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Walmart to Push RFID
bravehamster writes "According to this article over at MSNBC, Walmart is going to push its suppliers to start using RFID to track inventory by 2005. The article goes on to mention how it was Walmart who helped jumpstart widespread adoption of barcodes. The report also points out some of the barriers in the way of RFID acceptance, but never once mentions consumer privacy concerns. Guess that kind of stuff just isn't important anymore."
most everyone discussing these devices are concerned about the privacy issues--that they need to be fully deactivated after the purchase. big brother inside?
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http://www.hellection.com
They don't do anything worth being private about, do they?
Oh. Consumers, not computers. Whoops.
there are any number of video cameras and inventory-tracking devices in a store.
i bet wal-mart is keeping careful track of your shopping habits. rfids only serve their tracking needs better.
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http://www.hellection.com
...they'll stop asking for my zip code!!
... a bigger microwave.
;)
Surely some of the hardware types around here can come up with the simplest and/or cheapest possible way to pinpoint and extract these things.
(Then collect a couple buckets full and mail 'em back to Walmart corporate HQ.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Now they'll need radio tags to do the job right.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This technology can be revolutionary for maximizing the efficiency of the supply lines of very large companies such as Wal-Mart. However, the only real way to relieve privacy concerns is to come up with some way for the chip to PERMANENTLY disable itself when the item is purchased, in such a way that it is physically impossible to re-activate the device.
I don't think this will be done, however. What is more likely is some sort of software "de-activation" that will make consumers happy but will not necessarily be a true solution, in that it will be, at least theoretically, possible to re-activate the device.
I was talking with a friend about these things recently and he had some good ideas about practical uses for RFID tags. For one, a simple keychain sensor device could be programmed to keep track of your posessions. Wallets, cellphones, sunglasses, could be coded with these tags. If these items were to leave your direct vicinity, the sensor could inform you you're forgetting something. Or being robbed as the case may be.
Truth be told, I fail to see the privacy issues the adoption of these things would raise. I assume that, once you've brought your item home, you're free to remove the offending tag. Or, if you want to mess with the system, switch 'em around.
I want the fire back.
From the article:
Inventory management technology that uses wireless signals to track products from the factory to store shelves is set to win a major new ally next week: Wal-Mart.
Only "track products from the factory to store shelves," eh?
This is why we don't want the media controlled by large corporations. The idea that RFID's can be used beyond "the store shelves" can be suppressed if the media speaks with one voice.
I mean, haven't you seen the ad where the dude hides everything under his trenchcoat and gets charges anyway on the way out?
Yeah, I'm back to cash and the Chamblee Farmers Market.
Don't try trackn' me! Bastards!
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Sure. Ignore consumer privacy. All the consumers with consumer privacy concerns will leave your business, and then you lose all your money.
Smart move.
How do RFIDs infringe on consumer privacy any more than checkout registers which track your purchases to calculate how much you need to pay the store and then link that to credit/debit cards? If somone is that concerned about their privacy then they need to pay in cash. Or shoplift.
Walmart poses the same kind of question as Microsoft not so many years ago. Are they pushing innovation or are they simply doing whatever they can to be a bigger and more profitable company for their shareholders? I think we can guess which is more likely. Money and power obscure all concerns about their consumers' privacy. Walmart, on the other hand, does do much to keep its consumers happy. The Maxim discontinuation and the obscuring of women's magazines covers is in response to the family atmosphere that they seek to promote. It is not, as some flame-baiters maintain, an attempt to be repressive and just part of the Bible-belt mentality. They are reacting to their own market research that shows that most families (which it is families that shop at Walmart mostly, not hip 16 year olds who'd rather be at Abercrombie) would rather those things not be visible to their young children. Thus Walmart's policies put them in better light with the communities they overtake. If the communities don't want to have RFID tags and they make that known to Walmart, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Walmart retracted this idea. Walmart knows very well that its money comes not from streamlined inventory but from the happy families that shop there.
OK, I can understand the privacy concern, but don't let it get out of hand. It is very unlikly these devices will come with a power supply that lasts much longer than the expected shelf life of the item being sold. Also, in order to comply with FCC regulations, they couldn't transmit huge amounts of power or the total field strength in the walmart (where thousands of such devices would constantly be in operation) would exceed safty limits. This basicly means that they won't be able to track you far or long. Far enough to catch a shoplifter, possibly, far enough to keep track of you by a chip in your shirt you purchased at walmart? Probably, but the equiptment to do so would be way to expensive to do routinely, and face it, if the situation is beyond routine, "they" have much better ways of tracking people that don't rely on a chip that can be sent to a different continint via airmail. Most importantly though, with a scale of operations the size of walmart, does anyone think that they intend to spy on everyone there (more than they already can with a security camera every other step)? Inside the store possibly, but the logistics of setting up a grid that can track the transmitters outside of walmart would be extremly impractical. This will probably be what it is supposed to be, a way track not people but merchandise, which has no right to privacy anyway, and to catch people who want to get away with some of it. The only simi-paranoid-rallying use for this that they MIGHT be able to collect aggragate patterns to organize the walmarts for maximum impulse shopping success. But doesn't Kroger and many other grocery stores (with "discout" cards) do this already, yes, there was some minor outrage at first, but has anybody's rights to privacy been significantly damaged by these peaces of plastic? I doubt it.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
I want a reader with good range, able to ping within 5 feet. Maybe 3, then I just need one for the fridge and one for the cubbord and not have to worry about noise interferance from the trash can.
Very exciting stuff boys and girls!
Tonight when I had to decide what to make for dinner I had to walk into the kitchen and look around for what I had. THEN I realized I had no milk for my macaroni and cheese.
Once these RFID's meet with grocery stores i can see whats avalable from my pda! webtablet! tv! iloo! ipod! cellphone!
Before someone walks past an advertisement display, the display reads the RFID tags the person is carying, figures out things & brands the person might be interested in, and displays a targeted ad.
Mark this post. With RFID tags, this will happen. Just not right away, admittedly.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
I dont have a problem with the mags, but you fail to understand business.. They have to cater to the demands of the masses.. If they dont take action, then they have a huge boycott on their hands and that means lost revenue.
instead of stealing from the store, now you can drive up next to a shipping truck and see if its full of potatoes or dvd players
i'm no expert, but aren't rfid tags useless once you leave the store? i mean, they can't track you down the street when you go into the strip club can they? also, if you walk into a store, pick up a box, and walk around to shop some more, how does the store know who you are? i guess i'm a little confused... if rfid tags are a privacy concern, how do they track the individual anymore than a credit/debit card transaction? seems to me that this could be used as a method to reduce costs for businesses.
... this is going to be a huge boost for RFID's. I don't think most realize the huge amount of sway that Wal-Mart has in both the American economy and the World economy in general. They are a huge company: the first retailer to ever become the biggest company in the world. They should change the old saying to "As goes Wal-Mart, so goes the world..."
Forget the whales - save the babies.
I'm no gun control proponet, but I wonder if anyone has ever considered mandating these things inside handguns. ALthough there'd be a ton of black-market guns, guns built before the law, guns built outside of the us, etc around, the ones including an RFID would be awfully easy to detect in situations where security is paramount.
...
Not saying its a good idea, but I just wonder if its floating out there
Consumer privacy concerns? They already know what you are buying because, well, you do scan the barcodes already. Also, RFID tags are destroyed when you do buy something, for one reason among many being that you don't want to wreck havock with security when people who buy products with embedded RFID tags (i.e. some clothing) bring their products back in with them on subsequent visits.
RFID tags are a great idea, but the potential for abuse by data miners is simply too great-- greedy companies will be tripping over each other to collect data about you and sell it to other companies who want to advertise shit to you.
RFID tags in merchandise are only half of the equation-- the marketers need a way to attach that data to a specific person-- like if some state gets the bright idea to embed an RFID tag in its driver's licenses. Or if a credit card company puts one in your VISA or MasterCard. Then...
Bingo. Joe Blow walks through a doorway, and and any still-active RFID tags on his person are collected by the RFID tag reader built unobtrusively into the door frame. Some computer in the back room duly records that Joe Blow has a NJ driver's license, wears Lee Jeans, Hanes boxers, Reebok sneakers, and chews Big Red.
RFIDs have the potential to be an excellent inventory tracking device but as this discussion has brought to light there are many issues regarding privacy the public is still concerned about. Rather than let suppliers come to grips with these issues over time Walmart has flexed its buying power over its suppliers and will force them to do what THEY want regardless of what the public or these supply companies believe. I work in the manufacturing sector and I have seen Walmart do this all to many times. For example, Walmart more often then not will force a company like Black and Decker or Eureka to produce a model just for them that fits Walmart's ideal price no matter how much the quality of the product will be affected. I just want to point out that although this article portraits Walmart as a champion of technolgy with this move, IMHO their bullying is not fair or just....
Just wrap your entire house in alunimum foil.
I don't see what the big deal is?
