If you are in Santa Clara, you will find the network SSID as SVPMeterConnectWiFi. Linkpath Communications designed and installed the WiFi part of this network; they are also responsible for customer service and maintenance of the WiFi network.

By making the network available to the public, SVP has enabled residents and visitors to use tablets and smartphones with standard Wi-Fi connections to access the Internet throughout the outdoor areas of Santa Clara. Replacing an outdated and limited system that only served parts of the city, Santa Clara Free Wi-Fi provides access to residents as well as the tens of thousands of workers who commute to the city to work for companies that form the cornerstone of the high-tech industry.

SVP’s smart grid program, SVP Meter Connect uses Tropos Networks wireless access points and software, and other equipment from ABB (the power/automation systems integrator). ABB acquired Tropos Networks last year. Tropos has sold wireless access points over the past few years to many cities and counties that were deploying municipal wireless broadband networks.

The SVP MeterConnect program at Santa Clara includes the Tropos field area communications network and an AMI system. In addition to supporting AMI and public Wi-Fi access, SVP plans to eventually use the network to support additional smart grid applications, including distribution automation and mobile workers. In the future, the City plans to use the same network to provide mobile access for municipal field workers (public safety, building and fire inspectors, parks and recreation, and more), reducing operational costs versus cellular cards and delivering greater bandwidth.

Other articles that might interest you:

Securing the IP of IP Smart Grid Security and Cyber Wars begin: is the Power Grid next?: Don’t forget security! With all the hacking going on, it’s only a matter of time that hackers will attack the smart grid.

Santa Clara muni WiFi network gets a second chance

Kansas power company uses Tropos for smart grid demo program

New Tropos 1410 Delivers Secure Field Area Networks for Smart Grid and Other Industrial Applications

UK issues public tender for smart grid communications network

Burbank Smart Grid upgrade includes citywide WiFi

A Perfect Match: Wi-Fi plus automated meter reading (AMR)

The post Free WiFi, thanks to your electric meter appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

The post Municipal corporation in India needs WiMAX AMR system appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

Tropos’ GridCom® wireless IP mesh network will extend the KCP&L SmartGrid IP network to reclosers, capacitors and fault indicators in the field, providing direct monitoring and control communications with substation-based distribution automation controllers and the centralized distribution management system. It will help KCP&L optimize energy delivery through active Volt/VAR optimization and feeder load transfers.

The Tropos GridCom network also paves the way for enhancing power reliability by centrally monitoring fault indicators and automatically configuring around faults, reducing the impact and duration of outages, which is a cause of increasing concern for customers.

This order is the first reported since ABB’s acquisition of Tropos. The addition of the Tropos product lines to ABB’s existing portfolio of communications systems expands the offering for customers in the power, transportation, mining and public infrastructure sectors. The merger also reinforces ABB’s increased focus in the North American market, complementing its global presence in utility and industrial communications.

“Our Tropos GridCom network provides the high-capacity, low-latency and security required to support the applications we will deploy to implement our advanced distribution automation vision,” said Ed Hedges, manager SmartGrid Technology Planning for KCP&L. “Tropos’ support for standards such as IEC 61850 and IP, was also a key consideration in selecting them as our distribution automation communications network vendor. The Tropos network will enable KCP&L to deliver electricity more reliably and efficiently to our customers.”

“We are excited to work with KCP&L to create a reliable, high performance distribution communications network,” said Tom Ayers, president and chief executive officer, Tropos Networks. “This project will create a leading edge distribution automation solution at KCP&L that will help keep them at the top of the list for grid reliability and provide a model for other utilities in the Midwest.”

KCP&L’s Smart Grid Demonstration Program has received financial support from a Smart Grid Demonstration Grant (SGDG) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Of the program’s more than $49.8 million cost, $23.9 million is being underwritten by SGDG funds.

The post Kansas power company uses Tropos for smart grid demo program appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

According to the press release, the first phase set out to prove that the use of the white space spectrum does not interfere with or disrupt televisions and other wireless devices. In addition to the smart grid, Neul’s network opens up several possibilities for the Smart City of the future, enabling smarter transport and traffic management, city lighting and other municipal services.

