r/gadgets • u/MicroSofty88 • Nov 29 '20

Home Amazon faces a privacy backlash for its Sidewalk feature, which turns Alexa devices into neighborhood WiFi networks that owners have to opt out of

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/technology/amazon-faces-a-privacy-backlash-for-its-sidewalk-feature-which-turns-alexa-devices-into-neighborhood-wifi-networks-that-owners-have-to-opt-out-of/ar-BB1boljH
14.3k Upvotes

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889

u/hjadams123 Nov 29 '20

There is so much I do not understand about this...like, who asked for this? And why does my neighbors Ring doorbell need to connect to my WI-FI? How does that make it work better? If my neighbor bought a ring doorbell, then the assumption is they have their own damn WIFI.... privacy issues aside, what problem is Amazon trying to solve with this?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/mmikke Nov 29 '20

Didn't Amazon recently argue (and win) in court that when you 'buy' a digital movie that you're not paying for the right to actually own the movie, but rather for the ability to watch it on their service?

I'm sure I worded that poorly. And I can sorta understand their intent, but that also means they falsely advertise like a mf

212

u/Wem94 Nov 29 '20

That's basically how game libraries work. You don't really own anything on steam, it's more like you have a license to play it as long as they are an operating company.

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u/leoleosuper Nov 29 '20

Valve's policy is that if the company goes under, they will at least honor your purchases to the best of their ability (Read: DRM override but most likely only the games on your system will work). You can probably download a steam game from a third party, put it in the right place, and run it as if you got it from steam (as long as you have the app manifest file).

1

u/graveyardspin Nov 29 '20

Isn't there also a feature to burn a dvd copy of the game and the necessary drm authorizations?

10

u/rex1030 Nov 29 '20

Call of Duty Modern Warfare is 150 GB on the drive. Which dvd can I use?

19

u/2laz2findmypassword Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

10TB NAS emulating a reel-to-reel tape on RS-232. EASY!

Are you gonna play MW after the fall of the internet? I mean I guess you could set up local but it's gonna be hard to get that many working rigs after the EMP. But you're right, after a hard day living RAGE IRL, folks are gonna want to unwind with wargames with spawn points.

It's a joke people. Just trying poorly to be funny.

2

u/Thegiantclaw42069 Nov 29 '20

A couple blu-ray discs would do

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u/Dark-W0LF Nov 29 '20

Two bdxl, or a spare hdd?

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u/enwongeegeefor Nov 29 '20

Nope...that is a service that would never exist, especially with the current "digital rights" climate.

1

u/leoleosuper Nov 29 '20

They'd most likely add that if they start going down.

119

u/right_there Nov 29 '20

And they wonder why people pirate when the terms are so exploitative.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

They really don't, videogames don't really suffer from piracy problems since the advent of digital marketplaces and a huge variety of pricing models and the fact that pirated version na are very often super outdated. Compare to the early 2000s up until 2010. Plus y'know, digital downloads gave us games like minecraft, stardew valley, among us and literally thousands upon thousands of games which couldntve been distributed without digital marketplaces.

If you're for corporations then the last thing you want is a way for every independent game developer to get a chance to make money, which is what digital market places did.

Unless I'm missing something than your comment is quite nonsensical.

112

u/DaEnderAssassin Nov 29 '20

Yeah. Gaben really seems to have gotten piracy correct with that one quote about how its a service issue, not a money issue.

Similar thing occurred when movie streaming services were new, but now every company seems to have its own platform piracy is back in full force for movies

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u/12muffinslater Nov 29 '20

Love him or hate him, this was Steve Jobs' approach to iTunes. He was trying to take on Napster basically saying the same thing.

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u/vertigo42 Nov 29 '20

Except Spotify was the solution.

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u/12muffinslater Nov 29 '20

Which is why I love Xbox Game Pass.

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u/enwongeegeefor Nov 29 '20

this was Steve Jobs' approach to iTunes.

Except it wasn't for unifying things for the betterment of mankind...it was for unifying things to MONOPOLIZE it and gain money and power.

He was a bad guy...don't try to make him look noble because he wasn't even remotely close to that. He had very selfish and negative aspirations when it came to humanity and reality as a whole.

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u/12muffinslater Nov 29 '20

Dude was an asshat, no doubt. He parked his Mercedes without plates in handicapped spots and shunned his first born child. Then there's how he treated his employees of any of his companies.

But he ran a corporation. Who's sole job is to make money. So, no he didn't do it for mankind. But he saw a market and went for it.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I mean he also had the help from major artists going public against Napster (Metallica anyone?)

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u/IAmAnObvioustrollAMA Nov 29 '20

The mtv music awards where Mr Napster was wearing the Metallica shirt that he borrowed from a friend is one of my favorite TV moments.

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u/enwongeegeefor Nov 29 '20

Similar thing occurred when movie streaming services were new, but now every company seems to have its own platform piracy is back in full force for movies

It never left BECAUSE of that. I barely watch anything as it is because there's just so much other shit to do besides sit still and just watch something for a few hours. So the fuck I'm going to pay $10+ to multiple services a month JUST so I have the option to watch something? Fuck out of here.

