Smart Meters ITV Tonight

[coanda]

This reminds me, the adverts for this ste on tv at the moment are worth a moan. They are factually incorrect in their presentation of how estimation works.

[jshell]

Brigand said:

There are no microphones fitted to the display device you have in your house, so they won't be "listening in" to your conversations.

Are you so very, very sure of that? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188 This was back in 2015 when Samsung got caught...

Any device with a microphone in your house, from phone, PC, to XBOX can be used to listen to you. It's not paranoia, it has happened already.

[Sylvaforever]

R8Steve said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

No, i don't.

There is no microphones in them and i don't believe i'll ever start referring to my electricity meter as a possible attack vector and worrying about whether an RFID chip in my girlfriends hairdryer is secretly creating a radar map of my house to see what i'm doing or if i'm in or not.

I don't see why anyone would be even be remotely (no pun intended) interested in any of this information in any case but if foreign agencies want to know when i go to the toilet or watch a film it's a risk i'm willing to take.

Your laughter is born of ignorance. The two biggest ddos attacks in history happened just recently, and we're mostly done using compromised home devices; cctv cameras, smart lightbulbs etc. Many of the current crop of "smart" devices have appallingly lax security and give attackers easy access to your WiFi and from there, anything connected to it. The tablet you do your banking on and all that stuff. Anything connected to the Internet and your home network is an attack vector, and the more things and connections there are, the more ways in there are.

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Well you can take a horse etc....

[CrutyRammers]

R8Steve said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

No, i don't.

There is no microphones in them and i don't believe i'll ever start referring to my electricity meter as a possible attack vector and worrying about whether an RFID chip in my girlfriends hairdryer is secretly creating a radar map of my house to see what i'm doing or if i'm in or not.

I don't see why anyone would be even be remotely (no pun intended) interested in any of this information in any case but if foreign agencies want to know when i go to the toilet or watch a film it's a risk i'm willing to take.

Your laughter is born of ignorance. The two biggest ddos attacks in history happened just recently, and we're mostly done using compromised home devices; cctv cameras, smart lightbulbs etc. Many of the current crop of "smart" devices have appallingly lax security and give attackers easy access to your WiFi and from there, anything connected to it. The tablet you do your banking on and all that stuff. Anything connected to the Internet and your home network is an attack vector, and the more things and connections there are, the more ways in there are.

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Your firewall protects you from (some) incoming threats outside your network. These devices are inside, but will connect to the outside world and often do lovely things like send your network passwords out in free text, which your firewall will allow quite happily. Ironically a large proportion of the devices used in the recent "mirai" botnet attacks were compromised routers...the very thing you assume is protecting you.

[0000]

You can put firewall rules in place to control outgoing traffic. But yeah, once you're relying on that it's already too late.

[BootsBruce]

It seems blatantly obvious, that once a certain level of penetration is reached, the energy companies will simply jack up the prices of their non-metered tariffs to make a smart meter the compelling choice.

Once that happens, it'll be interesting to see how many of the tin-foil brigade suddenly decide their paranoia is unfounded and concede to getting a meter.

[margerison]

RicksAlfas said:

I swapped to EON last year and they've been pestering me to have one fitted, but because my current meter is tucked away behind some brand new kitchen cupboards, I politely declined! They won't start refurbishing on your behalf. You'd have to take down your old cupboard and put the new one up, but I am sure if you rang EON and asked for one, they would put you on the list.

Thanks Rick,
are the smart meters completely wireless do you know? I would only want one if I could completely rip out my old meter cupboard!

[bga]

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

No, i don't.

There is no microphones in them and i don't believe i'll ever start referring to my electricity meter as a possible attack vector and worrying about whether an RFID chip in my girlfriends hairdryer is secretly creating a radar map of my house to see what i'm doing or if i'm in or not.

I don't see why anyone would be even be remotely (no pun intended) interested in any of this information in any case but if foreign agencies want to know when i go to the toilet or watch a film it's a risk i'm willing to take.

Your laughter is born of ignorance. The two biggest ddos attacks in history happened just recently, and we're mostly done using compromised home devices; cctv cameras, smart lightbulbs etc. Many of the current crop of "smart" devices have appallingly lax security and give attackers easy access to your WiFi and from there, anything connected to it. The tablet you do your banking on and all that stuff. Anything connected to the Internet and your home network is an attack vector, and the more things and connections there are, the more ways in there are.

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Your firewall protects you from (some) incoming threats outside your network. These devices are inside, but will connect to the outside world and often do lovely things like send your network passwords out in free text, which your firewall will allow quite happily. Ironically a large proportion of the devices used in the recent "mirai" botnet attacks were compromised routers...the very thing you assume is protecting you.

There are some fundamental differences between the devices used by Mirai and smart meters. While it is entirely possible they could be compromised it is far less likely than many other connected devices. Some routers were used in the Mirai attacks but they were small in proportion to the cameras.