Excerpts from the press release:

“In a world of Smart Phones and mobile broadband it is easy to imagine that wireless connectivity has now been solved,” commented Glenn Collinson, co-founder and Board Member at Neul. “It hasn’t. Mobile broadband is too expensive for ‘things’ in the Smart City. Also mobile broadband means battery powered devices would need changing far too often. And all those sensors would load the cellular networks to such a level that there would be little network capacity left.

“Mobile networks are great for people but terrible for machines. At Neul we are today demonstrating that the smart city can happen now with a new wireless standard called ‘Weightless’ specifically designed for embedding in electricity and gas meters, air quality sensors, recycling points, street lighting, parking spaces, traffic lights and … well … ‘things’ rather than people.”

“In the last few years we’ve heard a great deal about white space and the opportunities it will bring. With many countries approving the necessary legislation, the launch of the world’s first city-wide white space network coupled with the demonstration of a smart meter reading over white space is a major milestone towards the realisation of these opportunities.” commented Will Strauss, Chief Analyst Forward Concepts. “Technologies available today simply cannot realistically deal with the cost, power and propagation requirements of many elements of the Smart City. This sharp movement towards a world of ubiquitous machine-to-machine communication has huge implications and the industry will be watching closely.”

Neul’s network comprises:

• Five base stations around the city of Cambridge.
• One base station in a rural community south of Cambridge.
• A cloud-hosted network Operational & Management Centre (OMC) that efficiently and securely manages the communications between the internet and the ‘Things’.
• Support for multiple geo-location databases that ensure wireless microphones, TV transmission and reception is not disrupted.

The post Cambridge, UK launches city-wide white space wireless network appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

Tropos 1410 wireless mesh routers and wireless bridges create secure, IP-based field area communication networks serving thousands of automation endpoints such as intelligent electrical devices, industrial process controllers and SCADA devices. The highly integrated, next-generation hardware design of the Tropos 1410 allows it to achieve a cost up to 50 percent lower than that of single-purpose, proprietary, lower-speed communication offerings. The product line’s integrated firewall and VPN extend enterprise-class security to legacy devices installed in the field that have lacked state-of-the-art security technology. In addition, the Tropos 1410 can be centrally managed by the Tropos Control wireless network management, monitoring and control application.

“Adding the Tropos 1410 to our product line enables secure field communications for an extensive array of utility and industrial customers for as little as half the price of our competitors,” said Tom Ayers, President and CEO for Tropos Networks. “The new line includes the first board-level product from Tropos, enabling developers working on a wide variety of field automation applications to embed secure, low-cost, standards-based wireless communications into their products.”

Utility, mining, oil and gas as well as other industries are increasingly using wireless communications networks to monitor and control assets in the field and large outdoor facilities. These field area networks support a diverse set of applications including automated metering infrastructure and distribution automation for utilities; telemetry and mining management systems for mining; wellhead monitoring and logging for oil and gas; traffic signal management and video monitoring for transportation; process control for refining and chemicals; and SCADA for a wide variety of vertical markets. In the past, companies have been forced to rely on proprietary low-speed wireless communications systems with little security to implement their field area networks.

The Tropos 1410 delivers the most advanced set of security features available for field area networks. Each Tropos 1410 wireless mesh router and bridge will include a built-in firewall and a built-in IPsec VPN. They implement a multi-layer, multi-application security model that provides defense-in-depth and enables traffic from different applications and user groups to be segregated on separate virtual local area networks (VLANs), each with its own address space, quality of service (QoS) policies and security policies including the capability to create one or more standard IPsec VPNs per VLAN. The Tropos 1410 employs RADIUS, 802.1x, and 802.11i authentication, AES encryption and HTTPS-based remote access to secure field area networks from unauthorized devices, users and snooping. The Tropos 1410’s operating software complies with the requirements of NIST FIPS 140-2 Level 2 for U.S. government cyber security and NERC CIP 002-009 for utility critical infrastructure protection.

