
Smart electricity meters can be dangerously insecure, warns expert - misnamed
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/29/smart-electricity-meters-dangerously-insecure-hackers
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hackuser
It's also an excellent surveillance tool, from what I understand (and much of
my understanding started with prior Hacker News discussions). Not only can you
identify if people are home, but you can identify what they are doing if it
involves electricity and make good guesses at more (how many people are
present, have they gone to sleep, etc.). It's appears to be literally a window
into the privacy of everyone's homes, as shocking as that sounds:

 _it is possible to identify which appliances a consumer is using and at what
times of the day, because each type of appliance generates a unique electric
load "signature." NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] wrote
in 2010 that "research shows that analyzing 15-minute interval aggregate
household energy consumption data can by itself pinpoint the use of most major
home appliances."_

The best starting place I've found is the Congressional Research Service (an
excellent resource on policy issues) report, "Smart Meter Data : Privacy and
Cybersecurity", which cites many more resources and is the source of the above
quote.

[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42338.pdf](https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42338.pdf)

