The internationally award-winning documentary Take Back Your Power, originally released in 2013, exposed the ‘smart’ meter agenda.
Watch the new and updated 2017 Final Cut of Take Back Your Power for FREE through to August 11th (for Australian viewers this equates to the afternoon of August 12th) at: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/08/05/smart-meter-dangers.aspx
Read more →“Alexa, make tea. Now.” Wouldn’t it be great if we all had our own intelligent robot house assistants to deal with the boring chores of everyday life? “OK, Google, dim the lights.”
So-called “smart homes” offer varying degrees of automated assistance, and Google Home, launched this week in Australia, is multi-talented – it can speak with an Australian accent, translate phrases, do simple sums, get definitions, play music, and list news stories, among other skills.
Alexa, the tea-maker, is Amazon’s voice-controlled personal helper and she sometimes features in new-age homes. Sadly, it seems Alexa, being American, has had some trouble with Australian accents and occasionally stumbles. If you ask her to make tea she might play you a Beatles song… SNIP
Read more →While all the publicity with wireless technology advances centers around the so-called Internet of Things (IoT) where all our devices, even the humble toothbrush, can wirelessly communicate with each other, giving rise to the smart home, little has been publicised about the military applications of the IoT concept. Known as the “Internet of Battlefield Things” (IoBT) it is but the latest version of the old military-industrial complex, which Eisenhower warned us about in 1961, taking advantage of new technology to create and sell, at great profit, new killing technology thereby ensuring an endless state of war which is essential for their very profitable business.
Read on…
Read more →“You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”–George Orwell, 1984
Even Orwell didn’t envision when, even in the darkness of the night, every movement will be scrutinized if you purchase the growing line of smart beds. Take for example,
“Innovation and the IoT Are Making Our Beds Really Smart”. SNIP….
Read more →ABC News Australia
Excerpt
Smart electricity meters carry vulnerabilities that could assist burglars and compromise privacy, but Australian households are not being warned of the risks, a leading cyber-security expert has warned.
Nigel Phair from the University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety compiled a report on the risks of smart meters, which send data on a home’s utility use back to providers remotely rather than being read manually by an inspector.
The report said some smart meters, mostly used for gas and water, only sent information one way and were safe.
However, risks were particularly evident when a connection between the meter and provider sent information both ways – as is generally the case with smart electricity meters.
“It can mean anything from malicious software being pushed to that device, and amongst a smart-connected house, pushed to other devices,” SNIP
Read more →According to Elon Musk, as a result of the loss of human jobs as a result of automation’ “people will have time to do other things, more complex things, more interesting things,” He added that these people will have “certainly more leisure time” and “will be sustained by payments from the government”. Well, just where will this money come from? Perhaps the robots will have to chip in and pay taxes? But robots don’t get wages so what then?
Sorry but the numbers simply do not stack up….SNIP
Read more →The UK’s unemployment statistics are about to get far worse with Theresa May’s high tech industrial policy (below). This policy promotes: (1) a nation-wide rollout of 5G which is necessary for the Internet of Things (IoT); (2) smart grids and smart meters; and (3) artificial intelligence/robotics. Putting aside the issues around 5G and the smart grid, the rise of the age of robots inherent in May’s policy stands to replace the jobs of millions of UK workers with robotics according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report found in part that: …SNIP
Read more →Excerpt:
Billions more everyday items are set to be connected to the internet in the next few years, especially as chips get cheaper and cheaper to produce — and crucially, small enough to fit into even the smallest product.
Potentially, any standard household item could become connected to the internet, even if there’s no reason for the manufacturers to do so.
Eventually that processors needed to power an IoT device will become effectively free, making it possible to turn anything into a internet-enabled device…..
Read more →Excerpt
University Study Exposes Smart Meters Inflating Power Consumption Readings
Posted on March 31, 2017 by Stop Smart Meters Australia
Smart meters overcharge consumers by up to 582% while at the same time collecting owner’s data which is then sold to third parties for further profit, according to the first major university study into the controversial technology.
The University of Twente (UT) in the Netherlands, in collaboration with the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) published the results of a major study into the nine most popular smart meters used in the United States and United Kingdom, with the conclusion that smart meters routinely overcharge consumers, often by staggering amount.
