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Michelin to Include RFID Transmitter in Every Tire
An anonymous reader writes "According to the RFID Journal, Michelin (the tire manufacturer) has announced that it is planning on embedding RFID transmitters into every tire. The article states that 'the microchip stores the tire's unique ID, which can be associated with the vehicle identification number.' Let the privacy invasion begin!" If they're going to embed electronics in tires, I wish they'd start with tiny pressure gauges. (See also this story from a few days ago about the coming surge in RFID tags.)
funny, as a consumer who actually buys the tires, I don't remember ever asking for this.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Yes, new form of invasion of privacy. They're good in theory, bad in practice. That's all I need to do is to be catalogged, tagged, numbered, and ID'd. Yeah, sure. I just need everyone to know where I am, my every step, everything I do, seeing if I wiped my nose, showered daily, ate properly. I hope these die quickly and people wake up to the fact that these aren't convinence items. They're F'ing invasion of privacy and another way to strip away what last few shreads of freedom we have. F'ing losers.
Just use an icepick to perforate the chip. :)
This decision was mentioned a few days ago in the Times I think, and the intent to transmit tire pressures was specified. As for privacy problems, I think it's a little premature. Anyone close enough to scan your "tire chips" could just write down or photograph your license plate anyway (thouse red light cameras come pretty close), and soon enough with OCR traffic cameras will be able to record your passing. So anonymity in public is a fleeting thing anyway, and the Fourth Amendment won't stop it.
Also, it is easy enough to buy tires anonymously by using the green stuff.
To protect privacy, campaigning has to focus on the weak leak: The government. That the administration would even propose TIA reflects a serious problem already; privacy is the orphan right.
Yeah but people just can't secretly scan your VIN every time you go through a tollbooth, stop at a traffic light (You KNOW that those wires in the road don't really make the light green), or drive through McDonalds.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
How is an RFID in your tire an invasion of privacy? First, it's a serial number, period. Even IF the serial is associated with a VIN, still, how is it an invasion of privacy? How does this challenge your rights to privacy?
Oooh, someone is going to walk up to your car and KNOW what the serial number of the Michelin tire you bought is.
Seriously, I see this as GOOD. If there is an association of VIN to serial number then the police can track YOUR stolen car when the thieves strip it.
People need to get off the RFID kick. My CAT has an RFID. By itself it's nothing, but because that RFID serial is linked to my name in the issuer's database, I will get my cat back if he gets lost.
People need people need to understand RFID != privacy invasion.
A re-edit:
.... Do I need to continue?
If you car is "suddenly" equiped with one or two liscence plates that each display a unique serial number by means of reflected visual light, well, that is "bad" from a privacy standpoint.
Now associate those numbers with your VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) which uniquely identifies your car.
Your VIN is already connected to things like your name, address, insurance carrier and so on.
So now you are driving down a street and any number of automated systems (OCR) can know it is you (well, your car at least). So you have essentially been tagged like a spring buck.
You car already HAS a unique identifier tacked on it, your liscence plate which is illegal to remove or alter. More, unlike RFID which requires a transmitter and close (very close in the scale and speed on whcih cars operate) proximity to operate, a liscence plate can simply be read with your eyes. It is tied to your registration, which is tied to your vin. With a liscence plate number and an onld analogue radio a cop can call up just about anything they need to know about the car in question.
First of all, privacy's not really a big issue in this instance A good portion of driving happens on public roadways already -- where one is obligated to have the car's license plates plainly visible (which can, all by themselves, be used as identifying information). This coupled with the necessity of the ability to produce a valid drivers license and vehicle registration where circumstances warrant shows that a person doesn't really have much right to privacy while driving anyways.
Secondly, identifying arbitrary individuals with this would be like finding a needle in a haystack (more specifically, like getting one particular needle out of a haystack made of almost identical needles).
Besides... the usefulness that technology like this would have for being able to track stolen vehicles is obvious.
