Amazon Sidewalk to go Live on 08 Jun

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's not at all like Apple "Find my Device". Someone could stealthily put an Amazon Tile in your car or bag and track you. Also it's so complex that it WILL be hacked and is creating a parallel network to the internet with opaque security. Extending a monopoly as well as being wrong in so many other ways.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/...sidewalk_mesh/

And it's using a UHF license free spectrum illegal outside the USA.


This is PLAIN ABUSIVE




Even WITHOUT Sidewalk, the Ring system tells Amazon too much.

Yada, yada, yada. Blah, blah, blah. It's exactly like Apple's "Find my Device". To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Someone could stealthily put an Amazon Tile in your car or bag and track you.

Someone could stealthily put ANY KIND OF tracker in your car or bag and track you. That's how trackers work. Sidewalk doesn't make that any more likely (or easier). In fact, the "Community Finding" aspect of Sidewalk is disabled by default. Meaning no one will be able to use Sidewalk bridge devices to track stranger's Tiles unless they specifically decide they want to share that ability with neighbors. Because the location of the bridge is not shared unless Community Finding is specifically enabled. You WILL however be able to track your own registered Tile devices without needing to enable Community Finding.

The horrific decision to make Sidewalk opt-out instead of opt-in means that the riskiest proposition is that owners will be able to turn their outdoor lights off through the neighborhood mesh in the event of their internet being down. The only way people can get an approximate location for your Sidewalk Bridge devices is if you yourself grant them that ability by turning on a feature that is disabled by default.

You want to be paranoid? Fine. Have it. But it's time to stop pretending you're even remotely rational when it comes to criticizing Amazon.

And it's using a UHF license free spectrum illegal outside the USA.

Using the 900 Mhz Bluetooth Low Energy spectrum is illegal outside the USA?

The Sidewalk Security Whitepaper for any who might want to use facts instead of FUD to make their decisions

[Froide]

FYI:
"Amazon has started switching Sidewalk settings from OFF to ON, without asking, to share your Internet WiFi with the public"
by Elias Saba on November 29, 2020

[Paperbackstash]

I'll have to look into my settings. I have two dots and one Show. I don't want the Wifi shared, and since I live in a mobile home community, have many very close neighbors. Besides security reasons, I don't want my Wi-fi shared as it has enough issues on it's own if we put too much on it wi-fi wise at once in our own home.

[PeterT]

You do realize that it's not making wifi available to others; it's actually just allowing certain Amazon devices to inter-connect via Bluetooth or other non-wifi protocols so that IoT functionality (Tile devices, Doorbells etc) to continue functioning if their native wifi connection fails.

It's not allowing someone to surf the net via your Internet connection.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by PeterT

You do realize that it's not making wifi available to others; it's actually just allowing certain Amazon devices to inter-connect via Bluetooth or other non-wifi protocols so that IoT functionality (Tile devices, Doorbells etc) to continue functioning if their native wifi connection fails.

It's not allowing someone to surf the net via your Internet connection.

I'm more worried about Amazon saying it might share Sidewalk information with 3rd party developers. Shall I say Amazon's record at protecting private data is not overly inspiring.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Using the 900 Mhz Bluetooth Low Energy spectrum is illegal outside the USA?

The UHF licence free bands and 900MHz Licenced phone bands are different in the USA and Europe.
It's not my opinion. It's fact.
Also the low band FRS USA and low band UHF licence free band for 446MHz Europe are different.
Lower band Licence Free UHF SRD (door bells, keyfobs, outdoor temp sensors, 2.4GHz Video sender remote reverse channels) are different in USA and Europe.
Most of the world uses the same allocations as European (I'm NOT meaning EU). The USA likes to set different standards and ignore the ITU.

But now people buy online.

See ISM band "Licence Free". It's actually PRE-LICENSED as you can't just do anything in each band. Equipment MUST have the appropriate certicfication, FCC, ETSI, CE etc in each telecommunications regulated area.

Also computer security is more complex. This Amazon system is a UHF mesh network in parallel to the regular networks. It's absolutely NOTHING like Apple or Android find your device. Read up on how those actually work.

I actually DO know what I'm writing about as I'm a qualified RF communications Engineer and and till recently worked in computer security and previously acting head of R&D in one telecom company, R&D Director in an other and in charge of R&D for an ISP that used licenced and ISM band microwave links as well as two way satellite and fibre dsl.

I've quoted a reasonable source too.

Most so called smart devices are a way to monetise your behaviour. The security, privacy and reliability track record of IoT like Ring and Nest is abysmal. Companies lose interest and the gear is bricked. Sidewalk is the most ambitious and arrogant IoT system yet as it uses a separate (mesh) network of diverse devices each with an Internet connection per user. It is a disaster for privacy.

The advice from reputable security experts is simply to never connect so called smart devices to the internet. Do not buy any that rely on the seller's server to operate.

