Thursday 10 July 2014

Geldof Fronts Smart Meters: Mustn't Laugh

There is a strong possibility the £12 billion 'smart meters' programme will be right up there with NHS software projects and the CSA on the all-time fiasco list.  North American utilities where smart meters have been installed reckon the main benefit is for detecting illegal cannabis factories.  

It's off to a great start here, with an image of 'Gaz' (any relation?) and 'Leccy' bursting through the concrete like one of those explosions in the pavement that make such alarming youtube footage.  And all in the name of cutting our bills and making the planet safe from CO2.  It's hairy, it's trying to be cool, it wants a lot of money, it's telling us what to do for our own good.

Who better, then, to front for this dubious venture than Bob Geldof!  It parodies itself.  And there won't be snow in Africa ... global warming's done for that.  Feed the meter, feed the meter ...
The silicon chip inside its head
Gets switched to overload ...
And nobody's gonna escape its net
It's going to monitor your home
And daddy doesn't understand it
He always said the bills were written in code
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons 
What reason does a government need?
Tell me why ...

ND

11 comments:

Visc said...

There has been quiet opposition bubbling away to this in some querters from a cost / surveilance - monitoring / heath point of view. Take your pick.
Given ther are down sides with no real benefit for what £2-3 bn is another reason to think this is highly dubious.

Blue Eyes said...

Not to mention potential risks from hackers. A friend in the information security field says he never wants a "smart" fridge, and those programmable light systems have been in the news. Do we really want to leave our mains power and gas systems open?

ivan said...

Obviously they haven't thought this through. The fact that on one comes to read the meter just opens the way for people to install a bypass that runs all the heavy load equipment but leaves something on just to show that the householder has 'mended their ways' and reduced consumption.

As for finding cannabis farms, don't they bypass the meter anyway?

CityUnslicker said...

BE - what is the threat of a hacked smart fridge?

will it over order milk?
turn itself off to wate your food?
close when you open it to perform ABH?

I am intrigued by the thoughts of your tin foil hat friend.

As for meters, why oh why are we loading so much cost onto energy consumers when the macro policy is to push up prices anyway. It is all set up for a very bleak future!

Blue Eyes said...

You don't think it would be pretty irritating to have your fridge switched off remotely? Or somewhat risky for the whole country's electricity meters to fail thanks to some bright spark in Russia/Iran? Ok. Maybe it will be as safe as internet banking, I am not an expert.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Your smart fridge can very easily be made into part of a botnet. Your milk won't go off but shady gentlemen in Moscow and Shanghai, inter alia, will be be glad of the extra computing power when it comes to minting bitcoins or launching denial of service attacks.

Electro-Kevin said...

Give us yer feckin' lecky.

Anonymous said...

I have ha one for about 6 months (from BG).

It is useless crap!!

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