Tropos offers two product variants in the new line, the Tropos 1410 and the board-level Tropos 1410-B. The Tropos 1410 comes in a ruggedized, weatherized enclosure suitable for use in extreme outdoor environments. The Tropos 1410-B is a module suitable for integration into Smart Grid devices such as smart transformers and intelligent electrical devices as well as into a wide range of industrial process controllers and SCADA devices. Both products can be configured via software load to be either a bridge that connects to any standard 802.11b/g/n wireless network, including Tropos mesh networks, or a fully functional Tropos wireless mesh router. Each supports an 802.11b/g/n wireless connection with full MIMO and a wired connection using 10/100BASE-T Ethernet, RS-232 serial or RS-485 serial. Their Ethernet and serial interfaces will support utility and industrial control protocols, including DNP3, Modbus, SEL Mirrored Bits and IEC 61850, to facilitate integration of utility and process control devices.

Pricing for the Tropos 1410 and Tropos 1410-B with bridging software will be $549 and $399, respectively. They will be available in March 2012 through Tropos’ authorized distributors and resellers as well as online at buy.tropos.com. The units with routing software are priced at $749 for the Tropos 1410 and $599 for the Tropos 1410-B, and will be available in Q3-2012. An upgrade from bridging to routing software will also be available in Q3-2012 at a price of $200 per unit.

The post New Tropos 1410 Delivers Secure Field Area Networks for Smart Grid and Other Industrial Applications appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

Jeff Zizzi, SCADA & Telemetry Coordinator for the Victorville Water District, was assigned to lead the SCADA upgrade project which included identifying a new communications network. “We were tasked to find a wireless network that could provide a complete solution from network design and planning, to implementation, training, and maintenance support,” stated Zizzi. “Firetide was able to meet all of these requirements and has exceeded performance expectations.”

Key challenges experienced by the previous network which the Water District sought to overcome were related to reliability and performance. With a single point of failure, the point-to-point solution was susceptible to failures during power outages; it often experienced radio frequency interference from neighboring sites; and during bad weather, accessibility was poor. In addition, performance was only 256 Kbps which meant that polling times were measured in minutes rather than seconds. Together, these issues could result in communication problems taking up to 8 hours to resolve because of having to address problems at multiple remote locations. The result could be higher time of use costs for power to remotely control tank over- or under-filling; or the loss of important historical data. The Water District wanted to ensure SCADA devices could operate independently if central communications and control failed for any reason.

The SCADA upgrade project team considered and evaluated several types of wireless network technologies including: multi-repeater systems, peer-to-peer store-and-forward systems, and mesh. They determined a mesh topology provided the high reliability which met their requirements based on its inherent ability to seamlessly reroute around failures and adjust to radio frequency interferences. In addition, they wanted a system that could achieve a minimum throughput of 1.5 Mbps and one which the Water District could easily install and maintain.

Sage Designs Inc., which specializes in the sale of open-architecture telemetry and SCADA systems, helped Victorville upgrade the network.

The post Victorville deploys wireless mesh network for SCADA system upgrade appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

Fort Collins Utilities plans to migrate all its customers to AMI over the next two years by installing Elster EnergyAxis® electric and water meters. For communications, Elster’s EnergyAxis® Gatekeeper will be used as the metering LAN to connect smart power and water meters. Tropos’ GridCom will extend across Fort Collins Utilities’ service territory, providing wireless broadband backhaul from the metering LAN to the utilities’ existing fiber network.

In addition to using the Tropos network for AMI, Fort Collins Utilities plans to leverage it in the future for other new power and water utility applications. Example applications may include mobile workforce applications, energy conservation, demand reduction, integration of renewable and conventional distributed generation (DG), and transition from traditional gasoline powered vehicles to Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) and electric vehicles (EV).

