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Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You?
lee1 writes "If you have a 'smart meter,' it is collecting data that can reveal when you wake up, when you leave for work and come home, when you go on vacation and when you take a shower. This data is commercially valuable and, if sold to third parties, can lead to privacy invasion on a massive scale. The California Public Utility Commission is reacting to the gas and electric company's mass installation of these meters with new proposals for strong privacy protections."
These are what keep us SAFE because it lets power companies notify law enforcement when our neighbors are growing marijuana! We NEED these to keep us SAFE!
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
is signalling the CIA
People need to realize that any device that can collect and transmit data will probably be used to collect more data than they should. That data will PROBABLY end up being sold, simply because people are willing to pay for it. Since it is our data, why can't we demand a cut of the profits?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
If they aren't protected with strong security, and thieves can extract the information, it's as good as people posting all that information on Facebook or similar.
Or you could use Facebook status updates:
"ugh, just woke up, stupid alarm! FML!"
"about to have a shower!"
"shower was too cold! FML!"
"Just got home, traffic was horrible! FML!"
How can this data be used against you in any way, other than the fact that someone can steal stuff from your house if they know you arent home?
Trying to stir up FUD about smart meters. Enforcing energy poverty is more important than risk to your privacy.
So you install a constant-velocity motor generator set and...
well, if you were a military installation protecting something important, then it'd be a bit different. Yes, it's very wrong to sell it to a commercial entity, but it's not wrong at all to collect it. You're buying power from these people -- it would be like asking your water company to stop using their AMR equipment. Or gas -- oh no, they know when my water heater cycles and I use the stove. It's strange, I feel that people are diverging on privacy. On the one hand, they don't care about privacy of their personal lives and relationships (re: Facebook) but now they care that someone knows how much electricity they're using? Enlighten me if you disagree with my opinion that this is all a bit silly (remembering that I am not saying that commercial sale of this data is OK)
@Haffner: The hydro company only notifies the authorities if the bad guys growing marijuana don't pay their electricity bill; otherwise they are considered a profitable customer who pays on time - in which case why would they want to ruin a good thing? :)
However on a more serious note, this piece makes a good point - I don't want this information sold off to the highest bidder.
I seem to be the only person not allowed to collect data from the smart meter on my house. I have allow Google to collect the data for me or I can't access it at all.
Beats letting some random stranger (potential murderer) in your house to read the meter.
Also, "can reveal". Can being the operative word, really they are just inferring from spikes in electricity usage when certain things might be happening, they can't really tell the difference between taking a shower and suddenly turning on every appliance in your house just for shits and giggles. Nor can they tell the difference between leaving for work and deciding to sulk in complete darkness because you're feeling gothic. But yes, some annoymizing of the data would be nice (i.e. only summary data that shows when electricity usage typically peaks in certain types of household and not individual households exact usage).
How many /. articles has there been just this past week on companies getting in trouble with the data they collect about their customers? It seems like there needs to be pretty broad laws that cover how ALL companies are allowed to handle user data. Arguing that they shouldn't collect that data, I think, is a bit silly, especially because it helps companies focus on what products to make or how to better tailor their resources to fit consumer needs. However, selling the privacy I entrusted to company X to company Y is a bit unacceptable. Why not have broad laws that cover these things that allow for opt-in (not opt-out) so we can stop hearing about this nonsense. It's the function of the government to define the rules of the game... where's my government!
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
This is getting ridiculous. Half the posts on /. are "Oh noes, companies can find out when I X!" If companies want that information, they'll just look at your Facebook account, where you posted pictures of your office, your cat, check-in data at the porn store up on the corner, and links to your YouTube video of your marijuana plants for all the world to see. We cannot simultaneously be a society that wants to share everything and keep everything secret.
