• orb360@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Not anymore with sidewalk and other similar corporate networks bypassing any requirement for the consumer to connect the TV to wifi

    • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazon-sidewalk

      How much of my internet bandwidth does Amazon Sidewalk require?

      “Very little. Sidewalk’s connectivity is distinct from your home Wi-Fi. If you choose, however, to enable Sidewalk on your eligible Bridge devices, those devices would use a small amount of internet bandwidth.”

      This sounds like it still needs your internet to work unless I’m missing something.

      • orb360@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        The connection isn’t for you. It’s so the TV can fingerprint the content you watch, and then send that utilization data back to the company.

        You don’t need much bandwidth to do this.

        So with no wifi connection, and a blueray player, if you play Star Wars, they can fingerprint a few frames, send them back to Roku or whoever over sidewalk via your neighbors ring doorbell, and know you played star wars… Even with your completely offline setup

        • Bluefruit@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Ah i see, so because its connected to other devices in the sidewalk network, if my neighbor has it hooked up to wifi and mine isnt, it still can connect to the internet.

          Yea that sucks. I hate that. I have “smart” TV that i never connected to my wifi cause i use a pc for streaming.

          Next thing yknow theres gonna be lte modems in these things that they pay to keep on just to spy on us ffs man.

      • JeffKerman1999@sopuli.xyz
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        7 months ago

        If you don’t have a sidewalk bridge but your neighbour half a mile away has one, your device will connect to your neighbour’s bridge and send data to Amazon without you knowing

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 months ago

              correct me if im wrong, but a device trying to connect to the network in order to analytics. Which can’t, which then defaults to a SECONDARY BACKUP mechanism, just to transmit ANALYTICS. Is basically just spying, and you cannot convince me otherwise.

              • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                I… Well I might try but only if it were funny. I agree. But its not effectively (and I don’t think technically) illegal.

                  • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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                    7 months ago

                    Why? Laws aren’t here to protect you. The entire pretense of that is just to make you accept when the propertarian (and in most places white supremacist) gangsters want to walk into your community and disappear/murder someone they don’t like.

                    It is frowned upon tho. By us. Others too, i bet, if they know about it. So what’s the plan? Me, I just haven’t bought a new TV since like 2014, but that’s a personal dodge rather than a systemic fix, and it feels really trashy not having a solution for others, besides ‘go without’.

    • RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Do these show up as networks on devices, or are they kind of hidden? I’ve looked before and never seen any open wifi around my house, but I am near a mall and lots of shopping.

      • orb360@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        They do not use wifi. They use BLE over short range, or LoRa or FSK on 900mhz over long distances. If you wanted to see them you’d probably need a scanner built specifically to find them but idk if anyone has made one.