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Comments: 297 +- Your Rights Online: Smart Grid Could Pose Threat To Privacy on Wednesday November 18, @08:26PM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday November 18, @08:26PM
from the lets-take-a-look dept.
from the lets-take-a-look dept.
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power
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicprivacy.gif); width:71px; height:53px;
privacy
Presto Vivace writes "Brian Krebs of the Washington Post reports on a study jointly released Tuesday by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Future of Privacy Forum. It seems that in the process of collecting all that feedback about energy use, utility companies will inevitably collect a great deal of information about us. From the article: 'Instead of measuring energy use at the end of each billing period, smart meters will provide this information at much shorter intervals, the report notes. Even if electricity use is not recorded minute by minute, or at the appliance level, information may be gleaned from ongoing monitoring of electricity consumption such as the approximate number of occupants, when they are present, as well as when they are awake or asleep. For many, this will resonate as a "sanctity of the home" issue, where such intimate details of daily life should not be accessible.'"
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Kyllo (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of Kyllo v. United States
Cops used a thermal imager pointed at a guy's house (from their patrol car across the street).
They then use that as evidence to go bust the guy for marijuana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States [wikipedia.org]
SCOTUS threw out his conviction because the cops violated his 4th amendment rights.
I would think that the use of electricity usage data should play out the same way, but who knows!
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Well of course not, that is why they have rules that allow them to listen in on your phone and email just because you have a funny name.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they use this to determine which houses to watch at night because crime usually happens at night, so houses that are active at night are more likely to be engaged in illegal drug sales/use/etc or whatever other idiot shit reason they come up with.
Making use of public electric use data (Score:2)
Maybe a person with illegal growing in mind could canvas the neighborhood, find out the upper bound from the normal "wasteful" electric use, and then "fly under the radar" and only grow subject to that cap on electric use.
On the other hand, maybe all of the folks with big electric bills are growing?
Re:Making use of public electric use data (Score:4, Insightful)
It's rather easy to find stolen electricity. Total the usage of the meters in an area vs. how much power was used there. If there is a difference of more than the reasonable margin of error, they have ways to isolate where this is very easy (especially since the thieves are constantly using).
With SmartMeters, stealing electricity will be virtually impossible. Within minutes theft of power is spotted and a truck roll can be sent out within the next day (if not sooner) if it continues.
Parent
Re:Kyllo (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully U.S. anti-marijuana laws will be declared unconstitutional (where was Congress given authority to completely ban a naturally-growing plant?) before this Smart Grid is implemented, and then it won't matter if you are using grow lights or not.
Parent
Re:Kyllo (Score:5, Insightful)
Stated like a true parrot.
1) Quit listening to the propaganda from the Big Brother, police state.
2) If you think that potent cannabis is something new, where have you been for the last few millennia? I remember Sativa strains from the 70's and 80's that were far superior to the (often) hydroponically grown strains of today. I hear crap like "It's not like the marijuana you smoked in your college days. It's worse than HEROIN now!" from police spokespeople and the like. Ignorance or malice... it's still false.
3) Cannabis does not have dangerous synergistic effects with alcohol. Maybe you'd peter out on drinking earlier in the evening but it isn't dangerously toxic. (unlike the synergistic effects of, say, barbiturates or tranquilizers with alcohol)
4) Cannabis does not cause psychosis. There are all kinds of studies with false correlations. Just because samples of schizophrenics and psychotics also tend to use cannabis and other drugs doesn't mean it caused, or even exacerbated the imbalance.
You really ought to get out more. Go to a place where a sizable portion of the population uses cannabis every day of their lives (like Canada, for example). They have jobs, businesses, families and homes. They aren't psychotic, they aren't driving dangerously and they aren't dead. Hell, I know people who have been smoking cannabis for over 50 years and it hasn't done them the harm that has been promised.
It's not completely harmless, but harmless enough that it doesn't warrant the prejudice that it gets.
Cannabis itself won't make a loser out of you... it's just that in America, they will see to it that it does.
