Sacramento Uses Smart Electric Meters to Spy on Residents

reason.com

8 points·andy99··6 comments

I worked for decades in the utility space. After my utility had deployed their smart meters we had a company come in and show us a product they had where they could tell you if someone had an electric furnace, and if so, they could tell you the make and model! They were fairly accurate on refrigerators as well.

Mind you, we were looking at using that data to be able to determine whether to inform that customer that they could buy more efficient appliances and show them the amount of money they could save. We ended up not pulling the trigger on that initiative but that's not the point: we could have.

I had an idea a few years ago that it might be useful to be able to detect if someone started flickering their lights in an S-O-S pattern. Sounds like this system might have been able to do that with the right software.

I had law enforcement show up in 2011 thinking my bitcoin mining was a grow op-- though I'm not sure if it was utility data or use of thermal imaging that got me targeted.

There was a photo doing the rounds a few years back from one of the Scandi countries showing a row of near identical two storied and attic town houses all with light snow on their roofs save for one in the middle that had a near circular ring of no snow and bare tiles.

Maybe that was a mining rig, maybe not.

I actually heard this scenario being brought up by privacy advocates back when smart meters started to be a thing. Seems like they were right

They were doing it before smart meters, they are still doing it now.

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