[saaby93]

BootsBruce said:

It seems blatantly obvious, that once a certain level of penetration is reached, the energy companies will simply jack up the prices of their non-metered tariffs to make a smart meter the compelling choice.

Once that happens, it'll be interesting to see how many of the tin-foil brigade suddenly decide their paranoia is unfounded and concede to getting a meter.

Already happening with water
The non metered rate they reckon is higher than all three example low medium and high typical meter users.
So you go to the expense of having a meter to get the 'cheaper' rate - who pays?

[Hosenbugler]

saaby93 said:

BootsBruce said:

It seems blatantly obvious, that once a certain level of penetration is reached, the energy companies will simply jack up the prices of their non-metered tariffs to make a smart meter the compelling choice.

Once that happens, it'll be interesting to see how many of the tin-foil brigade suddenly decide their paranoia is unfounded and concede to getting a meter.

Already happening with water
The non metered rate they reckon is higher than all three example low medium and high typical meter users.
So you go to the expense of having a meter to get the 'cheaper' rate - who pays?

The consumer will pay for Smart meters. Its not the fault of theEnergy companies, the smart meter madness is being foisted upon them by Government. Yet another way of micro managing people's lives, this being one that does so in ones own home.

[wc98]

BootsBruce said:

It seems blatantly obvious, that once a certain level of penetration is reached, the energy companies will simply jack up the prices of their non-metered tariffs to make a smart meter the compelling choice.

Once that happens, it'll be interesting to see how many of the tin-foil brigade suddenly decide their paranoia is unfounded and concede to getting a meter.

just to emphasise the point the "tin-foil brigade" appear to be making .

Liam Hagan, a researcher from security firm Nettitude, said he was "shocked" at the poor job baby monitors and wi-fi cameras did to protect the pictures and sounds they were gathering.
"One of the big issues is that one wi-fi video camera makes itself available to the internet regardless of your firewall," he said. "Anyone who knows your IP address would be greeted with the login screen for the camera."
With one camera he tested, entering a default login name and password granted access to the images and sounds the device was capturing. There was no prompt to change these credentials to protect privacy, he said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27373328

now strangely enough this kind of stuff does not bother me so much.people watching or listening to what i am doing ? meh . if a smart light bulb is sending images from my bedroom at fun time with the missus ,well i will apologise now to the poor bugger that has to watch them, ditto for the poor bugger hacking the cam on my laptop when i have a quick porn hub visit if some fun time with the missus is not practical.

other people attempting to alter my behaviour in a significant manner when i have had no say in this is a whole different ball game. as for being strong armed through pricing into using a smart meter, not going to happen. i will just have the electricity for free and the smart meter sops can pay for it

[Megaflow]

BootsBruce said:

It seems blatantly obvious, that once a certain level of penetration is reached, the energy companies will simply jack up the prices of their non-metered tariffs to make a smart meter the compelling choice.

Once that happens, it'll be interesting to see how many of the tin-foil brigade suddenly decide their paranoia is unfounded and concede to getting a meter.

No tin foil hat from me, just common sense to save money. When they ramp prices for non smart supplies then I will switch, but I will do so at a time when it saves me money, not when they tell me to.

[clonmult]

bga said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

No, i don't.

There is no microphones in them and i don't believe i'll ever start referring to my electricity meter as a possible attack vector and worrying about whether an RFID chip in my girlfriends hairdryer is secretly creating a radar map of my house to see what i'm doing or if i'm in or not.

I don't see why anyone would be even be remotely (no pun intended) interested in any of this information in any case but if foreign agencies want to know when i go to the toilet or watch a film it's a risk i'm willing to take.

Your laughter is born of ignorance. The two biggest ddos attacks in history happened just recently, and we're mostly done using compromised home devices; cctv cameras, smart lightbulbs etc. Many of the current crop of "smart" devices have appallingly lax security and give attackers easy access to your WiFi and from there, anything connected to it. The tablet you do your banking on and all that stuff. Anything connected to the Internet and your home network is an attack vector, and the more things and connections there are, the more ways in there are.

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Your firewall protects you from (some) incoming threats outside your network. These devices are inside, but will connect to the outside world and often do lovely things like send your network passwords out in free text, which your firewall will allow quite happily. Ironically a large proportion of the devices used in the recent "mirai" botnet attacks were compromised routers...the very thing you assume is protecting you.

There are some fundamental differences between the devices used by Mirai and smart meters. While it is entirely possible they could be compromised it is far less likely than many other connected devices. Some routers were used in the Mirai attacks but they were small in proportion to the cameras.

Smart meters are *not* on your home network. They're using a mobile network (which network varies on region), and do not connect to your home network.

So security of your home network is unaffected. They could be compromised, but are no threat to your home network security.

[Ean218]

R8Steve said:

You can still change supplier just as easily as if you didn't have one installed. From October all smart meters will be inter-compatible.

