Here in Mesa: THE DATA CENTER HUSTLE (by Jon Talton Post-Date May 31,2021)

It's about time Rogue Columnist Jon Talton warmed-up his pen and hit on this subject:

May 31, 2021

The data center hustle

 

"Data centers becoming dominant force in Mesa," reads the headline on a recent East Valley Tribune story. The lede: "It may never rival Silicon Valley, but Mesa is fast becoming Data Center Alley." 

 

This "Alley" isn't transforming struggling west Mesa and it's nowhere near the light-rail line. Instead, it's centered on the "Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows.

But to see the proliferation of data centers in a city the size of Mesa (518,000 in 2019), in the 10th most populous metropolitan area in the nation, is curious.

A Google data center for Mesa announced in 2019, lured with tax breaks, would create few permanent jobs. Even the much-hyped Apple "global command center" is merely a big data center, promising only 150 full-time positions.

By comparison, Amazon's headquarters in downtown Seattle holds more than 50,000 high-paid executive and software engineer jobs. At nearby Redmond, Microsoft has 54,000 employees at its headquarters. Every major Big Tech firm from Silicon Valley has major operations there (no data centers). This is the headwaters of high tech.

Another problem with Data Center Alley: These massive server farms are water hogs. Elsewhere, they contribute to climate change because of their enormous appetite for electricity. Maybe Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station helps Mesa here. It's only built upwind of the nation's fifth most populous city.

And no evidence has emerged that data centers are a gateway to more advanced tech work. Metro Phoenix got nowhere in its bid for Amazon HQ2. Any "exodus" from the Bay Area has benefited an established center of quality, Austin. Google is building a transformative new campus in downtown San Jose, close to light rail and commuter trains to San Francisco. The best talent digs great cities.

Read more closely and it's clear that Mesa's "technology corridor" is yet another Arizona real-estate hustle, dependent on cheap farmland and tilt-up buildings, plus a heapin' helping of tax breaks — in a state that ranks second from last in per-student funding.

"It may never rival Silicon Valley...."  It couldn't. Silicon Valley is sui generis, with no rival in the world. The former Valley of Heart's Delight became the world leader in high tech because of proximity to world-class universities and talent, the emergence of top companies, serial entrepreneurs, the greatest concentration of angel and venture capital on the planet, and a history of innovation that dates back to "the traitorous eight" who founded such pillars as Intel.

Sunshine, the real-estate Ponzi scheme, and a flat tax leaves you in a blind alley."

=========================================================================
RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

This Year 2019

Data firms flocking to Mesa’s tech corridor        

By Jim Walsh, Tribune Staff Writer

East Valley Tribune                                        2019-10-14T01:00:00-07:00

Image Caption:

Mesa officials planned out the technology corridor for eight years and it’s paying off handsomely for the city’s economy.

(Special to the Tribune)

 

"Mesa’s Elliot Road Technology Corridor, once an isolated swath of open desert on the city’s eastern fringe, is now booming as proposed data centers multiply and years of planning pay off.

Five companies bought land and several are pursuing construction plans.

Raging Wire won planning and zoning approvals from Mesa in the past two weeks – a green light for constructing a 1.5-million-square-foot campus with seven buildings.

“We’re the little guys,’’ said Paul Martin, senior design project manager for Raging Wire, after Mesa’s Design Review Board praised the company’s architectural plans.

Martin said Raging Wire’s business is different.
It builds data centers and attracts smaller companies and Google to rent space to eventually accommodate rows of servers to process all kinds of data.

“It’s a great project. It’s great for the city of Mesa,’’ said Randy Carter, chairman of the Design Review Board, which reviews the architectural quality and landscaping of proposed buildings.

Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, said the boom is no coincidence and represents eight years of planning to lure the high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs to Mesa.

“I would tell you this is a vision that started eight years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, saying it was back then that he and his colleagues started assembling the infrastructure vital to data centers.

Jabjiniak listed the three critical elements that laid the groundwork for what is happening today:

The relatively cheap power from the Salt River Project, because electricity is the biggest cost to data centers is a big draw . . .

Alos citing availability of redundant fiber for Internet access as a desireable criteria. Mesa invested in an “e-streets program years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, installing empty underground conduits so companies could lay fiber optic cables when necessary.

Note: The difference from the image used by Jim Walsh
in his "Special to The Tribune

With streamlined zoning approval, it eliminats months of delays. Mesa created a tech corridor zoning overlay, allowing tech companies to “opt in’’ to the special zoning available and to have plans approved administratively. . ."

