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Benetton Clothing to Carry RFID Tags
An anonymous reader writes "Clothing manufacturer Benetton has announced that they will begin embedding RFID tags in clothing for inventory control purposes. You can
read more about this at SF Gate." morcheeba adds more information: "EETimes is reporting that Benetton will be embedding a Philips RFID chip into the label of every new garment bearing the name of Benetton's core clothing brand, Sisley. The 15 million chips expected sold in 2003 will allow monitoring of garments from production to shipping, shelves and dressing rooms. The I.CODE chip (tech info) used in Benetton's labels will include 1,024 bits of EEPROM and operate at a distance of up to 1.5 meters. RFIDs look like they would be extremely uncomfortable in some Sisley clothes."
big brother is watching you... *through* your underwear....!!!!
At least ill have an excuse to have big holes in my clothes now huh
Assuming that you cannot locate the chip, any info on how to 'burn it out'?
I think I would be extremely comfortable getting into some sisely clothes.
...damn. That's some hot chick wearing that Sisley bikini. I've heard of bikinis being smaller than their price tags, but that might just be smaller than their RFID tags!
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
no sissy clothing... chip-containing or otherwise!
If they want to monitor the garment in their shipping system and store that's fine, but I hope they remove the tag after purchase...otherwise they're sitting there with someone's credit card number and some sort of tracking device and that means all of a sudden someone's trip through the mall is like an episode of the Crocodile Hunter where they track the habits of some migratory animal. I'm not quite sure I trust them to not abuse this technology.
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Salesperson: "Ma'am, please remove any stolen merchandise."
Woman: "But..."
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
If they are for "inventory control purposes" only, why are they not disabled as they leave the store? (cue tin foil hat jokes...)
Now's your chance to make money. Make a handheld, heck, set up a kiosk in the mall.
Or perhaps the manufacturers will decide to do this at the checkout counter.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Will this help me find matching socks?
Cool they're using an EEPROM, that presents some interesting possibilities, although lugging a laptop into a department store to give yourself a price markdown might be a little obvious.
Just what I want is Benetton's warehouse tracking my movements and where my clothes are =)...I feel like Wil Smith...where's Gene Hackman when you need him! Forget Benetton...I don't buy there clothes anyway...but my woman does the Sisley thing.
This is the first Slashdot article that definitely deserves a +5, Funny.
When in doubt, f*ck it. When not in doubt, get in doubt!
IMHO, their ability to track their clothing stops when I pay money and take ownership of it.
I doubt they'll remove all the tags. I doubt consumers will know to.
I already found a sweater of my girlfriend's with one. She had asked me to snip off a scratchy tag and lo and behold, sewn inside the tag was an RFID tag. (Ann Taylor sweater? Not sure, so I won't say for sure.) Either way, if she wore it back to the store, would she show up as a repeat customer and be treated differently?
I just don't trust these things, even though I know they are pretty benign, so don't try to convince me otherwise.
Cheers,
Jim, the stubborn Luddite
-- My Weblog.
A chip in my clothes, hey? Well, until somebody ports Linux to it or I can run MAME on it, i'm not interested.
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
That's a beautiful top you got on. What are you clocking in at girl? ooOoOOo honey, i tell you.. with the heat you generating, you must be running at 10 TeraHertz, and ooh baby does it hurtz like hell."
Ottenberg said such tags could be used for "customer loyalty" rewards that could earn consumers such benefits as frequent flyer miles, free music downloads or discount coupons.
Why, while I read this, did the phrase "bread and circuses, bread and circuses..." keep on looping through my brain?
Ah well, I suppose a majority of people will be quite happy to give away their right to privacy in return for some extra frequent-flyer miles, dragging the rest of us along by default.
How much longer before they start introducing niggling little irritations if you buy with cash, and/or larger incentives if you buy with a credit card?
So now will we'll be able to tell if she's wearing the "I'm getting lucky tonight" panties or the "He's not worth more than dinner" panties. Might help us decide how much to spend on the date.
Who am I kidding, we'd just be happy to be on a date with.
What happens when I come back to the store wearing the shirt I bought two years ago?
Do I get accused of shoplifting?
that this comes from Philips. Being from the old world they are completely enamored with paternalism and facism.
It doesn't belong to them. In fact, they could be accused of destroying your property.
You want it gone, YOU remove it. What ever happened to doing things yourself? Has society gotten that lazy?
Curious what a healthy jolt of electricity would do to the chips? Could be a new device to market. One designed to zap them with about 80,000 volts. Could be a new use for those self defense devices.
What happens to an RFID tag if you put it in a microwave on high power for 30 seconds? Should we make it a regular practice to nuke any new piece of clothing we buy nowadays? Just watch out for zippers...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
how to configure x11 on thong underwear ?
Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. These tags have the potential to invade privacy. Big brother can more easily track what you buy, and will force stores to start using these to keep track of such things. If you buy certain things, they might enter you in a database of potential terrorists and get you on some FBI watch list. These RFID tags just have too much potential to invade privacy. I certainly won't be purchasing anything with RFID tags anytime soon.
-- Phil Coleman, Board Member, American Institute for Freedom and Privacy
This is an evil plot by Benetton to implant chips into our clothes that send out signals that control our brains. They will then unite the colors of Benneton and take over the world with their Benneton army! Thank God nobody wears their clothes anymore.
oh please. I doubt Benetton is going to be expecting these rfid tags to still work after people buy their clothing. Stuff like static electricity in hot dryers and just general wear and tear is going to wear them out. And when all else fails, there is the microwave oven.
I'm betting they are going to destroy the tag the minute you checkout so it won't beep when you walk out the store. They'll probably use the rfid tags as a new way to put security tags on the clothing instead of those heavy dongles you see sometimes on expensive clothing.
When the whole processor id thing was introduced way back when, people threw a big fit about it. Now what average Joe these days even know about it? Believe me, if big brother wants to track you down, they're gonna track you down and it won't be using unreliable stuff like rfid tags.
Now that's advertising.
"An RFID tag communicates its location to Benetton's computerized supply chain network"
erm... and how the hell does IT know where it is?
--I don't want the world, I just want your half.
you insensitive clod!!!
I've got a pair of jeans bought from Club Monaco here in Canada about a year ago. Just recently I found one of those anti-theft devices sewn into the seam of one of the legs. Yeah, I know anti-theft devices are everywhere (in books, DVDs, CDs), but this is the first time I've seen them used this way in clothing. Usually, they are removable and taken out after purchase, but this one was sewn in there and kept in even after being disabled. Now, if I were paranoid, I might be more frightened by this finding...
seems to be a little slow. Or is it just me?
I guess they should have United Servers of Beneton too! (beowulf cluster of colors)
"Believe me, if big brother wants to track you down, they're gonna track you down and it won't be using unreliable stuff like rfid tags."
The problem with believing is just that - belief.How do you expect someone to believe catch23?? Remember what Gorbachev told Reagan? "Trust, but verify".
Look at it another way - Why would Benetton put these things in the first place, despite the cost? It seems to me that the Microsoft Windows Virus Business Model is spreading across all businesses.
