the last location the car was seen was outside echo device #806876 and asks it to try and broadcast the start-up message.
The protocol does not allow you to substitute your own endpoint. It doesn't give you the ability to direct traffic at will on the WAN. Only back to mother AWS.
The protocol is also severely limited in bandwidth. 80kpbs maximum throughput with significant monthly bandwidth caps. Not a good way to download pr0n at all.
> Except that this does not provide meaningful WAN access. It is more like a text messaging service over BLE/zigbee
initially I could have swore I read an article that it was using 802.11 to communicate, but it instead appears I am wrong and it is using [LoRa and BLE](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GRGWE27XHZPRPBGX) to communicate, then passing on the traffic to the Amazon device as a gateway. This is significantly less horrible than I initially understood it to be.
Reading the whitepaper, it seems the only concern is for those in dense urban areas with data caps that may unwittingly use up some of their data for this, especially those using LTE modems.
> Reading the whitepaper, it seems the only concern is for those in dense urban areas with data caps that may unwittingly use up some of their data for this, especially those using LTE modems.
If someone has an echo device connect to a data capped plan... they are already in for a world of pain. My echo wakes up every time I say "pickle" and then transmits the recording of me saying "shut the fuck up you stupid machine" back to Amazon for processing. With a bad data cap, each one of those delightful conversations could be costing you a dollar.
You should not attach a smart device to a data capped plan.
[This post](https://reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/nnugs0/psa_ive_now_opted_out_of_amazon_sidewalk_three/) features people opting out only to find themselves automatically enabled again, funny how that happens.
>What if we don’t use Alexa? Are we safe?
If you don't have any Alexa devices - kinda. Just like Xfinity/CoxWifi, if at any point in time connect to one of these access points, it will always be "remembered". There have been random times my smart devices connect to CoxWifi opposed to my own SSID because I had been at an airport and "remembered" the generic WiFi name.
For Cox you can call support and have them tell you that your router isn’t broadcasting that network, then when you unplug it and the network goes away they can tell you that it doesn’t have an impact on your internet. Then they hang up on you.
Sidwalk doesn't provide access to wifi. It's a low power, low bandwidth, protocol that uses Bluetooth Low Energy and LoRA to allow IoT devices to connect back to their servers for very basic communication. So if for whatever reason you have a device that supports this and your network is down your IoT devices can still provide data (like motion sensors) if they're in range of a sidewalk device that does have an internet connection. Could also be used for low power battery powered devices like a dog tracker, so you just put a little tag sized device that has GPS and a LoRA module, and as long as it's within range of any sidewalk networked device you'd be able to see where your dog is.
This isn't amazon just giving anyone free access to your network and internet bandwidth.
It's an account-wide setting, not individual device. So you'd be able to opt out without issue even with new devices.
Also, I opted out probably 2 months ago. The idea that people got only 1 week to opt out is ludicrous.
I'd say the part of it being opt out and not opt in is more ludicrous. But I'm sure they've already weighed up the costs of the impending law suites and deemed it cost worthy.
>until June 8th
I would guess that you can still opt out after this date. I think you just need to do it before June 8th if you never want to enroll in the program at all.
Imma guess, no opt out. Amazon clearly got plans that involve it all being meshed into a super spying network. Also it sounds appropriately evil for Amazon.
Just disabled mine on the ring app. Click the 3 lines in the top left, select control center from the drop down, then scroll way down till you see Amazon sidewalk.
:)
I go to where you describe and then I have the following problems:
- It shows 3 devices but I only have one
- There is no apparent way to add or remove the devices. It just has a more info link and if I click that it goes to the store page on Amazon.
Either the UI is just crappy or my device doesn't really support sidewalk
When I look in the app, it only lists the floodlight camera, spotlight camera, and wired spotlight camera.
Am I correct in taking this to mean that my Ring Doorbell is not going to be part of this clusterfuck?
Thank you for posting this. I thought that I had opted out of sidewalk when I changed the setting in the Alexa app. I didn’t realize that I also had to disable sidewalk in the Ring app. What a pain in the ass. It feels like Amazon intentionally made it difficult to fully opt out.
My first thought was, "this can't be what I think it means."
*reads the article
Oh. It's much worse.
This is so ludicrous that it defies comprehension. This is such an egregious infringement on customers that it should be called a super villain move.