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
If anyone can get the ball rolling on RFID it is Wally World. They have lots of experience putting pressure on manufacturers and distributors. They will just tell the distributors NO RFID=No Wal-Mart. They have so much buying power they can always find someone to sell cheaper, or in this case someone cooperate w/ the RFID rollout. Check out this AlterNet article about Wal-Mart's questionable business and employment practices. It is titled How Wal-Mart is Remaking our World: Bullying people from your town to China
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Well, yes... If you don't count that fact that stores keep track of every item you ever purchase, then no, there was no loss of privacy at all.
I think the idea was that people could track what you purchased after you left the store, which is a bit more insidious.
Maybe you're just being sarcastic. If so, it's too subtle for me.
Well, the plans seem to imply that the RFIDs would need to encode unique identifiers, not just one-number-per-product as with current barcodes. This would enable things like scanning an entire still-packed crate and getting a count of its contents. There's less incentive to do this with barcodes, since you'd still have to unpack the box and scan each one by hand, and you might as well just count 'em while you're doing that.
Plus, I suppose someone could drive a truck by your house and scan to see how good of a consumer you are.
Unless you have aluminum siding.
It's saturday night.
What timezone do you live in again? Did I pass out earlier?
-my other sig is your mom
Maybe you're just trolling, I can't tell. But I think the whole point of RFID is it's automatic. Sure, they could look at the box, and sure, they're already tracking barcodes. But with RFID, they can track all purchases and even the path a product takes throughout the store.
There's a hypthetical store that can track every thought you have, and present individually targeted ads that are so personally tailored that they can instantly create demand for every products at once. The "evil" store.
And there's a hypothetical store that just has its products on a well organized series of tables, and you just grab what you want and leave cash in a bucket on the honor system. The "good" store.
Nobody's suggesting that Walmart is the evil store, or that they suck because they're not just like the good store. What they're suggesting is that "good" stores are trying as hard as they can to become "evil", and our beloved technology is helping. THAT'S what people are upset about.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
At first I thought, like many, that privacy concerns regarding RFID is no big deal. So what it really doesn't matter?
But then on second thought, a burglar could drive through a neighborhood querying for expensive items, such as a HDTV, and use that information to decide which houses to rob.
Maybe there are distance limitations, but just get a good transceiver and filter the noise. High tech burglars are coming.
Where the Music Matters
Paying with a credit card is a choice the consumer makes. If some people are worried about a database tracking their purchases, at least they have the option to use cash. But with RFID, customers have no such option. Everyone can be tracked, regardless of whether they approve or not.
Someone will probably come up with a RFID finder, so that people who want to preserve thier privacy can find and remove them.
"most everyone discussing these devices are concerned about the privacy issues--that they need to be fully deactivated after the purchase. big brother inside?"
Is that anything like Intel Inside?
If "Southern bible-thumping asswads" are "the masses" then you have no idea how glad I am to not live in your country!
Honestly! Do you really a significant portion of the population objects to the existance of Men's magazines in a store that already sells everything; clothes, groceries, drugs and gas?
"Just wrap your entire house in alunimum foil.
I don't see what the big deal is?"
I guess you'll find out, come summertime how popcorn feels?
A friend and I were walking through walmart to get some engine coolant(minor emergency, no choice), and I expressed my distaste for walmart. She asked, "Why? Where else could you get all these wonderful things?"(points to grocery section, hardware, etc.)
My answer was rather simple. "Well, before Walmart, the center of my town- the local town hardware store, the local grocery store, and so on. But thanks to Home Depot and Walmart running all the local businesses out, now you can't get anything without driving 20+ minutes". So now, for the $2 in savings, I've got to burn $2 in gas just to get there. I've got to spend 5 minutes finding a parking space, 5 walking from the lot into the store, another 5 trying to find the section and get there, another 5-10 waiting in line...so on etc. That's 'better'?
All because the only thing consumers value these days is the pricetag- not all the other benefits that come from giving your business to a small, locally owned business...or the hidden costs(your time, travel expenses, etc). Lost your reciept? Walmart tells you to go fuck yourself,m you shoplifting scum! Joe at Joe's Hardware remembers selling you that door hinge a few days ago- so the answer is "hey, no problem, here's your money." Not to mention, Joe knows what he's talking about when you ask him a question about doors, instead of some PFY who blankly stares at you because you asked something other than "what aisle is ___ in?"
You know what? It's not the only thing that bugs me about Walmart- their people are downright sleazy. It's stuff like the stories about Walmart managers taking donated items out of charity dropboxes in the stores that were not in walmart bags, and restocking them onto the shelves. Why? Walmart claimed it was to prevent shoplifting(or, in this case, 'shopdonating'), and items not in Walmart bags must not have been legitimate purchases. The donation box was AFTER the registers, not before. Further- ever been in a Walmart? There's more security cameras than you can count- yet a)items were supposedly shoplifted, yet not caught on tape and b)supposedly walmart didn't have any security cameras covering the area where the donation box was. Uh huh. Oh, and don't get me started on Walmart's union-busting...
It's so frustrating to see these giant box stores pop up. A big part of the local economy shifts over to that one store- all the mom+pops die off, and everyone that worked for mom+pop end up working for Walmart, they get nice clean blue uniforms, and all is(mostly) good. What happens when Walmart goes the way of K-mart, Caldoors, Bradlees, etc...or decides that store isn't quite profitable enough? Oops. Smallville's unemployment just went to %50.
Please help metamoderate.
There are so many signs in this post that scream "detox time."
And then I'll gave to pay big bucks for it right? And I'll find it normal...
Life sucks.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
- pregnancy tests
- sex toys, porn and lubricant
- medication for embarassing illnesses
- guns
Any other suggestions?One thing I don't entirely understand is why they insist on embedding the RFID tags in the products themselves instead of in the packaging. If they want inventory control, well, why not just stick the tag in the packaging? About the only problem that would present is if the product was removed from its packaging before purchase, which is a problem even without RFID tags. I suppose, theoretically, shoplifters could remove products from the packaging and walk out of the store with them, but that wouldn't be hard to do even if the tags were embedded in the products(just put it in a satchel or something lined with lead or some other material that might block the waves used to query the tag).
I would rather see packaging contain some kind of RFID tag plus a device to transmit a signal to some kind of receiver in the store to indicate that the package had been opened(a device that could be removed/disabled at sale) than see RFID tags in the products themselves. Once the product leaves the store(purchased legally), the RFID tag serves no legitimate purpose.
Think about clothing, or wallets for example. If they didn't diable the tag after you purchase the item, what is to stop them from charging you again next time you visit the store? Also, this would wreak havoc on their inventory control. They would have no idea what is personal property and what is product! I'm guessing they won't go to that trouble though and only scan for the codes in close proximity.
This isn't a flame or a troll, just an honest question: what's the BFD about these tags? They'd be a privacy concern to me if they had a long range, or couldn't be removed, turned off, or killed. But AFAIK none of that is true -- they have a very short range, they can easily be removed if you find them, they probably can be disabled remotely, and they can certainly be killed by EMP or something similar.
For everyone else in the supply chain the benfits are almost incredible: automatic inventory tracking among them. I worked in an auto parts warehouse during school, and a system like this would have saved them an unreal amount of money.
The worst thing about them is their potential, I think. I dread the thought of devices of this type implanted in infants at birth. But that's a pretty far-out slippery slope argument, and a very different issue.
So tell me -- for real -- what's the privacy issue here?
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Well, this is different. Neat features of RFID tags:
1. Can be scanned from a short distance.
2. Virtually unlimit ID pool, every one ever made can be uniquly identified.
3. Not tide to a scanner, any one with an RFID scanner can track them. Even the bad guys.
4. Once everything has a tag installed, congress can be lobbied to make removing them illegal, or embedded in drivers licenses, etc.
5. Airports, bus stations, side walks, grocery stores can be equipped with scanners. Since eveything you wear, your shoes, your wallet, your watch, that clean pair of socks, has a chip in it you leave a trail where ever you go.
Cool trick: Bought a soda at the corner store? The store scanned your sunglasses when you came in and scanned your sun glasses and the soda when you left. Now you throw out that soda, and it leaves evidence you where present.
Another cool trick: You give 5$ to a friend for a six pack of beer. He doesn't get scanned and associated with the 5$ bill, and uses it to buy drugs. The cops nab the drug dealer with the 5$ bill and start back tracking where it's been. You're the last person scanned with it, they start asking questions....
With a large enough cloud of RFID scanners one could, in theory, track hundreds of people moving through a busy street in Manhattan. By grouping clouds of RFID tags together you could track the individual exchanges of goods between people in near realtime on a mass scale. It would make for a really cool web page.
RFID tags are cheap, they're not indistructable nodes, but any given person could have several on his personage with out even knowing it. It's a beatifully redundant system, that only gets stronger as more products embedd the tags.
It's great for tracking products, but the civil uses are way, way cooler. Once it's in place it will make tracking by GPS seem silly and arcane, and impractical.
I've been reading the comments and watching the moderation of this story for the past ten minutes.
