Slashdot Mirror
RFID Industry Confidential Memos
An anonymous reader writes "Cryptome has learned www.autoidcenter.org (RFID flak) has made internal memos available for perusal at their site. Those RFID people sure have some interesting plans for the future. Who needs conspiracy theories, when you can hear it from the horses mouth? Weeeeee!"
Will the clerk know what you aready are wearing down to your jocks size. I can see lots of good things with these tags but I can see lots of missuses too.
I wonder if govts will legislate to make it possible for us to op-out with these tags? Some tags maybe built into the products that it would be impossible for us to remove them. I think we need protection too.
Just wait, those with parania can't get at this link now. New crop of theories just created.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
o verseers.pdf
July 7, 2003
RFID Site Security Gaffe Uncovered by Consumer Group
CASPIAN asks, "How can we trust these people with our personal data?"
CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) says anyone can download revealing documents labeled "confidential" from the home page of the MIT Auto-ID Center web site in two mouse clicks.
The Auto-ID Center is the organization entrusted with developing a global Internet infrastructure for radio frequency identification (RFID). Their plans are to tag all the objects manufactured on the planet with RFID chips and track them via the Internet.
Privacy advocates are alarmed about the Center's plans because RFID technology could enable businesses to collect an unprecedented amount of information about consumers' possessions and physical movements. They point out that consumers might not even know they're being surveilled since tiny RFID chips can be embedded in plastic, sewn into the seams of garments, or otherwise hidden.
"How can we trust these people with securing sensitive consumer information if they can't even secure their own web site?" asks CASPIAN Founder and Director Katherine Albrecht.
"It's ironic that the same people who assure us that our private data will be safe because 'Internet security is very good, and it offers a strong layer of protection'
http://cryptome.org/rfid/questions_answers.pdf
would provide such a compelling demonstration to the contrary," she added.
Among the "confidential" documents available on the web site are slide shows discussing the need to "pacify" citizens who might question the wisdom of the Center's stated goal to tag and track every item on the planet,
http://cryptome.org/rfid/communications.pdf
along with findings that 78% of surveyed consumers feel RFID is negative for privacy and 61% fear its health consequences.
http://cryptome.org/rfid/pk-fh.pdf
PR firm Fleischman-Hillard's confidential "Managing External Communications" suggests a variety of strategies to help the Auto-ID Center "drive adoption" and "neutralize opposition," including the possibility of renaming the tracking devices "green tags." It also lists by name several key lawmakers, privacy advocates, and others whom it hopes to "bring into the Center's 'inner circle'".
http://cryptome.org/rfid/external_comm.pdf
Despite the overwhelming evidence of negative consumer attitudes toward RFID technology revealed in its internal documents, the Auto-ID Center hopes that consumers will be "apathetic" and "resign themselves to the inevitability of it" instead of acting on their concerns.
http://cryptome.org/rfid/cam-autoid-eb002.pdf
Consumer citizens who are not feeling apathetic will be pleased to learn that the site provides names and contact information for the corporate executives who oversee the Center's efforts. Since the phone list isn't labeled "confidential," we're assuming that Auto-ID Center Board members are open to calls and mail that might help them better understand public opinion on this important subject.
Anyone interested in speaking with Dick Cantwell, the Gillette VP who heads the Center's Board of Overseers, for example, can find his direct office number listed on the Auto-ID Center's website here:
http://cryptome.org/rfid/226691160-list_board_of_
To experience the Auto-ID Center's security holes firsthand, simply visit the web site at http://www.autoidcenter.org and type "confidential" in the site search box. The Center encourages such site exploration: "Our website has Research Papers and other information that anyone can download for free. There is also a Sponsors Only area of the site, which includes information and materials not available to the public at large. We encourage you to visit our site frequently to stay up to date with the Center's many activities."
was that the sound of their server getting /.-ed?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
RFID is a growing concern. With Walmart backing it -- it appears unstoppable. Looks like the future is half empty, or is it half full :)
6 posts and it's gone. Ok, repost of the article:
7 July 2003
Auto-ID has begun to withdraw many of the documents cited in the CASPIAN release, and might substitute with less offensive files. Cryptome archived the original files and has replaced the original CASPIAN links to Auto-ID with Cryptome links.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2003
RFID Site Security Gaffe Uncovered by Consumer Group
CASPIAN asks, "How can we trust these people with our personal data?"
CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) says anyone can download revealing documents labeled "confidential" from the home page of the MIT Auto-ID Center web site in two mouse clicks.
The Auto-ID Center is the organization entrusted with developing a global Internet infrastructure for radio frequency identification (RFID). Their plans are to tag all the objects manufactured on the planet with RFID chips and track them via the Internet.
Privacy advocates are alarmed about the Center's plans because RFID technology could enable businesses to collect an unprecedented amount of information about consumers' possessions and physical movements. They point out that consumers might not even know they're being surveilled since tiny RFID chips can be embedded in plastic, sewn into the seams of garments, or otherwise hidden.
"How can we trust these people with securing sensitive consumer information if they can't even secure their own web site?" asks CASPIAN Founder and Director Katherine Albrecht.
"It's ironic that the same people who assure us that our private data will be safe because 'Internet security is very good, and it offers a strong layer of protection' [see http://www.autoidcenter.com/new_media/media_kit/qu estions_answers.pdf]
http://cryptome.org/rfid/questions_answers.pdf
would provide such a compelling demonstration to the contrary," she added.
Among the "confidential" documents available on the web site are slide shows discussing the need to "pacify" citizens who might question the wisdom of the Center's stated goal to tag and track every item on the planet [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/media/communications.p df ],
http://cryptome.org/rfid/communications.pdf
alo ng with findings that 78% of surveyed consumers feel RFID is negative for privacy and 61% fear its health consequences [ http://www.autoidcenter.org/media/pk-fh.pdf ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/pk-fh.pdf
PR firm Fleischman-Hillard's confidential "Managing External Communications" suggests a variety of strategies to help the Auto-ID Center "drive adoption" and "neutralize opposition," including the possibility of renaming the tracking devices "green tags." It also lists by name several key lawmakers, privacy advocates, and others whom it hopes to "bring into the Center's 'inner circle'" [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/media/external_comm.pd f ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/external_comm.pdf
Desp ite the overwhelming evidence of negative consumer attitudes toward RFID technology revealed in its internal documents, the Auto-ID Center hopes that consumers will be "apathetic" and "resign themselves to the inevitability of it" instead of acting on their concerns [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/publishedresearch/cam- autoid-eb002.pdf ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/cam-autoid-eb002.pdf
C onsumer citizens who are not feeling apathetic will be pleased to learn that the site provides names and contact information for the corporate executives who oversee the Center's efforts. Since the phone list isn't labeled "confidential," we're assuming that Auto-ID Center Board members are open to calls and mail that might help them better understand public opinion on this important subject.
Anyone interested in speaking with Dick Cantwell, the Gillette VP who heads the Center's Board of Overseers, for example,
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
And MAYBE they will take back democracy from those who have stolen it.
Not really knowing all that much about the technology RFIDs use, this might be a stupid question (or I might be a stupid person :))...
Is it possible for end-users to easily disable an RFID? It seems to me some well-placed magnets, or hell, even the business end of a stable gun, should be able to knock out the RFID. How hard would it really be?
And yeah yeah, the evil government will make it illegal for us to do that. I'm honestly curious, not interested in conspiracy theory.
"Who needs conspiracy theories, when you can hear it from the horses mouth?" :)
Well, I can't now, thanks to Slashdot. Good job Slashdot, covering up RFID tag conspiracies.
Who needs conspiracy theories when we have conspiracy facts!
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
From communications.pdf:
- Identify potential consumer road blocks/fears.
- Construct a proactive framework to minimise negatives arising.
- Assess consumer reaction if press develop scare stories and develop best messages to pacify.
Sounds like they forgot one step: PROFIT!
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
It's gone alright. Did anyone grab a copy of the pdfs, if so please put up a mirror!
Other than some lingo, these memos (judging by the highlites) don't seem particularly bad. People are afraid of the health risks of RFID tags? Well, people are stupid. They're bombarded by radio waves every second of every day.
Some people will happily ignore reasonable explanations and cling desperately to their paranoid delusion. These people cannot be convinced otherwise. Rather they need to be brain-washed to get that stupid idea out of their head.
The "green tag" idea sounds like genius.
But an RFID conspiracy seems a little far to jump. The technology is in its infancy. It's not in everything, the opposite is true. But rest assured that an RFID Tag Canceler is in the works to milk money from the privacy obsessed.
I may get one myself...
I wonder if there's a patent.
-tom
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
That's what my new cloths will be after I microwave them to ensure that no RFID devices remain functional.
Don't forget to put a cup of water in there too, to prevent mucking up the magnatron.
Damn, cryptome doesn't seem to be responding. The www.autoidcenter.org is an RFID promotion site and their web site search engine had a scope that included documents marked "confidential".
If you want to see them, go to www.autoidcenter.org
and type "confidential" into their site search engine.
Not sure if they're still up but that's the condensed version of the cryptome story.
An AC beat this karma whore to it. Mod that up instead: Comment #6387962
and mod this grabby bastard down.
Try a microwave oven. That will induce enough current in the device to melt/short its circuits.
Hopefully the thing the device is embedded in won't be harmed by the microwave.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
I was able to grab the html only. None of the PDFs or PPTs linked to it:- docs.htm
The mirror is here:
http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~workmj/cryptome.org/rfid
Well I went a-exploring:
Search for "1.Earn Trust 2. Collect Info 3.??? 4. Profit"
1 to 5 of 100 results for: "1.Earn Trust 2. Collect Info 3.??? 4. Profit"
Search for "We think we absolutely rock"
1 to 5 of 92 results for: "We think we absolutely rock"
Search for "You can't trust us with your personal data"
1 to 5 of 100 results for: "You can't trust us with your personal data"
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
... along with your AOL CD's. That should fry any hidden electronics hidden in the waistband. Toasty undies are just a nice side effect.
Just keep in mind that Ashcroft's Total Information Awareness stormtroopers will wonder what you have to hide.
Just shuddup and take your Soma, citizen. It's all in our, er, your best interests.
For those of you who have trouble finding the info at cryptome...
To experience the Auto-ID Center's security holes firsthand, simply visit the web site at http://www.autoidcenter.org and type "confidential" in the site search box.
This actually works!
Color me convinced-- I sure can trust these masters of technology with embedding "green tags" in my clothing! I'm sure the info will never be abused or fall into the wrong hands...
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Pretend you're going to do something that's really, really, extreme then when you do something that is merely really extreme no one seems to mind because it's better what was going to happen before big brother became our friend and stopped the really, really bad stuff from happening.
I'm not paranoid I know they're after me.
Have you seen his post history?
It's full of him restating the obvious, or quoting junior-year highschool textbooks almost verbatim. Mods that don't know any better think the guy's an egghead and mod those hollow posts up.
That is sad. This fucker's a career slashdot karma whore.
Heh, 6 comments later the website crumbles. Slashdotters flood another site off the internet again... heh
----------
Check out Harvest Moon Online
(a free online game based on the SNES game)
hmm... whats with that " down at the bottom of this article. omg.... its a bloody RFID tag! heh.
I.O.U One Sig.
All the links are gone too..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Disabling an RFID will be tantamount to tampering with a product in a way it was not meant to be. Whether using the DCMA or some future bill it will become illegal to disable the RFID. You think I'm kidding, but I would not be surprised at all to hear this in the future.
