Say NO to Smart Meters

[cjp]

Perhaps you should say NO to a smart meter whilst you can?


I was seeking confirmation that smart meters could be used to turn off
supplies remotely - which I found - and then I came across this this
which has quite scary implications as more and more smart meters are
being installed under an EU directive with completion due in 2022. (The emboldening is mine.)

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/meters-offswitch.pdf

Who controls the off switch?
Ross Anderson
Computer Laboratory
15 JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge University, England
[email protected]
Shailendra Fuloria
Computer Laboratory
JJ Thomson Avenue
Cambridge University, England
[email protected][/email[/SIZE]]
Abstract
—We’re about to acquire a [B]significant new cyber-
vulnerability[/B]. The world’s energy utilities are starting to install
hundreds of millions of ‘smart meters’ which contain a remote off
switch. Its main purpose is to ensure that customers who default
on their payments can be switched remotely to a prepay tariff;
secondary purposes include supporting interruptible tariffs and
implementing rolling power cuts at times of supply shortage.
The off switch creates information security problems of a kind,
and on a scale, that the energy companies have not had to face
before. From the viewpoint of a cyber attacker – whether a hostile
government agency, a terrorist organisation or even a militant
environmental group – t[B]he ideal attack on a target country is
to interrupt its citizens’ electricity supply. This is the cyber
equivalent of a nuclear strike;[/B] when electricity stops, then pretty
soon everything else does too. Until now, the only plausible ways
to do that involved attacks on critical generation, transmission
and distribution assets, which are increasingly well defended.
Smart meters change the game. The combination of commands
that will cause meters to interrupt the supply, of applets and
software upgrades that run in the meters, and of cryptographic
keys that are used to authenticate these commands and software
changes, create a new strategic vulnerability, which we discuss
in this paper[/QUOTE]

I suspect the Chinese could be up for this -what a weapon- first unleash
a computer virus stopping electronic banking and then turn off
electricity to homes in say January.
No electricity = central heating.

More importantly in the event of “load Shedding” being required you could be targeted so no longer will those on the same substation as a Hospital or sewage plant stay on when the lights generally go out but such important places would now be the only spot of light in the surrounding darkness with individual places turned off remotely.

And of course there are our railways - even though the government is now back pedalling and cheering for diesel (and the other way around for road transport) -
Box of candles anyone?

 

[Blindtraveler]

I was having the smart metre convo with a friend the other day and he is very into computing etc and whilst he admits this is a risk he says its in his opinion sufficiently low compared to the benefits of such tech. Thanks for highlighting it though.

 

[DarloRich]

oh dear................................

 

[duncanp]

And even without the risk of the meter being hacked, how do you know it is calibrated correctly, so that when you use 1 unit of electricity, it registers that you use just 1 unit, and not 4.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...rged-up-to-33000-a-day-by-faulty-smart-meters

This article shows people being charged £33,000 per day by a faulty smart meter. Obviously that is a mistake, but what about a not quite so big overcharge, such as charging 1.2 units for every unit used.

Unless you read your meter regularly, or know the wattage of the appliances you use, you would not necessarily notice such overcharging, and the utility companies have no financial incentive to tell you.

Especially when most people (not me I am glad to say) are on direct debits, so the utility companies can help themselves to your bank account, and it would be easier to get blood out of a stone then get refunded for overcharging.

 

[Darandio]

Unless you read your meter regularly, or know the wattage of the appliances you use, you would not necessarily notice such overcharging, and the utility companies have no financial incentive to tell you.

Especially when most people (not me I am glad to say) are on direct debits, so the utility companies can help themselves to your bank account, and it would be easier to get blood out of a stone then get refunded for overcharging.

And this can (and does) happen with 'normal' meters.

Probably time to start wearing my metal colander.

 

[cjp]

I am not sure that I agree with your friend BLINDTRAVELLER; after all it was not that long ago that vulnerabilities in Windows XP allowed hackers to cause problems at hospitals, businesses and banks around the world and, as you can see from the paper, smart meters are going to be throughout Europe.
The more there are of a thing to hack the more attractive/worthwhile it becomes to the various Powers to seek control.

 

[cjp]

And this can (and does) happen with 'normal' meters.

Probably time to start wearing my metal colander.

Indeed.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I would hope the software in such things would be slightly more advanced than Windows XP, support for which stopped years ago and I was amazed to find NHS still using. That said I am no expert in any way so much of this goes over my head!

I would like to think that they will be safe enough and will certainly save me a lot of effort in getting someone to read my metre as I cant do so myself due to my disability

 

[507021]

We have a smart meter here which was sent after my Dad requested it, but we haven't used it for at least a year or more, mainly because it would freeze and require resetting at least once or twice a week.