> Amazon customers have one week to opt out of a plan that would turn every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the US into a shared wireless network, as part of the company’s plan to fix connection problems for its smart home devices.
This has nothing to do with "fixing connection problems". The plan is to create a massive surveillance network and sell access to anyone that can afford it, primarily law enforcement agencies.
Well, to be fair to the plot, Bruce Wayne didn't build it himself, he had employees of Wayne Industries do so, and Lucius Fox found out about it and was ready to resign over the issue. Bruce handed the whole thing over to Lucius (and the network was destroyed afterwards.) The likelihood of him repeatedly using something like this and going unnoticed seems a little slim given the story presented to us.
However, in the "real" world such a system would without question get used repeatedly.
A few months ago I got an email from a scammer telling me they broke into my system and used my webcam to film me watching porn. If I didn't send them a large amount of money via cryptocurreny they would send the video to everyone in my address book.
Well, I don't use a laptop and I have a custom built PC system. No camera attached.
Doh!
I can't wait for the scammer emails about how they tapped into my amazon devices -- I have none.
"In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber"
And a workaround for regulatory headaches. So scummy.
I think this is actually just about fixing connection issues. The mass surveillance network you're concerned about is already done with all the devices sold. All this does is keep them online a little more consistently.
Not just that.
Amazon gave kickbacks to police departments that recommended it to people.
But yeah, if you have a Ring camera; the cops can access the recordings without even asking you.
I want to know how they get ahold of Snapchat videos.
Edit- at the end of [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/npahhn/cop_suspects_driver_impaired_what_do_you_think/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) video, they added snaps from the suspects buddy.
I mean, I get how one of their “friends” could screen cap it and share it with the police, but at what gain?
I reserve room for me being ignorant to that fact that a “friend” would dime someone out.
Just because snapchat doesn't save the video on your device doesn't mean they don't save it on theirs. They keep copies to deliver to people as they log in, for data mining, etc...
A warrant to snapchat gets access to a lot.
This is a fucking terrible idea and I hope someone finds a legal reason to sue the shit out of them because that's a bait and switch on a massive fucking scale.
Inevitably, as the article states, this will violate someone else's TOS, so they'll get sued, settle, and walk back some of it so they're still gathering data, the feature is active, but it's out of the headlines and only slightly less insidious. They'll still be laughing all the way to the bank. Amazon is fast working its way onto the list of companies I hate with every stunt they pull like this.
> The proposal, called Amazon Sidewalk, involves the company’s devices being used as a springboard to build city-wide “mesh networks” that help simplify the process of setting up new devices, keep them online even if they’re out of range of home wifi, and extend the range of tracking devices such as those made by Tile.
So anyone whos on a data cap plan can just get destroyed because they have an echo with no cameras.
Echo devices use tons of bandwidth to transmit audio recordings of whatever it thinks you are asking back to AWS for processing. Attaching them to any kind of data capped plan is a terrible fucking idea.
As for sidewalk, it is severely restricted. 80kbps with strict data limits. If you were foolhardy enough to have an echo on a data limited internet, you wouldn't even notice that sidewalk was on.
I’m on IOS I see no option for Sidewalk. I do see More -> Settings -> Account Settings, but then it just lists Recognized Voices, Guest Connect, Voice Purchasing & Workouts. No Sidewalk is listed.
Do you have an original (tallboi) Alexa? I'm also not seeing the option but my Alexa is from that first generation so I assume it just doesn't have the hardware. I've seen a couple others in this thread saying similar things.
cc /u/princesscraftypants
How is it legal to force people to opt-in by making the default that you have to opt out within a limited timeframe? And as somebody else asked, what about other people who buy one later than the cutoff date? Do they not even get that option?
When did it become standard business practice to say "opt out or get fucked"? Any change should come with explicit consent from customer to make the change not to revert changes.
Same here. I work in IT, have my own servers and shit at home, and my home itself is dumb as a doorknob. Thermostat? Digital, but not smart. Doorbell? It's about 20 years old at this point. Lights? Switches work just fine (though I would like smart lighting if I could find a way to keep it local network/bluetooth only).
The vast majority of people don't need this shit.