Maybe though, the courts will recognize how utterly detremental the DCMA (and the like) are to this free society. Yes we give up a certain amount of privacy living in a free society(apologies for the American-Centric) but this does not mean that corporations have the right to track us or our products.
Bite me to any business that thinks I'll buy RFID products, I'll make my clothes out of hemp and be the nut in uncomfortable clothes if I have to be.
-- taking over the world, we are.
and install it in the front and garage doors of peopls houses...
2. Charge money
3. Profit
(there is no '???' step because it's that simple!)
When I searched (minutes ago), and skimmed through the first half of the results, none of the documents was still confidential (newest one to expire ran through May 2003).
Admittedly, I'm too lazy to explore further, but it certainly appears that, at present, the "confidential" documents to be found aren't considered confidential any more.
That said, as I noted, I got 59 results; does anyone who hit it earlier recall more?
R David Francis
I picked a PDF at semi-random, and found a fairly damning one (not that thats hard to do on their site).
...)
:-)
Try http://www.autoidcenter.org/media/sarma.pdf
Look at page 21 (its a slide presentation).
The slide says:
---------
For privacy:One word
* Annihilate
* (obliterate, destroy, auto-destruct, kill
---------
I guess that neatly sums up their feelings on the privacy matter.
The rest of the presentation similarly outlines more of their evil plans for "World Domination".
Take it easy.
Some people will happily ignore reasonable explanations and cling desperately to their paranoid delusion. These people cannot be convinced otherwise. Rather they need to be brain-washed to get that stupid idea out of their head.
That's why I fully place my trust in governments and corporations to tell me what's healthy and what's not.
After all, everyone knows that smoking is good for you. And there's no danger in mining uranium or genetically modified food or syphillis treatments or the drinking water, etc.
Yep, if a big organization says it's safe, that's good enough for me.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I would normally reply but you're below my I.Q. threshold.
From the website search engine:
(Bold emphasis mine...)
Notice that this sample says "Confidential until September 2002". Now, unless you know for a fact that they were available for reading prior to September of last year, then there's really no problem unless they're talking about some sort of big-brother-esque system.
Now, this isn't saying that they're not. But, as seeing that Cryptome's
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Mark my words,
"Drive by HERFing"
*I* am coining that term. I claim prior art.
And I may be the first to implement it..
Everyone knows that if RFID tags become popular, it will be the fault of Wal-Mart. The ways these things can be used to invade privacy are ludicrous. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/31461.html
http://www.stoprfid.org/
How hard would it be to build a RFID spoofing tool that emits gazillions of random RFID numbers whenever it is polled?
Oh well, what the hell...
Sorry, forgot to tag the links (pun intended)
Link 1 and Link 2
But you DID reply!!
Ooooooh, got you there, smart guy.
Little late to the game, I see. Well, better late than never.
Oh, you're a dead man Burns! You are so dead!
1 to 5 of 100 results for: "RFID tags are gay"
Search for "We think RFID tags suck, but that's confidential"
1 to 5 of 100 results for: "We think RFID tags suck, but that's confidential"
Search for "Bill Gates is God"
1 to 5 of 90 results for: "Bill Gates is God"
Search for "We love crack"
1 to 4 of 4 results for: "We love crack"
Search for "They killed Kenny. You bastards"
1 to 5 of 14 results for: "They killed Kenny. You bastards"
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
If we can't avoid these silly things, is there a way to protect our privacy by flooding the receivers with data?
I mean data is only useful if it's correct. So if we could build little transmitters that operate on the same frequency and constantly sent out incorrect data. So I have a tag in my underwear saying I wear a size 32. The transmitter in my pocket will send out data that I'm wearing 172 pairs of underwear in every manufacturer, style and size. Not only men's underwear, but women's too.
They want data? Give to them! No one says it has to be right!
Is this technically feasible?
It was already Modded down. Mod parent down Redundant.
RFID Chips Are Here
RFID chips are being embedded in everything from jeans to paper money, and your privacy is at stake.
By Scott Granneman Jun 26 2003 09:15AM PT
Bar codes are something most of us never think about. We go to the grocery store to buy dog food, the checkout person runs our selection over the scanner, there's an audible beep or boop, and then we're told how much money we owe. Bar codes in that sense are an invisible technology that we see all the time, but without thinking about what's in front of our eyes.
Bar codes have been with us so long, and they're so ubiquitous, that its hard to remember that they're a relatively new technology that took a while to catch on. The patent for bar codes was issued in 1952. It took twenty years before a standard for bar codes was approved, but they still didn't catch on. Ten years later, only 15,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That changed in 1984. By 1987 - only three years later! - 75,000 suppliers were using bar codes. That's one heck of a growth curve.
So what changed in 1984? Who, or what, caused the change?
Wal-Mart.
When Wal-Mart talks, suppliers listen. So when Wal-Mart said that it wanted to use bar codes as a better way to manage inventory, bar codes became de rigeur. If you didn't use bar codes, you lost Wal-Mart's business. That's a death knell for most of their suppliers.
The same thing is happening today. I'm here to tell you that the bar code's days are numbered. There's a new technology in town, one that at first blush might seem insignificant to security professionals, but it's a technology that is going to be a big part of our future. And how do I know this? Pin it on Wal-Mart again; they're the big push behind this new technology.
Right now, you can buy a hammer, a pair of jeans, or a razor blade with anonymity. With RFID tags, that may be a thing of the past.
So what is it? RFID tags.
RFID 101
Invented in 1969 and patented in 1973, but only now becoming commercially and technologically viable, RFID tags are essentially microchips, the tinier the better. Some are only 1/3 of a millimeter across. These chips act as transponders (transmitters/responders), always listening for a radio signal sent by transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a certain radio query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, perhaps a 128-bit number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID tags don't have batteries (How could they? They're 1/3 of a millimeter!). Instead, they are powered by the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer.
Most of these "broadcasts" are designed to be read between a few inches and several feet away, depending on the size of the antenna and the power driving the RFID tags (some are in fact powered by batteries, but due to the increased size and cost, they are not as common as the passive, non-battery-powered models). However, it is possible to increase that distance if you build a more sensitive RFID receiver.
RFID chips cost up to 50 cents, but prices are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents each, it will be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar.
Who's using RFID?
RFID is already in use all around us. Ever chipped your pet dog or cat with an ID tag? Or used an EZPass through a toll booth? Or paid for gas using ExxonMobils' SpeedPass? Then you've used RFID.
Some uses, especially those related to security, seem like a great idea. For instance, Delta is testing RFID on some flights, tagging 40,000 customer bags in order to reduce baggage loss and make it easier to route bags if customers change their flight plans.
Three seaport operators - who account for 70% of the world's port operations - agreed to deploy RFID tags to track the 17,000 containers that arrive each day at US ports. Currently, less than 2% are inspected. RFID tags will be used to track the cont
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Now, if you're actually upset about this, take 5 minutes and drop them an e-mail, or better yet, send them a letter (like, on real paper). Or call them. There's several feedback addresses and mailing addresses. That's what I'm going to do. Don't think "oh, 50 other people are writing, I don't need to", because those 50 other people are thinking the same thing.
Politicians don't read slashdot. Hundreds of +1, Insightful posts don't mean anything in the long run, but if a politician receives several hundred letters telling him why this is a bad idea, he might just give it a second thought. Heck, call your local news program if you want. If it's a slow day, (or if it's FOX News) I bet they might be interested...
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
but the CONFIDENTIAL documents are all marked "CONFIDENTIAL until xxx 2002" or "CONFIDENTIAL until xxx 2001." Not such a gaping security hole, it seems.
Yes, the potential implications of RFID are creepy, but their planning for a marketing campaign sounds pretty much par for the course.
7 July 2003
Auto-ID has begun to withdraw many of the documents cited in the CASPIAN release, and might substitute with less offensive files. Cryptome archived the original files and has replaced the original CASPIAN links to Auto-ID with Cryptome links.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 7, 2003
RFID Site Security Gaffe Uncovered by Consumer Group
CASPIAN asks, "How can we trust these people with our personal data?"
CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) says anyone can download revealing documents labeled "confidential" from the home page of the MIT Auto-ID Center web site in two mouse clicks.
The Auto-ID Center is the organization entrusted with developing a global Internet infrastructure for radio frequency identification (RFID). Their plans are to tag all the objects manufactured on the planet with RFID chips and track them via the Internet.
Privacy advocates are alarmed about the Center's plans because RFID technology could enable businesses to collect an unprecedented amount of information about consumers' possessions and physical movements. They point out that consumers might not even know they're being surveilled since tiny RFID chips can be embedded in plastic, sewn into the seams of garments, or otherwise hidden.
"How can we trust these people with securing sensitive consumer information if they can't even secure their own web site?" asks CASPIAN Founder and Director Katherine Albrecht.
"It's ironic that the same people who assure us that our private data will be safe because 'Internet security is very good, and it offers a strong layer of protection' [see http://www.autoidcenter.com/new_media/media_kit/qu estions_answers.pdf]
http://cryptome.org/rfid/questions_answers.pdf
would provide such a compelling demonstration to the contrary," she added.
Among the "confidential" documents available on the web site are slide shows discussing the need to "pacify" citizens who might question the wisdom of the Center's stated goal to tag and track every item on the planet [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/media/communications.p df ],
http://cryptome.org/rfid/communications.pdf
alo ng with findings that 78% of surveyed consumers feel RFID is negative for privacy and 61% fear its health consequences [ http://www.autoidcenter.org/media/pk-fh.pdf ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/pk-fh.pdf
PR firm Fleischman-Hillard's confidential "Managing External Communications" suggests a variety of strategies to help the Auto-ID Center "drive adoption" and "neutralize opposition," including the possibility of renaming the tracking devices "green tags." It also lists by name several key lawmakers, privacy advocates, and others whom it hopes to "bring into the Center's 'inner circle'" [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/media/external_comm.pd f ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/external_comm.pdf
Desp ite the overwhelming evidence of negative consumer attitudes toward RFID technology revealed in its internal documents, the Auto-ID Center hopes that consumers will be "apathetic" and "resign themselves to the inevitability of it" instead of acting on their concerns [ http://www.autoidcenter.com/publishedresearch/cam- autoid-eb002.pdf ].
http://cryptome.org/rfid/cam-autoid-eb002.pdf
C onsumer citizens who are not feeling apathetic will be pleased to learn that the site provides names and contact information for the corporate executives who oversee the Center's efforts. Since the phone list isn't labeled "confidential," we're assuming that Auto-ID Center Board members are open to calls and mail that might help them better understand public opinion on this important subject.
Anyone interested in speaking with Dick Cantwell, the Gillette VP who heads the Center's Board of Overseers, for example, can find his direct office number listed on the Auto-I
Is RFID-Hacking.com registered yet?
All you need is a PDA, a RFID_signal_generator/reciever and a pringles can to determine the size/brand/style of any womans' panties?
That is the type of stunt someone is going to have to pull to get the public enraged about this.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
http://home.europa.com/~ruralite/energy%20topics/l aundry.html
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Moderators! mod this post down as redundant! Right now!
It seems the totalitarian nightmare predicted by Orwell has already arrived. Big Brother, watching our underpants, 24 hours a day.
To quote the great patriot, Benjamin Franklin, "Those who give up essential liberty to purchase fancy underwear deserve neither liberty nor fancy underwear."
You'd have to catch and broadcast each style of RFID tag radio signal.
Inductive
Pulsed
Backscatter
Rebroadcast (differing frequencies for transmit and recieve...)
Etc.
