[Cryptography] Smart electricity meters can be dangerously insecure, warns expert

[Peter Gutmann]

Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se> writes:

>But how often are meters replaced? I suspect a ten year timeframe for widely
>fielding a new product is actually perfectly realistic, if not actually
>optimistic. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the average electricity
>meter sees 10-20 years of service life in the field before being replaced.

That's way too optimistic.  Induction-disc meters essentially have an
indefinite life, there are 1960s and 1970s houses around here that have their
original junction boxes (with plugin circuit breakers replacing the original
ceramic fuses for houses that are old enough) containing meters that are
around the half-century mark, and a friend of mine lives in a house in an
older suburb than this one that's old enough that the garage was originally a
coach house, which had the electrics done some time after WWI, maybe the
1920s, with fabric-insulated wiring run through walls stuffed with unknown
organic combustibles (a.k.a. "insulation"), and an induction-disc meter
that'll be close to the century mark.

I don't know what the trend will be with smart meters (ask me again in 50
years' time), but I'm assuming the providers won't want to be replacing them
any more often than their predecessors.

>(We can argue all day about various vulnerabilities, but from the utility's
>point of view, that _is_ a pretty nice feature to have.)

Yep, that's the killer app for smart meters, that remote reading is possible
so you can ditch the meter readers.  Once you've got that capability in place,
there's no reason to upgrade/replace any more.

Peter.