I'm really amazed by all of the posts belittling the potential danger of RFID's. Also, many comments talking about RFID abuses, or even asking sane questions about them, have been moderated down. Then comments like this one are moderated up.
I find that odd.
"I'm sick and tired of people whining about privacy concerns."
Coming from a guy called "Ignorant Aardvark" I'm certain there's a lesson there somewere.
One of the things I found odd is that not only is Wal-Mart pushing it - but it seems the garbage dump folks are interested too. Might make the Junkyard Wars of the future a little less fun to watch I suppose.
Somebody needs to go back to the faq and read the definition of flamebait. You fit it to a T. As the mods with more sense than you have already pointed out.
In addition, barcodes and credit cards have to be activly scanned and therefore the person knows whenever their card is being swipped, but rfids can be read at anytime without the knowledge or consent of the person who has them.
I'll complain when they try and tag my children at birth...
the thing is that they don't need to tag you, they just need to tag your clothing, the currency you bring in your wallet, your photo id.... etc
now, all that is required is some sort of global database where they have a picture of you walking through the door, buying a [insert embarassing article here] and form letter blackmail.
no, i think it's the fact that the issue i bring up is that if your purchases retain the rfid function upon leaving the store, they become useful to the entity that decides to listen and track them: wal-mart's clothing aisle that insists that this pair of pants will match that shirt your wearing...
it's worse than the safeway club card because you knowingly give the club card to the entity; in this case, it may be against your will.
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http://www.hellection.com
This tech is an awesome, easy to implement and cheap tool for SCM. Which ideally would lead to lower costs to the consumer and if not that, better service (fewer stockouts). Labelling it a privacy concern is just trolling, IMHO.
In case anyone's interested in the forefront of RFID... I think MIT's Auto-ID Center would be a great place to get answers to about half of the questions I've seen in this discussion so far. Plus, they're nice folks and their server could use some exercise.
For instance:
YES, it could potentially track individual items.
NO, it's not battery powered.
YES, it will reveal all your LOX purchases to the Secret Government.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
But with RFID, customers have no such option. Everyone can be tracked, regardless of whether they approve or not.
Uh..How?
I'm as big as a privacy buff as the next guy, but how the hell are the amassing a database about you simply by virtue of RFIDs?!
Like I mention below, the uproar with Benetton's plan was that the RFID was embedded in the CLOTHING. So that when you came BACK to the store, they could, ostensibly, compile a profile of your Benetton purchases by surrepitiously scanning your clothes as you came back in.
I'm going to assume, unless someone can demonstrate otherwise, that Walmart is interested in putting the RFIDs on the PACKAGING. On the long shot that the RFID *is* in the product itself, who cares? How often are you coming back to Walmart, with, say, the TV or the twizzlers you just bought there? And as for clothes...well, really, if you're dressing yourself at Walmart, you're on you're own, buddy.
But seriously, Walmart, unlike Benetton, doesn't sell high-ticket item clothes, and probably isn't interested in profiling their typical customers clothes buying habits, really. I doubt Walmart socks will have RFIDs embedded. Probably only the packages will.
Firstly, when people say "improve inventory tracking, from manufacturing to the shelf", do they really realise how much goes on in that simple statement? There are many stages involved in a supply chain like Walmarts, and RF ID tags will improve the accuracy and efficiency of every single one of them. Manufacturing -> Central Storage -> Local Storage (within 100mi of store) -> Store Storage (back rooms) -> Shelves. At each level there are significant levels of automation (packing, conveying and sorting, and distribution). The improved accuracy could ensure that a truck leaving a central warehouse for a local warehouse would always contain exactly what is required... even a
But it doesn't even stop there... tracking of product on the shelf can result in more efficient consumer shelf stocking... how often have you wanted a product to find the shelf empty? With RF ID tags, the store will know it's empty as soon as it becomes empty, and Drone_X can replace the shelf product almost immediately.
Regarding the privacy concerns, you cannot stop a store knowing what you are purchasing at the instant of departure... even with good old fashioned human eyes and manual calculation. The concern most people have is that the tracking will continue into their personal lives.
a) I predict that most RF tags will be in packaging or cases. and
b) in situations where they aren't, they could provide enough of a personal benefit that people will be able to deal with the risk of Big Brother knowing... e.g. the fridge that tells you when you're low on product X, or more importantly, exactly how long Product Y with what looks like might be mold on it has been in the fridge (or is it just french cheese?). As another poster mentioned, a device could indicate when your wallet or keys get left behind or stolen. another possibility is smart washing machines that will warn you that you've just put a cashmere sweater on a high heat cycle or a a PC interface to your wardrobe that will tell you if that shirt you wanted to wear is in the wardrobe or in the wash.
There are people that would be willing to pay for these services, and they are most easily enabled by RF ID.
Ultimately, I think consumer pressure will ensure that there will be a way to remove, or disable RF ID tags, but I think that before too long, most people won't want to because they will become too useful in the home.
By the way, the store doesn't have to disable them to prevent double charging... assuming tags have unique IDs, the system can simply log that ID_XYZ has already been paid for and shouldn't be charged again. What's that? concerned that someone knows you entered the store?
i mean, if all wal-mart does is implement this system and guarantees that the tags will be disabled, i think that's all fine and well, but this should be monitored closely so that we don't end up with an orwellian big brother checking over our shoulders seeing what we bought.
i heard on off the hook how those member discount cards at grocery stores are monitored so feds can see if your buying large amounts of precursor chemicals for drugs (sudafed was one example). well, great, they're trying to stop the production of drugs, but they're doing it at the expense of the everyday citizen who may now be subject to investigation and hassles that may damage their reputation and/or career just because for some legitimate reason they needed a large amount of sudafed!
also, supposedly they are now implementing a massive government database to track all these purchases and scan the data looking for potential terrorist buying habits (lol!).
that's what i have . . . innocent until proven guilty; why should the government monitor citizens until it has legitimate grounds to?
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
I agree with you that walmart is pushing all the mom and pop stores about of business, but tough luck welcome to capitalism (yes, I know its not pure)
/does not/ waste your time. Where else can you go and buy your groceries, clothes, tools and other crap all at one store? With mom and pop you'd spend at least twice the time going from store to store looking for items. Plus, walmart guarantees the lowest prices, and while a promise isn't much these days, I doubt a mom and pop store could survive charging less than walmart.
However, walmart
"I agree, in this case the privacy concerns are probably unfounded. The debate is healthy though, because by the time they try to tag your children at birth, it may be too late to stop it."
"They" will not have to because a lot of parents will do it under the misbegotten belief that it's good for the child.
Sometimes the best friend is an enemy, and the best enemy is a friend.
RFID's replacing barcodes, i think, is an excellent idea. this means you could just pick up all the junk you want, stuff it in a cart (or even your coat, as long as it's not aluminum) and walk out. A scanner scans all the RFID's, calculates a total, you pay and go. Very simple. Even if it doesn't work as easily as this, it's still way better than barcodes. In the stockroom too, this would make finding inventory and moving it around a lot easier and faster. People whine that they can track every item you purchase with these, they can track you through the store, they can see what you bought...bla bla... 1. Retailers NOW could track every single item you ever purchase. Can they? of course! DO they? No. If they did, making a return without a receipt at a retailer like target/walmart wouldn't be such a hassle, would it? 2. RFID's can be tracked throughout the store. So what? you're being tracked all the way through the store by video camera ANYWAY. I mean really, who cares that when i go to Walmart i go to Sporting Goods, Electronics, then the register? the people on the sales floor know it, the security ppl watching the cameras know it...how will it be any different if i'm being tracked by the RFID of the stuff in my cart? 3. The RFID's will probably most likely be hanging off the items or on the item boxes like barcode tags do now. they won't be embedded in the product itself as many would think. just clip the tag, and throw it out, and BOOM! No RFID. might be a problem if you bring your trash bags into a store or something, but only then :)
Stop whining. It's not big brother coming to get you. it's a new way to run a store.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
Go hrough everything you want to buy, locate the tag, rip it out, dump it. For preference, bring a sign to the store with instructions so other people know where to dump their RFIDs before paying and leaving.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
My problem is with the fact that RFID tags could possibly be read by anyone with very easily obtained equipment. How would you like a perfect stranger knowing exatly what you had in your home by simply driving past it?? I don't know about you but I personally find that very unsettling. Hell, my trailerpark white trash neighbors next door always make me nervous and it drives me absolutely insane when my mom comes down to visit and opens all of my blinds!!! Ack!!! Those dirt bags can see what I have (to them, them thar very spensive looking computer thingies....bet they pull a good price at dat yonder pawn shop....YeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaw, I'll come back later...time to go beat the wife and molest my young daughters.....).
If those things aren't completely deactivated before I leave the store...well....I guess they won't get my business anymore.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
A book you might want to read. Even those grocery store cards might give you pause.
That image about sums it up.
