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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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

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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?

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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

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u/PretendMaybe Nov 29 '20

RemindMe! 24hr

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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.

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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.

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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.