“In the experiments (which were entirely reproducible), five of the nine smart meters gave readings that were much higher than the actual amount of power consumed. Indeed, in some setups, these were up to 582 percent higher.” SNIP
Read more →When I was five, my parents got me a robot. Connected to a wired controller, I could move it back and forth, raise its arms, flash lights and plenty of other awesome things that would spark any child’s imagination. I loved that robot even though it sucked in a few different ways.
It made me want to improve it and I would dream of ways it could be better, like having it talk to other robots and machines (I was a tad too young for The Terminator at this point) or making it do things for me. Thanks to the internet and the advancement of robotics, my boyhood dreams are coming true.
We are at the dawn of this era and the Internet of Things (IoT) explosion is the foundation for this advancement. Sadly, though, we must take the good with the bad. As we make our lives more convenient with IoT devices, we must also take notice of the increasing cybersecurity threats and issues accompanying this evolution. SNIP
Read more →Cyberattacks on the Internet of Things Are Forthcoming. Intel predicts the IoT will reach 1.8 billion devices by 2019 and furthermore believes security threats to these devices will be growing quickly.
University researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University and Stanford University are already using IoT for research. “Our first best practice is to make sure we aren’t putting IoT devices into our environment with their default passwords,” says Pitt. “Hackers can easily take advantage of those vulnerabilities.” SNIP
From The Internet of Things World:
Many countries are beginning to develop their regulatory framework in relation to IoT with 2016 seeing notable progress in the UK and Singapore in particular. Issues in relation to roaming, data protection, privacy and network security have been identified and broadly agreed upon by regulators across the world.
But what happens next? SNIP…..
Read more →As Australia rapidly rolls out the smart electricity grid with smart meters for every household as an essential part of the $17 trillion Internet of Things (IoT)technological ‘revolution’, little heed is given for the grid/meters vulnerability to hackers. Already there have been reports of household wi-fi enabled appliances being hacked and there are concerns over the vulnerability of smart meters to being hacked.
A Brave New World or Hackers Heaven? Read on.
Excerpt
“The [Mirai] malware… spreads to vulnerable devices by continuously scanning the Internet for IoT systems protected by factory default or hard-coded usernames and passwords,” explained KrebsonSecurity. “The insecure IoT devices are then loaded with malicious software, transforming them into “bots” and forcing them to report to a central control server, which is utilized to launch massive DDoS attacks in an effort to knock websites offline.”
Read more →From ARS Technica
Its new fridge includes Amazon’s Alexa and a bunch of cameras.
Andrew Cunningham – 1/5/2017, 6:20 AM
Excerpt
In the past few years, products at CES have increasingly focused on putting the Internet in everything, no matter how “dumb” the device in question is by nature. It’s how we’ve ended up with stuff like this smart hairbrush, this smart air freshener, these smart ceiling fans, or this $100 pet food bowl that can order things from Amazon.
Now that phenomenon is reaching its logical endpoint: during the company’s CES press conference today, LG marketing VP David VanderWaal says that “starting this year” all of LG’s home appliances will feature “advanced Wi-Fi connectivity.” One of the flagship appliances that will make good on this promise is the Smart Instaview Refrigerator, a webOS-powered Internet-connected fridge that among other things supports integration with Amazon’s Alexa service. SNIP……
Read more →Here is a very interesting posting on the Smart Grid Awareness web site. Recommended!
We’re Being “Hunted” by Smart Meters and the Internet of Things
Posted on January 13, 2017 by SkyVision Solutions
Excerpt
In an age when people’s lives are constantly tracked, recorded, analyzed, and shared by private parties, the doctrine holding that “information knowingly exposed to private parties is unprotected by the Fourth Amendment,” now threatens to swallow whole the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.
