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Australian Smart Meter Data Shared Far and Wide
New submitter ferrisoxide.com writes "In Victoria (Australia), detailed information about electricity customers' power usage, which gives insights into when a house is occupied, is being shared with third parties including mail houses, debt collectors, data processing analysts and government agencies."
Color me surprised. I also expect campaign promises to be kept.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Data security is such a good thing. Good thing the hackers didn't get it.
And with the data retention proposals of course no isp is going to be tempted to defray the cost with either on-site or outsourced datamining. And all storage is onsite and under their control.
From the FTA
"An Origin spokesman said the portal was fully compliant with Australian privacy legislation. He said the additional information requested about each household ''adds to the richness of the Origin Smart experience''.
Customer information can only be accessed by staff involved in billing. He said the electricity retailer only shared information with third parties when they had a ''legitimate business need to do so in order to meet our service obligations to our customers''."
"with third parties" the easiest way for the NSA to get all the data in the world would be to sell cheap datamining services as the Narly Stats Advisers.
And government and business wonder why people don't trust them.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
If you don't want information to get out, don't give it out.
The question isn't whether or not information can or should be collected, but how it's used.
Information that isn't collected can't be abused.
Resistance is V/I.
An Origin spokesman said the portal was fully compliant with Australian privacy legislation. He said the additional information requested about each household ''adds to the richness of the Origin Smart experience''.
Legislation that isn't specific essentially ensures that data will be misused.
Then again, to the people who passed the law, that was probably a feature, not a bug.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You took a perfectly good cause and ruined it in the name of profit!!!! You have just fed the tinfoil hat crown and ruined smart meters world wide for years to come.
Let's think about this? Hey spouse, want to get a new smart meter? Hell no, I do that and the government will spy on me, the debt collectors will use it against me, do I look like I was born yesterday?
No one is going to want one of these things attached to their house now knowing how they have actually been used. Why the hell couldn't you leave well enough alone and use it for what it was actually meant for?
Smart meter technology could have been one of the greatest real world technological green technologies we have seen in a long time. Instead some short sighted, can't see the next week because tomorrow is in the way greedy bastards ruined it to sell their customers out to debt collectors!
Words cannot begin to describe how short sided and idiotic these people were. I'm sorry they just can't.
I've spent a fair amount of time in Melbourne, I thought well of the people down there. What the hell happened?
Screw the privacy concerns, I want to know how I'm doing. How much energy are those blokes using per unit of area and per home? What percentage of their energy goes towards climate control?
For myself, we are in a 2200 sq ft house in north Texas with gas furnace and water tank. House was built in 1977. Per year, we use between 6500 and 7000 kWh, and about 60 MCF of gas. About 50% of that is for heating and cooling.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
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is here!
Info does = money and that is exactly why people put up smart meters. Most business have a peak demand charge when they buy bulk electricity, smart metering lets the customer know when and what causes that, so it can be minimized and greatly minimise his bill. It's also useful to the average joe consumer who wants to export power back to the grid. Maybe some one else that wants to buy power at the cheap off peak rate and store it in a battery bank for when the price is high. It allows for all kinds of different billing methods that can greatly reward taking stress of the network when it needs it. Smart metering is all about saving money by knowing what the network is doing. Everything you mentioned already exists, smart tv's that record the shows it thinks you'll like so you don't have to, smart browsers that remember your history have been around since the internet started, and smart shoes have been brought out by Nike for exercises freaks. Knowledge is power for all who embrace it. That said I most defiantly can not condone what Origin is doing with the customer's data, and can only assure you that they are the only retailer doing this. Choose the other guys (it's completely up to the customer) and they have very strict rules in place about who gets access. Origin are giant dicks, giving the rest of us a bad name. We have enough problems already trying to convince all the idiots that these setups have no more radiation than an iphone and their old meter.
Rocket Surgeon.
So.... You actually believed them? That is slightly naive isn't it? Info=$$$ It is always been that way, and will always be that way. Anyone knows that, so it is a pretty stupid idea to have yourself monitored that way. No matter what the fanboys say. Smartmeters are for dumb people (assuming one has a choice). What is next, smart-tv's, smart browsers, smart shoes that tell where you are walking?
To see these things coming before they actually happen is a great way to be told that your tinfoil hat is too tight.
That's why this kind of understanding (of what should be obvious) is so rarely appreciated. It belongs to a small minority who know their reasoning is sound with no concern for popularity. That's not the way I would have it, but that's the way it is.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I am all for no video camera network and no government enforced internet snooping but this is hardly the case with smart meters. I work for a smart meter company (not these douches in question) and your making it sound like we have this god like power, when there is a lot less data there than you think which can be very easily masked by a number of things. All we see is a usage per half an hour, and that figure could be made up of any number of different appliences. Yes you could make assumptions based on time like when a big spike kicks in at 6 oclock it's could be the oven, but he could just as easily have a massive computer. Also i don't know who you think cares when you cook a roast, but it's not like it's watching every place you drive too with licence plate scanners. If your really worried about this (and aren't happy with using someone other than origin) just get a bunch of batteries charge them up on off peak power at night and use battery power during the day, you'll save money, the network will like you because you put less stress on the network, and you'll be happy because the metering company won't be able to guess what you might be doing. Now the police department and tax office they have much juicer concrete information on you.