The ability to monitor loads and reconfigure the system in response to changing demand is critical to enable the integration of growing DG and PHEV use. Water utility applications may include leak detection and outage response. The network will also enable Fort Collins Utilities to provide feedback regarding energy and water use to customers, providing customers an opportunity to take a more active role in conservation. Additionally, the network has the ability to support communications for mobile workforce applications for other city departments as well as other smart city applications such as traffic signal control.

“Fort Collins Utilities is a great example of how a secure, scalable and reliable wireless communications system can enable many applications and provide tangible benefits to utilities’ and their customers, making utility operations more cost-effective and improving the service delivered to customers,” said Tom Ayers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tropos Networks. “We’re pleased to have been selected to help Fort Collins Utilities build its Advanced Meter Project, and we look forward to working with their team.”

About the City of Fort Collins

Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University and an outstanding public school system. Nestled at the base of the Rocky Mountains, with an average of 300 days of sunshine every year, Fort Collins offers exciting recreational opportunities, unique cultural offerings, and is a regional center for employment and shopping. Fort Collins offers the convenience of a small town with all the amenities of a larger city. There is always something happening in this community. From music concerts and plays, to food and beer tasting extravaganzas, Fort Collins has it all.

The City of Fort Collins Utilities has been recognized for being an award winning utility in Environmental Excellence, Leadership and Achievements; Performance and Innovation, Vision, Leadership, Outstanding Community Support for Renewable Energy; and Reliable Electric Operations. The City of Fort Collins has also been ranked 6^th out of the top 100 best places to live by Money Magazine. For more information, visit www.fcgov.com.

The post Fort Collins, Colorado selects Tropos for smart grid project appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

• How carriers hamstring your smartphone: team at the University of Michigan and Microsoft Research has uncovered, for the first time, the frequently suboptimal network practices of more than 100 cellular carriers. Here’s the paper entitled An Untold Story of Middle Boxes in Cellular Networks.
• Ten largest US smart grid projects: funded by ARRA through Dept of Energy
• Rumor: Verizon to launch $50/mo prepaid voice and data plan
• 8 False Promises of the Internet
• America losing another generation to science illiteracy (Ah, those pesky scientists! Going on and on about evolution and climate change)
• Solar panel maker Solyndra could be biggest VC loss ever
• Arthur C. Clarke predicts the future in 1964

The post Wednesday afternoon reads: largest smart grid projects, Verizon unleashed appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

The bid is divided into three lots:

Lot 1 – Smart meter communications services in northern GB including Scotland;
Lot 2 – Smart meter communications services in central GB including Wales;
Lot 3 – Smart meter communications services in southern GB.

The value of each of the lots will depend on the contracted term (i.e. 9 to 15 years plus possible extensions) and the precise boundary of the geography that is agreed upon by the contracting party and the DECC. However, the total contract value of each lot is expected to be between GBP 330m and GBP 1,525m (330 000 000 and 1 525 000 000 GBP) including possible extensions and exclusive of VAT.

The purpose of the smart meter project is to reduce carbon emissions and allow people to manage more efficiently their use of electricity and gas.

Here is a portion of the text from the official UK smart grid public tender document on the European Union’s Tenders Electronic Daily website:

“The UK Government has an objective for every home in Great Britain (GB) to have smart energy meters, empowering people to manage their energy consumption and reduce their carbon emissions. Businesses and public sector users would also have smart or advanced energy metering suited to their needs. The rollout of smart meters will play an important role in GB’s transition to a low-carbon economy, and help us meet some of the long-term challenges we face in ensuring an affordable, secure and sustainable energy supply.”

“Communication of data to and from smart meters in the domestic sector will be managed centrally by a new, GB-wide function covering both the electricity and gas sectors. We refer to this new function as the central data and communications company (DCC). In advance of the appointment of the DCC through a competitive licence application process, DECC is initiating the process for procurement of the data and communication services that will be contracted to DCC. For the avoidance of doubt, although DECC (referred to as “the Authority”) will be administering the procurement process, the services will be provided to DCC and it is intended that DCC would take over the procurement from DECC and sign the contracts. As such DECC has therefore elected to voluntarily follow the broad principles of the competitive dialogue procedure.”