(self-certified that is for that expedited streamlined process)

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Public oversight is assured because the City Council must approve a development agreement with the companies before construction begins.

“I think it’s starting to blossom. It’s growing before our eyes,’’ Jabjiniak said. “I think there is more to come.’’

__________________________________________________________

 

2018

_______________________________________________________________________
HERE'S IT IS JUST 3 DAYS AGO > on the back of taxpayers 
Mesa to sink $10 million into Elliot Road expansion for tech corridor

Lily Altavena, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 5:00 a.m. MT April 19, 2018

"The City Council voted on a $10 million contract April 16 with Nesbitt Contracting Company, approving street widening, storm-water harvesting areas, new street lights, landscaping, a new traffic signal and and other aesthetic improvements.

The major infrastructure investment comes as leaders hope the once-deserted stretch of desert will turn into a hub for technology companies.

"I see it a lot like Price Road corridor (in Chandler) or like Silicon Valley, once you build it, the others will come," ???

Kevin Thompson, the Mesa councilman representing the district that includes the tech corridor, said. 

But whether the $10 million in improvements is worth the taxpayer investment remains to be seen. The area is expected to see an influx of data centers over the next few years.

 Will Elliot Road be metro Phoenix's next tech hub? 

____________________________________________________________________

29 October 2019

After All These Years The Time Is (Almost) Right To Hit Pay-Dirt: City Planner Tom Ellsworth + The 4-in-One Zoning Case

< Here's one picture that's worth more than just a few thousandwords, two hours of your time watching a video-on-demand, and history going back to a bygone era in the 1880's. It's the next step in the development process after passing through the Mesa Planning & Zoning Board. It's been years in the making - Rogue Columnist Jon Tilton called it The Real Estate Industrial Complex
_________________________________________________________________________

What's on the Line?
Millions of dollars in acreage that was previously zoned as agricultural land - The Boyle Family 860-acre Dairy Farm - and a parcel of state-owned land all around The Hawes Interchange close to Mesa's Elliot Road Tech Corridor, where water lines were expanded from Ellsworth Road to Signal Butte and the Signal Butte Water Treatment Plant got built.
(There's more background and history from previous posts on this blog from October 2017 farther down)
_________________________________________________________________________

Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth making a presentation on Water Asset Management in front of a public Mesa City Council Study Session earlier this month on October 7, 2019.

There's $800,000,000 on-the-table and on the agenda for Capital Improvement Project for discussion.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth appearing again last week 5 days ago

24 October 2019

Planning & Zoning Meeting - 10/23/2019

Views at time of upload to this blog = 7  Note: 4 items were asked to be removed from the Consent Agenda for individual consideration - Items 8a - 8d.

City Planner Tom Ellsworth has put them all together since they are related

Comments are asked to be withheld until conclusion of the staff presentation just to keep things on track . . and there's some people from the airport

 

TallyHo Brits! By Gosh They Didn't Know Where To Find It > The Misunderstood Clitoris

Of all the news stories on Memorial Day there were few if any about sex and pleasure

The lost and lonely clitoris: why can so few people find it?

Mon 31 May 2021 11.18 EDT

Last modified on Mon 31 May 2021 12.59 EDT

 

In a recent survey, more than a third of people in the UK mislabelled this vital part of female anatomy. So where is it – and what is it for?

More

Name: The clitoris.

Age: As old as men and – possibly more importantly – women themselves, would you Adam and Eve it? Older still, for non-creationists.

How so? In Greek mythology, after the prophet Tiresias was turned into a woman for seven years – as punishment (!) for bothering snakes (!) – he was questioned by Hera and Zeus about who got most pleasure from intercourse, men or women.

And? He said women.

Because of his clitoris? Possibly.

What did Hera think of that? Not a lot, she blinded him.

But that is the point of it, right? Sexual pleasure? Well, the clitoris activates a series of sexual responses – unless you’re a female spotted hyena, in which case you urinate, mate and give birth via your (admittedly and, thankfully, larger) clitoris.

So it’s not just female humans who have them then? Other mammals also. And ostriches.

