smart meters

[vlape at me.com (Vincent Lape)]

the meters in western PA use an inductive probe mounted on the outside  
of the home. the utility worker has to make contact with the probe  
which gives the relative position of the meter gauges.

The power company has been testing some electric meters that transmit  
the data back via the power grid.

I decided to research the meter shown on the video and its kinda cool.  
they can shut service remotely, you can pay from its keypad, seems to  
have all kinds of tamper protection. im trying to get ahold of a tech  
manual
On May 11, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Robin Wood wrote:

> Hi
> Some utility providers are looking at rolling out smart meters for gas
> and electricity which they can read remotely. Does anyone know how
> that works? What are they using to connect to the device to send out
> the data? If it is over your broadband then it won't be long till
> someone sniffs the packets and sends fake readings back, if it is
> wireless and they have a guy drive past then there are similar
> sniffing problems, you also have to worry about interference. They
> could have a GSM card in, in which case, how long till someone cracks
> one open and tries to use the card in a phone, I imagine it would be
> locked to a single number but people would try.
>
> I can't think of a secure and problem free way to do this. Any ideas?
>
> Here is a BBC video about the meters.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8040232.stm
>
> Robin
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