Each one's completely different from the other in it's operation. And that just covers the RADIO portion of the systems. It doesn't cover the modulation or the encoding. There's a bazillion of those out there.
Yes, you could come up with a system that could jam/confuse each and every RFID reader nearby. But, it'd end up being something like the military's signal intelligence systems in size and complexity.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"non-paranoid crackpots" ...and which might those be?
Just require that manufacturers only use the RFID tags on things that can be removed from the product, such as an easily identified sticker or a common cardboard tag. This would make it RFID tags pretty much the same as the common Barcodes we use now.
Brian Ellenberger
That renaming bit works wonders. A (major) company I used to work for renamed a component of their data mining technology from "key" to "link", because what they were doing was illegal if the unique identifier for multisource consumer data was used as a key into a database table. Call it a "link", though, and you've bypassed the problem altogether.
The corporate legalists knew full well that anyone opposing a "key" would only know to refer to it by that particular name. If you change the name, the problem vanishes because now no one knows to object to it.
It's going to take much more than just a tinfoil beanie to counteract this. I'm talking full-body coverage here, people!
~Philly
-1 redundant mod me down -1 redundant!
*sirens* "Do you have a licensed RFID for that carton of milk, buddy? What about those eggs? Let me run the RFID scanner... (progress bar...) It seems your milk has expired and your fruit has broken the speed limit of 100 mph. And your pen's RFID seems to have been tampered with, I'll have to write you a DMCA ticket."
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Per their website the business_case.pdf... Confidential - For sponsors only Segments: Anything with promise CPG/Retail - borrow from Accenture/PWC Consulting as available Others: access control, airline baggage ID, automotive (component tracking, production control, smart keys), document tracking, mail/parcel delivery, livestock/pet ID, warehouse management, product authentication/anti-diversion, sports timing, transit and event ticketing, ski/venue passes, video/uniform rentals, libraries, quick payment systems, reusable containers, healthcare/pharmaceuticals, smart packaging, currency tagging, gaming chips, golf balls, toll roads, railcar/shipping container tracking, perishables management... So they'll track more than just packaging if they can...
simple way to disable them... place two tags from identical products facing each other... the identical signals will cancel each other out. This works with current 'inventory control tags' as well... not that i ever saw anyone use this trick to walk out of a store with several hundred dollars worth of memory sticks or anything like that ;)
Now PR can be used for good reasons, to be sure. So I'm not knocking PR as such. It's a tool, and it can be used for good purposes and bad purposes. But when a company wants to push something that nobody wants, all they have to do is change the wording, create some planted stories, cook some polls, infiltrate opposed organizations, buy people off, uh well, use your imagination. When "...3. PROFIT!!" is your goal, PR can be a very effective tool at the hands of the unscrupulous. This story? Business as usual for PR.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
But you DID reply!!
No I didn't. There was nothing in my post pertaining to the body of your missive.
Mark Pellegrini <mapellegrini@comcast.net>
Here harvester, harvester, harvester...
mapellegrini@comcast.net
Adobe Acrobat 6, now featuring the Evil Bit!
Hey, they're already well on their way to completing their stated goals. From cam-autoid-eb002.pdf:
...
"It appears that these [consumer] concerns can be overcome by:
Responsibly and proactively communicating the Centre's work."
I'd say this is pretty effective "communicating" (albeit not very proactive of them)
As we say at work, "You know you're doing something right when both sides are mad at you."
This technology has so much potential. I want to be able to remotely pay and walk right out of the store without waiting 15 minutes to check out two items; but I know that they're just going to use my purchases to send me more advertisements. RFIDs can give us information on our environment and we give it to them.
And that's the problem, exchange of information. After reading that article, these RFID manufacturers are already showing their lack of concern and ignorance how to secure their networks -- it's like a company that installs IIS and never patches, they're that clueless. And this technology needs to be secured right the first time; the last thing I need is yet another report of a bungling tech company leaking credit cards. It's not an MMORPG, where you get 8 months to fix, rollback and patch. This time it's worse, because a crack will not only expose financial data, but expose your personal location.
Now I don't do much to attract the ire of governments or corporations; I pay my bills, buy my music, and live my life in security. I don't worry about the gov collecting my info, because the government isn't coordinated enough to figure out what to do with it even if they had it. As a small potato, I worry more about the honesty of my fellow citizens. Store employees get caught scamming credit cards, and now, do we get to look forward to the future criminal "warscanning" around the neighborhood with his radio sensor, instantly detecting what valuables you have inside your house...
Somehow, we the community need to express our concern that the proper precautions are taken. This technology is coming, and the market potential is great. As end users, we need to demand an open access system, so that we might provide the checks and balances to keep the system honest. What else can I say, but whether we need to demand the government regulates an open system, or we use market forces to drive it into oblivion, the public can't let this slide.
Wow..that's a lot of big words for somebody with both hands on their prick. What, are you typing with your nose now?
By the way, that's your second reply now. Sounds like your I.Q. has fallen down around the stop sign range, cockbite.
Considering that the slides are not complete without the presentation:
"For privacy, we can make the RFID chips annihilate themselves."
The word "auto-destruct" leads me to this interpretation... It doesn't make sense to talk about the "auto-destruction" of privacy but it makes perfect sense to talk about RIF chips destroying themselves.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Dealing with an inventory of several million items. Lazy people who don't want to check items in/out. RFID is a frickin god send.
hundreds of thousands of items in a box.
20 boxes throughout the wearhouse.
Inventory check at a moments notice...
Priceless.
I think it is evident that Sun Microsystems likes this because they see it as a way to sell servers. They appear to have put their rubber stamp on this. Of course, wasn't it McNealy who said words to the effect of privacy is dead?
Sounds more like privacy stands in the way of profit.
fagot? prick? cockbite?
Do you have some issues you'd like to share with the group?
What is the matter with you Slashdot types? Light in your loafers?
Here is the text of a letter I wrote to them. Feel free to improve on the text if you're a lawyer so that it may actually work as a contract, and also to suggest any other changes that may force them to rethink their business strategy on the basis of our privacy not actually being free for them to use. .........
I hereby note my wholehearted objection to your complete and total disregard for
my privacy. Furthermore, should you plan to derive profit at the expense of my
privacy, I expect compensation. After all, the privacy is *mine*, not yours to
profit off.
Should I find that an RFID tag has compromised my privacy, I shall bill you at
an amount I feel is acceptable. Your issuing of RFID tags or the technology to
implement them to any company that will indiscriminately embed it in any kind of
product that I might purchase, through choice or otherwise, or be issued with,
by choice or otherwise, will indicate your acceptance of these terms.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
How easy is it to detect and locate RFID tags in products?
If it's easy to make a locator from Radio Shack parts, then I'd suggest everyone find and save all the RFID tags they get from products, and carry them around with them everywhere. The stores will get a lot less enthusiastic about using them from purposes other then inventory control when every person entering the store appears to be carrying 300+ items.
Even better collect them and trade them! Swap a few of your Starving Student(tm) Ramen Noodle RFID tags for their Aging Yuppie(tm) Gucci shoe tags!
Better still - buy something, find and remove the RFID tag, then return the item (holding the RFID tag in hand if the returns desk scans for it). Then drop the tag into the pocket of another shopper and watch the fun when they set off the alarm at the exit and store security tries to find the 'stolen' item!
Let's see...who's got more lobbying money/access? Us (as individuals), or Walmart/Sears/Kmart/Target/Asda/Tesco?
Who do you think will win?
I guess you haven't heard of the ACLU, NRA, NAACP, AARP, or the various other special interest groups in this country. Special interest groups represent a group of people gathering their resources to fight for a particular cause. They can wield power as great or greater than any corporation. I'm not aware of any single organization that can completely turn an election like the NRA or AARP can. Corporations can only give money, but special interests can directly give VOTES.
You personally will not stop Walmart or Sears from implementing the tags directly in items but the EFF may! So donate and get involved!
Brian Ellenberger
Now, the first worry that probably comes to mind is, "What if they assign unique identification numbers to each piece of clothing?"
Most of the devices I have read about have sufficient storage to uniquely identify every single item of clothing ever sold (which really doesn't require many bits at all). Current devices such as those we heard about with Benneton are not visible unless you either know where to look or have special equipment.
The devices seem to have a rane of 1-10m, and probably on the lower end of that for clothing items, but certainly that range will be improved with time.
While I trust that there would be sufficient public backlash to prevent this level of tracking and identification, we shouldn't feel comfortable even once we have stopped this precise level of unique identification.
Consider instead that each item of clothing you wear: shirt, slacks, briefs, and socks do not have an identifier unique across all items of clothing or even acorss all items of clothing of that type, but have only a unique identifier for the brand and 'model' (e.g. "Dockers Fall 2003 tan polo shirt") of the item.
It is still quite trivial to track you even in this case. Where in the past law enforcement agents might issue an alert for a man wearing "blue jeans, white t-shirt, orange cap", now they can issue an alert for a man wearing "slacks brand/model 3000023153, shirt brand/model 2000893912, cap brand/model 42330000251".
How many people do you suppose there are in an average large U.S. city wearing the same brand/model of 4-6 items of clothing? A lot fewer that we might think, I suspect. Probably few enough that it would be trivial to track all such individuals if necessary.
The more unique you dress, the more you stand out in a crowd (and not necessarily to the naked eye), the easier it is to track you.
There is no need to trust our privacy to legislation, although that would be a valuable step.
Simply encourage individuals opposed to these measures first to destroy these tags in their own clothing and to make a market for clothing without such tags.
While the shower of sparks and smell of melting plastic in the microwave is fun, I'm much rather swap as many RFID tags as possible with my friends, neighbors, and random objects around the house.
I suspect you could quickly mask your "signature" by carrying a wide swath of tags with you when you go shopping. I'd love to see the database which has a customer walking in wearing a woman's left shoe, hiking boot, 14 boxes of oatmeal, a child's tanktop and four library books.
Here in the US, it's illegal (I think) to do things like use a hidden camera to peek up your customer's skirts because there is a "reasonable expectaction of privacy". So where does that end? If I don't choose to advertise my waistsize, or brand of underwear, does I have a legal right not to have that infomation active "read" off me?
According to corporate3strikes .corps won't be leashed.
.corps fear greatly).
So try the next best thing (that
Boycott.
This give the aluminum clad yet another excuse: they have to keep the alien signals out, and their own signals in.
BG
But won't this chips have to be de-activated when you leave the store? I think they'll have to, and here is why.
1) I go into Walmart, and purchase a pair of shoes
2) I walk to the teller and pay for my shoes. The teller used a RFID scanner to see what I want to purchase.
3) I walk out to my car, put my bags in the truck, put my new shoes on (I'm very proud of them) and get in.
4) I realize I forgot to buy socks.
5) I walk back into Walmart (still wearing my new shoes) and pick up socks.
6) I go to a different cashier to pay for my socks.
Anyone noticed the problem? If the RFID has not been destroyed, the cashier will try to charge me again. Naturally I'll refuse. Walmart will think I'm stealing, and call the cops. The receipt is in the car so I can't prove that I've already bought the shoes (ask any store security, they will not let you go back to your car), so I have to wait for the cops to show up.
Do you think I'm going to go back to Walmart after that? Hell no. They called the cops on me and called me a thief. F$ck them.
That is why I think RFID's will be destroyed as they leave the store.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
- shut your ears when you dont want to hear something; - shut your eyes when you dont want to see something; - shut up when you dont want to discuss something; - move a finger when you need to do something that you would rather not do; Anyway, this analogy might suck, but my point is that people rarely anticipate anything, but rather prefer to react.
just got the second result "Message Development" or communications_strategy.pdf, opened it with Acrobat Reader, and searched for "trust"
Acrobat Reader's result:
"No occurrances of
trust
were found in the document."