Parent
Alberta Court of Appeal disagreed with you (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.law.ualberta.ca/centres/ccs/news/?id=332 [ualberta.ca]
"The Drug Unit asked Enmax, the local electricity provider, to install a digital recording ammeter (DRA) to record power consumption in Gomboc’s house. Enmax complied without insisting on a warrant. After five days, Enmax gave the police a graph that showed Gomboc’s use of electricity was consistent with running a grow operation. [...] At trial, the Crown conceded that police could not have obtained a search warrant without the data from Enmax."
Re:Kyllo (Score:5, Informative)
I would think that the use of electricity usage data should play out the same way, but who knows!
I knows!
Granting warrants for excessive electricity use is routine in the USA.
Here's one from 2004: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0330044pot1.html [thesmokinggun.com]
Here's one from 2009: http://hamptonroads.com/node/510056 [hamptonroads.com]
Parent
Re:Kyllo (Score:5, Interesting)
"Eight armed narcs raided the Dagy home on March 19 and found absolutely nothing. No evidence of pot anywhere, not even stashed in the children's toys. Seems that the coppers mistook the family's constant use of the dishwasher, washer/dryer, three computers, four ceiling fans, and other electronic devices as evidence of a felony drug operation. Oops. The Dagys--Mom's a homemaker and Dad's a general manager of 21 Shell stations--would like an apology from the Carlsbad Police Department. Sadly, we'd recommend that the Dagys not hold their collective breath."
I hate drug cops and homeland security. They keep performing these heinous searches and "eating out the substance" of our citizens
Parent
Re:Kyllo (Score:4, Insightful)
The Dagys--Mom's a homemaker and Dad's a general manager of 21 Shell stations--would like an apology from the Carlsbad Police Department.
The rest of the world would like an apology from the Dagys for their unrestrained use energy. I guess we won't hold our breath either.
How do I mod this guy troll? This poor family was raided by 8 armed men, probably scaring the ____ out of them, and all he can think about it the 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 degree increase they might possibly be causing. (Assuming global warming is caused by California's use of hydroelectric power - which seems unlikely.)
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Re:Enforcing The Law (Score:4, Insightful)
20 of 25 raids that day resulted in illegal drugs being found.
What smelly place did you pull that statistic from?
You are right the law needs to be changed, but also the whole warrant process. "They use lots of electricity" should be rejected by judges. It's not a valid reason to suspect marijuana usage & issue a search warrant
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
SCOTUS threw out his conviction because the cops violated his 4th amendment rights. I would think that the use of electricity usage data should play out the same way, but who knows! /quote>Hey Glenn Beck!
Is dat u?
The only difference (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:The only difference (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually rather amazing how much data you can get from monitoring this sort of thing. For example, I used to track the CPU temperature of my computer. From looking at fluctuations in the graph, I could tell when when the furnace was running, when I entered and left the room, when the ceiling light was on, and so forth. I'm sure you could do the same thing with electricity usage: a spike of X watts represents the refridgerator, a shift of Y watts is the bathroom lights, etc.
Parent
Re:The only difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why we should err on the side of caution. People saying this isn't a big deal are considering one or two simple scenarios and deciding on just that basis. It's just as possible that someone will figure out a maximal way to exploit this particular data, one that affects a great many people and has more serious consequences.
When people first became concerned over medical records privacy, DNA testing was still so expensive that it wasn't used by any state law enforcement, even in rape or murder cases. The federal government was the only entity likely to pay for full testing, and at that time was only interested in using the tests in a handful of cases such as possibly identifying deceased heads of state after explosive assassinations. People argued about what could go wrong if the wrong people got access to medical records, and every time someone brought up the DNA testing aspects, they were told "That's not a realistic scenario - no crook is going to spend millions of dollars to match DNA samples to these records". The US began changing its medical records laws with the idea that those laws didn't need to consider DNA issues, and the resulting laws were dated by the time they were ratified. We're seeing cracks in them now, as they weren't designed to take testing cheap enough that insurance companies might opt to use it routinely, into account.