Thankfully, we have the Internet and Benetton isn't yet a monopoly, so a 'boycott until full explanation' is in order.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Will they use Death Row inmates to model the new clothing?
You need some kind of technology to be able to tell one of the drones from another.
Mike Hoye
my secret is out!
They shall now know those size xxx panties are for me.
I shall now experience shame.
the heavy dongles aren't for tracking, they are theft deterrants. (they are USUALLY dye packs, but I know of at least one store that uses blanks, not known if they have any real dye packs)
a walk-in closet full of these?
Her "kitten" is on fire?
And look at those man-hands, bleh.
So we boycott the company just because they're using some new technology that everyone is afraid of. Early adopters often get the flak from public, but once everyone starts doing it, nobody cares!
They've invented a way to purify sewage water into drinkable water more pure than the water that normally comes out of the tap, but nobody is buying into it simply because they know where it came from. But in a few decades when it's too expensive to acquire fresh water for the increasingly high population, they are going to have to use alternatives like purifying sewage. By that time, everyone is going to be drinking purified sewage, yet nobody is going to even give it a second thought.
..is the 1.5m range on these things a function of the tag itself or the antenna that "probes" it? i.e., could I get a big fat antenna and go, I guess, war-driving for RF tags? ("Oh look, my neighbor Bob just bought a thong. Better go tease him about it. Wait, he doesn't even have a girlfriend. I better not")
Radio waves are funny, sometimes they bounce around and show up in places you don't expect them!
If there is a concern about whether or not it would be comfortable to have the chip in the 'care tag' in the back, why not incorporate the chip in to the logo some how and place it some where on the shirt in some normal designer way to place logos on shirts?
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
Due here. Word for word rip, no less. Unless it was actually him, in which case, sorry for giving you the spotlight.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Luckily Benetton clothes went out style in the 80s, or we might actually have to worry about something. heh
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
When the whole processor id thing was introduced way back when, people threw a big fit about it. Now what average Joe these days even know about it?
That's because the stopped doing it. Motherboard manufacturers even started shipping boards where the default setting was to disable the # in case your chip did have it. Since it's stopped, it's not a very big issue anymore.
Life is too short to proofread.
Figures. You geeks get all excited about wearable clothing in any other context. Now somebody actually comes up with some that's actually useful, and it's boycott time.
Yeah, agreed. Though sometimes I see them put on underwear at stores like BR. Would people really care about ink stains on underwear? How many people do you know that prance around in their underwear all the time? I think most of the time it's just a theft deterrent. But I think using rfid tags as a secret theft deterrent is better... thieves might actually try to sneak a few undies in their coat pocket thinking they have no security identifier on them. It's an easy way to catch more crooks.
I have a new desktop picture
What I'd like to do is build a very small transmitter that broadcasts the same signals as the RFID tags. Then I could program it to show that I'm wearing 30,000 pairs of underwear.
IAAL
I'm betting they are going to destroy the tag the minute you checkout so it won't beep when you walk out the store. They'll probably use the rfid tags as a new way to put security tags on the clothing instead of those heavy dongles you see sometimes on expensive clothing.
If the tags have memory, wouldn't it be possible to have a bought-bit? By setting that you won't beep and they can still track you.
If you ask me it should be mandatory to remove the tags upon purchasing the product. The abuse risk is just too great.
Just my two cents anyway.
.: Max Romantschuk
after reading this article, i have a strong urge to go and buy myself "the catcher in the rye". add it my evergrowing collection :)
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
yeah true, but processor id tags last forever. rfid tags are so susceptible to environmental dangers, who would spend the money to do anything important with it?
" So we boycott the company just because they're using some new technology that everyone is afraid of."
No, we boycott it because, as the original poster pointed out, the tags aren't removed after the sale, and customers aren't informed about the feature and the implications.
"but nobody is buying into it(water) simply because they know where it came from (sewage)"
How is this relevant to the point at issue? If a sewage treatment plant generates potable water, it should be lauded because:
a. It informs customers of the source, the technology and the process.
b. The end-product does not have undesirable 'features'.
Benetton is doing neither. Like BigBrother MS, it just says we're including 'Smart Tags' - and that's it. Until a coherent explanation comes up, a boycott is the only solution.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Well maybe now it can do double duty as a "terminally hip" detector as well.
God help me when this stuff comes to K-Mart though.
KFG
"How many people do you know that prance around in their underwear all the time?"
Madonna, Some Superheroes.
How can i make my underwear scan like a can of ravioli?
Can I fool scanners into thinking I'm wearing original kilobuck designer duds, or that they scan as tools from the hardware store?
I can forsee the web sites popping up for scan code exchange, and I know there will be tons of creative hacks that I can't yet imagine.
::sigh:: this really isn't a privacy issue...no matter how fun it is to make it into one.
you ever worked retail? you evern have to do inventory yourself, instead of having the luxury of a contractor doing it for you? it kinda sucks. becing able to query a transmitter for physical inventory counts is a lot cooler that couting everything by hand/scanner. Since these tags can't be read more than 15 feet or so away, and can be fried by exposure to your microwave oven, i'd say just don't sweat it
this is just a corp. cost saving tool, to decrease overhead and save the time and money of drudge-like inventory procedures..
i'm the biggest conspiracy freak when it comes to orwellian surveillance schemes, but this technology just isn't headed in that direction.
there are much bigger fish for us to fry, if you look around and take notice of them.
Ecco is going to put tags in their shoes. (link in Dutch)
When will they start putting them in painkillers etc ? Doctor : *uses bleeper thingy* I see you've taken 2 pills of an other brand, sorry but I won't help you anymore.'
....Excuse me, but
umm .. depends on what kind of underwear that is. I can see girls prancing around in lacy underwear. ;)
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
They can purify sewage now? Man, my Tang is going to taste so much better....
~SL
"But I think using rfid tags as a secret theft deterrent is better... " How come? Where is the link between the tag and the buyer? If I donate my clothing, must I email Benetton? Mind you, I'm not talking shop-lifting here, but theft 'after' purchase. "It's an easy way to catch more crooks." For every 'crook' caught stealing a clothing, the privacy of a 100 innocent buyers is being violated.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
that's my MOM... you incensitive clod!!!
Start paying a little closer attention. You don't need x-ray vision to be able to tell (unless she's wearing a T-back or G-string.) At first it might be hard to tell, but the more you practice you'll get better at it. It's kinda like the next level up from being able to tell if she's bra-less.
Damn, I probably just ruined my rep with all the hotties on Slashdot. Oh, wait...
Er, wearable computing. Bedtime now.
no text . . . wait . . . nevermind.
Do you really think boycotting Benetton will even cause them to give in a 15 minute thought? Benetton markets to non-geeks who have money to throw around. Most of these people don't know what rfid is and probably won't care if they also stuck a bluetooth device in every underwear. There are better solutions than a boycott coming from the slashdot crowd. A bunch of slashdot geeks boycotting Benetton is like a bunch of football players boycotting Transmeta.
I see girls pracing around in lacy underwear...
They don't see each other...
They don't know they are in lacy underwear...