----
http://www.hellection.com
I believe that justice requires the potential for anonymity, the potential to slip out of the system.
I believe it is worse to punish or put to death an innocent man than it is to fail to convict a few who are guilty.
While the following example might seem a bit outlandish, I am certain that numerous other examples, some more plausible than others, can be conceived of:
Suppose that it is well known in the community that things have not been going as well between Jones and his wife as they might. He's been laid off, and has not been able to find work in several months. Jones and his wife aren't on the verge of a divorce, but with the general somber attitude of the times, they've had the occasional heated argument.
Now, suppose that one Sunday at noon meal someone comes into Jones' house -- someone he does not know and has never met -- and murders his wife and children with a knife from Jones' pantry. The man was a vagrant passing through town. No one knew him, and there was no one to note or miss his comings and goings. He moves on, and will never be found.
It seems very likely that Jones vill be convicted; it seems that Jones will be sentenced to death. The glove that the murderer used will never be found, but the jury knows it is quite possible that Jones could have hid or otherwise disposed of it cleverly enough that it would not be found.
In this case Jones can not rely upon our judicial system to set him free. If the judicial system is reliable, given this evidence it will convict Jones.
There is no one Jones can depend upon except himself and the underground world of conspiracies, assassinations, secret information, and shady services he has been so careful to distance himself from all his life.
Jones needs to disappeear. He needs to leave the country and he needs to never be identified again. He needs to live out his life and make what he can of it after this terrible tragedy.
We do not need to make it easy for Jones, but we need to make it possible. We need there to be an underground of information that Jones can tap into and that Jones can exploit to disappear.
Jones needs anonymous access to this information.
Jones needs anonymous and undetected passage.
The horror of putting an innocent man to death (or maybe anyone to death), or of sending him to prison for the rest of his life, should be enough to convince anyone that Jones has a right to the potential to disappear.
I didn't even realized I forgot to post anonymously until about 5 minutes ago. Yes, it was an oversite, I'm sorry about that much. No, I was not Karma Whoring - why would I when I already post at 2 anyway?
/. was become an unpleasant place with all the assholes hanging around, but I never realized it was this bad.
I just figured I'd do everyone a favor and post it, considering it took me like 3 minutes to load the site. Now I come back and people are posting my email address for harvesters and signing me up for websites. I knew
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/494 /1/1/
You really have to wonder about a group that claims to be fighting for consumer privacy but thinks its okay to breach someone else's privacy. Caspian's excuse is that the ease with which it obtained the material shows the center can't be trusted with sensitive information. You'd think that Katherine Albrecht, the group's founder, could come up with something better than that. The real conclusion one should draw is that the center is not the Machiavellian organization Caspian makes it out to be. If it were, it would spend a lot more on security.
Am I the only one who noticed that these documents say Confidential until April 2002?
When you draw money from an ATM, it is known which notes you received. They can track your movements and spending accordingly. Of course, much of this if true of credit cards now. However, people use cash specifically in an attempt to retain some privacy in their personal lives.
1) Scanners are not too expensive (as long as you know which standard... small cheap tags == small cheap scanners). So you can scan and then sanitize your own goods
2) Scanners only work at personal-space encroaching range unless the RFID has a power source (which becomes easy to find). So at most you can be scanned in situations where you might find a metal detector.
3) Won't work from the outside of your car reliably, so toll booths are probably safe. ("Smart Tag" uses a battery and is on your windshield... exception)
While most people won't notice or care, motivated people are not without recourse. The big brother fear-factor may be overstated. I am not worried.
In fact, I'm excited. I can start using scanners to tag all my stuff and keep track of it without having to buy the tags. (me === scatterbrained) Wheee!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Logic Warning: You have just attempted to redefine the word "reply".
The beauty of a shared language is that everyone has some common ground in communication. Instead of giving a definition for each word every time, we all agree to let each word have a definition that everyone agrees to.
You seem to be having trouble with the word "reply":
reply P Pronunciation Key (r-pl)
v. replied, replying, replies
v. intr.
To give an answer in speech or writing.
To respond by an action or gesture.
To echo.
To return gunfire or an attack: The big guns replied.
Law. To respond to a defendant's plea.
Let me guess, you spend a lot of time arguing with people on USENET, forever trying to forge a Frankenstein lexicon of the English language that fits like a glove around the unusual demands your arguments present.
You've fallen victim to some of the strategies outlined in the articles this whole story is about. You've been pacified into believing radio waves are severely limited in range.
Actually, they are. Like any other form of radiation, unless tightly focused(by, say a ham's antenna?), RF quickly disappears in all the background noise as distance increases.
If you want to think of it in a crude sort of way, you can think of a can of paint exploding on the space station. Who gets covered in more paint, the guy 5 feet away, or the guy 50 feet away? This whole idea is also why ENORMOUS radio dishes are required to conduct radio astronomy- you have HUGE amouns of surface area, and you still get really, really, really weak signals.
I believe the relationship is exponential- I'm probably wrong on the exact numbers(so grab a physics book), but I think that one radian is equal to the angle covered by one square meter at one meter- or 4 square meters at 2 feet, 9 square meters at 3 feet, etc. So as distance increases, the power available to an antenna, no matter how good it is, decreases radically. The energy needed to excite an RFID device, which is practically microscopic(and hence can't have that big an antenna!) has to be either VERY high, VERY focused, or VERY close. Then there's the matter of recieving the VERY weak reply from the RFID tag...
Please help metamoderate.
t seems very likely that Jones vill be convicted; it seems that Jones will be sentenced to death. The glove that the murderer used will never be found, but the jury knows it is quite possible that Jones could have hid or otherwise disposed of it cleverly enough that it would not be found.
In this case Jones can not rely upon our judicial system to set him free. If the judicial system is reliable, given this evidence it will convict Jones.
In the United States, Jones will probably go free, because he will only be convicted if the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he murdered his wife and children. Given that Jones apparently has no history of violence, had nothing to gain from killing his wife, apparently had nothing against his children, and made no attempt to flee, the jury will probably have some doubt that he did it, and he'll be acquitted. Jones can rely upon the judicial system to set him free.
We do not need to make it easy for Jones, but we need to make it possible. We need there to be an underground of information that Jones can tap into and that Jones can exploit to disappear.
Because, you know, only the innocent would ever use it. Of course.
Hint: we have a public infrastructure for use by the innocent in trouble - it's called the judicial system. It evolved specifically to provide justice for the lowly, complete with significant rights and protections.
The horror of putting an innocent man to death (or maybe anyone to death), or of sending him to prison for the rest of his life, should be enough to convince anyone that Jones has a right to the potential to disappear.
What you are in effect saying is that anyone who is on trial for a serious crime should have the right to choose exile instead. The recently captured Max Factor heir chose cushy exile in Mexico rather than serve his prison sentence for the rape of three women. Do you really think everyone should have that choice?
ASA
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Woot!
a w.html
For the uninformed: http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/g/Godwin_s_L
To make these things small enough to fit into clothes, you have to make the antenna size pretty small, which means range drops dramatically. I can't really see the privacy concern when you can only read these things from a couple of inches away.
You're not going to walking out the door with these things and be scanned. Currently the top of the range tags (which are very pricey) can be read with several other tags in the vicinity. There hasn't really been a way around this limit, so the tags that are being talked about by Walmart and Benetton are small tags with a read range of a couple on inches, not miles as some posters seem to think. And they won't be able to read if there is any tag in the read range. So to disable them, just stick another tag onto your clothing, and they won't read. No need for microwaves.
only on yourself, FAILURE.
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
It's been 18 seconds since you hit 'reply'!
These are very similar to the "stun gun" or the horizontal output circuit on a TV. Except they are about another order of magnitude more voltage.. expect the sparks to fly about six inches or so. But not much current in it. Its enough to wake you up, but not much more, but it oughta do wonders for PN junctions in the micron range.
Speculation, anyone?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Yes, there will be some people who object to it for the same reason that some people object to using mobile phones: the claim that the radio emissions are dangerous.
I think that these people are the minority. Other than on the internet I have never hear about someone who refused to use a mobile phone because of a fear that the radio emissions are dangerous.
However, you make light of more legitimate concerns.
What part of "pacify" don't you understand? When an organization or corporation states in an internal memo that it needs to "pacify" citizens who have what very much seem to be legitimate privacy concerns, this should cause you concern.
No, there is no reason to believe there is a 'conspiracy' in the sense of aliens, mind control, time travel, and shadow governments. Those things are nonsense, and if this is what you are attempting to associate our concerns with, then you have no warrant to do so.
A stated intention behind closed doors carrying out measures which seek to"pacify" what very much seem to be legitimate privacy concerns is a conspiracy.
It isn't a grand conspiracy, or one that would make a good fiction novel, but it is a conspiracy. It isn't an overwhelmingly evil-intentioned conspiracy, but it is a conspiracy. It doesn't involve the Illuminati and wouldn't make a good X-Files episode, but it is a conspiracy.
It isn't a silly wory. It isn't a bad or taboo word..
It is a group of people in what were apparently to be 'secretive' or not-for-public-consumption discussions, intending to do what very much appears to be, harm to the general consuming public. Not terrible or evil and controlling harm, but harm nonetheless.
According to the definition of the word in my 3 installed dictionaries, it is a conspiracy.
From everything I have read, there are legitimate concerns.
It's all the other tracking. We're talking about a potential record of everyplace a person goes. The government is clearly willing to abuse such information -- organizations like the FBI have abused just about every other piece of information they are given, and have never made any attempt at reform. And there's a resurgence of suppression and punishment of dissidents, including arrests and who knows what else.
I wonder if there is a way that we could safely use this, though. Off the top of my head, here's the laws I might propose:
First, all items with RFID tags must be prominently marked. I don't care if it's a "green tag" or whatever -- so long as there's no variety, and it's directly on the item (not on a label somewhere). Second, all RFID reading machines must be in plain site of any place that they can read, and must be prominently marked. Maybe a blinking green light too, or something -- make it a little obnoxious, and make the reader's intent very clear.
Violation should result in heavy fines, but more importantly, a revokation of the RFID license -- the license to tag things with RFID sensors, to use readers, and all of that. You should not be able to simply risk it with not labeling the items properly -- because in doing it you risk being shut out of the game entirely. And obviously creating these tags should be carefully monitored, as should be fairly easy to do, since RFIDs are all about monitoring -- unauthorized ID numbers should be easy to track. The readers, though, would be harder to track... I imagine it won't be too long before you could rig up your own reader if you wanted.
So... destruction of the RFID tag should also be fairly easy. All of these would be fairly reasonable, I think.
Of course, this doesn't keep the government from breaking these rules on its own. And any law the government makes against itself will be ignored and grossly violated, because that's what the Justice Department does. So maybe this wouldn't work.
Well, the original article did say that...
Now, I was just about to post something to the effect that while it may well be a privacy negative, anyone who thinks it's a health hazard has probably caught Alzheimers from the aluminum in their tinfoil hat. (Which would be pretty hard, considering the Aluminum-Alzheimer's link has been largely debunked, but never underestimate the power of the placebo effect on a dedicated conspiracy theorist!)
But reading your post... I just realized... who are the real clothing pirates? Who's the greatest threat to WalMart and Chinese Hegemony? Who's the biggest threat the CIAA (Cotton Industry Association of America, oh what an appropriate acronym!)