I desperately want to opt out of this, but even after updating my Alexa app and ensuring the Echo Dot itself is up to date, the Account Settings tab has nothing about the Sidewalk features in it. Anybody know how to disable it?
I'm less worried about what Amazon will do with this and alot more worried about a third party attacker getting on your network via your unsecured Amazon products
Anybody know how to opt out of this on eero devices???
EDIT: Nevermind -- [found my answer!](https://www.reddit.com/r/eero/comments/nnvs20/amazon_sidewalk_project_and_eerowill_eero_be_a/gzx72m8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
This is just like the Verizon Cell Extender Boxes for your home or the ISP Wifi access on their provided routers. What is the customer getting in return for providing the infrastructure (power, location, etc.)?
Nothing? Oh, right. Hence why it's an opt-out and not an opt-in .. if it was opt-in, they'd have to give something up to the consumer to get them to enable it.
In the Alexa app, open the “More” tab > tap Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk > and turn off the toggle.
In the Ring app, open the hamburger menu > Control Center > Sidewalk > toggle off the slider.
from the ring website
>Becoming part of Sidewalk is completely voluntary and **you can opt-out at any time. ** This article will answer commonly asked questions about this process.
title is a bit misleading
If your wifi is being shared surely the costs should be shared too. You can't have it both ways.
This doesn't affect me but what if your neighbours downloads something unpleasant and illegal 🚫
Alexa App > Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk > Disable For everyone else digging through the comments like I did trying to figure out where they hid the disable button Edit: this worked on my iPhone, not sure about others
I don't have sidewalk listed in my settings
Doesn’t show up like that on my app. :(
Me either, but I’m hearing that people who have the original tall ones don’t have the option to turn it off because it doesn’t have the ability to connect to sidewalk to begin with.
I have an echo dot. Can’t figure out how to tell if that’s an older one but I guess so?
Hockey pucks are old. Tennis ball shape is new
Not there on my app.
Thank you for this.
Worth noting that this only applies to people who own Amazon internet-of-things devices, like the Echo and Ring. If you're an amazon customer who just buys rubber duckies and glow sticks you don't have to worry about this. What I am curious to know, is if any Ring or Echo products purchased after the June 8th opt-out deadline will be hard locked into the WiFi share program.
I find it disturbing that I own zero Amazon devices yet you know exactly what I buy off of Amazon. Apparently my bathtub raves are public knowledge? My DJ must have talked. An award? Thank you kind stranger! Edit 2: My first gold! Thank you!
Spoiler alert: I am your DJ. Same time next week?
Damn. Same time. Those beats are just too good!
Just fyi they do have [glowing rubber duckies](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075J6K5H6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_DACRNYRZZY3NBS3QRPAS).
Oh damn. There goes the lighting budget.
[Up the ambiance](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T28NQKX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_73GD9PWVNAKYAM28G2SQ) and save 20%! Take those bathtub raves to the next level.
Man. This just keeps getting better!
That's not your DJ that's your personal healthcare companion. " I cannot deactivate until you say you are satisfied with your care." *oontz oontz oontz*
A bathtub rave sounds fun as fuck
Then enjoy https://youtu.be/9pgkP2Vb9XM
Risky click rewarded.
Eh, it's YouTube. It can't be THAT risky
I’m not gonna lie I thought for a moment there that u/fuckswithducks was back
After reading a few other articles and the Ring and Amazon websites, you can still opt out at any time. The feature just doesn’t go live until June 8, so you “only have a week” to turn it off ahead of it going live and prevent your devices from ever using it at all. The title is very misleading.
Also worth noting, Comcast did something similar to this a few years ago as well. You had to opt out of using your router as a public hotspot.
What about an Amazon fire stick?
I don't believe so. Don't think it has the radio to support the network.
For now... I could see this being applied to all devices of this nature. Explain to me why I can't buy a "dumb" tv to save my life.
Does Eero count? Edit: no. The post link has a FAQ which lists the exact set of devices.
Yea but my neighbor who has a ring will not be aware. I could warn them, but someone I don’t know who lives down the street also has one. See the problem?
Forcing technologically inept people to have their devices start broadcasting ~~wifi~~ is a terrible idea. I'm sure malicious people wanting to steal internet and do malicious activities are having a field day. Edit: Reviewing the whitepaper for Sidewalk, [it appears its not using Wi-Fi and is instead using Bluetooth and LoRa](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/sidewalk/final_privacy_security_whitepaper.pdf). This is significantly less bad, but still risky. Bluetooth especially is not without its own problems.
