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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."
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
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.
RFID tags need no power supply. They are powered by the reader. (From the radio waves emitted by it.)
From this page:
An RFID system consists of an antenna or coil, a transceiver and a transponder or tag. A radio signal emitted by the antenna activates the tag allowing it to be read and in some instances have data written to it.
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.,
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.
Is that anything like Intel Inside?
history: MIT--electronic locks requiring the swipe of a card
mit big brother inside
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http://www.hellection.com
My understanding of this technology is that it does not rely on a battery but uses the power from the initial radio signal (the one that contacts the device) in order to reply with its ID, so battery lifespan should not be an issue... (feel free to correct me if im wrong). An idea, couldnt this same technology be used to allow passive recharging of laptops (radio signals exist basicly everywhere), so why not tap them to get a bit more time before your lappy dies?
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
Passive RFID tags require a powered reader unit (such as a handheld unit similar to the ones used for barcodes or a stationary unit) which query the RFID for the information. Since these RFID tags have no power source of their own, even with a powered reader unit the maximum reading distance is ***A FEW FEET***. The amount of data that is able to currently be stored on passive RFID tags is quite small as well. Passive RFID tags are fairly cheap, however unless breakthroughs have been made in the last 6-8 months, they still are not cost effective to stick on anything and everything.
Powered RFID tags are battery powered and are capable of storing substantially more information than passive RFID tags. Signal distance is also further than passive RFID tags however still, unless you had a reader unit in your house or some sort of truck mounted reader unit went through the neighborhood any RFID tags in your house would be unreadable, the distance even powered RFID tags is pretty short. Tags such as these cost a few dollars each, definately not cost effective to stick on just anything.
As stated in the article, and from my experience visiting a Walmart regional distribution center, is that RFID tags will be used for logistics/distribution operations. Even if they were going to start sticking RFID tags on everything tomorrow(which would be prohibitedly expensive) their distance limitations would make them useless once you got out into the parking lot, and that erring on the generous side on the distances they can transmit. So unless you have a RFID reader in your house, no worries.
For the above questions, 1) For a consumer to detect a tag is pretty obvious, they are not that small, plus, all RFID technologies I am aware of require an antennae which would be a give away even if the tag was somehow incorporated inside the product with a small antannae sticking out. Researchers at Motorola have been investigating doing away with the need for an antennae however, maybe they have overcome this issue. 2) No ideas
Tagsys, however, also has a 'Laundry Tag' that:
As someone who has frequent contact with several companies that sell goods in/to Wal-Mart (and those sorts of places), I can tell you that Wal-Mart's suppliers pay VERY close attention to what Wal-Mart is saying.
Many of these companies derive a substantial (often over 50%) portion of their business from Wal-Mart sales and cannot afford to lose that business. When the folks in Bentonville, AK say jump, the manufacturers say "where and what color"... Not to mention the mandatory annual price reductions, but that's another story...
So, to sum up, if Wal-Mart wants RFID, Wal-Mart gets RFID.
Advice for next time: You do not have to consent to a search of your bag in their parking lot, and you definitely do not have to go back in the store to have your picture taken (why, why, why would you agree to do that???). If you feel uncomfortable with how you're being treated by a store security guard, ask them whether they intend to physically keep you there. If they do not, turn around and leave without another word (this will be the case 99% of the time). If they are, clam up and demand the police. Once they have taken it upon themselves to detain you they face a pretty high standard of evidence (higher than the police would). They absolutely cannot forcibly search you under any circumstances - only the police can do that. If the store security people get touchy-feely, do not be shy about informing them you'll be pressing assault charges. It doesn't have to hurt to be an assault - it just has to make you uncomfortable.
If they "threaten" to call the cops, call their bluff. Keep walking. On the (highly unlikely) chance that they do, the police will find you walking down the road, and if they believe that you've stolen something, they'll do the same search that the security guard was going to do (except more professionally). You are not doing anything wrong by walking away from a store where you didn't steal anything, no matter how much some guard wants to hassle you.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Nothing. It's a very dumb idea. Since an RFID tag would be nothing more than a machine-readable number anyway, WTF is wrong with a serial number, like they already have? Unlike a supermarket, you don't normally need to scan dozens of gun serial numbers per hour...
Over here in the civilized world, you need a licence to own and operate a gun. Seems to work quite well. Yes, the government has a database of all guns and their owners. Boo!! hiss!! So what?
Yes, Texas's system seems to work pretty well.
The idea that a gun-equipped public could prevent the government from turning against its own people was perhaps a good idea 150-200 years ago when wars were won by the side who had the most guys with handguns. That time is long gone.
Try telling that to the Russians, especially those in Chechnya - where the Russian military (still the nearest thing to a superpower outside the US) has been experiencing enormous difficulty suppressing rebels armed with nothing more than portable weapons (rifles, grenade launchers and some shoulder-launch SAMs). Or Afghanistan, where the then-superpower USSR was forced out by similar resistance. (Yes, they were armed and advised by the CIA, but still only had weapons of that level.)
To invade another country, a bunch of people with rifles stand no chance. To defend their own from an invader or a hostile regime, it's a different story: in Iraq, Hussein needed a large army just to keep the populace under control - and even then, it entailed many thousands of deaths per year, using helicopter gunships and nerve gas against his opponents. Determined civilians with firearms can make life extremely difficult for any occupying force.
I assume that, once you've brought your item home, you're free to remove the offending tag
That's assuming they clearly show you where all the tags are. KSW has already developed a washable RFID that is being designed to be sewn in your clothes. Matrics is designing smaller and smalled RFIDs. Their smallest is the size of a speck of glitter. Think about how easy it would be in integate that into a cardboard box, or the inking on a package, or the binding glue.
There are SERIOUS privacy issues. I'm being optimistic when I hope that when the industry decides on standards it will include auto-deactivation at cehckout. Otherwise it's going to be an RF war in the streets with people cobbling together RF pingers and scramblers left and right. I think that prospect (and the ease of it happening) will be enough to set industry standards taht protect privacy. But the issue needs to be raised sooner rather than later to assume it happens.
Of course we're talking about shopping. Not much is going to stop the police (ehrem... Patriot Act) from tagging your car with one of these suckers if they need to tail you. You really gonna notice a spec of dirt on your car pinging your location as you go through intersections?
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
They can do what you've described already. You're credit card + the cash register scanning products + bar code ~= cc + register + rfid.
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.
Serial numbers don't have to be related to the product you know. Under the presumption they'll be using a BigAssDatabase to track these things (which, frankly, you'd have to assume if you're worried about privacy) a random number, or a SHA-1 hash is just as good.
SELECT price,productname FROM bigAssCodeTable WHERE daCode=0x34b635e8a7590 you get the idea.
And, no need for PKI like Mr. Bread-and-Butter-Man would have you believe.
Whether they will be using a BigAssDatabase, now that's the question. RFIDs certainly do not preclude it, and do offer the potential for individual tracking, unlike UPC barcodes.
Consider; aside for Moore's Law, RFIDs will become a lot cheaper still when the patents expire..
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