If they could prohibit internet communications and allow LAN communications, that would be great.
Also, it should apply regardless of where they are manufactured. It's far more likely for an attack to happen through a compromised centralized server, or a worm compromising embedded servers en masse, than it is for an authority to directly petition an attack.
Also, my inverter wasn't manufactured in China, but the Wi-Fi module was made by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology Co., so it's no less vulnerable.
Can someone more familiar with the technology explain how necessary it is for the inverter to be internet connected? This seems like the kind of cloud dependency that people on HN would usually be opposed to.
A small solar inverter doesn't need to be internet connected, but solar inverter app monitoring lets you track energy production, view real-time power flows, and check device status using a smartphone or tablet. So automaticaly you could get all the IoT security issues.
Large solar invertors at large solar plants muss be under remote controling of grid operators, to allow solar curtailment when the solar production exceeds electric demand or grid transmission could be overloaded. This is not specific to solar power plants, other kinds of power plants are also under control of grid operators.
With increased deployment of residential solar its possible that this controlling will be extented also to residential solar.
It's nonsense and there's no pretense, no data otherwise. The party of drill baby drill isn't about better power, about using mineral rights: it's about crony-istic state control of industry, about vested interests, about bribery corruption and grift for insiders. (That and/or they are actively trying to destroy the country wholesale, are barbarians within seeking only to destroy.)
I do think there is one step I'd like to see the world take in reply, that would make this be much funnier: "we don't ship the software, you have to run that yourself". Start an open source Zephyr IoT project for inverters, and just don't distribute the software. Make people just buy the hardware. I for one welcome the world where the two come separate. I think it would be a remarkable upgrade for humanity to decouple the two, and it would be bitterly hilarious if these batshit loons somehow end up accidentally creating the better world. I can't think of what other reply would have anywhere near the force of effect of making absolute mock, and it would radically improve things. This should happen.
Also, it should apply regardless of where they are manufactured. It's far more likely for an attack to happen through a compromised centralized server, or a worm compromising embedded servers en masse, than it is for an authority to directly petition an attack.
Also, my inverter wasn't manufactured in China, but the Wi-Fi module was made by Shanghai MXCHIP Information Technology Co., so it's no less vulnerable.