Amazon Sidewalk Internet Sharing

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

If you own any of the Amazon devices listed below, you will automatically opt-in sharing your internet connection.  You must opt-out if you don’t wish to participate in providing free WiFi to neighbors and people parked in front of your house:

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. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk "is currently only available in the US."

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/...neighbors/

[eightfingers2.0]

It may also violate the TOS of you ISP.

[HI_Someday]

Comcast has been doing that for a long time. They say it doesn't effect your performance and the access is completely separate from your home network. Not sure how true that is. However, you can only access that network if you are a Comcast customer and have a log-in.

Edit to add - If you put any of those cloud based, internet of things, devices in your house your security and privacy is already minimized.

[kalakoa]

Big difference: Comcast is managing an edge device, they can provision a separate layer2 network. Amazon is already behind your layer3 firewall, so all the sharing happens on your private network unless you built separate networks for all your various devices, using a multi-SSID wifi AP or similar arrangement.

Unlikely to violate ISP TOS -- educated guess says all connections will be mediated by Amazon, not peer-to-peer.

This "service" will be less useful in rural areas where (your neighbor, the road) is too far away. Should make funny joke for Amazon!