Amazon sharing your internet without consent

Ugh. It’s like Comcast doing their whole xfinity guest WiFi thing, but even more shifty because they’re not even the ISP.

seems like eero is not currently included, but if you’ve got them it’s probably worth checking on this regularly.

I’m curious how effectively running an open hotspot gets by most ISP terms, too.

There’s a reason this is USA only, and it’s that they know they couldn’t make it default opt-in anywhere else.
 
I'm about to gloat even more because I don't have any of these devices.

That said, it is total bullshit. Any and I mean ANY new feature needs to be opt in, never opt out. That is even more true when it is something potentially controversial like this.

"Hey, you shop at Krogers, so now Krogers is just going to share your couch with random strangers and let them watch your TV. What you didn't see the fine print on your Krogers receipt? You had the option to opt out!"

It is absolutely insane...

I hope at the very least they set them up to worn with some form of encrypted tunnel until outside your network...
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Who the hell do these companies think they are doing something like this without explicit consent?
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You're talking about the same people that willingly bug their own homes with microphones that always listen and cameras that always watch, which have been in the international press multiple times for those devices being compromised, and yet they still continued to use them. Hackers have hacked and Amazon employees have been caught multiple times cruising around on customers alexa and ring devices just because they can.

And yet these same people continue to use these devices. They really don't have any right to complain about Amazon treating them like guinea pigs. They've had numerous warnings and ample time to get rid of such devices, it's entirely on them for letting themselves be taken advantage of.
 
I looked in the Alexa app on my phone and did not see the described option to turn it off
 
*knock knock*

Yes?

I was trying to use your wifi but its not available. please can you enable it so I can surf facebook at your expense.

*get off my lawn, slam door*
 
wra18th said:
I don't have any of their products so I won't be affected. 👍
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Unfortunately this sort of junk creates a mesh network around you if you live near others (neighborhood, apartments, etc) using these devices.
That in turn means *any* smart device in your home now has access to unsecured WiFi and you have no control (short of severing the WiFi controllers) when these devices connect to the interwebs to happily send gigabytes of your usage data to who knows where.
 
Yeah, I don't have any of those products! WAIT!!! Samsung has Alexa built into it and I have a modern Samsung TV, what the hell. I am hating more and more of the modern designs, I do not think this is limited to just Amazon, Samsung seems to be right there as well with their stuff. Have to create an account to setup the TV etc. Then there are the different streaming channels and apts all layered on top.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00087622/

If you want to turn off the snoop features of varies brands of TVs, this may help:
https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/
 
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schoolslave said:
Unfortunately this sort of junk creates a mesh network around you if you live near others (neighborhood, apartments, etc) using these devices.
That in turn means *any* smart device in your home now has access to unsecured WiFi and you have no control (short of severing the WiFi controllers) when these devices connect to the interwebs to happily send gigabytes of your usage data to who knows where.
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This is when you set your device to not connect to unsecured networks.
 
I'm looking forward to hearing about how Amazon is a walled garden and that this sort of thing is good for the larger ecosystem, and that this is part of what makes their pricing possible. They're a private company, after all. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have accepted the terms and conditions.
 
Hmmm…. They are already on their own wifi network, now I have to cap their speeds as well…. Might be time to sell this crap off next time we move.
 
schoolslave said:
Do you trust that that actually shuts it off? Once that WiFi module is built in we’ve already lost.
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That option just stops your device from actually connecting to an unsecured wifi network automatically. It does not disable your wifi at all. If your wifi is on, yes it can be identified and found, turning it off and if it is actually off is easy enough to test, just fire up Kali Linux with a supported wifi card and do an airmon-ng scan and see if your wifi devices MAC shows up
 
Axman said:
I'm looking forward to hearing about how Amazon is a walled garden and that this sort of thing is good for the larger ecosystem, and that this is part of what makes their pricing possible. They're a private company, after all. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have accepted the terms and conditions.
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People bought the products BEFORE this feature was added or known about, so is Amazon going to give full refunds to people who do not agree with these new features?
 
GiGaBiTe said:
You're talking about the same people that willingly bug their own homes with microphones that always listen and cameras that always watch, which have been in the international press multiple times for those devices being compromised, and yet they still continued to use them. Hackers have hacked and Amazon employees have been caught multiple times cruising around on customers alexa and ring devices just because they can.

And yet these same people continue to use these devices. They really don't have any right to complain about Amazon treating them like guinea pigs. They've had numerous warnings and ample time to get rid of such devices, it's entirely on them for letting themselves be taken advantage of.
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Reported.