It's perfectly possible to have a gadget that only YOU can access over the Internet and is secure. That's not true for Ring or Nest. Also better to use a TV streaming stick or laptop or tablet to TV for streaming than connect a TV direct to the internet. Multiple companies harvest the TV set activity (inc tuner channels, discs played via HDMI, times et, everything possible and some the sounds in the room).

It's not allowing someone to surf the net via your Internet connection.

Unlike Virgin Media and Eircom routers, that is absolutely true. However there are other problems.
They keep emphasising the low data usage, but are coy on who gets it and also about system misuse.

[Tarana]

I have Alexa app on multiple devices including Iphone and Fires. Do I have to turn off Sidewalk on all of them or is just one location enough to do it for all the devices on the same account?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Also computer security is more complex. This Amazon system is a UHF mesh network in parallel to the regular networks. It's absolutely NOTHING like Apple or Android find your device. Read up on how those actually work.

I have read up on them. And I still disagree. It's a 900mhz bluetooth network. I won't bother throwing my credentials out, because I don't care enough to try and convince you that I also know of what I speak.

Most so called smart devices are a way to monetise your behaviour

The part you don't seem to understand is: I know this, and I (and people like me) still don't care. Your notions of privacy and moral business practices are simply not universal. I've read the whitepapers, I've checked the paranoid and overly biased critiques, and I'm satisfied that my (or anyone's) decision to leave Sidewalk enabled is not going result in the fall of civilization.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I have Alexa app on multiple devices including Iphone and Fires. Do I have to turn off Sidewalk on all of them or is just one location enough to do it for all the devices on the same account?

It's an account setting. Turning Sidewalk off in your Alexa app on one device will disable it for any device registered to that account.

[Quoth]

The part you don't seem to understand is: I know this, and I (and people like me) still don't care. Your notions of privacy and moral business practices are simply not universal. I'm satisfied that security on Sidewalk meets my privacy expectations.

Most people don't know the implications of Sidewalk and most if not all communications engineers, civil rights and security experts would disagree with what is obviously just a personal opinion, which you have a right to have.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Most people don't know the implications of Sidewalk and most if not all communications engineers, civil rights and security experts would disagree with what is obviously just a personal opinion, which you have a right to have.

No they wouldn't. Betcha 100 bucks they'd be split close to 50/50.

I'm discounting your ridiculous inclusion of civil rights "experts" in your equation of course. Just as you're probably automatically disqualifying any of the many communications engineers and security experts who happen to work for any of the corporate devil giants you love to go all Quixote on.

[Quoth]

GSM-900, EGSM/EGSM-900 and GSM-1800

GSM-900 and GSM-1800 are used in most parts of the world (ITU-Regions 1 and 3): Africa, Europe, Middle East, Asia (apart from Japan and South Korea where GSM has never been introduced) and Oceania.

In common GSM-900 is most widely used.

GSM-850 and GSM-1900
GSM-1900 and GSM-850 are used in most of North, South and Central America (ITU-Region 2). In North America, GSM operates on the primary mobile communication bands 850 MHz and 1900 MHz. In Canada, GSM-1900 is the primary band used in urban areas with 850 as a backup, and GSM-850 being the primary rural band. In the United States, regulatory requirements determine which area can use which band.

Generally the 900 MHz of Sidewalk is only legal in GSM 850 countries. Most of the world is GSM 900.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_frequency_bands


You don't have to believe Wikipedia. Look up FCC and any Western European Regulator such as Comreg or Ofcom.

Sidewalk's actual BLE, Bluetooth, is 2.4GHz. The 900 MHz is LoRa

LoRa uses license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 433 MHz, 868 MHz (Europe), 915 MHz (Australia and North America), 865 MHz to 867 MHz (India) and 923 MHz (Asia).

The 900 Mhz LoRa Sidewalk is illegal in most of the word. European models wouls have to use 868MHz.

Similarly people can buy US low band Remote controllers and they are illegal elsewhere, 315 MHz (I think), vs 433 MHz in Europe.
USA FRS is 462 and 467 and illegal elsewhere. Europe uses 446 MHz.
The USA Licence Free 900MHz is actually 915MHz and illegal in most of the rest of the world, Europe is 864 MHz.
But also the power level limits are quite different. The European 862 MHz and 433 MHz are only for short range devices, a similar range to 2.4 GHz, used for Bluetooth and WiFi, though BT is much lower power thus shorter range.

One problem now is people buying US devices outside of USA.

This system shouldn't be using 900 MHz at all.

[DiapDealer]

All I heard was "perfectly legal and quite common in the country they're testing it in." Shame on them.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by jhowell

With the low bandwidth usage of Sidewalk there will be few cases where it puts someone over the edge of a usage cap, but yes, it could happen.

In my opinion Amazon should be held responsible for any overage or extra charge. No one one signed up for "Sidewalk" when they bought the Echo. This should be an opt-in (not opt-out) feature.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Never let things like facts get in the way of a good, completely uninformed, FUD rant I say.

Apparently when you buy a product now from any corporation now it's not actually yours, it's still theirs and they can do anything they want with "their" product (even though it's your own house). No thanks. Not interested.