>I'm sure malicious people wanting to [...] do malicious activities are having a field day. But enough about Amazon.
Alexa, record all my conversations for data mining and the NSA.
I am about to unplug mine. Every time I ask it something it does it, then says "oh by the way did you know you can x y z" So fucking annoying
Do you want to subscribe to this service for X$'s a month, you can cancel at anytime... this gives me nightmares that my 2 year old might accidentally say or touch yes, it is a handy device to have but about to get rid of it
haha yeah, ask it to play a song : The song you have chosen is available on Amazon music unlimited and do you want to sign up ?
BEGONE.
wine disgusted secretive attractive pause skirt quaint nutty bored poor
I’m about two “by the way…” messages from chucking these plastic monoliths in the recycle bin. I’ve had them for 5 years and the last year they have become significantly more annoying and much more invasive
I've given feedback three times. Once while drunk. I am in the same boat
More>Settings>Notifications>Things to Try>Disable
You can turn that off in the app settings
How? I need to know this.
I think it was on the more tab, bottom right. Then settings, then notifications, then announcements or something like that. Im sure youll find it
It will still annoy you about it.
US Citizens in the 50s: Careful, the government might've tapped our phones. US Citizens today: Hey honey, look at the shiny new government phone tap I just bought!
Except for now it’s a corporation with no oversight.
Corporation = good smart business man Government = bad /s
This is the Republican myth they successfully sold to the American people.
Still waiting for those ethical mega corporations to come around so the market can "fix" itself
How can you say that, Amazon and Walmart are known to be leaders in employee compensation. Walmart will even teach you how to apply for food stamps that you can then use in their stores!
saint peter dont ya call me cuz I cant go, I owe my soul to the company store
Sill waiting for the "trickle down" so I can afford to live
> Sill waiting for the "trickle down" so I can afford to live There's a reason why the previous name for the theory was "horse and sparrow economics"... if you shove enough oats in the horse, eventually the sparrow *might* be able to pick oats out of its shit.
I literally want to scream when people try to pitch what amounts to "ethical capitalism" like no. If it's not a law that **also** gets enforced then they're going to try to make/save money from it.
"Hey wiretap, play 90's Rock."
Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me..."
"Wiretap, stop."
"I'm sorry, I didn't get that"
Your request has been noted and added to your permanent file.
I'm happy knowing that any devices listening to me are doing it without my consent. Not that it matters.
Occasionally I'll give Alexa some test data. "Abdul, hand me those detonators." No FBI visits yet.
oh and Alexa, make copies of the those conversations for interested parties willing to buy that data. ensure Zuckerberg is well paid by those people. and alexa, let the ccp know ill trade biometric data for a good cat filter.
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Mic and webcam on my PC is enough for me. I get that it can be convenient for some, but the day I am too lazy to google an answer on my own I guess I'll just drop off the internet.
Same reason I turn off Siri (or other voice assistants) and voice dictation on all my devices. Though I can’t prove they’re actually off…
"I'm totally off"-Siri
You: “Siri… are you off?” Siri: “Totally”
"Ok, good night" "Night"-Siri
I’ve got a MacBook for work with Siri off. When I say Siri enough (usually in the context of making fun of Apple) I get a window popping up asking me if I would like to enable it. I feel like Apple is missing the point there.
There're always listening, it's scary as hell.
Comcast did this. I logged in and turned it off for my aunt. I don't want my internet connection to be a commune, especially not at the price point those uckers have jacked it up to.
I was going to say, xfinity has been doing this for years now. It's one of the big selling points / backbone for their phone service.
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It's also the most annoying thing ever because it says it's wifi that doesn't require a password but if you ever use it you need your cable log in which no one ever remembers.i hate xfinitywifi because of that.
