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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?"
My cross dressing days are over! Everybody will know I'm wearing paisley panties!
I think that it'd be cool if my Hello Kitty stuffed animal could identify things via RFID...
Basketball: Hello Kitty!
Kitty: Hello Basketball!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
These retailers are more than welcome to track anything and everything until I've paid for it because until that point, it belongs to them.
So, does this mean that the (in)famous walmart $300 PC now sells with built in 802.11???
Nothing happens to your privacy when tracked from floor to door, as long as it ends there.
I dont know where you guys shop, but the 17 year old moron or the "hire the handicapped" person at the checkout at stuff-mart looks at every single thing I buy.
You have _no_ right to "privacy" if you are patronizing someones store. Deal with it.
(This isnt meant to be a flame.. it is meant to point out that they track everything you buy anyway, and almost guaranteed, if you use credit or debit cards, there is a file SOMEWHERE that lists everything you bought, if you dont, like me, get that list on your statement every month.)
Now.. if the RFID tags follow you home.. thats another issue. But the show I saw on it. (Tech Tv? Might have been?) Did not seem to think that was possible.. they are a direct scan sort of thing, rather than a "scan from black helicopter" sort of thing.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
You don't have an RFID tag, and they're item-type specific anyway, not item-specific (ie, they might say you're carrying a pink size-16 thong, but not which thong and they don't know who you are)
There are things in this world to be legitimately paranoid about, but this isn't one of them.
Move along.
Wait till they start radio-tagging the tinfoil hats. Then you won't know what the hell to do, will ya?
...is to reduce their loss to shop-lifters.
The marketing issues involved they can track via their sales registers, they have no need for radio tracking to gain this stuff. Why do you think they ask for your zip code or phone number at many shops when you are at checkout, and why grocery stores have those little "savings" cards...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
...Faraday shopping bag?
How in the world can that be true? Sometimes I go into a Gap store just to use the bathroom. Other times I walk through it just to get to the other side of the mall. What if I'm with a group of friends, and only one of us makes a purchase? What about my poor boyfriends of yesteryear who were just there to hold my bags ;-)?
1%? I don't believe it. Just like 100% of voters voted for Saddam.
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Checkpoint is the leader in the industry. They have been at this the longest and have developed a very system for handling all the backend as well.
... not so much for loss prevention, but for availability and auditing of book inventory.
Many of their early success stories have been libraries. Having been a customer of a library that uses this it's very cool
I assume these tags are removed when you purchase the item and leave the store so how is this any differnet from when you check out? I assume most of use are not yet such fanatics that you only use cash for purchases right? Because you do realize that if you use credit or debit its not at all hard for a merchant to log your purchases and equate them with your name. I doubt most of them do but still. Why does it matter if they know you're carring it around the store when they are gonna find out you have it at the register anyway? Unless you don't plan to visit the register and mother tought you stealing was wrong right?
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?
If you're really worried about them tracking your RF tags, try mailling them to Siberia or something. If they really are watching you, that ought to get their attention.
*bzzt* rf-control to watcher-one. he is currently travelling on a fed-ex jet to moscow with his latest consignment of razor blades. over" *bzzt*
*bzzt* "roger rf-control. will continue tracking and advise, over" *bzzt*
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
There actually could be some benefits to this. With this type of technology you could find many upsides such as:
The possiblities are endless! Embrace the benifits of new technology, it's all for your own good.
Ok, I'm done - sarcasm off. I still think the office thing would be fun though.
Are you bovilexic? Moo!
RFID tags are the least of my worries. At least that tracking stops at the store's door. The range on an RFID tag is pretty limited. The important thing is how you paid for the purchase...
I recently got a letter from my credit card company, which broke down by percentage, etc, what I bought and what it was for. Travel, entertainment, food, pr0n, etc. I find that truly terrifying.
If you're paranoid and want to leave the grid, pay cash for everything.
If you're walking around the store with RFID tagged merchandise... it doesn't matter. Nothing tags that RFID to you in particular. However - as is mentioned - once you pay, they could tag the RFID to your customer card, the name on your credit card/debit card, whatever. But really, the could do the same with barcodes, etc.
Otherwise, you could wear a similar frequency device near the tags to stymie them...
