They are battery powered. There is no need to keep more accurate information than daily usage for gas as you only need up to the day information. The less work and more idle the meter is, the less power it will use and the less often the battery must be replaced.
Yes, less than 0.08% of PG&E's millions of meters (8M). It's such an insignificant amount. Yes, they clearly should have handled complaints better and the PR better.
The best thing would have been to get them in place and get customers educated and seeing their near real-time bills online (with the costs assocated with it) - before their first bill ever arrived.
In California you're protected in that the rate is already set ahead of time. The utiltiies cannot change it on a whim but must get permission from the CPUC.
The utilites actually have a problem there as they cannot just charge more even though they may have to pay more during peak then they are selling to you for.
Depends on the system. When done right, the wireless is encrypted and the messages are all signed. Last I checked AES256 was still safe. "Broadcast" is completely wrong. You cannot manage hundreds of thousands of meters (millions in big cities) with a broadcast network. It's unicast IPv6 using ULA (private) addressing with proper firewalling, etc.
But the power company cannot control that. Further, in California, they cannot just charge more willy-nilly. So, Time of Use billing is as fair as they can get to try to balance things out.
The jet engine is correct, but it burns natural gas with diesel as a backup. Jet engine gas turbine. But you're correct, they only run them when the solar wind farms and coal plants (the "cheap" energy) are already maxed out.
Which is why any utility with a clue requires a deposit if they don't know you. Further, with SmartMeters they can detect this sort of abuse and turn it off without a truck roll.
Track your usage (DDWRT has a nice bandwidth tracking feature built in), and at end of the month run a BitTorrent client and help FOSS by sharing the lastest distros, while at the same time forcing ISPs to upgrade their bandwidth. If everyone used every last bit of their cap down to the last hunderd MB or so, we'd see some traction.
unsecured wifi == unlocked car with key in the ignition secured wifi == locked car that someone has to break into and then hotwire the car
Yes, someome with the right skills might be able to pull off WPAv2/AES (not presently known), but that's going to be few and far between.
Not that WEP is recommended, but at least having WEP is better than nothing and much like having a hide-a-key under your bumper (not the smartest move, but not the same as the key in the ignition and unlocked doors).
The system is beyond broken. Until last week I had a CitiBank credit card. I never took the physical card from my home and it was kept locked up with other financials. I only ever used the CitiBank Virtual Credit Card feature (flash app that loads and generates a temporary credit card number linked to your account for 2 months), and only ever used it to make online purchases.
About a month ago I had some fraud charges. Not a big deal, that's why I have this account and only use it online (and no other cards of mine are ever used online). What is utterly retarded is that they had to cancel my card and could not tell me which of the Virtual Credit Cards had been misused. If I'd known which card, I'd have known which online store had been leaked my info. CitiBank wouldn't tell me, and further they don't even know how their system works because they had to cancel my physical card number (again, which should have never been used).
They FedEx'd out new cards next day, but they sat on my coffee table for 3 weeks before I activated the account via the phone two weeks ago. Then last week I get a call from CitiBank with a potential fraud charge of over $600. I had yet to even use the account again online, and again the cards never left my house and came in a sealed FedEx envelope (I know, someone could have compromised that en route, but then they'd have to know how long to wait before I activated them).
Anyway, my point is that the system is beyond broken. Again CitiBank would give me no info about if it was the physical card number or the Virtual Credit Cards which had been compromised (which might point to a problem with my username/password being compromised). I told CitiBank at this point I would not want a new card issued to me and for them to close my account.
I highly doubt my password was guessed. I use a long pseudo-random system to generate passwords, stored in encrypted file on my encrypted drive, and they're changed yearly. So, again, this points back to CitiBank being compromised somewhere - either in their mail room where they send out the credit cards, in their computer systems (where they store the account info) and/or their online account system.
