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No, it doesn't work like an RFID tag. An RFID tag is an ASIC containing a memory and an antenna, that's either battery powered or inductively powered, then encapsulated. STFW.

RFID Journal FAQ

A metal strip does not identify anything.

The ones I've seen are about a quarter-inch wide and four to five inches long. Do you really think you're going to have trouble finding a tag of that size?

If it's buried in a tire or something else you can't get to easily, yes, it can be very difficult to find. And even if you can find it it might be impossible to remove without destroying the thing it's attached to. Especially if it's printed directly on it.

Reading the tags from further than a few inches away requires very high-powered antennas, and you're probably not going to stand around waiting while some guy stands around with an antenna, slowly cooking your body while he tries to read the RFID tags in your clothes.

This says you're wrong.

So the reason for the tin-foil-hat comments is that even the concerns you do list are pretty far-fetched.

They aren't as far fetched as you would have people believe, but that doesn't change the fact that he didn't even let anyone voice their concerns before calling them paranoid. If he even knew what their concerns were, it would be obvious that they don't apply here.

The ones I've seen are about a quarter-inch wide and four to five inches long. Do you really think you're going to have trouble finding a tag of that size?

If it's buried in a tire or something else you can't get to easily, yes, it can be very difficult to find. And even if you can find it it might be impossible to remove without destroying the thing it's attached to. Especially if it's printed directly on it.

Reading the tags from further than a few inches away requires very high-powered antennas, and you're probably not going to stand around waiting while some guy stands around with an antenna, slowly cooking your body while he tries to read the RFID tags in your clothes.

This says you're wrong.

So the reason for the tin-foil-hat comments is that even the concerns you do list are pretty far-fetched.

They aren't as far fetched as you would have people believe, but that doesn't change the fact that he didn't even let anyone voice their concerns before calling them paranoid. If he even knew what their concerns were, it would be obvious that they don't apply here.

This database should give everyone a good idea whom to elect, and whom to vote out of office ASAP.

The fact that so few people participate in European elections only adds to the weight of your votes.

A reasonably composed European Parliament (which can now veto most of the proposals by Commission and Council) is our best chance for (more) sensible lawmaking in the future.

Nokia also announced recently they have software & hardware that can turn your cellphone into a tag reader.

Wonder how long until the later gets "improved" upon by "outside independent researchers", the kind of dudes who wear darker colored chapeaus.....

Yes, it will. Four RFID transmitters, embedded in the tires.

Michelin Embeds RFID Tags in Tires

You have about as much chance of stopping the government from using technology the way that it wants as RIAA has of stopping MP3 traders from using technology the way they want.

Michelin has been embedding RFID tags in tires for quite awhile now.

"Currently no RFID tag is thin enough to meet this requirement [1/8 inch]"

WRONG.

Do some research before you make such comments. Yes - they have been able to make RFID tags thin enough to be printed, cost effective too.

BTW -- since I couldn't remember the name of the company that made these products, a google/teoma search for "RFID Paper" found the cites. Took 30 seconds.

CITE:
CrossID

Inkode

Maybe you just didn't recognize the conductor?

RFID Ink

This article at CNN's website was the closest article to the topic introduced here that I could find on CNN, Google News, or Yahoo News. Given the popularity of the RFID issue in the United States technology realm, I would expect it to be in a larger news source such as these. I don't know much about this www.prisonplanet.com place, but I don't have any reason to believe it's highly professional. I get the impressino that it's somewhat of a conspiracy theory website.

The most apparent points of conjecture about this story, in my mind, are:
1. Why, if these tags are in $20's all across the nation, are not people setting off alarms for "no reason" all across the nation?
2. It appears that other /.ers have tried the same microwave experiment, with no ill effect to their bills. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe my fellow /.ers than this story.

Perhaps these bills were part of a scheme, or an elaborate set of counterfeits with a specific devious purpose in mind. Or perhaps they were never microwaved at all.

I'm still not convinced of any of these threats as realistic. Is this theoretical pocket scanner going to handle the multiplexing, amplification, digital signal processing, etc? All on a couple AA batteries? The RFID is passive, so the EM needs to make the trip twice.

Here's a link if you are interested: RFID Journal

This is likely a high growth sector, as all industries are looking to make their distribution systems more efficient, and anyone who gets an early leed could have a large advantage, since interoperability between difference companies systems would be a big selling point.

Particularly, I wondered where was IBM, who once lost control of a large industry to microsoft.

Some quick googling showed that IBM doesn't plan to let this fish get away. See here and here.

That said, anyone know about open-source non-proprietary RFID solutions for businesses?