Rocket Surgeon.
People think they have Privacy Laws and the Privacy Commissioner protecting them. They don't. Like much the government does to reassure the public, they are deliberately weak and there for just for PR value. If you ever try and use them you will find they have all the whipping power of a wet lettuce leaf: The worst thing the Commissioner can do is write a letter to a company breaching your privacy saying "Please don't do that." There is no fine. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/youre-being-more-closely-watched-20120916-260ko.html
Add to that Nicola Roxon's plans to snoop on Australians Internet Usage. Do you really trust public servants to keep your private that information secret? The only privacy they care about is hiding their mistakes from public. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/police-fight-to-keep-corby-secrets-20120922-26dni.html
As for your privacy, they don' think you should have any: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/380194/20120904/ag-nicola-roxon-bats-data-retention-laws.htm
I had to opt out of Pacific Gas and Electric's online billing system and go back to paper bills when they changed their EULA to allow more "disclosure". If I just buy power from them, they're subject to regulatory rules, enforced by the California Public Utilities Commission. But they wanted me to sign up for an "online account", which isn't regulated. If you don't sign up, they're not allowed to redistribute your "smart meter" info. If you sign up, you've consented to distribution to "affiliates".
I strongly recommend opting out to PG&E customers (California, Nevada) who are concerned about privacy issues.
With the number of things we need to worry about these days, smart metering is absolutely at the bottom. There are a million ways to fool it, and the information isn't all that interesting any way (unless you get really excited about when people use hair dryers and air con).
So you are willfully neglecting the principle, merely because you see no current significance to its presently immediate applications?
Most of these "things to worry about" boil down to a few major philosophical ideas. You can understand that and focus on the major ideas. You can also fail to understand that and see millions of "issues" that you'd never have time for because you are unable to grasp how they are interrelated and proceed from the same root. Life is full of choices.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
apart from the fact that they use the obsoleted GSM900 bandwidth (channels, even) to build their mesh network via neighbourhood hubs and landlines, that said wireless links are two way, which means that not only is information passed back and forth between meters and hubs, so are instructions (such as kill switch). This presents a problem as anyone with a 934MHz transceiver (rare in the UK since they're now illegal to operate, have been since the block was reallocated to GSM) can simply key on CH1 and potentially kill grid power to any property so equipped, for miles, as the strength of the signal will overwhelm the meter... for those with access to a 934, try keying CH1 next to a GSM900 cellphone.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The ones in my area (here in Victoria,Australia) are frequency hopping in the 900MHz unlicensed use band (never has been used for GSM900 here). Jamming one channel won't kill anyones supply. Apparently each meter has an IPv6 based connection as well.
(take it from someone who [still] owns a Cybernet Delta 1): the 934 rigs are notorious bleed boxes. Even with a 1.1 SWR (as close to perfect antenna balance as you'll ever get) you can bleed out over 600kHz each way with a 50W amp. The issue was that the equipment was overpowered and undercooled for what was being asked of it (30 miles on an average day?), the bleed induced by the linear amplifiers cooking themselves very quickly. With anything less than perfect SWR you'll bleed out even further into neighbouring bands.
FWIW, GSM900 was never widely adopted in the UK, distributors instead preferring GSM1800. The 934 crowd never got their bandwidth back to this day.
Thing is, GSM never even touched 934. GSM900 uses 890–915 MHz to send information from the mobile station to the base station (uplink) and 935–960 MHz for the other direction (downlink), providing 124 RF channels (channel numbers 1 to 124) spaced at 200 kHz. Duplex spacing of 45 MHz is used. Guard bands 100 kHz wide are placed at either end of the range of frequencies.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
That's a shit piece of linear amp if it distorts the baseband in and of itself, never mind if it distorts more simply because it got hot. I would really like to see the spectra before-and-after the amp. Is the amp you mention a part of the transmitter?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
The vast majority of appliances currently installed do not have the ability to be queried or remotely controlled via the power grind. Most houses are not wired to have remote control at an outlet level.
The Smart Meter project referred to in TFA has the capability to remotely activate or deactivate power at a meter by meter level (generally a single residence or small business), or to consumption limit you at a per meter level (if you exceed 'x' kwh consumtpion, shut off, try again in a few minutes), but to the best of my knowledge that hasn't been approved for use as yet.
Currently the way the distributors manage excess consumption is at a grid level where they turn off entire substations, such as they did several summers back where we had a run off excessively hot days and too many people were using their ACs to a level which was going to overload the grid.. What you may not be aware of is the large number of people in residential areas on some form of assisted life support that relies on electricity. In the even to of a blackout, many of these people need to be transferred to hospitals or other backup locations. The smart meter solution allows them to be left on when other houses are switched off in the event of load balancing blackouts.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World