Slashdot Mirror
UK Home Office plan: ID Chips in Everything
LauraLolly writes "The BBC ran an article on how booksellers in the UK hope to use Radio Frequency ID chips to report on the entire life cycle of a book, including ownership and second-hand sales. There were throw-away lines about how the Home Office plans to use these chips in all goods, and their current use in U. S. libraries. And you thought that voluntary medical chips were bad..."
Buy a book legitimately
:)
walk out of the shop
take it home
microwave it on high for 15 seconds
enjoy
a grrl & her server
And to think there was controversy over the subpoena of Monica Lewinsky's bookstore receipts - what an innocent time that was!
Or in front of the bulk eraser should solve that RFID problem quite handily for you.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They plan to put them in everything, eh?
So where can I buy ID chips for my ID chips? "This ID chip belongs to NiftyNews, please don't spoof me."
------
Today's Top Deals
Well, let's say I live somewhere where the local folk decide it's a good idea to have a book-burning - Harry Potter, maybe, or Catcher in the Rye. Or the local government decides certain books and those who read them are subversive and should be watched. Or the local corporations decide that if they could compile a big database of who buys certain types of books, they could "target" their marketing of associated products, and sell lists of, e.g. Kilgore Trout fans, to the highest bidder.
:)
Be awfully convenient for them to be able to find who's got those books, and where, don't you think?
(It's only paranoia until they get you.
The article didn't say how strong these things are. Will, say, a few seconds in a microwave oven damage them? "Cookbook" might make for a good pro-privacy slogan.
That should be fun. Even assuming that "all goods" excludes things like food, there are still a wide range of products that I sure wouldn't want to track.
--- MarkusQ
The UK government already want to put something in your car which tracks your movements (and there is a camera system which more or less does just that on the M25). The police are already entitled to break up a meeting of more than three people on a whim (Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000). They can see what you are looking at on the net, they control who gets to own weapons (apart from criminals, of course). And now they want to control what books you can read. (No, I know that this article didn't mention that, but seriously, of course they're going to try and do it if they think they can). Blunkett is a dangerous man, and I am so afraid of what this government is trying to do that I am going to be voting for The Other Lot next time round.
I am really starting to hate what this country is becoming. Is it any better over your side of the pond? Failing that, maybe it's time to move to the Far East...
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
The real logic behind this, ultimately, will be to allow book publishers - and, ultimately, the producers of anything - to collect royalties for each resale. Mark my words, this is exactly what this is about.
from what i understand, they're already doing this. it's how they caught kevin spacey.
SOMERSET: For a long time, the F.B.I.'s been hooked into the library system, keeping accurate records.
MILLS: What? Assessing fines?
SOMERSET: They monitor reading habits. Not every book, but certain ones are flagged. Books about... let's say, how to build a nuclear bomb, or maybe Mein Kampf. Whoever takes out a flagged book has their library records fed to the F.B.I. from then on.
xox,
dead nancy
I personally think that this would be a really good and easy way to make my home library catalog. I could just hold up my rf scanner and get the info direct from the books themselves.
I didn't think that voluntary medical chips were that bad, actually. There are different reasons to give up privacy. We can give up privacy for commercial reasons (all the supermarkets nearby where I live issue frequent shopper cards so they can monitor everything I buy -- I hate it). We can give up privacy for law enforcement reasons (depends on how much you trust your government). And there are a myrid of other reasons we can give up privacy.
I don't think that anything that encroaches on privacy is automatically bad. In fact, I'd have to say that encroachmetnts on privacy are only generally wrong because the possibility of demonstrable harm as a result of invasion of privacy can generally be shown to be a real possibility.
In specific cases I can support a mass (usually voluntary) invasion of privacy.
Police states are generally bad because of the baggage that comes along with them. Abuse of power, lack of freedoms, what not. They aren't bad because of the two words "police state".
If technology has progressed far enough to give us the positives of very effective law enforcement and monitoring without the baggage, well more power to it! As a first step, I would support voluntarily allowing tracking systems to be implanted (or worn like ankle bracelets) for the purposes of more effective protection from murders and kidnappers and what not. I think that our government's legal systems -- though not nearly perfect -- have progressed far enough to permit systems like these to be used without bringing along the baggage of fascism and totalitarianism. There is no possibility that they would be 100% effective, but neither would they be ineffectual.
And soon, there'll be new DMCA-aware photocopier who'll report the copyright infringers to the BSA/SPA/CIA/FEMA... when detecting such a book chip in the item being copied?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
As i sit back and relax for a good read wearing my tin-foil cap, i'll just have to resort to wrapping my books in tin-foil as well.