If you think it's saturday night, perhaps you don't really need the bong.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Uh, what? If you have a problem with them tracking every item you purchase then you need to stop paying for everything with credit or cheques. I buy stuff all the time even with (shudder!) a Kroger savings card and ya know what? Kroger don't know a damn thing about me. It's not like they take your driver's license number to fill out one of those stupid things; it's not like you can't lie.
It really amazes me how so many people tie themselves intimately to corporations and then bitch about the loss of privacy. If you value your privacy, tell'em to go to hell. Shop with the local merchants while they still exist; stop using plastic every time you buy a damn pack of gum and you won't have to worry about it - or open a numbered swiss account and get a debit card drawn on it.
I think the idea was that people could track what you purchased after you left the store, which is a bit more insidious.
Apparently the notion of removing the damn tag is completely alien to the tinfoil hat crowd.
Do you think there will be a list of unique identifiers out there to tell you that this RFID of 10394712793849 is a 70" TV but 10394712793850 is a corn on the cob holder?
the beauty of RFID's is that they will be unique and different for every single piece of inventory so that one can track the whole picture of individual stock... could be great for operations management and improving efficiencies.
"(and I am a retail systems consultant, BTW, this is my bread-and-butter):"
Is that tagged?
Two things bugging me about these posts.
About drive-by scanning: I believe that you need an antenna that's the
square of the distance to read a tag. That's why there's a little plate reader
or handheld at the checkout and those walkthrus at the door are huge.
To read it from 5 feet, you need 25 sq feet of antenna.
The other thing is that the tag itself won't be zapped or deactivated.
Each will hold a key that IDs the product (all 10oz cans of peaches from
DelMonte will have that same key, like a barcode, probably that same UPC
number) and it will also have a key that's unique to the tag itself.
It won't be zapped, it will just change the status record of that item from
"stocked" to "sold" (or "missing from inventory but not sold").
Shoplift a sweater, and even if you get it out of the store, if you wear it
to the store a year later, you could get pinged.
As much as I hate the idea, you can't blame them for implementing it.
It opens up a huge world of possibilities and won't cost them that much.
With Wal-Mart's clout, it will be up to the vendor to eat the cost of the tag,
WM just has to implement the system and specs the tag. No doubt the tag
supplier will be a WM subsidiary.
Don't want to put in the tag in your product Mr. Vendor?
Sorry, we'll find someone else that will.
Depending on the frequency Walmart uses, possibly. If they use RFID inthe 300KHz range, then the maximum pickup distance is (supposedly) 1cm to 1m. Pretty high range for most things I buy at Walmart (batteries, blank CD's, CD wallet, etc. I buy my CD's or DVD's elswhere, simply because Walmart doesn't, and probably never will, carry the Ataris, Lucky 7, or Fahrenheit 451. Thank you A&B Sound). If they use the 1GHz plus range, they could get - in practice - 15m plus (theoretically 300m and more). They'll probably keep to the lower end of the spectrum. That means you have a good chance of finding the tags in larger things like TVs, furniture, etc so you can simply remove them. As for any portable electronics, good luck. Even if you could find 'em, would you really want to crack 'em open to get them out? I tend to be pretty brave with a screwdriver, but there is NO WAY I'm opening up my brand-new digital camera. In either case, the tags will be in the packaging for the first little while. For clothes, you could just zap 'em in the microwave for 2-3 seconds. There are companies out there already embedding RFID in clothes, so Walmart will grab that soon. I saw a link on an earlier story to a company that was advertising they would be putting tags in all their clothes, but I'm too damn lazy to look it up right now.
As for a consumer-level way to disable them(as opposed to removal and destruction), I doubt it. If everyone could buy a small, easy-to-use device to disable these things, it would screw up any inventory control they had in mind. You could walk around a store and essentially turn off all their security tags. Walmart will try hard to make sure such a device does not fall into the hands of the likes of us. Before anyone argues that point, look how well companies have kept devices off the market that disable the currently wide-spread tags. Sure, you can get 'em, but it ain't easy (read: easy enough for my boss to do it).
But what's to worry about -- we all trust corporations to do the right thing, even if it means they have to give up a potential revenue stream. Right? *cricket chirp*
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
Baseline Magazine had an article about this on Nov 1, 2002. www.baselinemag.com Just search for wal-mart (don't forget the dash.
Looks like it is time to replace your Personality Module. You are a bit to clingy, guess I better replace your fuser to
The MSNBC story was ripped (credit on the bottom of the article) from cnet.news.com.com.com.com.
I sent an email to the author of the
If the RFID tags are to get off the ground, IPV6 needs to get here. But no mention in either article of this.
Isn't this relevant?
The status of IPV6 is extremely poor in the US and Europe. Apparantly, China will be the driving force in IPV6 because of their low allocation of IPV4 numbers, and their exploding use of the internet.
Journalists just aren't trying hard enough these days.
no, i think it's the fact that the issue i bring up is that if your purchases retain the rfid function upon leaving the store, they become useful to the entity that decides to listen and track them: wal-mart's clothing aisle that insists that this pair of pants will match that shirt your wearing...
Welcome to the future: DRM'ed clothing. Wear a non-matching shirt and pair of pants and you go to jail.
Fashion police! Come out with your khakis up!
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"but never once mentions consumer privacy concerns. Guess that kind of stuff just isn't important anymore."
v iet
[Insert Smallest violin joke here]
___________________________________
SolitarySo
Walmart has an overwhelming amount of persuasive power with their suppliers. In fact, many companies can't afford to lose Walmart as a customer, and will bend over for them whether they like it or not. Sad.
Personally, I wouldn't mind reading in the news about reports of technological malice - bogus RFID tags being generated, RFID interference, RFID scanners being rendered useless, etc... If (when) Walmart goes through with this, they should at least not be able to enjoy it.
Innocent 'til proven guilty is a nice buzzword, but false. You are guilty until proven innocent in america, if not in the courts, then in the media. Look at that poor scientist who Herr Ashcrock decided was guilty, then the media made his life hell.
The "if you have nothing to hide" arguement is great in a perfect world, but false in the REAL world. If Osama buys Crest, Keds, and ATI, and I buy Crest, Keds, and ATI, then I must be a terrorist. Any type of individualized correlary database is going to be prone to errors, and when the government is the people behind it, those errors can fsck you over for life.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Something else for people to bitch about. Its a good thing there arent more important things in the world, like an overly aggresive american legal system, terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, and invisible weapons of mass distruction in Iraq.
Thank god someone has finally found something worthy to put effort into stopping
Why is slashdot using the 1x1 transparent gif tracking method? Here
If indeed these tags let Walmart and other retailers manage inventory issues more economically and reduce theft, they will undoubtely catch on. For 95% of the US public, saving a few cents is worth the potential loss of privacy in a wide variety of settings. Witness those very popular "frequent buying cards" at groceries and pharmacies that allow profiling of shoppers in exchange for discounts. There hasn't been great outcry against those, and even if the hardcore privacy folks (whopping 1% of the population?) took their business elsewhere, the net effect is definitely in favor of thrift over privacy each time.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
I'd imagine it'd be the same as cops using heat sensors or wiretaps or radio scanners to track you inside your home without a warrant. Right now, thats a power the federal government resrves for itself. Otherwise, this would be a case of invasive collection of information from inside them home, which, I believe, is still illegal. Wal-Mart would get slapped with a class action suit so big and so hard it'd scare John Holmes.
I'm sure they've already planned on sending some sort of kill signal or magnetic swipe when you leave the store, and they'll probably have to hand any analog devices that would damaged by the swipe to a greeting clerk, who would pass them by the device.
Simply put, while I'm sure Wally World gives a rat's ass about the morals involved, deliberately opening themselves up for a slew of lawsuits isn't on the agenda. So take some deep breaths, and relax.....
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
As long as the RFID chips are placed on products in the same manner as bar codes, privacy is a non-issue. I don't have a single non-food product I walk around with that still has a barcode attached. As for the the food products, those are only around for a few days so it's still not an issue. Get over it and enter the future.
The world is becoming a small place indeed.
what sig?
Bitch all you want, until you find yourself making minimum wage, and a ghuy doing the same thing making twice as much, with full benefits, and a pension that isn't dependant on the stockmarket.
My freind works interstate with Swift, and make something like $2 a mile, with a speed regulator. My father worked for road way, and made 22/h, with no regulator, full benefits for his family, had guarenteed vacations, didn't HAVE to work ot, and is now retired at 50, making 25k/year for sitting on his ass.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
For a healthy dose of opposition opinion, check this out.
Alternatively you can throw a wrench in the system. You know, line up in a circle with people
of similiar shapes. Pass your pants to the left, and your shirt to the right. Jumble it all up real good. Or just develop a taste for thrift store clothing.
Steve Erwin: G'day mates! Here we are in the middle of the beautiful Wallmart outback looking for an example of the most common species to call this area its home. The Consumer-odile!
