Amazon recently announced a new “Sidewalk” network that will use your home devices, such as Echo and Ring, to power the wireless communication network.
Simply put, it helps with continued connections and powering tile trackers. If you own these devices, you’ll be powering this network by default.
Yes–you read that right, the settings will be automatically programmed to share, so if you don’t wish to participate you’ll have to manually change them. Wow!
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Amazon has asserted that they've implemented strong encryption methods for the network--but security experts are wary. Here's everything you need to know about the roll-out:
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Amazon Sidewalk Network
"One of the privacy concerns with Amazon’s “Sidewalk” network is that having everyone connected on the same network poses a huge risk to individuals’ data, making it a recipe for disaster," internet provider expert Carla Diaz, co-founder of Broadband Search, tells us.
"Yes, Amazon has said that they’ve implemented strong encryption methods, but how many times have companies done this and still had data breaches? The answer is a lot." Yikes!
"If a cybercriminal manages to hack the network, they’ll get access to a lot more devices than those existing in just one home," she continues. "In addition, making this a default “opt-in” feature isn’t customer friendly and also could be dangerous if you don’t know what your devices are connected to. This is why, if consumers want to protect themselves, they should be cautious and opt-out of this option for now."
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Other tech experts we spoke to agree. "At face value, there is no cause for alarm except for the fact that millions of users will be sharing their connection by default without them choosing to do so," Sreejith Omanakuttan, Associate Technical Manager at Fingent, a custom software development company based in NYC & Boston said.
"But the real issue is in the security implications of sharing a network with sidewalk, which has yet to be reviewed by a 3rd party security agency to help us make an informed decision. So until such studies clear the sidewalk for consumers, I’d definitely suggest opting out of the network."
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So, how do you change your settings?
Have the Amazon Alexa app installed and logged in on your phone > Open Alexa app > Go to More - select Settings > Select Amazon Sidewalk > Turn Amazon Sidewalk On or Off.