Cards don't have the ability to capture/supply GPS data...yet.

"If there are individual readers for each one, build a device that incorporates all of them try one at a time until you get an expected result." Sorry, it doesn't work like that. You can't just tape them all together. See, the problem is that they're all emitting and reading RF, and if you have more than one active at a time, you'll get nasty interference. The fact is, it is hard to build a device that does multiple frequencies and protocols.

"But what makes you think anti-collision is even necessary for my argument?" Anti-collision is necessary for any reader on any of the of the protocols you mentioned. Otherwise if you have two tags in the field and your reader tries to read the tags in the field, they'll both try to answer at the same time and interfere with eachother (collide). AC is one of the hard parts of any shared medium communication, be it aloha-net, ethernet or RFID.

Anyhow, you don't have to be an RF engineer to participate in RFID discussions. But if you're completely misinformed about the subject, then you're just spreading FUD, and that's what I object to.

Let's go back to your original post.

"They don't have batteries, which is the only reason for their limited range. They get power directly from the radio waves." Half-true. Some RFID tags are powered or active, some are unpowered or passive.

"They are now weaving them into of clothing, they are inside your tires, and in the handle of your razor." They are not weaving them into clothing. I challenge you to find me one quote where they say they're doing that. I think that rumour may have started when a Wired article claimed that "Prada already embeds RFID inventory tags into its clothing". But a little research shows that is simply a tag that they put on in one particular store, which is probably removed when it is sold, and it is very visible to the customer: "Pick up any pair of shoes or handbag or dress and you'll find a clear RFID tag, with the antenna and chip clearly visible." See, it's the antenna that's difficult. Sure, the RFID chip is tiny, but the antennas are pretty big, normally on the order of 10cm by 3cm or so, so weaving it into clothing just wouldn't work. As for tires and rasors, I sincerely doubt that that's the case either -- see, both of those have huge amounts of metal in them which would interfere with RFID reading. But find me a link that proves that's being done and maybe I'll believe you.

"And almost any RFID tag can be read by almost any RFID reader". I hope I've disabused you of this notion. Most RFID tags can only be read with the associated reader. A small subset of RFID tags follow one of the EPC specs, and can be read by different readers, but very few readers are multi-protocol ones.

Now do you see why I was upset? There's really nothing to your original post other than FUD, and I just attacked the most obvious and egregious instance.

There's no problem discussing RFID, but there is with spreading FUD. If you worry about your boss knowing whether you changed your underwear you can certainly say "I worry that in a few years if manufacturers start embedding RFID tags in clothing and not disabling it at checkout, it might be possible for someone like my boss to know if I changed my underwear". See how that's different from:

The concern is that they don't deactivate themselves. And almost any RFID tag can be read by almost any RFID reader. So your boss can start checking how often you change your underwear, and indirectly can track you around the building by the tags in your clothing.

I agree that there is a potential for abuse of RFID technology. If RFID tags ever start being put on or inside consumer goods, it would be good to make sure that they're either removed or deactivated at checkout. There will p

As far as how many processors you 'need', already the number of PC based 32 (&64) bit processors around you are totally swamped by embedded processors (>99% of processors sold are 8 or 16 bit), many of which require zero human input and may operate for 10 years or more. A large commerial building may have >> 10^4 embedded processors in it (light fittings, temperature / humidity / occupancy / etc sensors, light switches, door locks, motor controllers, fire sensors etc. etc., not even touching on the IT infrastructure). Many of these processors are still 8 bit microcontrollers running at 5-20MHz. In the next 10 years the number of these type of processors in use is likely to to increase by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude (or more), e.g. through the use of smart RFID tags on every item for asset registering/lifetime maintenance records etc. (US military target for 2005.

It is likely that the 'hidden' embedded processing power of your surroundings will always exceed the conventional IT resources of your PC and IT network.(soon to include places such as your biro, your clothes and shoes and the carpet). And one day the very air that your breathe.

The answer depends in large part on precisely how much it would cost to manufacture scanners, and how many end up getting distributed. If a cheap, battery or solar powered standalone unit of small dimensions becomes possible, then it could be financially feasible for a government to place them at various chosen locations. A given government might decide it's only interested in 1% of its population, or one tenth of 1%. I don't know how much spare money the governments of Opec nations have lying around, but it's a poignant region to theorize about in this regard.

Exactly how do you imagine that said government will manage to place covert RFID scanners outside the houses of the general populace without people learning of this and revolting?