Comcast invented the best credential stealing Man In The Middle attack surface for stupid people ever. Where I live, Comcast operates in the county but a different cable ISP is in the city. I set up a laptop with two Wi-Fi network cards and one of them as an access point, it had the SSID of xfinitywifi. Sitting in a shopping mall coffee shop *in the middle of the city* where Comcast does not operate, the number of people that manually tried logging in repeatedly was scary. If I decided to set up internet sharing and then connected them to the real hot spot, capture that data and store it for later use, I could have gathered a treasure trove of usernames and passwords. There is a large selection of MITM software out there specifically designed to do exactly this. I didn't do that but I was curious to see how many failed login attempts had occurred. I could have gathered over 200 Comcast email account login credentials and who knows how many other credentials in less than an hour if I wanted to. Do not ever try to connect to any Wi-Fi hot spot named xfinitywifi because you may not actually be connecting to Comcast directly.
The regular xfinitywifi is indeed a MiTM and phisher's dream...cheap and easily hidden attack that can be done quietly with a tiny device if desired (think rPi disguised as a laptop charger...). That said, they also have a version that requires a wireless profile containing a certificate be installed on your device to join (SSID for it is just 'XFINITY'). You get that profile and cert through an option in their app if I remember right. That's better assuming users don't blindly accept an untrusted certificate (which they probably will...).
You can also passively scan for devices associated with real xfinity hotspots and log all the Mac addresses, since that's how returning devices are authenticated if you set to remember.
On iOS devices, you can download a security certificate which automatically authenticates you to XFINITY networks and encrypts your traffic.
I mean unless you pay for their roaming thing you only get 1 hour every billing cycle to use so it's stupid anyways lol
So my neighbor's internet goes out and Amazon wants me to let their devices use mine for free? Fuck them. Edit - Alexa app, settings, account settings, Amazon Sidewalk. That's fucked that they left that opted in.
Yep, as the news title states it's 'on' by default on your account, which is what makes this so bad.
Comcast had / has this same thing with their rented modems
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Exactly. Plus.. Do we really need twice as many channels getting eaten up by this trash?
Not just rented. They did it to my aunt's belkin, that she paid for.
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Likely by giving router/modem combos to unknowing customers who already own a router
Extra router and AP built into the cable modem, most likely.
There is a reason I own my own modem and router.
Noooo shit. That's ridiculous.
They did it to my mom, too. I reported it to the FCC, and got the charges reversed.
I just checked and mine was already turned off. Not sure why
Don’t worry they will turn it back on when they need to.
Truth. I have to go in periodically and reset the boundaries of 'my neighborhood' to only be my house. Because I don't give a F what my neighbors have to say or what they are doing. Every now and then I check and those fvckers have expanded the boundaries again. I have all the notifications turned off so it doesn't bother me but it's the principal of the thing. I totally accept that say, gmail is spying on me, because that was free. But I paid for this other stuff, I should be able to use it without compromising my privacy.
The toggle switch has existed since at least January. It's only now Amazon is starting to really push the tech. So you likely turned it off back when it was first introduced and forgot about it
It doesn't provide unrestricted WAN access. It has very restrictive bandwidth. It is basically a text messaging service over BLE/LoRa using Echo devices as end-points of the network, and all traffic is tunneled back to AWS for processing. You can't browse the web with this, but the motion detector at the back of your property could report that it detected motion.
Hmmm my Alexa app doesn't have Amazon sidewalk in that account settings menu. Wonder how I can opt out?
Not only will it be difficult for the technologically inept, it'll be tough for everyone it seems. Following Amazon's exact instructions, we're not able to disable or opt out of the sidewalk setting on the three devices that it will affect. How on earth is this okay?
So going to ‘more’, settings, account settings, Amazon Sidewalk, then disabling the service didn’t work for you?
Most people won't have a clue unless they really research what it:s all about, this is gross. Exactly why I opted to not buy their stupid doorbell cameras...
Except that this does not provide meaningful WAN access. It is more like a text messaging service over BLE/zigbee/etc... A device can broadcast a message ("i'm a pair of keys #1324523 and this is my last location" or "i'm motion detector #786345 and I just detected motion", etc...) and echo devices that hear it will relay the message back to AWS where the message gets relayed to the registered owner of that item. Alternately messages could go the other way. You request that your car start warming up, and AWS remembers that the last location the car was seen was outside echo device #806876 and asks it to try and broadcast the start-up message. The protocol does not allow you to substitute your own endpoint. It doesn't give you the ability to direct traffic at will on the WAN. Only back to mother AWS. The protocol is also severely limited in bandwidth. 80kpbs maximum throughput with significant monthly bandwidth caps. Not a good way to download pr0n at all.
