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As I stated in an earlier post, Austrailia, New Zealand and Singapore already have RFID passports. The information that can be obtained from the chip is encrypted, and will only be readable using the public-key which is encoded in a machine readable format inside the passport http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/passports/. The plan in the U.S. is the to do the same thing, as well as putting a metal lining in the cover of the passport so that the RFID cannot be read when the passport is closed. See http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/anmviewer.as p?a=394&print=no

From the article (RTFA): Even if the skimmed data is encrypted -- as e-Passport information would be...

There was a Slashdot discussion of this subject about a year ago. The plan is now, and has always been, to encrypt the data on the US RFID enabled passports. Here is another brief article discussing it: http://www.aimglobal.org/members/news/anmviewer.as p?a=394&print=no

So now the conspiracy theorists are concerned that given possession the passport and lots of time and computing power someone could crack the encryption... and read the encrypted information from the RFID chip -- which is the same information that is plainly printed in the passport.

A problem with this statement is that it is *theoretically* possible to read short-range RFID tags at longer distances. There are already companies (and hackers) creating tools to read at distances of around 25 feet for active RFIDs and 10ft. for passive. RFID Readers can also emit signals out to 100 feet to activate the card, although they cannot read it. Since short-range readers are relatively small, you could work as a team, 1 person pushing out an activation signal at ranges of 100+ feet away, and another person waiting in line or walking next to you to read the information.

A high-tech game of pick-pocket.

Seriously, the FCC is now in charge of regulation of what you say, not how it is transmitted. After all, we have all this great technology will sort out QRM and other problems automatically, what with their silicon chips and such. Besides, from a political standpoint, most people don't understand technological issues anymore, and the FCC went from the realm of engineers and science to a way to get noticed in Washington. Remember the deficit elimination plan of Bill Clinton? Much of the money was to come from spectrum auctions. When they didn't happen as expected, the deficit skyrocketed. It really is too bad that people don't understand that the airwaves are a dwindling resource and that our government is more than willing to realize very short term gains for what will be a long term loss.

If you are willing to spend a few dollars for each tag, and install a tracking system, then what you are talking about should work. There is a good AIM reference summarizing this: What Is RFID? The advantage of an active system is distance, it can be meters away from a receiver. I remember talking to a friend working on this technology (14 years ago, sorry, I've lost touch and can't refer you). They were installing a system in a naval hospital to track the doctors by adding active tags to their base ID's, because the doctors were "too busy" to sign in and out at the guard desk. Sounds like what you want to do, substituting "laptops" for "doctors" . If you go to this site, select "Radio Frequency Identification" then "Systems" you will get a list of manufacturers: RFID Resources

If you are willing to spend a few dollars for each tag, and install a tracking system, then what you are talking about should work. There is a good AIM reference summarizing this: What Is RFID? The advantage of an active system is distance, it can be meters away from a receiver. I remember talking to a friend working on this technology (14 years ago, sorry, I've lost touch and can't refer you). They were installing a system in a naval hospital to track the doctors by adding active tags to their base ID's, because the doctors were "too busy" to sign in and out at the guard desk. Sounds like what you want to do, substituting "laptops" for "doctors" . If you go to this site, select "Radio Frequency Identification" then "Systems" you will get a list of manufacturers: RFID Resources

Well, if it was part of something that wasn't made of metal, like a $20 bill, you could microwave it...

The speed of the card doesn't matter as all cards have one or more "clock tracks" with 0-1-0-1 sequences to make the data readable.

That's one solution; a self-clocking data track would also work.
From the Magnetic Stripe Glossary:

Self-clocking:
That property of biphase which permits encoded magnetic stripes to be read at different speeds;
the Ones frequency is always twice the Zeros frequency, and the read circuit need only sync on
a string of known Zeros to begin reading at any speed.

People, these tags are readable up to a few inches. Maybe a foot at most.

From this site: "The majority of RFID transponders have a read range of less than 3 feet." That's a long enough range to surreptitiously scan people walking by a hidden transceiver on the sidewalk, or to do drivebys of your trash.

