4 ms·
No device is built for abuse like this. You could flip a switch manually multiple times and cause failure Do you even know how much regulation exists behind me
by raverbashing 3y ago
No device is built for abuse like this. You could flip a switch manually multiple times and cause failure
Do you even know how much regulation exists behind meters and electrical equipment?
What's next, complaining that the meter can't handle a sledgehammer?
You call weakness I call vandalism
Same as the brats who go and do a "tiktok challenge" of robbing an easily accessible car than finding out they're not immune to handcuffs and jail cells
Edit: and while a self-protection/rate limiting would be good, this could as well as easily be turned into a denial-of-service attack by causing the switch to be off. Better than failure, sure, but still an issue.
- slow_typist 3y agoThe meter shouldn’t react to the flipper’s orders at all in the first place.
- sschueller 3y agoA smart meter should be capable of noticing that it is being turned off and on over and over which could harm it. My freaking standing desk has protection if I go up and down too much within a certain period of time. Like I said, I have zero trust this meter is accurate when it doesn't even have simple protective circuitry.
- jrflowers 3y agoHow do you know this about your desk?
- atoav 3y agoNot the poster, but they are right. The linear motors in standing desks are not made for permanent use (they would heat up too much if used that long). In the datasheet they will typically put something like "can be used for maximum of x minutes within x+y minutes". The desk controllers I have seen check for that limit (as one should). Every controller should reject input that leads to destruction, especially if the input is wireless or comes over network.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoPlenty of devices have protective circuits. My cheap paper shredder is very aggressive about heat management - once it detects it's heating up too much, it'll shut itself off for ~30 minutes to cool down. That state somehow[0] persists even if you unplug it, so I had to learn to feed it paper at the right pace, 'lest I'll be taking half-hour breaks every 2-3 minutes of shredding. -- [0] - The shredder is of the cheaper kind, and shows zero indication of any computer on board, so I'm assuming overheating shutoff is charging up some capacitor that's grounded via a high-resistance path and discharges at a known rate.
- raverbashing 3y agoOverheating shutoff of the 'dumb' kind is usually a bimetallic strip, though maybe this works as well
- jacquesm 3y agoNo, you got it right. It's a bi-metal in all electric motors that I'm aware of that have overheating protection. I actually had a dangerous situation here once in a big compressor motor that had a faulty soft-start circuit, that caused the bi-metal contacts to fuse so the protection no longer worked. By the time I noticed the compressor motor was way too hot to touch.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoDoes bimetallic strip have some kind of passive hysteresis? Because what I observed with my shredder is that, if the overheat protection kicks in, it won't turn on for the next 20-30 minutes. You can flip the switch, or even unplug it from mains, doesn't make a difference - it won't turn on for almost half an hour. Now, that could be explained by e.g. the engine itself having enough thermal capacity to keep the shutoff switch active for a while, except... if you are careful and do small pauses between shreddings, you can keep going indefinitely - and those pauses don't feel enough to let the engine cool if that was the only thing that mattered. Like, you shred something for 3 minutes straight and get 30 minutes cutoff, vs. shredding something for 1 minute, then 30 seconds break, then 1 minute, then 30 seconds break, ... and you can keep going like that for hours.
- sschueller 3y agoIt says it in the manual and it refuses to go when I try to break it.
- drewmol 3y agoThe expense of your desk motor burning out has a cap though. The expense of a utility controlling device not shutting off after intentionally being stressed/hacked is potentially very high and may require human intervention to detect, maybe they decided it’s better if the device fails under this type of abuse which will bring humans into the loop to detect the problem.
- nine_k 3y agoThe device not switching on when overheated could attract humans' attention, too, without the need to replace the device, which may be an involved process for high-power circuits.
- wongarsu 3y agoNot turning off would be a bad protection, but it could also decide not to turn on. Something as simple as only allowing three remote turn-on commands every hour, anything beyond that requires a physical override.
- diydsp 3y agoCertainly under normal operation. This may be skirting that protection.
- medellin 3y agoAbuse of an unauthenticated device that anyone can walk by and do. Regulations are really working!