Cordless phones, two-way radios, local wireless networks and other communications devices...can interfere with the signals...waves have a hard time penetrating metals and liquids
In the end though, paying cash is probably your best bet at not being ID'ed... until the hidden RFID in your boxers tells them who you are, that is.
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.
Winona Ryder goes to prison.
I also reply below your current threshold.
Probably about as much happens when your shopping cart contents are itemized at the cash register.
Come on. I mean, come on. This is getting stupid. "Oh, no, my rights are being violated, because the store is TRACKING THEIR OWN MERCHANDISE until such time as I actually pay it. Oh, woe is me. Woe woe woe."
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Until the moment you buy it the things in a store belong to them. Period. They can do anything they want with it, including tracking.
This is no different than putting a tracking device in your laptop or in your car. Or having a "Lost phone" beeper in your cordless.
As a store owner though I certainly wouldn't want a supplier being able to track my inventory without my permission, or perhaps even knowing about it. It isn't any of *their* business, per se. I can see where the large chains would find this useful though.
But in MY store, I put the tags on, if I bloody well feel like it.
As a customer the tags had better come off as soon as I buy the merchandise. From that moment on it's mine, not theirs. Note that that would be *before* I get to the exit.
KFG
This is stupid.
Its not like Wal-Mart doesn't have security cameras every 10 feet that zoom in on you, the contents of your cart, what you are carrying, etc.
Also, its not like Wal-Mart doesn't keep records of everything you buy and when you bought them, which can be linked up to the timestamps on aforementioned security cameras.
Trust me, RFID tags on merchandise isn't going to harm your privacy in a store one tiny bit.
The
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.
Sure, they can and perhaps, should track any and everything in their store. The problem is that RFIDs are not deactivated. They continue to work forever. Or, at least until the washer has worn out your panties.
The fact that they continue to work for a very long time and the fact that they are, or can be, completely unique means that a store can identify YOU by your panties. National chains such as Walmart could track YOU and your panties all across the country. Suddenly they don't sound very nice, do they.
Now, let's take the paranoia to a slightly higher level. Let's suppose that stores share their RFID and customer databases with trustworthy groups like, NSA CIA, FBI, SpamKing marketing. Suddenly You and your panties are trackable in every store you go to, or security checkpoint you pass through or toll booth you drive through. Now you can't go anywhere without the beadie little eye of some agency watching you at all times.
Did you ever get the feeling that you were being watched?
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.
or http://tinyurl.com/6ffr>
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
You scan all the items yourself and you can even pay by cash if you want, the machine has a bill acceptor. The checkout stands even have the sensormatic deal, so you can cancel an items tendancy to set off the "I'm Stealing" beep at the door.
Here's a pic of one, with an article I havent read
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.
Oh wait, my local supermarket does this already, and uses this info when I log into their online shopping section to populate my favourites list, so I don't have to bother searching for things I purchase regularly. So does Amazon. This is an infringement of my civil liberties because wasting my time is an inalienable human right... or something.
Seriously, what can someone actually do with my purchase history? Maybe target me with adverts for things I might want to buy? (no, I am not a good person to try to sell feminine hygein products to. And no I don't want to consolidate my debt, thank you. HINT TO ADVERTISERS: The only banner ad I have ever clicked on deliberately was for food.) Maybe they could use this information for blackmail, after all I wouldn't want it getting around that I make my own pizzas, or the men from Domino's will be after me.
Honestly, it's not like I buy things over the counter for spreading sedition. I use my other identity for that...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The way I see it is that it is their right and responsibility to gather that information. What business owner wouldn't want to have that kind of information? And while you are on their property you are subject to whatever legal things they want to do. If you don't like it... leave. Although I'd imagine it would only be crazy extremist people and theives that would go to such lengths.
Now if they tracked their goods past their doors... then I'd be signing whatever petition is required to get that tracking system out of there.
But think about it though... especially in walmarts of the world... 1/2 the fun of going there is switching where things are hung. So isn't it only fair that the people who work there can actually have the ability to find something for someone who can't find where another customer put it?