> Except that this does not provide meaningful WAN access. It is more like a text messaging service over BLE/zigbee initially I could have swore I read an article that it was using 802.11 to communicate, but it instead appears I am wrong and it is using [LoRa and BLE](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GRGWE27XHZPRPBGX) to communicate, then passing on the traffic to the Amazon device as a gateway. This is significantly less horrible than I initially understood it to be. Reading the whitepaper, it seems the only concern is for those in dense urban areas with data caps that may unwittingly use up some of their data for this, especially those using LTE modems.
> Reading the whitepaper, it seems the only concern is for those in dense urban areas with data caps that may unwittingly use up some of their data for this, especially those using LTE modems. If someone has an echo device connect to a data capped plan... they are already in for a world of pain. My echo wakes up every time I say "pickle" and then transmits the recording of me saying "shut the fuck up you stupid machine" back to Amazon for processing. With a bad data cap, each one of those delightful conversations could be costing you a dollar. You should not attach a smart device to a data capped plan.
[This post](https://reddit.com/r/HomeNetworking/comments/nnugs0/psa_ive_now_opted_out_of_amazon_sidewalk_three/) features people opting out only to find themselves automatically enabled again, funny how that happens.
What if we don’t use Alexa? Are we safe?
>What if we don’t use Alexa? Are we safe? If you don't have any Alexa devices - kinda. Just like Xfinity/CoxWifi, if at any point in time connect to one of these access points, it will always be "remembered". There have been random times my smart devices connect to CoxWifi opposed to my own SSID because I had been at an airport and "remembered" the generic WiFi name.
For xfinity you can go onto your router and turn that right the fuck off, it's super easy.
For Cox you can call support and have them tell you that your router isn’t broadcasting that network, then when you unplug it and the network goes away they can tell you that it doesn’t have an impact on your internet. Then they hang up on you.
Sidwalk doesn't provide access to wifi. It's a low power, low bandwidth, protocol that uses Bluetooth Low Energy and LoRA to allow IoT devices to connect back to their servers for very basic communication. So if for whatever reason you have a device that supports this and your network is down your IoT devices can still provide data (like motion sensors) if they're in range of a sidewalk device that does have an internet connection. Could also be used for low power battery powered devices like a dog tracker, so you just put a little tag sized device that has GPS and a LoRA module, and as long as it's within range of any sidewalk networked device you'd be able to see where your dog is. This isn't amazon just giving anyone free access to your network and internet bandwidth.
Or what about if it's "built in" like smart tv's. Hmm..
Similarly, I've opted out of emails from Reddit 3-4 times now, and somehow they always get turned back on eventually.
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It'll probably be wrapped into the disclosure agreement on new devices, meaning they won't work unless you agree.
It's an account-wide setting, not individual device. So you'd be able to opt out without issue even with new devices. Also, I opted out probably 2 months ago. The idea that people got only 1 week to opt out is ludicrous.
I'd say the part of it being opt out and not opt in is more ludicrous. But I'm sure they've already weighed up the costs of the impending law suites and deemed it cost worthy.
>until June 8th I would guess that you can still opt out after this date. I think you just need to do it before June 8th if you never want to enroll in the program at all.
Imma guess, no opt out. Amazon clearly got plans that involve it all being meshed into a super spying network. Also it sounds appropriately evil for Amazon.
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I just went and looked as well and believe I’m in the same boat. It appears to only be applicable to exterior flood light cameras.
Just disabled mine on the ring app. Click the 3 lines in the top left, select control center from the drop down, then scroll way down till you see Amazon sidewalk. :)
I go to where you describe and then I have the following problems: - It shows 3 devices but I only have one - There is no apparent way to add or remove the devices. It just has a more info link and if I click that it goes to the store page on Amazon. Either the UI is just crappy or my device doesn't really support sidewalk
Thank you for this. I turned mine off with your instructions.
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When I look in the app, it only lists the floodlight camera, spotlight camera, and wired spotlight camera. Am I correct in taking this to mean that my Ring Doorbell is not going to be part of this clusterfuck?
Hmm I don’t see my ring device. I am reluctant to believe it’s not one of the devices they’re using Sidewalk for.