*sounds of crawling over bargain bins and dodging small children*
Erwin: Crikey! Theres one now! *Points*
*sounds of Erwin wrestling Consumer-odile to ground, and Consumer-odile escaping*
Erwin: Danger, Danger, Danger! A real strong brute that one was. We'll have to use other methods to calm the little bugger. Luckly, we have these new Radio Frequency Identification tags we can shoot from an air gun which will help us track 'em while we gather more men in kakki shorts to jump on him and wrestle him to the ground, as this is less stressful than shooting the little bugger with a tranquilizer.
*sounds of air gun being loaded with RFID*
Erwin: easy...easy...FIRE!
Air Gun: *FOOOOOMP*
Erwin: Gotcha!
*sounds of Erwin wearing Wallmart vest following Consumer-odile through the rough with a radio tracking device...*
Do you wave a pass card at the door at work? That's RFID. Do you drive through the quick lane at the toll booth? More RFID. I used to pay at the pump with my key chain. I cut it open after I cancelled the card and found a TI Tiris RFID tube inside. Similar to what they inject into a dog's neck so they can find it if lost. The one used in the Mobil SpeedPass that I had is the one on the right in this picture:
TI Tiris
Actual size is about 2cm and about 4mm in diameter.
Let me claim prior art on the "automated dumpster diver". This wonderful invention can scavenge a garbage dump or landfill, looking for stuff that you threw away 5 or 10 years ago.
Are we looking for the razor blades or other pakaging of products that you purchased? Of course not! We are looking for items that you threw out with that garbage. You know, correspondence from now-outlawed organizations sich as the ACLU, or maybe love letters from your non-Judeo-Christian-opposite-sex lovers. Remember, you threw them out with the packaging from your newly purchased Walmart goods. You don't remember? Well don't worry, cos' we've got your DNA on your trash anyway.
At every step where our (as in Ameriacan) liberty is being eroded, I think, "hell why not just exploit these bozos who voted in the lawmakers that let this happen."
Somebody mentioned RFID's being only valuable for big-ticket items, such as auto or airplane parts. Well I think I should also claim prior art on the high speed automated road-side RFID reader that can scan RFID's in automotive products. Set these up at regular intervals and not we can track you and incidentally fine you for any speeding infractions during your trip.
What's that? Does that have something to do with the pentagon wanting to log your life? Or with the FBI monitoring which books you get at the library? Or maybe with Echelon tapping every bloody form of communication on the planet? Face it, privacy is dead and no one has even mourned or lamented its demise.
i mean, if all wal-mart does is implement this system and guarantees that the tags will be disabled
One of the main reasons this is being seriously looked at is that a returned item is straight back into the inventory system. Take that away(kill the tag) and you've removed a significant portion of the functionality.
Radio Frequency IDentification
I suppose we shouldn't have invented telecommunications either... it put the Pony Express riders out of work...
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
How is that any different? If you pay with cash they don't know who you are, they're not taking your information down. Maybe they know a group of items were purchased by someone, but they still don't know who you are. OK so you're really paranoid, and think that maybe if you're wearing something you bought and paid for in cash, and go back to the store and paid with a credit card, they could track that...but they still don't know its you who has the item cause it could have been a gift, etc etc.. I don't see what the big deal is.
> So someone can query you wirelessly and find out what you bought - big f'ing deal! They could just look at the box, too!
I don't want the pervert with the RF scanner to know i got a blow-up Suzie, anal beads, and a strap-on dildo in the brown paper package under my arm.
It is a big f'ing deal!
Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in lab rats.
Now they can fire all them smilin' Wal-Mart associates who used to do inventory.
Get ready folks. Soon the only jobs will be CEO or drive-through attendant.
Can you say HERF????
Wonder if they'll be RFIDing the employees? Those creepy greeters could use some tracking devices...
Lessee....
RFID 1939G93935 = creepy old dude.
RFID 9293J51138 = She doesn't actually greet you, she just mouths the words.
RFID 4992F49503 = Dude with a wierdass voicebox.
RFID 5934L32942 = He's just staring and drooling.
Heil Sig! -Rob
First off - damn near _every_ passive radio frequency device will _DIE_PERMANANTLY_ if exposed to even 1/2 second of the inside of a powered microwave.
/bitter) OMFG!!! teh hax0r could get my name. Seriously. The badge that gets you in the door at work that you carry poses the same risk. Of course, dateline hasn't done a special afaik on these yet.
Really, if you are that worried. . . put object in, hit start, hit stop as quick as you can, pull object out, done. It might not work for some sensitive electronics, but c'est la vie. Sure, it's extra work, but you're already being tracked unless you do "extra work" (as seen below).
Others in the thread have given reasons on why the rfid tag would be killed at checkout time.
Secondly passive RFID tag ~= security badges. Same idea. Unique id hooked to a system that identifies you via magical invisible waves and a reader. I don't see people all afraid about the badges that they carry (or not, hooray for having your job sent to Canada
Also - It's not like your privacy is raped already everytime you walk into a major store. Cameras everywhere, security guards checking out chicks pissing / changing (yes children, they do have cameras in the rest rooms), getting tracked if you pay by any other means than cash (you mean stores create customer profiles based on credit card and checking account numbers? The fuck you say!!)
Yes, yes, slippery slope and all that, but you shouldn't expect your privacy to be at all respected by walking into wal mart or any other big store. Really, you can't even go into a library in the wonderful USA now with a reasonable expectation of privacy. (I digress, but you folks voted in the people who passed legislation based on a soundbite from the executive branch, and more likely than not, didn't even read it.)
Granted, I don't see the *wow we must have this* logic, but I personally don't see rfid tags as being a really big problem.
Finally, _you_ _do_ also have the opportunity to shop elsewhere, i.e. places that don't screw over the local community / economy.
BTW. If you're really against this technology, I _suppose_ you could google for microwave waveguides and perhaps even how to make a microwave gun, hook it to a inverter in your car and point it at the front door of a walmart and take out 1/2 of the tags 30 feet from the door.
Bush/O.J. 2022: Still looking for the REAL WMD in Iraq!
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
so, we're sure they won't be removed on purchase like the magnetic strips we use at the moment?
this is what i expect - removal machines replacing the ones we have now.
A blog I run for the wealth
I've seen discussion of embedding RFID tags inside the rubber of an auto tire. I want to see you remove those tags from your car just before you take off merrily down the freeway at a high rate of speed.
Tech Public Policy stuff
RF tags are perfect for tagging clothes. But an even more sinister use than tagging clothes is tagging the people who wear the clothes. And I'm especially referring to a certain kind of person:
Slavery is alive and well in this country, and I'm not referring merely to rhetorical or political slavery, but actual slavery. Women from foreign countries, particularly southeast-Asian countries are flown to America and promised low-paying but normal jobs performing menial labor or housecleaning services, but when they arrive, they discover to their horror that the real purpose is to prostitute themselves for the financial benefit of their masters. These women (and even children) are trapped, since they don't speak English, don't have the money to fly home, and don't have the physical or mental stamina to escape their tormentors after so much abuse.
How is this relevant to RF tags? Think of how much easier it would be to kidnap people from airports if all you needed to do was wander around with a small device, picking up the signals from the tags embedded in clothing given to the erstwhile immigrants back in their home countries. No longer would there have to be complicated networks of international communication -- they'd just have to agree on a certain range of serial numbers (of which there are trillions, as the article points out), hand out "free" clothes to people boarding the plane at departure, and sit back while agents at the US airports haul in the "goods".
This never would've been possible if we'd stuck to normal barcodes -- it's simply impossible to read barcodes surreptitiously. And since criminals are always the first to adopt new technologies for these devious purposes, it's only a matter of time before it comes to an airport near you, Thirteenth Amendment be damned.
From everything I have read either every tag is a different number or it will be impossible to accurately track people ever.
If so how big is the number that an RFID tag stores?
If it is unique per tag then no matter what it will run out bloody quickly, an astronomical number of products are sold every year. If the tag is not unique, ie it is the same as the barcode system and all products of the same type have the same ID then it is impossible to track people!!!
Also would it not be trivially easy to create a fake RFID generator so you could overload the senor equipment and make it useless??
37 - what does it stand for really...
I like the philosophy my parents used. Operate under the assumption that your child will someday be a fugative from a dystopian police state, dodging FBI profilers predicting his moves based on his past purchasing history and avoiding the ubiquitous biometric scanning systems criss-crossing every public area. Leave the trade-offs to when your kid's old enough to determine his own status in relation to The Man.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
The wheel did the same thing. By increasing efficiency, it led to the loss of particular jobs. Of course, it also improved the efficiency of the overall economy, but why consider such things. Okay, let's get rid of those job-killing wheels.
Now, can you think of any reasons why RFIDs would be integrated into clothing in such a manner? If so, can you think of any reasons why the tags might have a design which allows them to survive the total immersion in water and intense heat of a wash-dry cycle? If not, can you name any items where the tag probably would be integrated in such a manner?
