Give the power company access to your smart house and….
I love the idea of just saying “Shields up!” or “Activate Barn Door Protocol” and have all my locks, shutters, and access points suddenly armoured up. But, as Scotty said in Star Trek, the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to jam up the pipes. Anytime you give someone access to your personal server, your personal phone, your personal security system, your personal life….you create a possibility of risk. Sometimes the risks are minimal and are outweighed by the rewards. But…it never seems that way when the risk actually catches up. Moral of the story: don’t give the rest of the world freakin’ access to your critical systems.
I wonder if a Faraday cage encasing one of these smart thermostats would be an effective deterrent to unwanted signals.
Andy:
A cage SOUNDS like a good idea, but the meter would stop working because the power company would not be able to tell it to operate.
Heads they win – Tails we lose…
and they know right away when the signal is lost and anyone doing so would be violiating the terms of service and could have the power shut off.
And do not have any “smart ” devices ( Alexa, etc,) in your home
All you people that install aps on your phones really should read the permissions that you are giving away.
Read the one for Zoom,I pointed this out to someone running a teleconference and they immediately shut down and scrambled for a replacement. I estimated the liability from negligence would have been 7-8 figures
I have been on a similar program that allows A/C to be cycled off several times a day for many years(before IOT-utility installed box on exterior A/C control),have never noticed it used but have seen the credit on my bills every month.
I think if you have a smart phone you’re screwed already with regard to privacy . Apps just make a bad situation worse. But you already have bad
See, if you give government control of your life, you’re “smart”.
The electric meter will be the next device to monitor citizens, right behind cell phones. There has already been cases of search warrants being issued for suspected indoor marijuana grow houses based solely on electrical usage.
The utility industry keeps this all very hush hush, even though they get an update from your meter every 15 seconds.
Lower the temp on my AC Hal. ‘…I’m sorry Dave, the system will not allow that right now…’
Jimbo:
Why do you think catching Drug Dealers is a bad thing?
Even bad ideas can have good uses…
drug dealers didn’t kill 100000000 people in the last 100 plus years gov have. The excuse is always, it’s to stop the bad guys. Oh ; but they get to decide who is the bad guy. To gov the bad guy is always the one causing THEM a problem. It would be very interesting to know who has smuggled the most drugs in the last 50 years, the mob or the CIA
This is why I dropped State Farm Car insurance. When first started their safe driver discount just required a hame video class and a mail in test, then it changed to a tracker that plugged into the car and sent data to the company via your phone. No thanks. If memory served correct the device plugged into the cars fault reader port and gave access to the car’s computer to anyone who could hack the company’s app.
I have a Nest T’stat. Edison has contacted me more than once to have me enroll in their remote control program. A hearty “HELL, NO!” was my reply. If you have one of these things and your local provider decides to go Big Brother on you, just disconnect the Nest from your WiFi. True, you lose your remote access to the T’stat, but so does the power company.
I have one of those “discount” boxes on my A/C; the one that allows Edison to turn off the A/C compressor for 15-30 minutes an hour if demand gets too high. I didn’t apply for that discount because they turn off the A/C when you need it most! I’m sure they could do an “imminent domain” thing and take control of it anyway. If they pull that, well, it’s only four wires to bypass it… Funny; there’s not enough power in these states to keep the lights on for its citizens, but there’s enough to GIVE AWAY to all the illegals piling in… Wake up, folks!
Although I’ve been out of the Computer signal / intel biz a few years now, I strongly recommend anyone with any portable device use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). After researching, I picked Surfshark (based in the British Virgin Isles) as it’s a VPN service, data leak detection system, as well as a private search tool. All data transferred via Surfshark servers is encrypted using an AES-256-GCM encryption standard, which is what you want. Price is decent too and covers several devices.
P.S. I’m not affiliated with them, just impressed.
https://surfshark.com/deals?coupon=surfsharkdeal&transaction_id=102245f0d432e4c9986c6d5a915066&offer_id=6&affiliate_id=8870&source=25493dc7-7c9a-4ac4-978e-9340addf6309&aff_sub=&utm_source=Affiliates&utm_medium=8870&utm_campaign=affiliate&recurring_goal_id=6
This makes me wonder how long until the “enlightened” parts of the country mandate this to help protect the environment….
Steelheart
It reminds me of the Romans losing the ability to get clean water via aqueducts. They lost the ability, supposedly. Maybe they were more like us and gave it up (then lost it) in the name of some hokey religion.
We keep our thermostats set at 78 to keep our bill at a reasonable level (usa southwest), which compared to the outside temps is very cool here. I’ve realized over the years that obese people can’t cool off as easy as normal people, and they keep their thermostats set low for this reason. same with restaurants. if everyone would keep their temps at a reasonable number it wouldn’t be an issue. with that said however, if someone is willing to pay the bill they should be able to keep it as low as they desire, and the power companies should be able to handle it, as summer is not a surprise.
I live in the same area and keep my T’stat at 78-80* as well. Unfortunately, the socialist government of CA keeps taxing us to “provide access” to electricity, water, gas, and whatnot, to “low income families.” “Provide access” should read “We steal your money and hand it to illegal aliens and welfare bums in exchange for votes.” On any given day, it’s the LEGAL, WORKING TAXPAYER who is pinching pennies, trying to save a gallon of water or a watt of electricity. The illegals and welfare bums? They use as much as they want without a care. THEY’RE not paying the bill! Funny; Sacramento is always screaming “SHORTAGE!!!” and yet there’s enough to GIVE AWAY to people who don’t even belong in this country…
Amen
Can someone pleases splain to me why it is that so called intelligent people insist on giving control of their lives to other people or some stupid piece of technology. I’m not anti technology, it is good in certain situations and to do certain things, it’s a useful “tool”. What I do detest is the is people insisting it’s a cure all.
As the trend continues it won’t be long before technology and AI are developed to the point of making humans nothing more than a processed food processor. Meaning that everything will be done for you by tech & your sole purpose will be to sit on the crapper and turn food into waste without ever leaving the crapper.
Wake the hell up people, start taking control of your own lives and enjoying and living in the beautiful world provided for you. And you damn sure can’t do that letting someone else or some machine do it for you… Ok, my soapbox just burned down, time to shut my yapper.