Hey... you are not a freak. Don't you believe anybody
that tells you that. It's bullshit and you don't have
to grow up believing that. You hear me?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
So we boycott the company just because they're using some new technology that everyone is afraid of. Early adopters often get the flak from public, but once everyone starts doing it, nobody cares!
No, because I feel it is an invasive technology that has the potential to cost you a bit of my freedom and anonymity.
When the RFID tag is smaller than a grain of rice, they can bury it in a product so that I lose the ability to decide for myself if I want to make this RFID information available to them or not.
As for everyone not caring, that's their business and their own choice.
I do care and they won't be getting my money from now on.
That's all I stated in the above post - I'm not trying to start a boycott, I'm not saying that they don't have the right to use this technology, I'm just saying that I won't support it with my cash.
Think for yourself, make your own choices.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
Granted, this doesn't really feel like an invasion of privacy issue thing to me, just keeping track of inventory. But it's amazing what people will agree to volentarily.
:)
Combine this with Radio Shacks old practice of asking for customer information when you buy something. Now combine this with the kind of computerized advertizing you saw in Minority Report.
"Hello, [Mr. Smith], how is that [Polo Shirt] you bought? We have a sale on [Polo Shirts] this week on the [third] floor."
I think that would be kind of neat... but then I'm trying to convince myself I already live in the future...
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
yeah true, but processor id tags last forever. rfid tags are so susceptible to environmental dangers, who would spend the money to do anything important with it?
Who's going to use the same processor forever? May the chip will last but that doesn't matter if it's not being used anymore.
It doesnt seem like it can be that hard to make and rfid tag last. Just encase it in a good enough layer of plastic, that should protect it from anything besides being microwaved. Is there some unique thing about rfid tags that makes them so flimsy? They seem like they should just be some solid state electronics in a small package.
Life is too short to proofread.
I volunteer to fix those uncomfortable Sisley garments, providing they are worn...
Because the tags are powerless, they have to be powered via the field induced by the reader. This drops off as the inverse square of the distance. The tag then has to transmit back to the reader - again power is the inverse square of the distance. Therefore, the range is related to the inverse fourth power of the power output of the reader. I.e. to ramp up the range to 15m you'd have to increase the power output by a factor of 10000! You might start melting things at that point.
The 1.5m range is already with big heavily optimised antennas (like the big theft detection antennas by shop entrances) which are operating at the maximum legal power output.
So in summary - you're going to have more luck taking a pair of binoculars and war-driving looking out for barcodes
So it's ok now to wear clothes from a company that campaigns for murderers whose crimes were severe enough to warrant a death penalty, and whose crimes devasted families?
What is the mentality that finds wearing a "brand" as something positive? Do the anti-globalist-whatever crowd believe it is ok to wear a company name on their body, yet protest a hamburger outlet?
And when all else fails, there is the microwave oven.
Yeah, right. I'm going to spend $75 on a shirt and then stick it in the microwave. (In my experience, the Benetton shirts I've had rarely survived a few trips to the dry cleaners without the buttons disintegrating. I doubt I'd be microwaving them...)
When the whole processor id thing was introduced way back when, people threw a big fit about it. Now what average Joe these days even know about it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Intel drop that whole plan because of public outcry?
Big Brother will use your Visa bill to track you down, not these things, unless, of course, they store the RFIDs of your purchases and make it available to anyone.
If OJ's isotoner gloves had these, he'd be in jail now.
Take a look at how closely tied TRW, the credit report people, is to government and the defence industry, if you want to get a little paranoid
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
Actually, all the water you drink is purified
sewage. It's just matter of the time since it
was last evacuated from an organism.
However, deep water, as in half-mile deep, is
going to keep the population solvent for a few
millenia, so we can probably remain averse to
fresh leavings for the forseeable future.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The easy way would be to simply physically remove the tag, then switch it with someone else. See how the store reacts to you wearing 5 pairs of socks, or other "unusual" combinations.
Why can't the chips be made microwave-resistant?
And for that matter, why aren't ICs printed on needle-shaped semiconductors?
I guess it's a just question of design.
Never underestimate the power of the Slashdot community. Most Slashdot geeks are married to / related to / friends of non-geeks. The word spreads around faster than you or Benetton care to believe.
And remember, Benetton is a global brand, and this move could cost them even in markets where they don't have these tags.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The whole reason they're doing this is to track the clothes through their inventory system. However, they'll probably want to be able to identify refunds too: if it's simple for them to track which batches of clothes have a higher return rate (due to defects), then it'll help their quality control.
:)
The flip side of this is that it'll probably annoy the hell out of them when the clothes you're wearing while trying to buy a new item start registering at the checkout
Dude, this is Benetton. We're boycotting them anyway, just like Nike and Reebok.
I feel it is an invasive technology that has the potential to cost you a bit of my freedom and anonymity.
Anonymity? Yes, but that's just an illusion anyway. Anybody who wants to can gather as much information about you as his heart desires.
Freedom? No. And don't dust off that old "slippery slope" argument, either. It's as bogus today as it was when it was first conceived, when one caveman used it against another caveman to argue that cave paintings were generally a bad idea.
I do care and they won't be getting my money from now on.
For the record: how much money has Benetton gotten from you in the past?
I write in my journal
Ahh the switch and match games.
It's finally time for "Barcode battlers" to get cool.
With mixed results.
Pudump, shhhh.
It ouccurs to me that if you really don't like these things, and the store dosen't deactivate them you could just use them to screw around with the store. Cut them off of all the clothes you buy, then periodicly stuff you pockets with them and bring them back to the store. Then hide them in strange places around the store.
Nummy.a dver/sisley/2003_wet/sisley05.html
http://www.benetton.com/press/sito/photo/product_
I want to install this into my home, no more "This bag ? Oh that's just groceries honey" from my wife. Maybe I can keep inventory for her as well, so I can bring my PDA with her closet inventory with me when we go shopping: "See darling, you already have fourteen of those, now let's go buy some books"
beauty is only a light switch away
With a size of a "grain of rice", just imagine what the Trojan Company do with their reservoir tip?!!! (points deducted if your first thought was "Beowulf Cluster").
Question for the future: "What is inside those little "Freedom Tickler" nubs, anyway? Just more latex?"
Chip
..I'm not stupid enough to pay $60 for a pair of jeans and $45 for a t-shirt.
Enjoy your tracking, you trendy motherfuckers. I'll stick with cheap clothes that last for years.
The Best Buy stores in my area never, ever seem to have a register ready and open for cash purchases. And it's always a big deal for them to open one that does. I infer that they don't like to keep any cash out on the floor, but it does have this delightful side effect of really discouraging cash payments. And of course most people give up and use plastic.
Like loyalty cards and opt-out schemes, this is just another little way that the 'category-killer' retailers enforce their idea of appropriate (ie. maximally profitable to them) behavior and heavily punish behavior that deviates.
It's called 'boiling the frog'. They gradually soften you up until it's too late to resist. If you want to preserve the CHOICE of having privacy, you must actively defend your privacy even if you don't value your own!