My God! The friggin' Amish! Of course! The Amish are engaged in the rampant PIRATING of TEXTILES, and they're doing it RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES, RIGHT HERE IN AMERICA!
So yeah, if the research company did the polling in Pennsylvania, you can bet your ass that 61% would fear the health consequences of RFID tags. Hatch! Utah! Mormons! It's a MORMON CONSPIRACY to ERADICATE the AMISH! Gotta get the word out on Slashdot! Hey, check out that horse and buggy across the street, but that's weird, it's got two clean-shaven young drivers in white shirts, damn nice buggy, but the drivers sure don't look Ami{$4[[4][NO CARRIER
And the future is written.
RFID will come to be. It will rest upon layer upon layer of technology and mythology.
Did you nuke the green tag she asks? Did you encrypt your email he asks? What about WEP? Was this tomatoe ogranicaly grown? Are there steroids in this meat, in this milk?
What was once considered human has been lost. We have become the society that was depicted in so many comic books, pulp movies, and tv shows.
We have become. With every day, the age of our parents and their parents and their parents parents becomes a dream, a fiction that never existed.
As far fetched as flying saucers and robots was to a generation ago, an age of baseball and apple pie will be even more impossibly so for our children.
Always looking over our shoulder, wondering who's watching, wondering who's consuming. Technology promises more because it requires more.
As technology enables us, it enslaves us. We have past the point of no return. We cannot exist without it. With every clock cycle faster, with every megabyte per square inch more, we become.
-M@
I seem to recall some site that listed Safeway card numbers so that lots of people can use the same card and not have their purchases tracked... Hmmm. My mother just died two weeks ago and I have her wallet. 450 0113 0171 When you are at the register at Safeway, give them this number and tell them you left your card at home. Enjoy!
please step this way ...... you appear to have inadvertantly slipped a ford explorer into your pocket .... I'm sure there's a simple explanation you can make in our nice jail here
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Lameness filter encountered.
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
"What you are in effect saying is that anyone who is on trial for a serious crime should have the right to choose exile instead."
No, I am not at all suggesting that there should be an official policy or protocol permitting exile or escape or the choice of exile or escape.
I am suggesting that it should be an unwritten, unspoken concern that there should be the possibility, however remote, of disappearing, for those cases in which justice will not be done.
We should be diligent in enforcing our laws, and in seeking out those who commit crimes against others and against the State.
I believe, generally, so long as we have the right to a certain amount of privacy, with this will come the possibility, however remote, to disappear. Generally then (and perhaps always), we do not need to concern ourselves in legislation with considerations of a right to disappear, because this right will be sufficiently realized by retaining certain levels of privacy.
I do not claim that we have an absolute right to disappear when we know justice will not be done. For clearly the right to disappear will conflict with the rights of others and of society from which our obligation to prosecute criminals arises.
I believe the balance will be overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution of apparent criminals, but that so long as there is a certian amount of privacy, there will be this balance.
While I am not suggesting that presently we should be concerned with RFIDs and similar technology eliminating this balance, I believe that in the possibly not so distant future they have the potential to erode to this balance, by eroding this certain amount of privacy.
What certain amount this is, I believe is a difficult question.
There were 68 documents available under a "confidential" search of the Auto-ID Center's website this morning. They did NOT say "confidential until [fill in date]" like they do now. The Auto-ID Center's first response this morning was to pull nearly all the documents with "confidential" in their descriptions off the site, then slowly replace them one by one, with new "confidential until" designations tacked on. Many other documents vanished and have not yet reappeared (nor are they likely to, considering their content). We have not yet had a chance to verify if the documents have changed in other ways than the new "sell by" dates they now carry. Cryptome has listed the original 68 "confidential" search results, as they appeared this weekend. As soon as the Cryptome site recovers, you can verify that there were few or no expiration dates on any confidential documents until well after the story broke today. You've got to hand it to the Auto-ID Center, though, for working overtime on damage control. The "confidential until" thing was a nice touch. p.s. Until it crashed, Cryptome had all 68 original documents available for downloading on its website.
The first order of business for consumers who wish to be RFID free is detection of an operating RFID device. Once a functional RFID device can be located it can be neutralized by a number of methods from simple removal to physical destruction to circuit burnout with application of a sufficient electromagnetic pulse, etc.
Obviously this isn't a good solution if an RFID device is placed in your pacemaker which brings into question the possible collateral damage from disabling an RFID device in certain circumstances.
Using electronic countermeasures to negate the effects of RFID is a possibility but I could well envision a scenario where such countermeasures could interfere with the proper functioning of an RFID "chipped" device or other non-RFID devices yet RF sensitive products in proximity.
While personal RFID detectors could be extremely useful, the first line of defense needs to be the law in respect to personal privacy first and foremost. To that end, RFID devices must be easily removed by consumers if RFID is even allowed.
My sensibilities are such that I would not recommend opening Pandora's RFID box at all and would make the technology illegal even while acknowledging the potential benefits of RFID. The potential for misuse is far greater than the potential benefit.
For Americans, the "Bill of Rights" is supposed to insure a right to privacy among other things, protection from warrantless searches. RFID has the potential to negate both of these precepts at the very least, with the ability to do so covertly.
RFID is a technology that is fundamentally troubling in that it can be used to abridge the rights of all Americans and what I would hope would be fundamental rights of all people. As such, I cannot embrace this technology or advocate its adoption. Quite the oppposite in fact.
I didn't realize the intention was to use a unique id across all instances of a product.
My -- perhaps somewhat dated -- understanding is that the primary use in consumer goods would be in identifying brand, 'model', and size for at least the stated purpose of making manufacturing logistics, packing, shipping, and sorting more effective.
A unique id across all instances of a product is much more interesting. I will have to investigate further I suppose.
Obviously these technologies have the potential to be an amazing boon to law enforcement in tracking fugitives and fleeing suspects, but from what I understand presently, the cost to privacy is simply too great.
Personally, I just am not worth tracking by any government or corporation, but the potential is there to infringe upon the rights of others, others who may not even realize their rights are or may someday potentially be violated, and we should watch out for them.
They appear to be heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Too MANY FUCKING KARMA-WHINERS here. I was going to mark the parent redundant. But, just to piss off all you whiners, I MOD'ED THE PARENT UP. Next time, just let the moderators actually do something before posting 15 fucking wastes of BW.
1) I shall make a little handheld device that pumps out so much RF that it'll fry the little fsckers.
2) Every home will need one to protect themselves from burglars.
3) Profit!
threadeds blog
Call me dumb / ignorant / stupid / trusting, or whatever else you want, but honestly, what is the problem here ?
As far as I can see, RFID tags are just a method by which you can get the tags to respond with preset information when they are queried over a relatively short distance.
So for example, you could scan me, and find out I'm wearing what shoes I have on, what colour jacket etc, but would it really give you any more information that you could get by just looking at the stuff I'm wearing yourself ?
I could scan my room and find all the cards I have installed in my motherboard (and what sort of motherboard I have), but again, that information is already there if I just open the case and take a look.
While trying to come up with a negative or dishonest use for the technology, I could only really think of something like being able to scan the contents of a warehouse or personal home from outside - ie, giving thieves a way to know what was in there before they decided whether it was worth breaking in or not.
I'm open to being corrected here, but it seems that people are objecting to the use of these things just because they want to object to their use.
Your mod point is insignificant next to the power of the dark side.
Aaaah! The site's down! IT IS A CONSPIRACY! Circle the wagons! Pull out your fillings! Put on your tin foil hats!!!
Oops, wait, my bad, it was just Slashdotted. Disregard what I said, especially those who already pulled out their teeth.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Just be too cheap to buy a dryer, and use your microwave instead. ;-)
Apparently, drying your clothes in the microwave really works. A roommate tried it with her bra once. The laundry room was busy that day, or was she just too cheap to use the dryer? I forget. She was always hanging her clothes out...at any rate, it dried just fine...
There were 68 documents available under a "confidential" search of the Auto-ID Center's website this morning.
They did NOT say "confidential until [fill in date]" like they do now.
The Auto-ID Center's first response this morning was to pull nearly all the documents with "confidential" in their descriptions off the site, then slowly replace them one by one, with new "confidential until" designations tacked on. We have not yet had a chance to verify if the documents have changed in other ways than the new "sell by" dates they now carry.
Many other documents vanished and have not yet reappeared (nor are they likely to, considering their content).
Cryptome has listed the original 68 "confidential" search results, as they appeared this weekend. As soon as the Cryptome site recovers, you can verify that there were few or no expiration dates on any confidential documents until well after the story broke today.
You've got to hand it to the Auto-ID Center for working overtime on damage control. The "confidential until" thing was a nice touch.
p.s. Until it crashed, Cryptome had all 68 original documents available for downloading on its website.
And due to its sensitivity, a relatively small voltage will do.
Anyways, these tags must accept any interference given to them, so I might as well "accidentally" flood my entire city with fake RFID signals.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
fucker
# mportant Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
"Hi, I notice that you are attempting to place a pair of shorts in your microwave, would you like me to help by:
- recommending other nutritious meals from our corporation
- Retrieve the warranty text for your microwave and shorts from the corporate web site
- Call the authorities to help educate you about the benefits of the RFID EULA you agreed to.
- Retrieve information about the penalties for violating the DMCA
- Suggest other apparel made from al-foil worn by kooks like yourself"
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I didn't go but about 3-4 hits deep. What was the page in question that started showing the internal distribution only stuff (and are you sure that they didn't change the determination of it?)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
At the frequencies in question, a metalized mylar bag or sheet will stop the signal dead in it's tracks. Typically, they store these sorts of tags in metalized anti-stat bags to keep them from spuriously operating.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Even for non-Christians this could have scary implimentations (http://www.ti.com/tiris/docs/news/eNews/enewsvol
Do we have any engineers in the house??
Three standard frequency bands (approx. 13MHz appears to be the longest range band) and a physically accessible antenna.
This sounds like a perfect opportunity for any engineers out there to create a tri-band transceiver with a "snort" function to cycle through the used bands, detect the feedback/absorbtion from the RFID antenna and then give it a very localised, high powered pulse or thousand at the appropriate frequency.
If you don't manage to fry the tiny componentry in a tag, it ain't turned on.
Any and all defensive mechanisms (micro-faraday cages, zener diodes, gas chambers, etc.) should either prohibitively raise the price per RFID or be easily overcome with a minor modification (slow ramp up times, gaussian (white noise) frequency distributions).
A far more interesting concept is surely the use of "throw-away" RF interference devices that could interfere with the use of RFID tags to such an extent that it is not viable for it's users (Walmart, I'm looking at you).
Perhaps you could even use their electrical wiring as your antenna (c.f. electronic vermin repellers).
Time to break out the soldering iron.
Quinkin.
Insert Signature Here
Here is a link to Google's HTML version of one of the PDFs mentioned in above post: http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:rq1cAhFq8M4J: www.autoidcenter.org/research/cam-autoid-eb002.pdf .
Here is the index of all the research papers on their site. If you click the PDF links, it will ask you to log in first. The trick is to click on the "View Abstract" link and then there you click on the PDF link and voila, there you go!
English obviously isn't your first language, so I'll type this slowly for you. I think you'll find that there is actually a difference between response and reply. Tip of yhe day: Buy yourself a better dictionary, you won't embarrass yourself so often.
where are the pdfs?
Yep, I can see it now... high end sneakers marketed to black teens being picked up on overpasses above freeways near well-to-do neighborhoods. Then they start getting tailed, you know, just to make sure they're not using their own RFID identifying equipment to scope out a possible robbery.