I'm not especially worried about RFID tags in stores. Yes, it could be a serious privacy problem if a store tracked everything you picked up looked at in horror and disbelief, and set back down again hastily. (Like the Teddy Grahams bedsheets I saw the other week in a surplus store... a kiddie marketing tie-in gone horribly too far.) They might conclude that people were actually interested in such things.
But I digress.
What would bother me is the tracking products by RFID once I was out of the store. If stores are going to use RFID tags, I want them to expire, permanently, the moment I walk out of the place of purchase. And somehow I'm doubting that I can really trust the stores, the government, or the RFID manufacturers to take care of this little detail for me.
So if there's any EE's out there who can tell us, what does it take to reliably kill an RFID tag? (A microwave oven?) If there's no easy way, would it be feasable to make a device that would reliably burn them out?
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
I'm not very worried about potiential tracking since that is already done everytime I use a credit card. However, I would think this could bring about the easier checkouts that we have been hearing about for the last decade where we just take our items through an automated checkout lane and simply pay up without having to scan our items.
Right now, at certain KMarts, you can check yourself out, but you have to scan each individual item. I tried this once but after waiting 10 minutes as the technically inept attempt to accomplish this otherwise simple feat, I realized that the process was flawed. Putting these tags on all items will make it as simple as walking through a lane, sliding your debit card through a reader (or even simplier if you have an account with the store itself) and walking out the door.
Now if they can only figure out how to automatically bag everything.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
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.
has anyone else had the thought that maybe by putting your new shirt, panties, ect in a microwave for a few seconds you would effectively destroy the RFID when you got it home if you were so inclined? I can definitely see a problem with anything metal but since i'm not into BDSM i don't wear metal panties....
Wal-Mart, for example, has a database TWICE the size of all the U.S. Government, combined.
EVERY purchase you have ever made with a credit card is tracked right down to you. All your preferences are known, right down to your favorite deodorant.
Wal-Mart, however you might think of it, is a brilliant company. Did you know that most of the products on the Wal-Mart shelf have NOT been bought by Wal-Mart? No, the manufacturer sends the products to Wal-Mart and waits until the item is actually run through the checkout scanner before it receives a check. The manufacturer is responsible for sending more products for Wal-Mart to stock. In return, they get access to that titanic-sized wealth of marketing data.
This is where the radio tags come in. If you know exactly where any product is in your store, you can see what products sell better in what location -- in real time, across the country. And yes, shoplifting will become far more difficult for the petty theives -- I doubt the pros will be stopped by this technology.
RFID tags aren't about big brother -- they're about big bucks.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
Pay Cash
Sometimes I think I am the only person in the world who isn't unique in some way.
Reminds of the system a co-worker and I tried to design about 7 years ago. The way it worked was that a bar-code scanning device (handheld or fixed-base, wired/wi-fi to broadband LAN in home)would scan UPC labels as family members used up their consumables. It would develop an ongoing editable shopping list/database and communicate (probably for a low fee, or no charge if retailers would agree)to the grocer's database and update the total cost of shopping including current sales/coupons/rebates for that day/week. The ultimate goal was to encourage competition between the retailers through the use of all their product datbases or through a centralized database through us or a 3rd party. Unfortuneately, it never materialized (yet, to my knowledge).
Geez, I can't believe how many posts don't understand the privacy issue. Let me summarize:
1). the tags cannot be deactivated, are not deactivated when you purchase the item.
2.) each tag has a unique ID - buy 3 identical pants, 3 tags have 3 different ID numbers.
3.) pay with a traceable currency, like a credit card, and into the database goes your credit card info AND the IDs of the things you bought.
4.) From now on, anyone with a scanner and access to the database where you bought stuff can know who you are, where you are. Walk into a Walmart on the other side of the world, and your RFID tag can identify you (or at least the purchaser of the goods). Have not only your buying habits, but your shopping habits tracked, stored, and datamined. Buy a shirt at a garage sale and get arrested for being someone else! Have more of your info make it into the Total Information Awareeness uberdatabase.
It's a wonderful world.
- Buy merchandise
- Remove tag, reactivate anf affix to your underwear
- Return to store
- Try to leave store
- Insist that if they want to search your shorts, you'll only let (pick the cutest staffer) do the search, and it must be in public, to protect your rights
- Sue (profit)
or, to do the MasterCard thingee...Just carry around little EMP's to fry them in store.