Oh, I do agree with the original poster on the point that embedding tire gauges into tires would be a really cool feature.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Only three kinds of people will let this change their behavior:
1. The truly paranoid
2. The truly criminal
3. People whose self-esteem rests on believing that everyone but them is crooked and evil.
People can surveil you anywhere you go, your car can be identified in commercial satellite imagery, the grocery knows what you buy, the phone company knows who you call, the cable company knows what TV programs you watch, and your ISP knows what web sites you visit and who gets your email.....and now you're upset?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
As things stand now... 'they' pretty much have to be reasonably sure you're guilty of a crime before tracking you. It's way too much of a pain in the ass to do it casually. (You have to set up camera/ocr survelliance, reference the state DMV database, etc...)
With something like this? The entire process can be easily automated.
Every time someone calls you paranoid about privacy violations.... remember: You're only 'too boring for them to worry about' when monitoring and survelliance are a pain in the ass. Once it becomes quick, easy and automated? You're a target.
Do I have anything to hide? Legally, morally or ethically? No. Do I want a religious fanatic with a history of behavior that most of us would call 'mentally unstable' and entirely too much political influence, (read: our current Attorney General) to be watching every step I make? No. Do I want someone watching my purchasing habits so that they can avoid the precautions I've taken to get away from their advertising? No. Do I want someone's lawyer to go over my buying habits for perfectly legal activities that he might be able to use against me? (Well of COURSE he must have been responsible for the accident your honor!!!! Look.... he's stopped at a liquor store twice in the past MONTH!!!! He must have been drunk and THAT'S why my client jumped the median and hit him head on!!!!) No.
Paranoia is only unjustified if you're more trouble than going after you is worth. Advances like this dramatically reduce the amount of trouble you are.
I wonder if it's easy to disable these things by using a strong magnetic or electric field. Anyone know?
-30-
While humorous, RFID is one hell of a lot more reliable (on short spans) than OCR. It's also easy to embed it such that you can't tell it's there, while a camera can usually be noticed by the observant.
So, now instead of having good origional ideas here, all you have to do is recycle the same 'this voilates our rights becuase .... ' mantra you hear on every post these days?
not everything invades your privacy!
Everything can be used for both good and bad, that is true, but I think in this case they're aiming for the good. Michelin isn't going to sell their database of tires to anyone. The only reason the article states for having the tracking numbers is to make it easier for recalls. They would have no reason for giving their database to 'the Man' so he could spy on you and see how often you travel from A to B.
Recalls are not driving this. It would be cheaper to do this another way and unique IDs are not needed for recalls.
Does anyone think it's cheaper to "invest" in all new equipment than it is to use established bar codes? Tell me why the company can't paint a nice little white bar coded serial number on the side of the tire? Everyone's got barcode readers and they would be more practical. How is a tire shop going to check the serial number of a single tire, when every tire in range answers?
RFIDs are only useful for others who have nothing to do with tire recalls. Does anyone really expect to be told that their tires are recalled? Most recalls are silent, you either find out about them on your own from paid advertisements or you don't. While it would be very nice for Michalin to contact me if my particular lot of tires is bum, I don't see what that has to do with someone being able to ID my car from a distance. If tire lot is all you need, why the unique number? Won't unique serial numbers actually impeed lot recognition? When tires are sold at a shop all the information the company needs to meet the stated goal is collected. After that, no one else needs to know who you are.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Though I suspect that given the distances I drive here in Australia, it's unlikely to ever be a problem.
After all, they can't even maintain mobile phone coverage without a fairly hefty power input.
I've seen a picture of one of these tires in some other article. Michelin is so proud of solving the technical challenges, they are putting stickers on the side of the tires. Two years from now, if you want to know if its in your tire, look for the sticker. After all, the "technicians" changing your oil need to be able to tell if they can use the new-fangled tire reader on your tires or not.
If my car is parked in my windowsless garage, you don't know it's there due to it's license plate unless you set up cameras to track me to and from my garage.
If my car is parked in my windowless garage with RFID tag, depending on the tag (and there are indeed several types), you can track it down.
I am not anti-RFID. I just feel that if you are going to use the technology, the products should be clearly labelled. Let the consumer choose.
btw, to the other tire companies out there, I will NOT be buying Michelins. Or any other tire company that I find out adds remote detection and sensing tags to their tires, whether announced or not. You want my business, keep the RFID or other easy remote sensing tire ID technology the hell away from my vehicle.
