Interesting... I used to work on testing these old elster meters. Looking at the style number of this meter, it doesn't look like it's equipped with a disconnect relay, so at least he's not messing with that (even if a meter was equipped with a disconnect relay, the meter display should still be on during a disconnect event). I suspect he's cutting power to something other than the meter itself.
I also see it's equipped with an energy axis (elster proprietary wireless network) so at the very least he'll be getting a fun visit from his power company wondering why he tripped various tamper detect flags in the meter (assuming his power company is actually ameren, a utility company in Missouri and Illinois and not canada like his yt profile says...). Since it also has that radio, I know it should also be encrypted. Unless that specific power company disabled LAN/WAN encryption... which we generally don't recommend and Canadian power infrastructure is pretty strict anyway when it comes to meter security.
I'd be interested to see what exactly the flipper was communicating with (I'm sure my upper management would be even more interested as well).edit: I also just noticed the meter is stuck in test mode and the backup battery is missing. You can actually buy these meters on ebay, which is what I'm suspecting this guy did.
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