- mynameisvlad 3y agoTurning on and off quickly is “abuse” now? What if the electric operator’s software malfunctions and causes rapid power cycles to customers’ meters? The end result would be the same, and it certainly wouldn’t be considered “abuse” then.
- raverbashing 3y ago> Turning on and off quickly is “abuse” now? Yes because it's not built to be activated in that manner. Especially for high power/high voltage. This is not a mechanical keyboard switch. > What if the electric operator’s software malfunctions and causes rapid power cycles to customers’ meters? Then this is on the power company to fix it and fix the downstream failures this might cause. (Same as power outages that cause damages) > it certainly wouldn’t be considered “abuse” then. Abuse: Misuse; improper use; perversion. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abuse#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abuse#English
- mynameisvlad 3y ago“Abuse” implies intent. A bug occurring without said intent most certainly is not “abuse” in the common definition of that word. And sure, they’ll have to fix it, but it’s still a glaring issue that should have never happened in the first place. A smart meter should very much be tolerant to this form of “abuse”. As other commenters have said, controls for such a thing should most certainly have been put in place by the smart meter manufacturer. This isn’t something they couldn’t possibly protect against like your sledgehammer example. This is fully within their control, they just chose not to protect against it.
- pmx 3y agoAbuse or not the meter should certainly protect itself against something like you just described. Now a software fault can blow up all the customer's meters and you think that's fine and good?
- mynameisvlad 3y agoDid you reply to the wrong person? I certainly never said and don’t think this is fine and good. I explicitly used the fact that a bug could cause this to trigger at the scale of an entire electric company to show how bad this could be.
- atoav 3y agoAnd here I am believing rate limiting remote commands is a pretty default thing to do, especially if the commands switches power under load. Sure, this is targeted abuse, but your device should not accept unauthenticated radio input that allows destruction.
- drewmol 3y agoOne could argue the ability control power under load is a safety feature. What if they hardened the wireless attack surface and added a manual safety switch which could also be used to intentionally brake the device, would that be better? I don’t think it would. I really don’t think the device needs to be stupid proof at the expense of the ability to be directly controlled by not-stupid persons and above.
- atoav 3y agoYou misunderstand me here. A rate limit just means you can only switch it off and on e.g. once a second instead of a thousand times per second. Authentification makes things more complicated, but it would still allow authorized personel to do the switching.
- fsh 3y agoI agree that for a single meter (which for some reason is bolted to the outside of the house), the risk of vandalism is the same, whether it is remote controlled or not. However, a vulnerable wireless (or even internet-connected) meter would allow massively scaling up the attack. Taking an entire city (or even country) off the grid by flipping all the breakers would cause some serious damage.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jrockway 3y agoI think the law is a good second line of defense. Humans are wired to think "if I gave into that Intrusive Thought, I would suffer consequences." So that mostly keeps us in line. But, a good password and some input validation also get you pretty far; nothing is better than a computer at telling you "No!" No judge, jury, or building with bars over the windows required. Just some text in your text editor, and then if someone wants to be evil, they can't be. Pretty good.
- goodcanadian 3y agoIndeed. I don't lock my doors because I think that is a serious deterrent to someone who truly wants to get in. I lock them, as they say, to keep the honest people honest.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoFound the firmware author.
- eecc 3y agoOh no, it definitely can and should. There’s absolutely no excuse for not adding a sensor or even a dumb counter to implement a simple action limiter and constrain operation with a safe envelope. It’s basic engineering
- drewmol 3y agoEven if the designers valued tamper-resistance and/or direct control of the device over broad durability and/or protection against intentional vandalism? It seems burn out after being switched on and off repeatedly under load may be an acceptable failure mode in this type of device.
- teawrecks 3y agono one is saying that it should be legal to go destroy other people's stuff. if that's the message you're hearing, go back and re-read.
- goodpoint 3y ago> You call weakness I call vandalism This is ridiculous. Manufacturers are responsible for the safety and security of their products. It's a perfectly legitimate expectation. The meter should not accept unauthenticated commands and should have temperature protection.
- mannykannot 3y agoThe denial-of-service scenario does not render the issue moot; on the contrary, it is another example of what can go wrong when these devices are not secured properly. In general you have a point, but making these devices accessible to remote tampering is an avoidable escalation of risk with no counterbalancing upside.