Australian Smart Meter Data Shared Far and Wide 172
New submitter ferrisoxide.com writes "In Victoria (Australia), detailed information about electricity customers' power usage, which gives insights into when a house is occupied, is being shared with third parties including mail houses, debt collectors, data processing analysts and government agencies."
Fuck your privacy! (Score:2, Informative)
This is about conserving energy and Saving The Planet!
Privacy Commissioner is a wet lettuce leaf (Score:4, Informative)
Add to that Nicola Roxon's plans to snoop on Australians Internet Usage. Do you really trust public servants to keep your private that information secret? The only privacy they care about is hiding their mistakes from public. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/police-fight-to-keep-corby-secrets-20120922-26dni.html [canberratimes.com.au]
As for your privacy, they don' think you should have any: http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/380194/20120904/ag-nicola-roxon-bats-data-retention-laws.htm [ibtimes.com]
Opted out of PG&E online bills (Score:5, Informative)
I had to opt out of Pacific Gas and Electric's online billing system and go back to paper bills when they changed their EULA to allow more "disclosure". If I just buy power from them, they're subject to regulatory rules, enforced by the California Public Utilities Commission. But they wanted me to sign up for an "online account", which isn't regulated. If you don't sign up, they're not allowed to redistribute your "smart meter" info. If you sign up, you've consented to distribution to "affiliates".
I strongly recommend opting out to PG&E customers (California, Nevada) who are concerned about privacy issues.
Re:Color me surprised. (Score:4, Informative)
the Principality of Sealand, I think he means. This is a manmade structure 7nm off the coast of Suffolk which has been privately occupied pretty much since it was abandoned by the British military (it was originally an early warning station and anti-aircraft platform).
Re:Shocked (Score:3, Informative)
apart from the fact that they use the obsoleted GSM900 bandwidth (channels, even) to build their mesh network via neighbourhood hubs and landlines, that said wireless links are two way, which means that not only is information passed back and forth between meters and hubs, so are instructions (such as kill switch). This presents a problem as anyone with a 934MHz transceiver (rare in the UK since they're now illegal to operate, have been since the block was reallocated to GSM) can simply key on CH1 and potentially kill grid power to any property so equipped, for miles, as the strength of the signal will overwhelm the meter... for those with access to a 934, try keying CH1 next to a GSM900 cellphone.
Re:Shocked (Score:5, Informative)
(take it from someone who [still] owns a Cybernet Delta 1): the 934 rigs are notorious bleed boxes. Even with a 1.1 SWR (as close to perfect antenna balance as you'll ever get) you can bleed out over 600kHz each way with a 50W amp. The issue was that the equipment was overpowered and undercooled for what was being asked of it (30 miles on an average day?), the bleed induced by the linear amplifiers cooking themselves very quickly. With anything less than perfect SWR you'll bleed out even further into neighbouring bands.
FWIW, GSM900 was never widely adopted in the UK, distributors instead preferring GSM1800. The 934 crowd never got their bandwidth back to this day.
Thing is, GSM never even touched 934. GSM900 uses 890–915 MHz to send information from the mobile station to the base station (uplink) and 935–960 MHz for the other direction (downlink), providing 124 RF channels (channel numbers 1 to 124) spaced at 200 kHz. Duplex spacing of 45 MHz is used. Guard bands 100 kHz wide are placed at either end of the range of frequencies.