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NYT on RFID Tags
indros13 writes "The NY Times is running a story on the radio tagging of merchandise. Companies like Gillette want to make sure their razors are in stock and stores like Wal-Mart want to make sure you can find your paisley panties, size 10. But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?"
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I take my purchases to a clerk who rings them up, and to whom I give payment.
- someone spreading gossip than I am some pencil-pusher in a cubicle 1000 miles away.
The store already knows what I've bought. Big deal.
These sound like a much more effective shoplifting deterrent than the current tags that can be defeated with a tinfoil-lined purse (or fanny sack as geeks call them).
It would be nice to see a system of these tags taking the current 'self check-out' aisles even further: the products in the cart announce themselves to a kiosk which automatically tallies up the bill. For practical purposes, that's much more anonymous than the cashier.
I'm more worried about the cashier-whos-a-friend-of-a-cousin-of-a-dentist-of
Anyways, more fluff.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"the same techniques that enable an electronic sensor to record data from an E-ZPass tag or an office door to open for people with chip-equipped cards in their pockets"
I know many who have EZ-Pass (mine was ordered and never came) and it has so many false positives for non-payment it's insane. Along with your fine you get a nice little picture in the mail of your car going through the toll even though they have that car in their EZ-Pass database!
My apartment building uses the electronic key lock with a motion sensor on the inside. I'd say it's broken about 5% of the time, which is a lot if that's where you are every day.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
For any cool experiments? Is the transmitter range long enough to track my pet to within lets say 400 feet? Could they be hacked into some sort of packet network backbone or radio station?
I'm going to brush paranoia aside for now because I wonder what sort of cool things I can do with these little wonders. Millions upon millions of them all availiable whenever I purchase a product.
Could I read these RDIF tags myself? Could I drive past my neighbors and find out what brand lubricant they use by scanning their trashcans? Oh what fun! I can see it now, you heard it from me first, "War RDIF anarchy dildo driving!" As soon as these things are introduced, I'm going to drive around the bay area every garbage night and scan for people who have empty anarchy dildo packages in their trash, and mark it with some chalk (And on a map I will post on the net)
Man, this takes shaming peoples insecurities to a whole new level.
Unless you are stealing from the store, the clerk and the cash register know everything you buy anyway.
If it ends up having *any* impact on privacy, it would be too *improve* privacy. No matter what, the cash register system has the *potential* to track your purchases that you pay for. Currently, when you buy stuff, every individual item must be handled by the cashier to be scanned, so the cashier is intimately familiar with your purchase. If used properly, this thing could scan an entire cart without digging through every item. Items you want to hide can be hidden. They still are paid for, but the cashier only sees the total sum, not each purchase. Combine this with anonymous currency (only paper money right now) and individuals are in no way associated with their purchases, neither by humans nor by computer.
Afraid of those items being tracked after leaving the store? Rip out those tags when you are out of there.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
...Faraday shopping bag?
Actually, that is an old shoplifter's trick.
Take 2 large paper shopping bags, like the one's from a department store. Cover one with aluminum foil, place it inside the other one (arrange foil so that it can not be seen).
TA DA! Faraday bag, blocks RF tags dead.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
I wonder if these would even work in an electronics retailer - say like Best Buy. You've got a wall of TV's, cell phones, radio, etc all over the store. Unless you had a large number of distributed receivers, how would you counteract the interference.
Nearly all store shelving is metal. In particular, Wal-Marts have those big 8 foot high shelves in certain sections of the store. Grocery stores are completely filled with metal shelving and refrigeration units.
it would be like the thick plastic armoring that music stores encase CDs and Tapes in
No, they are strips of "foil" just a few microns thick. They are very easily concealed. So far they are usually held on under a bit of tape but, they can be embedded into the materials that make up the product. Some manufacturers are discussing doing this. In the case of Gillette, the strip could be easily embedded in the plastic shell of the individual razor blade. RFID tags can also be easily laminated into the paper of books etc.
Take a US currency note, greater than one dollar, and hold it up to the light. You will(should) notice a milar strip embedded into the bill that denotes the face value of the bill. An RFID tag could be as simple as this milar strip. In fact, the tag could be even smaller that the milar strip in the bill.
Your credit card or debit card company knows what you bought? Funny, but mine don't. They see that I spent $107 at Fortinos and $89 at Walmart, but they DON'T see that I bought Lays BBQ chips and a big tub of jellybeans, and Walmart doesn't see what I bought at Fortinos and vice versa.
Sears and JC Penney specifically, give me an itemized list on my statement of what was purchased. (This can be QUITE handy for things like warranty issues, and also when the card gets used fraudulently).
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
I work for a company that sells to one of the worlds largest retailers. This retailer recently held a meeting with all suppliers in the division and stated that RFIDs will be used on all pallets entering the DC this year and all products sold within a couple years. The benefits such as walking past the checkout and knowing exactly what's in your cart was discussed. Inventory management is the really big benefit though. Concerns such as thieves potentially knowing what's in your cart as you walk to your car were also discussed. Someone also voiced the concern that thieves with proper equipment could know exactly what's sitting in your car. It seems like the retailers know what the risks are. They are seriously trying to reduce those risks but the benefits are far too great for them to ignore. We're just hoping that the price comes down. The tags cost half as much as our product.
Imagine someone with a portable scanner walking through the mall parking lot knowing exactly which recently purchased items are in each vehicle...
youch!
Why not simply put them on stickers that you can put on the box or on the thing itsels, or on those little paper tags with size and brand that always are attached to clothes?
That way you could physicaly remove the tag once you're home.
There is absolutely *no* reason what so ever to put the rfid in the product itself!
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)