7 ms·

I'd rather someone was deterring Telstra from levying such exorbitant charges in the first place than wasting my tax dollars locking someone up for such a minor

by philk 15y ago

I'd rather someone was deterring Telstra from levying such exorbitant charges in the first place than wasting my tax dollars locking someone up for such a minor crime.

geon 15y ago
Exactly. Assuming she had downloads running non-stop during the 4 months, at a maximum of 7 mbps (3g), she would have downloaded 8859 GB. With a $193000 bill, the "significant theft" was Telestra charging $22 per GB.
- Padraig 15y ago
  I'm getting very different numbers... I may be wrong though? (7,000,000/8) = 875,000 bytes/s = 0.834 MB/s 0.834 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 72,057 MB/day (EDIT: Tweaked numbers, had mistyped 0.834 as 0.844 — doesn't affect the point)
  - russell_h 15y ago
    Your number looks the same, 72GB/day = 8,859GB over 4 months.
    - Padraig 15y ago
      Right, sorry.
- Natsu 15y ago
  Someone else looked up Telstra pricing and got an estimate of 90GB. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/plans/phone_plan.html http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/plans/phone_plan.html They charge more like $2/MB. Sadly, Australia absolutely sucks in terms of internet access costs.
- caf 15y ago
  I am sure the power company is far happier paying $22 per GB than $20 per month per meter.
hugh3 15y ago
I can only assume that the $22-per-gig plan doesn't actually exist on a consumer level. Instead, this is some bizarre charging agreement which works between Telstra and the electric company, specifically for smart meter applications (which presumably don't send all that much data). Nobody ever bothered to think about what would happen if the SIM were taken out and used elsewhere, though they really should have. Since the electric company is already out of pocket for the $200K, and since it's not Telstra's fault (and hence Telstra shouldn't have to pay the $200K back either) I guess charging the woman the full $200K as a deterrent (assuming she can afford to pay it) isn't too bad. It does sound like a pretty harsh sentence, but if she'd gotten away with a slap on the wrist imagine what would happen next -- everyone would be ripping apart their electricity meters to get cheap internet access.
- tptacek 15y ago
  This discussion also strips out everything that complicates the agreements utilities have with MNOs to handle smart metering traffic. These boxes get deployed in massive huge waves, tens of thousands at a time, and require terms of service that are not typical for normal MNO customers. It's simply not reasonable to compare the rates payed by a utility for always-on reliable backhaul from hundreds of thousands of meters to those payed by a single mobile phone customer for "download web pages" data service.
tptacek 15y ago
I don't understand what's "minor" about this crime. If theft of meter SIM cards became endemic, the utility and the MNO would have to spend millions or even tens of millions of dollars to deploy countermeasures. That spend is entirely deadweight loss that exists solely to mitigate bad actors. Not subverting your power meter seems like a pretty reasonable clause in the social contract that enables us all to have (extraordinarily) cheap and convenient electrical power.
- iloveponies 15y ago
  It would have cost them far less if they had the foresight to consider the chances of it happening, or at least try and arrange it with Telstra, who's more than capable of doing so in a way that would mitigate abuse from the service?
  - tptacek 15y ago
    How? How would it have cost them less? That seems like a good question to answer preemptively if you're going to make that argument. And, while you answer it, keep a running tally in your head of roughly how much it would cost in (1) legal fees and (2) delayed deployment (which has a cost you can break out in $/hour based on continued needless truck rolls as only one example) to negotiate that with the MNO. When you're finished, weigh that cost against the benefit of reducing the legal fees for criminals who steal service from your meters.
    - metageek 15y ago
      >How? How would it have cost them less? They could have arranged with Telstra to cut off service to any meter that billed over $X in a month. In fact, that should have been an obvious step to make, because a meter that was sending too much data was probably buggy, which could mean the data it was sending was probably worthless. The engineers who failed to include the cutoff were insufficiently paranoid.
      - tptacek 15y ago

by philk 15y ago

I'd rather someone was deterring Telstra from levying such exorbitant charges in the first place than wasting my tax dollars locking someone up for such a minor crime.

geon 15y ago

Exactly. Assuming she had downloads running non-stop during the 4 months, at a maximum of 7 mbps (3g), she would have downloaded 8859 GB. With a $193000 bill, the "significant theft" was Telestra charging $22 per GB.

Padraig 15y ago
I'm getting very different numbers... I may be wrong though? (7,000,000/8) = 875,000 bytes/s = 0.834 MB/s 0.834 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 72,057 MB/day (EDIT: Tweaked numbers, had mistyped 0.834 as 0.844 — doesn't affect the point)
- russell_h 15y ago
  Your number looks the same, 72GB/day = 8,859GB over 4 months.
  - Padraig 15y ago
    Right, sorry.
Natsu 15y ago
Someone else looked up Telstra pricing and got an estimate of 90GB. http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/plans/phone_plan.html http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/plans/phone_plan.html They charge more like $2/MB. Sadly, Australia absolutely sucks in terms of internet access costs.
caf 15y ago
I am sure the power company is far happier paying $22 per GB than $20 per month per meter.

hugh3 15y ago

I can only assume that the $22-per-gig plan doesn't actually exist on a consumer level. Instead, this is some bizarre charging agreement which works between Telstra and the electric company, specifically for smart meter applications (which presumably don't send all that much data). Nobody ever bothered to think about what would happen if the SIM were taken out and used elsewhere, though they really should have. Since the electric company is already out of pocket for the $200K, and since it's not Telstra's fault (and hence Telstra shouldn't have to pay the $200K back either) I guess charging the woman the full $200K as a deterrent (assuming she can afford to pay it) isn't too bad. It does sound like a pretty harsh sentence, but if she'd gotten away with a slap on the wrist imagine what would happen next -- everyone would be ripping apart their electricity meters to get cheap internet access.

tptacek 15y ago
This discussion also strips out everything that complicates the agreements utilities have with MNOs to handle smart metering traffic. These boxes get deployed in massive huge waves, tens of thousands at a time, and require terms of service that are not typical for normal MNO customers. It's simply not reasonable to compare the rates payed by a utility for always-on reliable backhaul from hundreds of thousands of meters to those payed by a single mobile phone customer for "download web pages" data service.

tptacek 15y ago

I don't understand what's "minor" about this crime. If theft of meter SIM cards became endemic, the utility and the MNO would have to spend millions or even tens of millions of dollars to deploy countermeasures. That spend is entirely deadweight loss that exists solely to mitigate bad actors. Not subverting your power meter seems like a pretty reasonable clause in the social contract that enables us all to have (extraordinarily) cheap and convenient electrical power.

iloveponies 15y ago
It would have cost them far less if they had the foresight to consider the chances of it happening, or at least try and arrange it with Telstra, who's more than capable of doing so in a way that would mitigate abuse from the service?
- tptacek 15y ago
  How? How would it have cost them less? That seems like a good question to answer preemptively if you're going to make that argument. And, while you answer it, keep a running tally in your head of roughly how much it would cost in (1) legal fees and (2) delayed deployment (which has a cost you can break out in $/hour based on continued needless truck rolls as only one example) to negotiate that with the MNO. When you're finished, weigh that cost against the benefit of reducing the legal fees for criminals who steal service from your meters.
  - metageek 15y ago
    >How? How would it have cost them less? They could have arranged with Telstra to cut off service to any meter that billed over $X in a month. In fact, that should have been an obvious step to make, because a meter that was sending too much data was probably buggy, which could mean the data it was sending was probably worthless. The engineers who failed to include the cutoff were insufficiently paranoid.
    - tptacek 15y ago