Maybe next week it will be that new scarf that's all the rage for homosexual men on the prowl... being tracked by a couple of rednecks.
Or how about virulent atheists beating up on RFID laden bible carriers...
Oh, here's an idea for a police sting! add a couple of RFID tags (at 1/3 of a millimeter, should be a piece of cake!) to a confiscated load of cocaine, then let it out on the street. Put scanners throughout a business region downtown, and bust all the illegal drug users that come by with inhaled tags still embedded in their bodies.
Wait... what about being injected with them as you are being treated... for some kind of sexually transmitted disease, and your girlfriend happens to have the new Pocket1000 RFID tracker tuned to that kind of tag?
Or embedded in shampoo, so that you can legitimately say (without any possibility of sexual harrassment) "Gee, your hair smells terrific!"
Send your daughters out with RFID scanners tuned to condom vendors' packages, and have her avoid those boys looking to land one that night...
Find out who has stinky feet in the crowd, by scanning for Dr. Scholls.
Headlining the Enquirer - Incontinence sufferers at the Oscars! Our Scanner reveals WHO!
Who's wearing tampons today?
Need I go on with the social impact beyond just the retailers or business world?
Just trade cards and trade often - preferably with someone who does not share your buying habits.
Look at it this way, if the stores collect zero data, this has a neutral effect on their business decisions. Mess with the data enough so that it is horribly faulty, and that data becomes dangerous and could lead to bad business decisions. In that scenario, the store quits using the data, and may then decide that the cards are a waste of money. Of course, it would take a movement of the people, but that shouldn't be impossible - everybody hates these cards.
I've traded my Haggen card at least 4 times this year already. Just need another million or so participants!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
If you have European-style data protection legislation, most of these things cannot be done legally. It can't stop abuse, but it can prevent it from becoming the norm.
So the DMCA now outlaws microwaves as a circumvention device.
This is a temporary mirror of the complete set of documents. Hopefully, this will seed the material to other permanent mirrors.
Two zip files, 11.6MB and 8.2MB:
RFID Confidential Documents
When will it become government policy to rountinely RFID tag people?
It's a common procedure for tagging dogs here in the UK especially if you wish to take your dog abroad. It's been used successfully in finding the owners of strays for some years now.
Perhaps the tag will be embedded under your skin, as part of a passport application, or maybe embedded into a hip bone or the skull at birth.
We already externally tag offenders on home curfew, why not go the whole hog and attach a RFID tag to the stem of the brain, try removing or microwaving that you sucker!
It would be possible to make a little metal box, that when pressure is applied, the box opens exposing the rfid eliment.
I suppose I should try to patent this to keep it away from evil doers...
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
Corporations have plenty of inherent power. They can fire or hire employees; this gives them power to help or destroy families.
They can discontinue products, to encourage more sales. They then have the power of money, which is a transferable power.
They can and often do wage war against whole countries, and win: consider ITT vs. Allende, or the Brazillian lumber companies vs. the aboriginal tribes, or the oil companies vs. African nations. Or, arguably since the IMF is a branch of the world bank, which is really a company, consider the IMF vs. Kabila in Congo [in case you don't know, the general who essentially destroyed Kabila was the son of the IMF's representative to Zaire, and the war was essentially defined within 2 months on both ends by Kabila's not accepting, and then later accepting Mobutu's debt].
Companies have tons of power and inherent power, and they do abuse it.
However, the purpose of a democratic-style government is to create a non-violent battlefield where each power is represented according to its actual power. Leave a major power out, and it's going to engage in real war.
In this case, we've left $$$ off the battlefield, and therefore $$$ is taking down the entire government throughout most of the world, piece by piece. It happens through bribes, through donations, through purchased access to the media -- but it happens.
If you want to stop this from happening, offer corporations a direct, legitimate piece of the government. For example, auction off seats to a house that cannot create law, but can block any law, majority against majority, 2/3 vote against 2/3 vote. Each seat gets auctioned for 1 year, 365 seats, 1 per day, anyone can buy, and winner can name the *citizen* who sits on the seat -- once named, the citizen cannot be replaced until the next year, even if he dies. But the company can purchase more seats if it needs to.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The RFID tags operate off of RF energy that is transmitted TO them. Surely, someone will invent a transmitter which will OVERLOAD and destroy them, right?
Get to work!
Since when have you actually seen this in practice? Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal -- and yet it is legal. Yes, that is a very small pleurality, but it is there. Let me try to bring it close to home: there is a huge outpouring of public animosity against software patents, but they are law in America, and soon to be law in Europe nonetheless.
.1% got lobster; something like 10% got pizza; 40% got a bowl of rice, 10% got nothing but a crust [I'm making these numbers up, I don't remember them.] It was supposed to be educational. Sorry, I didn't have the money to go myself, but I read about it, and I'm getting my education firsthand. I'm a tad above the 40% with rice, but not far.
As will be a European dictator [semi-permanent president], if I read the most recent news aright [uh, yeah, some comment by a 6-month rotating president about Nazis and films and a german convinced us. It really drove the last nail in the coffin. We really need a dictator.]
Excuse me, but that bit about "in the IS our government has no power but that which we let it take" is bull.
The Freemen of Montana, nuts though they were, actually believed that. Waco's wackos actually believed that. The Southern States actually believed that. The Chinese in Tianamin square actually believed that.
It's not a case of fat and lazy. Yes, there is fat and lazy, but those are the overlords. I, for one, am extremely thin, and it isn't because I go to a workout club. It's from running to and from work, and not eating a lot. Yesterday, our big meal was a bowl of rice, flavored with sausage and vegetables. Our evening meal was soup; my breakfast was oatmeal [rolled oats are cheap here]. Today, our big meal is leftover soup.
I was thinking yesterday, bemusedly, how when I was in college (I have a BS AOE), for World Hunger Day there was a dinner where people could purchase a ticket for $50.
The government is *NOT* just given powers that we give it. Rather, it's a case of the rule of injustice beginning anew [and first in people's hearts].
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Q: What do I do if I find an RFID chip? Can I kill or disable it?
A: You can disable a chip for all practical purposes by disconnecting it from its antenna. It is usually pretty obvious where the chip is located in an RFID tag (all the antennas will run to it). Once you find the tiny black square you can use a pair of scissors or a knife to cut it off.
To ensure that the tiny chip cannot later be read (assuming anyone could even find a device so small), you can puncture it with a straight pin, crush it, or pulverize it. (Note: While burning or microwaving can destroy a chip, we do not recommend these methods because of fire risk. See the Q & A below.) Do not try to "drown" it, since water does not generally destroy RFID chips. Running a magnet over the chip will not work, either.
Q: Can I microwave products to kill any hidden RFID tags they might contain?
A: While microwaving an RFID tag will destroy it (a microwave emits high frequency electromagnetic energy that overloads the antenna, eventually blowing out the chip), there is a good chance the the tag will burst into flames first. The difficulty of destroying a hidden RFID chip is one reason we need legislation making it illegal to hide a chip in an item in the first place.
Q: Will a magnet erase an RFID chip?
A: No, the chips are not magnetically encoded. Running a magnet over the chip or using a tape eraser will not affect the chip.
Read http://www.stoprfid.org/faqs.html for more information.
why on the earth??
gov has the army.
gov has the police.
people are the gov(supposed to be at least).
gov makes the rules, INCLUDING LAWS PROTECTING FROM FIRING PEOPLE, INCLUDING HOW CORPORATIONS CAN USE THEIR MONEY, INCLUDING LAWS ON HOW A COMPANY MUST ACT(for example, water, electricity and so on, the gov can also if it wishes state prices, even prices that are too low and will cause problems, like happened in california with electricity, the gov can't change reality however and this is why corporations sometimes should be left alone to make the decisions). if the people are so stupid to vote the guy with the biggest monetary value, of course the big money guy values are what are kept high. if people wanted the whole system could be changed in even usa practically overnight(hey, if there are 2 parties, both of which keep the road clear for big $$$, who will take care of the freedom, liberty and rights of the little man? ). enron wasn't that different from communist fantasy bookkeeping anyways.
a company doesn't even need to make huge, everclimbing profits. sometimes it's even better for the company to just keep a steady course, instead of climbing high and screwing up.
company has only the power the law states a company has, if law states that company can't own a bicycle then it can't. the police(and if needed, army) will take care of that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
... I'm sorry, were you talking about George Bush? Or Clinton? In either case, you'll need a time machine, unless you're waiting for the next (maybe Clinton II?)
Absolutely. In the meat department, I've seen pricing penalties of 200% (3x) for not having the card.
When they introduced the card I got one with a fake name. But then I started just telling them that I didn't have it with me and they would still give me the lower price. Eventually, they refused to give me lower price and I left about $100 worth of groceries sitting on their belt. I've never gone back.
The market I use now also has a card program, but doesn't enforce it. Those who do use the card accumulate some type of bonus which seems reasonable.
Like many others, you have manipulated the definition of power to suit your agenda. There are exactly two possible modes of human interaction: (1) voluntary association, and (2) force. Guess which one represents government, and which one represents the private sector.
Power is defined by the initiation of force. I'm sorry, but none of the examples you provide fall under the definition of power. You may not like the fact that your employer could fire you at a second's notice, but that doesn't change the fact that you and your employer entered a contract based on voluntary association, NOT FORCE.
Point 1: they already KNOW that we don't like this. RT*A
Point 2: Politicians got into politics for power. Do you think they'll like this, or dislike it? Do you think they'll vote as YOU want, or as THEY want? Have you been reading about the EU and software patents?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
... then I have another question for you.
Who's got more lobbying power with the AARP? You? Or Walmart/Sears/Kmart/Target/Asda/Tesco?
Give you a hint: ________________
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Someone in the office just opined that if cash (notes) had RFID tags in them, then there would be a good hole in the market for a "how much cash is person X carrying?" scanner - pickpockets would be able to pre-select you for their services!
I have some tag(s) in my shoes - didn't ask for them there, but I set off many shoplifting alarms when I'm walking *in* to stores. And I get stopped at airports pretty much every time I walk thru the scanners, because my shoes look like there's something 'in' them via xray. really annoying...
creation science book
Those are some crazy ideas you have there. Let me rephrase that. What a stupid idea. Auction off seats to a house that can block any law? Do you actually think any good will come of that?
Corporations already do have a direct, legitimate piece of government. They provide jobs and help the economy of their representative's constituency. The fact that they also have a more direct, illegitimate piece (bribes, donations, lobbying) is a separate problem, and will not be fixed by creating your new branch of government.
It'd be interesting to watch though, in a "let's totally fuck with this system and perturb the hell out of it and watch what happens" way.
Why not use a hammer? As long as you could spot where the tag is... :)
:)
Bob, always looking for things to break with a hammer
RFID is a tool. Tools can be used, tools can be abused. We can legislate controls that law abiding retailers will have to follow.
But each RFID tag is a disposable piece of electonics. To manufacture this product, a wide variety of chemicals (including powerful acids and so on) have to be used. By employing them in such a ubiquitious manner aren't we polluting the environment needlessly? I have to imagine if 50% of all products sold had RFID tags in them that we would add hundreds of tons of dangerous chemicals into the environment every year!
Perhaps the RFID tags should be obvious and recoverable so that they can be recycled! Maybe a deposit could be put on them so that the consumer can return them and get a few cents per unit back.
I don't know if this is relevant or not, but the numbers encoded in a barcode only serve to identify the product. For example every can of Spam has the same barcode on it simply identifying it as a can of Spam. Are they really going to give each tag a unique ID number? I can see the possibility but I would be surprised it they did. In any event, if you started using cash instead of credit cards and checks no one would be able to track your spending habits.