The next thing ya know, they won't take cash. Yessir
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
some smart people getting together and developing a way to jam the signals on these things? I could see my self being very happy to carry a pocket radio sized device into walmart or benneton and creating a nice damping field around me while I walk... must be possible right? or for that matter what about scramblers? that would be nice, you could, say oh i don't know, have a scanner that picked up the prices for a bag of M&Ms and then broadcast that price to the register as you walk by with your RFID debit card while you push out your cart full of $300 walmart desktops.
Well, that would be stealing but I think its kind of silly how a lot of technological advances like this really make it sooooo easy to get away with *evil*...
Its amazing how insecure so many "security" complexes are. Here in Japan I recently, as part of my job, had to go to a NIC for the western Japan power company - really cool place - wall sized doors that slide open based on a magnetic card system. Brain dead part? No check on me when I forgot the card in the parking lot and managed to walk all the way into the "core" area (Cisco 7500 and racks o' Sun) by following an employee of the company. No cameras either. And, boy do I stand out (Hiya Whitey!)
anyway, this just seems like another example of humans forgetting about stupidity
You guys fail to realize that you have HUGE freaking logo and brand names on your shirts, pants and caps.
/. morons I swear. You wouldn't know privacy if you were bit in the ass by it.
If you're afraid of people knowing what you buy and where what's up with the HILFIGIER or GAP or [etc]. across your chest?
Fucking
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
THEY who, dipshits? I keep hearing "they". "They" will tag your kids, "they" are keeping track of you. Here's a tip. WATCH LESS X-FILES, YOU PARANOID FUCKS.
Yeah, but if I now want to use a debit or credit card to pay, now the inventory is matched specifically to me. A response of "No, it won't" seems completely inaccurate to me because I have received store catalogs via postal mail after just a single purchase at a new store. i believe there must be ways to extract your billing address from the swipe of this little piece of plastic.
At first I thought the solution would be to pay with cold, hard cash, but alas, RFID tags embedded in the paper currency are likely inevitable (if not already advertised). (OT: Who says the govt won't mandate stores to track in the interest of "reviving the economy"? Oops, sorry for the small rant there).
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
There are a lot of people crying out about personal rights etc. on this, but I have to say I really don't see what the problem is.
At all.
So the store knows more about what you buy, can much more accurately track your purchasing habits, sees which things you like, and which you don't, knows how much you spend every month in the store etc.
What's the big-ass problem for crying out loud?
I *want* the stores to know my buying habits so that they can do a better jobs of providing me with more of the things I like!
Ask yourselves WHY the store wants to know this? It's so that they can tailor themselves to YOU, to give YOU a better service and more of the things you want to spend your money on. Why on Earth would Walmart put money into something that would frustrate, irritate or otherwise turn away customers?!?
I say bring it on! I say, yeah, let's see my tastes and purchasing history take their place in the big database so that I become a future dynamic of the store!
All these privacy advocates going nuts are well off the mark... get some common sense in your head... these people don't want to take away your life... they're not like the common fictional evil genius with a mad plot to eradicate privacy from the face of the world (muhahaha).
I genuinely see this as a *service*, cannot wait for it to be implemented and have absolutely NO worries about the scheme at all. Stop watching too much X-Files!
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
They can do what you've described already. You're credit card + the cash register scanning products + bar code ~= cc + register + rfid.
Think of how easy it would be to gather all the information of the stuff you have in your home for insurance purposes. The readers should be cheap enough, given time...
I think there's a lot of ways we could use this technology to our personal advantage. Think of dating, for example. Imagine the power of being able to tell what she's wearing...
"Hey, that's a FAKE Louis Vuitton!"
"Victoria's Secret under all that... hmmm...!"
"No wait... it's... FREDERICK'S OF HOLLYWOOD!!! Yes!!!"
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
Wal-Mart has already announced publicly that they WILL disable the RFID at the point of sale. They are the first retailer to announce their intentions as supporting the majority view among consumers and ./'ers. Whether by good leadership from within or good pressure externally, Wal-Mart is making the right choice when it comes to RFID's.
FYI - several posts have mentioned a problem at the security gates on the way out. Sorry! Each tag has a unique identifier, so a retailer can flag an item as being sold. Upon connecting the security system to the sales data, purchased items would be filtered so as not to go into alarm. This would actually be better than the current market situation where you can walk out of a retailer and into another only to set off the alarm on entry because you just bought a book with a still active security sensor (different retailers have different sensitivities on their equipment).
Let me start of by saying I love my privacy, and believe that it should be my mine and mine only. I also believe in the long run it is the only way to balance the interests of physical people and abstract organizations.
But, now-a-days, I am really struggling to articulate my stance. Why? Why it is that privacy is important? I need to look at specifics rather than a long drawn out philosophical argument. Something that I can use when I am told - sorry, you can't keep that private because "evil" terrorists will use/abuse it. If I were give a chance to write a 250 page defense I could explain it - or say just hand them a copy of 1984.
But, in this age of MTV, I am looking for a short and crisp statement defending the need for privacy and the limits on State (or any organization's) snooping. Something like a sound bite to justify why my privacy is important to me even if it is not important to you. And that soundbite should also capture the notion that that in the long run the privacy is actually better for both of us.
So, could anyone here articulate - Why is Privacy Important?? KISS - Keep it Short & Simple.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Would it be possible to make an RFID "blaster" (something that would overload it and make it burn out?)
I'd keep one in my pocket and swipe it across every new purchase (right outside the store).
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
This is the same reason I won't shop ANYWHERE (Best Buy, CompUSA, etc) that insists on looking at my receipt and sticking their grubby hands in my shopping bag(s) even after they've jsut seen me making a purchase and the bags filled by a sales clerk not 20 feet away.
It's really insulting, the way they treat paying criminals like criminals. Every time I go to a new store and they try this, I make a point of sending a very nasty letter to the store afterwars. Then I never bring my business back to them.
Especially in the examples given above, there are too many other choices (including on line purchases) for me to bother with them ever again.
Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
but never once mentions consumer privacy concerns.
Maybe - just maybe - this is because THERE ARE NO SUCH CONCERNS AMONG RATIONAL INDIVIDUALS.
RFID makes supply-chain management even better, helps make theft detection even better, offers potential labor cost savings, and makes merchandise returns smoother.
The tags discussed here are so small, so cheap in manufacture, that their effective scanning range is very small, requiring huge antennas to scale out just beyond a few feet. Read: nobody will be scanning your house for what you bought, unless they want you to notice a semi-truck-sized mesh antenna outside your front window. EVEN IF you're still paranoid knowing this, here's a novel thought for you: REMOVE THE DAMN TAG.
The day I can walk into a Wal-Mart, get my items, walk out without having to wait in line or deal with human stupidity or human error, and be instantly charged for what I bought - that is the day I will become a Wal-Mart customer.
You zealots can fight the future all you want, but it won't matter a whit. I hear buggy-whip manufacturing is a good line of work, if you're afraid of technology improving other people's lives.
nt
Seriously, I want every scrap of wood and piece of paper in my house to have RFID's. RFID represents a merging of our informational universe with the physical. With RFID tags on items, I can represent them in my PDA and have them be hi-lighted in a HUD mounted on my glasses.
Imagine never losing anything again ever. That's a serious possibility of a world in which RFID tags are ubiqutous.
Yes there are potential privacy issues, but there are always privacy issues with any convenience technology. We get around them on a case by case basis as usual (e.g snail-mail: porno subscriptions arrive in brown paper wrapping).
How is the RFID worry any worse than TCP-IP, which passes through many unsecure places on the way to its destination? It's not, we've just already got a good handle on TCP-IP security, but noone's thought of similar ways to handle RFID.
They will, and the problems will be solved, as they always are. The sky isn't falling, it never does.
Just one more example of the rampant ignorance that is becoming more pervasive in our society. No matter how many times it is pointed out that RFID tags have a very small range and nobody can drive by your house and scan everything you own, people continue to rant against RFID tags.
While it may be FUD only, this technology being used to track ALL that you buy is the concern. RFID will eventually be "mainstreamed" and many people such as yourself won't see a problem with it being in money or in credit cards. Again, no FUD just fact, the FBI has already planned an investigation about RFID in money Why is this a privacy concern? What I'm about to say may be an ethical issue but it is seen different ways by different people. What if I want to buy some marijuana with that note? What if I want to pay the kid down the down the street to cut my lawn? What if that same kid does drugs? Now, I am suspect for being in "drug ring" if they can trace all those RFIDs.
Same with purchases from Walmart. What if I happen to purchase a combination of items unknowingly, that the average drug user purchases. Will I be profiled for that buying habit too?
I am with you, it's coming no matter what. It will be hard to stop. But, there are legitimate concerns.
I will hope that Walmart will adopt the Philips chip that you can turn off if the customer so wills to.
You would be amazed at what your grocery store bonus card data holds about you! Returns, complaints to the store, not just sales data. Again, what if something with an RFID or something trackable has your fingerprints on it, are you suspect when the "bad guy" buys it from Goodwill or steals it? Not only do we need Walmart to understand that before they make this step that we want on off switches, but we would also like disassociation capability. IE, erasure of your association with an RFID. Also, yearly reports by email or mail on what your RFID info holds and what data they truly are keeping about you would be nice.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Now you can buy your own rfid kit...see www.buyrfid.com
Wild
I can't provide any links off the top of my head, but IIRC a LOT of those grey-market booksellers, the ones that carry the Anarchist's Cookbook and Poor Man's James Bond, have several titles on designing and building your own automatic weapons from scratch, down to machining the reciever and things like that.