Can you imagine the chaos if someowe were to cut RFID tags out of thousands of pairs of $30 jeans and plant them in $300 leather jackets? This could even be done on a for-profit basis -- hire someone to switch tags around for you, then you just wander in and use the automated self-checkout counter to buy the re-tagged item.
This company had an add campaign several years ago which featured death row murders as the spokesmen. This is brutally insensitive to the families of those they murdered. This was a shameless attempt to generate publicity. As a result of their campaign their largest retailer, Sears, dropped Benetton's products (which is commendable). We should all do the same.
Anonymity? Yes, but that's just an illusion anyway. Anybody who wants to can gather as much information about you as his heart desires.
In my case, mostly by what I have chosen to make available. The biggest reason? I don't use credit cards. I buy a *lot* of stuff, but only use cash. (Having no debt is comforting, too.)
In fact, probably the most extensive 'file' on my habits is at my video store. Since I don't rent porn, I think that's pretty innocuous.
I don't even use those supermarket club cards, because of the tiny loss of privacy they cause.
For the record: how much money has Benetton gotten from you in the past?
For myself, a few hundred bucks, at most. (Including the before-mentioned shirts with the cheap buttons.) I had a girlfriend who was crazy for their stuff, so I spent probably ~$2,000 there on her. (A good chunk of which was one *incredibly* ugly coat that she really wanted and then wore exactly twice, but that's another story...)
I know I'm a bit at the fringe on this topic, but it's something I care about.
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
For more information about radio-frequency identification tags, or RFIDs, you can check these two columns, "Bye-Bye Bar Codes?" and "The Eerie Possibilities of RFID Tags". The first one contains illustrations about how RFID tags are tested at McDonalds or Prada.
http://www.benetton.com/press/sito/photo/product_a dver/sisley/2003_wet/sisley07.html
looks like she (?) is holding a sock. A dirty one. Strange.
what do you think most people are drinking when they turn on the tap, unless they live near the head of a river, or get water sourced from a spring or borehole? If it comes out of a river it's been through a few other people before...
I realise that's not quite what you're talking about with "purified sewage" but in many cases that's what people in cities drink today.
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
often the big bulky tags serve more as a security deterrent as an actual alarm.
The amount of times i've been in a store when the alarm has beeped, and no-one has taken notice...
These rfid tags have less of a presence, and therefore more people may try and take them, coupled with the alarm being ignored, this could be a problem.
I don't even use those supermarket club cards, because of the tiny loss of privacy they cause.
And yet you post to Slashdot. Your IP address is being recorded at this very moment. How do you sleep at night?
I know I'm a bit at the fringe on this topic...
Jim, I say this with all due respect and the warmest of regards: on this topic you make the lunatic fringe look positively reasonable.
I write in my journal
Who's going to use the same processor forever?
The embedded systems market. I've worked on embedded systems that have CPUs that are older than many Slashdot readers -- and many of those systems are still in use.
I'm going to start walking around with a big hand full of these in my pocket.
Someone hates these cans.
Why is not wanting to be tracked by every company under the sun lunatic?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
...bearing the name of Benetton's core clothing brand, Sisley.
actually, sisley is far from being the core brand of benetton. it's more like banana republic in relation to gap.
I don't even use those supermarket club cards, because of the tiny loss of privacy they cause.
Damn skippy. Now they should outlaw the fucking SIXTY PERCENT PENALTY I have to pay for FOOD because I don't want to give the damn store my address so they can shovel more spam into the mailbox.
Assholes.
If OJ's isotoner gloves had these, he'd be in jail now.
No he wouldn't. You could have shown that jury a slow-motion videotape of OJ hacking Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman to death and they would still have found OJ innocent. They were presented with DNA evidence, for God's sake, and they even ignored and/or failed to understand that.
The overwelmingly black jury was more interested in trying to "send a message" about how much they hated white people than they were in seeing that a brutal murderer was put in prison where he belongs.
So, you'r saying that you are actually microwaving your socks to dry them?
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
Was the inclusion of the sexy picture an attempt to check how many feminists frequent /.?
Where's the rest of her?
Since when is Bennetton still in business? I haven't seen anything from them since the 80s. Must be one of those "European" things still.
Who buys their clothes at this store anyway? You might as well shop at Caldor or something (that store still exist?)
Above says its all. Took like a minute to download that silly little picture....
this is just a corp. cost saving tool, to decrease overhead and save the time and money of drudge-like inventory procedures..
Contrast with:
Just because it has some benign purpose doesn't make it, "not a privacy issue".
"Hello, [Mr. Smith], how is that [Polo Shirt] you bought? We have a sale on [Polo Shirts] this week on the [third] floor."
/FogeyRant
I had almost that very thing said to me once in a now long-gone Polo shop on Connecticut Ave in DC.
Of course, way back then, it was called "Good Salesmanship" and didn't require any special technology, just awareness and consideration.
Cheers,
Jim (who is old enough to remember a time before even barcodes.)
-- My Weblog.
There seems to be an awful lot of paranoia about this, and related, things. Sure, it is a potential surveillance and record keeping device. So are pen and paper and traditional, century old, photography. Just because Benetton/the CIA/the Mafia might possibly use them for surveillance, it doesn't mean that they will.
Remeber that the successfule police states - Tsarist Russia, Iron Curtain Eastern Europe, Iraq, N Korea and Comminist China today - have not depended on technology. They have depended upon having spies in every block, a complete and interlocking network of informers and informers on informers.
On of the criticisms of Western, and particularly US, unpreparedness for 9/11 was that it depended too much on technology. Intelligence agencies assumed that photo-reconnaisance, filtering emails, monitoring radio etc. would tell them everything. In fact, plots are hadtched by people talking to people, and "humint" has been unjustly neglected. This scare is the flip side of the same thing. Don't waste your time woprrying about what technology might possibly do. Worry about the political institutions might do with intelligence from whatever source. The new Department of Homeland Security is being given a lot of power. Well, OK, maybe the situation demands it. But is it getting the level of political oversight that it needs? Are the the checks and balances that were carefullly, expensively and IMO correctly (but I am a froeigner, so I don't count) built in to the Constitution being applied to this new department? From what I hear, recent anti-terrorist laws give the Executive an unprecedenteld level of power uncontrolled by the Legislature.
Don't get diverted by irrelevancies sucha s this RFID thing. It is a detail: if the Big Picture is right, any abuse of RFID will get stomped on quicly. If the Big Picture is wrong, RFID is only one of a thousand potential tools of oppression.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Now i have the equivelant of broswer cookies in my clothes :-(
Per session RFID's anyone?
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
I'm bemused. This is slashdot talking about a new piece of technology - and yet I've not found a single post talking about installing Linux on it, seting up the first 'underwear web server', or connecting up a 120GB hard disk to it.
And of course, the very real possibility of having your own personal beowolf cluster of clothes...
Internationally renowned fashion guru "mindslip", whose long history of avoiding being a walking billboard has often earned him the (non-fashionable) "label" of "Geek", has announced that he has never before, and now decidedly never *will*, wear Benetton.
mindslip
(After looking at the pic) And you thought sand up your ass was bad, wait til your butt bluescreens!