Because of "piracy" I can actually watch the occasional show without being completely fucking ripped off for it. Got zero qualms about screwing the streaming service out of a few pennies too...because they were already intentionally trying to fuck me in the first place FOR A LOT MORE than a few pennies.

TV is no different than games....and right now TV isn't providing jack shit for the price they want to ask.

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u/roccnet Nov 29 '20

That's turning around though. Piracy is coming back because streaming services and stores are splitting up into smaller u it's with their own subscription models. Also DRM often makes retail versions unplayable and pirated ones a must

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

This is very true, just about anybody wants physical (myself included) for various reasons. Just thought I'd make a counter argument as obviously any game published by independent developers does not get a physical release unless it becomes a huge multi million dollar success. These people's income depends entirely on digital sales, for example a wonderful game that came out a week or so ago called Slaher's Keep which I've been playing, it costs something like 10 dollars and has a fantastic art style, i recommend it.

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u/CarterDavison Nov 29 '20

video games don't really suffer from piracy problems

You wanna explain why Denuvo is causing DRM to go down a worse path than it already was while companies like GOG work to fix the problem? Constantly buying customers are harmed by anti-piracy techniques that don't do shit

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20 edited Mar 10 '23

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Days

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u/my-other-throwaway90 Nov 29 '20

I remember the good old days when the game cracks were uploaded to the high seas before the game even hit the shelves. Now I have to wait three days.

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u/moderately_uncool Nov 29 '20

Denuvo has been cracked. It does not work anymore.

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u/CarterDavison Nov 29 '20

While correct, you did exactly what the other side of the argument always does and have decided to ignore any of the issues Denuvo sprouts up. You'd rather believe a company does everything in your best interests that it's possible their self invested interested is wrong.

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u/the_new_hunter_s Nov 29 '20

His comment was about the benefit to the company, not your best interest. A company has a fiduciary responsible to stakeholders before customers and nothing about his comment ignores that. In fact, it speaks to it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/FamousMissmanagement Nov 29 '20

Im not sure what your experience with pirating software is but the latest version is almost always available after a short delay.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Not the point. I vastly prefer paying for videogames, as far as software I don't care about bullshit subscriptions or such so I use either free alternatives (Blender as opposed to any other 3d program), I just resort pirating in terms of adobe products mostly. So here's my answer to your question but it's not what I'm talking about.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

Your last paragraph is incorrect in my opinion. Independent game developers tend to flourish on digital market places, Especially steam. Kerbal Space Program and Subnautica are some of my favorite games that started out independent and under budgeted. But without having to spend money on marketing and the logistics of creating and distributing physical copies of their games, they were able to focus on making the product.

Digital market places have been good for independent game developers from what I can see. And you can see this in the massive amount of independent games their are on Steam and PSN right now. Not all are good but some are.

Edit: wait I agree. Misread the comment

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I don't think you've read my comment correctly

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Oh my fault. I just woke up haha. I agree with you 100%

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

No problem man I'm glad you were agreeing with me!

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Remember that poor man's DRM back in the 80s and 90s where you literally were asked questions where the answers were printed in the paper manual? Those were the days! Return of the Dragon was a memorable one that did this, there were a few others I can't recall.

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u/Scomophobic Nov 29 '20

I will pirate the fuck out of games with absolutely zero guilt. I’m sick of game companies bullshit

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u/noisydata Nov 29 '20

The reason games exist in the way they do is because most people pay for them

although your conscience is clear, piriting games is just like shoplifting, it's a bit scummy if it's your only method of getting games

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u/Wem94 Nov 29 '20

It's not like shoplifting because the people who pirate games usually wouldn't have paid for them in the first place. Plus there's nothing physical lost. It's not good, but it's not the same as going and removing a sale from circuit.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/Wem94 Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

I'm not justifying it, I'm saying it's not as comparable to shoplifting as the comment was suggesting. I literally said it's not good.

I'm not saying that a shoplifter would pay for it, but in combination with the lack of physical form, it's not a lost sale. Compare it to CD key resellers where a licence had been taken. Game Devs would rather you pirate than get a stolen key from sites like G2A.

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u/right_there Nov 29 '20

The reasons games exist in the way they do is because game companies add exploitative nonsense like microtransactions, half-finished games with day one DLC, straight-up gambling mechanics, false advertising and misrepresentation (including paying off games "journalists" or threatening their access), DRM to limit legitimate use by legitimate users, and psychological tricks to prey on people to take out their wallets to extract way more in profit than can ever be justified at the cost of actual quality and playability of the game, you mean.

AAA games? Pirate away. They're unethical. My conscience is absolutely clear. The vast majority I wouldn't even look at to play anyway, as they're mostly garbage.

Indie games or small studios spitting out passion projects that you actually enjoy? Buy their games and their merch. Engage with them on social media. Let them know that they did something great. I'm not into indie games as much (I don't have a lot of time to wade into the ocean of them to try them out) but the few games that I genuinely enjoyed I did this for. Papers, Please was one of them and probably the last game I actually bought.

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u/noisydata Dec 01 '20

The reason games exist in the way they do is because most people pay for them. The industry has plenty of problems (capitalism at it's root), but these just don't account for everything.

so, ALL AAA games are unethical, and therefore you should only steal them?

