[Nottingham] Smart Meters

[Luke]

I don't know much about them, other than we had one installed recently.
Turns out to be the 'old kind', with a new standard being introduced
this year so that switching providers remains possible without switching
meters. So if security is naff on this old style, I'll be stuck, short
of replacing it.

They need to check phone signal reception when they install it. Which,
it doesn't take a fully licensed amateur radio nerd to realise (but I am
one anyway), means tinfoil backed meter boxes could see old users
getting a new smart meter 'on the house' due to intermittent signal
issues. It also doesn't take an infosec expert to figure out that those
SMS reports are highly unlikely to be encrypted. I'd like to be
corrected on that. Of course an individual minute of energy usage won't
reveal much, a month of records might be of use in commercial situations
(competitor energy patterns revealing hardware usage etc.).

I'm particularly concerned about reports of over-reporting energy use,
and of the sale of energy usage patterns to insurance and other third
party companies.

Thanks for the recent links - haven't checked in with the issues lately.

On Wed, May 31, 2017 at 05:53:21PM +0100, J via Nottingham wrote:
>    Any new info on how good/bad these are?
> 
>    Not worried about the WiFi raditions disturbing my chakra alignment or
>    anything, more concerned about it the security is up to snuff, are they
>    patched, reliability of readings etc.
> 
>    Some of the results I can find on "The Register" don't exactly fill me
>    with joy, but I not sure if El Reg is always reliable itself.
> 
>    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/06/smart_meters_prove_dim/
>    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/27/oz_smart_meter_leaders_lag_in_securing_devices/
>    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/17/smart_meter_benefits_even_crapper_than_originally_thought/
> 
>    Thoughts?
> 
>    J.

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