“This contract notice covers the procurement of communications services to connect meters in up to 30 000 000 households and businesses across GB (initial figures – subject to growth). The communications services will be split into three geographically based lots. The Authority’s objective is for every home in GB to be capable of receiving smart metering services. The Authority does not expect to tender separate contracts to companies providing a particular solution within a lot, but will tender communications services contract(s) on a prime contractor basis for each lot. The successful organisation(s) would then be responsible for managing any subcontractors and delivering an integrated solution meeting the required coverage targets.”

“Bidders should register their request to participate in relation to this contract notice on 14.10.2011 (17:00) (as specified in section IV.3.4 of this notice). Registration should be by way of submitting a completed Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ). Instructions for the submission of PQQ responses will be provided within the PQQ. The PQQ and prospectus will be provided to bidders on receipt of a properly formatted email request to dcc.services.procurement@decc.gsi.gov.uk providing the following information: Subject: Request to receive smart metering data services PQQ Organisation name: [Organisation] Single point of contact (SPOC): [Name] SPOC job title: [title] SPOC email address: [email] SPOC contact telephone: [number] Copies of the PQQ and prospectus will be issued on request, and will be available from 9.9.2011.”

“The deadline to submit clarification questions in relation to this contract notice or the PQQ is on 26.9.2011 (9:00), further instructions will be provided within the PQQ. For the avoidance of doubt, expressions of interest received to the smart metering implementation programme’s previous Prior Information Notice (2011/S 91-148947, 9.5.2011) will not be carried forward. Bidders must expressly respond to this contract notice if they wish to register their interest to participate and to receive a PQQ. A separate contract notice has been issued for smart metering data services. Bidders wishing to bid for communications services and data services must respond to each contact notice separately.”

* * * * * * * *

Link: Department of Energy and Climate Change Smart Meter Communications Public Tender

The post UK issues public tender for smart grid communications network appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.

Karisny: Your Grid Industry Group responsibilities for Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox include an interesting Intellectual Property focus, especially in light of the recent cybersecurity attacks. I am beginning to wonder which IP we are protecting, Intellectual Property or Internet Protocol. How serious are these attacks and is our critical infrastructure like the power grid a target?

Wood: Larry, thank you for your question.  As you’re aware, our grid industry group focuses on companies that innovate to protect and enhance the resiliency of our power grid.  And cybersecurity is one of the primary areas where companies are heavily innovating.  Therefore, we follow the cybersecurity challenges, technologies, and guidelines pretty closely.  With respect to the cybersecurity attacks, I think you’re referring to recent attacks on the IT (information technology) systems of targets such as Sony’s on-line gaming site, various government sites like the senate and the CIA, companies such as Google, a host of credit card companies and several others.  We absolutely see these attacks as extremely critical, primarily because they seem to demonstrate a level of success, persistence, and an increasing level of organization by the attackers.  Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that our critical infrastructure has been attacked in the same way as these other sites.  But there is little question that critical infrastructure, like the grid, will eventually be targeted.  And a successful attack on the grid would be totally devastating, with national security implications.

We all are familiar with former CIA Director Leon Panetta’s comments stating that the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyber attack that cripples our electric grid.  I’m also reminded of a recent story by Good Morning America, relying on a report from the Department of Homeland Security. This story noted the possibility that sabotage by insiders at a major utility facility could provide Al Qaeda the opportunity for a massive September 11 anniversary attack. And Richard Clarke, in his new book entitled Cyber War, states that the “clearest example of vulnerability brought on by computer controls happens to be the one system that everything else depends upon: the electric power grid.”  These are just a few examples of recent public comments about vulnerabilities of our critical infrastructure, like power grid, to cyber attacks.

Karisny: The words Cyber, Internet, IT and IP some time get blurred when they are actually very different especially when it comes to security.  Can you give some examples that may differ?

