Amazon’s Sidewalk

If you’ve noticed in the news, there have been some articles talking about Amazon Sidewalk, and that you should opt-out of it before it’s too late. Most of the articles seem to have inflammatory headlines. Sadly, that’s typical of the news these days. Maybe it’s always been that way? At any rate, I have 2 articles and a Snopes blurb about it. The articles do a good job of explaining what it is. One article is definitely against it, while the other one is a bit more, I’d say, level headed.

First, If you have an Amazon Ring or Echo, this applies to you, if not, then you don’t necessarily need to read this. We do have the Echo, and have a Ring but not yet installed. There are plenty of creepy things about having this type of device in our home. The fact is, they are accessible by Amazon, and who knows who else. I would say the same thing about smart phones. In fact, I have. Not too long ago I wrote about how these big corporations are ‘listening’.

If you leave your home, you can be watched. If you live in a neighborhood, those Ring cameras that people have are, in effect, watching you. Not to mention security cameras in commercial buildings, and traffic cameras everywhere. If you are neurotic and off your meds, this could be quite upsetting. If you’re paranoid, you may have good reason to be. This is reality.

The Sidewalk is described as a mesh WiFi system created from the internet of Amazon Ring and Echo devices. Amazon will be taking a wee bit of your internet and distributing it through their devices to the outside, and PUBLIC world, where these devices live. The logic is so that Amazon products that use the internet can have better range. It does make sense, for instance, if I put a Tile ‘homing device’ on my dog’s collar, and she gets lost, the Tile could stay connected to the internet in a much wider range, allowing me to find her. Imagine if that’s my kid’s backpack instead of a dog collar. There is definitely a good reason for this.

The problem many folks have is that Amazon is controlling it. Also, that the option is already turned on and in order to not participate, you have to turn it off.

An article that is very against it is HERE.   He does use some profanity. He does NOT trust Amazon.

The Snopes blurb is HERE.   It’s short and to the point. It basically says it’s not the end of the world.

The third article, I think, is a more level headed explanation. You can read that one HERE. 
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If this topic interests you, then please do read the articles. For those of us in Abiquiu, this isn’t of the most immediate importance, as most of us are still trying to get decent internet and don’t have these Amazon devices. But many of our readers live in cities and towns, and this may very well be something that applies.