Ask Slashdot: Are Smart Meters Safe? 684
An anonymous reader writes "There is a lot of controversy and a big hullabaloo about Southern California Edison and various other utilities around the country installing smart meters at residential homes. Various action groups claim that these smart meters transmit an unsafe amount of RF and that they are an invasion of privacy. The information out there seems rather spotty and inconsistent — what do you engineers out there think? Are these things potentially harmful? Are they an invasion of privacy?"
Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
In Europe, they're being investigated as a privacy issue:
Hi-tech monitors that track households' energy consumption threaten to become a major privacy issue, according to the European watchdog in charge of protecting personal data.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has warned that smart meters, which must be introduced into every home in the UK within the next seven years, will be used to track much more than energy consumption unless proper safeguards are introduced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/01/household-energy-trackers-threat-privacy [guardian.co.uk]
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Anecdotaly... As a multiple time sufferer from mis-read meters and the pain in the ass that results from convincing the power company to believe that you really didn't use 10000 KW/h last month when you've been average 1500 KW/h for years I love that my usage is precisely monitored and measured. I also get some cool features like email alerts if my usage spikes, the ability to see my projected bill ahead of time and make adjustments to my usage in advance, and I can compare my usage to other houses in the neighborhood. That last however DOES NOT IDENTIFY THE HOUSES. All I see is "your usage is x% more/less than similar size houses this week".
Re: (Score:2)
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has warned that smart meters, which must be introduced into every home in the UK within the next seven years, will be used to track much more than energy consumption unless proper safeguards are introduced.
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Protip: making vague concerns boldface does not make them real or more clear.
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Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
They can see your usage in real time. Depending on how accurate it is, they can determine when you turn on a light, TV, computer, etc and perhaps determine the make and model of them. Some argue that they can determine when you're at home or not. Law enforcement can be notified when it looks like you just started a grow farm.
With a "dumb" meter, they just know your usage over a period of about a month. With a smart meter, they can gain massive insight into a residence's power usage which some consider a violation of privacy, information that could be sold, a possible method for a criminal to check when the place is not occupied, and/or another avenue for law enforcement to overstep existing boundaries.
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I do grow orchids indoors as a hobby, and have several large grow lamps and fluorescent arrays that draw over 800 watt-hours for 17 hours per day (in the summer, anyway, they need shorter hours of daylight in the winter.) And there's no mistaking the glow emanating from the basement windows.
I've never had so much as a knock on the door from a city or police official or power company representative asking what I'm growing under all the lights.
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
Regarding how much further you have to go, 3x energy usage is not sufficient absent other indicators. Try +10 times the average for comparable size homes in your neighborhood. Or having semi-frequent coming and goings of passenger style vans with no windows, that your neighbors start wondering about and call the police to report because they are curious/concerned about what is going on, or many other unusual indicators, especially if you have nosy neighbors who distrust you. None of this is right, but it does happen.
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It's not like we haven't seriously considered a greenhouse. We still talk about it. (Often.) But they're expensive to build, and very expensive to operate, even in the summer.
Our biggest problem is our zone 2b winters. A four season greenhouse sounds great, and they're wonderful little tropical retreats from winter, but we've had several friends lose their collections to frost due to various technical problems (loss of power, damaged panels, faulty thermostats, etc), and my wife simply doesn't trust that
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It can see if you're using a lot of power to grow pot. On the other hand, the regular meter sees that too, as does the meter reader who comes in to read it.
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. My power company gives me 15 minute snapshots and I've been able to determine all sorts of stuff. That hour long spike there-that's when I was cooking an early dinner.
That 20 minute spike-THAT's right around the time I heard that noise and went outside to see what it was, leaving the damn door open and causing the AC to kick on.
Some of that only means something to me.
BUT, a person looking at my snapshots can EASILY figure out when I get up, when I go to sleep, my days off, etc. My house has a fairly consistent 'idle' when I'm asleep or at work.
Just look for a 1 hour period of activity following 6-10 hours of idle, which precedes another idle period. You've got about what time I get up and when I leave for the day.
Look for a few hours or activity following a period of inactivity and you have when I get home. Yes, depending on how similar the periods are, you might have trouble figuring out which is me getting up and ready for work vs which is me getting home. Some more observing might help figure out what the idle period is.
If you can average my kwh usage, you can get close to figuring out if I'm single or not.
You can work out when there's guests. Higher power spikes might indicate water heater usage which implies additional laundry or (more likely) shower usage. Now you can start to get closer to figuring out if I'm less single then before.