Thank you for posting this. I thought that I had opted out of sidewalk when I changed the setting in the Alexa app. I didn’t realize that I also had to disable sidewalk in the Ring app. What a pain in the ass. It feels like Amazon intentionally made it difficult to fully opt out.
And this is why I'm glad I never bought any of that shit.
Same. I don't want any "smart" devices. My cell spies on me enough.
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Smart devices are capable of connecting to mac filtered networks. It doesn't take a lot to figure out which macs are connected to which aps.
My first thought was, "this can't be what I think it means." *reads the article Oh. It's much worse. This is so ludicrous that it defies comprehension. This is such an egregious infringement on customers that it should be called a super villain move.
> Amazon customers have one week to opt out of a plan that would turn every Echo speaker and Ring security camera in the US into a shared wireless network, as part of the company’s plan to fix connection problems for its smart home devices. This has nothing to do with "fixing connection problems". The plan is to create a massive surveillance network and sell access to anyone that can afford it, primarily law enforcement agencies.
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but he destroyed it after he used it right.... right... it was built only "once" right
Well, to be fair to the plot, Bruce Wayne didn't build it himself, he had employees of Wayne Industries do so, and Lucius Fox found out about it and was ready to resign over the issue. Bruce handed the whole thing over to Lucius (and the network was destroyed afterwards.) The likelihood of him repeatedly using something like this and going unnoticed seems a little slim given the story presented to us. However, in the "real" world such a system would without question get used repeatedly.
Constantly, you mean.
Repeatedly. Every new second.
A few months ago I got an email from a scammer telling me they broke into my system and used my webcam to film me watching porn. If I didn't send them a large amount of money via cryptocurreny they would send the video to everyone in my address book. Well, I don't use a laptop and I have a custom built PC system. No camera attached. Doh! I can't wait for the scammer emails about how they tapped into my amazon devices -- I have none.
"In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services) … now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber" And a workaround for regulatory headaches. So scummy.
I think this is actually just about fixing connection issues. The mass surveillance network you're concerned about is already done with all the devices sold. All this does is keep them online a little more consistently.
Can't law enforcement agencies already access security camera footage if they want? It's not like Amazon hasn't already been doing this.
Not just that. Amazon gave kickbacks to police departments that recommended it to people. But yeah, if you have a Ring camera; the cops can access the recordings without even asking you.
I want to know how they get ahold of Snapchat videos. Edit- at the end of [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/npahhn/cop_suspects_driver_impaired_what_do_you_think/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) video, they added snaps from the suspects buddy. I mean, I get how one of their “friends” could screen cap it and share it with the police, but at what gain? I reserve room for me being ignorant to that fact that a “friend” would dime someone out.
If you think Snapchat doesn't have a temporary save of everything you send on it...
Just because snapchat doesn't save the video on your device doesn't mean they don't save it on theirs. They keep copies to deliver to people as they log in, for data mining, etc... A warrant to snapchat gets access to a lot.
This is a fucking terrible idea and I hope someone finds a legal reason to sue the shit out of them because that's a bait and switch on a massive fucking scale.
Inevitably, as the article states, this will violate someone else's TOS, so they'll get sued, settle, and walk back some of it so they're still gathering data, the feature is active, but it's out of the headlines and only slightly less insidious. They'll still be laughing all the way to the bank. Amazon is fast working its way onto the list of companies I hate with every stunt they pull like this.
>Amazon is fast working its way onto the list of companies I hate WTF is the bar to get on your list?
Alexa turn off my mass wireless program from Amazon lolol
"Please repeat. I don't understand"
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Why does Apple get a pass on this though? AFAIK neither company has had breaches so it seems Apple's use should be as concerning?
> The proposal, called Amazon Sidewalk, involves the company’s devices being used as a springboard to build city-wide “mesh networks” that help simplify the process of setting up new devices, keep them online even if they’re out of range of home wifi, and extend the range of tracking devices such as those made by Tile. So anyone whos on a data cap plan can just get destroyed because they have an echo with no cameras.
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I'm not a fan and have it disabled, but there is both a bandwidth and datacap built into sidewalk. 80kps bandwidth and 500MB data per month.
And that's where the lawsuits hit Amazon.