It seems to me that the main use of these transmitters is just to do the job of lazy employees. For instance, with the Gap store, why wouldn't they be looking at their shelves? Shouldn't the employees restock the shelves once they are emptied? Isn't that why they work there?
The folks at the AutoID Center at MIT have already gotten plenty of feedback on this. The current proposed standard has a KILL command that disables the tag; the assumption is that as soon as you check out, the tag is killed and becomes inert.
Imagine packing your shopping cart at the supermarket and simply pushing the cart up to the checkout counter, where the RFID tags would be read automatically. You pay, possibly to a machine, and you leave! No more messing around with long queues, barcode readers, etc.
I'd love to see this happen.
I'd also love to see these RFID tags deactivated as soon as I leave the store. There's really no need for my things broadcasting their possibly unique IDs in the air for anybody to read.
The EPC spec has all those bits so the instances of objects can be tracked. An EPC is broken down into four sections:
- WH -002.pdfT -AUTOID-WH -008.pdf
bits 00-07 = header
bits 08-35 = manufacturer (EPC Manager)
bits 36-59 = Object Class
bits 60-95 = Serial Number
There's another EPC, the Compact EPC, that's only 64 bits long, because the longer bit length translates into higher-cost tags.
So saying that RFID tags are -not- instance specific is incorrect. They can be (and the EPC is designed to be) instance specific, but it's up to the manufacturer.
http://www.autoidcenter.org/research/MIT-AUTOID
http://www.autoidcenter.org/research/MI
Get a clue. What do you think club cards/saving cards are for at Grocery stores/Retail shopping centers? Just so you can get a discount? Think again.. Everything you purchase is recorded so the store can more accurately tell you what you want to buy through advertising. Check the back of your receipts when you check out, I doubt you will ever see one for dog or cat food if you have never purchased any items relating to a dog or cat. It's subtle now, but give it a year or two.. things will start to be more in your face.
Moreover, this has the chance to obviate the checkout procedure altogether. Who wouldn't consider that a giant step forward?
The thought of a wife going to the store, grabbing stuff and walking out, and then getting the bill at the end of the month ought to scare the living shit out of every husband on Earth.
They day that happens, I cancel every card we have.
it will save you money, and reduce theft. As long as it stops as I leave there door.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The thing is, there are situations where you will want it to keep working after you leave. Like you return the item, but you don't have your receipt, like it said in the article (yeah, I RTFA! :>) It would be great if the RFID from the item was stored with the purchase price in the database. And that necessitates the thing staying alive.
So stores WILL be able to determine your buying history if you use a CC to pay(Grocery stores do now - with that little card they extorted you into giving them each time). And I bet the RFID manufacturer ends up selling these things in consecutive runs of ID #'s - making it EASY for the feds to determine where the panties were bought and to correlate them with a CC#, then a mailing address, etc.
So what do we do? I think consumers will need to educate themselves a bit - especially with regard to where they buy clothing. We will need a privacy policy law like with the net. Try to pay for clothing with cash. And the greatest hope, I swear to God, will be sensationalist journalism. Even regular people will be creeped out by the idea of being tracked by their underwear. And you know Dateline or one of those crappy shows will do a thing on it if the NYTimes is on it now.
Also, I plan on using a big fscking magnet on my clothes from now on. 5 Tesla should work ;)
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"But what happens to privacy when everything you buy can be tracked from store floor to door?"
I hate to be the one to break this too you, but Walmart already tracks EVERYTHING they sell. Every purchase goes into these giant NCR Terradata setups back at their home office. They mine it for trends and such already and have been doing so for years. So this really don't change that. The real question is how to you make sure the RFID tag is really deactivated?
What, you think RFID tags are invisible or something? Take off the #$%@ tag!
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Imagine someone with a portable scanner walking through the mall parking lot knowing exactly which recently purchased items are in each vehicle...
youch!
just microwave your panties before you wear them. Not only will they be nice and toasty but the RFID will be fried.
I assume that these devices contain somesort of solid state circuitry. Therefore they could/should
be vulnerable to an EM pulse. The question , how strong? My guess would be not much would be needed
or the strips would be to big/expensive.