It should work fine right up until the courts rule that tin-foil is a circumvention device under the DMCA...
once that happens the aliens will finally control us all!
How would a "second hand sale" be recorded in a book? What about subsequent sales? Would I have to go through an agency (ala dept. motor vehichles service -- DMV) where there will be a "change of ownership form" every time someone sells a book? Will I have to wait in long lines as I do at the DMV? Will they justify all this by saying "reading is not a right, it is a privilege?"
About microwaving books, will a person be fined if his book is "not standards compliant"? Will there be an annual inspection (like motor vehicles) for each book?
Since it is the "Mother's day", I will not call the advocates of this policy sons of ******.
S
Move along citizens, there's nothing to see here.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Sounds to me like you need one of those aluminum hats. You know; like the crazies wear. Otherwise, no comment ;-)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"They can't make it illegal to take out or destroy the chip without seriously changing the way things are sold.
Right now, if I buy a book I can quite happily rip the cover off and even re-bind it with all the pages in the wrong order if I want, it's my book.
Are we heading for a future where nothing is ever owned ?
This computer game is yours, but you aren't allowed to reverse-engineer it.
This book is yours but you're not allowed to tamper with its chip.
This movie is yours but you're not allowed to watch it in company, or more than once a month.
This CD is yours but if you want to put it on your mp3 player you have to pay again.
This TV programme is being beamed at you, but if you watch it you have to watch all of it, including the adverts.
Do you see how close we are ?
graspee
On the other hand, if you're running a paedophile ring or something equally nasty, that should get you a long sentence, say 20 years or whatever, then refusing to hand over your encryption keys will get you 4 years instead of handing them over for the full 20.
So this law has given people a fairly easily exploitable Get Out of Jail Quicker card...
Regards,
Denny
Police State UK - news and
Justification for piracy of books on the internet: Found
But seriously, this is another one of those brilliant corporate ideas that fuels internet piracy, just like $20 for a music CD with a couple of good songs and several rushed throw-away tracks on it, the movie industry's insistence on stopping the horrific evil of importing DVDs that aren't available in your country, and several different industry groups' attempts to rob us of any fair use rights, or in some cases, any rights that we might have at all (especially in the case of the artists).
And they're going to go crying right to their legislators when internet piracy suddenly picks up a week or two after their bone-headed idea is implemented...
The Fowler Company, makers of the TagLogic RFID Tagging System says on their product page:
Tags retain data for a minimum of 10 years, and have a minimum of 100,000 read/write cycles. They are impervious to electrical noise, magnetism, dirt and grime and all but the most extreme temperature conditions.
Apparently these devices can withstand temperatures of up to 105C!
Tagging a physical book is not sinister, it's not anti-privacy, it's not 1984. Nobody is going to care - ever - that you bought the latest Pratchett, then sold it to your friend, who donated it to a charity shop, who then sold it to a guy who gets drug conviction. There is no nightmare "Enemy of the State" scenario, because it's small potatoes. What this tagging is for is exactly what it say it's for: to identify specific objects to help convict habitual or large scale thieves. That's all it will do, and that's good, because it means those of us who do pay for books won't have to pay for the stolen ones too.
I guess if we don't have at least one anti-privacy conspiracy story on a weekend, we have to find one, huh?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Police say the felon heated his books to
200C to disable the rights management chip.
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and this is his third strike.
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But a book doesn't burn until 451F (what, you've never read Ray Bradbury?) so we can safely destroy these things by sticking them in an oven.
After all, the UK is Oceania, isn't it?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
You probably don't know what kind of perverts there are in the UK government. In fact, you don't want to know.
If they're typical graduates of the "public schools", I think the record speaks for itself - they'll be getting a sexual thrill out of knowing your girlfriend just bought a rubber raincoat and wellys...
Freedom: "I won't!"
I don't think any consumer electronics could survive in that environment. Maybe some NASA equipment could...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
And once the Movie/Book/Music publishers can track second-hand sales of their products, any guesses as to how long it would take before they start demanding royalties on those sales as well? I'm betting you could measure it in nanoseconds.
Blah, blah, blah -- I've got nothing to hide, so why should I worry?
Please stop with this tired anti-privacy and anti-freedom argument. Truth is, if anybody implements any tracking device on anything I own, it's out the door immediately.
Is owning stuff really _that_ important, for us to accept a lasso around our necks?
