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Smart Grid Could Pose Threat To Privacy
Presto Vivace writes "Brian Krebs of the Washington Post reports on a study jointly released Tuesday by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Future of Privacy Forum. It seems that in the process of collecting all that feedback about energy use, utility companies will inevitably collect a great deal of information about us. From the article: 'Instead of measuring energy use at the end of each billing period, smart meters will provide this information at much shorter intervals, the report notes. Even if electricity use is not recorded minute by minute, or at the appliance level, information may be gleaned from ongoing monitoring of electricity consumption such as the approximate number of occupants, when they are present, as well as when they are awake or asleep. For many, this will resonate as a "sanctity of the home" issue, where such intimate details of daily life should not be accessible.'"
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Personally - I really don't care what kind of dodgy information they could gleen from a smart meter. I only really care about the fact that power could (or will here in Oz) cost more.
Actually, I wouldn't have ANY problem at all paying a little extra for these meters (also here in Aus) if they used the data gathered to make a more efficient energy grid and this in turn helped us reduce emissions and made us more environmentally friendly. I would have very big problems with this if it was used to simply line the pockets of companies while not changing or improving in any other way.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I would think that the use of electricity usage data should play out the same way, but who knows!
I knows!
Granting warrants for excessive electricity use is routine in the USA.
Here's one from 2004: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0330044pot1.html
Here's one from 2009: http://hamptonroads.com/node/510056
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
PG&E is using (for electricity) a GE I-120 smartmeter with a Silver Spring Networks interface. (Installer said they plan to install the associated network on the poles shortly, after which no more meter readers wandering the neighborhood.)
According to the meter's description on GE's site it uses IP and "industry standard crypto" over a two way radio link to a network running their software. It can be remotely tweaked and have software upgrades remotely loaded. (I can hear the cypherpunks booting up already.)
It records and reports high-time-resolution information about the utility use. It can be used to shut the power off in case of "billing trouble". It doesn't do net metering. Instead it treats backfeeding the net as a sign of cheating - an old mechanical-meter hack consisting of unplugging and inverting the meter to "run it backward" a few days per month. (It records the events around the reversal - unplug, replug-inverted, unplug, replug-normal - with high time resolution, to be used as evidence if it goes to court.)
If you want to do net metering once this is installed you have to get the power company to come out again and install another meter, set up for "two-way metering".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's actually rather amazing how much data you can get from monitoring this sort of thing. For example, I used to track the CPU temperature of my computer. From looking at fluctuations in the graph, I could tell when when the furnace was running, when I entered and left the room, when the ceiling light was on, and so forth. I'm sure you could do the same thing with electricity usage: a spike of X watts represents the refridgerator, a shift of Y watts is the bathroom lights, etc.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
"Eight armed narcs raided the Dagy home on March 19 and found absolutely nothing. No evidence of pot anywhere, not even stashed in the children's toys. Seems that the coppers mistook the family's constant use of the dishwasher, washer/dryer, three computers, four ceiling fans, and other electronic devices as evidence of a felony drug operation. Oops. The Dagys--Mom's a homemaker and Dad's a general manager of 21 Shell stations--would like an apology from the Carlsbad Police Department. Sadly, we'd recommend that the Dagys not hold their collective breath."
I hate drug cops and homeland security. They keep performing these heinous searches and "eating out the substance" of our citizens
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Which is why we should err on the side of caution. People saying this isn't a big deal are considering one or two simple scenarios and deciding on just that basis. It's just as possible that someone will figure out a maximal way to exploit this particular data, one that affects a great many people and has more serious consequences.
When people first became concerned over medical records privacy, DNA testing was still so expensive that it wasn't used by any state law enforcement, even in rape or murder cases. The federal government was the only entity likely to pay for full testing, and at that time was only interested in using the tests in a handful of cases such as possibly identifying deceased heads of state after explosive assassinations. People argued about what could go wrong if the wrong people got access to medical records, and every time someone brought up the DNA testing aspects, they were told "That's not a realistic scenario - no crook is going to spend millions of dollars to match DNA samples to these records". The US began changing its medical records laws with the idea that those laws didn't need to consider DNA issues, and the resulting laws were dated by the time they were ratified. We're seeing cracks in them now, as they weren't designed to take testing cheap enough that insurance companies might opt to use it routinely, into account.
Arguing that detailed power usage isn't that significant an information source, as it can't be used to cause serious harm, (for the poster's definition of serious), is spurious. All anyone can really honestly claim is "I have thought a bit, and I haven't come up with a misuse I think is practical and that is all that bad, yet.". That's different from "I've thought about it enough, and I've identified all the misuses possible, I know for certain which ones are implementable even by a serious, well trained and dedicated entity with tremendous resources, and this is safe."
Who is John Cabal?
Why can't the power company provide the information the consumer needs, and the consumer has a controller in their house that manages appliances and electricity use (without data feedback)? I don't recall the gas companies asking for control of our thermostats, so why should this be different*? You could opt-in to have your controller send data to the power company (or have the meter reader get the data when he comes around), but there would be no NEED for the power company to get information back. The power company could closely monitor each block if they want more data on what areas are helping with the smart grid effort without concerns over privacy.
I've heard about the smart grid for years and I know I can't be the first to ask this- maybe I'm missing something?
*Brownouts would be the main reason, but if everyone is getting real-time cost information (and set their controllers accordingly), the power companies would see a much better response when they jack up the rates during peak hours. I expect the system will work a lot better once they have a proper feedback loop.
My webcomic
I "knew" a person that "grew" marijuana.
