Are Smart Meters the End-All?; or, How I Learned to Love the IoT
by lg0p89
It seems as though technology continually is making further inroads into our lives, step-by-step.
Beginning from the 1980s to our current time, the computer in theory was supposed to make our existence easier and less stressful. There was supposed to be a four day work week, as we would become so efficient, that is all we would need to get all of the work done. What this did instead was make us work more, as we could get more work done now. We were supposed to be paperless, as we could scan everything into the system, so there would not be a need for paper to be used. Here, the attorneys got involved, stating that we could not prove the digital signature was used by the person alleged to have used the signature, and the paper could not go to the wayside.
On other fronts, technology has paid off for the users. All we have to do is look to our smart phone, USB, and improved satellites. If we want to know exactly where we are standing on the planet, there is an app for that.
The current hardware innovations are part of the Internet of Things (IoT). An entertaining example of this as of late are the light bulbs that flash different colors based on the user's parameters. For instance, if the Detroit Lions win their football game, this may be set to flash blue. This is in the pipeline to becoming yet more mainstream.
The latest iteration involves energy meters. We are all familiar with the usual meter on the side of the house or on the apartment building with the glass globe (looking like the robot on its side from Lost in Space), with the dials spinning. In the late summer, the spinning dials appear to be moving near the speed of light as our air conditioners are running.
Hardware
Visually and physically, the meter is still in a roundish housing and attached to the dwelling. The prior meters required the energy worker to walk around once a month and read the numbers. The new smart meters are digital and automatically gather the data and transmit this to the electric company. here would be no person walking around your property leaving footprints in the snow. The structure and housing itself has a few variants in size, but these are mostly the same. The fundamental, pertinent change involves the software. This allows the meter to communicate and send various data to the electric company.
Benefits
Clearly, there is a benefit to someone or some entity.
Otherwise, the expense would not have been incurred for the R&D. Big Business does not need to spend the funds on a shiny new toy. The primary beneficiary is the electric company. They no longer have to employ the people to walk around and read the meters for everyone. This cuts the expenses for labor and the associated overhead. The new meters monitor the usage per household, and subsequently per neighborhood, county, etc. Big data would be so happy with this. With the quicker monitoring comes the ability to react to geographic power needs faster. If an area has a higher need for power, the situation can be monitored so other areas where the consumption is less can have this transferred. This is much like loan balancing on the servers.
Not So Beneficial
This prima facie sounds great. Allegedly, this benefits the electric company and society, and the electricity should be less costly. But everything comes at a cost. There still is no free lunch. All of the attributes are not good for the consumers. A primary concern has been its security and privacy. The hardware itself is hackable with little effort. This is unnerving, at best. Also, the information on the personal usage for the residence and, by extension, other information can be accessed by others. A thief could monitor your usage and, if it appears the usage is well below the baseline for two or three days, could believe you are on vacation and break into your residence.
Hackable
The hardware is attached to your home, condo, duplex, apartment building on the outside of the structure. Anyone could simply walk up and look at the different access points to hack on the hardware. If it is during the day during the work week, no one would probably even notice. If someone were to walk up to this person, it would not be that difficult for them to social engineer their way out of this. The trespasser could not only get the raw usage data, but also any other data the hardware holds (e.g., account number).
This sounds a bit far-fetched. It does not seem likely that a piece of equipment that records your electrical usage would be that much of a detriment. Well, it happened. Beginning in 2009, there were power thefts throughout Puerto Rico. This became a significant issue and the FBI began investigating the thefts. The FBI believed this was due to the "new and improved" smart meters being deployed. It appeared from the investigation that people previously employed by the company that manufactured the meters, along with current employees of the utility company, were involved with the theft.
The people were charging $300-$1,000 for residential customers and $3,000 for the commercial meters for the unlawful services. Some of the estimates concluded the utility company lost millions in revenue due to this. This was done by using an optical converter device attached to a laptop and software downloaded from the Internet. There are several tools that can do this. One open-source tool is the Termineter. This also uses the optical interface as the access point. The hardware for this costs $300-$400. To fully implement this does not take a significant capital outlay. In essence, the tool merely changes the ratio of how the meter records the electricity used.
The person did not have to open the meter, cut the metal band, or anything physical. They just had to walk over to it with their laptop and an optical converter device. It wasn't complicated or even a two-step process.
In Short...
Overall, technology is our friend. It may give us a temporary headache but, in the long run, it makes our life easier. The smart meter is one such item. It makes sense to use it. The more data the electric company has access to, the better they can plan for the usage. This improves their operations, which translates into electrical savings for the consumer. With the good comes the bad. The software written to manipulate the smart meter was coded more with the focus being on how to operate and record the electrical usage versus security. The level of security has already proven to be financially disastrous for at least one utility. With the promulgation of open-source software and the relatively low cost of the hardware to hack the smart meter, there will be issues until there are patches written to rid the system openings that anyone can get into.
For Further Thoughts
How Privacy-Conscious Consumers are Fooling, Hacking Smart Meters
Open-Source Smart Meter Hacking Framework Can Hack into the Power Grid