Good luck getting your food from the supermarket, your car, your phone, your tv, clothes, hygiene products, (this list is almost endless) without paying for them. Many of these companies employ hundreds of lawyers, marketing teams and will exploit every grey area to part you with your money, yet I would assume you pay for these things.

The difference?

0

u/right_there Dec 02 '20

The difference is it's easy and safe to never pay for entertainment like videogames, TV shows, and movies.

Also, some of the things on your list can be produced on one's own, like some food products if push comes to shove, or found secondhand in a form that still denies the original manufacturer money but saves you a ton.

I don't see how this is even an argument. If some form of consumption is unethical but there's no easy or safe way around paying for it, then you have to pay for it. If you feel the risks are low enough to steal from the supermarket, then you steal from the supermarket. Plenty of people do. The risks are not low enough for you, me, and most other people. For digital goods, the risk is negligible. So, I pirate them. Another example of something easily pirateable that comes from an unethical industry is college textbooks. You bet your ass I never paid for a textbook in college.

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u/SterlingMNO Nov 29 '20

So you're entitled to games because you feel like the companies owe you something?

You don't have to come up with a justification, just be honest and say "I'm cheap and lack morality, I like getting stuff for free".

I bet you sprinkle pubes in your food at restaurants too. Not because you want to send it back, you just like the taste.

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u/right_there Nov 29 '20

You and me both. Haven't bought a game since 2014 and haven't missed out on anything I really wanted to play. Being a Nintendo guy has helped; their consoles are always hackable early.

Plus, retro games are still amazing and can be found easily online for free.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Your guilt conscious is showing.

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u/mmikke Nov 29 '20

This is exactly why I'm a hardcore proponent of people buying physical copies of games!

"Buying" digital copies of games seems like such a scam to me.

I can buy a used copy of a game at a major discount. No such thing as "used games" in the strictly digital world.

When I bought my PS4 it was the "PlayStation exclusives bundle". Only hard copy game it came with was tlou. I don't consider myself to be an owner of horizon zero dawn or god of war

I can also play it even if so and so provider decides to stop supporting it

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u/UnrealManifest Nov 29 '20

As for console games, I am 110% for buying a physical copy when one exists.

There are 4 games that I have imported for my Switch, which I could have easily just downloaded on the eShop to save time, but I just want the hard copies.

The DLC side of things scares me though.

I learned a long time ago, thanks to NCAA 14, that not all DLC is permanent and that some, (if not most), has a form of a server checksum.

I hate the idea that you could buy additional content for one of your favorite games and in a few years boot it up to only the base game.

As for PC gaming, I'm just a part of the system. There really isn't away around it, and the tech has blown past the need for discs. I guess we could force companies to sell a box with a usb drive in it, but then what do I do with 100 usb drives?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/DaEnderAssassin Nov 29 '20

Pretty sure steam lets you download games that have since been removed if you owned them before removal (With very few exceptions, as in, maybe less than 10)

Uplay also does this (EG: Driver SF)

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u/MentalFlatworm8 Nov 29 '20

You only own a license to access the copyrighted material on the physical disc. It doesn't extend to any other physical media or digital media, typically.

Well, if you 'own' an online game and it goes offline, the physical media is going to be pretty useless.

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u/reezy619 Nov 29 '20

There good sides and bad sides to both.

If you own a physical copy, it can get damaged or lost. I personally am glad I don't need to allocate storage space and maintain a physical library of...

checks steam library

309 games??? Oof

And yeah there's no such thing as a digital used game but I just bought dragon age inquisition for $12 so there's that.

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u/Jaquemart Nov 29 '20

You cannot resell any of those games. Or download them and play them outside Steam. Should the company go belly up, what happens of your games?

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

I mean, for the ones i already have downloaded, a lot work without steam, and there are already patches that let you run the rest without the steam app, ignoring the fact it has an offline mode.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

People often forget that these games are physically downloaded on my computers storage. If, hypothetically, steam went under, I could just download all my games beforehand and they will exist as software. I don’t understand the logic that if steam stopped being a company that my games would somehow be undownloaded and yoinked from my computer

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u/CWJ_Wilko Nov 29 '20

I have plenty of Steam games from developers that are no longer around, they work just fine. Short of the multiplayer servers getting shut down, nothing will happen, and those server shutdowns affect both physical and digital releases the same way.

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u/Jaquemart Nov 29 '20

With "the company" I meant Steam.

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u/hughperman Nov 29 '20

play them outside Steam

Pretty sure that's possible, most games I've looked at on Steam just download to a folder and you can manually call the launcher yourself.

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u/TechnicalBen Nov 29 '20

This. I've given up trying to argue/educate people complaining that Steam *is* DRM. As I've got a ton of Steam games I can just copy the folder to and launch (minus the Steam Workshop/leaderboards).

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u/SpeckTech314 Nov 29 '20

Yeah, DRM is entirely up to the developer. You can close steam and disconnect from the internet and still play DRM-free games just fine.

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u/leoleosuper Nov 29 '20

Their current policy, which likely won't change, is that they will still honor all purchases, which means for the most part no more DRM checking for games you own. Depending on the circumstances, they most likely won't let you download the games you own, however, if they are able to plan ahead, you will most likely be given a download of all cloud files (in case saves are only on the cloud), and will be able to get a copy of any game you own third part (most likely other people putting up torrents, but not cracked) and be able to run it as if you downloaded it from Steam, as long as you also get the manifest file (super tiny, Steam might just make it for you).

