Dagstuhl Annual Report January - December 2011

The International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science is a non-profit organization. Its objective is to promote world-class research in computer science and to host research seminars which enable new ideas to be showcased, problems to be discussed and the course to be set for future development in this field. The work being done to run this informatics center is documented in this report for the business year 2011

Privacy and Security in Smart Energy Grids (Dagstuhl Seminar 11511)

The ``smart energy grid\u27\u27 promises to improve the reliability and efficiency of the future energy grid by exchanging detailed usage information between the end consumers and the utilities. This application raises different questions with regard to privacy and security. For instance, detailed meter readings enable to infer detailed information on the private life of the consumers; furthermore, manipulations of meter readings open the possibility of fraud. The goal of the seminar was thus to raise awareness of the privacy and security problems associated with smart meters and bring together academic researchers as well as utility experts in order to start an open dialogue on smart grid privacy and security problems and potential solutions