Yes, the data ia a bit vague, but that's nothing that can't be cleaned up with more granular info and some better data on appliance usage. Just do some searches of who built my house and you can figure out whether it's likely I have gas or electric appliances.
The best part is all of this can be mined and viewed right from someone's desk. No need to stalk me to figure all of this out.
I see huge privacy implications in all of this.
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
This geeky shit is not how real criminals operate.
Depends on your definition of "real criminals", doesn't it?
I would count many of those in the upper echelons of the Federal government and TLAs involved with illegal, quasi-legal, and mostly unconstitutional domestic surveillance and intelligence operations as far, far more criminal than three guys that ransack your place for dope money while you're at work.
But, that's just me.
Strat
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
I think the idea is that, with a smart meter, the utility can tell when you consume that power, and what the incremental steps are. For example, you could probably figure out when the occupants wake up, go to bed, turn on the computer, turn on the TV, turn on your marijuana grow lights, etc. The article lists some other things such as "whether someone uses a specific medical device or baby monitor" that I find somewhat dubious, but within the realm of possibility, especially if they have a particularly unique way of using power (the wattage used, and the duty cycle, for example - more likely with a medical device than a baby monitor, though).
That said, it's not a reason to not adopt the technology, which can bring a wide variety of benefits, as you mention. It *is* a reason to pass legislation to control who can access that data and under what circumstances, if you feel that it is likely to be mishandled.
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If that isn't an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
Data by itself isn't an invasion of privacy. What you can use that information for can be (isn't necessarily, but can be). The phone company can know whenever your phone is in use, and to whom. Presumably they can't resell that information some places, because that very much could be an invasion of privacy.
Did you take a day off sick? How much time did you spend on high power consumption activities (can you correlate that to specific devices, like computers or the like) where you then using a computer f
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Power distribution says "if you want more reliable power, we need more data"
Customers say "We want cheaper and more reliable power!"
OMG! they want to know more info?!
Next thing you'll know, your Doctor will want to know your medical history! Fuck him/her! Why would they need to know that?!
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Your old meter can only accumulate the power usage over its readout (by the power company) interval, usually 1 year or so.
So the power company knows you used 1500 kWh last year, but not when that happened.
With a smart meter, the readout is available for 15 minute intervals. So the power company knows when you sleep, when you
wake up, when you leave for work, when you come back, when you start cooking, when you start watching TV, etc etc etc.
If that isn't an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
Traditional meters are typically examined monthly, not annually. An actual person comes onto your property to do so. I'd prefer they knew my energy usage in 15-minute increments than have a complete stranger on my property every month.
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They can do that at the zip code or block level. They don't need to do that at the house level. Put another way, you talk about megawatts of generation not kilowatts so why do they need to know about kilowatt or watt level differences at the house level?
Re:Privacy issue in Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
The more information engineers have access to, the more efficient the system.
If we EVER want to have massive roll-outs of green energy, we'll need smart meters. Fuck green, lets burn coal until we die, I don't want someone seeing how much power I use.
What we do need is rules stating that the information collected must be securely accessed and transmitted. Possibly limit collected data to just stuff like average power-draw, local voltages, highest burst, standard deviation.. stuff like that.
They don't need to know what exactly what I'm running, just a category of power demand.
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That link really doesn't demonstrate the answer to the question of "how will they read power consumption down to the device level"?
No, but this one [cnet.com] does.
Basically, the meters read (or at t least, can read) the power consumption to a very fine degree of accuracy every 2 seconds. That's enough to figure out what TV channel you're watching (by watching power fluctuations caused by varying brightness levels of the TV). And with that level of detail it would also be fairly easy to make good guesses at: what time you leave for / get home from work (lights/kettle/coffee machine/cooker); when you're in the shower; how many people are in your h
Re:Fear issue in Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
LCD TVs dont have mesurable power fluctuations due the changing colors/brightness, only CRT have it (dont know about plasma ones).
dont forget that you have many measurement noise and small fluctuations, the more electronic you have, the higher the noise.
but as i have one current-cost meter [currentcost.net] i can map my energy usage all minutes/hours/days/weeks/months its very interesting to see the many power usage changes and map then to various actions... several of then i can now easily guess what i was doing at that time.
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LCD TVs dont have mesurable power fluctuations due the changing colors/brightness
Are you sure? Modern LCD TVs adjust the backlight brightness according to the image displayed, in order to improve the contrast, and this does appear to be measurable [pcstats.com].