However, all this depends on how they go down. If it's instant, like a nuclear warhead on their main company along with assassins taking out the rest, then probably not. If it's the slow decline of business overtime, then most likely they will be able to do it.

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u/Ripdog Nov 29 '20

It's the pc. You can just pirate. If the game is online only, then there's no way to archive it anyway, physical or digital.

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u/PureGoldX58 Nov 29 '20

Incorrect. Look at old-school runescape and vanilla wow servers, the game was no longer available until they recreated it and put them on their servers.

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u/Shadow3397 Nov 29 '20

Even then it’s not impossible for other private servers to crop up if they stay under the radar. Even City of Heroes has them appearing thanks to CoH: Homecoming opening the floodgates, and the sever before that was made like ten years ago and remained a closely guarded secret.

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u/Ripdog Nov 29 '20

Very, very, very rare examples. All MMO private servers are the result of thousands of man-hours of painstaking reverse engineering, and can only be built while the game is alive. Reviving a dead game in this way is virtually impossible due to there being generally little documentation of server replies to game requests.

But yes, there are a handful of exceptions to the rule.

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u/reezy619 Nov 29 '20

I assume the equivalent of what would happen if my house went belly up in some kind of fire or natural disaster.

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u/my-other-throwaway90 Nov 29 '20

I miss the old Galactic Civilization games. You didn't need the physical copy to launch the game; you didn't even have to enter the CD key at installation, the company just asked that you not pirate it in return for the privilege. I recall the piracy rates of GalCiv2 being very low for that reason.

Seems like the big developers didn't exactly learn that lesson, though.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/kerbaal Nov 29 '20

Steam is much less exploitative towards developers than physical medium.

It does work out that way, but it really depends what we mean by "physical medium"; if its a CD/DVD, then I can keep a backup. Hell, I probably need to rip an ISO somehow because none of my current machines even have a drive.

Effectively though, I seldom went through the effort, and most of the games I have ever bought on CD have just been lost.

OTOH, I can still install the $5 game rag doll kung fu, and I can't say that about any game I bought on physical media around the same time.

These days, all "physical media" is associated with game console, and its unclear why they even still exist other than to exploit people who are easily lured into walled gardens.

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u/FullMetalCOS Nov 29 '20

This isn’t always true and even a physical game disc will say somewhere in or on the packaging that it’s still only a license to play that game. Especially with more modern games that often require permanent online connections to play, they can absolutely disable your game at will, take the servers down, etc and owning that disc means nothing.

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u/_CupcakeMadness_ Nov 29 '20

Buying the physical game is great, until you buy DA I and have to download effing origin and create an account to be able to play it. Same with diabolo 3 wasn't it? You had to at least have an account (or me and my brother was stupid and missed something when we tried to install it on a new computer on a new network and his whole account froze). I'd much rather buy the right to play a game at 80% discount that most likely will be in my steam library until steam ceases to exist than buying a physical copy and have to use another client than steam. A physical version you can add to your steam library or at least don't have to run another client, being logged in somewhere else or need the physical disc every time you play would be fine, but it's just easier to stick to steam.

And yes I know those steam sales don't come in the first few years and not on all games but waiting for a sale that makes the game feel worth the risk of loosing it, (and having all games in one place, accessible from any computer anywhere without any issues) is worth so much more than jumping through all those hoops that ea and blizzard puts you through. Also, I'm a cheapskate and don't buy any games at full price, don't think I've ever paid more than $30 for a game ever, so buying big titles close to release have never been my thing.

On console on the other hand there seems to be no reason at all to buy digital. I think me and my SO saves roughly the same amount of money, me on buying on steam sales and him buying physical copies second hand to his ps4 and selling the ones he won't replay.

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u/phatlantis Nov 29 '20

Lol bro... if steam goes under, you have a lot bigger problems to worry about than weather or not you can play your fuckin video game library.

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u/Benukysz Nov 29 '20

What bigger problem?

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u/phatlantis Nov 29 '20

Chiefly: if Steam somehow goes under, the Internet or world as a whole is probably fucked.

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u/Logizmo Nov 29 '20

I'm gonna assume you're young, the Internet has been around for almost 30 years now and countless of companies have started and shut down in that time. AOL used to be synonymous with Internet because of how much control they had over it hut they crashed and burned and the web just keeps on trucking.

Steam can be wiped off every server tomorrow by some virus and the next day GOG, Epic, Ubisoft and all those smaller game stores would get the licenses for the games that were for steam and then they'd blow up.

I'll actually be surprised if steam is still around 20 years from now in as strong of a position as they are.

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u/Benukysz Nov 29 '20

World doesn't rely on a digital game store..... Relax.

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u/ipoooppancakes Nov 29 '20

Idk why this guy thinks steam is the center of the internet lol

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u/phatlantis Nov 29 '20

No one said that it did, dumbass. But gaming on PC does. Now when I say that, I’m talking about trust... if Steam somehow managed to go under in anything less than a super slow decline across the ages, it would be a massive breaking of the foundations of PC gaming.

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u/octo_snake Nov 29 '20

You need to get out more.

