[Cryptography] Gaslighting ~= power droop == side channel attack

[Tom Mitchell]

On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 9:35 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:

> At 11:15 AM 11/29/2016, Home wrote:
> >An "easy" way to swamp out almost all of the usage signal available to
> the meter would be to put a one or two horsepower motor
>
....

> >Besides the initial cost of the equipment, there is the cost of
> constantly using (roughly) 2 kw of electricity just running this device,
> which could be enough electricity to have other snoopy sorts (narcs)
> raiding your house on suspicion of growing pot in the basement, but it
> would keep the smart meter befuddled.
>
> I was also thinking about 1950's/1960's computers, with their multi-KW
> motor/generator power supplies -- capable of powering a small home.
> Ordinarily, these motor/generators might be available as cheap surplus
> items, gathering dust in the back of some warehouse, but I seem to recall
> that these power supplies were the least reliable portions of these early
> transistor computers.
>
> I did love those wastebasket-sized electrolytic capacitors, tho.
>

Me to.. Bigger than a trash can are common on the grid and
are used to tune transmission lines.

Another filter is a Ferroresonant Transformer designed to achieve
regulation with non-linear operation. They provide line regulation, reduce
harmonics, and are current limiting.

This type of transformer can remove the 'signature' of a device.
Total power cannot be hidden,  solar can hide some of it from the meter.
Timing can be load shifted with modern batteries.

While we are at it connection to the ISP and data rate signatures are
telling.
I think "fetchmail", VPN, ssh and cron could help.  A local mail server
in a laptop can allow one to work at a coffee shop and not connect
to a questionable link.

-- 

  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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