If these chips contain EEPROM, they can be hacked right? You could:
1. Confuse the checkout by having a porsche 911 in your shopping trolley.
2. Make your pants look like a rocket launcher to freak out the secret police.
3. Remotely reprogram other people's pants to look like yours, hence stealing there frequent flyer/loyalty points.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
You can taste your own tang? Man I'm jealous.
Fortunately for you (and her), Project Big Brother implanted RFID tags in my pubes last year. So now you'll have no problem proving that I'm guilty of statutory rape! Just grep her pubes for mine - it won't be hard to find em, since she's practically hairless, the little whore - and you've got a case.
Well, OK, all I did was suck her tits, jack off, and fill her sweet bellybutton with my man-chowder after I'd spent half an hour licking it out. She sucked me for awhile, but there's no forensic manner of proving that, and if you want to subpoena my stomach-pump to find her bellybutton lint, I'll have my lawyers on your lawyers' asses so fast, your lawyers will be begging for my lawyers to take anal advantage of them. Hey, actually, that would be pretty cool. Lawyers fucking each other in the ass, instead of fucking their clients in the ass...
Just let the D.A. try.
Yours,
Sam Waterston
P.S. This post was intended as perverted humour.
No sane human would approach her.
The very observant ones will know why when looking at her picture.
RFIDs look like they would be extremely uncomfortable in some Sisley clothes.
That link should have been to this. Sheesh, if you're gonna show it off, at least do it at more than 72 dpi!
"Since the chips contain no power source they can only transmit their data when within 3 feet of a receiver"
Uhm, could someone explain how that works? How can they function without power? Draw energy from body heat? Uh.
Ciryon
Why did I read "Read the F***ing ID???
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Let's put it this way - RFID is basically equivalent to a barcode, it's just that you don't have to physically scan it, only bring it within 3 feet. You don't get all scared because they don't remove the UPC from items before you leave the store, do you???
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
excellent repartee. I am in awe
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
The I.CODE chip (tech info) used in Benetton's labels will include 1,024 bits of EEPROM and operate at a distance of up to 1.5 meters.
Someday, this will give a whole new meaning to the word "sneakernet".
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
The tags are in the label, right? Just cut it off.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The tags are NEVER disabled EVER, merely noted in the data base as "not in stock" to ignore setting off theft alarms.
henceforth the us gov can track you just as they track car tire RFIDs already at canadian customs checkpoints and on Interstate I-75 in ohio in the remote stretches. In that case it is to locate previously-known cars to track.
All us cars must have rfids by 2004 by AIAG mandate. I mentioned this a year ago and no one believed me that car tire RFIDs were real. Everyone here is clueless it seams or a fed.
Imagine the day (which will come soon), when the propability of a randomly choosen person being tagged by an RFID in some of his clothes gets close to 100%. Then tracing visitors, customers, pupils, employees in malls, school, university, at work ... gets very easy and CHEAP. Just install at every narrow passageway (i mean doors) a RFID scanner. And if You can correlate at one point a name to an ID (at the entrace, near a cam with face-recognition, at the cashpoint if You use credit card, ...), that trace gets personalized. Over the time the observers could have a databases of IDs correlated to names (so that You have to buy a full set of new clothes if You want to get traced only anonymized).
If big brother now wants to find out, who's the owner of ID xyz (because that owner did something big brother doesn't like) there a lot of database to search for. Or he just calls benetton and asks "Did the buyer of RFID xyz pay with credit card? If so, gimme that number!")
It does not help, if some geeks disable them. They should be disabled as soon as I buy that shirt.
ps: i read here on slashdot about RFIDs that are so small that You can tag food with it. Eaten a salad for lunch at the snackbar? Tagged! Ok, You could open that microwave in front of You ...
...who thinks that anyone reading /. will never in his life think of wearing the kinds of clothes this place is selling? The catalog looks more like some kind of anorexic bondage adult site then anything else :: shiver ::
100% Crunchier
"What happens to an RFID tag if you put it in a microwave on high power for 30 seconds?"
It destroys the microwave. What you want do do is exactly that, but with a glass of water in the microwave also
The only way this could ever possibly effect me is if they handed out RFID readers to women. I really don't want them knowing I buy my clothes at discount stores!
_______
2B1ASK1
Do you know how EXPENSIVE RFID is? Just a small RFID reader / base station costs around $1000 - $2000 per unit. To cover any read distance, you are talking much more. Chips rugged enough not to be destroyed on the first wash cost $1-2 each.
It's simply not economically viable at this time to spy using this method. What we should really do is change all the trafic lights in major cities to go red for 15 seconds when no one is about to cross the road. Then we should add a series of road works that are entirely unnecessary. This will cause congestion, which we will solve by introducing a dodgey tax called a "Congestion chargeing". To enforce this, we will build a network of TV camera's with a fuzzy data feed to detect license plates, record exactly where everyone is in the city. Just for a laugh, we may add facial recognition to the system in a few months... What a brilliant idea.
Just a shame nobody thought of it before... [KenLivingston.Com : Making a better world by charging extra tax... ]
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
Terrycloth Lobster
Who am I kidding, we'd just be happy to be on a date with... CowboyNeal?
Declan McCullagh suggested these four voluntary guidelines to deal with the privacy threat:
First, consumers should be notified--a notice on a checkout receipt would work--when RFID tags are present in what they're buying. Second, RFID tags should be disabled by default at the checkout counter. Third, RFID tags should be placed on the product's packaging instead of on the product when possible. Fourth, RFID tags should be readily visible and easily removable.
I like this idea, only it won't work without legislation. Somebody please convince the EU commission...
Oh yeah, Declans article was linked by slashdot.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
you stupid motherfucker :)
and, although I believe that OJ is guilty, it was not proven anywhere close to "beyond a shadow of a doubt".
The truth doesn't care what I think.
To the mark of the beast technology.
to those tags on matresses that say "do not remove under penalty of law"
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Hey, wait, they're violating my privacy! I want to wear the same clothes as everyone else, but I don't want anyone to know it!
For all of you who are interested out in finding out more about these types of devices. Phillips IoCODE (the system used in these particular devices) datasheets are here:e ts/iden tification/customer/download/#icode
. com/acrobat/othe r/identification/SL040615.pdf
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/mark
Most interesting is the 'Air Interface' documentation:
http://www.semiconductors.philips
Interesting enough the EE-Times article mentioned the quest to find a common disabling method these devices. However if they intend they to be security devices rather than just a replacement for a bardcode, this disabling will have to be kept secret.
Obviously the conspircy theorists can say that the devices can do far more than they claim, even to the extent that they can pretend to be disabled until they get a 'magic handshake'.
Simon.
You just go into the dressing room with 3 things, cut the tag off with scissors, then walk out with 2 items, and leave the store unnoticed with the third.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
This creates a need for independent websites listing the manufacturers known to be placing RFID tags in their products. Such websites will allow informed consumerism, whether they change the manufacturers' practices or not.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Either that, or they thought it was a high tech functional specification for a marketing initiative.