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not the new LED ones, that already have a very high contract and where LCD power is already low enough to be hard to detect fluctuation over the reading noise
older ones that used that "optimization" might be detected, but even that, only a few models used that, so its too much guessing
Really ? Unsafe amount of RF ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really ? Unsafe amount of RF ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. Anytime someone asks engineers what they think regarding "dangerous RF", 9 out of 10 responses fall in the range from "No, let me explain how it compares to all these other things you use every day, including sunlight, and about photon energy and how that differentiates visible~radio waves from ionizing radiation" to "STFU you bleeding idiot, read a grade-school science text!". And the remaining one will be blathering on about how he works at a megawatt-class radio transmitter which can absolutely kill you if you stand to close due to the high E field, therefore would everyone STFU about wavelength being the only significant parameter. (Because what would /. be without pedants pointing out things clearly unrelated to the current case that nevertheless make the conventional knowledge technically inaccurate?)
You'd think at some point they'd get tired of asking us...
Re:Really ? Unsafe amount of RF ? (Score:5, Funny)
You'd think at some point they'd get tired of asking us...
They would, if they could remember the &#@* answer for more than 10 seconds.
Re:Really ? Unsafe amount of RF ? (Score:4, Funny)
There IS a strong correlation between fear of RF and brain damage. Just a disagreement on which way the causation arrow points ;)
Re:Really ? Unsafe amount of RF ? (Score:4, Informative)
Stupid never gets tired... try working in customer support for anything, you will see. IT industry even more so.
Radiation hazard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Radiation hazard? (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is there no evidence that these meters are harmful, but the effect of radio frequency exposure upon living tissue (approximatly none) is well-studied and understood. These radiophobes have about as much scientific respectability as the anti-vaxers, homeopaths and creationists. They are a parody of science.
Hey you asshole, VMS was a fine OS for its day, show some respect ;-)
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These radiophobes have about as much scientific respectability as the anti-vaxers, homeopaths and creationists.
Oh come on, I can't think of anyone who has been pro-VAX since the late 80s. To be criticizing luddites at the same time that you're supporting a classic mini-computer architecture is more than a bit hypocritical...
Re:Radiation hazard? (Score:4, Interesting)
An important subsection of radiophobes are those that are afraid of EMF radiated from transmission lines. These folks have successfully tied in knots the idea of running transmission lines anywhere near residential areas. They are able to be successful in blocking such construction because they pretty much sit and argue in a reasonable-sounding manner until the utility gives up. High voltage transmission lines have been accused of being responsible for cancer, impotence, warts, and just about every other thing that affects humans, except for government deficit spending.
Anyone that believes the US will be rewired with a new grid system hasn't run into these people. New transmission lines will not be coming to an area near you. Existing transmission lines will be taken down should any sort of permit be required to update them.
Last I heard about this was a utility in New York was desperate enough to consider running a new transmission line through a lake so that nobody would see it and it wasn't near anyone's house.
Privacy Issues Aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Privacy Issues Aside... (Score:5, Informative)
It's an Ask Slashdot.
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This trend has been getting worse as time goes on
You're viewing history through rose-colored glasses. It's been pretty much always like this.
Inverse Betteridge's Law (Score:2)
Yes.
Tinfoil hat! Get yer tinfoil hat on! (Score:5, Funny)
> Are these things potentially harmful?
They are every bit as dangerous as cellphones.
> Are they an invasion of privacy?
Of course. They are telling the power company how much electricity you are using. What business is that of theirs?
Re:Tinfoil hat! Get yer tinfoil hat on! (Score:5, Insightful)
> Are they an invasion of privacy?
Of course. They are telling the power company how much electricity you are using. What business is that of theirs?
While it's definitely the power company's right to know how much power I'm using, and even to know in aggregate how much peak versus non-peak power I'm using, but they really shouldn't need to know hour by hour or minute by minute (or even day by day) how much power I'm using.
They already have instrumentation at the substations that tells them how much power my neighborhood is using so they know how much power to generate, they don't need to know when I'm doing laundry, when I go to work, when my house is vacant because I'm on vacation, etc.
Re:Tinfoil hat! Get yer tinfoil hat on! (Score:4, Insightful)
While it's definitely the power company's right to know how much power I'm using, and even to know in aggregate how much peak versus non-peak power I'm using, but they really shouldn't need to know hour by hour or minute by minute (or even day by day) how much power I'm using.
