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Comment by awjr | Hacker News Reader

Well most illegally grown marijuana uses large amounts of stolen electricity (absolute control of temperature and lighting is a must to get the highest yield). I'm guessing it would not be profitable to grow it otherwise (or not as profitable).

Similar issues will affect Bitcoin mining in the long run however I expect this to be more something that is achieved through mining bots and not through setting up server farms in houses with diverted electrical trunking.

As to electricity companies finding out, the issue here is that the 'noise' from loss of electricity in the network masks a specific house consuming huge amounts of electricity. I'm guessing there must be some sort of profiling going on to determine if an occupied house is using too little electricity.

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> Well most illegally grown marijuana uses large amounts of stolen electricity

Really? I am under the impression that stolen electricity is one of the easiest ways that illegal grow operations are discovered.

It's not exactly my area of expertise. In the UK, infra-red cameras on helicopters are used to identify houses with 'hot' roofs. It would seem nonsensical to do this if electricity companies could easily identify theft.

As part of reading a meter I'm guessing an inspection of the meter box can be made. I'm guessing the modern digital electricity meters are able to report usage stats back to the company.

I'm using the word 'guessing' quite a lot here.

They bypass the meters taking all sorts of Jerry rigged risks when doing so.

Growers steal electricity to avoid detection by the power companies auditing their usage. Considering that a grow-op can produce hundreds of thousands of dollars, the power bill's just a blip on the radar.

People can use a lot of electricity without generating a lot of heat in a room that looks like it would make a nice grow room. In other words, a very small percentage of people using a lot of electricity are growing pot. The percentage of people with a hot room and hydroponics garbage in the back dumpster that are growing pot is a lot higher.

I don't believe that helicopters are specifically sent out to look for hot roofs in the UK without a reasonable suspicion.

I believe that the power companies are more likely to be of use in detecting cannabis growers. I am sure that in some areas a mini arms race has gone on for decades with cannabis growers taking electricity from the 'other side' of the meter, so that nothing shows up on the bill. I am sure that electricity companies have also worked out how to compare electricity supplied versus electricity charged for in order to detect this, at least to street level, and, after that, the infra-red camera can come into play to detect the hot-roof, either by themselves or by the police.

Given a choice of stealing electricity for cannabis or bitcoins I would be surprised if the latter was more profitable. That said, bitcoin miners probably do arouse the suspicions of the authorities. Therefore it would be quite convenient to have a 'server farm' downstairs with a 'cannabis farm' in the loft. Therefore, when the authorities come round there is a plausible reason for the electricity usage.

It's the other way around. If you try to run a grow-op while normally connected to the grid, the electric utility will report your well-above-average usage to the police immediately, who will come and visit immediately.

Thus grow-ops are basically forced to find a way to connect to the grid in an unmetered, illegal fashion to avoid being reported.

>> most illegally grown marijuana uses large amounts of stolen electricity

Source? Reasoning?

pretty much any report of a cannabis farm getting busted and ofgem (the Uk electricity regulator) estimated that a third of the stolen electricity is used for this purpose

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/cannabis-farms-respo...

reasoning: you're using indentured trafficked workers trapped in homes (and possibly also fraudulently claiming housing benefits) to grow an illegal product. Electricity will be a significant cost (in the UK, at least) and so stealing it makes more sense.

Wait, indentured trafficked workers are used to grow marijuana?

Yes, from what I understand - BBC Radio 4's PM news program covered this yesterday. They were focusing on Vietnamese trafficking gangs.

Certainly in the UK this is the case - people are smuggled into the UK, and have to repay the cost of being smuggled by growing cannabis (or sex work, or similar). Passports are removed, fear is created about going to police, people are locked into houses, etc.

Can confirm.

I have sourced all the mcdonalds wifi in my area to grow marijuana. It's like how the sonar in the dark knight works.

All of the free wifi gets channeled in to my grow lights.

Bypass the meter. Abnormally high readings are reported in some places.

you can't bypass all meters. the one in your home is not the only one that the utility has.

Part of the reason for that is that people who use non-stolen electricity to grow get busted; the electricity companies monitor usage and the police have access to that information.

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