I once asked him, generally speaking, where he grew.
What he told me was that he grew in a barn up in the mountains. Why in a barn, I asked him. Because this far out from the city, the electric meters were not able to reach cell towers, and thus could not report daily usage rates. The meter reader came out once a month so all they had was monthly usage figures (one of them old "spinny" type meters). He did this because the daily usage data was used to look for electric usage that followed a specific pattern, primarily a 11-12 hour peak usage period that would indicate growing lights. That, and the fact that nobody had a reason to be parked across the street with a FLIRgun or flying helicopters overhead. That is what he claimed, anyways.
I also once met a chap that used many rolls of copper house wiring, all spliced together into a coil, all laid out under the soil just below high-tension powerlines. Inductive leeching provided his entire grow operation with power--almost completely untraceable as well. At least that is what he claimed...
I don't think the problem here is the ELECTRICITY COMPANY knowing when you "leave in the morning and get home at night".
I think Token Criminal who is working with some hackers in Russia gaining access to these INTERNET CONNECTED Smart Grids is the real problem.
It's easy to accept "trade-offs" when you don't understand an entire scenario.
Part Deux:
They are placing new technology on top of an aging infrastructure instead of improving the actual aging infrastructure. This will not improve power reliability, the segment was already growing and did not need government intervention, and the cost will be passed on to the consumer, increasing the cost of everything in the name of a "green grid".
I work on the grid. Anything more will identify me, so I will stay vague.
The goal of the smart grid is to make a more efficient usage of our electricity. It encourages the homeowner to use their peak electricity usage on the off-hours when electricity is cheaper. Great in theory, but this is all marketing and lawyering and it will hurt the consumer for the benefit of utilities and companies like mine.
How do you improve electrical efficiency?
The same way you improve efficiency in every other system: By increasing the cost. If your electricity costs more, then you will be more conscientious about how much electricity you use. Then, you will buy more expensive electronics that have the "smart grid" capabilities.
Utilities have a government-sanctioned monopoly on their service area. Because of this monopoly status, the Utility has to get approval to raise their rates, usually through the county or state legislature. Many states have Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) which are in it to make money. They always want to increase their profit. (IOUs are similar to national banks, always looking for profit, As opposed to co-ops, which are more like a "community credit union". I love those guys.)
Utilities want to institute Tiered pricing in every single home. It means that you will be charged 2x during the day vs the night. The utility buys "In Home Displays" that plug into your home outlet and displays the current electricity cost. Some systems are based on a pre-pay system, so the IHD will also display how much energy they have left before they are cut off. (Mainly for poorer, high-risk customers)
Tiered Pricing: How is it cheaper?
Almost all of the utilities out there buy their electricity from a power generation company. They purchase electricity based on tiers. If they buy 499MW in on one month, it is one price, but if they hit 500MW on a single day, their cost for the entire month costs double.
An installation of a Load Control Unit (the one that controls your furnace/AC/Water Heater) can easily cost $1M. (each Load Control Unit costs $100 or so, labor to install is another $50 - $100, and you have to be at the home when the utility installs it...). At a certain user conference, a utility announced that a single load shed event paid for the entire system installation. (I kinda find his announcement hard to believe, but I won't complain) However, their rates did not change. The people served by this utility did not see a rate reduction. They only noticed that their house became warmer for no noticeable reason. The real reason was that the utility turned off their air conditioner for an hour to decrease their costs.
Remember, they need to go to the city/county/state to increase their billing rate. Do you really think that they will go to the legislature, tell them that they saved a bunch of money, and now they can charge less? That would never happen.
Here is another kicker: Thanks to EISA Section 1306, (implemented in 2007 by GW, paved the way for the "Smart Grid"), utilities can increase the rate on any system with a "Smart Grid" to recoup the cost of the Smart Meters. If a utility installs our Smart Grid system, they already recoup their costs just by firing the meter reads. So, not only will they save money by firing the meter readers, they don't have to pay for it because they can charge the homeowner more.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
The "smart grid" will supposedly create 10,000 jobs. They are considering a "job" as a single person touching a part of the system. Even though I still have a job, and my job existed before this system, I am part of this "10,000 jobs created". In fact, more
Stated like a true parrot.
1) Quit listening to the propaganda from the Big Brother, police state.
2) If you think that potent cannabis is something new, where have you been for the last few millennia? I remember Sativa strains from the 70's and 80's that were far superior to the (often) hydroponically grown strains of today. I hear crap like "It's not like the marijuana you smoked in your college days. It's worse than HEROIN now!" from police spokespeople and the like. Ignorance or malice... it's still false.
3) Cannabis does not have dangerous synergistic effects with alcohol. Maybe you'd peter out on drinking earlier in the evening but it isn't dangerously toxic. (unlike the synergistic effects of, say, barbiturates or tranquilizers with alcohol)
4) Cannabis does not cause psychosis. There are all kinds of studies with false correlations. Just because samples of schizophrenics and psychotics also tend to use cannabis and other drugs doesn't mean it caused, or even exacerbated the imbalance.
You really ought to get out more. Go to a place where a sizable portion of the population uses cannabis every day of their lives (like Canada, for example). They have jobs, businesses, families and homes. They aren't psychotic, they aren't driving dangerously and they aren't dead. Hell, I know people who have been smoking cannabis for over 50 years and it hasn't done them the harm that has been promised.
It's not completely harmless, but harmless enough that it doesn't warrant the prejudice that it gets.
Cannabis itself won't make a loser out of you... it's just that in America, they will see to it that it does.