They already have instrumentation at the substations that tells them how much power my neighborhood is using so they know how much power to generate, they don't need to know when I'm doing laundry, when I go to work, when my house is vacant because I'm on vacation, etc.
Yeah, it is obvious the power company in intent on stealing secrets about your laundry habits rather than trying to balance infrastructure cost and capability.
Those sons-a-bitches should quit trying to provide you with better service and let you live in peace. Call and tell them to disconnect you from the grid altogether. Install PV on your roof and keep those nosy power company bastards at bay!
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Re:Tinfoil hat! Get yer tinfoil hat on! (Score:5, Informative)
While it's definitely the power company's right to know how much power I'm using, and even to know in aggregate how much peak versus non-peak power I'm using, but they really shouldn't need to know hour by hour or minute by minute (or even day by day) how much power I'm using.
Actually, this is the entire idea behind the smart grid. The data is not for them to know how much to generate - as you pointed out, they already know that. The idea is to charge you more for the electricity that costs them more to generate. Not all power is generated equally cheaply. On a hot day with lots of A/C usage, they have to bring emergency generators on line. These burn very expensive fuels, such as natural gas, and cost them 10 times as much as the electricity generated by the much cheaper coal fired plants. They want to bill you a lot more for the times they're forced to bring those extra generators on line, because if they charge you more, you might change your mind about consuming electricity that's so expensive to produce. So the smart grid will use consumer demand to reduce their need to supply.
The smart meter's job is two-fold. One task is to record your usage depending on the rate. The other is to transmit the rates to your smart household appliances. This would be messages like "the current non-peak rate is $0.16/kWh" or "the peak rate from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM will be $3.25/kWh." If you have smart appliances that can read these messages, they can make their own decisions. You might configure your clothes dryer to run only when electricity is cheaper then $0.50/kWh, for example, meaning it would shut itself off during the really expensive peaks. Or you might configure your water heater to hold 140 degrees at $0.35/kWh rates, but 110 degrees at rates above that. This would give you the ability to make your own choices about placing peak demands on the power grid. You would think about if you really need 50 gallons of 140 degree hot water at 5:00 in the afternoon if it's going to cost you $7.00 extra per day.
The idea is simple: get people to cooperate to consume less energy. They've proven they won't do it for the environment, but they will do it for money.
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If you have smart appliances that can read these messages, they can make their own decisions. You might configure your clothes dryer to run only when electricity is cheaper then $0.50/kWh, for example, meaning it would shut itself off during the really expensive peaks. Or you might configure your water heater to hold 140 degrees at $0.35/kWh rates, but 110 degrees at rates above that. This would give you the ability to make your own choices about placing peak demands on the power grid. You would think about if you really need 50 gallons of 140 degree hot water at 5:00 in the afternoon if it's going to cost you $7.00 extra per day.
The one I'm waiting for is being able to tell an electric car to charge overnight at $0.10/kWh, and discharge into the grid at $0.20/kWh on-peak when I get home from work. If you apply the "what if everyone did that?" test to that, it would really kill the usage peaks the power companies have to deal with now.
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They are every bit as dangerous as cellphones.
People use them while driving?
Privacy issues aside... (Score:2)
Water (Score:5, Informative)
Our water meter was just replaced with a digital one that transmits to the Powers That Be. I thought it was pretty cool. The display has a photo sensor so it only comes on when you shine a flashlight on it (it's in the basement). Our reported monthly water usage is also lower since we got the new meter... I can only assume it's more accurate.
More worried about government than RF cancer (Score:5, Informative)
Under CISPA, if it passes the Senate, the government can see any private corporate record it desires. Including your smartmeter electrical usage.
Even without CISPA, governments or govt-controlled utilities at the state level have passed laws mandating rolling blackouts. So your A/C could suddenly shutoff and you'd get nice and toasty. (I prefer dumb meters that *I* control without any communication back to the central entity.)
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What a bunch of nonsense.
Why would a government want to see your smart meter usage? please.
and if you are having a rolling black out, the type of meter doesn't fucking matter, it's a black out.
What the could do is smarter brownouts. Hell, if the Electrical company spent the money and considerable time, it could implement a system that shuts off electricity to everything BUT your AC during a brownout.
Why do you think you control your meter? You don't, it's not your property.
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And why would they care when you get up, go to work, get home, or even turn on the grow lights?
