SMART METER ALERT! Stop installation in Sonoma and Marin Counties!

[broadbandersnatch]

[
Interesting presentation by a guy who is more quailified to speak knowledgeably on the subject of the proposed dangers of smart meters than most of us.
Worth watching, even if you're just a cell phone user who worries about long term effects of RF. He elucidates on the subject of relatively low levels not being the whole story with the system. Pretty good presentation with some scientific background that I found helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLeC...ayer_embedded#!

QUOTE=spam1;127355]No, I didn't suppose so. You don't want to be confused by the facts. I, on the other hand, could be convinced the other direction (it is rational to think it is possible for RF to cause disease, but so far the preponderance of the evidence says at most small risk for even large RF energy of hand held phones and I infer smaller risk for smart meters that produce 1/400,000 the energy ). I would be curious, however, if you do own a cell phone or a cordless phone or have ever used one?
And as I said, the RF question is completely unrelated to the question of meters that can monitor usage and charge time of use rates. But one goal of a forum is to educate others, and one way to do that is try to post unbiased facts.
And also as I said, I don't care whether smart meters are installed or not, but just like the fraudulent vaccine scare, this fraudulent scare about RF from smart meters causing disease just doesn't sit well with me. Nor not I believe in space aliens, psychic predictions of the future, homeopathy, the healing power of crystals, or most religious statements. So I will keep posting a reasonable position as my public service. And you do have another choice, unsubscribe from PGE...it's just that simple. And if irrational people from the left and from the right (tea party) are against something, it's probably a sign to support it for all of us in the center.[/QUOTE]

[Sabrina]

Thank you broadbandersnatch! And reminder to folks, check the other post I put up on wacco that has the newly published Sage Report that is ALL about the Science that Rob is speaking about. See: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showth...190#post127190.. or the actual report site here: https://sagereports.com/smart-meter-rf/.

[
Interesting presentation by a guy who is more quailified to speak knowledgeably on the subject of the proposed dangers of smart meters than most of us.
Worth watching, even if you're just a cell phone user who worries about long term effects of RF. He elucidates on the subject of relatively low levels not being the whole story with the system. Pretty good presentation with some scientific background that I found helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLeC...ayer_embedded#!

QUOTE=spam1;127355]No, I didn't suppose so. You don't want to be confused by the facts. I, on the other hand, could be convinced the other direction (it is rational to think it is possible for RF to cause disease, but so far the preponderance of the evidence says at most small risk for even large RF energy of hand held phones and I infer smaller risk for smart meters that produce 1/400,000 the energy ). I would be curious, however, if you do own a cell phone or a cordless phone or have ever used one?
And as I said, the RF question is completely unrelated to the question of meters that can monitor usage and charge time of use rates. But one goal of a forum is to educate others, and one way to do that is try to post unbiased facts.
And also as I said, I don't care whether smart meters are installed or not, but just like the fraudulent vaccine scare, this fraudulent scare about RF from smart meters causing disease just doesn't sit well with me. Nor not I believe in space aliens, psychic predictions of the future, homeopathy, the healing power of crystals, or most religious statements. So I will keep posting a reasonable position as my public service. And you do have another choice, unsubscribe from PGE...it's just that simple. And if irrational people from the left and from the right (tea party) are against something, it's probably a sign to support it for all of us in the center.

[/QUOTE]

[spam1]

[
Interesting presentation by a guy who is more quailified to speak knowledgeably on the subject of the proposed dangers of smart meters than most of us.
Worth watching, even if you're just a cell phone user who worries about long term effects of RF. He elucidates on the subject of relatively low levels not being the whole story with the system. Pretty good presentation with some scientific background that I found helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLeC...ayer_embedded#!

I watch this in its entirety and I notice that he only cites reports for Cherry and Havas which seem to be the only researchers who find these effects. Just a year before the San Francisco Dept of Public Health issued a report ( https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/repo...dRpt032001.pdf ) that concluded "this review has not found substantial epidemiological evidence to support an
association of radiofrequency radiation with cancer. Furthermore, two prior San Francisco childhood
cancer studies found no evidence of childhood cancer clusters in the neighborhoods surrounding the
tower. The association of adult and childhood cancers and broadcast tower RFR exposure do not appear
to be supported by the epidemiological literature, therefore studies of neighborhoods near the tower are
not warranted at this time". It's informing to note that that these negative results are never mentioned those who have already reached a conclusion.