Arguing that detailed power usage isn't that significant an information source, as it can't be used to cause serious harm, (for the poster's definition of serious), is spurious. All anyone can really honestly claim is "I have thought a bit, and I haven't come up with a misuse I think is practical and that is all that bad, yet.". That's different from "I've thought about it enough, and I've identified all the misuses possible, I know for certain which ones are implementable even by a serious, well trained and dedicated entity with tremendous resources, and this is safe."
Parent
Inevitable (Score:3, Insightful)
Not needed (Score:3, Insightful)
NEWSFLASH! (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything that is internet-connected and useful poses a threat to your privacy. Period.
I am willing to accept that trade-off, especially since 95% of the privacy stories on YRO are overblown.
Oh no, the power company can determine my peak power usage. They can determine that I leave in the morning and get home at night.
In exchange, the smart grid promises some big benefits. As usual, a trade-off.
Re:NEWSFLASH! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Token Criminal who is working with some hackers in Russia gaining access to these INTERNET CONNECTED Smart Grids is the real problem.
It's easy to accept "trade-offs" when you don't understand an entire scenario.
Parent
My CA townhouse got "smartmetered" last week. (Score:5, Informative)
PG&E is using (for electricity) a GE I-120 smartmeter with a Silver Spring Networks interface. (Installer said they plan to install the associated network on the poles shortly, after which no more meter readers wandering the neighborhood.)
According to the meter's description on GE's site it uses IP and "industry standard crypto" over a two way radio link to a network running their software. It can be remotely tweaked and have software upgrades remotely loaded. (I can hear the cypherpunks booting up already.)
It records and reports high-time-resolution information about the utility use. It can be used to shut the power off in case of "billing trouble". It doesn't do net metering. Instead it treats backfeeding the net as a sign of cheating - an old mechanical-meter hack consisting of unplugging and inverting the meter to "run it backward" a few days per month. (It records the events around the reversal - unplug, replug-inverted, unplug, replug-normal - with high time resolution, to be used as evidence if it goes to court.)
If you want to do net metering once this is installed you have to get the power company to come out again and install another meter, set up for "two-way metering".
Ah, yes, "billing trouble," the old euphemism (Score:3, Insightful)
In the days of mechanical telephone switches, the telco swore up and down that my mother hadn't paid the bill. When they sent out the guy to carry out the disconnect order, he said she could make one last phone call. She showed him the canceled check and told him he could make it to his boss, or he could disconnect the phone and never show his face on the property again. He said sorry, lady, I got my orders.
The Nuremberg trials invalidated that excuse. (Aaaaand Godwin's Law is validated for
It's gonna be a while. (Score:4, Insightful)
Smart grid is really needed to provide the ability to support electric cars without taking out the power system, and to provide peak-demand load management for people who use power at peak times (ie. businesses, during the day). People aren't going to run washing machines at 2AM in the summertime to avoid a $0.50 fee and get smelly clothes since nobody will be around to flip the laundry into the dryer.
The problem at the residential level is that other than the electric cars that nobody wants there is minimal value to shifting residential power demand for most people -- their demand is at night, since there aren't many housewives hanging out at home anymore. From what I've read, energy usage isn't the problem -- the problem is providing sufficient power during periods of peak demand. Additionally, many, many places don't have the necessary last-mile power infrastructure to handle the electric cars that are supposedly going to drive increased consumer demand.
Plus, nobody has plugin electric cars, and the excessive costs will keep it that way. Why would you buy a $40,000 car that is similar to a compact car and requires upgrading your home electrical system to own? Just buy a diesel Jetta, which has a far lower TCO. Hell, hybrid diesel-electric cars are probably more practical.
Upgrading the infrastructure of every side street in every city is going to cost billions and take years. And it will meet resistance -- residential neighborhoods with trees and overhead lines will find the new supply lines also mean that the utility company will eviscerate every tree.