The govt. could not afford to bust every grow op out there, and what on earth would they do with the data about you getting up and going to work? Tax you for not spending enough time at work? And anything more specific than that gets into real paranoia; embed bugs in your house so they can really, REALLY know for SURE that you aren't a terrorist? Blackmail you to work for secret department X? Like, really - a
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Ease up on the tinfoil. The mean ole gubmint isn't instituting rolling blackouts just to fuck with you. Rolling blackouts are used to prevent overloading of power plants, since the alternative would be a full blackout. And they can shut off power to your house regardless of whether you're using a smart meter.
If anything, smart meters will prevent rolling blackouts by helping utilities better forecast power demand.
Shielding (Score:5, Interesting)
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Assuming RF meter reading. The meter reader would note no reading and then look at their property; which you have vandalized.
Re:Shielding (Score:5, Funny)
The meter will develop a bad case of paranoia and a complete disdain for the government.
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And it will likely start participating in Slashdot discussion threads.
Serious Answer (Score:3)
You get wrapped up in an arrest warrant for Theft of Services - and placed on a permanent list of suspected pot growers.
Trespassing.... (Score:5, Funny)
I remember reading one news story where a property owner was saying he considered anyone coming onto his property to be a violation of his rights and might shoot someone from the power company if they tried to install a smart meter. I wish I could have asked him how the power company reads his meter right now?
Stupidest person ever.
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I remember reading one news story where a property owner was saying he considered anyone coming onto his property to be a violation of his rights and might shoot someone from the power company if they tried to install a smart meter. I wish I could have asked him how the power company reads his meter right now?
Stupidest person ever.
My power company reads my (non-smart) meter from the public sidewalk through a small window in the side of my house that's there specifically for the gas and electric meters. No need to enter my property.
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But they have the right to enter you're property with any work dealing with their meter.
And most people the person enters their property.
Re:Trespassing.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trespassing.... (Score:5, Funny)
That's Appalachian American you bigot.
Re:Trespassing.... (Score:4, Informative)
Most, if not all, electricity contracts which are required to receive service have clauses in them that allow the utility to access their property. Here is the one for British Columbia [bchydro.com].
9.5. Access to Premises
BC Hydro's agents and employees shall have, at all reasonable times, free access to the equipment supplied with Electricity, and to BC Hydro's meters, wires and apparatus on the Customer's Premises, for the purpose of reading meters and testing, installing, removing, repairing or replacing any of BC Hydro's equipment, and to ascertain the quantity or method of use of service and the amount of Electricity consumed. If access to meter rooms or other locations where BC Hydro equipment is installed is restricted, the Customer shall supply BC Hydro with lockbox keys or other keys or means of access as may be necessary to provide BC Hydro with ready access to those locations. In no case will BC Hydro accept keys to private residential Premises.
If free access to BC Hydro's equipment on the Customer's Premises is denied or obstructed in any manner, including by debris, unsafe walkways or other means of access, or the presence of animals, and the Customer does not remedy the problem upon being requested by BC Hydro to do so, service may be suspended and not reconnected until the problem is corrected;
Basically if the property owner does not let BC Hydro install a smart meter (it falls under "replacing any of BC Hydro's equipment") the electrical service can be cut off. No access, no electricity.
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Serious answer: if they can't access the meter during a trip (common enough around here during snowstorms, or if there's a dog in the yard), they estimate usage based on the account's consumption history. If they are prevented from taking an actual reading from the meter for long enough, they would contact him and request him to allow them access to the meter. If he failed to cooperate, they would disconnect him at the pole and terminate his service - you grant them access to the meter when you sign up fo
Smart Meters (Score:2)
I'm protected (Score:2)
I have a really awesome aluminum hat that protects me from the meters as well as other government mind control efforts. Everyone should have one.
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/ [zapatopi.net]
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I have a really awesome aluminum hat that protects me from the meters as well as other government mind control efforts. Everyone should have one.
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/ [zapatopi.net]
Fail, fail. [intel-research.net]
A Cynical Protest or a Case of Get A Tin Foil Hat (Score:3)
Re:A Cynical Protest or a Case of Get A Tin Foil H (Score:5, Informative)
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A few things... (Score:2)
1. The power company (very likely) already knows your power consumption habits. Lots of meters send automated reads every 15 minutes anyway. This is not new, at all. The processing power and manpower to actually mine this data does not yet exist, and if power companies wanted to put this in the pipeline they'd have to spend bazillions of dollars doing so.