With respect to ElectroSensistivity, I have yet to find one example except Havas, which has been quoted and requoted so many times that it seems there are "many reports" that all go back to a single author. A google search on "wifi heartrate" produces many results, every single one of which that indicates wifi affects heart rates goes back to this single report. My conclusion is that there is exactly 1 result showing an effect. I don't say that it can't happen, but if the effect was so strong as to be a concern, I would think that some major research institute would be able to reproduce it.

What I haven't seen is a single report from a well respected research center; show me something from UC Berkeley, Standford, UCLA, MIT, Harvard Medical or Caltech? Most studies that are well controlled and well done always end up with the problem of "a priori hypothesis" and many studies don't consider the "null case", typically because the researchers are not well based in statistics.

[podfish]

... he only cites reports for Cherry and Havas which seem to be the only researchers who find these effects.... Most studies that are well controlled and well done always end up with the problem of "a priori hypothesis" and many studies don't consider the "null case", typically because the researchers are not well based in statistics.

that's what I saw as well. The interpretation of medical statistics is really really hard. Even among professionals it's a problem, and when us amateurs try to determine what to believe it's especially tricky. So of course you can't say that EMF is harmless, and that electrosensitives don't exist as such. But there's certainly no compelling evidence that EMF does cause harm at these levels and that people (and bleeding trees) really do react to cell-phone radiation. So we're back to choosing which wars to fight. One point the guy in the video made, that this is potentially sustained, rather than intermittent, radiation does make sense - if you accept that there's a problem at all. I'm not overly impressed with his credentials - he's in related fields, but not a specialist, and Havas is even less well credentialed. He also claims that in civil engineering the standards always are set to account for the worst-case risk which is disingenuous at best, further hurting his credibility. He's an appealing speaker, though.
In the end, though, as several other posters have touched on, we're surrounded by nasty health risks imposed on us by modern society. This one seems like an odd one to push to the head of the list, though it's one of the few that maybe can be resisted with tinfoil hats.

[Sabrina]

Here is just a smattering of the many links to recent studies and excerpts showing harmful effects of low level radiation from all sorts of wireless technologies emitting low level radiation as posted in the US National Laboratory of Medicine, all published in 2010.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20807179.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20807176.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20809504
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20701462
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20622138
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20816824
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20816755
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20607743
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20824388
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20690107
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20569191
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20176397

And here is a very good story by Michael Segell of Prevention Magazine citing all sorts of studies including some being done in US, published one year ago, and printed in main stream MSNBC: .https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34509513/ns/health-cancer/

And finally, here is another page from a site called Power Watch that has numerous down-loadable reports on EMF harm / un-safety. https://www.powerwatch.org.uk/library/index.asp. (Note: Just because a report is not about Smart Meters, as per say, it may be about the same technology containing same / similar amounts of RF Pulse radiation.

ONE OF THE WORST THINGS ABOUT SMART METERS COMPARED WITH CELL PHONES, WI FI, ETC. IS THAT WE HAVE A CHOICE ABOUT USING THEM; BUT NOT WITH SMART METERS. IT'S ALSO A VIOLATION OF OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS BECAUSE PG&E IS NOT THE GOVT. THEY ARE A PUBLICLY TRADED CORPORATION; THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO READ AND MAINTAIN THEIR METERS, BUT NOT CHANGE OUR QUALITY OF LIFE.

I don't have the time that others on this thread seem to have to write about all my personal opinions and conclusions, besides, I'm not a scientist. I just know that the evidence has been compiling for probably 20 + years on the potential harms of EMF / RF radiation (probably much longer - I saw some studies back to the 1970's); and I simply can't stand by and act like what I've presented is just a bunch of irrational / Ignorant blather as a few on this thread have tried to insinuate. I feel I must respond with actual documentation (as I have time and as i receive it) so people can can decide for themselves.

I watch this in its entirety and I notice that he only cites reports for Cherry and Havas which seem to be the only researchers who find these effects. Just a year before the San Francisco Dept of Public Health issued a report ( https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/repo...dRpt032001.pdf ) that concluded "this review has not found substantial epidemiological evidence to support an association of radiofrequency radiation with cancer. Furthermore, two prior San Francisco childhood
cancer studies found no evidence of childhood cancer clusters in the neighborhoods surrounding the tower. The association of adult and childhood cancers and broadcast tower RFR exposure do not appear to be supported by the epidemiological literature, therefore studies of neighborhoods near the tower are not warranted at this time". It's informing to note that that these negative results are never mentioned those who have already reached a conclusion.