Only new ones.....

[R8Steve]

Ean218 said:

R8Steve said:

You can still change supplier just as easily as if you didn't have one installed. From October all smart meters will be inter-compatible.

Only new ones.....

Yes, so from October...

[rxe]

R8Steve said:

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Either you don't understand what a firewall is, or you have something that is capable of doing proper inspection and three shifts of security admins to take action on alerts.

The problem is not the smart meter interfering with your home network, as others have said, it is a mobile device.

The real problem is the sloppy security of the overall system and the fact that the utility companies will sell your data.

Remember the power of patterns and scale. Looking at an individual meter will yield little - but crawling over the data from a million of them will almost certainly tell an observer when you come home, when you have a shower, and what TV channel you are watching. That is very valuable data, and it will almost certainly get sold.

If the wrong people get hold of that data (and history tells us they will) then they have a neat database of when people are out of the house and when they've gone on holiday. With enough data and time, you could identify which people have gone on holiday to their cottage in Devon and thus their house in London is guaranteed empty for the night.

[R8Steve]

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

CrutyRammers said:

R8Steve said:

No, i don't.

There is no microphones in them and i don't believe i'll ever start referring to my electricity meter as a possible attack vector and worrying about whether an RFID chip in my girlfriends hairdryer is secretly creating a radar map of my house to see what i'm doing or if i'm in or not.

I don't see why anyone would be even be remotely (no pun intended) interested in any of this information in any case but if foreign agencies want to know when i go to the toilet or watch a film it's a risk i'm willing to take.

Your laughter is born of ignorance. The two biggest ddos attacks in history happened just recently, and we're mostly done using compromised home devices; cctv cameras, smart lightbulbs etc. Many of the current crop of "smart" devices have appallingly lax security and give attackers easy access to your WiFi and from there, anything connected to it. The tablet you do your banking on and all that stuff. Anything connected to the Internet and your home network is an attack vector, and the more things and connections there are, the more ways in there are.

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Your firewall protects you from (some) incoming threats outside your network. These devices are inside, but will connect to the outside world and often do lovely things like send your network passwords out in free text, which your firewall will allow quite happily. Ironically a large proportion of the devices used in the recent "mirai" botnet attacks were compromised routers...the very thing you assume is protecting you.

I have cujo protecting anything connected to my network so i'm more that comfortable that i'm adequately protected. We're drifting off topic anyway, the fact remains smart meters are not going to listen to your conversations via mic or piezo drivers, take pictures of your wife or steal your bank details. To believe they are/will is complete tinfoin hattery.

[saaby93]

rxe said:

Remember the power of patterns and scale. Looking at an individual meter will yield little - but crawling over the data from a million of them will almost certainly tell an observer when you come home, when you have a shower, and what TV channel you are watching. That is very valuable data, and it will almost certainly get sold.

If the wrong people get hold of that data (and history tells us they will) then they have a neat database of when people are out of the house and when they've gone on holiday. With enough data and time, you could identify which people have gone on holiday to their cottage in Devon and thus their house in London is guaranteed empty for the night.

Thats easy enough to solve
All you do is set up an app on your phone so you can remotely flush the loo just after breakfast and they'll think theres someone in the house.
If it accidentally floods the house an automatically calls out 'HomeServe' ( scam2? ) thats a bonus

[s3fella]

.:ian:. said:

You could also stick it up s3fellas arse, he seems willing,

Anything to help a fellow PHer!!

[R8Steve]

rxe said:

R8Steve said:

Not really, i have an adequate firewall on my home network so i don't need to worry about my toaster trying to steal my bank details or my tv knowing what i had for dinner.

Either you don't understand what a firewall is, or you have something that is capable of doing proper inspection and three shifts of security admins to take action on alerts.

The problem is not the smart meter interfering with your home network, as others have said, it is a mobile device.

The real problem is the sloppy security of the overall system and the fact that the utility companies will sell your data.

Remember the power of patterns and scale. Looking at an individual meter will yield little - but crawling over the data from a million of them will almost certainly tell an observer when you come home, when you have a shower, and what TV channel you are watching. That is very valuable data, and it will almost certainly get sold.

If the wrong people get hold of that data (and history tells us they will) then they have a neat database of when people are out of the house and when they've gone on holiday. With enough data and time, you could identify which people have gone on holiday to their cottage in Devon and thus their house in London is guaranteed empty for the night.

I have cujo which the guy installing the CCTV cameras said was more than adequate. He wasn't wearing a tinfoil hat so i assume he knows what he's talking about.

In regards to your second point, they could just go and ring my doorbell, look and see if my cars away, check my facebook for holiday pictures or countless other easier methods of finding out if i'm in or not. Whether someone knows what tv channel i watch is irrelevant to me, i'd simply tell them if they asked, it's not a big secret.