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Web thinkers are not confused by shiny new things « Jon Udell

9 points by jancona 16y ago

zdw 16y ago
Eventually you have to trust the electric company will guard (or discard) your data - they need to get the data in some form anyway. While it might be nice to scrub the data before giving it to them, that may not be practical, as this service passes data both ways (the grid can signal appliances to not run when under heavy load, for example). In terms of trust, this isn't any different from having to trust that your web service provider will protect your data. Granted, there is a substantial difference in choice - you likely only have one option for electrical service to a home, but a plethora of web hosting choices. Thus, this is fundamentally a regulatory issue (ie. call the Corporation Commission). The alternative is to do it yourself (run your own server, make your own electricity with solar/wind/etc.), which, if you're really concerned about this, you might feel it's worth doing.
- jancona 16y ago
  Ideally, you wouldn't have to trust them, you would be able to contract with them. Or rather, if you owned the data, they would have to contract with you to use it. I agree that given the current environment, it would require regulatory changes to implement the data ownership concept. And given the degree of regulatory capture in such markets, good luck getting such a change implemented.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    It's looking likely that the EU will issue some sort of regulation on power-meter data, though I agree the likelihood of that happening in the US is fairly low. Here's an interim report by one of the EU's working groups: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/expert_group2.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/ex... The main things that seem likely are: 1) consumers will be guaranteed some sort of free access to their own usage data, partly in hopes that increased information about one's power usage will encourage people to use less; 2) there will be some sort of restriction on how personally identifiable, non-aggregate data can be used, e.g. the power company won't be allowed to infer things about your lifestyle based on power usage patterns, and then sell that data to advertisers. Tricky areas are what counts as "aggregate" data (there are a lot of potential pitfalls there, both intentional exploitation of loopholes, and accidental leakage of identifiable data into aggregate data), and if there should be some sort of distinction between internal-to-operations and external data mining. For example, perhaps it would be okay for power companies to infer more specific things about individual lifestyles, if that information is only being used to optimize the power grid.
jancona 16y ago
Of course, someone could watch my house now and see when I turn on my lights. Better yet, they could see me stumble in when the bars close at 2 am. The issue isn't that private information is being made public, it's that the cost of gathering and aggregating public information is being drastically reduced. Without smart meters, it might cost someone hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire a private detective to discover my drinking habits. My estranged spouse might be willing to spend that money in a custody case, but my life insurer wouldn't find it to be cost-effective. With new sources of low-cost data like that from smart meters, the calculation might be different. (edit: corrected a couple of typos)
- true_religion 16y ago
  I think the ubiquity of low-cost data from computers is going to return us to a "small town" mentality. In a small town, all your idiosyncrasies are public gossip. Everyone knows that you're a drunk from your doctor to your ex to your boss. Is this good or bad? Well, the same fundamental mechanisms that allow life insurers to spy upon you, allows you to find out if a multi-national is abusing your trust and say... funding an island dictatorship in exchange for water-rights.
T_S_ 16y ago
The author suggests we will have mechanisms that allow us to "own" data from smart meters. Never mind that the electric companies will think that they own the data. The reality is ownership is a concept that really only works for scarce things like physical goods and services. Ultimately, you can't own information, you can only have it or not. To control information is to either make it scarce (like music and movies with copyright and DRM) or to control the actions of the party receiving it with licenses and contracts. Now who is going to win that battle? If you think consumers will, then you have to implement a mechanism to track actions taken on the basis of any information supplied by consumers. Pretty complicated, and consumers will have to feel threatened in order to pay for such things. Either that or ham-handed regulation gets imposed after some horrible information mishap.

9 points by jancona 16y ago

zdw 16y ago

Eventually you have to trust the electric company will guard (or discard) your data - they need to get the data in some form anyway. While it might be nice to scrub the data before giving it to them, that may not be practical, as this service passes data both ways (the grid can signal appliances to not run when under heavy load, for example). In terms of trust, this isn't any different from having to trust that your web service provider will protect your data. Granted, there is a substantial difference in choice - you likely only have one option for electrical service to a home, but a plethora of web hosting choices. Thus, this is fundamentally a regulatory issue (ie. call the Corporation Commission). The alternative is to do it yourself (run your own server, make your own electricity with solar/wind/etc.), which, if you're really concerned about this, you might feel it's worth doing.

jancona 16y ago
Ideally, you wouldn't have to trust them, you would be able to contract with them. Or rather, if you owned the data, they would have to contract with you to use it. I agree that given the current environment, it would require regulatory changes to implement the data ownership concept. And given the degree of regulatory capture in such markets, good luck getting such a change implemented.
- _delirium 16y ago
  It's looking likely that the EU will issue some sort of regulation on power-meter data, though I agree the likelihood of that happening in the US is fairly low. Here's an interim report by one of the EU's working groups: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/expert_group2.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/smartgrids/doc/ex... The main things that seem likely are: 1) consumers will be guaranteed some sort of free access to their own usage data, partly in hopes that increased information about one's power usage will encourage people to use less; 2) there will be some sort of restriction on how personally identifiable, non-aggregate data can be used, e.g. the power company won't be allowed to infer things about your lifestyle based on power usage patterns, and then sell that data to advertisers. Tricky areas are what counts as "aggregate" data (there are a lot of potential pitfalls there, both intentional exploitation of loopholes, and accidental leakage of identifiable data into aggregate data), and if there should be some sort of distinction between internal-to-operations and external data mining. For example, perhaps it would be okay for power companies to infer more specific things about individual lifestyles, if that information is only being used to optimize the power grid.

jancona 16y ago

Of course, someone could watch my house now and see when I turn on my lights. Better yet, they could see me stumble in when the bars close at 2 am. The issue isn't that private information is being made public, it's that the cost of gathering and aggregating public information is being drastically reduced. Without smart meters, it might cost someone hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire a private detective to discover my drinking habits. My estranged spouse might be willing to spend that money in a custody case, but my life insurer wouldn't find it to be cost-effective. With new sources of low-cost data like that from smart meters, the calculation might be different. (edit: corrected a couple of typos)

true_religion 16y ago
I think the ubiquity of low-cost data from computers is going to return us to a "small town" mentality. In a small town, all your idiosyncrasies are public gossip. Everyone knows that you're a drunk from your doctor to your ex to your boss. Is this good or bad? Well, the same fundamental mechanisms that allow life insurers to spy upon you, allows you to find out if a multi-national is abusing your trust and say... funding an island dictatorship in exchange for water-rights.

T_S_ 16y ago

The author suggests we will have mechanisms that allow us to "own" data from smart meters. Never mind that the electric companies will think that they own the data. The reality is ownership is a concept that really only works for scarce things like physical goods and services. Ultimately, you can't own information, you can only have it or not. To control information is to either make it scarce (like music and movies with copyright and DRM) or to control the actions of the party receiving it with licenses and contracts. Now who is going to win that battle? If you think consumers will, then you have to implement a mechanism to track actions taken on the basis of any information supplied by consumers. Pretty complicated, and consumers will have to feel threatened in order to pay for such things. Either that or ham-handed regulation gets imposed after some horrible information mishap.