With respect to ElectroSensistivity, I have yet to find one example except Havas, which has been quoted and requoted so many times that it seems there are "many reports" that all go back to a single author. A google search on "wifi heartrate" produces many results, every single one of which that indicates wifi affects heart rates goes back to this single report. My conclusion is that there is exactly 1 result showing an effect. I don't say that it can't happen, but if the effect was so strong as to be a concern, I would think that some major research institute would be able to reproduce it.

What I haven't seen is a single report from a well respected research center; show me something from UC Berkeley, Standford, UCLA, MIT, Harvard Medical or Caltech? Most studies that are well controlled and well done always end up with the problem of "a priori hypothesis" and many studies don't consider the "null case", typically because the researchers are not well based in statistics.

[Sabrina]

For those who've been following this thread, I wanted to call your attention to a new article that just came out in the NY Times regarding The CPUC's considering whether to offer wired or opt-out alternatives to wireless SmartMeter's due to the large number of northern CA folks opposed to them. See WaccoBB link here: https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...eters-Persists

And original NY Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/0...ute-96087.html

[daynurse]

Thought it was important to change the subject line to add Marin. Peggy

[Sabrina]

Pretty soon we can ad Mendocino too. They are just starting to get mobilized up there, as the meters are not yet, but about to be deployed. They're having a Mendocino board of supes meeting on Jan 25 to discuss the possibilities of a moratorium or opt-out choice for Smartmeter. I wonder how many are on this board from Mendo yet?

[nicofrog]

Do you think "chasing them off" is going to stop them? I don't understand the fuss. EMFs are all around us, how is not having a smart meter going to change the effects from an environment that is already flooded with EMFs? I live in Sebastopol, asked for and got a smart meter last May. No problems so far. Probably less signal strength than the wireless router, microwave and cel phone.

Because,Smart meters work like a cell phone.
they are completely traceable,and fully capable of recording and transmitting information about every single thing you do that's electric
in your entire property.welcome to the future,and your borg home.,as for emf's I am reminded of the guy I met in Mexico who said about
d. d .t ." Heck ,I DRINK the stuff, and it doesn't hurt me."..(yet)...wonder how he's doing now 20 years later.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Smartmeters may be capable of transmitting information about the energy use of particular appliances, but at the moment that information is not available to them: you need to get a "smart appliance" or retrofit your appliance with a sensor to monitor its energy use and communicate that to the Smartmeter.

It's probably possible to develop software that can guess with a good accuracy what appliance is responsible for a spike in your energy use, as in this explanation and discussion of the smart energy project Goggle is working on.



https://gigaom.com/cleantech/google-...r-energy-data/

Because, Smart meters work like a cell phone. they are completely traceable,and fully capable of recording and transmitting information about every single thing you do that's electric in your entire

[boB Phelps]

Every day "Big Brother" finds new ways to track the activity of our fellow man. With Smart Meters invading our homes, observing our energy usage and any intangibles related to energy use, the manner with which we lead our lives, without scrutiny, has lost another dimension. EMF's are much less relevant to this issue, than our personal privacy. Once lost, it's virtually impossible to get it back.

[Zeno Swijtink]

PG&E is indeed not the best entity to implement a Smart Meter program.

But the community has a clear interest in making sure people do not waste energy, since that energy is produced in a manner that affects the community in negative way: atmospheric pollutants and other environmental impacts, but also the economic negativities of waste and other health impacts of the energy network.

What other ways can you think of to balance these two interests?

[Sabrina]

Bob, you saw the legal doc. I had attached here somewhere (can find for you if you need me to) to either file a small claims court action if you have a smart meter installed, and another "notice" that they could be sued if they have not put on a smart meter yet, warning them not to install? We have to fight them from all angles; privacy and health are all important to the various citizens involved in the fight. We just need not to fight among one another as to which part of the Smart Meter issue you care more about; Let's just all come together and battle this thing. Believe me, it's a lot easier for them to take up the fight than us because all of their political activists will be paid lobbyists vs. the people who are working their butts off just to survive., and this battle will be volunteer, the only, and extremely important benefit is keeping our constitutional and health freedoms.

[Sabrina]

Did you see the article I posted on wacco the other day https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...764#post127764? This article talks about the CPUC looking at other possibilities such as a new wired meter and ways to opt out of the wireless smart meter. So to balance what the two interests, it's not necessary, and apparently contradictory (i.e. health concerns in the environment to use wireless smart meters) to use the wireless smart meter technology.