1622363927390.png
 
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It's actually an interesting feature and I kind of like it, BUT I'm sure companies will abuse this - too difficult to control and verify. IIRC one ISP tried this here in PL, wasn't popular at all.
It'd had to be on a completely different, contained network (which would probably fail when an exploit is discovered in the HW).
Your monthly fee should be sliced in two, even if you're providing, say, just 20% of the bandwidth (electricity costs, EM smog, desk space, risk).

Implementing this in any other way, especially in an opt-out manner should be grounds for suing the crap out of Amazon.
 
I don't own an Alexa life-invader, but a family member does have a smart phone that they need for work, and it's a damn spy bot. How do I know? I have some low-talkers in my family, so I occasionally yell "Speak up! I'm deaf!" I'm not actually deaf, I hear just fine, and I'm under 40. Nevertheless I've started getting ads for hearing aids via snail mail. So now, I've started yelling "I'm constipated!" into the open air. I expect to receive promotions for laxatives soon.
 
MrGuvernment said:
How about people stop buying Amazon Spying devicess (and google) to control their homes. They are not secure, they do crap like this..and you are the product.
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Which makes all this even worse because people psy for these devices. They are the product and the customer. They should be getting paid to use these, but people are stupid.
 
no amazon devices in the house. all my devices are dumb, except our phones.
I wonder how this will effect the wifi congestion.
 
UltraTaco said:
Doesn't this go against terms nd conditions of most internet service providers?
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I doubt it,I think these companies are all scratching each others backs, unfortunately.

Wife and I gave up our Iphones in 2015,after hearing reports of Apple using slave labor. Landline only now for us.
 
Well this sucks.
Have a few echos and just disabled this feature. Also just installed eero mesh in my gf place and it’s a fantastic mesh system. Has totally fixed WiFi issues in her apartment. Haven’t seen this update yet and we’ve opted her out of all the share data crap. Hopefully that’s the end of it for eero….
good find dpoverlord, thanks for the heads up!
 
JSHamlet234 said:
I don't own an Alexa life-invader, but a family member does have a smart phone that they need for work, and it's a damn spy bot. How do I know? I have some low-talkers in my family, so I occasionally yell "Speak up! I'm deaf!" I'm not actually deaf, I hear just fine, and I'm under 40. Nevertheless I've started getting ads for hearing aids via snail mail. So now, I've started yelling "I'm constipated!" into the open air. I expect to receive promotions for laxatives soon.
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People claim "my phone overheard me saying this, and now I get ads for X," but I have yet to see any real evidence there's constant background listening going on. From what I've seen, it tends to be either pure coincidence (more likely in this case) or something else the person did online to prompt it. I wonder if claims like this will decline as more people use iOS' "don't allow this app to track me" feature and some of the causes of these freaky incidents decline.

For that matter, the folks who think smart speakers are always recording what you say drive me wild, too. They mistake "listening for the wake word" for "actively listening to everything," and that's just not how these systems work — they know nothing until they hear the wake words. The issue is that they can mistakenly hear those keywords and record a few seconds of incidental conversation, not that Amazon or Google really wants to know what you had for breakfast. But it's easier for a lot of people to buy into the paranoid fantasy of around-the-clock recording than accept a middle ground where there are things they should be mildly concerned about.

Amazon's opt-out approach to sharing Wi-Fi, though? Yeah, that's an unambiguously lousy policy.
 
This seems like some ez profit court case tbh. The big factor is the short notice of such a highly questionable "experiment". Especially for EU this would be a big no-no in how the company handles personal data.
 
Well, something similar is probably coming to your Cable Modems/ONT in the future, but in the form of a 5G radio to increase coverage. Jeff Finkelstein of Cox Communications has said this on Multiple occasions, at last years Cable-tech Expo, and in a few webinars he's been on, and cisco has pretty much followed suit and I've heard it repeated a few other places as well.

Basically to get the coverage in Dense locations and elsewhere that is needed, it just isn't going to be cost effective to deploy the number of Radios/backhaul/midhaul needed (along with the shear issues of high frequency radio penetration in buildings) you're going to see radios built into cable modems and the like as a way to grow networks.

Not really sure how this would effect user side, as it may be running on a seperate slice of the network (one would assume) so you would still probably have the bandwidth separate from your own, but it is definitely going to come when the radio arrays get cheap enough (they're already small enough).
 
The big problem i have with this is, I have no Amazon devices that use sidewalk, so I can't even opt out without having one of the devices on my network. I tried going to my amazon account via the amazon site and can't find a way to opt out. It just sends me to a page that tells me how to do it via the Alexa app. On the off chance someone in my house got one, or got a device that wasn't an Amazon device when purchased that got bought by Amazon in the future and didn't notice the switch to Amazon it would be enabled by default. Also it is account specific not network specific. So basically my brother who shares my network, even if I have it disabled, if he didn't disable it in his account it would still be using my network.
 
UltraTaco said:
You sure about that, mate?
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Hah, I know what you mean!

I just think it's funny that people genuinely believe Amazon and Google want a massive amount of garbage recordings in the off-chance they'll maybe, possibly, kinda catch you saying something they can use for ad targeting. It's like basing your income on lottery tickets... the chances of getting something useful just aren't worth the effort.
 
Clickbait article:
Article said:
If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have only 10 days to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.
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Tin-foil hat much? You already share your voice when using an Alexa or Echo, and they can listen to the audio. If you already trust them enough to use a smart speaker, this adds nothing more to the 'personal privacy and security' and it's 'balance'.

Amazon said:
Sidewalk can help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices to help find pets or valuables with Tile trackers, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home wifi. In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices...
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It only applies to Amazon devices, and only certain ones at that.

Amazon said:
The maximum bandwidth of a Sidewalk Bridge to the Sidewalk server is 80Kbps...
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Amazon said:
Why should I participate in Amazon Sidewalk?
For select Ring devices, you can continue to receive motion alerts from your Ring Security Cams and customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection. Sidewalk can also extend the working range for your Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as Ring smart lights, pet locators or smart locks, so they can stay connected and continue to work over longer distances.
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Are ring cameras being wireless somehow a concern, is my neighbor going to hack my cameras?? lol..

Ring said:
We use a combination of AES encryption (Advanced Encryption Standard) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) to secure data between Ring devices and AWS, and we encrypt data between Ring devices using AES encryption, TLS and SRTP (Secure Real Time Protocol).
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That's pretty secure. What's more likely, that your Ring cameras alert you to physical intrusion attempts, provide intrusion deterrence, or that the Ring camera's encryption is going to get cracked and "oh no!" someone can see my front porch!
 
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schoolslave said:
Unfortunately this sort of junk creates a mesh network around you if you live near others (neighborhood, apartments, etc) using these devices.
That in turn means *any* smart device in your home now has access to unsecured WiFi and you have no control (short of severing the WiFi controllers) when these devices connect to the interwebs to happily send gigabytes of your usage data to who knows where.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that. They are effectively bypassing the firewall of those who know how to opt out. This is pure evil.

Going to have to build a faraday cage in the walls now...
 
GoodBoy said:
Clickbait article:


Tin-foil hat much? You already share your voice when using an Alexa or Echo, and they can listen to the audio. If you already trust them enough to use a smart speaker, this adds nothing more to the 'personal privacy and security' and it's 'balance'.



It only applies to Amazon devices, and only certain ones at that.




Are ring cameras being wireless somehow a concern, is my neighbor going to hack my cameras?? lol..


That's pretty secure. What's more likely, that your Ring cameras alert you to physical intrusion attempts, provide intrusion deterrence, or that the Ring camera's encryption is going to get cracked and "oh no!" someone can see my front porch!
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Let see, it would be very nice to know how many live in you house, when you all leave, any kind of schedule you keep, be able to turn off your camera so the criminal can go inside and snoop and see if more information can be robbed from you or just plain rob you, kidnap your kid etc. while you think you are totally secured and blind that you gave someone the key to your house with minimal chance of being detected or caught. Porch camera would do just fine for that.

Are you saying networks are never compromised? If so, I like to see what blinders you are wearing. There is also a certain level of trust folks give to these companies but then you have no clue the integrity of the workers, what information can be compromised or obtain by then and sold to the highest bidder. Hey, pssst, I have 10,000 Echo or some other system passwords/account info. . . how much will you give me? Just a very cursory search will give you the real answer.

https://www.consumerreports.org/home-security-cameras/keep-home-security-cameras-from-being-hacked/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...esla-jails-in-breach-of-150-000-security-cams
https://abcnews.go.com/US/ring-secu...ners-subjected-racial-abuse/story?id=67679790
 
I am a long time user here (joined in 2005) with over 1,700 posts but I created a new account to make this post. I am doing this because what I am about to reveal I want kept secret.

This is something I hate to disclose because I do not want pity, I am a paralyzed veteran, a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair and paralyzed from the chest down. I have been stuck in this wheelchair for 30 years (I was injured when I was 24) and I live alone. After I go to bed I am helpless until I get back in my wheelchair. Turning my home into a smart home has been a miracle. From my bed I can control my computer, TV, heat, air conditioning, lights, telephone and even my door.

Some of us do not have a choice.
 
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