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
I think a better solution is to have two tiny dishwashers placed side by side, rather than one large one. Clean on one side, dirty on the other. :^)
Somehow, though, my wife doesn't see it that way. But now that we've got five kids (and mounds of dishes!), she may see the light.
Now, what I could *really* use is something to help with the laundry...
b.g.
That Benetton will be using RFIDs...
/.ers are SHOPPING at Benettons...
or that
Oh the horror!
"Population 1,656"
Sure, if you had readers in your home it actually would.
If you ask me it should be mandatory to remove the tags upon purchasing the product. The abuse risk is just too great.
Exactly what are the abuse risks? The thing only works when you are 1.5 meters from the tag - at that distance I can already *see* what you are wearing I don't need to scan you to find out you are wearing a benetton turtleneck. The number identifies the SKU of the clothing, it's not a unique serial number. They can't track you as an individual, only that a pair of Benetton slacks (out of thousands) just walked past a scanner.
Would a really strong magnetic field screw them up? Go get one of those bulk video tape erasers and take a stroll through your local Benetton store...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
But, I think I've recently cut an RFID tag off a JCrew shirt. It was stitched in a seperate label-like tag at the base of the shirt, and was clearly labelled to be cut off by the purhaser.
If it's good for Gillette razors, what's the big deal with cloting?
Unfortunately not. Where are you going to find half mile deep water anywhere but the ocean? Are we going to purify ocean water? It's far far more expensive to purify ocean water and remove the salt than it is to purify sewage. Unless you have a new invention that can remove the salt from the water at a really low cost. Islands like Hong Kong have tried that in the past and deemed it too expensive. Places like HK uses slightly purified ocean water for non-drinking purposes such as the toilet, shower, radiator, etc.
well, boycotting Benetton is like us boycotting SCO. ....
oh we're already boycotting SCO you mean?
...why yes, those _are_ Bugle Boy jeans you're wearing
Liberty uber alles.
.
Free RFID with every purchase!
Now all we need are the home-built electronic designs for our own RFID readers, and we can tag everything in our house with these puppies!
Imagine being able to POSITIVELY identify the stolen TV as yours, despite the serial number being ripped off. How many other uses does this have?
I want to be the RFID chip in those undies. Good thing it's not a X10 chip as well.
-- nWhere? The middle east, the caucasus, the ....
california-mexico border, the ukraine,
Do a little hydrogeology reading. It's illuminating.
Most of the world's fresh water is deep subterranean.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Not to come across as pro-big brother, but the thing that makes these things effective in stopping theft and tracking inventroy is the fact that it cannot be easily removed. The problem with those giant honking things that they use in stores now is that anyone could buy a tool to remove it (not to mention the hole it leaves in my shoes).
While I DO NOT like the prospect of "1984", I really don't mind retailers knowing my spending habits and tailoring my shopping experience to my likes and dislikes. It makes shopping much more efficient. I love the fact that Amazon tells me when Kevin Smith's new movie is comming out and doesn't bother me with "Mac for Dummies". But that's just me.
Big brother can more easily track what you buy, and will force stores to start using these to keep track of such things. If you buy certain things, they might enter you in a database of potential terrorists and get you on some FBI watch list
Umm... hate to burst your conspiritorial bubble but the store for rather *obvious reasons* already know exactly what you bought - it doesn't matter whether they tracked that purchase with RFID, bar code or just an old fasioned sales tag scanned by the cashiers extrememly advanced optical scanner (eyes) they have ALWAYS known what you bought. If you bought it on credit or personal check they also know who you are. The scenario you fear is ALREADY possible, has ALWAYS been possible and RFID tags don't add anything to it aside from reducing the likelyhood that you preserve your anonymity by shoplifting.
Now I'll concede that if you walk past an RFID reader somewhere else they *may* be able to know what you are wearing. I suppose this *could* be open to abuse but I think that potential is being overstated. The effective range is only 1.5 meters, at that range I can *see* what you are wearing I don't need an RFID reader. I suppose I can also identify what brand of underwear you are wearing but while that might have some potential for abuse by really lame panty fetishists I can't see that it is particularly open to abuse by Big Brother.These things are recording the SKU# not a unique serial number. Within 1.5 metres of a tag reader I can know what products you have on your person but I can't track you as an individual
Yes you can come up with all sorts of potential abuses of this technology but that is true of ANY technology. Writing, printing presses, photography, video, computers, the internet, RFID tags - all of these can (and are, and will be) abused by governments. Think how hard it was for "big brother" to keep track of things before writing was invented and recording things was possible. But in the end government does not need any more technology than rocks and sharp sticks to abuse and repress the populace. The answer therefor is NOT to avoid new and useful technologies but to restrain governments and maintain those structural checks and balances that (largely) prevent or at least redress abuses. I am MUCH more concerned about those assaults on our constitutional checks and balances than the *potential* abuses of any mere technology. The intrusion of the central government into the states sovereignty - the primacy of courts over legislatures - the willingness of campaign "reformers" to jettison free speech because much of it is ugly or paid for by rich people - THESE things are of FAR more concern than any technology. The technology we have NOW is sufiicient for totalitarianism, the technology of ancient Persia was sufficient for totalitarianism. If we lose those structural protections of liberty we've been blessed with in our system of government it won't matter what technologies the government uses.
As much as I absolutely hate to bring reality to the paranoia craze that we're all loving so much... Do keep in mind things like the chips are unpowered, so need to be within three feet of a receiver to work, and they're on the tags which can be very easily removed after purchase.
So unless 100 innocent buyers are planning on buying the clothes, putting them on, and spending their lives within three feet of the store at all times, I don't think their privacy is being violated all that much.
Actually, they already make these, but they are top / bottom drawers. Spendy.
As for the rack system, check out any commercial dishwasher system. Side benefit is that they will do an entire load of dishes in under a minute. Power and water hungry though...
Wynona Surrenders....
See how the store reacts to you wearing 5 pairs of socks, or other "unusual" combinations.
They will conclude you are a shoplifter and will tackle you on your way out the door. In fact, my big concern with this is that there will be shoplifting arrests of people who simply wore a piece of clothing while returning to the store they bought it from.
Who needs paper? The 1024 byte tag contains a URL, so you knew the terms, unilaterally changeable of course, all along. Also, making compatible items or modifying or removing the chip will violate the DMCA. Cut the tag out? What are you, some kind of hacker?
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Yeah, I'll just continue to buy my clothes at Wal-Mart and the Salvation Army.
Background: Once upon a time there was a brand of clothes for kids called "Garanimal." There was nothing special about the clothes except that they had tags featuring different animals inside. The ideas was that if you matched a monkey-tagged-shirt with monkey-tagged pants, you'd know that they went together and you were fit to be seen in public.
Obviously, knowing what clothes go together is a useful skill, and the potential for a geekware line of clothes featuring O'Reilly animals would be cool (I'd feel right sexy in vi-guy underwear).
But why settle for an obvious (and potentially embarasing) visible tag when you can have a hidden, electronic tag that does the same thing and requires a (hackable) computing device?