I've moved back to BankAmerica and their Shop Safe card. Same thing, generates a random card number. One nice feature about this is that you can set the expiration (still a minimum of 2 months) and also the amount. So when I renewed a domain with GoDaddy I set the amount of the card to the exact amount, so GoDaddy can't double-bill me even if they wanted to. I also like that I've got alerts all over with my BankAmerica card. Again, since it's never been used in person (or left my house) I set a limit of $1 for any purchase with it and I'll get an alert via phone and email, plus many other alerts (password charge, password failure, etc.).
I want the same one-time features with my physical cards. Some sort of digital read-out which I have to put a pin in to "generate" a temporary credit card with a limit I can select. It should generate a number I can text to the credit card company which has encoded the card number (not the actual number, but a one-time key pad number that corresponds to the card number), the expiration I want, and the amount I specify.
I've even gone so far to cancel my CheckCard linked to my Checking account. I now have an ATM-only cards for my Checking accounts (no VISA/MC logo) and I only use it at my Credit Union's ATM. Why did I do this? My business CheckCard had some fraud charges - which should be hard to do when I never used that card as a credit card, but only an ATM to make deposits.
The system is beyond broken. Each purchase needs to be tied to an approval method and a one-time card number.
Mind you I'm security-paranoid. Stateful firewall, firewall on all my hosts (inbound and outbound), proxy all internet traffic, selinux, always up to date OS and add-ons, have a VM just for my financial uses which never goes anywhere other than my financial websites. I know no system is bulletproof, but I like to think I'm doing everything I can, and I really don't think the credit card industry is doing their part.
Or AT&T's new 150gb/mo. cap for DSL customers (and AT&T's UVerse matching Comcast's 256gb/mo. cap). Both want to kill innovation and stop you from getting your media elsewhere.
How utterly stupid of them. All the while Google is launching 1gb service in KSK in 2012 to any ISP that dares to use their pipes.
No one provides the pipe end to end. Comcast provides the last mile to the end users and makes money providing Internet access to home users.
Perhaps Comcast should pay for Netflix's pipes? Just as ridiculous as the other way around.
Or, how about this - each entity pays for their own pipes. Comcast is an ISP and should provide its customers transit to whatever content they want to. End of story.
It sure beats living by nukes, coal plants, tire burning plants, etc., eh? Even a natural gas power generation plant isn't nice to live by. Plus, you don't have to worry about the neighbors being noisy.
I'm not sure why anyone needs to be where they can physically access the guard. Why not use a man trap where a card access badge is used to enter the trap, the outer door secured (locking the person in), the ID of the person is verified (local scanner and camera), and then the inner door released? All of this can be done without physical staff anywhere near the location. If you have many of these such data centers it makes more sense to centralize your security staff anyway.
Cameras, motion sensors, and other methods can keep the physical building able to alert, and law enforcement called in to deal with issues since any rent-a-cop guard isn't going to be shooting anyway.
No, they cannot require your SSN for school. It is a hassle, but you can ask for an alternative ID number which they generate. Even for Federally funded things, even at college levels, you cannot be required to give your SSN (except for financial aid, but not just for regular admissions).
I sure wouldn't want to give my SSN at a school. It's statistically rather easy to get the first 5 digits, and so many places using the last four as some sort of ID method is ridiculous. I know I've seen plenty of colleges databases cracked and leaked containing student records - not to mention do you really trust the guy in charge of lab sign-ins with your SSN?
Identity fraud is so easy to commit these days. Most have their birthdays for the public to see on Facebook, etc.
The reason this works is the guy can charge a premium ($89 is not cheap for the speed of Internet he is offering, more like 3 times the cost if it was DSL or Cable of the same speed), but he can do it because they have no other option.
His business model works because it is an affluent county without another choice (how many people do you know that will pay $300+ install fee?). It would not work in any market with DSL/cable with costs of $30/month and no install fee/contract (mind you many DSL will try to lock you in with a contract, but you can go without a contract in most cases if you pay $5/mo more, which is what you'll pay when the contract runs out anyway).