Some governments can rely on their grip on people. The people under the Taliban or Saddam didn't revolt, yet I think they endured greater indignities and pains than being tracked. And for the part of the people in the US, they didn't revolt when the DMCA was passed, or when the "patriot" act was passed, or when the "war on drugs" was initiated, or prostitution illegalized. Prohibition was repealed because it gave rise to organized crime, not because the people rose up and cast it off.

Aside from this paranoia, if you're so worried about what the RFID tag's going to do to your privacy, why wouldn't you just remove it right outside the store after your purchase?

As of a year ago, the technology had already reached the point where rfid tags were smaller than a grain of sand. A consumer may be completely unaware of the tag. Even if they are aware, they may be unable to find it. If they can find it, they may not be equipped to remove or disable it.

The Cat locator already exists. It is an RFID tag that is implanted into you pet. See you Vet. http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/230 /

Sure, I should've provided links to begin with. As far as the TOS systems go, they are proprietary usually and don't necessarily relate to your field anyhow. They're usually Oracle DB's with some type of application that sits on top of that.

As far as RFID goes, there are various vendors doing things for container terminal tracking, I don't know if they have technology that would apply to lab work or "smaller" and less rugged tagging needs:

Texas Instruments has a division:
TI-RFID at Texas Instruments

SAIC, really big contractor, interesting docs:
SAIC

The RFID Journal:
RFID Journal

Wherenet (RFID vendor):
Wherenet RFID Products

Transcore (RFID vendor):
Transcore Products, Services

I have always found it to be annoying that some places use EZ Pass, some use SmartTag/SmartPass, and some use Speedpass. I would love to see those all be consolidated. Maybe MasterCard should buy all those others and unify the whole thing...

It's too expensive. There's an article about what others are doing here

Post links with HTML tags. It's easier for us all.

In truth, RFID doesn't seem all that alarming to me. I work for a company that's about to enter this market, and the technical aspects of it seem pretty harmless. For one thing, the detectors aren't positional; you can't tell where the tag is, only what data it contains. This is most useful in a warehouse, where you want to know how much of which pallet you've got.

Secondly, the tags are VERY short-range. We're talking inches here, especially for the small tags linked above. You can boost range with a higher-power transmitter, but if you want to extend farther than a couple of feet, you'll probably fry somebody's brain. I'm not sure how this could be used for surveillance.

Hamster

Wal-Mart doesn't exactly higher the "brightest bulbs in the chandelier" if you know what I mean.

The good thing is that if RFID tags become omnipresent then so will RFID tag readers. As such an RFID tag reader should be small, simple to use, portable, and dirt cheap.

In fact the RFID Journal has a story about just such a reader being developed.

I guess I'll be buying one as soon as they come to market.

Wal-Mart doesn't exactly higher the "brightest bulbs in the chandelier" if you know what I mean.

The good thing is that if RFID tags become omnipresent then so will RFID tag readers. As such an RFID tag reader should be small, simple to use, portable, and dirt cheap.

In fact the RFID Journal has a story about just such a reader being developed.

I guess I'll be buying one as soon as they come to market.

If they're going to embed electronics in tires, I wish they'd start with tiny pressure gauges.

Hey, Timothy, you fucktard, read the article:

Philips and Texas Instruments have also developed pressure and temperature sensors that use battery-powered RFID tags to communicate with a reader in the dashboard. That enables the driver to know when the pressure of one particular tire drops below a certain level (see RFID Chip To Monitor Tire Pressure).

The tire makers are just trying to comply with the law! The TREAD (Transportation, Recall, Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation) Act requires tire makers to track all of their tires in case they need to recall them. Blame Congress, not the tire makers.

Oh, and to respond to the editors comment about how they should make tired that track tire pressure instead, they already do! (Is it okay for me to tell the editor to RTFA?

• 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.

They can. See this article (New Direct-to-Textile Washable Tag) from the RFID Journal magazine.

One thing that the discussion is missing is the fluidic self-assembly process that the company developed. Developing tiny RFID chips may not be that difficult, but manufacturing and packaging them at a cost of 10 cents of a unit turns out to be a hard problem to solve. I've seen videos of the self assembly in action, and it looks like spomething out of a sci-fi movie.

Check out http://www.rfidjournal.com/Features/Alien1.html for more info about the significance of the self assembly along with a link to video.

That is the really cool part about this company. Self-assembly is one of the up and coming important technologies of nanotech.

"Alien Technology" is not even trying to hide their involvement with aliens. And look at the photo of the Gilette VP! Clearly an Andorian who has had his antennae surgically hidden. Soon they will know where all my razor blades are. Think of the children!

maybe you'd like to look at the conveniently located FAQ page, just a click away from the article.