Wood: A big part of the reason for the increased risk is due to the Internet Protocol based networks that interconnect our critical infrastructure to global networks.  The interconnected systems may be an IT system, or an industrial control system (ICS).  Traditional IT systems include components such as routers, network interface controllers, and servers.   A traditional ICS includes components such as distributed control systems (DCS), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), all of which are used in industries like water, transportation, manufacturing, oil and natural gas, and electricity.  These ICS components do things like facilitate data collection from remote locations, control valves, trip breakers, operate relays, monitor alarms etc.  Many of these  ICS components are integrated with various legacy systems that were not developed with security in mind.  The Internet Protocol considerations play a big role because most often the underlying protocol provides the extensive connectivity by which unauthorized and/or malicious persons, machines, or code gain access to these critical systems.  But cybersecurity must also consider factors that are unique to each type of system, whether IT or ICS, to ensure that even if unauthorized access is made, damages can be minimized.

Karisny: Knowing networks are different, where should we be focused in protecting critical infrastructure security?

Wood: In my view, the IT/ICS distinction I just mentioned is significant to the discussion of where to focus cybersecurity solutions.  Here is the significance:  There is a growing recognition that cybersecurity solutions designed for IT systems may not apply to an ICS.  Additionally, ICS have different performance and reliability requirements that typical IT support personnel may be unfamiliar with.  On the other hand, there are some similarities between ICS and IT systems that create an overlap with some of the cybersecurity solutions.  For example, many of the lower-cost IT solutions are now being applied to ICS.  But many of these IT solutions fail to provide the security isolation needed by an ICS. While we all understand the implications of IT security.  But as I mentioned earlier, ICSs are employed extensively in our critical infrastructure which creates these sort unimaginable consequences if attacked successfully.

I said all of this to provide context to a recent Homeland Security Newswire story I read.  The newswire pointed out that the large number of high profile cyber attacks on major corporations and government entities has driven a sharp increase in cybersecurity spending. I would submit, however, that the majority of this spending has been on IT cyber security and not necessarily critical infrastructure ICS cybersecurity. Therefore, we still need something to spur or trigger R&D, innovation, and investment in critical infrastructure ICS cybersecurity.  I believe the trigger for this additional R&D, innovation, and investment  is quality intellectual property (IP). By providing creative incentives, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) can play a pivotal role in the development and protection of IP related to ICS cybersecurity.  And if done correctly, this would help ensure that cybersecurity innovations and technologies are more commercially attractive for vendors to develop and for investors to fund.

Karisny: You come from a military background that addressed security on a “need to know” basis and we now live in an age of social networking.  Is there some common sense approach to protecting Intellectual Property in this very open world we live in?

Wood: When I was active duty Air Force, we would simply stamp everything as “secret” and ask questions later.  I’m of course exaggerating, but only just a little.  For very good reasons, many innovations related to cybersecurity and encryption have been kept by companies as “trade secrets.”  And there are still a lot of good reasons for protecting IP in this manner.  The problem today, however, is two words: “social networking.”  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn discussion groups, and professional blogs provide excellent forums for in-depth technical discussions.  I participate in many of these discussions and monitor many others. But when you read the content of these discussions carefully you can’t help but wonder how much of the information being discussed, perhaps unknowingly, is some company’s trade secrets.  And once publicly disclosed, a trade secret is no longer proprietary and can be used by a company’s competitors.  Social networking also, unfortunately I might add, provides a convenient way for a disgruntled employee to easily and maliciously disseminate large amounts of proprietary information.  Therefore, the tendency to rely only on trade secret protection for all cybersecurity and encryption innovations may be too risky.  So wherever possible, companies should protect their key IP by filing for patents early in the development process.  Once you file for patent protection of your idea, most of the issues related to trade secret protection, such as those noted above, disappear.

Having said that, the military’s “need to know” based policy was directed at national security concerns. Some of the innovations for cybersecurity, even in the defensive sphere, may be considered as important to national security. The PTO has a procedure to filter such applications and process them separately, striking a balance between protecting national security and protecting inventor rights.

Karisny: Do you think the stimulus funds directed towards smart meters and not security may be the cart before the horse?