Of course, if guns were banned, that means the ammo would likely be banned as well, and once that's gone, well, you can reload and cast your own bullets, but gunpowder's tricky to make, and good jacketed rounds, or new brass when your old stuff finally goes, are almost impossible to make yourself...and without bullets, you just have a club that's slightly more effective than a wooden stick. or a spear, if you have a bayonet.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
He's probably the kind of person who won't let me valet his 1988 rusted-out Subaru GL. I don't like Wal-Mart or their business practices at all (haven't been in over a year); that doesn't mean i'm going to take it out on the poor joe who's just trying to feed his family. Asshole.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
It's not that I have an attitude problem , but I sometimes *deliberately* shop in these stores, simply so I can ignore the person standing by the door.
;)
;) /. thread. Perhaps if everyone ignored these people, the stores would find better alternatives to their security issues, and stop hassling us all. And for the record, I have never stolen anything from these stores, through whatever mechanism.
To the person who said 'give these people a break, they're just doing their jobs', I say that's nice, but how does it affect me? If they ask to see my receipt / bags, I "just say no", and keep walking. If they say anything else, I usually just laugh (and keep walking). If they get belligerent, I don't mind taking a minute or two to explain to them about the potential civil penalties for unlawful restraint, or exactly what *their* rights are as regards their jobs. (I.e. they can make a citizen's arrest like anyone else, and durn little otherwise.) Only once have I needed to (verbally) advise one (rather large, angry) gentleman that I was armed, and he would not enjoy the end result of a physical confrontation. When he backed down and threatened to call the cops, I pulled out my cell phone and offered to lend it to him. (I'm amused by the strangest things.
I hope that more people learn about their rights in these stores as a result of this (mostly off topic
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
..they's be *awfully* easy to detect, especially ones that are powered-up enough to detect at 100 feet a tag that's only meant the be read at 5 feet. The recievers would have to be very sensitive, so you could probably just blast a 1W "signal" and cook the circuitry. Or you could just wrap your house in something conductive and make it a giant EM-proof structure (maybe not actually tinfoil, but something thin and conductive that you could lay alongside the Tyvek housewrap).
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
yeah like i dont know the definition of flamebait. to me there is a huge difference between some idiots malicious or nonsensical rantings (which i would consider flamebait) and this guy just trying to make a point and share some information, regardless of what you or the "mods with more sense than me" (why is everyone on the net such a smug asshole these days?) might have to say about it.
IMHO the current min. wage setup is flawed, because 6.25/hr (or whatever these days) means one thing in East Prarie Hamlet, SD and something altogether different in San Francisco. Shouldn't min. wage vary per local cost of living? Then again, if I make min wage why should I expect to live in Manhattan anyway?
Where can I buy stock?
I refuse to shop at Walmart and all their related companies. You should too.
Todd
-- !todd erases a red dot! I steal music on the internet.
Boycott walmart..hit them in the only spot they care about, the good old wallet. Send them email, mail ect.. telling them why. Get petitions for the same then make it public at your local news stations. They will get the message! OR Contact your Senators and other representatives and demand this type of behavior be made illegal on the part of companies to invade your privacy without thought of how it will erode your basic rights.
According to the government, you have to make about 9 dollars an hour to break the poverty line. That makes the minimum wage pretty horrible (at what -- in Maryland 5.15 an hour).
If you have no privacy concerns why not make your /. ID your email address? It's the same as an RFID. Barely traceable, but marketable, relational information that you don't necessarily want everyone to have.
Everyone talks about consumer privacy concerns, but I don't see any.
All I see is a better way to manage inventory and sales. I consider them barcode+. If a barcode has no privacy concerns, neither does an rfid tag.
-Brent
And I must be hungover to keep replying to you.
heh, and they say we're dumb here in Arkansas. Bentonville is not in Alaska, (AK) it's in AR. I used to contract there. They've already got data on pretty much every cart thats went through every line at every Wal-Mart since like 1975. Was told its not really associated easily with a name, but who knows... I know inventory control was a much bigger concern than general marketing I.E. A small sunglass rack next to sandles because the people that work with the terasized-databases said thats what the statistics showed. just my 2 cents
The thief looks at their scanner and goes right on by, just like most consumers. Then steals a PS2 out of the next vehicle over.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
Do you see a pattern here? Perhaps that deactivating these tags or documenting how to do it will violate the DMCA, then more people will have no choice but to adopt it. The DMCA may be further reaching than we all thought. Perhaps it's time to move to Tycho. ;-)
Just make the tags removable. We'll tear 'em off just like we do those mattress tags. Wal-Mart saves money, and Big Brother is thwarted.
So imagine if devious marketers *do* try scanning RFIDs in public places. I'm taking a wallet full of Kotex IDs wherever I go.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I have a Tesco loyalty card, and they're definitely invading my privacy. They track every purchase I make and use this data in insideous ways. On their online store, they have a list of all of the things I buy regularly, which denies me the pleasure of hunting around trying to find them. But wait, it gets worse. Every month they send me a set of offers and discounts on products I actually buy!. Will their persecution never end?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The problem is; who defines when you are doing something wrong? The odds are that at some point this week you will commit some kind of crime. It will probably be minor, like jay-walking, that only mad people care about, but it will, technically, be illegal. And that's just now. Every law that is introduced restricts freedoms (since you are alowed to do anything that is not proscribed by law). When was the last time a government failed to pass any laws? So in 20 years time, when your every movement can be tracked, will you still feel safe? You may not think you are doing anything wrong, but you will be committing some kind of crime, and if you are labeled as a subversive then you can quite easilly be arrested, charged and imprisoned with due process of law.
I have no fears for my freedom since, as a UK citizen, I can rest safely knowing that my government is not competent enough to implement any kind of Big Brother system.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Do you people not realize that RFID tags that are not self powered can only be read a few INCHES away.
Pet RFID, Vert has to hold reader next to pets skin.
SpeedPass, Only works an INCH away. (And gets fussy with GM keys with resister in them when they are next to the SpeedPass) I think the SpeedPass car tag has to be directly under the readers and it works to about 6 feet but it is self powered.
http://www.englishfirst.org
I din't see how this claim is supportable. I would definitely believe that the databases needed track instances rather than classes would have many more entries in their tables, but for non-perishables (i.e. things like shirts rather than cans of coke) it does not at all seem clear to me that the cost of such larger dbases is prohibitive or would remain so.
One simple answer could be that the stores choose to not use this to combat shoplifting. Another could be that they check their database to see if a detected item is marked as purchased in their dbase before sounding the alarm.
The range for detecting rfid info has been described as perhaps six feet; whether a truck could be placed withing six feet of where customers would walk is questionable. And this sounds like it might be on the illegal side of existing laws (laws protecting corporations, not citizens btw). And it doesn't seem far fetched to believe that vendors could get individually coded rfid tags that they need not reveal the interpretations of to competitors.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I've read up on these things and they are described as the size of a grain of sand. I don't know if you've heard differently or if your vision is just that much better than mine.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Does anyone know what frequency or frequency range these passive RFID's work in? It should be possible to build a 1 milliwatt transmitter on that frequency for one's own house, thus ensuring that products at home remain well behaved (anonymous).
Secondly if something I purchase is going to be sending an ID to readers that I don't specifically authorize, I'd like to get my own reader so I know with certainty that I've located and disabled the RFID on or in the product, since my own reader stops picking up a response/reply from the RFID.
Anyone know where consumers can purchase RFID readers?
Kroger has agreed (Barnes and Nobles and a few other retailers have agreed as well) to provide shopping profiles of individual customers based use of their savings card.
See this for moreInformation.
Ok. Here's my $0.02 worth. I have no issue whatsoever with these things being used in the store where the merchandise is purchased. In that respect, they're no different from electronic anti-theft tags.
I have a BIG problem with leaving the tags active and able to respond outside of said store environment. So, with that in mind (and maybe this should be turned into an 'Ask Slashdot' question):
What countermeasures are available to kill the tags, but not harm the item they're attached to, once you leave the store environment? Some ideas that come immediately to my mind are:
(1) Stuff your purchase into a microwave oven for a few seconds. That should effectively fry the tag. Unfortunately, this may not be practical for clothing containing metal buttons, zippers, or snaps.
(2) Build or buy a small EMP device designed expressly to destroy the tag's functionality. Could have varying degrees of difficulty, depending on one's skill with electronics, or the availability of such devices at the commercial level.
(3) Other ideas...?
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
"but never once mentions consumer privacy concerns. Guess that kind of stuff just isn't important anymore"
/ never was and still isn't that important /
s/ just isn't important anymore
Businesses never were interrested in privacy issue, and it's not really their problem anyway. It's up to us, consumers, to remind them.
