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#4570640 - 06/01/21 01:17 PM Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please  
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Nixer Offline
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Those cwazy guys at Amazon are at it again.

Quote
If you use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device, you have only 10 days to opt out of an experiment that leaves your personal privacy and security hanging in the balance.

On June 8, the merchant, Web host, and entertainment behemoth will automatically enroll the devices in Amazon Sidewalk. The new wireless mesh service will share a small slice of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don’t have connectivity and help you to their bandwidth when you don’t have a connection.


We are the Borg

You will be assimilated.


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#4570641 - 06/01/21 01:21 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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PanzerMeyer Offline
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All of that stuff is in the EULA which 98% of consumers don't bother to read. So who is really at fault here?


“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
#4570644 - 06/01/21 01:46 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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People should be required to opt in to junk like this, not read some mega page EULA written by a Mongol horde of lawyers, then decide to opt out.

Also, say someone like my brother, who had had Alexa in his home for over a year, his EULA when he bought wouldn't have taken this Sidewalk scam into affect as it didn't even exist then.

I have never agreed with the whole implied consent thing of EULA's anyway.

If a EULA written before this sidewalk thing appeared allows a persons paid bandwidth to be appropriated "for the good of the proletariat" then we really are in a mess.


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#4570646 - 06/01/21 02:08 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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I wonder how Judge Wallaby of the Kangaroo court would rule regarding Petra's consent to the EULA?



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Look for me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Tic Toc...or anywhere you may frequent, besides SimHq, on the Global Scam Net. Aka, the internet.
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"There's a sucker born every minute."
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#4570647 - 06/01/21 02:58 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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I'm fascinated by the scrupulous ease with which Megacorps these days appropriate customer resources.

Our hardware, our utilities, our telephone service, our time... many companies are more than happy to develop product workflows that only function because the customer not only pays with money, but with their personal "services".

Similar example: Locally, Amazon introduced their own logistics/delivery company and drivers/vehicles in the last two years. Contrary to other parcel services, they have no network of pickup/dropoff points. The only reason this works is because the delivery drivers will ring trough adjacent neighbors (talking apartment block here) until they find someone willing to take a package for someone else.

#4570687 - 06/01/21 11:33 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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It's the whole, "hey, they didn't read the fine print" thing that creeps me out.

This is a dishonest business practice, at the minimum TOTALLY unethical and the attorneys involved should be disbarred.

Fools are PAYING to be cheated...while some legal tribe justifies it, as, well, capitalism.

It's not. It's fraud.


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Look for me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Tic Toc...or anywhere you may frequent, besides SimHq, on the Global Scam Net. Aka, the internet.
I am not there, never have been or ever will be, but the fruitless search may be more gratifying then the "content" you might otherwise be exposed to.

"There's a sucker born every minute."
Phineas Taylor Barnum

#4570800 - 06/03/21 09:29 AM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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semmern Offline
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Originally Posted by Nixer
It's the whole, "hey, they didn't read the fine print" thing that creeps me out.

This is a dishonest business practice, at the minimum TOTALLY unethical and the attorneys involved should be disbarred.

Fools are PAYING to be cheated...while some legal tribe justifies it, as, well, capitalism.

It's not. It's fraud.


Yep. We get sort of the same thing here with the power companies. I’ve had salesmen from at least 8 or 10 different companies ring my doorbell this year and start pitching their company. They invariably start with asking which power provider I currently have, and then go on to say that their company is the cheapest one, and that I should switch. What they don’t tell you is that they give you a very cheap introductory offer that lasts for two or three months, after that you have to go through a process of selecting another one of their packages, which never is as cheap. This is all buried in the middle of the wall of text that is the EULA. This practice of companies doing whatever they like because «it’s in the EULA, haven’t you read it?» should be illegal.

I had a salesman on my door just yesterday, and asked him «All the power companies tell me they’re cheaper than all the others. Which one of you is lying?»


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!
#4570803 - 06/03/21 10:52 AM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: semmern]  
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Originally Posted by semmern


Yep. We get sort of the same thing here with the power companies. I’ve had salesmen from at least 8 or 10 different companies ring my doorbell this year and start pitching their company. They invariably start with asking which power provider I currently have, and then go on to say that their company is the cheapest one, and that I should switch. What they don’t tell you is that they give you a very cheap introductory offer that lasts for two or three months, after that you have to go through a process of selecting another one of their packages, which never is as cheap. This is all buried in the middle of the wall of text that is the EULA. This practice of companies doing whatever they like because «it’s in the EULA, haven’t you read it?» should be illegal.

I had a salesman on my door just yesterday, and asked him «All the power companies tell me they’re cheaper than all the others. Which one of you is lying?»



I'm actually impressed that you have multiple different power companies to choose from! I find it highly ironic that in the US, you only have one choice for a power company in most States. Most geographic areas are serviced by a monopoly of a single power company. In my case, it's FPL (Florida Power & Light). I have no other choices.


“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
#4570815 - 06/03/21 12:43 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: Nixer]  
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Be careful what you wish for. Look at the people in Texas who got burned for humongous bills during the recent electricity shortage.

#4570884 - 06/03/21 10:30 PM Re: Alexa! Steal my bandwidth please [Re: PanzerMeyer]  
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semmern Offline
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Originally Posted by PanzerMeyer
[quote=semmern]

I'm actually impressed that you have multiple different power companies to choose from! I find it highly ironic that in the US, you only have one choice for a power company in most States. Most geographic areas are serviced by a monopoly of a single power company. In my case, it's FPL (Florida Power & Light). I have no other choices.


Lots of power companies, but the actual infrastructure is owned by only a handful of companies across the country, so you get no choice there, they extract a fee based on how much power you use. Still, our energy is not that expensive compared to many European countries.


In all my years I've never seen the like. It has to be more than a hundred sea miles and he brings us up on his tail. That's seamanship, Mr. Pullings. My God, that's seamanship!

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