2. The EM radiation emitted by smart meters (especially those in the 900MHz range) is comparable to a cell phone, except for the fact that it's not placed
Excessive, yes. Unsafe, no. (Score:2)
They certainly use excessive spectrum; the 900 mhz versions, for example, tend to be spread spectrum, non sampling; they just start blazing up and down the frequency range. Very unpleasant.
Still, not harmful.
They ar eusing the RF (Score:3)
argument as the fear portion of FUD.
The RF is safe. Any controversy about that is manufactured in PR room, or stupid peoples heads.
The privacy "concern" is a policy issue. One that is way overrated.
They Are Extremely Dangerous . . . (Score:3)
Should I fear my neighbor's hamm? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
My father used to have a Hamm's obsession, but then he got to liking Schlitz better.
California (say it like the kid in the wizard) (Score:2, Funny)
Problem with California is EVERY THING is unsafe, the should just deem it a waste land cause everything causes cancer in that state
http://team-fox.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/mcdonalds-warning-sign.jpg [team-fox.net]
The problem is the nature of the Digital Waves (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
There's only one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only one thing in this article that seems like a legitimate concern:: the issue with possible incorrect bills and an issue I didn't really see raised: the possibility of unauthorized access/tinkering.
The lady whose electric bill shot up 300% ... either she was somehow not being billed for the power she used all along, or else the new meter is faulty. THAT is a legitimate concern.
However, I am sick to death of all these whiny whiners and their "I'm allergic to RF" .. NO. No, you're not. You're not special, you don't have some super power that lets you receive radio waves... you're not experiencing something that science or big business is covering up... you're being hypochondriacs or else you''ve got Munchhausen's syndrome. Either way, you sure as hell don't experience RF sensitivity - not unless you're talking about the power levels inside your microwave oven.
rabble, rabble!
It's more of a wound to the ego (Score:2)
As a former developer of Smart Meter Tech (Score:5, Interesting)
No "[v]arious action groups" claim RF unsafe (Score:2)
Privacy and Safety (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I have no idea regarding the RF tx concerns, I can speak a little about the privacy implications. first a little reading, Here is a link to the NIST-IR 7628, which describes guidelines for smartgrid security. Volume 2 focuses on privacy impact. http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/focus-on-countries/north-and-south-america-and-the-caribbean/united-states/trends-and-issues-united-states/information-and-communications-technology-united-states/cyber-security-united-states/nistir-7628-guidelines-for-smart-grid-cyber-security.html [vic.gov.au]
it is already possible with analog meters to identify devices inside a home, simply by sampling the signal at the meter at an interval of less than 2 minutes. the faster the sample the more accurate. by comparing the signals to a database of common electrical devices researchers were able to profile device usage as early as 1992. obviously, up till now, most utilities coudn't afford the staff to sample most lines at that interval however.
The smart grid exacerbates this privacy issue, because it allows and in fact requires high speed sampling to accommodate Time-Of-Use billing, and because the meters can send usage information to the utility head end effortlessly with no additional cost.
the real issue with privacy however will not come for a few years: smart appliances. Several EDUs are already selling internet service through their smart meters, but there is effectively no option to firewall this connection as it travels over the power lines and any interference would be felony meter tampering.
So, imagine 5 years from now, you are buying a new TV. you don;t care about internet connectivity, but the device comes with it embedded, and there are very few options in the TVs menus for configuring it. It uses powerline networking, so in order to just turn it on, you have already connected it to the Internet. At this point, you basically have to trust your TV manufacturer to not report to advertisers what you watch, including stuff like pr0n. with SMART devices you have to trust the manufacture implicitly..
Another big focus for the smartgrid is Electric Vehicles. The plan at present is to have the car identify itself to the power network, along with its owners billing info, so that wherever you plug in to get a recharge, it appears on your monthly bill. this can easily be used to track you over long periods of time.
SG meter data can also be used to uncover hidden sources of power generation within your property, so if you hide your usage to maintain your privacy, that will likely be accessible to any adversarial party that requests it.
So, a well monitored smart meter can be used to tell your schedule, the size of your family, when you are home, when you are away, your approximate worth, enumerate your devices, log how/when/where (in your house) you use them, track your internet usage, how far you travel each day (and possibly where you went), the day of the week you go to the grocery, and what ever any device you plug in decides to send to third parties, all with no indication that anything is happening.
