[Shop-talk] Remote electric meter readout

[PJ McGarvey]

I have a wireless reader on my house, so I'll have to do some research on this
when time allows

My hope is that they're using some sort of encryption, or at least
authentication, b/c what would prevent someone from broadcasting a dummy
signal, announcing a lower number of used watts than what is actually being
used, in essence stealing from the power company.  I'm guess it's more of a
problem for large commercial buildings where there is more to gain from
under-reporting usage.

Not to mention the privacy concerns if this type of system is always on,
always reporting usage, anyone could gather information about you to determine
habits, if they are trying to break in.

I think their have been cases of the police using dramatic changes in power
usage to detect things like illegal marijuana growing (all the lights needed)
so this would be a good way to hide an operation.

PJ
(Info security guy) > For the past year-and-a-half or so my local power
company has been swapping> out all of the electric meters in Omaha with units
that can be read via> radio signal. The meter readers now just drive a car
down the road> collecting readings from all the houses that they pass, saving
them a HUGE> number of man-hours to read the meters. The new meters don't have
a> spinning wheel anymore; they just have an LCD display that shows the>
reading. Also, about every 10 seconds or so, the display flashes a couple> of
times, changes to zeros, and then goes back to the normal reading.> > I hadn't
thought about it until Doug's post, but I wonder if it would be> possible to
have something in the house that would continuously read the> meter the same
way the power company does. I don't know if the meter is> continuously sending
out the information, possibly when it blinks, or if it> waits for a signal
from the car to tell it to send. I also don't know if> the signal has any sort
of encryption, though I don't know why it would> since you can walk right up
to anyone's meter and see the reading.> > Does anyone know anything about this
type of meter, and if anyone makes an> aftermarket product for reading them?>
> Mike Frerichs
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