surge pricing

QrizB

wild666 said:

Gerry1 said:

Astria said:

Even if you got the data they had, there's still a lot of work to be done just to find out if someone is home. Just use more traditional techniques, it's far easier.

Obvious not so, as demonstrated by Switchee who know all the times when their targets are likely to be in or out.

If usage denotes times people are not at home then some days between 08:00 and 18:00 my meter has registered around 0.02 and 0.04 kWh of usage per hour.

Although you wouldn't guess it from the context, Switchee's product is an internet-connected smart thermostat. It has no connection to your smart meter and does not know your gas usage.

https://www.switchee.co/residents/

https://www.wates.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WIN-Switchee-User-Guide.pdf

[Deleted User]

wild666 said:

Gerry1 said:

Astria said:

Oxy1 said:

 If the meter is capable of transmitting usage data in real time then I would say it is quite possible that criminals will get their hands on that data also in real time.

Even if you got the data they had, there's still a lot of work to be done just to find out if someone is home. Just use more traditional techniques, it's far easier.

Obvious not so, as demonstrated by Switchee who know all the times when their targets are likely to be in or out.

If usage denotes times people are not at home then some days between 08:00 and 18:00 my meter has registered around 0.02 and 0.04 kWh of usage per hour. I am at home in those times as well it's just that I am not using hardly any electric or gas, it might be because I am reading a book, on a kindle, or asleep because of the medication. Some elderly people might also use very little energy, both gas and electric, as they wrap up in multiple layers of clothing in winter and use a hot water bottle as extra heating for the body. I know my gran used to use multiple layers and a hot water bottle, she paid her heating bills and regularly got over £400 per year back every 12 months as she massively overpaid for her electric and gas every year. 

There are easier ways to work out when homes are empty than hacking a smart meter with GCHQ-level layered security. Hacking home routers would be a lot simpler.

Oxy1

Dolor said:

There are easier ways to work out when homes are empty than hacking a smart meter with GCHQ-level layered security. Hacking home routers would be a lot simpler.

Are you really joking about GCHQ level of security?   The fact that energy companies went bust shows that they are grossly incompetent even in basics of business. (The directors should really be jailed but surely they won't. It would take at most just 1 day to explain to anyone who is not totally stupid how to use forward contracts to lock in future prices. So if they issued fixed price contracts they SHOULD have hedged themselves with futures, forwards and options and if they did they would not go bust.) With Cryptography you can have two PhD in it from Oxford and Cambridge and still make a fatal mistake. Then you also have to take into account how many companies are in the chain, how quickly they go bust an so on. Even if correctly implemented at the start (a big assumption to make)  after one event or another (say some person getting sacked or some company going bust) some encryption key leaks and here you go.

And you have to fear governments even more than criminals and those WILL, not just might, have access to the data. Imagine if during lockdown for very valid reasons you visited an elderly relative. Government observed based on your smart meter that you were absent for 2 days and sent you fixed penalty notice. What do you do then? You are 99% sure that you are in the right .... but magistrates nowadays genuinely come from all the professions (including those not very clever) but almost universally they are totally and blindly pro-authority (unlike professional judges). So what do you do:
1. Just accept £100 even though you are 99% sure you did nothing wrong
2. Argue in court knowing that if you loose the cost could run into hundreds of thousands if resultant criminal conviction will ruin your career. You might think you have 99% chance of winning but if you go in without a lawyer your chances could well be well below 50%, perhaps 10%. If you hire a good solicitor than it will be several thousands at least which you will not get back from the government even if you win.

Thrugelmir

Oxy1 said:

Dolor said:

There are easier ways to work out when homes are empty than hacking a smart meter with GCHQ-level layered security. Hacking home routers would be a lot simpler.

 So if they issued fixed price contracts they SHOULD have hedged themselves with futures, forwards and options and if they did they would not go bust.) 

Hedging requires up front cash. Also a double edged sword in that it's possible to lose significant sums of money.  Without significant capital resources the smaller upstarts couldn't have operated a profitable business model nor proven themselves to be solvent. 

[Deleted User]

Oxy1 said:

Dolor said:

There are easier ways to work out when homes are empty than hacking a smart meter with GCHQ-level layered security. Hacking home routers would be a lot simpler.

Are you really joking about GCHQ level of security? 

https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/the-smart-security-behind-the-gb-smart-metering-system

Oxy1

Thrugelmir said:

Oxy1 said:

Dolor said:

There are easier ways to work out when homes are empty than hacking a smart meter with GCHQ-level layered security. Hacking home routers would be a lot simpler.

 So if they issued fixed price contracts they SHOULD have hedged themselves with futures, forwards and options and if they did they would not go bust.) 

Hedging requires up front cash. Also a double edged sword in that it's possible to lose significant sums of money.  Without significant capital resources the smaller upstarts couldn't have operated a profitable business model nor proven themselves to be solvent. 

Not necessarily!  If you use options then it does but then if you are using options you are not just hedging - you are over-hedging and stand to make huge profits if things go your way.

With forwards no initial outlay is required at all, perhaps some small amount to post a margin. A forward is when you contract today to buy at fixed price in the future.

To do what they did (selling energy at fixed price for 1-2 years without entering contracts for buying energy at fixed price or using derivatives to the effect of buying energy at fixed price) is absolutely reckless - they effectively played roulette at the expense of customers and taxpayers. They management should really be jailed for that.

Verdigris

The fact that energy companies went bust shows that they are grossly incompetent even in basics of business.

The fact that the smart meter comms system is run independently of supply companies shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

Oxy1

Verdigris said:

The fact that energy companies went bust shows that they are grossly incompetent even in basics of business.

The fact that the smart meter comms system is run independently of supply companies shows that you don't know what you're talking about.

Related to the management of one of the (perhaps failed) energy companies? I personally have no doubt that at some point at least some smart meters will be hacked. But in any case criminals are the least significant of the threats you have to worry much more about what governments or companies will do with that data.

Gerry1

Oxy1 said:

Astria said:

and how exactly are typical criminals going to get there hands on this information? Not forgetting that even by the time most people get it, it's already out of date as it's not real time.

If you want to find out if someone is home, just go and visit several times a day, it'll be far more useful and easier to obtain.

Look, many people do not trust Google, Facebook or Apple. But those are HUGE multinational companies with valuations in hundreds of billions and truly MASSIVE brand value. They have thousands of mathematicians, cryptographers and programmers working for each of  them.

And compare that to "energy" companies in the UK.....   there have been too many cow boy suppliers. But there are also lots of in-the- middle companies that read your meters, transmit data, etc.  If the meter is capable of transmitting usage data in real time then I would say it is quite possible that criminals will get their hands on that data also in real time. And I once again state that all the hundreds of companies involved in UK consumer energy are not even remotely as sophisticated as Google, Apple or Facebook - and even those sometimes have data breaches.

"Go and visit several times"  - you must be joking! Police prefer not to do that now and criminals also prefer not to do that if the data can be: 1. more reliably 2. easier 3. safer obtained by other means!

You're at risk once your data is uploaded and shared because you don't know how it will be used, and of course you can't stop data leaks and breaches.  For example, Onzo's targeting and monetising is quite scary (it's just one of hundreds of organisations with whom EDF admits that it shares customers' private data). What could possibly go wrong?

Data leaks and breaches are two a penny, especially from overseas call centres, so once it's uploaded and shared you have lost control and are at risk.  When I was a BT customer, I gave them an exclusive email address. It's since been spammed 1755 times. Just as well they don't reach me: I didn't trust BT to keep my data secure so I used a disposable email address.