If the RFID is unique for each item, all they have to do is change it from "for sale" to "sold" in the stores database.
And why should they employ people to do a job they can get out of a machine more cost-effectively? Maybe we should stop using machines in car factories and restore lost manufacturing jobs?
/.?
Do you know why you have a grocery store just up the road from you that's stocked with plenty of good food of different varieties at all times of year? Do you know why the average working adult in your town can afford an automobile? Do you know why you have a computer with which to post on
It's because we have an economy that's not afraid to put people out of work to improve efficiency. People can find new jobs. They might have to move or learn new skills, but that's life in the industrialized world. If you don't like it, there are some pre-industrialized countries you can go to where you'll earn a steady, miniscule pay for the same job all your life.
Take the example of the United States. Since the end of the depression, unemployment and inflation have remained relatively stable and low. But the standard of living has increased tremendously for the average white male. (It's increased even more dramatically for other people, but that's also partly because they learned to fight for their civil rights.) Yes, the short-term unemployment people experience can be very painful. That's why we have (or should have) unemployment benefits and other forms of a social welfare system to help the unemployed find new jobs.
So don't complain about automated checkout counters putting people out of work. When they do find their next jobs, they'll be able to spend less of their income on food.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
I dunno. I think the incompetence actually scares me just as much. It's like that movie Brazil. The government's inability to run a perfect system, results in mistakes that harm innocent people. If the people running the system were perfectly competent, the system would function nearly perfectly (at least as designed), and you'd have nothing to worry about. Similarly, the less perfect the system is (which can be a result of poor design or incompetent administration), the more mistakes will be made, and the more innocent people will be harmed.
I've seen plenty of demo RFID tags, and none had antenae. Sounds like your tring to spread some passifying misinformation. They can be perfectly hidden inside most products without an antenna sticking out.
I don't know whether you meant this as a joke or not, but my father is a foaming-at-the-mouth libertarian and refused to go through the normal paperwork when I was born. My birth certificate read for many years "Unnamed Male [LastNameWitheld]" I did not have a Social Security Number until I needed it for education related financial aid years later.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Aren't tese little guys basically the same thing as normal EAS tags?
They aren't microscopic; they aren't hidden in your undie-bands...They transmit a signal containing the same information as a barcode...
Wow they respond to a receiver from a few inches away -- how frightning!
Not trying to be a party pooper, but re-code.com has been neutered by walmart. And how would you switch tags the size of a grain of sand that you have no idea where they are anyhow?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
um,, right.. I have concert t-shirts older than that, that have been washed far less than that
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I for one want to have everything RFID's Each such, underwear, shoes, shoelaces, pants, scarfs, shirts, earings, wallet, business cards, everything...
I want to walk into a wallmart and create 10MB of data. Let me leave wallmart and create another 100MB data.
Couple this with the thousands of people that go in an out of any given wallmart everyday, and there is the nightmare of trying to sort through all that data to find something useful.
Maybe you missed some of the news for, oh, the last 5 years.
Let's recap:
1) corporations have misled shareholders on revenue and profits, in a big way. If the people running the corporation lie to the "owners" then really, the whole basis of stocks is undercut.
2) executive compensation is mainly determined by a small group of insiders. Across the Fortune 500, I bet you would find an huge overlap in board membership.
3) Compare the average income tax rate that corportations pay to the average citizen. Then take a look at the effective rate.
4) Corporations are moving overseas to avoid taxes. All some do is open a po-box in some carribean island, and voila, less taxes. They don't have to even move a single employee, or even a paperclip to the new location!
5) Look into H1B visas - when times are good, import cheap workers!
6) The ratio of CEO to average line worker has increase dramatically in the last 20 years - it is now around 400:1, about 10x more than it used to be.
7) Even when corporations are lossing money, the executives still get huge bonuses.
8) Look up the phrase "Golden Parachute"
Maybe you need to learn a bit before you open your mouth next time. At least you were smart enough to post as an AC
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
You CAN'T believe that it's good to stifle technology to save jobs, can you? Please do a little research and see why the basis of your troll is senseless.
Is that a Freudian slip?
"'Tis great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults, greater to tell him his." --Poor Richard's Almanac
in the UK don't you have those cameras all over the place? i've heard some even have speakers and talk to people. well, whoever's monitoring the cameras talk, not the cameras themselves ;)
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
Interesting application of RFID tag data
Which is why my Safeway club card says "Dan Quail". I mean, geez, what are they gonna do, arrest you?
So then you named yourself "Dolly Llama"? Wow. And I thought "Picabo Street" was a funny name...
Didn't see this mentioned, so I might as well add it. I spoke to a guy who is working on this at a major supplier (Kellogs) and the 2005 deadline relates to having an RFID tag inside every crate/box of merchandise, not attached to every piece of merchandise.
Casual Games/Downloads
It's called a Social Security Number, birth records, finger printing ect.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
No. I don't do any of this.
When he backed down and threatened to call the cops, I pulled out my cell phone and offered to lend it to him. (I'm amused by the strangest things. ;)
Try pulling out your cell phone, dialling 911 (or at least pretending to!) and reporting (in a suitably loud voice) that you are being held against your will. And watch the minimum-wage-earner's eyes bug out.
My most recent visit to a Kmart in Troy, Michigan was a surprise. They're actually removing every single self-checkout lane. Signs were posted around these now-closed machines, claiming it's an attempt to "improve customer service". I myself do believe they're slower than human-staffed lanes.
But what I find really odd is that Kmart's soon-to-be-removed system isn't the common "U-Scan" variety at Meijer and Kroger -- ostensibly, it's a bit friendlier to use.
FWIW there's a comparison of the two here.
on.
If i were to design the tracker pill I would engineer it with the same microscopic hooks that certin seeds have the RFID would cling to the intestinal walls
Tinfoil Hat? Tinfoil Burka is what you need
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Just one step closer to the mark of the beast technology.
Digital Angel, Wal-Mart: Let Go A' Mah Soul!
first sensor uniquely id's each car based on the occupants rfid'S, ten miles later, anyone who 'must' have been speeding to make it in less than 5 minutes,
one mile later, take a picture.. mail a ticket.
not too different from red light cameras that automatically mail tickets to drivers today.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If it's only a .22, and they are just messing around - stern words are more than enough. Just because someone is messing around with explosives or guns doesn't mean they intend to hurt anyone, or even themselves...
People love to watch explosions and gunfights in movies, then get all freaked out when a kid wants to experiment with them. People are trying to make the whole world a giant rubber room where there is no possibility or harm or fun, and they need to get a grip on reality and realize just because something is a "gun" does not automatically make it equal to a small atom bomb.
I for one refuse to shop in stores that do not keep track of their customer's purchases. This is how stores know to carry what people want. Unless one barters or pays cash for ALL goods and services, Big Brother knows what you bought and where you bought it anyway.
Oshkosh John
The fake phone call is good in other situations, too. Erratic drivers, for example, are good targets. In person I mostly find that's a little too passive aggressive for me; there's usually little passive about my aggression. ;)
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
To say, "Guess that kind of stuff [consumer privacy concerns] just isn't important anymore" is misleading and inaccurate. It's not Walmart's job to take care of the consumer, its job is to make money. If Walmart does something to piss off the consumer then they'll make less money. In this case they apparently believe the consumer won't care and are proceeding down that path. Unfortunately, they're probably correct that the vast majority of their customers won't give a hoot, let alone even know how to spell RFID.
I'm waiting with bated breath for the day when I'll be able to ask the computer where is my (wrench, screwdriver, cellphone, drawer of RJ-45's, whatever) and it will actually know. (Just mount scanners in each room.) I'm always losing stuff and for any given project, spend maybe 10% of my time just finding things. If WalMart starts using RFID tags, and if these tags work at a longer range than the ones now available (meters instead of a few inches), there ought to be some stuff showing up on ebay pretty soon - surplus scanners, unused tags, etc. Or maybe the tags would be reusable as-is. I hope they _don't_ zap them when I exit the store - that way I will be able to find the stuff later.
I was already looking into it but the current scanners really are short-range. I can't see them being of much use to prevent shoplifting in their current form, unless they're going to have you walk through a narrow frame like a metal detector. Even then, the distance from the outside of a shopping cart to its middle is too far to read some of these tags. So probably there is something better available than what I've seen on ebay so far.
As for privacy invasion, all this initial overreaction is, well, overreaction, but it will shape the future by letting them know we're concerned about it; and in the final version we will have somewhat less privacy, but not enough to really change our lives much, and the criminals will still be able to find workarounds too. Business as usual. I think the upside is much more than the downside; society just needs time to adjust to it, and new taboos and laws to be established to prevent excessive invasion of privacy. It's a representative government here in the US, we tend to get what we want eventually. In general, for any potentially threatening new technology, I don't believe banning it is ever the answer - you just have to adapt. The EFF will probably make it their business too if it becomes a problem, so send them a donation.