Because "the man" asked them to. As flight schools had "no reason" to hand over their lists of students, as ISPs had "no reason" to hand over their customer info... Once the information exists, and law enforcement wants it, it can just ask for it, in these days with any or no excuse.
no reason? No reason other than the limitless budget of the United States of America. They can write a cheque with more ones and zeroes than you'll find in your average intel CPU...Everything has a price; I think -you- are the one that needs to not be dense.
I have a friend who used to be a telemarketer, and he used to tell me all kinds of fun stuff about their lists of phone numbers they'd have to call. They'd get lists of people who just had children born to them from the hospitals, so they can be called up and offered parenting magazine subscriptions. They'd get reports from police stations about illegal possession of firearms and then these people would be targeted for sales of "guns and ammo." If the hospitals and the police are already willing to sell their lists, what makes you think that something as "reputable" as a TIRE MANUFACTURER won't sell theirs? heh.
Furthermore, although it is true that everything can be used for both good and bad, the greater likelihood is that it will be used for something bad or oppressive. The DMCA is a great example of what people initially thought would be a "good" law, but it turns out it prevents people from posting ads from newspapers on black friday and all other kinds of inane bullshit that the DMCA shouldn't even apply to.
If you give those "in control" a way to more-efficiently or more-effectively "control" the ones they're "in control" of, they're going to use this new technology or method exhaustively "for the greater good" even if it walks all over our rights, because it holds the illusion of making their job easy or making a human system flawless. A human system by its nature will never be flawless, because it is human, but that doesn't mean that those "in power" or "in control" aren't lusting after a "perfect solution" which will put them in the position to watch everybody and make sure they behave.
The more you take things like this lightly, the more you're letting your guard down. You need to believe that the only person that will protect you and your rights is yourself, and you need to believe that everybody else out there has wants and desires FOR or OF you which are completely counter to your own. Only by encountering all friends as enemies can you ensure that your personal privacy and security will be preserved.
Question everything.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
A problem, however with identifying "me" by my tires; if I want new tires, I'll go to Sears and buy a couple pairs, or go to my (small) mechanic and have him install a few tires. Now, he can either install new or used tires at my behest (depending on how long I intend to keep the vehicle, and drive it in the meantime). So where's the association? I can assure you that I'm not going to let some minimum wage Sears schmuck follow me to my car and record my VIN. Hell, for all he knows I'm using my friend's van to pick up the tires. The logistics just aren't reailstic.
License plates are, by nature, assigned to a VIN. Tires are not associated, and are only slightly more difficult to interchange (give me a jack and ten minutes and I'll do it on the side of a road).
Yes, I'm sure there's value to adding tracking devices to everything worth more than $50 that we may purchase in our lifetimes, but there are also drawbacks. If the "good guys" (subjective) can track my tires, so can the "bad guys" (also subjective). What I don't like, however, is the ability of anybody to easily track me. Atleast it takes some minimal effort to track my license plate - a person has to look at every car matching my description (if I threw a rock from my driveway, it'd probably bounce off atleast four other J-Body cavaliers, so YMMV. ;) )
I, personally, can't see the advantages of this outweighing the disadvantages and costs associated. Somewhere, I'm sure somebody has a great plan. Nevertheless, I think I'll stick to Goodyear
Yeah, but then readers would be required nation-wide which is costly to say the least. The resaon 'automated roads' have been back-burnered is the astronomical expense of implementing it in any large scale. I don't see RFID readers being implemented in a nation-wide net any time soon. All you'd have to do to escape 'the man' is to hit a concession or a country road.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
And of course complex software systems like this never have bugs, and couldn't possibly lock somebody in a room overnight because the system doesn't belive they can be near the only door.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I can't possibly see them putting this into every tire... It would raise the cost too much making them uncompetitive.
I could *maybe* see them putting this into the highest of high performance tires as security devices.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Well, today it seems hard. But once it gets ubiquitous, what stops Michelin (or any other company) from refining the technology?
Even if it has some good uses like tracking stolen tires, this seems to me like another "good intention" paving the road to hell...
Besides, there are other ways to secure your tires. Like: screw one round bolt with a hole in it so only you can remove it.
Finally, I'd rather get my wheels stolen than live in a country where all my moves are tracked.
So forget about finding a 'perfect' database with everything in it..
