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!"
Just wait, those with parania can't get at this link now. New crop of theories just created.
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
Heh, 6 comments later the website crumbles. Slashdotters flood another site off the internet again... heh
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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