And how big is it, in female humans? Well, the phrase “pea-sized” gets bandied around a lot, but this is another example of how the organ has been misunderstood down the ages. Its nerves and blood vessels extend extensively into the pelvis, in fact about 90% of its bulk lies beneath the surface …

Quickly altering course, to starboard … Is the clitoris etymologically interesting, as well as anatomically so? Yes, as it happens. It probably derives from the Greek kleitoris, which has been translated as “small hill” and “to rub”, perhaps suggesting a play on words.

But this is really about location, isn’t it? Always. Location, location, location.

Hard to find, is it? Go on, what’s the latest? Most people in the UK can’t name all the parts of vulva. In a survey, half of Britons couldn’t identify the urethra, while 37% mislabelled the clitoris …

Men, presumably. The women surveyed didn’t do any better. Poor lonely clitoris, no one can find you.

Well, it’s hard to see, down there. There’s always mirrors. And friends. Have you tried Google Maps?

I have now, and I’ve found it! Monte Clitoris, on Luzon, in the Philippines. There’s even a Catholic church on its lower slopes, rather perfectly. Lovely.

Do say: “Our lack of knowledge about women’s anatomy raises important questions about women’s health, and should be talked about seriously and sensibly.”

Don’t say: “I’ll just set up the satnav.”

 

Trust For Public Land Releases National Park Score 2021: Mesa Ranks #96 In The Nation and Lowest for Arizona Cities

This year's results of the annual survey were much the same as years before - near the bottom

Ranking Park Systems in the 100 Largest U.S. Cities  

Mesa, AZ             

2021 ParkScore^® Ranking: #96

The analysis is based on five characteristics of an effective park system: access, investment, acreage, amenities, and equity.

Reference Source: https://www.tpl.org/city/mesa-arizona

2% of Mesa's city land is used for parks and recreation.     

National median 15%

___________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG Report from 2018

Reference: https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2018/05/real-news-trust-for-public-land-ranks.html

It's not often that a message your MesaZona has been sending for more than three years now gets some more momentum from a non-profit organization named The Trust For Public Land.

What's the message?

> To empower people to hold their leaders accountable

> To ensure residents are involved and engaged.

When is Mesa Mayor John Giles gonna get that?                               Clue-Less is NO EXCUSE.

Our 10-Minute Walk^™ campaign calls on mayors to demonstrate their commitment to parks and adopt long-term, system-wide strategies to ensure every resident has a great park close to home.

Tell your mayor: pledge to make parks a priority!

Find out how

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

NEW YORK, NY — A new report has ranked the best cities in America for park systems.

The Trust For Public Land, a San Francisco based nonprofit group that aims to create parks and protect land for people, released its 7th annual ParkScore rankings 3 days ago 

 

The Trust for Public Land Releases 2018 ParkScore® Index, Ranking ...

https://www.tpl.org/.../trust-public-land-releases-2018-parkscore®-index-ranking-par..

3 days ago - The Trust for Public Land Releases 2018 ParkScore® Index,

______________________________________________________

Ranking Park Systems in the 100 Largest U.S. Cities 

" . . . The national nonprofit organization is leading a movement to put a park or natural area within a 10-minute walk of every U.S. resident.

More than 200 mayors have endorsed the 10-minute goal.

"The research is clear: quality, close-to-home parks are essential to communities. Everyone deserves a great park within a 10-minute walk of home," said Diane Regas, President and CEO of The Trust for Public Land. "These rankings are the gold-standard for park access and quality, and empower people to hold their leaders accountable.” . . .
This shows how the onus is on cities to make parks as attractive as possible and also to ensure their residents are involved and engaged.

Source: https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dive Insight:

TPL is pushing hard for city residents to be a 10-minute walk or less from a park.

The organization unveiled its ParkServe tool earlier this year in collaboration with mapping software Esri to provide information on who does and does not have such access.

The benefits of parks, especially for those who live in cities, include higher levels of physical activity for residents while mitigating the risk of storm damage and helping with issues like carbon emissions.

“High quality parks make cities healthier in nearly every way,” Adrian Benepe, TPL’s senior vice president and director of city park development, said in a statement.

ParkScore’s rankings are based on access, acreage, investment and amenities, which counts the availability of features like off-leash dog parks, playgrounds, basketball hoops, “splashpads” and restrooms. The rankings added the latter two this year as part of its calculations on amenities, as well as volunteer hours and charitable contributions for spending.

