Amazon just opened up its Sidewalk network | Hacker News Reader

Amazon just opened up its Sidewalk network

theverge.com

46 pointsmfiguiere12 comments

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it isnt a free network, its pilfering other peoples bandwidth.

its a stolen network.

this is what blackhats do.

https://www.theverge.com/22463257/amazon-sidewalk-privacy-ho...

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/amazon-sidewalk-a-n...

Isn’t the real problem that many ISPs and providers meter bandwidth at all? IMO stuff like this and Bittorrent is how the web should work, although of course I’d rather see an open standard than a proprietary network (if that’s even possible under a paradigm like this and Apple Find My / AirTags).

its all good if there can be a way to properly avoid/assaign blame when someones crime hops through your infra.

of course, you can opt out of sidewalk, i do like the idea of sharing for the community, we dont get very many malignant WAR-ers around here, but some issues have occured.

And so does Apple's Find My, but I never see anyone complaining about that.

both these are supposed to to be minimal unobtrusive usages, i think as time goes on creativity will add some exploits to the mix, such as using it as a sidechannel for CnC packets

I really hope someone releases a smart plug that works over this. Cellular-enabled smart plugs are a total racket, and being able to control devices beyond wifi range can be really useful.

Look into home assistant. Also Homekit does it too.

The point is to not rely on WiFi, hence Sidewalk.

I just want to use my own LoRa-enabled ESP32. Anyone know if that's possible? Or do I have to use a Ring-branded piece of hardware via UART or something like that?

I don’t know if you can do it today via esp32, but a bunch of silicon companies announced they’re releasing hardware kits. Amazon is also releasing a hardware kit.

You do not need to use a ring device over UART or anything like that.

https://amazon-sidewalk.github.io/amazon-sidewalk-documentat...

I don’t think can use existing LoRa devices with Sidewalk. Sidewalk uses BLE, LoRa, and 900MHz custom data. It isn’t Lora network like Helium.

Is this going to require some kind of API key or other authentication to work?

While I wouldn't use any device that provides access to this network, I would probably add it as another network source if I was making something which used comparable hardware. Assuming the process isn't too arduous.

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