 

[DarloRich]

And this can (and does) happen with 'normal' meters.

Probably time to start wearing my metal colander.

you need tin foil to cover the holes or the mind control waves will still get through..........................

 

[AndrewE]

Especially when most people (not me I am glad to say) are on direct debits, so the utility companies can help themselves to your bank account, and it would be easier to get blood out of a stone then get refunded for overcharging.

It's worth knowing your rights: 1: you have an absolute right to demand the immediate return of a big (maybe any) credit balance to you, and

2: They have to agree your monthly payment with you, and all conversations should be recorded - so if you want to take them on afterwards the evidence should be there. I think this may be one (rare) area where the regulator is on the ball too!

Personally I have never had a problem when I have rung them to insist on a different payment to what they had proposed. They will definitely try it on, but if you know how much you use over the year and your tariff you should be able to get a sensible payment agreed.

 

[cjp]

Getting away from smart meter but FWIW my electricity company pays me interest on any credit balance they hold - which is not a lot.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I have to say I have nothing but satisfaction with my electric provider, I am all electric here and have only ever had 1 issue in the early days whilst switching. This issue quickly resolved itself and its been super easy ever since.

 

[najaB]

Perhaps you should say NO to a smart meter whilst you can?

The risks have been *grossly* overstated. The National Grid is an easier and more attractive target than smart meters since you have to be able to hit tens of thousands of meters to have a significant national impact, where just a couple of sub-stations would have the same effect.

As to meters reading incorrectly - how do you know that your existing meter is reading correctly? Smart meters are no more likely to measure incorrectly than traditional ones are since they operate on the same basic principles.

 

[DarloRich]

The risks have been *grossly* overstated. The National Grid is an easier and more attractive target than smart meters since you have to be able to hit tens of thousands of meters to have a significant national impact, where just a couple of sub-stations would have the same effect.

Quite!

 

[Jonny]

My concern is not so much cyber hacking, but even assuming that the meter is correctly calibrated and that all bills are paid, that it is possible for domestic properties to be "dropped" in order to reduce demand on the network.

 

[najaB]

...that it is possible for domestic properties to be "dropped" in order to reduce demand on the network.

As I understand it, in the initial stages of a demand crisis it will only happen where the domestic property 'agrees' to the load shedding.

If there aren't enough 'volunteers' then the system will move to rolling dropouts, which is no different to what happens today with brownouts/blackouts except they are essentially random and much more damaging. It's possible to mark homes as 'do not drop' where there are systems which cannot be allowed to go offline (e.g. people on ventilators).

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Oh dear...Here come the myths of smart meters.

I work for SSE and the amount of customer's that we have with smart meters is growing and growing and the only problem I've heard of so far is when we released a software update to the In Home Display which was showing usage worth thousand's of pounds. An update from out smart metering team quickly sorted it though.

What would you rather have? Over estimated bills or under estimated bills which will mostly likely to cause complaint when we do get an actual read and it produces a catch up bill if people can't be bothered to give us readings. Or get meters in that can send reads, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly automatically?

Our meters only have a 2G sim card in them which hooks up to our back MDMS back end system to pull the readings. If I could get them installed I would, but unfortunately my gas supply is on an IGT and GTC Pipelines are a bit stingy when it comes to exchanging meters on their network...

Currently at the moment, most suppliers smart meters are only capable of supporting SMETS1, which means that if you change your supplier, it basically reverts back to being a 'dumb' meter as the new supplier can't read it remotely. Hopefully with the integration of SMETS2, when customers change suppliers with smart meters the new implementation will mean that any supplier will be able to read it remotely.

 

[AlterEgo]

As someone who works for the energy regulator, this is interesting - if depressing - reading.

 

[AndrewE]

As someone who works for the energy regulator, this is interesting - if depressing - reading.

A really informed comment is always welcome! Which of our posts depresses you? This bit?

most suppliers smart meters are only capable of supporting SMETS1, which means that if you change your supplier, it basically reverts back to being a 'dumb' meter

Please enlighten us...

 

[GaryMcEwan]

A really informed comment is always welcome! Which of our posts depresses you? This bit?
Please enlighten us...

What I mean by a dumb meter is that, if for example SSE install a smart meter with SMETS1 capability, if a customer changes their supplier, the gaining supplier cannot read the meter remotely. So it basically just reverts back to a bog standard credit meter.