I'm not worried about a perfect database. I'm worried about an imperfect database that some idiot *will* insist on treating as if it were perfect.
What happens with the cars with serial numbers which "don't exist"? I would assume that you handle it somehow, reasonably. The problem with automated systems is that while they can reason sylogistically, they are quite incapable of being reasonable. Correct logic from faulty premises leads to incorrect conclusions.
Finally, vehicles move. Even a speedy RFID tag that transmits at 12kbps takes 1/46th of a second to send a typical 256 bit message (serial number + checksum + overhead). It takes 5-6 times this in practice to power the tag, interrogate it, and receive a response, in which time the car has moved >10ft at 60MPH. So even if you could have an ultra-high-gain antenna, it'd have to be significantly steerable, too.
Well this might be true but try this... A trafic signal is equipped with the reader and scans while you are sitting at a red light.
Or... the police car is equipped that is moving at 0 MPH relative to your car regardless to ground speed.
Or... The local gas station/minimart/whatever is equipped to track you in the parking lot.
In short the technology is not evil or anything but it is a powerful tool, and with great power comes great responsibility and I have zero faith that the powers that be will use this power in a responsible manner. It is setting the stage for a Bad Thing
If you don't do anything wrong, why worry about illegal searches? Why seal envelopes when you mail them? Why EVER use PGP? Why encrypt, period? What are you trying to hide criminal?
Never EVER use any iteration of the phrase, "If you don't do anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about." That is the road to zero civil liberties. That is the road to Police State.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
What would be cool is if your driveway could have a sensor in it that reads the RFID on your tire and automatically open the garage door for you. No more worrying who has the remote.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
News flash - boring middle class school kids sometimes rise beyond their mediocrity and become political leaders. More importantly, they sometimes become OPPOSITION leaders. I'm nobody special and likely never will be. I recognize, however, that there are people out there not too different from me who are doing things that benefit me and annoy powerful people.
.001% of the population that agitates against current government policies that have to be worried. People like this generally agitate against the rights of the rich and powerful and for the rights of the ordinary Joe. Knocking them down a few notches is in the interests of the existing leadership and is not in the interests of the general public.
It is politically untenable to track opposition leaders. It is quite possible, however, to get the populace to accept that EVERYONE will be tracked for their own good (protection from communists, drug dealers, terrorists, etc - depending on the decade).
Once that becomes acceptable, you are quite right that 99.999% of the information will be thrown away. It's the
Then there's the issue with databases in general - sure, the government doesn't care much about it, though they want the information around in case they find someone they want to harass. There are thousands of scrupleless private investigators who would LOVE to get their hands on that info, and thousands of scrupleless hackers who would help them. Relevant to this story, if John Doe suspected infidelity on the part of the spouse who was divorcing him, don't you think a log of all the places his wife had driven would be interesting to him?
Privacy means two things...freedom from government harassment and freedom from private harassment. Let the government monitor everyone, and they'll harass the people who make the government uncomfortable. You can't protect only the activists; you have to protect everyone. Let the government maintain databases on everyone and that information becomes available to everyone willing to pay, whether it's criminal to hack the database or not.
You place entirely too much trust in the scruples of demonstrably unscrupulous categories of people.
First of all remember a RFID tag is useless without a reader. No reader in range, no ID. Second, the scan range is somewhat limited. It's going to be difficult to scan the tags from anywhere other than inside the vehicle when it's moving.
This has some advantages for the consumer beyond the inventory and supply chain management improvements for Michelin.
For one it will be easier to spot counterfit Michelin tires. Before you scoff be aware this is a big problem for Michelin and some other high end tire makers. It is not uncommon to buy a brand name tire and get a phony tire made overseas or a re-tread sold as new.
Another application would be to embed multiple tags to indicate tire wear. When certain tags wear away you will know the tire needs to be replaced.
Imaging the RFID tags were combined with pressure and temprature gauges. This would allow you to know this from inside the car while it was moving.
I doubt the "Man" is going to go around installing RFID readers everywhere just because one tire maker with a small slice of the market starts putting tags in their tires. Besides all you get when you get when you read a RFID tag is a number. A unique number to be sure, but without a lookup to the various supply chain databases a fairly meaningless number.
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