The ParkScore rankings were based on four factors:
park access,
acreage,
investment
Amenities

Here are the lowest-ranking park systems:

90. Baton Rouge, LA: 32.9
91. Memphis, TN: 32.8
92. Winston Salem, NC: 31.9
93. Laredo, TX: 31.5
94. Fresno, CA: 30.9
95. Hialeah, FL: 29.7
96. Mesa, AZ: 28.4
97. Charlotte, NC: 25.0
____________________________________________________________________________

RELATED CONTENT 2019 - The trust — a national nonprofit that conserves land for park and historic use — scored Mesa in the bottom five for the third consecutive year, although its ParkScore this year is 95, up one spot from last year.

Mesa officials take issue with low parks rating

• By Jordan Houston, Tribune Staff Writer
• Sep 2, 2019 

Reference: https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/mesa-officials-take-issue-with-low-parks-rating/article_6b32099e-cb72-11e9-a827-0f8b5ab2957c.html        

Mesa parks officials say they do the best they can with the resources they have to provide residents with enough parks, such as Riverview Park. (Special to the Tribune)

More . . .Homeowners associations is another element not included in the ParkScore. 

PRIVATELY-OWNED

“We have a lot of neighborhood parks managed and owned by the HOA,” said Heirshberg. “So, when we’re balancing and looking at where city investments make sense, we want to make sure we’re not duplicating services that are already being provided.” 

“We don’t have that much additional vacant land for us to develop,” he added. ???????????????????

The parks and recreation director also noted that while the city may be out of space for additional parks, it still maintains and updates its current parks. 

A few new projects are in the works, thanks to the passing of a capital bond last November that allocated $75 million to the department. 

A 2-acre public plaza that will “complement and support” downtown is underway. 

The site, which is expected to be done by the summer of 2021, will include passive small and large group areas, shaded seating, a water feature, a seasonal ice skating rink and grassy area for recreation. 

At Palo Verde Park, aging equipment will be replaced and shade addition will be provided, while Red Mountain Park will also look at expansions. 

Future projects include a 1.5-acre expansion at the Countryside Dog Park and parking lot improvements at the Crimson & Elliot Basin. 

Monterey Park Athletic Field will see four lighted youth baseball and softball fields, three lighted soccer fields, a playground shade structure and additional parking near the existing park near Power and Guadalupe. 

Construction for the phase 2 of Signal Butte work is also expected to be completed by summer 2023. 

“The other piece with this score is that the Trust for Public Land is looking at how many parks communities have and where they’re at,” said Heirshberg. “But it doesn’t talk about how they are managing the resources they do have.” 

He noted that Mesa is one of four finalists for the National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation Management, which recognizes excellence in management in parks and recreation operations.

 

 

“I think we’re doing the best we can — if not better than — providing the acreage and the properties we have available,” said Marc Heirshberg, Mesa parks, recreation and community facilities director.  

How Electric Roads Could Power the Future

Just another one of those wild and wonderful things that could be? How do we get from what's here now to a future that's free from using fossil-fuels for moving people, goods and services?

Intelligent and autonomous transport using hydrogen and battery-powered vehicles may be one of the solutions to the problems created by using internal-combustion engines at the advent of the 19th Century - from "horse-power" to "horse-less-carriages", to cranked-up cars using the power of ignition and "auto-mobiles" guzzling gallons of gasoline on roads and highways at the same time emitting tons of toxic transmissions that pollute the air and destroy the environment.

On the road ahead (maybe) A Carbon-Free Future.

What exactly might alter that "footprint" ?

A 1.2-mile stretch of road in Sweden does that by electrifying a rail in-the-roadway, Electreon.

South Korea did it another way in 2013

World’s first road-powered electric vehicle network switches on in South Korea

• By Sebastian Anthony on August 6, 2013 at 7:51 am [Source:https://www.extremetech.com/]

South Korea has rolled out the world’s first road-powered electric vehicle network. The network consists of special roads that have electrical cables buried just below the surface, which wirelessly transfer energy to electric vehicles via magnetic resonance. Road-powered electric vehicles are exciting because they only require small batteries, significantly reducing their overall weight and thus their energy consumption. There’s also the small fact that, with an electrified roadway, you never have to plug your vehicle in to recharge it, removing most of the risk and range anxiety associated with electric vehicles (EVs).