They are not going to replace "those heavy donlge things" with rfid although they may also use rfid taags. The "heavy dongle things" are there for two reasons 1. alert the store if you are leaving with unpurchased merchandise. 2. discourage theft. Most of those tags are attached in a location that would require the item of clothing to be badly damaged to remove it if you lacked the proper tools, some of them contain ink that will ruin the clothing if the device is removed. The idea is that it is large and visible, so people get the idea that they shouldnt take it beacuse they will be caught. I build a security system, I build it to work and to be undetected and I catch everyone but have people wrecking my merchandise and taking up my time. I build it to work and be detected, or I add on a detectable bit and people stop trying to steal my stuff.
Remeber that the successfule police states - Tsarist Russia, Iron Curtain Eastern Europe, Iraq, N Korea and Comminist China today - have not depended on technology.
Ever heard of the Great Firewall of China? Besides that, I think that western Europe is doing a pretty good job of building a police state around surveillance cameras.
As for the big picture, you should know that freedom is not bitten off in big bites. It is nibbled away over time.
Thanks, Xerithane. My submission was in the queue for the longest time before it was rejected (I was keeping an eye on it because I realized I had misspelled benetton in the title). When it finally got rejected, I put in in my journal. It's still listed as rejected; Too bad people looking at my user profile will only see my journal entry and not the link to the larger discussion...
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Ignore the privacy worries for a moment. Even though these are re-active transmitters rather than active ones, there's still going to be something emitting radiation right next to your privates ... yuck!
Maybe somebody should remind companies using RFID tags which aren't disabled upon sale of the lawsuits suffered by the "Buster Brown" shoe stores for making kids sterile -- can you say "class action lawsuit for endangering the health of a minor"?
The store security has to actually witness the theft. If the item in question is your Sisley panties, then I imagine a huge out of court settlement will curb future behaviour.
Agent 1: Sir, our guy is wearing Benetton cloths, y'know with them new-fangled ID tags that everyone can read...how does one wear 3,000 panties at once???
Agent 2: Agent 1, Who Cares how many anties he has one...let's track and catch him.
Agent 1: Agent 2, he is going into one of our fronts, a government-watched music store, where everything is tracked even more...WE GOT HIM!!
'BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR'
Agent 2: Agent 1, WGAT WAS THAT??
Agent 1: Oh, SH_T!! them tags cannot survuve THAT!!
Agent 2: Oh well, we can at least track him by the trail he leaves...
Because the ID is embedded in the clothes -- it's an antenna-bearing chip smaller than a grain of rice that's attached to the clothes' labels -- any item returned to the store automatically re-enters the inventory.
:)
So customers should be careful about going back into the store wearing a shirt they already bought? Seriously, how would the system know what valid tags are? The only assumption it can make is that if it's not found in the inventory DB, it's not stolen. I suppose if you're a regular there's no reason to ask for a zip code, if you buy one item with a credit card, the store can track your visits from then on if you wear it. Remember kiddies, plan your wardrobe against your shopping plans... that or cut/rip the damn tag off.
It's a nice pic, but not the sort of thing I'd like my Client to walk in and get a glimpse of.
'Course all the developers here probably read /. so they've seen it.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Keep in mind that since you own all of the items you would be wearing, a good lawyer could get you:
Insult and injury,
Defamation of character,
Mental anguish,
Other stuff.
Have a couple precedents set, and you could make a good career out of it.
Besides, that was just one example. See if you can get the store to think you're carrying a few coats under your t-shirt.
When the whole processor id thing was introduced way back when, people threw a big fit about it. Now what average Joe these days even know about it? Believe me, if big brother wants to track you down, they're gonna track you down and it won't be using unreliable stuff like rfid tags.
Nah, they'll use the black helicopters, and hte mind control rays...
Wonder if the tin-foil beanies will come with these RFID devices?
-- All That's Evil in the Geek Space
Imagine a beowulf cluster of hot babes wearing Benneton panties.
How long before they start embedding these tags in other household items?
It's gonna *really* make you think twice about removing that mattress tag!
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
..and how do we program them? It'd be a great protest to have 50 people with pre-programmed RFID tags in their pockets walked in to the Benetton shop (not wearing ANY Benetton clothing, of course), and then walked out, setting off alarms. Imagine the cost of having to check each person.
Yes, I think that'd be a better protest than the "I just won't buy there" idea.
This isn't the UPC code. It's not scannable to purchase the item. Your shirt isn't going to tell the cash register it wants to be purchased.
Average /. IQ: 80
IQ of readers to this story: 12
When you bring home your new shirt, put it in the microwave for a minute. That should fry any electronics in there.
I bought 40 pairs of identical black socks. Black socks go with anything and there's never an odd one.
There's usually "10 pairs for $10" deals at trade shows and the like, that's where I got mine.
Stores don't care about catching shoplifters, they care about stopping shoplifters. Obviously, one way to do that is to catch alot of them, but "secret" deterrents aren't real helpful.
Benetton doesnt have a big and tall section or a geek wear section so I think were all safe.
Now if they start putting them in free vendor tee shirts I am in big trouble.
You just have two clothes dryers!
In fact, you could probably put a dryer in your bedroom and disguise it as a dresser.
I am always telling my wife that my dresser is out in the garage (the dryer).
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Just an FYI - that thing that feels good in the dark, that you two do together...that's what causes kids :)
:)
If you don't know what I'm talking about, check the UPS man
5 - WOW!
The overwelmingly black jury was more interested in trying to "send a message" about how much they hated white people . . .
Gee, you're not a racist, are you?
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If there's enough info in there to know to give YOU frequent flier miles, and not some other purchaser of this particular style undies, then they're tracking more than the SKU. In which case, there's now a unique identifier that is associated with the information about who you are, what you buy, and where you live in the retailer's DB (at least for credit card purchases). It could also end up in the CC issuer's DB.
) . If they put RF put readers in locations of interest (such as the entrance to every mosque) and your identifier walks past a reader, they can then personally attach you to that location at a given time.
/ son-of-patriot.php) passes. Nah, that could never happen...
Assuming the gov't - or really anyone who wants to track people - gains access to those records (say, courtesy of the banking industry's new "privacy" rules: http://www.americanpolicy.org/priv/newbanking.htm
Now, assuming the reader thing actually happens, assume that the USA Patriot Act II (http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias
Suddenly, people - even good ol' US citizens - start getting picked up for being in the "wrong" place at the "wrong" time - or perhaps being in the same place as a person who knows the "wrong" person - all with no right to contact family, lawyer, or whatever.
Bet that would put a damper on the right to free association, no?
I concede that several things would have to happen to bring about the worst-case scenario (thus all the assumes), and by nature the govt is as slow as molasses, so it might take many years, but, none of the assumptions is all that far-fetched, and as we all know, molasses can kill: http://www.mv.com/ipusers/arcade/molasses.htm
Any one have plans for a portable bulk eraser that can be used to scramble the brains if the IC?
http://nwbagpipes.com/
Is that an RFID in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?
fyi: The image is not titillating, but certain organizations (like where I work) might not like it. Kind of victoria-secret-ish.
Gee, you're not a racist, are you?
No. I'm not one of the people that let a brutal murderer go just because I hated white cops.
