This morning as I rode in on the bus I was reading an essay by Brendan I. Koerner called “Power to the People” in Wired, talking about ways to update the electrical grid. One of the technologies mentioned in the essay is smart grids, which let people tap into smart electrical meters installed on their homes to find out what appliances are using the most electricity so that they can manage how much energy they’re using. Pretty neat.

Of course, with anything online and hackable, someone wants to mess with it. Which is what Zoë Slocum wrote about for CNET over the weekend. According to her post, cybersecurity experts are concerned about the smart meters because a cracker could cause a blackout by cracking the system. Or they could take control of the electrical service at people’s homes and workplaces.