Re:It's gonna be a while. (Score:4, Insightful)
People aren't going to run washing machines at 2AM in the summertime to avoid a $0.50 fee
I often run mine at night, but for other reasons -- your quote betrays your ignorance of the subject matter. A typical efficient washer uses about 100 watt-hours per load. The absolute cost of that would be a few cents US, and the marginal cost of operating that machine during peak hours would be far less than that.
since nobody will be around to flip the laundry into the dryer
Into the what?? You still waste energy on those? In the Summer?!? During the day? Suckers like you are who's buying my peak-rate photovoltaic solar generation. Keep it up!
Additionally, many, many places don't have the necessary last-mile power infrastructure to handle the electric cars that are supposedly going to drive increased consumer demand.
Not sure where you got on the anti electric vehicle thing, but you're missing the point of a "smarter" grid. Regardless of the nature of the generation technology or the load, a smarter grid with managed loads will utilize the grid more efficiently.
Just buy a diesel Jetta, which has a far lower TCO
As long as you externalize the cost of particulate pollution, global warming, lung disease, and foreign wars to acquire "cheap" oil. Sounds great.
Hell, hybrid diesel-electric cars are probably more practical.
Starting sentences with "Hell, comma" makes you look like a high school student.
Parent
Oh bullshit (Score:3, Informative)
bunch of arm-waving idiocy.
Information Age (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you forgotten about your person tracker? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last time i checked most people carry a cellphone which authorities can use to locate your person at all times.
BUT electricity usage can be used to get a warrant [hamptonroads.com] to search your home:
"An unusually high electricity bill alerted police to a possible marijuana-growing operation, the warrant said."
Like your ISP, cell phone company, etc? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are already tons of service providers we use (bank, credit card, hospital, ISP, cable company, cell phone company, etc.) that have a similar or greater amount of data. How does this pose any new problems?
I'd certainly like to see more clearly defined legal standards for how this kind of data may be used, but I'd assume that the tangled mess we have now would apply to the data that the power companies gather as well.
Why a two-way system? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard about the smart grid for years and I know I can't be the first to ask this- maybe I'm missing something?
*Brownouts would be the main reason, but if everyone is getting real-time cost information (and set their controllers accordingly), the power companies would see a much better response when they jack up the rates during peak hours. I expect the system will work a lot better once they have a proper feedback loop.
Posted Anon. for obvious reasons... (Score:4, Interesting)
I "knew" a person that "grew" marijuana.
I once asked him, generally speaking, where he grew.
What he told me was that he grew in a barn up in the mountains. Why in a barn, I asked him. Because this far out from the city, the electric meters were not able to reach cell towers, and thus could not report daily usage rates. The meter reader came out once a month so all they had was monthly usage figures (one of them old "spinny" type meters). He did this because the daily usage data was used to look for electric usage that followed a specific pattern, primarily a 11-12 hour peak usage period that would indicate growing lights. That, and the fact that nobody had a reason to be parked across the street with a FLIRgun or flying helicopters overhead. That is what he claimed, anyways.
I also once met a chap that used many rolls of copper house wiring, all spliced together into a coil, all laid out under the soil just below high-tension powerlines. Inductive leeching provided his entire grow operation with power--almost completely untraceable as well. At least that is what he claimed...
Your privacy is already gone. (Score:3, Interesting)
Privacy is already gone for the vast majority of people on the planet. The best anyone can hope for now is anonymity.
5, 10, 15 years from now, you'll be able to snap a picture of someone, upload it to Google Faces, and get back every single picture of that person on the internet. Some enterprising person will write a bit of software that reads the tags and connects them to public information sources about the person. There will probably be software that snatches up tons of publicly available writing samples of the person and compares it to a "signature" that has a reasonable degree of accuracy in figuring out who that person is. There will be other tools that let anyone do some basic snooping through archives to find other references to that person from other sources (like a Google stalk, but a bit more in-depth and the tool will tell clueless people how to be more efficient in tracking someone). If the footage from surveillance systems ever becomes public, you can bet that someone will figure out how to track an individual's movements. It will, in short, be trivial to get a work-up on people that's about as complete as you can imagine any private investigator, but you'll be able to do it on the fly, from home.