I'm not saying what he is offering is bad. It's a great deal for those people with no other choice. But it's not a model the telco/cableco will follow, and it's hardly a good example in the case of the US's dualopoly ISP model.
Even my local WISP, Fire2Wire won't post their prices, because they're not anywhere near competitive. The only reason anyone will get them is because they have no other option but dial-up. I believe they also charge $300+ install fees and prices comparable to BLAZE Wireless (WISP mentioned in the article). Further, WISP speeds are often just barely on par with low-end DSL/cable. Worse still, if your downstream neighbors are hogging the bandwidth, you're pretty much out of luck (QoS could help here, but effectively you're still sharing the "max" that you could get if they were idle).
I know one business which hosts an antennae for the local WISP and they get free Internet. They only use it as a low-end backup, but instead pay for a carrier-grade ISP T1 for their production business needed. They'd never pay for the WISP, and it's only because of the free deal that they have them at all.
Taking out GPS won't disrupt the frequency across the grid. It just makes it much easier to keep synchronized. Highly accurate time clocks are kept already at each location and keep time just fine. GPS just helps keep them synchronized. Even prior to GPS we had land-based methods such as WWVB and WWV before that in North America. Again, the time clocks are already highly accurate and mostly need the initial signal just to set the frequency and time and to calculate drift. Here's one such vendor. They'll run just fine for months (years?) without losing frequency synchronization.
Ah, I wasn't right on the math, but basically there are two times during the 5 year program where you go work for real companies. It looks like they include not just civil engineering but computer science now as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, I've very aware of locate storage options out in the power distribution network.
Sounds like you've only dealt with low-end gear. What I say is production fact and what PG&E uses.
Go and Google it yourself:
site:silverspringnet.com aes
site:silverspringnet.com ipv6
They are battery powered. There is no need to keep more accurate information than daily usage for gas as you only need up to the day information. The less work and more idle the meter is, the less power it will use and the less often the battery must be replaced.
Yes, less than 0.08% of PG&E's millions of meters (8M). It's such an insignificant amount. Yes, they clearly should have handled complaints better and the PR better.
The best thing would have been to get them in place and get customers educated and seeing their near real-time bills online (with the costs assocated with it) - before their first bill ever arrived.
In California you're protected in that the rate is already set ahead of time. The utiltiies cannot change it on a whim but must get permission from the CPUC.
The utilites actually have a problem there as they cannot just charge more even though they may have to pay more during peak then they are selling to you for.
Depends on the system. When done right, the wireless is encrypted and the messages are all signed. Last I checked AES256 was still safe. "Broadcast" is completely wrong. You cannot manage hundreds of thousands of meters (millions in big cities) with a broadcast network. It's unicast IPv6 using ULA (private) addressing with proper firewalling, etc.
But the power company cannot control that. Further, in California, they cannot just charge more willy-nilly. So, Time of Use billing is as fair as they can get to try to balance things out.
The jet engine is correct, but it burns natural gas with diesel as a backup. Jet engine gas turbine. But you're correct, they only run them when the solar wind farms and coal plants (the "cheap" energy) are already maxed out.
Which is why any utility with a clue requires a deposit if they don't know you. Further, with SmartMeters they can detect this sort of abuse and turn it off without a truck roll.
Except that if I track all bandwidth and the numbers are way off, class action lawsuits can bring the ISPs in check.
Track your usage (DDWRT has a nice bandwidth tracking feature built in), and at end of the month run a BitTorrent client and help FOSS by sharing the lastest distros, while at the same time forcing ISPs to upgrade their bandwidth. If everyone used every last bit of their cap down to the last hunderd MB or so, we'd see some traction.
I think the analogy is better like this:
unsecured wifi == unlocked car with key in the ignition
secured wifi == locked car that someone has to break into and then hotwire the car
Yes, someome with the right skills might be able to pull off WPAv2/AES (not presently known), but that's going to be few and far between.
Not that WEP is recommended, but at least having WEP is better than nothing and much like having a hide-a-key under your bumper (not the smartest move, but not the same as the key in the ignition and unlocked doors).