Do you use credit? Do you have a license? SIN? Bank card? Trust me, you have more things to worry about being tracked by than your stupid library purchases.

That's bizarre comparison. Those are all things that I have some level of control over. I chose to let someone know by credit card number (by using it). If I don't want someone to know my credit card number, I pay cash. If someone demands to see my driver's license, I consider if I really need the service.

Come to think of it, where do you live that you purchase things from your local library? I just borrow them.

Also, "SIN"? Who in the hell actually calls them SINs? I think you've been playing too much Shadowrun. The only non-silly uses of SIN I can find are things no human being would have (Standard/Stock/Service Inventory/Identification Number).

Dealing with filtering and sorting the data recived by these devices would be trivial, databases are being designed and built all the time that handles this level of data.

I'm not saying that we should all being making tin foil hats, but the technological limits arn't going to be what stops this be a potential invasion of privacy.

Iris scanning is possible from a bit farther away click here for info and facial scanning from even further away.

Speaking of, do you have any good info on how they work? Some tech docs or something?

Here's a good primer, if you can read a PDF.

In general, go to RFID.org for some good introductory stuff, and they have links to other resources.

RFID tags are cool, and they're definitely the future, though I understand why some people are worried, and we do have to deal with those issues. We got our dog from the humane society, and she was RFID'd with a chip that they can use to identify her if she ever gets lost. It's implanted under her skin, and it's only about the size of a grain of rice. There's no reason why it couldn't be implanted into human flesh.

You can get rfid tags with storage capability. Think you can get tags with about 4kb of storage right now.

Check the faq at rfid.org

The Lemelson Foundation was created by Jerome Lemelson, one of the more polarizing figures in modern day patent life. Lemelson obtained more than 500 patents in his life. He did not use these patents to create companies geared toward manufacturing products, however. Instead, he filed lawsuits against a number of companies, including General Motors and Otis Elevator, when elements of his designs allegedly showed up in later products such as bar-code scanners.

I doubt that you'll find any RFID tags with a memory size of 65,536 bits!

Allow me to summarize the rest of your argument, so you can tell me what I've missed:

1. RFID tags will not contain any identification beyond manufacturer/model
2. Currently deployed automotive tire RFID tags contain extremely specific information, connecting the particular tire to a particular automobile.

• RFID 101
• RFID standard for automobile tires
• RFID glossary
• The RFID Journal

Actually, the tags in tires include the tire type, date of manufacture and the car that they were first mounted to. But that's a very specialized application, and we were talking about the general consumer scenario--John Doe checking out of Best Buy, Sears, Gap, XYZ Grocery, etc.

I doubt that you'll find any RFID tags with a memory size of 65,536 bits! And if you do, they certainly aren't the ones that we were talking about--disposable, cheap passive tags to be used by merchants at the point of sale. Sure they could be used in intrusive fashions, in the same way that UPC codes were going to be the mark of the beast when they debuted in the '80s, and The Net was going to wreck all our lives and put us under control of nefarious orgzanizations.

But these RFID tags are going to be used for checkout purposes, and any merchant that doesn't disable them at the POS isn't going to be faced with a tricky problem down the road. For example, if a customer walks back into your store (Walmart) wearing a watch, pair of shoes, t-shirt and some candy he purchased there last week, how are you going to know whether the goods were already purchased or not?! Remember, these are read-only tags, not read/write tags. It's therefore to the merchant's advantage to disable the tags once the item has been purchased.

At the same time, the unique coding of items is fairly useless until you get into large-ticket items that may need to be repaired or serviced. Knowing that you sold Aiwa stereo #12345 is not better than knowing that you sold an Aiwa stereo model ABC. And when a 60" TV comes back in for repair, being able to scan the RFID emitter for its serial number takes only a few seconds off reading it off of the back of the unit and typing it in.

There are a host of applications for the technology, and I've only covered a slice of them. Anti-theft and non-line of sight ID'ing of products are two of the most beneficial, and in my opinion they far outweight the insidious uses of various organizations that paranoid people like to think up.