G'day Jan On 7/9/20 9:29 am, jwhit--- via Privacy wrote: > Any truth in this -- you can tell the age of a fridge by a smart meter? > Seriously???? > Not sure it can tell how many people are in the home, either. > Hype in terms of oversell or over-fear? > https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-07/amazon-will-soon-see-inside-millions-of-aussie-homes/12582776
With 5-second- or even 15-second-interval data, the signatures of devices are very distinct. The obvious one is heat-lamps. Basically, once they get organised, police forces will know every smart-meter-connected on-grid indoor marijuana farm, and can then trump up an excuse to go in, and knock 'em off, in whichever order suits them. We can hope they'll limit their focus to the nasty operations and leave the little guys alone. (And, to be fair to the police, I've picked up no vibes of them using the available data to raid 16yo's bedrooms). And it would be very naive to hope that electricity companies would think like utilities and respect the privacy of their subscribers. They're profitable monopolies, and will monetise their massive hoards of personal data. Aded to that, legal protection is a forlorn hope. The Privacy Act was designed to protect corporations from the ravages of privacy law, not personal data from private-sector wolves. So no, it's not an undue scare article. Oh, and unoccupied premises are obvious even with 30-minute-interval data, which even the 15-20 year-old digital interval meters transmit. Surveillance society is alive and well, and there's not enough appreciation of it, nor enough fightback. Regards ... Roger -- Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected] T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W. Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