The funny thing is that when you use the "I don't have the card with me" line, they punch a generic number in (which prints on the receipt) and you still get the discount. Just for kicks, I tried registering that number with a rather prominent website, which kicks 1 - 2% of purchases made on certain grocery cards into a savings account for your kids' college costs.
After the waiting period, I noticed lotsa $$$ going into this account - if left unchecked, I would have had hundreds of thousands of dollars for my kids education. But, not wanting to risk charges of fraud, I notified the service and they corrected the problem. 'Twas pretty funny, though. Basically I was getting credit for everyone everywhere who forgot their card at the supermarket!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
[a few beeps emit from the device]
Geek: So, I see you're not wearing any panties.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
What happens when the put RFID tags in your credit cards and other ID.
I really do not care if a store knows that I was one of fifty people that came in wearing size 38 briefs. The big worry is when the can track me just about anywear I go. I would not even have to buy anything in a store for them to know I was there.
The commercial apps are really big. Lets say I go to Sears and look at fridges three or four times because I might need a new one. Sears will know it and start sending me fridge adds.
Don't worry about the products so much. Worry about your credit cards.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Oh, I hope I hope these things become commonplace. Oh, will engineers and geeks make merry in the streets!
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
I swear, if this catches on I'm making my own clothing.
Singer - the new hacking tool.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Power is defined by the initiation of force. I'm sorry, but none of the examples you provide fall under the definition of power. You may not like the fact that your employer could fire you at a second's notice, but that doesn't change the fact that you and your employer entered a contract based on voluntary association, NOT FORCE.
But if there are not plenty of available jobs at similar compensation and without whatever restrictions you violated to get fired, they are applying force by firing you. They have impaired your ability to earn money (at least the kind of money you were earning), taken away economic freedom, restricted what political activities you can engage in (because you must earn enough money to live first, before engaging in politics), etc... all through economics. So there is such a thing as economic force.
Thinking of force as consisting only force of arms is naive. The federal government in the US regularly enforces regulations which it has no constitutional authority to make by tying funding to a states "voluntary" enforcement of those regulations. The 55 mph speed limit was an example (now defunct). The age limit of 21 for drinking is another. Both were conditions for receiving highway funding (which came from citizens of that and other states through the national income tax). Technically, force of arms was not applied. But there was force involved nonetheless.
Likewise, corporations apply economic force to their employees, as well as (and more importantly) governments. Especially when a large multinational corporation confronts a small bankrupt nation. They can (and have) caused changes of regime to benefit their own interests.
Corporations are probably the best example of concentrated economic force on earth, and that force *can* be bartered for the force of arms when necessary. The BSA enlists local police to raid companies for license violations. Various corporations spend millions of dollars annually to influence legislators (often giving to both parties), who then make laws which enforce the will of those corporations (DMCA & Sonny Bono copyright extension act being the ones
Force, power, freedom, voluntary, involuntary, etc.... these words have far deeper and more complex meanings than you seem to acknowledge.
http://pythonisito.blogspot.com/
It's clever. So you mean there is no capacitor storage acting like a battery in the device. So it's purely reflective, then, like a fun-house mirror! Thanks for setting me straight.
"Power is defined by the initiation of force."
By you, perhaps. If a company employs me, then it has power over me. As long as I want to keep my job, of course.
I guess its voluntary, if you think earning a living is voluntary.
Any operation that takes place with RFID tags takes place under Part 15 of the FCC rules and regs. That is the same part that gives us permission to use 802.11${version} wireless networking, but requires that the general public take a back seat on these frequencies to ham radio operators (because we have licenses for these frequencies, and the general public doesn't)
Part 15 comes with two provisions:
In other words, by using the unlicensed section of the spectrum, the users of these devices are setting themselves up for interference from other users of the spectrum.
What I personally would like to do then is construct a set of 13MHz walkie talkies. Not really very practical devices on the whole, but they should work well enough at short range. You and a friend go shopping and just happen to key up the radio each time you pass through the door. You have the legal privilidge to do this, as long as you don't mind the interference to your signal from theirs. They must accept the interference to their signal from yours.
Technical note: The modulation on your walkie talkies should be something that is guaranteed to take up the entire 14 kHz width of the band specified under Part 15. Perhaps some form of digital voice. You need to occupy 13.560MHz +/-0.007MHz inclusive.
www.wavefront-av.com
No Sir, I don't like it.
Mr. Horse.
Some of my ex-girlfriends had some cats that I'd be willing to try to experiment on. Lord knows I did plenty of other things to them....
..........FULL STOP.
Post links with HTML tags. It's easier for us all.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
penguinal.net/crankcase/
They would probably know which ones work best, so I would definitely buy my inexpensive tag neutralizer from the Wallmart store, there, in that wonderful place with the big parking lot and the happy face bags.
Now I wish I had a choice about my tires, though. The tires are the same everywhere, they don't have the ones with the wavy whitewalls that I adore so much.
> organizations like the FBI have abused just
> about every other piece of information they are
> given, and have never made any attempt at reform
Who's saying the FBI isn't already using RFID? We'd never know.
Maybe I'm just paranoid.
Dug
Since cryptome is slashdotted, it might be better to go back to the source:
And how does ITT vs. Allende fit your world view? Was ITT's tanks a case of voluntary association or force? Was the insurrection in Zaire, which seems very likely sponsored by the IMF [umm, that's called soldiers with guns] a case of voluntary association, or force?
So I'd say that some of my examples do fall under the definition of power.
Sorry, but this isn't worth a full reply, because either you're trolling, or you didn't read the post.
I'm replying AC.
If this becomes widespread I plan to make
a cloak of visibility that will have 5,000
to 10,000 RFIDs and walk through Walmart,
Barnes & Noble, etc. and really futz
their systems.
Companies also have armies. They also have police.
And the government has armies and the police.
And companies do sometimes overthrow governments, using force [that is, armies, usually hired, but sometimes their own.] Just as an example, the oil fields in Uganda are currently policed by armies owned by the oil companies. A similar thing *was* true for Ethiopia. I don't know if it is true right now.
This is an interesting classical libertarian philisophical argument, but it's a bit dated...
:)
Arguments such as this originated in pre-Industrial times, when it was presumed that if you didn't want to voluntarily interact with someone, you could head for the colonies, the Western frontier, etc - that there were unused resources that you could mix your labor with and survive on.
Not only was this not true then (colonies have a pesky habit of being inhabited, and unless you use some of Locke's stupider arguments, they're not yours to take), it's certainly not true now.
Since we live in a world where there's not a source of "free" resources, and you need resources (e.g. food, clothing) to survive, you need to enter into a "voluntary" contract with a clothing seller. RFID tags a problem? Oh well - you can always die of exposure, I suppose - that's your voluntary choice. No force involved here, nosirree.
Coercion is real - I suppose a libertarian primitivist might disagree with this argument, but funnily enough, I don't see any on Slashdot
Okay, you don't believe it. So why not do it for one system, study the perturbations, and then analyze the effect?
You might say "well then who's life shall we ruin?". But who's lives are being ruined right now? Name one country in which democracy is running well? If you can, I will happily grant that we should leave that country alone. But for any of the numerous examples where it isn't working, why not try? Why not see? If a democracy is marching towards dictator oblivion, why not change direction? Or is there something religiously sacrosanct about the word democracy, such that the meaning is unimportant?
Socialogical laws are not so restrictive or defined as physical laws, but they can still be studied and learned from.
I've put forward my theory. Rather than poo-pooing it without even looking at it, you might try instead looking for cases where such perturbations *have* occured, and then seee if maybe I am right, or if I am wrong, what would give the desired effect.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Thinking of force as consisting only force of arms is naive.
We're not on the same page. Again, there are exactly 2 possible modes of human interaction: voluntary association and force. There is no ambiguity -- every interaction must take exactly one of these two forms. Let's look at some examples.
Theft is not voluntary; therefore it represents force.
Trade is voluntary; therefore it represents voluntary association.
Assult is not voluntary; therefore it represents force.
Fraud is not voluntary; therefore it represents force.
Marriage is voluntary; therefore it represents voluntary association.
I think you can see the pattern now, and I hope you can understand why the employer-employee relationship does not represent force by any means. It is a pure example of voluntary association: both parties enter the interaction not by force, but through voluntary agreement.
As someone who has actually done some work with RFID tags, perhaps I can offer some insight to the uneducated masses at slashdot (though their ignorance causes these uneducated fools to cling to their beliefs and disregard fact, here goes...)
First of all, your lack of knowledge of the subject is apparent immediately. The effective range of the 915 MHz tags is barely 1.5 m in a laboratory setting. Once you introduce interference from several other sources, reflection from many surfaces, and several other real world factors, the range is significantly reduced. If that weren't enough, 915 MHz (the frequency of choice for industry at the moment) does not propagate very well through dense matter. Your credit card in your wallet is safe basically, unless you sit on an antenna (and i'm not sure that even that would work!). Your body actually acts as an antenna when you come in contact with the tags, so you in effect change the resonant frequency of the tags. Good job already!
Secondally, all these solutions to "fry" or "burn" the tags is are absurd. The tags are actually fairly delicate. The microchip embedded in the antenna label is often broken just in the handling of the tags. The tags that are being implemented by Walmart and the like are only made of an antenna made into a sticky label with a silicon chip embedded therein that holds the ePC (the RFID version of the UPC, also developed at MIT by the way). These tags are not powered so that the price is reasonable for the application. (this is another factor in the range. the gentleman who responded with the relationship between distance and power is also right on the money)
Thirdly, anyone worried about RFID doing anything that isn't already done in some form or another is fooling themselves. I am not paranoid or very well versed in conspiracy theories, but it seems that the video cameras in your local Sears (perhaps using some kind of face recognition software) could easily figure out that you are in their store looking at refridgerators several times. Or perhaps the people that work there? Also, radio waves are everywhere in today's society. Any health risk would only be posed by the RFID readers themselves (not the tags), but this risk is no higher than cell phones or other radio technology.
A note about security: The chips in the tags are WORM (write once, read many) and the information stored on the internet is XML based for a family of tags, so no actual personal information about the consumer is stored online. Believe it or not, companies are probably not interested in you personally or what you do. They can get what they need out of sales patterns and trends without affixing any kind of face to the purchase.
Anyway, what I've just said will probably do nothing to change the minds of those against the technology, as reasoning with unreasonable people is futile. I hope those of you that are open-minded have learned something as I have tried to only offer facts.
When the costs of choosing not to engage in what you call a voluntary activity are so egregious as to compel any reasonable person to comply, I would classify it as force. If all employers require you to adhere to a set of rules in order to be employed, then the consequences of not adhering to those rules are starvation. Force. Of course, the real world is much more nuanced than that, with various levels of force and various levels of volition.
As to theft, consider this: Under your definition, if I put a gun to your head and tell you "give me your wallet or I'll shoot you," your giving me your wallet is a voluntary action. But I made the consequences of choosing not to comply so enormous that any reasonable person would comply. So it's force.
Likewise, if you live in a society without a social welfare system and with land ownership, then people can literally starve you to death by refusing to trade your services for goods (i.e. employment) or land (so you could farm).
So to summarize, there are exactly 2 possible extremes of modes of human interaction. Most interactions, however, consist of a mixture of both.
http://pythonisito.blogspot.com/
Your briefs were bought with what? Your credit card. Yeah, they need to do the matching, but not so hard, just when the transaction is performed.
All your G0d's are belong to us. ;P
-Brother Jake.