The network consists of 24 kilometers (15 miles) of road in the city of Gumi, South Korea. For now, the only vehicles that can use the network are two Online Electric Vehicles (OLEV) — public transport buses

How Electric Roads Could Power the Future

The transition from horse to horsepower ushered in an infrastructural revolution that rippled through every part of society and made the modern world possible. A century later, we may be on the cusp of another massive transformation, this time with electric roads. (Source: Bloomberg)

May 27th, 2021, 3:58 AM MDT

A new paper by Thomas Piketty makes the rise of right-wing populism look like a historical inevitability

From The Economist: You could fill a small library with book on RIGHT-WING POPULISM.

Some authors argue that these movements emerged in reaction to relatively recent events, such as the financial crisis of 2007-09 or the advent of social media.

Others look to longer-lasting regional trends, like European integration or racial politics in America

"Thomas Piketty, an economist, became famous for a book that analysed 200 years of data on wealth inequality in a wide range of countries. This month he published a paper, co-written by Amory Gethin and Clara Martínez-Toledano, which applies a similar approach to the relationship between demography and ideology.

Source: “Brahmin Left versus Merchant Right”

by Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty (working paper, 2021)

Its findings imply that the electoral victories of Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign in 2016 were not an abrupt departure from precedent, but rather the consequence of a 60-year-old international trend.

In a paper in 2018 Mr Piketty noted that elites in Britain, France and America were split between intellectuals who backed left-of-centre parties—he dubbed them the “Brahmin left”—and businesspeople who preferred right-wing ones (the “merchant right”).

Brahmins v merchants
Educated voters’ leftward shift is surprisingly old and international

May 29th 2021

His new work expands this study from three Western democracies to 21.

It combines data on parties’ policy positions with surveys that show how vote choices varied between demographic groups.

The paper finds that income and education began diverging as predictors of ideology long ago.

> In 1955 both the richest and the most educated voters tended to support conservative parties. > Conversely, both poorer and less-educated people mostly chose labour or social-democratic ones.

Today, wealthy people still lean to the right.

> In contrast, the relationship between education and ideology began to reverse as early as the 1960s. Every year, the 10% of voters with the most years of schooling gravitated towards left-wing parties, while the remaining 90% slid the other way.

> By 2000, this had gone on for so long that, as a group, the most educated voters became more left-wing than their less-educated peers. The gap has only grown since then.

> This trend is strikingly consistent. It developed just as fast in the 20th century as in the 21st, and appears in almost every Western democracy studied. This includes both two-party systems and proportional ones, in which green parties now lure educated voters, and nativist parties attract the less educated.

Such breadth and regularity make the rise of right-wing populists like Mr Trump—and of left-of-centre technocrats like Emmanuel Macron or Justin Trudeau—look like a historical inevitability.

Although the authors do not identify a cause for this trend, the simplest explanation is that it stems from growing educational attainment.

> In 1950 less than 10% of eligible voters in America and Europe had graduated from college. Any party relying on this group for support would have had scant hope of winning elections.

> In contrast, more than a third of Western adults today have degrees, which is enough to anchor a victorious coalition.

> And once candidates and parties began catering to educated voters—who often put living in a liberal society above lowering their tax bills—rival politicians could start winning elections by taking the opposite position.■

Source: “Brahmin Left versus Merchant Right”, by Amory Gethin, Clara Martínez-Toledano and Thomas Piketty (working paper, 2021)

This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the print edition under the headline "Brahmins v merchants"

========================================================================

Listen to this story

Enjoy more audio and podcasts on iOS or Android.

More

THE WEEK THAT WUZ: MesaZona Stats for The Most Viewed Posts Sunday May 23 - Saturday May 29 2021

Let's take a look >

Total Page Views since starting this blog site February 2015

Total page views 418374

Most Viewed Last 7 Days

• 

  Feature Post Today from Tim Cushing @Techdirt: Welcome To Maricopa County, The Confusing Clusterfuck "Forensic Audit" Side-Show

  Don't know about you, dear readers, but too much about all of this misses the point of specifically looking into about 10,000 ballots ca...
• 

  HYPER-LOCAL CONSUMER ALERT > Complete Recall For “Re2al Water Drinking Water” From One of The Three Company Facilities Here in Mesa

  Information for the public: Local news outlets revealed that Jones was merely repackaging Las Vegas tap water, which would be bad enough any...
• 

  CITIZEN THE UBER-LIKE VIGILANTE JUSTICE APP: A Private Cut-Out For Public Law Enforcement Space

  What Tim Cushing writing in Techdirt yesterday described as "a marauding cop-like patrol vehicle emblazoned with the Citizen logo (and ...
• 

  Virtual Mesa Chamber Coffee Time - Sponsored by Camp Bow Wow- Dobson Ranch....