PG&E is indeed not the best entity to implement a Smart Meter program.

But the community has a clear interest in making sure people do not waste energy, since that energy is produced in a manner that affects the community in negative way: atmospheric pollutants and other environmental impacts, but also the economic negativities of waste and other health impacts of the energy network.

What other ways can you think of to balance these two interests?

[boB Phelps]

PG&E is indeed not the best entity to implement a Smart Meter program.

But the community has a clear interest in making sure people do not waste energy, since that energy is produced in a manner that affects the community in negative way: atmospheric pollutants and other environmental impacts, but also the economic negativities of waste and other health impacts of the energy network.

What other ways can you think of to balance these two interests?

Smart Meters do not measure pollution or pollutants, nor are all energy producing processes damaging They are also not capable of determining if the energy is wasted, or just how it is being used............yet. They do create trending patterns, allowing utilities to begin augmentation of Demand based billing, floating the billing rates as they see fit. The regulatory process has been flawed for almost 15 years and is still strongly influenced by big oil and gas.
We live in one of the most energy and environmentally sensitive areas of the country. You could go virtually anywhere else in the country and find energy/environmental waste easier than you would here. Try looking into the residences of our leaders, our celebrities, our rich and famous. Look at how inefficiently our major corporations are being run. Don't make us your "whipping boys" for excessive and probably unethical scrutiny.
Lastly, the first sentence of your dialog mentions The community concern regarding waste. This is not community scrutiny, but a major corporation, who will do the best job they can to turn their new data acquisition systems into money in their pockets, at our expense. I was an Environmental Specialist for an investor owned utility for over 14 years and they had much higher scruples than P,G & E ever will. They cannot be trusted.

[jbox]

Every day "Big Brother" finds new ways to track the activity of our fellow man. With Smart Meters invading our homes, observing our energy usage and any intangibles related to energy use, the manner with which we lead our lives, without scrutiny, has lost another dimension. EMF's are much less relevant to this issue, than our personal privacy. Once lost, it's virtually impossible to get it back.

Well, thanks for that, Bro Bob. Let me say this about that. As long as the dreaded smartmeter doesn't monitor our precious bodily fluids and take them away in the middle of the night without our knowledge mebbe I'm a gonna be OK.

[podfish]

I recall a story I read a long time ago, by Robert Heinlein, prescient as he so often was; it was called "Waldo" (that's a wikilink). In his story, the radiant energy put into the air is also a hazard ignored by most people but it's finally recognized. (I read it a long time ago, and I forget the details.)
But remembering it made me think of an imminent radiant hazard that's going to be at least as scary. We're now talking about low-energy signals, but have any of you noticed the recent release of wireless chargers?? There's a lot of work being done to eliminate power cords and plug-in chargers. If you want to worry about radiant energy, those are going to be far more energetic emitters than anything we're dealing with now - the whole point of them is to pump RF across the room!

[bythe9s]

Here Here... Save my precious bodily fluids. I for one would love real time cost data resolved down to the device level, not just for electric but for gas and water. I already track my automobile fuel usage and use the data to be more efficient why not at home too?

[Sabrina]

As I mentioned somewhere earlier, Mendocino Co is now getting up in arms over the unconstitutionality of the Smart Meters, not to mention health concerns to boot! See this article: https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_17134070, and note comments at bottom of article as well. If any one wants a sign, bumpersticker, or to take particular action against installed smart meters go here:https://www.refusesmartmeters.com/
They've got a regular business going on to eradicate the meters.... (or you could get ideas and make your own stuff)

[Sasu]

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted a one year Smart Meter moratorium today!!
That makes THREE counties who've passed ordinances against Smart Meters. (Marin, Mendocino and Santa Cruz)

How about SONOMA COUNTY?
Call Supervisor Carrillo, or your supervisor at 565-2241
ALSO call State Senator Noreen Evans and ask her to support the right to opt out AB 37 576-2771
Thanks,
Sandi

[phooph]

I have taken a wait and see attitude toward the Smart meter issue and thought I would post what I have seen so far.

A SM was installed in our house in Santa Rosa a few months ago and the install went OK. I was at home and the very brief power outage did not seem to affect anything. A couple of people on my computer user group reported that the process zapped their electronics, killing computers, modems, routers, printers, etc. They applied to PG&E for reparations.