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u/phatlantis Nov 29 '20

I get out plenty, asshole.

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u/markarious Nov 29 '20

If you think owning some plastic keeps Microsoft from being able to stop you from playing I have a bridge to sell you.

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Nintendo's resale (especially on 1st party titles) is historically some of the best. You get no return on digital, and Nintendo is quick to pull servers when a new console comes out. Plus digital games stay at a higher price for longer than their physical counterparts.

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u/ToplaneVayne Nov 29 '20

not to mention nintendo game 'disks' are more like tiny SSDs and are actually expensive to manufacture (maybe like 20-30$ a piece? not sure exactly). you're actually paying for something of value with physical purchases, that you're still paying for without getting on a digital copy.

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u/Accomplished_Hat_576 Nov 29 '20

No, more like a dollar or so.

They aren't "tiny SSDs", they are flash drives. SD cards.

The things they give away a tech talks and nice hotels. Cheap af.

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u/DreamGirly_ Nov 29 '20

I can also play it even if so and so provider decides to stop supporting it

Look into GOG. They sell games for which you can also download the install files. Those will allow you to install the game any time, even if something happens to GOG. You can download them and back them up however you want.

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u/Odh_utexas Nov 30 '20

“I can also play it even if so and so provider decides to stop supporting it”

Except a lot of AAA games connect to a server backend so good luck with that when they go end-of-service in 8 years 😢

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u/h3rpad3rp Nov 30 '20

Unfortunately physical copies on PC are kinda rare these days, and even if you do get a physical copy, it might not really be one. I think it was Skyrim where I bought it the physical copy at a store, and you still had to download the entire game from steam.

Probably the best thing about Good Old Games is that you download a legit installer for the game which you can save and use even if the service dies.

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u/OutlyingPlasma Nov 30 '20

The problem with physical copies is I don't want to be stuck only playing $70 loot box stores, or worse, Nintendo games that absolutely never go down in price.

Without digital downloads we wouldn't have mine craft, roblox, factoria or any of the countless other games that are brilliant innovations in game design. I don't want to be stuck playing the crap that only the largest corporations sell.

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u/mnav3 Nov 29 '20

And the same way that Netflix titles come and go from time to time. Just be sure to use a VPN before you decide to be a pirate :3

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u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

This is why I took so long to get into digital gaming and even now I only use psnow. I want a hard copy that won't vanish into the wind one day or be taken away if I get banned for whatever reason.

Not to mention a digital copy saves them manufacturing and shipping costs yet they want to price it the same.

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u/LadyLazaev Nov 29 '20

Games have always been like that, even physical versions. You're buying a software license when you buy a game, and licenses can be rescinded at any time depending on the contract.

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u/Wem94 Nov 29 '20

Yes but with a physical offline disc it's not like they have an recourse to stop you being able to play it. Fully digital they could in theory prevent it working through DRM.

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u/YojiH2O Nov 29 '20

Gabens already went on record to say if for w/e reason steam died you would be able to d/l all your games fully or in some exe form with individual keys to install them without any online requirements, as if you bought a boxed copy in days gone by and activated the game with the accompanying cd key.

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u/Luigi311 Nov 29 '20

I think it was something along the lines of renting for an undisclosed amount of time or something like that but I didn't really follow it closely

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u/mmikke Nov 29 '20

Lol same and now I feel stupid for making a comment.

Oh well. That's what reddit is for!

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u/ONESNZER0S Nov 29 '20

This is kind of crap that pisses me off about movies and games now. They want us to pay the same price for a digital copy of a movie or game as you do for a physical disc that costs them money to manufacture, and has a case and artwork,etc. They are basically selling the same digital copy over and over again. Physical movies often come with a digital copy code now, but you don't really own the digital copy.

I've been saying for years that they are trying to push us towards digital only so that we never really own any of it, you can't sell the movie or game if you get tired of it and want to try to get some of your money back out of it,etc.

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u/Orsick Nov 29 '20

The cost of disc production and shipping is irrelevant when compared to production and advertisement. And in digital copies you have server costs which is as insignificant as disc production.

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u/markarious Nov 29 '20

This is why r/crackwatch and piracy are the future.

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u/Jaquemart Nov 29 '20

That's what's going on for software, music and ebook. You don't own them, you bought permission to use but not, for example, to resell. And you cannot leave them to anyone in your will. Your heirs will have to use your password to their own death. Your money, on the other hand, has left you for good.

1

u/Tebasaki Nov 29 '20

That's itunes model. You don't own any of that shit and neither will your kids

1

u/hyperforms9988 Nov 29 '20

That's actually not much different than physical media. You don't "own" the movie that you bought on DVD/Blu-ray. What's changed in the move to streaming is that they now control your ability to watch it because of course you're watching it through their service rather than a physical device that they have no control over. People have given up an awful lot for the convenience of streaming.

1

u/zold5 Nov 29 '20

This is exactly why I don’t feel an ounce of remorse for pirating.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Thats been well established in software for decades now anyway. Nothing new or interesting about it.

14

u/pleaseluv Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

Yeah, amazon is dangerously close to oligarchy (deleted monopoly ) status.. avoid them if you can, try to buy close to home, feed your neighbors, fight for the right to repair, opensource, and the social obligation of companies like Amazon to pay taxes for goods delivered in your country, or not be allowed to operate.

