Your Electronics May Be Shared With Neighbors

[Jim Koepke]

Not even wanting any of these devices in my home, reading this article makes me feel vindicated in my choice:


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.

On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don’t have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don’t have a connection.

By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system.

See it here > https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-soon-automatically-share-your-internet-with-neighbors/

What could possibly go wrong?

jtk

[Jeff Roltgen]

I'm with you on this. Thanks for sharing- had to double check if the Kindle is part of it , but looks like it is not.
Hard to imagine we've come to this, but the formula is working.
Your freedom and privacy are being slowly eroded, in the name of convenience, moreover, you are paying for the devices and inviting the spy directly into your home!

Sad state of affairs.

Hope I'm not coming on too strong, but I feel the above is more observation than opinion(?)

Jeff

[Mike Henderson]

For those who want to do it, this looks like a good idea. I assume that as you walked through your neighborhood you would be automatically connected to the different WiFi systems are are part of the mesh. And if you lost your service, and was within range of someone else's WiFi you could continue to operate.

It would be an alternative to cellular data.

Overall, a good idea for those who want to participate. I've seen descriptions of systems like this many years ago. The problem is that you need a lot of people to participate so that you don't have gaps in coverage.

Mike

[The devil is in the details, but if the data is encrypted, and the key exchange process is handled well, your data on someone else's WiFi can be very private. For example, when you go to a secure website your data is encrypted. The process of key exchange and the strength of the encryption are both very good. I haven't heard of any penetrations of that system and it's been around for quite a long time now.]

[Jim Becker]

It was already disabled in my Alexa app.

[Kev Williams]

I've lived and/or worked in the house I'm sitting in right now since 1969. Of all the homes immediately surrounding me, I've only been in one of them, next door north. 3 of my cousins-2 sisters and a brother- and their spouses, live less than a block away to our west, and I couldn't tell you which houses they live in. No particular reason why, it just is what it is... In our last house we met some new neighbors, invited them over for a drink and a sit in the hot tub. They thought that was pretty cool. Next thing we know the doorbell rings one night, and there's the neighbors with 6 of their friends dressed in swim suits and carrying towels and coolers full of beer all ready to party in our tub... that's the short version, and just ONE 'neighbor' story...

So, I like being divorced from the neighbors, keeps our lives simple. The last thing I can imagine is being virtually connected to the whole neighborhood... ;)

[Bruce Lowekamp]

I'm with you on this. Thanks for sharing- had to double check if the Kindle is part of it , but looks like it is not.
Hard to imagine we've come to this, but the formula is working.
Your freedom and privacy are being slowly eroded, in the name of convenience, moreover, you are paying for the devices and inviting the spy directly into your home!

Sad state of affairs.

Hope I'm not coming on too strong, but I feel the above is more observation than opinion(?)

Jeff

Going to respond to this because it's somewhat on target and somewhat not.

(just to be clear on perspective, I'm part of the team that brings Microsoft Teams meetings to your work from home experience...)

I'm not entirely comfortable with Amazon sidewalk, though mostly it's because I worry a bit about someone's ring doorbell consuming bandwidth from my house. Amazon is super aggressive in their business practices, they bump up against some edges collecting data to sell you things, but there's unlikely to be a security threat here. They have the teams of people to get the security right and not expose anything that would compromise your network. Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have the right people and generally do a great job, though mistakes happen. You can question their privacy practices (looking at motivations, for Google your data is what they sell, Amazon is trying to gain data to sell you more things, and Apple and Microsoft are selling you their own products rather than selling your data), but security isn't generally the risk you have.

The risk people don't think about is that people plug all sorts of things into their neworks, from all sorts of companies. Garage door openers, Roku, random televisions, monoprice smart lightbulbs, baby toys, baby cameras, etc. And the companies making those things *don't* have the same teams that the big tech companies have. And even if it's a "well-known" name in that space, that doesn't mean anyone has done a decent security analysis on it. Maybe one of the more famous cases was of baby cameras that were Internet connected so you could watch the kid/babysitter and basically had no security controls whatsoever on them.

So paranoia is right, but there are many other things to be paranoid about before we get to Amazon sidewalk.