When it was very quiet I began to notice a humming sound coming from my boom box when it was turned off. I did not realize it was related to the SM till I heard someone mention on the radio that since their SM was installed their electronics had been humming when off. My more expensive electronics including my computer are plugged into an uninteruptable power supply battery backup that "conditions" electricity. I may need to plug my boom box into that too.

A couple weeks ago a friend who lives in the Rosenberg building at the corner of 4th and Mendocino mentioned the building had been out of hot water for three days. Later he told me that his 2nd floor apartment was flooded, and the flood was due to pipes freezing in that very cold weather we had. It seems that the SM system decided the building was using too much electricity and shut off power to the hot water heating system, thus allowing the pipes to freeze. Multiple apartments were flooded as water cascaded from the top floor down through the building.

[edie]

The Smart M System does not turn electricity off because of too much usage! I just talked to PG&E. The only time they cut your power off is when you didn't pay your bills. The Rosenberg building probably had some other problems. please check it out.

[phooph]

My friend told me that was what they were told by the building management, but it could be that the SM has become a convenient scapegoat. On the other hand, it seems that SMs are capable of turning off stuff without PG&E having a clue.

https://rdist.root.org/2010/02/15/re...a-smart-meter/

[daynurse]

The information you pointed to is so very important, I decided to paste some of it here. Seems from the first comment, it is already being used to turn off air conditioners in New Jersey.

February 15, 2010

Reverse-engineering a smart meter

Filed under: Embedded,Hacking,Hardware,Reverse engineering,RFID,Security — Nate Lawson @ 7:00 am

In 2008, a nice man from PG&E came out to work on my house. He installed a new body for the gas meter and said someone would come by later to install the electronics module to make it a “smart meter“. Since I work with security for embedded systems, this didn’t sound very exciting. I read up on smart meters and found they not only broadcast billing information (something I consider only a small privacy risk) but also provide remote control. A software bug, typo at the control center, or hacker could potentially turn off my power and gas. But how vulnerable was I actually?

I decided to look into how smart meters work. Since the electronics module never was installed, I called up various parts supply houses to try to buy one. They were quite suspicious, requesting company background info and letterhead before deciding if they could send an evaluation sample. Even though this was long before IOActive outed smart meter flaws to CNN, they had obviously gotten the message that these weren’t just ordinary valves or pipes.

Power, gas, and water meters have a long history of tampering attacks. People have drilled into them, shorted them out, slowed them down, and rewired them to run backwards. I don’t think I need to mention that doing those kinds of things is extremely dangerous and illegal. This history is probably why the parts supplier wasn’t eager to sell any smart meter boards to the public.
There’s always an easier way. By analyzing the vendor’s website, I guessed that they use the same radio module across product lines and other markets wouldn’t be so paranoid. Sure enough, the radio module for a water meter made by the same vendor was available on Ebay for $30. It arrived a few days later.

The case was hard plastic to prevent water damage. I used a bright light and careful tapping to be sure I wasn’t going to cut into anything with the Dremel. I cut a small window to see inside and identified where else to cut. I could see some of the radio circuitry and the battery connector.

After more cutting, it appeared that the battery was held against the board by the case and had spring-loaded contacts (see above). This would probably zeroize the device’s memory if it was cut open by someone trying to cheat the system. I applied hot glue to hold the contacts to the board and then cut away the rest of the enclosure.

Inside, the board had a standard MSP430F148 microcontroller and a metal cage with the radio circuitry underneath. I was in luck. I had previously obtained all the tools for working with the MSP430 in the Fastrak transponder. These CPUs are popular in the RFID world because they are very low power. I used the datasheet to identify the JTAG pinouts on this particular model and found the vendor even provided handy pads for them.

Since the pads matched the standard 0.1″ header spacing, I soldered a section of header directly to the board. For the ground pin, I ran a small wire to an appropriate location found with my multimeter. Then I added more hot glue to stabilize the header. I connected the JTAG cable to my programmer. The moment of truth was at hand — was the lock bit set?

Not surprisingly (if you read about the Fastrak project), the lock bit was not set and I was able to dump the firmware. I loaded it into the IDA Pro disassembler via the MSP430 CPU plugin. The remainder of the work would be to trace the board’s IO pins to identify how the microcontroller interfaced with the radio and look for protocol handling routines in the firmware to find crypto or other security flaws.

I haven’t had time to complete the firmware analysis yet. Given the basic crypto flaws in other smart meter firmware (such as Travis Goodspeed finding a PRNG whose design was probably drawn in crayon), I expect there would be other stomach-churning findings in this one. Not even taking rudimentary measures such as setting the lock bit does not bode well for its security.