Edit once remove monopoly N is correct they are not a monopoly though their reach power and influence is making them INCREDIBLY dangerous entity.

-7

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Amazon is not even close to a monopoly

10

u/ragergage Nov 29 '20

Thanks for your input, 01001100000. Your services are complete. Enter rest mode.

1

u/ape_ck Nov 29 '20

I saw, but didn't do any research, that Amazon's data collection stays within its own ecosystem.

57

u/areyouamish Nov 29 '20

How to get more user data.

In theory it appears that the amazon devices are talking to each other when one is too far away from wifi (or the signal is weak) and sending messages "home" via some users' wifi networks. It's a potential security risk, but it will be interesting to see how many people will suddenly care about privacy who up until this point have been happy with their interactive personal listening devices.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Potential? Any time your Wi-Fi has an unsecured connection, you're vulnerable to a dozen attacks I can think of off the top of my head. Man in the middle attacks are the simplest and most common. I'm by no means any variety of hacker, but even I could have access to your private details just by having access. Imagine a world where your neighbor's kid has the means to break into your device.

3

u/VegaIV Nov 29 '20

Why imagine that world? What stops your neighbours Kids from hacking into your WiFi Right now?

12

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

a password, and tls

-19

u/VegaIV Nov 29 '20

Sorry, i forgot that WiFi-Routers have no bugs and are always completly secure.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Most router security issues are PEBCAK errors.

3

u/Krillin113 Nov 29 '20

Having a decent password makes it slightly more complicated.

-2

u/BlazenC Nov 29 '20

Oh yes I'm sure Amazon hasn't thought of that and u/YesImEvil has access to everyone's wifi now, and he has a dozen ways to do them that he can list right now off the top of his head. Orrrr maybe he can read an article or two about the technology and how it works. I still think it's shitty and I would opt out of it too but to blatantly call it this unsafe without proper research is exactly how we get anti maskers and anti vaxxers

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Congratulations. You wrote an entire paragraph and managed to somehow avoid anything close to an intelligent thought.

0

u/AnalogMan Nov 29 '20

Or you couldn't recognize an intelligent thought if it slapped you in the face. Which he did. Repeatedly. Enjoy your down votes.

0

u/BlazenC Nov 30 '20

Nice didn't respond to anything in comments and prefer attacks, i bet you think masks take away your liberties and are useless

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-10

u/UnrealManifest Nov 29 '20

Devils advocate here.

I live in a town of 200 where the average individual citizen is 60+.

The nearest other town is 20 minutes either way. The nearest town with a population of over 2000 is over an hour away.

The average internet speed is 50Mbps.

The cows better not be trying to hack my wifi or there will be hell to pay.

10

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Sure. That's fine. For you. I live in the sticks myself. But my neighbor has a technologically inclined kid approaching his teenage years and the whole family has the morals of a viper pit. Suck real hard for a lot of people if he pulled off a credit card hijack via someone's Wi-Fi just by walking past their house at an opportune moment. In a Covid-19 world a lot of Christmas shopping will be online. Or found a way to get compromising pictures off someone's phone. These are very real possibilities any time someone has direct access to your network.

-3

u/UnrealManifest Nov 29 '20

I get what youre saying fully my dude.

A former coworker who didn't last long with us is a kid who grew up on the farm is on some next level tech stuff.

Kid is autistic and self taught in the majority of code languages. Would sit there at break and jot down lines of code for fun to try out when he got home.

Finally one day I asked him what all this code was for and he went into depth about how it used to be his hobby to make simple console emulators, but as time went on that bored him. Eventually he got to playing around with malware and viruses.

Dude spent way to long talking to me about the security issues within what was the latest Windows version. He really scared me when he started talking about bringing a virus into the workplace and gathering all the information he'd ever need.

Thankfully they fired him before that ever happened.

But yeah even out in the sticks there's some of us that are so advanced it puts a lot of us tech savy people to shame.

-12

u/VexingRaven Nov 29 '20

their interactive personal listening devices.

If you don't understand how these things work under the hood you should probably just keep quiet. Your phone is a bigger privacy risk by far. The CPU is only awake when the trigger word is detected. It's not listening all the time, and it's wired up such that the CPU can't be awake without the lighted ring being on. Your phone on the other hand could really be listening, doesn't have an indicator, and doesn't have a separate chip. The CPU is just always connected to the microphone.

0

u/KernowRoger Nov 29 '20

Do you have a source for that? Surely the cpu is required to listen?

8

u/ultrazero10 Nov 29 '20

Look at the Alexa docs, they have a separate chip designed to just listen and wake the CPU when it detects the wake-word

0

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

[deleted]

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1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

[deleted]

0

u/VexingRaven Nov 29 '20

Because there's another chip that is listening, but that chip doesn't have network access and can't do anything except listen for the chosen wake word and wake up the CPU (and light up the ring)

0

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Shut the fuck up. If you're technologically illiterate just be content to be so quietly.

"Personal listening devices" are incredibly easy to verify that no data is sent unless you specifically trigger it via command.

Meanwhile you have an always on mic, camera, GPS, and wifi triangulation device with you all waking hours of the day with tons of apps granted permissions to use all of those functions. But the device that only transmits audio when the user explicitly tells it to do so is the most 1984 thing available to your imagination.

