Water ALERT! by TCS, Thailand
My life seems to be revolving around disasters. From the earthquakes in Tokyo, to the hurricanes in Taipei, to the floods in Thailand and the once in a-hundred-year fog in Beijing. Been there, done that and have survived. Strangely enough, most of my colleagues seem to be reluctant to travel with me nowadays, for fear of getting caught in a calamity. Superstitious, they must be.
It has been tough going for the past few weeks in Thailand with massive flooding occuring in the northen and central regions of the country. The situation has now spread to the capital, Bangkok. During this ongoing crisis, timely information about the water levels of rivers and canals are critical and essential to the…
Smart Grid Data — the ‘wild west’ of privacy rights
I had the pleasure of attending a two day seminar on Managing SCADA Network Security Risks. One of the most interesting seminars was Data Access and Privacy Issues Related to Smart Grid Technologies by Megan Hertzler, Assistant General Council with Xcel Energy. She said that when the meter reader used to come to the house and record your electrical usage, it was aggregate data. There were no privacy issues and the electric company owned the data. Now with Smart Meters the electric company can:
- Detect how many people live at your house by watching the number of cycles of your hot water heater (not accounting for bad hygiene);
- Know when you’re home by the energy
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Security and the Smart Meter Data Deluge
Early last year Pacific Gas and Electric added Smart Meter attachments to the gas meters in my neighborhood. Oddly enough not to the electric meters — yet. Ever since, I’ve been curious about their ‘insides’ – how these devices that are sampling my usage once or twice a day (or for some once every 15 min) work. I can see the business value in not having to send the meter reader ’round for the monthly read and I’m sure that saves PG&E money. Most of these meters support remote service disconnect, again saving the company money. For those customers that have these devices added to their electric meters, it also should mean better accuracy that some of the “estimated usage”…
