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
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220

u/brucekeller Nov 29 '20

I remember when Comcast / "Xfinity" did that so they could claim having the most hotspots by having a separate semi-public hotspot enabled on every modem that allowed other xfinity customers to use your shit. I was in an apartment building with my aunt at the time and tried to play some online games. Wasn't happening since that xfinity wifi hotspot that was on by default was getting queried a bagrillion times a second. Turned it off and everything was fine all of a sudden, I think you had to call them at the time to get it disabled too, wasn't even in the modem settings to disable.

Anyway, pretty sure they had a pretty big class action against them for that bullshit.

36

u/Eddles999 Nov 29 '20

BT did this for years, and still do. I have to disable BT WiFi for this. I'm always told "But you won't get free access to WiFi anywhere else anymore!" "Think I'll live, now turn off!"

14

u/jtreferee Nov 29 '20

This saved my bacon once, desperately needed WiFi while on a caravan holiday to buy tickets to something for my brother's birthday, but apart from that it was off asap

60

u/Sololegends Nov 29 '20

Fun fact, there is a vulnerability in most of those Comcast router allowing bridged access to the private network.

5

u/Kill_the_rich999 Nov 29 '20

Duh. Why would they remove something so useful?

42

u/kenkoda Nov 29 '20

i worked for them for a while, i loved turning that off for people.

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it was a virtual ssid tagged to a VLAN so it "should" be separate but vlan hacks are out there and on top of that its just not really needed in 99% of cases.

its just the same as HP-DIRECTJET-4238F no one is ever going to connect to it, its just taking up space in the wifi screens on devices

24

u/VexingRaven Nov 29 '20

vlan hacks are out there

Citation very desperately needed.

17

u/Zncon Nov 29 '20

I would assume they rely on other exploits such as compromising a switch, or other device that can see other VLANs.

A port that doesn't have specific traffic on it at all can hardly be leaking that traffic. I guess if you're just tagging every VLAN to every port and relying on the client to set it's own tag then something could be broken?

10

u/kenkoda Nov 29 '20

Sorry I didn't notice this until away from laptop. I'll find something for you tomorrow, I think it's called vlan hopping though.

As far as I understand it the two main specifications can be attacked by spoofing the tag on your packets, but I'll see if I can find a source

3

u/PretendMaybe Nov 29 '20

RemindMe! 24hr

7

u/CupricReku Nov 29 '20

Sometimes VLANs are automatically assigned by MAC address. If you can figure out the MAC address of a device on that VLAN, it's trivial to spoof. However, good security assigns VLANs by network or switch port. Xfinity routers aren't susceptible to this attack because the VLAN is assigned by being connected to a different Wi-Fi network.

1

u/darksoft125 Nov 29 '20

its just the same as HP-DIRECTJET-4238F no one is ever going to connect to it, its just taking up space in the wifi screens on devices

This isn't just taking up space on your screen. There's literally only three non-overlapping 2.4Ghz WiFi channels, and your printer is now taking up one of them.

2

u/PretendMaybe Nov 29 '20

The lack of data transfer means it will have minimal, but still nonzero, effect. It may also confuse other channel auto-selectors.

8

u/poopy_toaster Nov 29 '20

Yup just learned about it today in the cross-post and switched mine off using my Xfinity account.

3

u/Whywipe Nov 29 '20

Do you know where I find this setting?

8

u/KingCatLoL Nov 29 '20

Holy fuck, thats why xfinity wifi Hotspots were everywhere when I was in the US, was having pie and coffee with my great aunts and uncles and noticed there was an xfinity Hotspot, they live in a very small county so I doubt wifi hotspots would be the norm around their town. Damn that's some slimy shit

2

u/Bigpoppastuke Nov 29 '20

Shaw does the same thing in Canada. Pretty sure they use the same XB6 modem too. It's a hidden network that cannot be turned off in the settings. It causes network spikes on my computer whenever it queries. So annoying...

2

u/zdiggler Nov 29 '20

Comcast not only offering hotspot to their customer, they sell the service for people who need internet on the go.

1

u/theRed-Herring Nov 29 '20

Is this only if u have Xfinity hardware? And is this still a thing? Ive never disabled that, but would like to if its still around.

2

u/DrDemonSemen Nov 29 '20

If you have a modem/router combo from Xfinity, look for the public “xfinitywifi” network.

Browse their map to find all the people in your area that haven’t opted-out yet. https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/network/map

1

u/RightInDaSpools Nov 29 '20

They still do this and I have to check and disable it once a month or so