The physics (Score:4, Informative)
Let's see:
Compared to being hit by sunlight:
param. .Water Meter ..Sun
energy. ..0.1 watts. .300 watts .1 sec/month .1 hr/day
exposure.
photon energy . 6E-25 Joules.. 3E-19 Joules
Looks to me like that Sun is DANGEROUS, exposing you to about 3,000 times more energy per unit time, for about 110,000 times longer, and with individual photons 500,000 times more energetic.
The 900MHz radio wave photons are so weak they can't excite any atom to any higher energy level, or cause any kind of chemical change, not by a factor of 1000 or more.
Violates Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:3)
The headline ends in a question mark, but the answer is "Yes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_Law_of_Headlines [wikipedia.org]
Time Sensitive Rating (Score:3)
One of the things coming with smart meters is differential rates for electricity provided during peak and non-peak hours. I don't see this as a bad thing, but then I don't run an air conditioner. Setting my dishwasher to run after 9:00 am makes sense, for example.
The idiots prattling about RF sensitivity seem brain damaged to me, but not from RF. Around here they mostly move around in a fog of pot smoke.
Hysteria, but there's something to it... (Score:3)
Of course there's no dangerous RF. That's just plain stupid.
However, with regard to invasions of privacy... The meters are capable of reporting daily variations in consumption of electricity. Readable at a distance, a third party could assess when consumption levels are very low (house probably unoccupied) or inconsistently low for several days in a row (occupants probably away on vacation). So, what you basically have is a radio beacon that lights up "Rob us, were out".
I imagine that this could be fixed if there is a very good encryption and authentication/authorization scheme -- but how likely is that?
In the industry (Score:5, Informative)
Finally, after years of lurking, a subject I can speak with authority on.
I actually got to speak to a Georgia House committee on the subject of smart meters, since I work for one of the major manufacturers. Here are some of the things I told them...
Our meters use licensed 900Mhz FSK (not spread spectrum) bursts. An average electric meter transmits 6 times a day with 1 watt EIRP (off a PCB antenna in the meter), in bursts of about 180ms. Total on-air time is nominally 1 second per meter per day.
As for privacy, we use symmetric AES-256 encryption with per-meter keys for both uplink and downlink to the meters (our meters are twoway-capable). Keys are rotated generally every three months (yes, imagine rotating 4+ million encryption keys every few months, over a system with an aggregate bandwidth of about 12kb/s).
We sell a "remote-disconnect" option in our meters, but it's expensive and only used by electric companies in limited situations. While we can trigger a remote disconnect, in the interest of safety we cannot re-energize a meter without a very complicated dance. Instead, we send an arm-for-reengize command, and then tell the consumer to take their TV remote control outside and point it at the meter and hit the "POWER" button. An IR receiver in the meter face then causes the meter to re-energize.
One of the big complaints (after they get past the RF) of the anti-smart meter groups is the use of "dirty switching power supplies". According to the anti-smart-meter web sites, these switching power supplies cause surges on the AC mains, which somehow increase cancer risks up to 13 times. The power supplies in our meters are actually certified under 3 different FCC type ratings, and are somewhere north of 95% efficient buck-boost supplies. Since the load of the metrology and RF boards in the meter is minuscule, smart meters generally only draw milliwatts while running, and the chances of inducing large spikes onto the mains is non-existent.
I got to meet some of the people behind the anti-smart-meter campaigns. For the most part, they're nice elderly ladies who get their view of the world from Pat Robertson and Fox news. They crave some cause in their life, are experiencing health issues generally related to aging and unhealthy choices, and find any new technology (especially hard-to-understand, mandatory-use technology like smart meters) scary and use it as a good scapegoat for their health worries. Everyone here realizes that a web page is the ultimate printing press, and with enough Googling you can find some "expert" pushing some kind of "science" to support pretty much any view you wish to cling to. It's embarrassingly easy to put together a semi-literate sounding alarmist web page backed up by flaky pseudo-science and gather like-minded people to your way of thinking.
Bottom line is, as an electrical engineer, an extra class amateur radio operator, and a father, there are about a million things my kids run across every day that are more damaging or dangerous than smart meters. Most of those are naturally occurring (sunlight kills more people in a year via skin cancer than every smart meter I've ever played a part in will kill in a thousand years). If you need something to stress about or blame your poor health or weird medical condition on, please find a better scapegoat than smart meters.