I am not against the concept of smart meters. The remote reading feature could save a lot of money and dog bites with relatively minimal privacy exposure, even if the crypto was weak. I would be fine if power companies offered an opt-in remote control feature in exchange for lower rates. Perhaps this feature could be limited to cutting a house’s power to 2000 watts or something.

However, something as important as turning off power completely should require a truck roll. A person driving a truck will not turn off the mayor’s power or hundreds of houses at once without asking questions. A computer will. Remote control should not be a mandatory feature bundled with remote reading.

Comments (40)

40 Comments

1. “I would be fine if power companies offered an opt-in remote control feature in exchange for lower rates. Perhaps this feature could be limited to cutting a house’s power to 2000 watts or something.”
   The power company (PSE&G? I can’t remember) that serves a relatives’ house in New Jersey has been doing this for something on the order of a decade. My relatives get better electricity rates in the summer in exchange for PSE&G being able to disable their central A/C for up to two hours in peak load times. (The agreement has stated limits on how long and for how often the central A/C can be disabled for.)
   In nearly all cases, this just results in the A/C running harder during the non-disabled periods, however this is advantageous for PSE&G because they can control which A/C units are running when, as opposed to the possibility that all A/C units on the system will trip their thermostats at the same time.
   Comment by Andy — February 15, 2010 @ 10:54 am
   
   
   
   • 
     Right, that’s the way I think it should work. There should be a local override so if you really want to turn your AC on, you just end up paying more. Having a remote disconnect feature is what I find most dangerous about these systems. After that, maybe forged billing records would be a secondary concern.

My friend told me that was what they were told by the building management, but it could be that the SM has become a convenient scapegoat. On the other hand, it seems that SMs are capable of turning off stuff without PG&E having a clue.

https://rdist.root.org/2010/02/15/re...a-smart-meter/

[podfish]

yep, while I'm unconvinced about any significant health risks posed by these, if you generally want to resist big brother you're going to hate these. Because they certainly do give PG&E a much finer-grained control. However, when you purchase a service, over the years the providers of it are going to get more sophisticated than the original drop-the-coal-off-in-the-cellar approach that was common last century. So I do find it so last-century to wish that the features remain the way they were with the old dial meters. Kind of like the way Sacramentans resist having -any- water meters.
But they're sure hackable. The proverbial Ukrainians can probably shut them off at will. So we'll be more vulnerable. Of course, realize that the controllers for the big distribution lines are pretty likely to be nearly as poorly designed, and they make much better targets for hackery. Can't wait....

[edie]

My friend told me that was what they were told by the building management, but it could be that the SM has become a convenient scapegoat. On the other hand, it seems that SMs are capable of turning off stuff without PG&E having a clue.

https://rdist.root.org/2010/02/15/re...a-smart-meter/

PG&E told me the SMs are not able to cut the power off. I asked if in the near future they told me no.

[Sabrina]

Actually as one of the citizens chosen to sit on the PG& E Citizens advisory board (chosen by PG& E for being one of several with a big mouth complaining about the smart meters), Austin Sharp, of PG&E told us that Yes the smart meters can shut off the power. It's as simple as a remote control turning it off. It's actually the meter is shut down, thus shutting down your power. Or were you referring to the power surges that can shut off appliances or devices through overload, or make them act funny? This also has been documented. Here's an article that talks about it: https://stopsmartmeters.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/smart-meter-interfering-with-your-appliances-well-be-right-out-smart-meter-interfering-with-your-sleep-sorry-youre-out-of-luck/
And here is the link to the recent Sage report (https://sagereports.com/smart-meter-rf/) as discussed earlier today on KPFA with Layna Berman on her show "Your Own Health and Fitness. See Layna's page on that here, you can also see where to listen to todays show: https://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/radioshow.php

[daynurse]

Not too sure why you would believe PG&E is a good source for the truth.
Peggy

The Smart M System does not turn electricity off because of too much usage! I just talked to PG&E. The only time they cut your power off is when you didn't pay your bills. The Rosenberg building probably had some other problems. please check it out.

[edie]

Not too sure why you would believe PG&E is a good source for the truth.
Peggy

This is the big question... PG&E or something somebody said that somebody told somebody said so and so...

[Sabrina]

Could you elaborate what you mean Edie, by "...or something somebody said that somebody told somebody said so and so..."? I think there have been lots of documentation here.