 

[robbeech]

I was 'made' to have a replacement meter here a year or so ago, it was an old style one with alternating mechanical dials that it seems only me and 9 other people on the planet are able to read (had estimates of several thousand pounds when a person who has actually made a career out of reading these meters, you know, it's his specific job to read these things got it very wrong). Apparently that wasn't acceptable and they were to put in a new meter. I was offered a smart one which i turned down on the ground that, i am going to use the electricity that i use and i don't care how much that is because i use it when i need it. I'm happy using their application to send in a meter reading once a month at a fairly similar time (they don't need it to be on the same day each month) so i'm not interested in anything more complicated.
If i do lose grid power then with a puff of smoke and a large clunk Mr Perkins starts up and we are good for about 80A until 500L of claret runs out.

 

[AlterEgo]

A really informed comment is always welcome! Which of our posts depresses you? This bit?
Please enlighten us...

The posts which are not informed.

I don't comment much on energy issues outside of work thanks to a fairly restrictive social media policy, but it's interesting to see the tinfoilery in this thread. I wouldn't include your comment in said tinfoilery.

 

[Busaholic]

I really would suggest that people thinking about installing smart meters seek out recent 'Watchdog' BBC1 TV and 'You and Yours' BBC radio programmes on I-Player, initial programmes on the subject having drawn so much response from the public. My interest in the subject was (frankly) zero until the day I rang my supplier, EDF, recently to arrange for a replacement credit meter to be installed and they told me they couldn't book the work in as they were 'flat out' with installing smart meters, though if I chose one of the latter the work could miraculously get booked in! I declined, being aware of that Guardian article, and, being laid up at the time, turned the radio on to be bombarded with criticism on 'You and Yours' for about half an hour, with 'Watchdog' following that same evening - it had been so long since I saw that I hadn't realised Anne Robinson didn't preside any longer! A lot of the problem, to summarise, has been caused by the elec companies (A) not having sufficient qualified engineers to install the required number of smart meters by 2020 and (B), as a direct consequence of (A) the sub-contracting of some of this work to possibly unqualified or incompetent people masquerading as engineers, resulting in some fires which, in at least one case, led to death. Even where competent people did the work, they are under enormous pressure to fit so many meters.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes we've had a smart meter fitted but it was rather concerning when a few weeks later another engineer from our energy supplier came around to check the work as they'd had 'complaints' from other customers regarding the person that installed it. Everything was fine but it hardly inspired confidence!

On the whole though I do think Smart Meters are a good idea but I'm not 100% sold on the implementation (the whole SMETS1 vs SMETS2 seems ridiculous for example).

 

[adrock1976]

Oh dear...Here come the myths of smart meters.

I work for SSE and the amount of customer's that we have with smart meters is growing and growing and the only problem I've heard of so far is when we released a software update to the In Home Display which was showing usage worth thousand's of pounds. An update from out smart metering team quickly sorted it though.

What would you rather have? Over estimated bills or under estimated bills which will mostly likely to cause complaint when we do get an actual read and it produces a catch up bill if people can't be bothered to give us readings. Or get meters in that can send reads, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly automatically?

Our meters only have a 2G sim card in them which hooks up to our back MDMS back end system to pull the readings. If I could get them installed I would, but unfortunately my gas supply is on an IGT and GTC Pipelines are a bit stingy when it comes to exchanging meters on their network...

Currently at the moment, most suppliers smart meters are only capable of supporting SMETS1, which means that if you change your supplier, it basically reverts back to being a 'dumb' meter as the new supplier can't read it remotely. Hopefully with the integration of SMETS2, when customers change suppliers with smart meters the new implementation will mean that any supplier will be able to read it remotely.

Could the bits I have highlighted in bold be translated please?

I am sure that it is forum policy not to use acronyms or abbreviations without first saying what they mean.

 

[gswindale]

We have a smart meter here which was sent after my Dad requested it, but we haven't used it for at least a year or more, mainly because it would freeze and require resetting at least once or twice a week.

How are you getting electricity without the meter? Have you installed an oil generator to provide your own?

Or, was it an energy display you had installed - we used to have one from British Gas until the batteries died and rusted in the meter cupboard.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[507021]

How are you getting electricity without the meter? Have you installed an oil generator to provide your own?

Or, was it an energy display you had installed - we used to have one from British Gas until the batteries died and rusted in the meter cupboard.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

It's one of the meters which tell us how much energy we use per day. It is useful to have, but we gave up after the screen kept freezing.

 

[jon0844]

On a Facebook group I'm on, I've been warned about people being prosecuted for taking showers for too long (water meters obviously measuring water consumption and knowing exactly what the water was used for).

There's an incredible amount of misinformation out there.

 

[GaryMcEwan]

Could the bits I have highlighted in bold be translated please?

I am sure that it is forum policy not to use acronyms or abbreviations without first saying what they mean.

GTC is the name of the company that pipes the gas to your home if you are on their network and are independent from the 3 main gas transporters (SGN, Wales & West Utilites and National Grid).

SMETS1 and SMETS2 is just Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specification.