I'm the Tech Lead for a Smart Meter Project (Score:5, Informative)
I think most of the others have already covered the RF side of things, so I'll discuss the privacy aspects. First of all, I do realize the meters have fairly high resolution when it comes to usage so there are some privacy concerns. Keep in mind that just because the meter can tell exactly what channel you are watching in a lab environment, it doesn't work that way in the real world. No utility has the desire to store data at that level of detail. The utility I work for will store data with 1 hour resolution. That means we will know how much power was used during a specific one hour interval. This alone has enormous storage and server requirements. Going to smaller intervals would do nothing for us and compound or storage requirements so it's a non starter. We are a for profit company and have no cost justification for that kind of system. We are also not storing customer information in the same system that we are storing meter data. The system storing meter data will just have a service delivery point so the data can be tied to a customer, but it raises the difficulty level.
As far a remote shutoff goes we are working very hard to make that system as secure as practical. Those commands will be considered privileged and limited to a small group of people. There will also be limits in place so it's not like I could issue a command to shut off 100,000 customers all at once. The security is being handled in a very similar fashion to how we handle our SCADA security where a couple of key strokes can actually shutoff decent sized parts of the grid in our service territory. Needless to say at my utility we are taking your privacy and security very seriously.
So in a nutshell with one hour resolution what could someone lean about you? Well your usage patterns would give some stuff away. Probably the same sort of stuff your neighbors already know. Daily habits such as what shift you work and what time you tend to go to bed at night and what time folks get up in the morning. That being said if your utility gives you access to your data via a portal, I would probably use a fairly decent password and not share it with the world.
The Real Dangers... (Score:3)
Also, and I made a submission in the UK about this, I'd like the raw data stream to be available on the 'consumer' side rather than patronising LCDs with smiley and frowny faces, for example. The UK suppliers currently seem to believe that this is 'their' data exclusively, because, of course, as above, it's very valuable.
I'm pretty unconvinced that the RF, for example, is worse that all the other techno-**** that we have around us, already.
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of the RF meters also have the capability of being shut off from remote. Having a wardriver see your electricity usage is one thing. Having someone be able to shut off electricity to people on a Friday before finals is something completely different.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a proof of concept showing that the use of smart meters could reveal television usage
OH MY GOD!!
This is an outrage! I mean, it's not as if anyone driving by your house in a properly-equipped van can already know what you're watching by picking up the frequencies emitted by your TV receiver's local oscillator or anything...
Oh, wait a minute...
Re: (Score:2)
Or the could call your cable company.
Re: (Score:3)
If by 'safe' you mean doesn't put out a harmful amount of RF, I would guess the jury's out on that one
No, RF is well understood. If it's non-ionizing, it's not harmful.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, we know conclusively that they put out less than one watt (generally much less than one watt) of non-ionizing radiation in the ISM band, around 902 MHz, or possibly a few milliwatts in the 2.4GHz band, depending on the tech inside it. They are fully compliant with Part 15 of the FCC rules.
They don't need high power transmitters because they communicate to a local neighborhood "concentrator" operated by the utility, and if they can't reach it directly they can arrange themselves using mesh networking t
Re: (Score:3)
" I would guess the jury's out on that one,"
no, it isn't. It's safe. The only people saying it isn't is dimwits and people looking to create a fake "controversy"
Re: (Score:2)
Is that 20 CM in length or diameter?
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why you carefully add a tap ahead of the smart meter inside your house and use that tap for transient high current loads, like a welder or kiln, but leave your house on the meter. Much less likely to get caught, as your baseline usage is unchanged.
People who steal power are usually really greedy and steal most/all of it. The effect is that the power company sees a nice step function downward in usage. Makes it easy to identify cheats.
-nB
Re:Physically safe, yes... (Score:4)
Privacy? Are people going around reading your meter to blackmail you? If they are going to collect significant evidence on you they will need to take a lot of data set. (A car parked outside your house may be a warning sign). Without it, I probably could have got inside help from someone in the power company. To get a lot of this data... Really it isn't a big deal, there are other ways where you can dig up more dirt on a person. In a world where we have automated devices and timers... It is really hard to get any information about a person. I can set dishwasher to start up to 8 hours after I set it up. I get up to 2 on on my washing machine, and 4 on my dryer. So in terms of power usage, I can make it look like I am home while I am not there. You are better off watching for lights.
Bank Account? Back in the old days I was charged for an additional 2000kwh of power. Because my meter was misread.
Re: (Score:3)
No doubt the people worried about the RF from their smart meter talk about it on their cordless phones for hours on end.