Who on gods earh steals books, you can just go to your local library, take it of the shelf and read it if you need it that desperately, books stolen from libraries is more than paid for by the charges encured by late return fees, no one I know would ever concider copying more than a page or 2 from a book and the'll probably end up buying it anyway if it is of any use, and how would taging prevent someone copying a page or 2 anyway?
It only helps comerce and the government, would you like to have been tracked geting a copy of a few books by the author Karl Marx during the last century? Do you want to get yet more junk mail because you happen to have bought 2 cook books in the past month?
If so, I'm sure theres easier ways to achive your goals than taging every book sold from x point onwards.
You're not destroying the electronics by heat, you're inducing a huge amount of current in it, instantly frying all electronics. The RF thing necessarily has an antenna lead (probably very short, but there) so that it can pick up the tiny RF signal that it uses for power. Now, you're feeding it many thousands of times more power than it's designed to take.
Stick a CD or pop-tart wrapper in the microwave sometime and see what happens. The arcs are caused by the high voltage induced in the conductive parts.
BTW this won't hurt the microwave but it does stink.
See my journal, I write things there
Imagine what it would be like if a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook was tracked to everyone who owned a copy of it. The book is Flagged (much in the same way as a slashdot post) as offensive, and the owner of the book is given a point against him.
Combined with implanted medical chips, this could be a nightmare. Too many "bad points" on the medical chip, and then you're stopped at airports and train stations.
But this could be taken to the next level as well. What if you're applying for a job as a teacher, and they see that you like pornography a little too much? Or if you read books about bringing back corporal punishment? They'll either refuse to hire you, or fire you on the premise that you *might* either have sex or hit one of your students.
That's the ultimate goal, overall. Seek out all the "bad" people before something happens. Make anyone with different ideas public outcasts. Turn everyone into either corporate or government conformists.
It's never, EVER going to work. True Deviants and terrorists always know how to get around these sorts of things. Information will always be free... if you know where to look for it. The goal is to keep as many people in the dark of that fact.
But when I think of a motto for these people, I think of a line from the movie Sneakers to justify them:
"No more secrets, Marty."
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
whether they will put an ID chip in Beowulf .
Except that the resale of all these goods (in used book stores and the like) is already taxed in sales tax/VAT and the like.
Bring the book to the counter, let them ring it up and pay for it.
Then rip the chip out drop it on the counter and say loudly enough for nearby customers to hear (not the whole store, yelling just makes you look loony), "Just because I purchase a book from you does not entitle you to track me everywhere I take it, so you can keep this".
Generating bad feeling for the store stupid enough to do this works better than just disabling one.
I'd cut the chip out of the book. Track my reading, will ya?
One other thing: if the chip's memory is capacious, it occurs to me that you could put the e-text of the book itself in there. Which kind of raises the question: why print the book if you can release it in e-format?
Kenneth Starr's office subpoenaed Monica Lewinsky's book receipts from a bookstore she had frequented. That was a classic case of investigating someone for reasons other than the interests of society. Bureaucrats can be dangerous people - just because you've never experienced that directly doesn't mean it can't happen.
You only have to go back to the 1950's, around the time to which the current article applies, to see a truly egregious example, in McCarthyism. The people who think "that can't happen again" don't realize how every one of the freedoms that are chipped away at day by day bring us closer to the day when some person or organization, well-meaning or otherwise, will find themselves in a position to abuse the end result in unfortunate ways.
In the Jurassic Park series of movies, there's the line about "life will find a way". You could make a similar statement about "abuses of power will find a way". History has shown this over and over.
I, for one, will destroy any tagging device I didn't specifically request, on principle. I'm no Luddite, either - I'm a software developer who develops financial services systems, and I love the concept of greater automation in our financial markets (an area of interest of mine) and in our lives. But another cliche is "with great power, comes great responsibility".
Unfortunately, governments, corporations and individuals have shown time and time again that they will abuse that responsibility, if given the opportunity. Don't give them any more of an opportunity than they already have, and certainly not without good reason. There's no good reason to electronically tag books.
For this, a simple tag that says "this book is part of the stock of such-and-such a bookseller, and has not been paid for" is sufficient. Buy the book, the tag gets cancelled. If you want to, use the tag to record "this belongs to me, if lost, please return". That's fine. Your choice.
Nothing more is needed to achieve the stated objectives. Anything more is there for the benefit of third parties, and needs to be examined very carefully for potential misuse before being accepted.
"We regret that owing to circumstances outside our control, 1984 has been somewhat delayed."
With more detail!
And it was rejected - how so?
http://www.plans-kits.com/
Speed cameras? Ooops they don't seem to be working.