Wood: Don’t want to go that far, but there is certainly an imbalance that must be corrected.  Smart meters serve an important consumer function enabling a much more efficient use of electricity, which benefits electricity producers and consumers. As you may be aware from a recent Forbes article, about 75% of 2009 stimulus dollars were directed to smart meters. I’m not advocating reducing the amount of spending on smart meters.  But I do believe that we need to increase the amount of spending in ICS cybersecurity. As I stated a little earlier, we need to create more incentives for companies and individuals to innovate and invest at the infrastructure end  (ICS) rather than, or as well as, at the consumer (IT) end.  Grid security used to be exclusively the concern of the power generation companies.  But this is no longer true with the expansion of smart grid.  A lot of new players are in positions to play a role in securing the grid.  So healthy competition can also be used to trigger innovation in this field. Increased spending can certainly help this process.

Karisny: If we are to address security in areas like the smart grid, how should you protect the Intellectual Property that in turn will protect the network?   Power companies are saying who are you, come on in, lock the door, sign this very enforceable non-disclosure and don’t expect to get your tested equipment back.  What are your suggestions for Intellectual Property protection in this sensitive area of critical infrastructure security?

Wood: I believe the answer to this question is creativity and innovation.  Before  addressing the IP aspect  of your question, I would like to comment on what I mean by creativity and innovation.  This past June, I had the privilege of attending the annual conference for a group called the National Electric Sector Cyber Security Organization Resource (NESCOR), managed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).   I think that NESCOR is a pretty creative and innovative concept.  NESCOR is the research and analysis arm of National Electric Sector Cyber Security Organization (NESCO) which is a public-private partnership that serves as a focal point to bring together utilities, federal agencies, researchers, vendors, and academics.  And from what I understand, they’re kind of a think tank that helps focus cybersecurity R&D priorities, collect and analyze critical infrastructure vulnerabilities and threats, as well as collaboratively develop solutions in real-time. This group was established by Congress and is funded by the Department of Energy to act as a quick reaction solutions oriented group of super smart people.  I believe that groups like this public-private partnership will be crucial to the development of ICS cybersecurity.  I also believe that groups like NESCOR make it easier for power companies to discuss  potential vulnerabilities in a forum that focuses on solutions instead of penalties.

In my opinion, IP professionals should be involved in these public-private partnerships.  By partnering with groups such as NESCOR, at a very early stage of the innovation and technology development process, the IP professionals can help companies develop effective IP strategies that identify and protect the correct IP – IP they can be used to facilitate early-stage funding.

Answering the question from a different perspective, the old power company model may have been adequate for earlier times.  Then, threats to the grid were low and didn’t originate from all corners of the world.  Also, the relevance of our economy and national security on the grid was much less than now.  As mentioned earlier, in addition to the relative increase in threats to the grid, with smart grid, the number of stakeholders, or entities in a position to protect the grid, has increased.  So while for some innovations, plain and simple secrecy and a non-disclosure agreement will do, I would suggest that a large portion of innovation should be protected not only by U.S. patents, but by international patents as well.

The U.S. is in a position to lead in this sector because we have to innovate now to protect our networks and grid, whereas other countries have nowhere near the same threat at the moment.  The rest of the world, however, will eventually face the same problems.  With this said, U.S. companies that innovate now may be in a better position to leverage their IP internationally.

Karisny: There has been some reports of China have breaching our power grids.  When you have people like this who are not going to play by the rules what good is a legal IP document.

Wood: I’m aware of reports that claim hackers from China, and other nation states, have breached our power grid.  You are right in that IP is not the answer to those elements.  In fact in many of those cases, the goal of the hackers is the theft of IP.  IP rights are designed to incentivize companies and individuals to innovate. A properly calibrated IP system, where companies or individuals can acquire IP rights in a timely manner, and be rewarded for their innovations, is what is needed to jump start critical infrastructure cyber security in resiliency-enhancing innovations.  This process will ultimately help securitize our nation’s critical infrastructure.   So, although IP rights are not a direct answer to hackers and other cyber criminals, as the threats get more frequent and more serious, the companies with  IP rights in various solutions can stand to benefit tremendously from monetization of this IP.

