As Bob has already shown, it's not "broadband" that is the issue.
Forget the enormous costs ($440/home) shown in the IEEE article. A much greater issue is ownership, control, and boundaries (which come up between utility/consumer and, in this mode, utility/telco). Any system operated by a 3rd party has implications for predictability and control. SLAs are fine, but I know of a smart metering system that failed because the carrier found the penalty lower than the profit margin on sending SMSs (text messages) for paying (non-negotiated bulk) consumers. Meter reading is fine - you can wait, but real-time and *control* applications over WiMax or any other carrier, shared network? One has to think carefully. Rahul On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 4:35 AM, Bob Frankston <[email protected]> wrote: > Even without all the political over tones the word "perfect' seems > antithetical to the idea of resilience. Perhaps one of the "skilled > employees" at the NSA it trying to signal a concern? > > This reminds me of Y2K reasoning in assuming that every system is very > brittle and the only fix is to harden it. In fact the real lesson of Y2K and > the Internet is the power of loose coupling and the constraints of best > efforts which force you to deal with exceptions and verify information. > > It's not just about the NSA butting in but the larger problems with the > so-called "Smart Grid" where all the old ideas seem to go to fester. There > was a worrisome piece, WiMax for Smart Grids > (http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/wimax-for-smart-grids) in > IEEE Spectrum. While much of the confusion may be due to the author of the > piece it does reflect much of this rigid sloppy thinking. The power industry > has long been enamored with the idea of building its own network though > finally, it seems, the Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) cited in the article > may have finally been put to rest. The article itself uses a big number -- > 300 billion bytes per year for the data from a million smart meters -- as a > rationale for requiring a high speed network. Yet 3e11 bytes is 3e12 bits > (10 bits/byte to round up) or (3e12/1e6) 3e6 bits per home per year or 1e4 > per day (300 days rounding the result up) or 1e4/1e5 bits per second > (rounding) or 1e-1 bits per second. 3e11 is a WAG but for those who want > false precision 3e11*8/1e6/365.25/24/3600=.08bps. That's not exactly high > speed. While it's tempting to comment on the article as a blooper reel the > real question is the extent to which it reflects politician/regulator > understanding. > > If the government wants to protect us against attacks shouldn't it be > working on improving the resilience rather fostering a climate of brittle > dependency? > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > Lauren Weinstein > Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 14:22 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [ NNSquad ] Why it's hard to hack the power grid, and why NSA is > the wrong choice to protect it > > > Why it's hard to hack the power grid, and why NSA is the wrong choice to > protect it > > http://bit.ly/9YJocq (Wired) > > --Lauren-- > NNSquad Moderator > > >