Smart meters can pinpoint time of usage. Of course it's possible to extrapolate the user's living habits from this additional data. The summary makes it sound like the thing is intentionally spying. You could do the same thing with the old analog meters except it would be more along the lines of "they probably went on vacation this month" since the sampling interval by the power company was monthly. Smart meters are like reading the analog dials every 5 minutes (or whatever the sampling interval is).
Or for the paranoid: all someone would need to do is point a camera at your analog meter dials transmitting back to an unmarked van recording the values every 15 minutes.
this is my sig
The lesson here: any data that is collectable will be collected. Any data that is usable will be used.
It would be entirely naive to think that law enforcement would restrain themselves from using data that is right there for the taking. All it takes is a little strong-arming of the company in charge of the data.
That includes consumption of electricity, water, gas, internet, cable-tv, UPS-deliveries, and anything else someone else pumps into your house.
Smart Meters don't know anything about when you leave for work or use your toaster, or when you shower, or anything else specific about your energy use beyond how many kW you are using at any given time. They record your energy usage at set intervals, which data can then be used to *guess* how you may be using it. If you happen to have fifty lights in your home that are all on until the moment you walk out the door to go to work in the morning, then yes, they could probably guess when you leave... or, it could just be that you were using your oven for an early morning batch of muffins. They don't have specifics on your appliances (yet), and they don't record anything about *you*.
Where I live, it's FAR more likely they would guess when I use my air conditioning, which can easily quadruple my hourly usage when on.
I make these devices and at least my company considers home owners privacy very important.
Two things people need to understand:
1) These device will collect a lot of information about your power consumption and the type of power consumed. We can tell if an inductive load has come on versus a resistive load. Large appliances will likely have individual readings. (pool pump, water heater, air conditioner)
2) You are not unique. There are thousands of people who behave, share political views, and have an income and education levels similar to you. And people similar to you will have a very similar electrical usage signature. e.g. Give me a large enough sample of people and their electrical usage plus their voting histories and I can figure out other peoples voting histories just by their energy usage.
...that sees through the BS that surrounds these smart meters. The power company will say something like this: "this great new technology helps you use energy more efficiently, so you can be more green!" This is what I hear: "We are going to install new meters that allow us to charge you more for electricity when you use it when you most need it."
I need /. to let me know... am I the only one?
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I may be remembering incorrectly, but it seems to me that I remember the California Public Utilities Commission pushing the utilities to install these. If that is correct, why did they wait until now to investigate the privacy implications? Wouldn't the correct time to have investigated the privacy implications been before you pushed the utilities to install these all over the place? I do know that when these were first introduced there were a lot of people asking these very questions.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Selling the info is bad enough, but at least those who buy it are JUST going to be trying to sell you stuff! The ones who steal or hijack this info are much more likely to cause you a lot more harm, and since it is going to be spread around to many different organizations and businesses, inevitably some are not going to adequately secure the data and it will be stolen and sold again to be used for criminal purposes! I predict that not too far in the future, if it isn't already available, there will be those cruising your street and harvesting this info direct from the source, or hacking into it remotely for the same reason, just cutting out the middle man!
I am 95% sure these meters have all been hacked. I saw a demo in first person. (It might have been faked, I suppose.)
So, the bad guys drive around to find out who is on vacation?
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
For some reason this doesn't sound as threatening as my credit card data or internet history being leaked...
The government/law enforcement has a proven history of using power metering in order to obtain warrants to search the premises, so perhaps it makes more sense in that light. "Your power consumption is way out of profile for your service demographic, ergo we believe you are conducting illegal activities..."
Of course, if you are of the "I have nothing to hide, so let them search/datamine/whatever" mindset then perhaps this won't prove convincing. These data have been abused in the past, even at the gross, monthly-metering sampling rate. It isn't surprising that people are somewhat paranoid about what new abrogations of civil rights might grow from having fine-grained data available.