Perhaps you are not old enough t remember the OJ Simpson trial. Read up on it and you will learn that Simpson's attorney, Johnnie Cochran, called on the jury to "send the message" to the LAPD that the black community did not trust them. He didn't ask the jury to consider the evidence and they did not. Despite having a mountain of evidence presented over a period of months, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict in only four hours. As Simpson's own attorney, Robert Shapiro, later told Barbara Walters, "not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck."
The jury was motivated by racial hatred. How does my pointing that well-accepted-fact out make me a racist? Better luck next time at impressing everyone with your faux enlightened observations.
Apologies to everyone else for this off-topic thread (which *I* didn't start).
Perhaps you are not old enough t remember the OJ Simpson trial.
Or perhaps I'm old enough to remember how bad racism has been in this country.
Johnnie Cochran, called on the jury to "send the message" to the LAPD that the black community did not trust them.
Sending a message to the LAPD not to trust them isn't exactly the same as sending a message that they hate white people, now is it?
Maybe *you* need to read up a little on history. Then maybe you'd realize that this tremendous injustice that occurred with the O.J. Simpson verdict was commonplace thoughout much of American history when the victim was black and the perpetrator was white.
Ever heard of Emmett Till? Here's what happened to him in 1955:
August 24: Emmett joins a group of teenagers, seven boys and one girl, to go to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market for refreshments to cool off after a long day of picking cotton in the hot sun. Bryant's Grocery, owned by a white couple, Roy and Carolyn Bryant, sells supplies and candy to a primarily black clientele of sharecroppers and their children. Emmett goes into the store to buy bubble gum. Some of the kids outside the store will later say they heard Emmett whistle at Carolyn Bryant.
August 28: About 2:30 a.m., Roy Bryant , Carolyn's husband, and his half brother J. W. Milam, kidnap Emmett Till from Moses Wright's home. They will later describe brutally beating him, taking him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shooting him in the head, fastening a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushing the body into the river.
August 29: J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant are arrested on kidnapping charges in LeFlore County in connection with Till's disappearance. They are jailed in Greenwood, Mississippi and held without bond.
August 31: Three days later, Emmett Till's decomposed corpse is pulled from Mississippi's Tallahatchie River. Moses Wright identifies the body from a ring with the initials L.T.
September 3: Emmett Till's body is taken to Chicago's Roberts Temple Church of God for viewing and funeral services. Emmett's mother decides to have an open casket funeral. Thousands of Chicagoans wait in line to see Emmett's brutally beaten body.
September 6: Emmett Till is buried at Burr Oak Cemetery.
The same day, a grand jury in Mississippi indicts Milam and Bryant for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. They both plead innocent. They will be held in jail until the start of the trial.
September 19: The kidnapping and murder trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant opens in Sumner, Mississippi, the county seat of Tallahatchie County. Jury selection begins and, with blacks and white women banned from serving, an all-white, 12-man jury made up of nine farmers, two carpenters and one insurance agent is selected.
September 23: Milam and Bryant are acquitted of murdering Emmett Till after the jury deliberates only 67 minutes. One juror tells a reporter that they wouldn't have taken so long if they hadn't stopped to drink pop. Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam stand before photographers, light up cigars and kiss their wives in celebration of the not guilty verdict.
Kinda sounds familiar, huh? Unfortunately, this kind of thing happened hundreds of times throughout our history, not to mention all the lynchings.
From a LIFE magazine interview with one of the murderers, after the aquittal:
Milam: "Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers -- in their place -- I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you -- just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'"
Maybe the message the O.J. Jury sent wasn't "we hate white people", maybe it was "so now you know the outrage we've felt for the last 200 years".
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SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apologies to everyone else for this off-topic thread (which *I* didn't start).
Nor did I start it, but if you feel that it is inappropriate, you need not participate.
And I am well aware of the Emmett Till case.
Sending a message to the LAPD not to trust them isn't exactly the same as sending a message that they hate white people, now is it?
I believe that the "message" was to all white people, not just the police. It was a message to Ron Goldman's family, Nicole Simpson's family, and the loved ones that they left behind. It has to take an extreme form of hate in order to look at the grieving families and then let the murderer go free.
Maybe the message the O.J. Jury sent wasn't "we hate white people", maybe it was "so now you know the outrage we've felt for the last 200 years".
So you feel that racial injustice in the past justifies letting murderers go free today? You believe that it is a valid reason for a juror to vote "not guilty" when they know in their heart that the man on trial committed a brutal double homicide?
Sorry, but I don't believe that it is morally acceptable to let a brutal murderer go free in order to 'send a message' to a police department.
As soon as you buy something from the store you're branded. The next time you go into the chain they will see that "Bob" has entered the store. They'll use it for advertising then sell the compiled info. Expect lots and lots of junk mail after this.
All I can say is... SAUSAGE!
they are bags made out of lead to protect film in x-ray machines
:
they work a treat as a shoplifting tool - my CD shelf groans for the strain
As Plover says
Trust me, being caught using one while shoplifting provides very convincing evidence in a courtroom.
More than that, in the UK it's an offence it itself 'going equipped to steal' and will turn your police caution for a first offence into a possible jail term. (from the anecdotal grape-vine)
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
for t-shirt, underpants, 2 socks & two shoes & my baseball cap !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I'm suprised the casinos aren't putting these things in their bigger chips. I work at a casino, and let me just say there are plenty of instances where they'd be awfully handy to have in place.
So you feel that racial injustice in the past justifies letting murderers go free today?
Justifies? No. Can I empathize? Maybe. Will I ever know what it's like to be black? No. Having never been harassed by police based on my skin color, I'll never know what that could drive someone to.
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SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
its not a privacy issue because the technology isn't powerful enough to track everybody minority-report style.
Now, if RFID tags suddenly became REMOTELY REWRITEABLE, uniquely identifiable, impervious to microwaving and -embedded into your brain-, then i would say it would be a privacy issue.
As it is, even if every product we bought had rfid tags in them, there would be no appreciable impact on privacy.
Citing cost as an issue is the most idiotic argument I've read. No offense. The things cost $1-$2 NOW, but are going to be produced on a massive scale soon. As for readers - sure they cost that now, but if someone decided they need 200,000 readers to spy on people, then surely the cost per unit will drop dramatically.
Remember: Tiny wireless video (spy) cameras used to be for secret services only, now there are stores at some street corners where you can pick the stuff up.
... Who said Ken Livingston wasn't an idiot;)
;)
I can't see why anyone would use RFID as a spying device when there are better, more rugged, and cheaper techniques available NOW. My point was that if you are worried about people using RFID to spy on you,then you've missed the boat. There are much worse threats to security out there now, in technology already available on the mass market...
For example: Many 3G mobile phones can be tracked to within feet of the person. Credit cards retain information on all transactions, as do ATM machines, there is almost continual invasion of privacy : think of security camera's. And unencrypted email. And ATM machines / credit cards...
Face it man: you're only paranoid if they aren't out to get you...
A member of The campaign for real english : getting rid of all those silly conventons about spealling;)
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate
into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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