Akin to leaving your keys in the car - someone uses it and damages another's prorperty - then you would be liable.
I think the same could be said of your unsecured wireless Internet connection that you don't take reasonable measures to protect from harming others.
I'm not a lawyer, just throwing that out there.
The system is beyond broken. Until last week I had a CitiBank credit card. I never took the physical card from my home and it was kept locked up with other financials. I only ever used the CitiBank Virtual Credit Card feature (flash app that loads and generates a temporary credit card number linked to your account for 2 months), and only ever used it to make online purchases.
About a month ago I had some fraud charges. Not a big deal, that's why I have this account and only use it online (and no other cards of mine are ever used online). What is utterly retarded is that they had to cancel my card and could not tell me which of the Virtual Credit Cards had been misused. If I'd known which card, I'd have known which online store had been leaked my info. CitiBank wouldn't tell me, and further they don't even know how their system works because they had to cancel my physical card number (again, which should have never been used).
They FedEx'd out new cards next day, but they sat on my coffee table for 3 weeks before I activated the account via the phone two weeks ago. Then last week I get a call from CitiBank with a potential fraud charge of over $600. I had yet to even use the account again online, and again the cards never left my house and came in a sealed FedEx envelope (I know, someone could have compromised that en route, but then they'd have to know how long to wait before I activated them).
Anyway, my point is that the system is beyond broken. Again CitiBank would give me no info about if it was the physical card number or the Virtual Credit Cards which had been compromised (which might point to a problem with my username/password being compromised). I told CitiBank at this point I would not want a new card issued to me and for them to close my account.
I highly doubt my password was guessed. I use a long pseudo-random system to generate passwords, stored in encrypted file on my encrypted drive, and they're changed yearly. So, again, this points back to CitiBank being compromised somewhere - either in their mail room where they send out the credit cards, in their computer systems (where they store the account info) and/or their online account system.
I've moved back to BankAmerica and their Shop Safe card. Same thing, generates a random card number. One nice feature about this is that you can set the expiration (still a minimum of 2 months) and also the amount. So when I renewed a domain with GoDaddy I set the amount of the card to the exact amount, so GoDaddy can't double-bill me even if they wanted to. I also like that I've got alerts all over with my BankAmerica card. Again, since it's never been used in person (or left my house) I set a limit of $1 for any purchase with it and I'll get an alert via phone and email, plus many other alerts (password charge, password failure, etc.).
I want the same one-time features with my physical cards. Some sort of digital read-out which I have to put a pin in to "generate" a temporary credit card with a limit I can select. It should generate a number I can text to the credit card company which has encoded the card number (not the actual number, but a one-time key pad number that corresponds to the card number), the expiration I want, and the amount I specify.
I've even gone so far to cancel my CheckCard linked to my Checking account. I now have an ATM-only cards for my Checking accounts (no VISA/MC logo) and I only use it at my Credit Union's ATM. Why did I do this? My business CheckCard had some fraud charges - which should be hard to do when I never used that card as a credit card, but only an ATM to make deposits.
The system is beyond broken. Each purchase needs to be tied to an approval method and a one-time card number.
Mind you I'm security-paranoid. Stateful firewall, firewall on all my hosts (inbound and outbound), proxy all internet traffic, selinux, always up to date OS and add-ons, have a VM just for my financial uses which never goes anywhere other than my financial websites. I know no system is bulletproof, but I like to think I'm doing everything I can, and I really don't think the credit card industry is doing their part.
Or AT&T's new 150gb/mo. cap for DSL customers (and AT&T's UVerse matching Comcast's 256gb/mo. cap). Both want to kill innovation and stop you from getting your media elsewhere.
How utterly stupid of them. All the while Google is launching 1gb service in KSK in 2012 to any ISP that dares to use their pipes.
IPv6 tunnels, hmm. Just need to get past that billing address problem, not too hard if you're dedicated.
No one provides the pipe end to end. Comcast provides the last mile to the end users and makes money providing Internet access to home users.