Here's a URL of the RFID docs easier to access:
http://jya.com/rfid-docs.htm
A Zipped file of the 10 Auto ID docs cited by CASPIAN's press release:
http://jya.com/rfid-10.zip (2MB)
The whole wad of RFID docs:
http://jya.com/rfid-docs.zip (21MB)
Now we get dupes right into the comments too!! /. editors involved!
Best of all, no
And modded +5, Informative???
now this is getting scary... I thought the editors were the only ones who didn't read the stories...
Oh my lord, There is an RF tag in my shirt! What does this mean exactly? The brother is looking at your bank account?, The overseer will know what size shirt I wear and that I like blue? Cmon lets get real. The announcement from Benneton and Walmart in regards to tagging product has been made to justify the $$$ being spent on development of the next barcode. Actually Walmart is tagging carton and pallet level only for material handling purposes( how do I know this? because I design RF readers for material handling systems for just these applications and have numerous succesful installs). Frequency used, power at antenna, air to air protocols, anticollision, signal degredation due to human tissue or ferous materials. Has anyone even heard these terms? probably not. It is because most of all posters here are very misinformed. And blinded by the nagging thought that there private life may be interupted. To identify a 13.56MHz RF tag @ 1 meter takes about 4 watts of power of which is illegal due to FCC regs in this country, and even tighter abroad!. These tags that are being specified for use in material handling are close contact and not even able to be read by the so feared big brother antenna located directly above your local shopping establishment. How?? Because the antenna on the tag has to be big enough to transmit its info back to the antenna that is so far away.. The ideas of marketing execs following you around with a handheld device to find out you like blue shirts are idiotic. Calm down your cell phone is giving your location away worry about that!
An interesting application comes to mind. Say you have RFID tags embedded in lots of people's clothing and other personal items, and they are not disabled after purchase. Say you install readers at "interesting" locations that people have to pass through -- define based on your level of paranoia. Say these readers are connected to a large database, and their sole function is to generate data of the form "tag number N was here at place P at time T".
Now anytime you have a tagged item (a piece of clothing, a passport, a credit card, a ballpoint pen -- use your imagination) you can query that database for a time-and-location history of the object. Voila! a post-mortem tracking system.
If you want to get *really* paranoid, imagine adding a RFID reader to a cell phone...
You've put forward your theory.... for me to poop on. That's all I can really do since I don't know politics or economics.
"try instead looking for cases where such perturbations *have* occured, and then seee if maybe I am right, or if I am wrong"
Well if you already know about some examples, why not show them to me so I don't have to go look for them. It's your theory, you know it sounds wild, so back it up when you put it out there.
change someone elses rfid info... heh.
or we can all have the same RFID as police officers, or the president.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They also have a store in Silicon Valley, in downtown Palo Alto. Great food store. :-)
You're right, I'm not worth tracking. No government or corporation is going to waste its time tracking me. However, there are individuals who a corporation or a law enforcement agency (or individuals within it) abusing its power may wish to track, and I believe we have an obligation to defend the privacy of these individuals, an obligation which will in some cases compete with our obligations to bring criminals to justice.
Law enforcement agencies (or individuals within) will abuse the power we give them, whether because they have rationalized that doing so as necessary to perform their duties, or for their own private purposes. It is not often, thankfully, that this happens, but it does happen.
Realizing this, I believe that the best solution is to limit their powers such that when abuses occur, the abuses will be difficult to hide and the damage to the rights of citizens will be minimal.
The point is not that we should not trust law enforcement agencies, the point is that as little as possible, we should not have to, because a system of checks and balances and distribution of information will be in place which maximizes our ability to prevent abuse and identify it when it occurs.
In the example you cite, we must be careful to identify what the choice is between. If it is a choice between saving a little girl who has been abducted and limiting the likelihood of increasingly unchecked abuse of more expansive power by law enforcement agencies and individuals within them, then the choice may not be so clear.
Perhaps the correct approach is to identify the number of abduction cases that would probably be quickly brought to an end and the severity of increase in abuse of power by law enforcement agencies and individuals within them.
However, I suspect that many believe, and perhaps rightfully so, that we have a absolute right to a certain degree of privacy; they believe that no matter the consequences, this amount of privacy is essential to the freedom to which we as human beings have a right. Perhaps these new technologies would erode privacy beyond this essential point.
What, you don't pump shitty data into the application when you fill it out ... ?
... Tsk ...
Tsk
Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal -- and yet it is legal.
Wrong. If you give me some numbers, I'll gladly change my mind, but I won't hold my breath while you search.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
> Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal
What? If Most (implying significantly >%50) people were against abortion it wouldn't be a touchy subject. There is probably about a 30-40-35 split in opinion (pro - unsure - against), which is why we have no definitive rulings against it.
Corporations have plenty of inherent power. They can fire or hire employees; this gives them power to help or destroy families.
This is not limited to corporations. Nothing prevents your small mom-n-pop donut shop from firing an employee. I've known people who have been fired from universities and farmer's cooperatives.
Companies have tons of power and inherent power, and they do abuse it.
I didn't say "companies" I said "corporations". Corporations can engage in behavior that would put a private owner of a business in jail. Consider the Exxon Valdez. One boat pilot got fired and the stock dropped a bit. Big fat hairy deal. Now suppose that the Exxon Valdez was owned by a private unincorporated business. The owners of the business would have been individually sued, and some might have gone to jail.
I have sued and won a judgement against a small one-man corporation. But I was never able to collect, because the corporation didn't have any money, and the judgement wasn't against the sole shareholder. So I got another judgement against the sole shareholder, and he filed bankruptcy with his corporation being the sole creditor. Corporations were designed to shield the business owners from their responsibilities.
The problem with corporations has nothing to do with a concentration of wealth, but everything to do with a government grant of immunity.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Here's a link.
As I said, it is a *very* slim majority for women's opinions, but it is there.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Here's a link. Actually, it would still be a touchy subject, because opinions are so strong on the issue.
As I said, it is a *very* slim majority for women's opinions, but it is there.
I suspect you're right that there's a significant undecided faction, but I also suspect that undecided faction is much smaller than you think. Because the issue is an issue of life, death, fear, and lifestyle, very few people who have even a slight leaning one way or another are going to say "undecided."
Anyhow, check out the news item.
Aside from that, though, that was a minor point in my overall statement. But I try to post truthfully, even on the minor points.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
n/t means no text - MickLinux
What you say about trade and employment contracts would be true if there were no taxes. However, taxes represent the use of force to enforce trade and employment. That is, many people have/had enough land to farm it, and survive, but not enough to pay the taxes on it. Therefore, if they don't take a job with someone else, they [long story short] get stolen from, and eventually killed.
So trade and employment in real life are not voluntary, by your own definitions.
Those taxes, in turn, at least as far as income taxes go, and quite often as far as property taxes go, in turn were enforced on us by the same people that owned loads of wealth (and with whom we have our employment contracts), such as the banks.
JP Morgan and Rockefeller's Bank of Manhattan were major forces behind the Income Tax, practically sponsoring Knox's failed but perversely successful effort to impose an income tax amendment (very interesting story there: one of fraud, again force not voluntary).
But as a result, no trade, no employment contract is actually voluntary.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
If they can't get a license to the existing band, RFID will switch to a new band.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Gee, wonder how they defeated the lockouts that prevent you from aiming the equipment at your own ship? Removing safety-lockouts is a court-marshallable offense. Or used to be. (I've been out since '88.)
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
ahh, time for homespun clothes again. i can't wait! i am so sick of carbon fixation via polyester clothing. it really does make my skin crawl.
a slut did tulsa
this was pre '88
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
actually now that I think about it, it was my psycotic co-worker.. ex navy, drank 3 pots of coffee before I got in to work, and had to be about 70 yrs old. the only person I knew who would literally ask a user if they were "F***ing stupid, you just registered 80 domains with $20 setup fees each!" ahh, yes the memories.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
People realized that governments Create the Corproation. The corporation is a charter from the government giving protections we "ordinary" folk are not "entitled' to.
Eliminate the Corproation and let *people* do business. Hey, then we can simplify lots of things. No more laws about corporations getting involved in politics, owning things, etc..
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
> Most people, most women even, are against abortions being legal -- and yet it is legal.
Most Turks are against Armenians being legal. Your point?
Making Armenians illegal is fine by me. There are enough armos living where I am to make me sick of their smelly, hairy asses.
Trade USED to be volentary, but for a variety of reasons, it isn't anymore. If I manage to buy up all of the land around you by getting the farmers to 'voluntarily' sell me their land, how do you manage to opt out of buying food from me?
Now, imagine that I got the farmers to sell their land to me because they were going bankrupt. That's because I was selling at a loss and undercutting their prices. I could do that because I had a great deal of money (power), and they had less.
The farmers had 2 choices, they could band together and fight (and probably lose), or they could give in. That doesn't sound very voluntary.
Now to the employment issue. Those farmers no doubt had hired hands. They now have the 'choice' of work for me or starve. Some choice.
Agreed, the health concern is just plain silly to anyone who understands these things.
I can understand where the 61% are coming from in a way though. They DON'T understand how this stuff works, so all they have to go on is the MANY products that some company swore to be perfectly harmless over the years that have turned out not to be (some of which have been banned).
Meanwhile the person talking to them seems nervous about somenting (asking about health concerns), so they naturally wonder if this should worry them as well.
For the older people, many of the 'rules' have changed from the world they grew up in.
For example: In the oven, metal is ok but no plastic or paper. Lots of bacon and eggs for breakfast is good for you. Japanese products are shoddy knock-offs, buy American if you want quality. The Russians are a superpower that's out to destroy the US at all costs, if they drop the bomb, just duck and cover. Computers are really complicated things that fill up several rooms and are run by people in lab coats. Smoking is safe, relaxing, and promotes good digestion. When a child gets new shoes, it's a good idea to look at them in the flouroscope (x-ray) (while the child is wearing them) to be sure they fit properly. Ozone helps to relieve breathing problems. Car exhaust doesn't matter because it'll just dissipate into the air harmlessly. In ten more years, safe and clean nuclear power will make electricity too cheap to bother metering.
I'm not making that up! All of the above were once 'absolutely true' to the generation that actually has time to take a survey about how they feel about RFID tags.
Yeah, you could pay cash, but the RFIDs already on your clothes give you away. Don't forget that this means you can be tracked everywhere you go. That makes meeting people confidentially impossible. If they get down to the level of paper and thumbtacks, you will have to roll your own to send or publically post an anonymous letter and that component of free speech goes down the tubes.
But why worry, these folks do a good job of keeping their secrets, surely they won't sell yours.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
With the volume of tags they eventually want to create (by 2006) this is actually more of a concern for many than the privacy issues.
The privacy issues won't be a problem for a long time because quite frankly it'll be damn near impossible for one company to access the data another is storing because as anyone who has worked in supply chain knows, companies hate to give or even sell other companies their demand and sales data. And to have the data centralized and available to everyone with a reader would be ridiculous for infrastructure and never be allowed by consumers. Walmart and other vendors are way more concerned with selling products than tracking you, if people are scared they'll have kill switches on the tags to avoid a loss of sales
The real probelm is the obscene amount of waste these things will produce think of the copper alone , and currently there are no real plans for how to recycle them. and very few people are speaking out about this.
I think we are on to something here. Frankly, I wonder if anyone at the Walmart (and etc.) corporate levels ever considered the ecological impact of these tiny, easily concealed tags.
Yet it is a real concern. And with the "cradle to grave" toxic waste laws that exist, it is something they could be liable for.