  WFHO Working-From-Home Office sometimes has its own rewards in the wide world of Virtual Reality
• 

  Weekly Feature From The Far-Right: Arizona's Own Congressman Andy Biggs Representing The Fighting 5th Congressional Distric

  Airing different points of view is one of the bedrocks in the foundation of any democracy we can believe in and support. You don't need ...

___________________________________________________________________________

 

 

AUTOMATIC OPT-IN BY DEFAULT: Amazon Sidewalk Will Co-Opt Millions of People (Whether You Know It or Not. . .)

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? What is Amazon Sidewalk?

"Amazon Sidewalk is a shared network that helps devices work better."

Operated by Amazon at no charge to customers, Sidewalk can help simplify new device setup, extend the low-bandwidth working range of devices to help find pets or valuables with Tile trackers, and help devices stay online even if they are outside the range of their home wifi. In the future, Sidewalk will support a range of experiences from using Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as smart security and lighting and diagnostics for appliances and tools.

=========================================================================

POST NOTE: See farther down Fortunately, turning Sidewalk off is relatively painless

=========================================================================

Thanks to Dan Goodin writing in Ars Technica yesterday:

 

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.

Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors

Amazon's experiment wireless mesh networking turns users into guinea pigs.

Dan Goodin -

Ars Technica | 5/29/2021, 1:10

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.

By default, Amazon devices including Alexa, Echo, Ring, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, and Tile trackers will enroll in the system. And since only a tiny fraction of people take the time to change default settings, that means millions of people will be co-opted into the program whether they know anything about it or not. The Amazon webpage linked above says Sidewalk "is currently only available in the US."

More

Why should I participate in Amazon Sidewalk?

Amazon Sidewalk helps your devices get connected and stay connected. For example, if your Echo device loses its wifi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router. For select Ring devices, you can continue to receive motion alerts from your Ring Security Cams and customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection. Sidewalk can also extend the working range for your Sidewalk-enabled devices, such as Ring smart lights, pet locators or smart locks, so they can stay connected and continue to work over longer distances. Amazon does not charge any fees to join Sidewalk.

Amazon has published a white paper detailing the technical underpinnings and service terms that it says will protect the privacy and security of this bold undertaking.

To be fair, the paper is fairly comprehensive, and so far no one has pointed out specific flaws that undermine the encryption or other safeguards being put in place. But there are enough theoretical risks to give users pause.

Wireless technologies like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have a history of being insecure. Remember WEP, the encryption scheme that protected Wi-Fi traffic from being monitored by nearby parties? It was widely used for four years before researchers exposed flaws that made decrypting data relatively easy for attackers. WPA, the technology that replaced WEP, is much more robust, but it alsohas a checkered history. Bluetooth has had its share of similarvulnerabilities over the years, too, either in the Bluetooth standard or in the way it’s implemented in various products.

If industry-standard wireless technologies have such a poor track record, why are we to believe a proprietary wireless scheme will have one that’s any better?

. . and

The omnipotent juggernaut

Next, consider the wealth of intimate details Amazon devices are privy to. They see who knocks on our doors, and in some homes they peer into our living rooms. They hear the conversations we’re having with friends and family. They control locks and other security systems in our home.

Extending the reach of all this encrypted data to the sidewalk and living rooms of neighbors requires a level of confidence that’s not warranted for a technology that’s never seen widespread testing.

Last, let’s not forget who’s providing this new way for everyone to share and share alike.

As independent privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani puts it: “In addition to capturing everyone’s shopping habits (from amazon.com) and their internet activity (as AWS is one of the most dominant web hosting services)... now they are also effectively becoming a global ISP with a flick of a switch, all without even having to lay a single foot of fiber.”

Amazon’s decision to make Sidewalk an opt-out service rather than an opt-in one is also telling. The company knows the only chance of the service gaining critical mass is to turn it on by default, so that’s what it’s doing. Fortunately, turning Sidewalk off is relatively painless. It involves:

1. Opening the Alexa app
2. Opening More and selecting Settings
3. Selecting Account Settings
4. Selecting Amazon Sidewalk
5. Turning Amazon Sidewalk Off

No doubt, the benefits of Sidewalk for some people will outweigh the risks. But for the many, if not the vast majority of users, there’s little upside and plenty of downside. Amazon representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment