3 ms·

Pretty sure that the datastream is encrypted. Being able to sniff your neighbor's power consumption from far away is a pretty large security hole.

KingMachiavelli 6y ago
At least the ones I have seen are not. I am able to read the all the power meters in my building with a cheap USB SDR and this software. https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr I have not gotten around to figuring out which one is mine or a good way to system to store/display the data but I certainly can read the date. In the grand scheme of things it is a minor to medium security flaw, power usage could be used to infer which houses contain valuable items and when people are home. I'd say medium at most since a lot of other things Visible curbside indicate this as well (lights, cars in the driveway, etc.). On the other hand, electronics are pretty efficient. A wealthy house with all the lights on is still using less electricity than a small apartment using an electric stove. But I guess if you were really interested in stealing electric cars then it would be really useful.
tyingq 6y ago
I imagine it depends on location, but there are places where it's wide open. "Using a cheap RTL-SDR, it didn’t take long for [k-roy] to tap into this transmission and stumbled across the power readings for his entire neighborhood using a simple command" https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...
cromka 6y ago
As was pointed out, you still have to figure out which signal comes from which meter, so unless you find a way to tag them all, they’re anonymous.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Sometimes they are. I gave up on playing with my water meters because of it; my RTL-SDR can pick them, alright, but I checked the manufacturer docs, and the meters encrypt the datastream.

KingMachiavelli 6y ago

At least the ones I have seen are not. I am able to read the all the power meters in my building with a cheap USB SDR and this software. https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr I have not gotten around to figuring out which one is mine or a good way to system to store/display the data but I certainly can read the date. In the grand scheme of things it is a minor to medium security flaw, power usage could be used to infer which houses contain valuable items and when people are home. I'd say medium at most since a lot of other things Visible curbside indicate this as well (lights, cars in the driveway, etc.). On the other hand, electronics are pretty efficient. A wealthy house with all the lights on is still using less electricity than a small apartment using an electric stove. But I guess if you were really interested in stealing electric cars then it would be really useful.

tyingq 6y ago

I imagine it depends on location, but there are places where it's wide open. "Using a cheap RTL-SDR, it didn’t take long for [k-roy] to tap into this transmission and stumbled across the power readings for his entire neighborhood using a simple command" https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...

cromka 6y ago

As was pointed out, you still have to figure out which signal comes from which meter, so unless you find a way to tag them all, they’re anonymous.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Sometimes they are. I gave up on playing with my water meters because of it; my RTL-SDR can pick them, alright, but I checked the manufacturer docs, and the meters encrypt the datastream.