I find the experience similar to yours, but I perceive there to be a great deal more "boring" code. When you get right down to it, really only about 5% of code is interesting in any meaningful way. There's a risk that poor workmanship will sneak in, but then again if your tests aren't good enough it really doesn't matter if you're drunk, stoned, stupid, tired, or cocksure, the product will suck.

The problem to watch out for is to think an idea is good when stoned, then tricking yourself into thinking it is still good when sober.

> The hassle of managing encryption far outweighs the risk posed by unencrypted transmission.

Now that is absolutely not the case. PKI scales, and these days with a SIM card in most phones it is almost free as long as you set it up right. That part is hard, but it's a basically constant cost which gets less expensive over time.

There's the implicit statement that all smart meters are deployed the same way. Since this experiment shows that one smart meter vendor is producing sniffable traffic. It does not show that all vendors are in the same situation.

Some vendors are better than others in this regard.

'nuf said.

No, we are not supposed to turn a blind eye. We're supposed to talk about it openly and voice our concerns.

And then cash our paychecks.

Slackware -> RedHat -> Mandrake -> RedHat -> Mandrake -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> Mint

All the while dabbling in FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenSolaris, and briefly the Solaris/Debian combo.

I see it as a social engagement in Internet connectivity. Today, we depend on rather large infrastructure companies to provide cellular signal. From a social perspective this is not idea:
  * Near monopoly telecoms set the prices.
  * Infrastructure needs to be deployed everywhere (resulting in near monopolies.)
  * Radio transmissions require a lot of power to get to the local tower (or else suffer poor performance.)
  * Privacy concerns; data must flow through the provider's infrastructure, and the provider must know your general location.

A publicly supported mesh would have to include micropayments in order to incentivize people to put up infrastructure of their own, and would put the network into the hands of the people. Application software remains lucrative, as does hardware. Route negotiations include automated financial negotiations. This is what I'm getting to. And rather that simply trusting our providers to be nice (a rather naive prospect), it becomes intuitively obvious that the network itself is insecure, and that security rests in the identity of the user and their associates.

The result can in fact be highly robust and performant, without centralized nodes that control routing. Devices of all shapes and sizes can join and engage in the mesh, from radio controlled LED christmas lights to basement server farms. There's a kind of routing called Landmark routing which I personally believe is promising. It basically follows the greatest routing algorithm we know; the postal system.

I see, this is about providing an embedded platform for things that want to get on some local Internet drop. It isn't really about creating an Internet from things.

Sure, a decent enough platform I guess.

Now, to solve the routing problem! I want to send an email to one of my Contiki buddies down the street. How does the name get resolved and how does a resolved IPv6 address get turned into a route? How about a few miles away? To my buddies in Australia?

And how do we firm critical mass in the mesh, or provide a network effect to get everyone on board?

Finally, let's not forget about the electromagnetic sensitivity problem.

But these are all solvable. Let's go!

We'll let established security protocols solve the application layer problem.

Hmm, you sound familiar. Redi K?

And why would they care when you get up, go to work, get home, or even turn on the grow lights?

The govt. could not afford to bust every grow op out there, and what on earth would they do with the data about you getting up and going to work? Tax you for not spending enough time at work? And anything more specific than that gets into real paranoia; embed bugs in your house so they can really, REALLY know for SURE that you aren't a terrorist? Blackmail you to work for secret department X? Like, really - a government with that much overhead to run a perfect secrecy campaign would not only collapse under its own weight, but would quickly get found out.

If that were happening, then with enough industry-wide or citizen-wide interest, the collection of the data could be audited.

Actions by the utility could be recognized and profiled, just like your power usage.

They can track your power - and you can track their interest! Just watch the traffic. It's in the air, yours for the receiving.