SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
You can tell a lot about what's going on in a home from how much electricity it's using — especially when that information is collected every few minutes and recorded centrally. It's revealing enough that a federal judge has ruled that people with smart meters have a reasonable expectation of privacy and as such law enforcement will require a warrant to acquire that data.
It may sound like a niche win in the fight for digital privacy, and in a way it is, but it's still important. One of the risks we've assumed as consumers in adopting ubiquitous technology in forms like the so-called Internet of Things is that we are generating an immense amount of data we weren't before, and that data is not always protected as it should be.
This case is a great example. Traditional spinning meters are read perhaps once a month by your local utility, and at that level of granularity there's not much you can tell about a house or apartment other than whether perhaps someone has been living there and whether they have abnormally high electricity use — useful information if you were, say, looking for illicit pot growers with a farm in the basement.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Thursday August 23 2018, @09:18AM (15 children)
If you have solar panels, you could be trying to hide the grow op in your house!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Touché) by BsAtHome on Thursday August 23 2018, @09:33AM (9 children)
Having solar panels will automatically flag you as an independent, dangerous, nonconforming and thinking individual. Enough reasons to have you put under the microscope at any given opportunity.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday August 23 2018, @10:44AM (4 children)
Only 0.5%
https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-homes-in-the-United-States-use-solar-power [quora.com]
Not as many non-conformists as I'd have thought.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 23 2018, @11:40AM
That just makes it easier to hate them.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday August 23 2018, @03:50PM
Not terribly surprising, Solar Panels for your home are a fairly new thing and as such cost quite a bit. By father-in-law got 48 panels 5 years ago to power his home, and it cost him somewhere around $40k. Now, it's more like $20k. I could be wildly off on the numbers, but the point is they aren't cheap. New tech == Expensive Tech. I expect there will be a lot more homes with solar panels 5 to 10 years down the road as the cost of solar panels drops. It's also possible, that it will always be out of reach of the vast majority of people due to cost. It's a bit too early to tell.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Touché) by nitehawk214 on Thursday August 23 2018, @04:22PM
Well, if most of the people were doing it, it wouldn't be nonconformist, would it?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 23 2018, @05:45PM
The internet is full of armchair non-conformists, biasing your estimates.
Look at the rebels in this place...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @11:52AM (3 children)
Mr. Musk has a solution for this -- replace your roof shingles with his solar shingles. This way you can be a Stealthy "independent, dangerous, nonconforming and thinking individual."
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 23 2018, @12:59PM (2 children)
They could still determine that you aren't hooked up to the grid, or that you are hooked up to the grid and using very little power or even contributing electricity to the grid.
That's unless you can rig the solar shingles to power a separate part of the house, or maybe a shed. Any extra juice could go to Powerwall batteries. Not sure what you would do with any excess beyond that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday August 23 2018, @02:50PM (1 child)
I've put in a couple dozen PV systems, working for a guy I know who owns the business. We generally size them for your average usage, usually called "net metering". So during the day you'll overproduce and the excess will go into the grid. At night you'll use it back from the grid. You do get paid for excess, but it's like $0.01 / KWH. The "SRECs" https://blog.heatspring.com/how-do-srecs-work/ [heatspring.com] can be worth more, but again, it's generally most cost efficient to size the system based on your usage patterns.
If you're off-grid, the system will stop using the excess when the batteries are charged. PVs will make volts, but few amps will be drawn.
In case anyone doesn't quite understand electricity, it's just like closing a faucet valve. There's pressure (volts) waiting, but you close the valve (transistors off) and there's no flow (amps).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @05:47PM
But if you close the faucet then how will the Little Greenies drive their sports cars to the chicks playing wild dance music from their boomboxes???
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 23 2018, @05:32PM (3 children)
If you have solar panels, you could be trying to hide the grow op in your house!
Or, you could move to a state that respects your personal freedoms and conducts itself with the fiscal responsibility necessary to not need bailouts from neighboring states. AKA, a Blue state.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 23 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)
Massachusetts tracks pot plants with helicopters [commonwealthmagazine.org]
Massachusetts cops raided an 81-year-old’s home to cut down a single medical marijuana plant [vox.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 23 2018, @06:14PM
Northampton (MA) dispensary gets go-ahead on recreational pot [gazettenet.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @05:54PM
But only moslem terrorists don't like pork!! You a turrist boy?
Fun fact, anyone who uses the "moslem" spelling is most likely from an immigrant Nazi family, or one of their pathetic lackeys, using it as a dog whistle. Timeline [writingexplained.org] which shows their diminishing influence over the years which explains why they're trying to do an end-run around Democracy. They just HATE the freedom to choose anything other than their murderous ideology.
#VLM #Ethanol-fueled #RunawaysGrandpa #Jmorris #unwittingKhallow #DrunkMightyBuzzard
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 23 2018, @06:35PM
It is not necessary to try to hide what goes on in a house if all the vibrators are battery operated.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.