Deleted
Perhaps the government can install readers for these in public places, you can identify people carrying "problem" books, i.e. those promoting political discord, and track their movements.
Anyone from the UK here? You guys are saps for government intrusion. You don't even live in a democracy, but you think you do.
- Nobody is going to care - ever - that you bought the latest Pratchett, then sold it to your friend, who donated it to a charity shop, who then sold it to a guy who gets drug conviction.
Then why record which book I have bought and who has bought it laterSigh. So that when it's stolen, it can be uniquely identified so that the thief can be prosecuted, and so that it can be returned to you. It's quite clear from the article that this is the intent, and really, it's the only practical use. It can't be used to track goods moving from one retail purchaser to the next. It's not invasive, or sinister, it's for your protection.
Are you aware of the definition of clinical paranoia? It's not specifically "they're out to get me!", it's generally seeing patterns that aren't there, attributing significance to insignificant things, particularly with regard to yourself. That's a pretty solipsistic attitude you've got there, buddy. Nobody cares about you. Nobody will ever care.
That aside, how exactly does this identify you any more than it already does? If you buy a book with a card, the purchase (against the book code) is already recorded (gasps of horror!). If you buy with cash, you're anonymous in either case. You think that we're going to ban anonymous cash purchases? OK, then say that, and we'll debate that.
Yes, that's a very nice work of fiction. Rather than worrying about speculative censorship and information control, why not worry about the books that are banned in the USA right now?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You're creating a straw man to push your own agenda. That's not what I said, and it's not what I meant. This isn't just lack-of-evil, it's actively good, for you and for me.
Instead of a (tired) knee jerk reaction of looking at this as "them" tagging "you", think of it as you being able to identify your stuff. Seeing as how that's exactly and only what it is.
And don't quote me out of context. The important adjunct is: nobody will care about your purchases because it's small potatoes. If you believe for one second that law enforcement or government in the US don't already have the technology and the leglislation to track every single purchase, deposit and withdrawal that you make then you're living in a happy dream world. Your life is already transparent. You have no privacy. The only issue is whether "they" care enough to peel you like a grape, and whether they will use any of your activities as evidence against you. Chances are that they won't, but either way product tagging won't make a blind bit of difference to the information that the MiB can obtain about you.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
People who cant punctuate or spel?
Don't assume that because you wouldn't do it, it isn't done. Bookshops (and libraries) are full of small, portable items that are so easy to just slip into your jacket. The value is low enough that a significant minority of people might not even view it as "real" theft. Before you gasp in outraged horror, ask any office worker how they feel about liberating office supplies.
Unrelated to this story, I heard an anecdote from a friend last week about casual bookstore theft: the mother of an errant child brought it back in to the bookstore to hand over a book that it had just slipped into its jacket. The child was about eight, and seemed utterly unrepentant, and the mother slammed the book down with a curt "Here's your book," then stormed off, as though it was the bookshop's fault that her offspring had taken it.
The part that surprised my friend was that the mother had even brought it back. He says that most of the people they get browsing their books are the sort who have to follow the words with their fingers, and they lose a lot of stock to casual - sometimes very casual - theft. People often don't even bother hiding the books, they just calmly walk out of the shop with them.
Now, tagging won't help to catch the most casual thieves, but if they do it once too often, it will help to convict them. Perhaps you think that this is a bad thing? Or perhaps you're confused about whether the purchases that you make on a credit/debit card are already logged and tagged to you. They are, and that information is already available to law enforcement.
Tagging of books (or any retail object) doesn't breach any privacy that you already have (which is almost none). It is targetted exactly and only at actual thieves.
Regarding your argument buying Karl Marx, it's very clever and sinister sounding, but considering that the USA already ban books it's overly hypothetical. How about finding out how few rights you have now rather than imagining lesser evils in the future?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
-- SIGFPE
feeble attempts to charge me with crimethinking by eliminating the word 'in' when you quoted me, the word 'in'
has always been part of my original statement. Any transcript that omits that word must be in error, and the
appropriate Ministry of Truth agents will be disciplined for dereliction of duty for not having corrected this omission.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Now of those law enforcement agencies, who do we trust with an all-encompassing portfolio, why people like John Hanssen. Please believe me, I have probably travelled a little wider than you, and giving the government a lot of extra information is never a good thing unless they really have a specific case to need it.
Tagging objects is a fine idea, but I would like to know where the information stops. Why do they need to know what an object is if it is physically in front of them?
See my journal, I write things there
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.