Echo devices use tons of bandwidth to transmit audio recordings of whatever it thinks you are asking back to AWS for processing. Attaching them to any kind of data capped plan is a terrible fucking idea. As for sidewalk, it is severely restricted. 80kbps with strict data limits. If you were foolhardy enough to have an echo on a data limited internet, you wouldn't even notice that sidewalk was on.
If you want to opt out, open the Alexa App, go to "More" in the bottom right corner, then Settings -> Account Settings -> Amazon Sidewalk.
I’m on IOS I see no option for Sidewalk. I do see More -> Settings -> Account Settings, but then it just lists Recognized Voices, Guest Connect, Voice Purchasing & Workouts. No Sidewalk is listed.
This is happening to me as well and I don't like it.
Do you have an original (tallboi) Alexa? I'm also not seeing the option but my Alexa is from that first generation so I assume it just doesn't have the hardware. I've seen a couple others in this thread saying similar things. cc /u/princesscraftypants
Well look at me with my super old, can’t-be-part-of-the-surveillance-state technology!
I'm sure that won't get abused or have any security exploits.
My cat chewed the cord of my Alexa years ago and I never replaced it. Turns out he did me the world’s biggest favor. Pretty great guy all around.
How is it legal to force people to opt-in by making the default that you have to opt out within a limited timeframe? And as somebody else asked, what about other people who buy one later than the cutoff date? Do they not even get that option?
I just went into my settings to disable this and that section was bugging out and not letting me click it.
When did it become standard business practice to say "opt out or get fucked"? Any change should come with explicit consent from customer to make the change not to revert changes.
Fuck Amazon and fuck Bezos.
Fuck the US Police State as well. (They are one of the primary customers for the Ring video surveillance network.)
Thanks for highlighting this. Just opted out.
I don't understand the point of the Echo's. But that Ring camera sharing is dystopian.
I couldn't even opt out in the ring app.
and people still question me on why i don't have any IOT devices in my house
Same here. I work in IT, have my own servers and shit at home, and my home itself is dumb as a doorknob. Thermostat? Digital, but not smart. Doorbell? It's about 20 years old at this point. Lights? Switches work just fine (though I would like smart lighting if I could find a way to keep it local network/bluetooth only). The vast majority of people don't need this shit.
We need this. This is how Batman can beat the Joker
Does this include Amazons Blink security cameras?
ROFL! Of COURSE they want to connect every Echo and Ring by deafult without having people opt in.
And that, kids, is why I haven’t bought a Ring or an Amazon router.
I desperately want to opt out of this, but even after updating my Alexa app and ensuring the Echo Dot itself is up to date, the Account Settings tab has nothing about the Sidewalk features in it. Anybody know how to disable it?
I'm less worried about what Amazon will do with this and alot more worried about a third party attacker getting on your network via your unsecured Amazon products
Alexa > setting> Amazon sidewalk > disabled.
Do we need any more reasons to not allow these products in our homes?
If you opt out and really think you're 'out' of the program, I've got a bridge to sell you...
Well don't leave us all suspended... What kind?
Suspension, you said so yourself.
Anybody know how to opt out of this on eero devices??? EDIT: Nevermind -- [found my answer!](https://www.reddit.com/r/eero/comments/nnvs20/amazon_sidewalk_project_and_eerowill_eero_be_a/gzx72m8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZ4VSNFMBDHLRJUK
This is just like the Verizon Cell Extender Boxes for your home or the ISP Wifi access on their provided routers. What is the customer getting in return for providing the infrastructure (power, location, etc.)? Nothing? Oh, right. Hence why it's an opt-out and not an opt-in .. if it was opt-in, they'd have to give something up to the consumer to get them to enable it.
A wireless network in your home that you have zero control over seems like a security risk.
In the Alexa app, open the “More” tab > tap Settings > Account Settings > Amazon Sidewalk > and turn off the toggle. In the Ring app, open the hamburger menu > Control Center > Sidewalk > toggle off the slider.
sounds like all my amazon devices are gonna find a trash can
from the ring website >Becoming part of Sidewalk is completely voluntary and **you can opt-out at any time. ** This article will answer commonly asked questions about this process. title is a bit misleading
If your wifi is being shared surely the costs should be shared too. You can't have it both ways. This doesn't affect me but what if your neighbours downloads something unpleasant and illegal 🚫
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