I would rather have commercial sale of this information (presuming a fantasy world where this sale could somehow preclude the government obtaining indirect access) than to allow the government to have access to the same. No annoying, profiling corporation can send armed squads to serve a "no knock" warrant to invade my domicile. This stands in stark contrast to the government. Naturally, of course, the best scenario would be if my power consumption remains a private matter solely between me and the power company and the information never goes any further than that.
Of course, I also think it is crazy how much information people freely share online, so perhaps you would just classify me as a total privacy advocate. AC to be consistent with what I advocate...
I've worked for a firm that collects this data. The technology, as it's exists now, is incapable of the level of analysis described. The data is flow is massive and only summation for billing is viable. Even then, "sanitization" of data is common practices. While protective legislation and guidance is encouraged before it goes too far, there are far greater violations including IP address mapping between logins on identifying solutions (gmail, yahoo mail) and apparent "anonymous" sites. Flash Persisted Objects being one aspect, IP + browser fingerprinting, and collaboration between marketing organizations and online retailers are bigger risks. The part that sucks is we can't opt out of smart metering. Security is quite solid but if I had any advice to the PUCs it would be to mandate truck roles for power turn off / turn down. The current broadcast model on smart meters combined with the potential to brute force the master key for broadcasting means someone with a bit of knowledge and desire could inject into the meshed network a flag to shut down broad swaths of power consumers, which in turn could lead to a surge back into the grid causing other catastrophic outages. GM72
I've read that some of these Smart Meters may have firmware vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to worms that could reek havoc with the electrical grid.
Seriously, it's getting ridiculous.
Energy prices already fluctuate depending on usage times (even if you have abstracted this detail away with a fixed rate plan).
What I want to see a public API for accessing this data so we can tell when to get the best drain for our bucks.
Ultimately, I see this evolving similarly to the stock market. We can have computers that precisely control our lighting and appliances much like a high frequency trader's computers do.
Imagine being able to get the absolute best price for electricity, (a few dollars cheaper per month than your neighbors!) except that the shower is never heated for more than a few minutes at a time, and turning on a light results in a sporadic strobe effect.
How is this still news. Information about your personal habits, purchases, and movements is valuable. So companies are going to collected it and sell it. That is what companies are suppose to do. make money. I think we are being a little naive when we are surprised that this is happening. No one seems to care to follow their congressmen who create the environment for this to happen, but are mad when things don't go our way.
Here is what this whole issue boils down to: http://www.microparsec.com/comics/64.html - emotions will always override rational thinking, in either direction.
When I fart you can tell what I had for dinner last night.
Is this a privacy concern?
No?
Damn. I was going to submit it to /.
I feel for all those peeps out there seeing their utility bills skyrocket after these things are installed. The less baseload you use the more you pay. Since they can predict exactly what the usage will be at large scales the easier it becomes to tweak the system to extract maximum $$$.
In terms of privacy even with the best protections on paper it is still more shit that can be used against you... A divorce attrny filing subpeonas to make the case you are a lazy bastard who constantly sleeps in or LEA on a witch hunt finding the correlation they've been looking for.
Either way smart metering means we all loose regardless of the text of any legislation. It is sad too because in principal I like the idea of exposing real costs to the consumer.
I hear google is starting a new service where you get your electricity for free, but they get to keep all the usage data and do whatever they want with it. As a first test of the utility of this they are modeling when people are home and when they are not, then door-to-door sales organizations get to participate in an auction to buy time segments of people at home. Rumor has it that the Girl Scouts and the Jehovah's Witnesses were having a bidding war for your house at 6:45-7:15 PM next tuesday. Next they will target your computer with ads for porn when you are using the laptop after 11PM and the wife has set her alarm earlier than 7AM and turned off the upstairs lights. Other applications to follow.
Ok, ok, i just made that up.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Any data can be used good or bad. For example for good it could be used so we pay more during peak time and less for off hours. This would normally be good for home users as most people are out to work during peak times thus are paying less. Also a lot of this data is not really too useful, as it doesn't prove anything. Do you take a shower at 6:00 or is your thermostat on a timer and you heat rises at 6:00 so when you wake up at 7:00 your house is warm and toasty.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They have smart water meters, too.