The “Internet of Things” refers to the prospect that nearly everything that can be connected to the Internet will be in the near future. According to one study, by the year 2020, more than 30 billion devices could be wirelessly connected to the Internet. Everything from televisions to refrigerators to electricity meters will be capable of recording data and transferring that data to third parties, with or without a user’s knowledge or consent. SNIP
Read more →From Nick Hunn’s blog Creative Connectivity
June 8th, 2014 | Published in Smart Energy |
There‘s a lot of talk about grid security and data privacy in the energy industry, but very little about the consequences of what happens if smart meters go wrong. By going wrong, I don‘t just mean people attempting to hack their meters to reduce their bills.That will probably happen.I‘m more interested in the nightmare scenario when several million electricity meters suddenly disconnect……In other words, it could happen. It doesn’t need to happen now. Once they’re deployed, utilities aim to update the programs in these meters as new functionality is developed or bugs fixed. So at any point in their lives, new malicious code could be inserted…. SNIP
Read more →As Australia hurriedly legislates to make the smart grid an essential part of the nation’s energy future, promoted by a large number of corporate vested interests, little or no concern is being given to a number of risks inherent in what is essentially a new and inadequately tested technology. I have primarily been writing about the health risks which, to date, absolutely no research has been done to quantify that risk. Although it has been claimed that no research is necessary because the exposure levels from smart meters are far below the standard limits, in reality it is because this type of research is seen as a “Pandora’s Box” for a rapid global roll-out of the technology.
However, all that aside, another emerging risk not yet adequately addressed is the overall smart grid’s exposure to cyber attacks through cloud data storage and smart meters, as the following report examines.
Abstract
Cities around the world are becoming increasingly smart, which creates huge attack surfaces for potential cyber attacks. In this paper, IOActive Labs CTO Cesar Cerrudo provides an overview of current cyber security problems affecting cities as well real threats and possible cyber attacks that could have a huge impact on cities. Cities must take defensive steps now, and Cesar offers recommendations to help them get started.
Excerpt
Smart Grid Energy is the life line of a city; without energy there is no smart city. Last year, researchers Alberto Garcia Illera and Javier Vazquez Vidal at Black Hat Europe demonstrated it was possible to black out big city areas by manipulating smart meters exploiting encryption problems in Power-line Communication (PLC) technologies.
This is not new; years ago Mike Davis of IOActive created the first proof-of-concept worm for the smart grid. Attacks on a smart grid could be devastating, causing millions of dollars in losses and even loss of life. SNIP
Read more →“We specifically have been looking for signatures that match those reported last week by DHS and the FBI related to Russian actors,” Connecticut governor’s office spokesman Chris Collibee said. “We have not detected any activity matching the reported malware at this time.”
In New York, a spokesman said Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed all state agencies to re-examine their computer systems for any security breaches. Nothing had been found.
An attack on a U.S. power grid has long been a nightmare scenario for top U.S. officials. The National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command chief Adm. Michael Rogers have previously warned it’s not a matter of if but when attackers will also target U.S. power systems.” SNIP
Read more →From theconversation.com:
Excerpt
Light globes that change colour with the tap of an app, coffee machines you can talk to, and ovens that know exactly how long to cook your food: our homes are getting smart. These devices, just a few examples of what is known as “the internet of things” (or IOT), have been called the “next great disruptor” and “the second digital revolution”.
One of the great hopes of this revolution is that it will help households save energy. Sensors can turn off lights and appliances when not in use, or turn the heating down when people go to bed. Smartphone apps can provide households with more insight into the energy use of their appliances.
While estimates vary widely, industry proponents suggest that emerging connected home technologies could help households reduce their energy bills by 10-25%. Such claims are largely speculative given the absence of robust “before and after” research.
Social research from Australia and the UK is revealing ways in which IOT might also increase energy demand. We have identified three “hidden” energy impacts which are rarely considered in IOT research or energy-saving predictions. SNIP
Read more →NOTE: In my previous papers and submissions on the negative health impacts of smart meters I took the position that the worst case is when a smart meter is on the external wall next to a bedhead. See a sample of case histories here. One of my recommendations was, if all else fails in avoiding the installation of a smart meter – insure, at least, that it is placed well away from sleeping areas to reduce exposure. In one of the homes I have surveyed they took that advice and had the house wiring altered to have the smart meter placed on the garage wall which was separate from the house.
The following Youtube presentation backs all this up….SNIP
Read more →