Our privacy is already gone, most of us just don't know it yet. The best that we can do is to make as sure as possible that all this surveillance data that is being collected becomes part of the public domain which will ironically help limit abuse.
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No it's not. You don't ahve any privacy in public, and you never have had privacy while in public.
Privacy is bank info, medical info, what happens in your house and in PRIVATE.
Jeez (Score:3, Insightful)
You are buying electricity, it's not private. DOn't lie it? Make your own electricity.
It's like saying McDonalds tracking you buying a soda from them is someone a loss of privacy.
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally - I really don't care what kind of dodgy information they could gleen from a smart meter. I only really care about the fact that power could (or will here in Oz) cost more.
Actually, I wouldn't have ANY problem at all paying a little extra for these meters (also here in Aus) if they used the data gathered to make a more efficient energy grid and this in turn helped us reduce emissions and made us more environmentally friendly. I would have very big problems with this if it was used to simply line the pockets of companies while not changing or improving in any other way.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally - I really don't care what kind of dodgy information they could gleen from a smart meter. I only really care about the fact that power could (or will here in Oz) cost more.
Or that nobody has been home for a couple of days so you are probably on vacation and your home would be a good target for robbery! Yeah, that's worth saving a few bucks a month on electricity.
yet people put that info on facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
Or leave a note on the door for the milkman.
Or maybe the mail piling up is a sign.
Why is it that guys like you claim the whole counter-terrorism thing is a way for the goverment to scare people, when you scare yourself far better? Watch out, I can track your /. account and tell when you are on holiday.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference is that all of your examples are under the control of the potential victim.
They chose to put it on facebook.
They chose to 'leave a note on the door' instead of directly telling 'the milkman' (lol! at that bs)
They chose to not have a neighbor pick up their mail.
Why is it that guys like you claim the whole counter-terrorism thing
Uh, you've got your wires crossed, this is about efficient electric meters, ain't no counter-terrorism under discussion here.
Which should be a big fucking clue to you that there is a common principle that transcends specific justificat
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Add up those few bucks a month for a year. Also maybe take into account the benefit to society (and thus to you) from improved grid efficiency and fewer blackouts
Now take the value of stuff you'd lose in a robbery. Multiply that by the probability that someone will steal your electricity usage data and use it to rob your house in the same year.
I'd be pretty surprised if the expected cost of this extremely unlikely hypothetical robbery makes smart meters not worthwhile.
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, what are the chances that someone from the electric company is going to monitor your house, waiting to rob it? OK, now how much greater are they with this smart meter? If I worked at the electric company, and I wanted to rob your house, all I'd need is your address, and I could physically monitor your house to see when you're on vacation.
In fact, this kind of reminds me of the xkcd comic:
http://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com]
Parent
Re:Oh no (Score:4, Insightful)
What if you live in an apartment and have a friend or family member come stay with you for an extended period of time and you suddenly get charged an occupant violation fee because your utilities are being monitored by the complex manager? Seeing at how gung-ho about fines the complex I just moved from is, I don't see that being too far-fetched of a scenario, especially if your utilities are included in your rent.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, it's never too much of a problem until it affects you. What if you live in an apartment and have a friend or family member come stay with you for an extended period of time and you suddenly get charged an occupant violation fee because your utilities are being monitored by the complex manager? Seeing at how gung-ho about fines the complex I just moved from is, I don't see that being too far-fetched of a scenario, especially if your utilities are included in your rent.
