'The recent roll out of smart meters has brought about mixed reactions from consumers. On one hand, there are activist groups broadcasting the health and privacy concerns that smart meters may potentially have. On the other, the utility companies are championing the advantages of smart meters in the face of a $3.4 billion fund stimulus given by the government for smart grid technologies (it sure is nice of them to be advocating energy savings while they line their pockets with all that money from the government).

Curiously, in all this haste to accomplish the government's energy program, no federal safeguards seem to have been designed to protect customer information from being accessed by others - information that smart meters could be sending (the activist group may have a point on this one). Worse, it appears that smart meters themselves are not an impregnable fortress - the meter can be subject to hacking.'

Read more: How Privacy-Conscious Consumers are Fooling, Hacking Smart Meters