Karisny: We are beginning to see the need for interoperable security all the way from DoD to someones house.  Living in Florida I have witnessed hurricane infrastructure destruction that makes it absolutely necessary for both all government agencies and the private sector to securely and interoperably communicate.  Could the smart grid be the beginning of this locally needed smart secure wireless IP infrastructure?

Wood: I  think we have seen again and again that increased interconnectivity and interoperability produces huge benefits in efficiencies.  So that is where we should go. The smart grid, as envisioned, will be an extensive part of this interconnectivity – ultimately increasing the grid’s resilience to natural or other disasters (e.g., multiple built in redundancies).  So, it stands to reason that the smart grid is a part of the extensive secure communication medium, such as you mentioned.

Karisny: We are entering into a massive wireless device market with the majority of these wireless connections being machine to machine.  Should machine to machine security and person to machine security be looked at differently?

Wood: There may be differences in the physical security measures.  But, other than that, we should not make assumptions about whether the malicious infiltration is by a person or a machine.  The massive growth in wireless devices, many of them directly or indirectly connected to the grid, dramatically increases the potential entry points through which malicious elements (rogue machines, malicious code, or persons) access the grid.  The threat of massive denial of service attacks will increase. Harmful code can propagate to numerous entry points, making the defense against such harmful code difficult. These entry points will also make difficult the eventual cleanup of the harmful code.   Each of these entry points should be monitored and protected against malicious  machine as well as human access. In addition, the network perimeters around the critical infrastructure should ideally be protected in a layered manner.  The critical systems themselves may be protected by restricting the entry points and implementing stringent access monitoring.  These systems may also be protected by taking additional steps that may be necessary to protect the particular control systems.

Karisny: We are beyond media hype with the recent cyber security attacks. What should be our immediate response strategy be to these cyber breaches as it relates to your focus in our nation’s critical infrastructure.

Wood: Clearly we need to use the full force of our laws to track down and punish cyber criminals who attack our critical infrastructure.  We also need to close the technical holes through which these attacks happen.  In the short term, perhaps steps such as physically separating critical infrastructure networks may be part of the answer.  However, in the long term, and from an efficiency standpoint, we want enhanced interconnectivity. In order to maintain this extensive interconnectivity we must have adequate monitoring, along with systems and strategies to protect, detect, and defend with respect to cyber threats.

Karisny: You are based in the Washington DC Metro area. Is DC listening as it relates to cyber attacks and if you could get your message all the way to the top, what would it be.

Wood: Washington already recognizes the urgent need for effective cybersecurity.  But we must more efficiently harness American ingenuity to address the challenges we are facing in defending our critical infrastructure, especially the power grid, from cyber threats.  One of the best ways to ensure proper ingenuity is focused on cybersecurity is to facilitate the protection of IP rights so that innovators can be rewarded for their work in this area.

* * * * * * * *

Theodore Wood is a key member of the firm’s Grid Industry Group, where he focuses on helping innovators involved with ensuring power grid resiliency in an evolving smart grid infrastructure.

Mr. Wood’s work before the United States Patent and Trademark Office includes patent application preparation and prosecution, reissue, reexamination, and appeals before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. He has served the role of virtual in-house IP counsel for several high technology emerging companies, where he developed programs to identify, protect, manage, and commercialize IP assets.  Mr. Wood has worked on intellectual property matters involving many technologies, including electronics, computer graphics, computer architecture, networks, and network protocols, telecommunications networks, wireless communication systems, e-commerce and Internet applications, GPS location-based services, intelligent vehicle systems, automotive systems, and medical devices.

Larry Karisny is the Director of  Project Safety.org ,is a smart grid security consultant, writer and industry speaker focusing on security solutions for the smart grid and critical infrastructure.

The post Securing the IP of IP Smart Grid Security appeared first on MuniWireless: WiFi, LTE, 4G.