Perhaps Comcast should pay for Netflix's pipes? Just as ridiculous as the other way around.
Or, how about this - each entity pays for their own pipes. Comcast is an ISP and should provide its customers transit to whatever content they want to. End of story.
It sure beats living by nukes, coal plants, tire burning plants, etc., eh? Even a natural gas power generation plant isn't nice to live by. Plus, you don't have to worry about the neighbors being noisy.
I'm not sure why anyone needs to be where they can physically access the guard. Why not use a man trap where a card access badge is used to enter the trap, the outer door secured (locking the person in), the ID of the person is verified (local scanner and camera), and then the inner door released? All of this can be done without physical staff anywhere near the location. If you have many of these such data centers it makes more sense to centralize your security staff anyway.
Cameras, motion sensors, and other methods can keep the physical building able to alert, and law enforcement called in to deal with issues since any rent-a-cop guard isn't going to be shooting anyway.
No, they cannot require your SSN for school. It is a hassle, but you can ask for an alternative ID number which they generate. Even for Federally funded things, even at college levels, you cannot be required to give your SSN (except for financial aid, but not just for regular admissions).
I sure wouldn't want to give my SSN at a school. It's statistically rather easy to get the first 5 digits, and so many places using the last four as some sort of ID method is ridiculous. I know I've seen plenty of colleges databases cracked and leaked containing student records - not to mention do you really trust the guy in charge of lab sign-ins with your SSN?
Identity fraud is so easy to commit these days. Most have their birthdays for the public to see on Facebook, etc.
I thought it was just part of the Hoth back lot, where they filmed Ice Road Truckers and stuff.
The reason this works is the guy can charge a premium ($89 is not cheap for the speed of Internet he is offering, more like 3 times the cost if it was DSL or Cable of the same speed), but he can do it because they have no other option.
His business model works because it is an affluent county without another choice (how many people do you know that will pay $300+ install fee?). It would not work in any market with DSL/cable with costs of $30/month and no install fee/contract (mind you many DSL will try to lock you in with a contract, but you can go without a contract in most cases if you pay $5/mo more, which is what you'll pay when the contract runs out anyway).
I'm not saying what he is offering is bad. It's a great deal for those people with no other choice. But it's not a model the telco/cableco will follow, and it's hardly a good example in the case of the US's dualopoly ISP model.
Even my local WISP, Fire2Wire won't post their prices, because they're not anywhere near competitive. The only reason anyone will get them is because they have no other option but dial-up. I believe they also charge $300+ install fees and prices comparable to BLAZE Wireless (WISP mentioned in the article). Further, WISP speeds are often just barely on par with low-end DSL/cable. Worse still, if your downstream neighbors are hogging the bandwidth, you're pretty much out of luck (QoS could help here, but effectively you're still sharing the "max" that you could get if they were idle).
I know one business which hosts an antennae for the local WISP and they get free Internet. They only use it as a low-end backup, but instead pay for a carrier-grade ISP T1 for their production business needed. They'd never pay for the WISP, and it's only because of the free deal that they have them at all.
Hmm? I always thought Indiana was split between many time zones (with neighboring states' major cities). Are these articles wrong?
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/daylight1.html
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Time_in_Indiana
Taking out GPS won't disrupt the frequency across the grid. It just makes it much easier to keep synchronized. Highly accurate time clocks are kept already at each location and keep time just fine. GPS just helps keep them synchronized. Even prior to GPS we had land-based methods such as WWVB and WWV before that in North America. Again, the time clocks are already highly accurate and mostly need the initial signal just to set the frequency and time and to calculate drift. Here's one such vendor. They'll run just fine for months (years?) without losing frequency synchronization.
Ah, I wasn't right on the math, but basically there are two times during the 5 year program where you go work for real companies. It looks like they include not just civil engineering but computer science now as well.
"Engineers make a world of difference. Engage your world through practical coursework that integrates classroom learning with 7.5 months of industry experience"