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Turning 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 r

Turning 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 ago
Abuse 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 ago
  Did 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.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Abuse is not about the action, but about intent and privileges.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  That was literally my point. Did you just stop reading after the first sentence? > 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.
jameshart 3y ago
What if the electricity operator failed to control the frequency or voltage of their supply correctly and caused too much power to go to their customers? It seems reasonable for your electricity meter (which is usually supplied by your electricity supplier so their equipment not yours) to trust the electricity supplier in general. There are far worse things the supplier can do to the meter than send erroneous power cycle signals.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  I mean sure but that’s not remotely what’s being discussed here. Those very well could be catastrophic failures, but that doesn’t in any way shape or form change this also being one.
  - jameshart 3y ago
    Your argument was ‘the meter should be designed to be robust to software error at the power company’ My argument is that ’software error at the power company’ can easily cause catastrophic failures at the meter, which it stands no chance of being able to prevent. So why should it specifically be built to defend itself against the remote possibility that the master control program sends it too many on/off switch commands too quickly?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      "robust" doesn't mean "immune to every possible variant". An inability to protect against the wrong voltage doesn't imply you shouldn't bother to protect it against wrong commands. Why should it specifically be built that way? Because it's bad for devices to self-destruct with no attempt at mitigation whatsoever.
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Actually, my argument was "the meter should be designed to be robust enough to prevent this particular issue". As the other commenter stated, that does not in any way imply "robust against all possible issues coming upstream" and it would be ridiculous to expect that.

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 ago

Abuse 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 ago
Did 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.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Abuse is not about the action, but about intent and privileges.

mynameisvlad 3y ago
That was literally my point. Did you just stop reading after the first sentence? > 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.

jameshart 3y ago

What if the electricity operator failed to control the frequency or voltage of their supply correctly and caused too much power to go to their customers? It seems reasonable for your electricity meter (which is usually supplied by your electricity supplier so their equipment not yours) to trust the electricity supplier in general. There are far worse things the supplier can do to the meter than send erroneous power cycle signals.

mynameisvlad 3y ago
I mean sure but that’s not remotely what’s being discussed here. Those very well could be catastrophic failures, but that doesn’t in any way shape or form change this also being one.
- jameshart 3y ago
  Your argument was ‘the meter should be designed to be robust to software error at the power company’ My argument is that ’software error at the power company’ can easily cause catastrophic failures at the meter, which it stands no chance of being able to prevent. So why should it specifically be built to defend itself against the remote possibility that the master control program sends it too many on/off switch commands too quickly?
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    "robust" doesn't mean "immune to every possible variant". An inability to protect against the wrong voltage doesn't imply you shouldn't bother to protect it against wrong commands. Why should it specifically be built that way? Because it's bad for devices to self-destruct with no attempt at mitigation whatsoever.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    Actually, my argument was "the meter should be designed to be robust enough to prevent this particular issue". As the other commenter stated, that does not in any way imply "robust against all possible issues coming upstream" and it would be ridiculous to expect that.