You violate the terms of your lease and you are fined. What's your point here?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think his point is that leases are meant to be broken on occasion in a no harm, no foul sort of way. If you have ever read an apartment lease I am guessing you would know that nearly everyone violates an apartment lease from the day they move in. The problem is that the complex needs to protect itself, so they must write the lease in absolute terms so that they can act when a real issue is going on. This prevents many clauses from being removed yet produces many violations that are "false positives" of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People get upset when you hold them to the lease because leases are ridiculous - you shouldn't need your landlord's permission to have a guest over in your home. Often the full terms aren't even presented to until after you have paid money to reserve the apartment, and you have no real negotiating power. These are unconscionable contracts of adhesion.
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The power company will be able to determine that I sleep at night and I'm not home during the day.
And now the -rest- of us know exactly when the best time to kill you in your sleep would be, since you broadcast it on slashdot.
Or maybe I'm not home at night and I sleep during the day.
Curses! Foiled again!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, more practically, use nighttime power to charge up your ultracapacitor (those will be coming out in full force shortly), which you will then use during the day. It's cost effective and privacy effective.
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Re:The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Part Deux:
They are placing new technology on top of an aging infrastructure instead of improving the actual aging infrastructure. This will not improve power reliability, the segment was already growing and did not need government intervention, and the cost will be passed on to the consumer, increasing the cost of everything in the name of a "green grid".
I work on the grid. Anything more will identify me, so I will stay vague.
The goal of the smart grid is to make a more efficient usage of our electricity. It encourages the homeowner to use their peak electricity usage on the off-hours when electricity is cheaper. Great in theory, but this is all marketing and lawyering and it will hurt the consumer for the benefit of utilities and companies like mine.
How do you improve electrical efficiency?
The same way you improve efficiency in every other system: By increasing the cost. If your electricity costs more, then you will be more conscientious about how much electricity you use. Then, you will buy more expensive electronics that have the "smart grid" capabilities.
Utilities have a government-sanctioned monopoly on their service area. Because of this monopoly status, the Utility has to get approval to raise their rates, usually through the county or state legislature. Many states have Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) which are in it to make money. They always want to increase their profit. (IOUs are similar to national banks, always looking for profit, As opposed to co-ops, which are more like a "community credit union". I love those guys.)
Utilities want to institute Tiered pricing in every single home. It means that you will be charged 2x during the day vs the night. The utility buys "In Home Displays" that plug into your home outlet and displays the current electricity cost. Some systems are based on a pre-pay system, so the IHD will also display how much energy they have left before they are cut off. (Mainly for poorer, high-risk customers)
Tiered Pricing: How is it cheaper?
Almost all of the utilities out there buy their electricity from a power generation company. They purchase electricity based on tiers. If they buy 499MW in on one month, it is one price, but if they hit 500MW on a single day, their cost for the entire month costs double.
An installation of a Load Control Unit (the one that controls your furnace/AC/Water Heater) can easily cost $1M. (each Load Control Unit costs $100 or so, labor to install is another $50 - $100, and you have to be at the home when the utility installs it...). At a certain user conference, a utility announced that a single load shed event paid for the entire system installation. (I kinda find his announcement hard to believe, but I won't complain) However, their rates did not change. The people served by this utility did not see a rate reduction. They only noticed that their house became warmer for no noticeable reason. The real reason was that the utility turned off their air conditioner for an hour to decrease their costs.
Remember, they need to go to the city/county/state to increase their billing rate. Do you really think that they will go to the legislature, tell them that they saved a bunch of money, and now they can charge less? That would never happen.
Here is another kicker: Thanks to EISA Section 1306, (implemented in 2007 by GW, paved the way for the "Smart Grid"), utilities can increase the rate on any system with a "Smart Grid" to recoup the cost of the Smart Meters. If a utility installs our Smart Grid system, they already recoup their costs just by firing the meter reads. So, not only will they save money by firing the meter readers, they don't have to pay for it because they can charge the homeowner more.
Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics
The "smart grid" will supposedly create 10,000 jobs. They are considering a "job" as a single person touching a part of the system. Even though I still have a job, and my job existed before this system, I am part of this "10,000 jobs created". In fact, more
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