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
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."
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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...
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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.
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.
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
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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Police say he provided the illegal heating
service to as many as 10 other criminals
and this is his third strike.
[Ad]
His previous two convictions were for reading texts that were no longer in print and removing
jingle players from books to block part
of the advertizing.
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His crimes are estimated to have cost 15 Billion dollars in lost revenues according to The Corporation(TM).
[Ad]
The death penalty has been granted, but the judge has reserved the right to choose the method. His trial is scheduled for Sept of 2008.
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This station is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL-Time-Warner-Microsoft-Disney(TM), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US-UK Government(TM), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Corporation(TM).
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All rights reserved.
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After all, the UK is Oceania, isn't it?
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
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.
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."
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