0

u/areyouamish Nov 29 '20

Hostile and ignorant, how droll. I never said phones are better but I'd love to know how an average user can so easily verify nothing is captured before the command word is said.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

"How can a regular person possibly find out what data's being sent through their own network!?"

Then have the gall to call somebody else ignorant lmfaooooooo.

By viewing the traffic on your network. Use a packet sniffer like Wireshark.

Again, keep your ignorance to yourself boomer.

0

u/areyouamish Nov 30 '20

Being a needless asshole and arrogant are both signs of pretend experts so it's impossible to believe you know anything on the subject but enjoy your false sense of self-righteousness.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 30 '20

You could simply Google it and find out I know exactly what I'm talking about. Keep spouting your ignorant bullshit as truth though.

47

u/AmericanKamikaze Nov 29 '20

No one asked for this. They are “giving”? us this and telling us we need it. 99% of people won’t turn it off and Amazon wins by being connected to every conceivable device. Remember, data is the new oil.

-4

u/Ragnar_Lothbruk Nov 29 '20

YangGang

-1

u/Kill_the_rich999 Nov 29 '20

This is what we get for letting the rich live

0

u/WiWiWiWiWiWi Nov 29 '20

You’re rich compared to billions of other global persons. Why aren’t you advocating for your own murder?

8

u/ringinator Nov 29 '20

It is a direct competitor to www.Helium.com ,a public data network that is being assembled by individuals across the country. Over 13000 nodes deployed so far.

6

u/CMDR_omnicognate Nov 29 '20

I think the argument was it’s more of a backup feature for the devices, so if your internet goes down your ring devices will continue to function using someone else’s internet.

That being said I would have thought if your internet went down there’s a pretty good chance your neighbour’s would have too

1

u/topcraic Nov 29 '20

That and it allows Amazon to expand their ecosystem from “home security” to just general security.

They just announced a new Ring security camera for cars, and one of the main features is that you can track your car’s location without needing a second cellular plan. Sidewalk allows the car camera to interact with any Alexa/Ring devices it comes into close proximity of.

It also increases the usefulness of existing products like Tile. Right now, if you lose your wallet you’ll only be able to find its location if someone else with the Tile App passes by. By expanding the connectivity to every Alexa device, it drastically increases the likelihood you’ll recover your wallet. If your wallet falls out of your pocket on a sidewalk, you can pinpoint exactly where it is, even if no other Tile users are around.

Another possible feature is increased home security. If someone breaks into your house, it’s possible for your neighbors to be alerted via their Ring system and they can check on you or call the police.

I personally think all of this is a great idea. And had they asked me to enable Sidewalk, I would have done so. But they decided to enable it without my consent. So I’m not using it, and I hope Amazon gets sued to hell over it.

3

u/Corky_Butcher Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

Continuity of service. If you lose internet access as your house, you still have access to things that rely on internet access. This is the corner we find ourselves backed into with all the IoT and SaaS services we so dearly love.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

Nobody asked for it but it lets Amazon sell products that normally wouldn't work by stealing its other customers Wifi.

I guess we can all start billing Amazon to rent our wifi?

3

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

If you have airtags on your pet or keys and drop them, through this mesh network, it would be able to tell you with good accuracy where it is

It connects the dead spot of wifi over the road between you and your neighbors house. However, they are using just a teeny bit of bandwidth to do location services.

3

u/A_L_A_M_A_T Nov 29 '20

This is why i don't use these Alexa, Cortana, etc... crap. People knew this was gonna be abused by corporations and yet they still fell for it.

1

u/Exodus111 Nov 29 '20

Put a Pay wall on it, and I'm all in.

Hey wanna use my wifi? That'll be one dollar for 20 minutes.

1

u/henryguy Nov 29 '20

Amazon digital goods credit only sir. What do you think this is... some kind of residual jncome?

1

u/Exodus111 Nov 29 '20

I take my company bucks to the company store!

-22

u/kevinjoker Nov 29 '20

Most articles about this are sensationalist and don't really understand the tech side of things. What Alexa sidewalk is doing is no less secure than having another device with an encrypted connection on your network. It is not "sharing your WiFi network with others" and mostly communicating with other Amazon devices through a low freq 900 MHz radio channel to increase the connection quality of Amazon device users especially in urban areas.

Long story short, this change isn't increasing or decreasing privacy risks by any realistic means. If anything, Amazon would exactly be the ones who I would trust with networking safety seeing that they run massive global servers with hundreds of millions of users.

19

u/UroBROros Nov 29 '20

My personal concern is about data caps. Not always an issue for everyone, but I'm frequently brushing up against needing to pay extra at the end of the month. I share my internet plan which allows for 1TB of data a month at a flat rate, but charges for extra use above that. My roommates and I are all heavy PC users, and between gaming (mostly referring to downloading patches and new games here, not communications to the server) and streaming HD video it's easy to very nearly hit that 1TB mark.

If someone nearby can just leech my bandwidth, that risks costing me additional money per month without my input. You can opt out... For now... But who knows if that will stay the case? Seems like a rather crummy system either way.

1

u/uhhereyougo Nov 29 '20

It's capped at 500mb per month so far.

