Is Your Electricity Meter Spying On You?

lee1 writes "If you have a 'smart meter,' it is collecting data that can reveal when you wake up, when you leave for work and come home, when you go on vacation and when you take a shower. This data is commercially valuable and, if sold to third parties, can lead to privacy invasion on a massive scale. The California Public Utility Commission is reacting to the gas and electric company's mass installation of these meters with new proposals for strong privacy protections."

But....

[Haffner]

These are what keep us SAFE because it lets power companies notify law enforcement when our neighbors are growing marijuana! We NEED these to keep us SAFE!

Re:yea and my toaster

[ColdWetDog]

is signalling the CIA

We told you not to go and load Debian on it, but would you listen? No, of course not.

Re:But....

[whovian]

One man's 600 W marijuana farm is another man's compute cluster.

Re:But....

[Anonymous Coward]

LEDs my friend, LEDs ;)

Re:But....

[XxtraLarGe]

Leaving ordinary people unable to afford to flush their toilets, and rich people with lush, green lawns.

The market doesn't solve problems like this very well, contrary to what people seem to believe.

The solution is to have ordinary people deficate/urinate on rich peoples' lawns.