It's a double-edged sword. Sure... if they cared, they could use it to determine when you were in the shower. But then again, they can also detect that your toilet is leaking ~1gpm and notify you before you get your next bill and discover that you were billed for using 40,000 gallons of water that month.
These are what keep us SAFE because it lets power companies notify law enforcement when our neighbors are growing marijuana! We NEED these to keep us SAFE!
I grow marijuana, you insensitive clod!
Telemarketers use this so they can call you just as you get out of the shower.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Smart metering should reduce power costs and consumption, not increase it. With the current system, most of the electricity we produce is simply wasted. If the public utility has more information about usage patterns, it should be able to conserve more energy.
How did they get that evidence without a court order? Getting the court order for the data from the electric company should require some other evidence right?
Some police agencies have tried overflying neighborhoods and noting infrared hot spots. A home that is pumping out "too much" heat may be the tip off. Note that warrants do not require the same burden of proof as conviction at trial, warrants only need "reasonable" cause.
Like odors, IR leaking into the public domain needs no warrant.
outweigh the privacy invasion.
Privacy invasion on a massive scale. Hilarious.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
see subject
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
"If you have a 'smart meter' it is collecting data that can reveal when you wake up, when you leave for work and come home, when you go on vacation and when you take a shower" No, my "smart" meter has been combined with TOU (Time of Use) billing, so naturally I installed 7 day programmable timers on everything. My ground source heat pump only comes on at night and brings the temperature up on my radiant floor heating system. My AC only comes on and cools the house when it is cheap to do so. My hot water tank heats up at night and provides me with enough hot water for the day. My dishwasher comes on in the middle of the night as well. If they are gleaning any statistics from watching my energy usage, they might as well be using the slashdot poll results as well.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Incandecent lighting has a power factor of 1. Electric motors have a pf of quite a bit less than 1. Florescent bulbs have really shitty power profiles. This goes on top of the overall power consumptions of devices. I've seen the same thing done with just a precision current measurement on a car - door opens, key goes in, engine cranks, door closes, radio goes on, etc....
The thing people keep failing to point out is that there is NO benefit to the customer or the utility for collecting this data. Because they have the data and the customer causes the usage, there is no way to affect usage as a result of this data collection. So called smart appliances that can use less power during peak are a nice thought, but if they make rates adjustable and broadcast them people will go after the savings themselves without sharing data. Oh wait, but they want to smooth the load (turn off my fridge) independent of the rates...
I work for Gas and Electric municipalities all over the country. Smart meters are designed to transmit usage data and never have I heard of ANY PUC (Public Utilities Commision) or even Private or co-op Municipalities collecting data other than for billing or diagnostic purposes. I work DIRECTLY with data collection and billing accuracies for Gas Meters and have NEVER seen ANYTHING to indicate this is going on.. As a matter of fact I would think that it would be illegal if they sold any of that information. Fucking paranoids... It's not even happening anyway! Really!?
read through some comments... ordinarily when some company collects data on people you can count on the slashdot romper room to go apoplectic.
but this is 'smart' meters... the power company could collect, analyze and sell this data to professional home invaders and the greenies around here wouldn't bat an eye.
I've often thought that is a stupid argument. If a company wants to make money, just sell all the assets and start a hedge fund. Got it? OK, now that we understand that a company exists to participate in some specific part(s) of the economy we can ask how other activities fit into that business model.
I usually use this argument to ask why a company doesn't want to innovate or strive to be among the best in its industry. The ones that are more focused on the dollars than the business don't last.
Does the Electric Company not already have a technology-sharing agreement with the underwear gnomes?
I don't want to get into the boggy man issue, in the future the smart meter will have the ability to communicate with newer appliances one example would be if you own an electric car it will see the car in the household grid and sell that charging session at a lower kwh price.