And it's hard to protect yourself. My house has a pretty complicated network with separate VLANs. The random devices I basically don't trust and only need external connectivity are in a DMZ where they can only get out and nothing can get in. But not many devices fall in that category. Semi-trusted devices and mobile devices that control them wind up in the biggest subnet. All of the Alexas, Rokus, etc wind up here because most of that stuff needs to be in the same network to talk to each other. Our desktops and laptops wind up in a third network.

This ought to be the type of security setup that comes standard but very few vendors support it and it's still super hard to set up. We need to fix that so home networks are secure by default.

Bruce

[Jim Becker]

Of course, Comcast Internet subscribers have had to deal with a similar thing for years now...including turning off the Xfinity "sharing" feature proactively.

[Dick Strauss]

What about people on strict data caps?

How can the police tell who was on your network doing nefarious things?

Amazon was guilty of sending out their networked devices with no default security required for ease of installation.

Given that one of the partners under the Amazon umbrella had employees spying/harassing kids/families through the networked devices, I don't trust Amazon!

[Tom M King]

Another advantage to not having close neighbors.

[Mike Cutler]

Bruce

That is a very good post. Thank you.
I live in a rural farming area and only have 4 neighbors. I can see 3 of the 4 networks and did once "accidentally" take control of one of them. Like so many people, that neighbor did not change the default Admin password on his network router. I doubt they even knew to do that. In troubleshooting mine, I connected to his and got control of his router.
I ended up changing out my router that day, and when he got home from work, I went across the street and showed he and his wife how to change the Admin password on their router.
I won't have any peripheral adaptive devices for exactly the reasons that Bruce pointed out. There is no way that you're getting WiFi, Bluetooth, IR, etc devices as cheaply as they can be purchased with adequate security controls.
I don't really buy into the whole "Amazon/Google" conspiracies, but cheap network compatible devices are just that, cheap. I won't have one.

[Dave Mills]

This ought to be the type of security setup that comes standard but very few vendors support it and it's still super hard to set up. We need to fix that so home networks are secure by default.


Good post, Bruce. Most home routers, while not as complex as your setup, do support a pretty simple "Guest Network" setup. That feature is specifically intended to allow WiFi access only through the router to the internet, and not to devices on the local LAN. It's a pretty safe setup, to my understanding, unless one has bandwidth charges. In my case, I don't let the neighbors use even that without a password, but if push came to shove I'm not sure I have a logical reason why I don't.

[Dick Strauss]

Let's start to fix this situation by doing our best to put pressure on Congress to fix technology issues caused by huge money grabs.

Everything should come with "Opt Out" as the default so that companies can't collect your data or use your network without your permission. Computers, appliances, cars, smart devices for the home, etc. have gotten into the data gold rush to collect your data with no/very little notification or oversight. "Internal Policing" is not working and never does when money is the motivation.

Security setup should be mandatory before a product will work.

OT - Everyone should be on the Do Not Call list by default and the laws should be enforced vigorously.

If I buy a product and agree to terms then that is my contract, not 30 pages of legalese shoved down my throat at a later date.

[Bernie Kopfer]

At the present time these type of systems including biometric monitoring are being used in a good old fashioned capitalistic manner. To make money ie, to sell you stuff. As our devices are being monitored and our search and purchasing data is being collected and shared with merchants it’s quite innocuous presently, but it is annoying. But the day will come when this data can and will be used by governments and other organizations to observe our patterns of thinking and interacting with each other etc. As a case in point check out how Chinese authorities are using facial recognition to monitor anyone they want to. If I thought it was to my benefit to allow Alexia and Siri to monitor my conversations and my location I would sign up. But I haven’t found any advantage to me or to the common good so all these systems remain unutilized . they presently benefit the merchants but who knows for how long!

[glenn bradley]

Another advantage to not having close neighbors.


Yes, this. Not all of us are so blessed :). Some folks even think being too far from "stuff" is a negative(???). :D

Like Jim and others I worked in I.T. for years and tend to just peripherally pick up the news feeds on the latest exploit of the latest consumer trends. Not all geeks are as Orwellian in mindset as I but, most of those I know turn off or purposely lock down all the weak or exposed functions on items before they even throw the box away.

For those who have bought in to the whole Alexa life, knowingly or unknowingly, respond as appropriate for your use. If you are not sure about your exposure, find out. I have only 2 Alexa capable product lines in the house AFAIK. Both were "deboweled" immediately after booting. That is what works for me. Something else may work for you :)