7/17/2023 0 Comments Does amazon videobuffetOf course, the proof is in the details and ultimate implementation. It appears to have some good security and privacy protections. While it does not describe the details of the Sidewalk protocols, its description of the cryptographic security and privacy measures is promising. Amazon also has an overview, a blog post about their goals, an IoT Integration site, and developer documentation for the SDK. How Is Sidewalk’s Privacy and Security?Īmazon describes the privacy and security of Sidewalk in a privacy and security whitepaper. We don’t know how hard it tries, nor how successful its tries are. We do know that when Sidewalk tries to send messages without involving the internet, messages are expected to be small, and relatively infrequent, because the bandwidth throttle and total data caps are someone’s “nobody should need anywhere close to this” limits. The Sidewalk documents we have seen do not have details of the mesh routing algorithms, such as how messages are routed via mesh and when or why they go into or out of the internet. Instead, it has to send the message to the internet, and then back from the internet to the mesh network near the destination. In some situations, Sidewalk won’t be able to route the message via the mesh. Your phone passes that message to a nearby house, perhaps the one across the street, which hands that message to another house, and it ends up at your lamp, in much the same way as your birthday card made its way to Alice. You press a button on your smartphone to turn the lamp off. Suppose that you’re out on a walk in your neighborhood and realize you didn’t turn your lamp off. Well, what if when your WiFi doesn’t process your command, your Alexa uses your neighbor’s WiFi instead? That’s what Amazon Sidewalk does, with a very simple mesh, from your Alexa to your neighbor’s WiFi to your light. Let’s also suppose that in that bedroom, the WiFi from your neighbor’s house is stronger than your WiFi. If you use Alexa to turn the light on or off, sometimes the command doesn’t get through. Suppose you put an Alexa-controlled light in your bedroom, but the WiFi there is flaky. Notably, mesh networks work without explicit infrastructure or servers. A web of people delivers the message in an ad hoc manner, and saves you postage. When I get to work, I run into Bob who sits next to Alice, so I give the card to Bob, who gives it to Alice. Rather than sending the card through the postal system, you might give me the card to take to Alice. Suppose you want to send a birthday card to Alice, I live next door to you, and you know I work with Alice. Other companies will make devices that operate as entities in the network, either as a device like a smart light switch, or as a hub like the Echo and Ring devices. There will be other partner companies this is an important thing to understand about the Amazon Sidewalk mesh, that it’s not just Amazon. Sidewalk uses Bluetooth, WiFi, and 900MHz radio to connect the mesh network together. Sidewalk allows you to use a Tile tag at a distance further than typical Bluetooth range. The first partner company to integrate to Sidewalk is the Tile tracker tags. To build the ecosystem, people incorporate their devices into this mesh network. This mesh network can provide coverage where your home network is flaky. Sidewalk is primarily a mesh network for home automation devices, like Alexa’s smart device features, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. The average web page is over two megabytes in size, which would take over four minutes to download at that speed. To be clear: it isn’t going to interfere with your streaming, video calls, or anything else. It is also capped at 500 MB per month, which is less than two hours of 80 kbps over the whole month. If it does, Amazon is limiting its rate to 80 kilobits per second - or 8 kilobytes per second, which is only about 50% more than the modems we used in the old days. Sidewalk can use the internet for some features, but won’t in general. It’s a network to connect home automation devices like smart light switches together in more flexible ways. Amazon is opening the network up to partners, the first of which is the Tile tracker. Much of the press about Amazon Sidewalk has said that it will force you to share your internet or WiFi network. There are many misconceptions about what it is and what it does, so this article will untangle some of the confusion. Just before the long weekend at the end of May, Amazon announced the release of their Sidewalk mesh network.
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