Electricity is voluntary too. Get yourself some solar cells and a battery bank and you can use electricity anonymously and not worry about Big Brother knowing what time you take your shower.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Reza?
... and believe me, the meters are smart, but not that smart.
Time for solar and batteries?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20061749-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=GreenTech
Yes! They're tracking my usage! They'll use that data to bill me for every kwhr I use over my cap! There ought to be a law!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm all for protecting real privacy, but worrying about this is just a huge waste of time and resources. People need to get a grip!
Keep passing the open windows...
Well, you and all the other so-called environmentalists.
So now you have it, and it's going to get worse when all of your appliances are "smart". You're home alone watching television in your living room and the power company notices that you left the kitchen light on. Busted!
Hmm, I had an entirely different read on this law. I don't want anyone in the Electric Company / Gas Company figuring out when I am away from home. If an employee can discover when power usage drops for a few days from normal routine, they can sell this information to house thieves.
"Like odors, IR leaking into the public domain needs no warrant."
Nope. An infrared scan constitutes a search. They would have to get a warrant, first, in order to do the thermal imaging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States
Wow, that was a surprising read in more than one way. Thanks AC.
... meter reads YOU!
Come on! That was too easy!
They might not know now but with a little data mining they could figure it out. Either that or they sell the data to someone who does data mining.
I post on Facebook what I choose to post. Therefore, Facebook posts are not a privacy violation...
Unless you choose to post something about ME without my permission. What? You thought your feelings on what is private are the only ones that matter? Your postings can affect other peoples privacy too so it isn't just as simple as what you think. I really don't want to have to police your postings to ensure my privacy.
Yes, stupid people will post stupid things that allow others to invade their privacy, but you can't legislate away stupidity.
In the case of Facebook you absolutely can legislate away stupidity by shutting Facebook down. A terrible solution but it would work.
By contrast, I don't choose what information my water meter collects.
Sure you do. You decide when to turn the water on and off.
Disclosure of private information should require explicit consent.
So when are you going to get my consent to post a picture of me on Facebook?
1, 2, 3, 1, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3
Good luck doing the data analysis on that to tell what time I take a shower.
If I had a smart meter for electricity (I don't, PG&E won't give me one because I have solar panels on my roof) there might be more of a problem as I understand that these provide per-hour data - not sure of the resolution. I'm certain that you'd be able to tell when I run the clothes drier - but smaller appliances are going to be difficult to spot in hourly data.
They record your energy usage at set intervals, which data can then be used to *guess* how you may be using it.
A statistically significant collection of guesses frequently turns out to be remarkable accurate way to measure behavior.
I think as long as you play the Iron Maiden loudly enough your neighbours can hear, you should be fine. Pink Floyd and Phish, not so much.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Get back in your crib!
USA is most spying country on the world. It's yours pseudo-democracy country...
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
until they roll out the monitoring of what is going down your sewer pipe. Both insurance corporations and the morality police would kill for such information and they would literally wade through shit to get it.
Remember folks, we don't actually have a right to privacy at all... Read the constitution.
As for the pot plant busts, a marijuana farm of that size requires a constant stream of energy. No appliance in the home does so on that scale. The closest would be an alarm clock. Refrigerators and a/c units cycle on/off, creating a rythm, whereas heat lamps produce a flatter power curve.
Quite frankly, if someone wants the information, it can be gotten. Most of it legally and quite easily. Things like our driver's license number, workplace, address, phone number, etc are all public domain. Ask anyone who is a private investigator and you'll be surprised what info is out there.
The new meters will allow the electric co. to map power use, allowing them to estimate when the highest and lowest demands are, tailoring generation to meet those needs. And of course, allowing them to charge us more for their installation, forgetting to remember that they no longer have to pay meter readers. I personally hope that we have access to our own power map. It would allow me to decide just how viable an alternative such as solar or hydrogen would be for my household.