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

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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 between each 
phase and ground (assuming standard 240V 2 phase house wiring) and use 
an Arduino or Raspberry PI to randomly vary the load on the motor, using 
a cryptographically strong random number generator to vary both the 
load, and the interval between load changes.

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.

Dave Richardson


On November 29, 2016 1:45:00 PM Chris Tonkinson <chris at tonkinson.com> wrote:

> On 11/28/2016 07:54 PM, Christian Huitema wrote:
>> On Monday, November 28, 2016 5:22 AM, Henry Baker wrote:
>>> ...
>>> "smart" thermostats will turn us into the secret energy police
>>
>> Smart power meters could do much more than that. It turns out that various
>> appliances can be recognized through their "power consumption signature". A
>> quick search of "appliance recognition" turns out a variety of research
>> papers on how to do that, as well as projects to build data bases of
>> appliance signatures. The smart power meter of the future ought to be able
>> to check not only when you are starting the dish washer, but what brand and
>> what model you are using. And of course, when the utility starts doing
>> that, they will want to teach you what to use and when.
>>
>> -- Christian Huitema
>>
>
> I wonder if some Simple™ device could be created based on a combination
> of battery, capacitor, and timer to smooth the "curves" of consumption
> for a household (or on a smaller scale for specific appliances),
> rendering this type of analysis ineffectual.
>
> -Chris Tonkinson
>
>
>
>
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