Wake up!!

Time to reactivate this blog. the only thing worse than no blog is a dead one.

Ask yourself a question;

How would you feel about your electric meter being controlled from the Internet? How about getting your Internet from your power meter? Sounds silly, right? Maybe not.

Over the last few conferences, I have gotten the impression that some utilities are looking for a way to reduce infrastructure costs and possibly monetize their proposed AMI networks. There has been a strong push toward higher bandwidth, IP to the meter, and even WiFi on the meter. This all smells like Internet via the meter to me.

I CAN see a reasonable commercial/business reason for this. Internet connectivity reaches most places people live these days so why not use this existing network and save the capital costs? Alternatively, if you are going to all the trouble to install this huge network, why not find a way to make it pay for itself? The Telcos and Cable operators did it, why not the utilities?

Why indeed...

There are a few darn good reasons not to. Consider the risks of combining a major control network with a public access medium. The obvious is that it allows remote access to the meter. I don't care how good you think your built-in firewall is, it isn't good enough to mitigate this risk. To an accomplished hacker a firewall is nothing more than a logging router that does NAT. Remote access to a large block of meters is a primary target. With this you can hold an entire city for ransom, wreak havoc, or even weaponize it for a nation/state actor. Next is the Denial of Service (DOS) attack. it doesn't even need to be directed or deliberate. Once the network used to control meters and collect data is overrun with the latest worm traffic, your expensive new AMI system has reverted to the functional equivalent of the old style electro-mechanical meters.

In coming days and week, I will offer fact, opinion, news, and trivia on the new power grid initiatives from an insiders perspective.

Stay tuned!

Robert