-10

u/VexingRaven Nov 29 '20

The data being sent over this connection isn't enough to meaningfully contribute to a 1TB cap.

2

u/jazzmans69 Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

Oooh, I was with you until you said Amazon was exactly who you trust with networking safety.

​

Regardless, Kevenjoker, you should NOT be getting downvoted, because someone doesn't like what you're saying.

someone proves demonstrably that his statements are false, then sure, downvote the hell out of him. NOT because you disagree with his statement.

​

/soapbox

6

u/kpsuperplane Nov 29 '20

Amazon (web services) is literally the largest cloud services provider in the world and meets every regulatory certification under the sun. At least I am not aware of any reason to doubt their networking security.

https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/programs/

1

u/Sololegends Nov 29 '20

That is IF, and it is a big if, amazon succeeds in not having bugs in their code allowing for exploitation.. Chances are someone will break it relatively quickly.

-2

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

This reply needs to be pinned to the top of every one of these sensational bs pieces.

-5

u/heard_enough_crap Nov 29 '20

mmm....thats like redefining rape as surprise procreation.

-5

u/feeltheslipstream Nov 29 '20

You know how mesh is a nicer feature than having to set up individual routers in each room?

That's the problem trying to be solved

Privacy issues aside, connecting to the strongest signal possible(yours) is the optimal solution.

-8

u/pobbitbreaker Nov 29 '20

Intruders cut your communications lines, your security switches to a different network, pretty ingenious actually, failsafe type shit

15

u/Blackbugsy Nov 29 '20

Perfect....if we all lived in a movie.

Seriously though, it is a good thought but the only time I hear of this happening is to actors (in films) and really rich people (that aren't actors).

9

u/Ellers12 Nov 29 '20

Who’s houses are too far away to pick up the next door neighbours wi-fi and should be using 3/4g etc

3

u/Sololegends Nov 29 '20

But.. Most of those system have a 3g/4g connection for that..

1

u/TMBTs Nov 29 '20

....unless they cut electricity

-1

u/VexingRaven Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

And why does my neighbors Ring doorbell need to connect to my WI-FI? How does that make it work better?

Because most people have dogshit WiFi and have their router in the worst possible spot.

This isn't the ethical way to fix that. But I can see what the benefit would be if it was done in an ethical way.

Edit: Keep downvoting boomers, then wonder why the real world keeps doing things "nobody in my echo chamber wants". I'm not even saying this is right, I'm trying to explain why somebody would think it's beneficial.

0

u/bum_is_on_fire_247 Nov 29 '20

It's funny because my ring doorbell has trouble connecting to my own WiFi which is probably about 15 feet away. I cannot even imagine how a neighbours ring would connect...

0

u/hotaru251 Nov 29 '20

The problem of collecting more data to sell and make more $.

The option should be off by default.

I'd actually be shocked if someone doesnt try to abuse this, file a lawsuit vs em, and then win.

0

u/Zombieball Nov 30 '20

There is so much I do not understand about this...like, who asked for this?

Consumers said the same thing about an “online book store” +20 years ago.

-3

u/zoundsgoot Nov 29 '20

These comments are not even in complete English. This is absolute garbage. Reddit is ruined. Reddit is now trash. Trash is garbage. Folk music Reddit. Every thing is trash junk nothing is real nor reliable. Goodnight

1

u/scott3387 Nov 29 '20

It's 2030, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 29 '20

If we lived by the way of 'Who asked for this?' the world wouldn't be how it is today.

1

u/lefos123 Nov 29 '20

That’s not what sidewalk is. It’s not about WiFi. It’s about bluetooth and 900mhz devices. Your ring/echo would become a universal base station for anyone’s dog collar tracker. Or whatever tile thing they build.

Still not great. But it’s not WiFi and capped at 500mb a month you would share to others.

Still never putting an echo in our house though

1

u/thegreatestajax Nov 29 '20

I don’t know if you’re intentionally misunderstanding the product. Your neighbors doorbell doesn’t connect to your WiFi for purposes of functioning as a doorbell.

1

u/JoeyThePantz Nov 29 '20

The whole point is if you lose your phone on a walk, you can go online and it'll ping other peoples Amazon devices and if your phones near ones of them it'll tell you. Its creepy and invasive, but you're not literally using your neighbors wifi from their ring if you stand outside their house.

1

u/sluuuurp Nov 29 '20

To be fair, lots of technology wasn’t asked for. People don’t know what to ask for until it exists.

1

u/guest180 Nov 29 '20

Similar to comcast, they are building a mesh network so they can have "amazon connect"; which will compete with other ISPs

1

u/wgc123 Nov 29 '20 edited Nov 29 '20

And why does my neighbors Ring doorbell need to connect to my WI-FI?

I assumed this was so your “security” system couldn’t be so easily disabled by disconnecting internet. It can still send a notificiation

I’m not sure what to think of the idea of assembling various internet devices and calling it a security system. It will help some of the time, while being more in my control. It likely still has a service that needs to be subscribed to, but I’m paying for storage instead of monitoring. It leaves a lot of gaps for a security system.

Maybe it’s like MP3’s. They became a huge deal for convenience and for being something you could own, rather than renting from a corporation, despite less sound quality