Slashdot Mirror
RFID Tags on Mach3 Razorblades Snap Your Photo
peteo writes "Think RFID tags are harmless? Look at how they are being used in the UK: "At the Tesco Cambridge store, a camera trained on the Gillette blade shelf, and triggered by RFID tags, captures a photo of each customer who removes a Mach3 pack. Another photo is taken at the checkout and security staff compare the two images to ensure they always have a pair"
According to the spokesman,"there are certainly not any privacy concerns" in relation to these tags. He adds that there is plenty of in-store signage indicating the supermarket's use of CCTV cameras. ""
When were razor blades so valuable to warrant this?
Last week I asked why. The cashier said it's because kids go in and steal them a lot, then come back the next day and ask for the money back (a pack of 8 is rather expensive, and they are easy to slip into pockets). So Waitrose watch the blades carefully and always check reciepts.
Seeing as this is the fourth time this month you've purchased genital wart cream, perhaps you'd be better off moving up to Genwartrexol?
...than plain old CCTV? Alright, so it's a little unsettling to think of someone with a photo of you taking something off the shelf comparing it with other photos to see if you bought the thing... but odds are if there's a CCTV camera then they're watching you as you take things off the shelf then, too.
Hmm. Doing this without telling people, however, is certainly cause for objection... there should be a sign of some sort, I suppose...
I would imagine that legally it doesn't require anything more than 'CCTV in use on these premesis', since the camera would have been there anyway...?
Tin foil hat privacy issues aside, the reason for this is because Gilette Mach 3 Razor Blades are the most shoplifted item in Britain. This is due to Gilette's "strategy" of giving away the razors and charging through the nose for the blades.
Just shave before the checkout and you won't get caught.
Is everyone who picks something up, decides they prefer to get a 12 pack, or the cheap disposable, or whatever, going to get investigated by the police?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Suddently splitting up and asking your significant other to pick something up for you in a different part of a store warrants a crime.
- Serge Wroclawski
I, for one, welcome our new razor blade overlords!
When you go shopping, always have an accomplice - (s)he picks up the blades, hands them to you somewhere else in the store, and you take them to the checkout.
Of course, this would happen 'accidentally' quite often anyway, but it's always good to make more trouble for stupid schemes like this.
So, what would happen if we round up 30+ slashdotters and have all of them pillage the rack of razor blades, only to put them all back and pillage some more? You know, with a bunch of beach balls and a large amount of beer we could have a great time while pillaging razorblades!
Hate me!
Seriously... I shave sometimes with a razor, sometimes with an electric shaver. The Mach3 blades cost something on the order of about 15 USD for five. (Or at least that is what I pay here in Switzerland). It is totally outrageous. Talk about a monopoly!
The worst part is that I tried to downgrade to a cheaper shaver. It seems that they not as good and do not hold as long...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I wonder what the price of those razorblades are....$19.84 euro? hmm...
Where ever you go, there you are.
These RF tags are perfect for tagging clothes, as the blurb pointed out. But an even more sinister use than tagging clothes is tagging the people who wear the clothes. And I'm especially referring to a certain kind of person:
Slavery is alive and well in this country, and I'm not referring merely to rhetorical or political slavery, but actual slavery. Women from foreign countries, particularly southeast-Asian countries are flown to America and promised low-paying but normal jobs performing menial labor or housecleaning services, but when they arrive, they discover to their horror that the real purpose is to prostitute themselves for the financial benefit of their masters. These women (and even children) are trapped, since they don't speak English, don't have the money to fly home, and don't have the physical or mental stamina to escape their tormentors after so much abuse.
How is this relevant to RF tags? Think of how much easier it would be to kidnap people from airports if all you needed to do was wander around with a small device, picking up the signals from the tags embedded in clothing given to the erstwhile immigrants back in their home countries. No longer would there have to be complicated networks of international communication -- they'd just have to agree on a certain range of serial numbers (of which there are trillions, as the article points out), hand out "free" clothes to people boarding the plane at departure, and sit back while agents at the US airports haul in the "goods".
This never would've been possible if we'd stuck to normal barcodes -- it's simply impossible to read barcodes surreptitiously. And since criminals are always the first to adopt new technologies for these devious purposes, it's only a matter of time before it comes to an airport near you, Thirteenth Amendment be damned.
I was unsure of RFIDs, to be honest, I did not know the technical capabilities of them.
All I can say is..
Wow..
Not necessarly a good wow, it is rather impressive 'tho..in a Klez kind of way. I do not think that this is TOO much of a worry as is, at least in this case.
But the technical potential?
wow.
I know EXACTLY where I'd put the price sticker when I was walking by with a sticker gun.
Any other fun non-destructive vandelism/protest ideas?
Ryan Fenton
[This trial] is not to do with security or theft, it is a supply chain trial."
But they then say security staff use it. So what is it for? What supply chain information does it give them that they can't get from the till receipts?
My local supermarket (Safeways, Shepherds Bush) had huge shoplifting problems with razor blades. Rather than implementing this (presumably expensive) scheme, they took the simple step of moving the blades behind the counter at the store pharmacy. Shoplifting drops overnight, no added cost and no privacy concerns.
For preventing theft, the RFID tag would be enough alone.
So why do they need the photos for ?
Marketing ? But for customer group identification one photo would be sufficient.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
I don't know how it is set up, but does it also take your picture if you put it back later? Otherwise the picture on the checkout will register you as a thief..
God , i would love to be able to make trouble about that. If you live in England , try it and if they mark you as a thief then unleash all your fury. (and i don't mean "Slashdot reader mode" fury. i mean "Quake 3 mayhem mode" fury).
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
What happens now?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
My privacy has been seriously compromised. I go through two Mach3 Turbo blades a week. I'm what you'd call "very hairy."
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
You have to wonder why they don't just put them behind the counter, as with cigarettes.
Is it some kind of subtle lure? Do they fear the drop in sales resulting from the less control of POS presentation? How would that stack up against the losses from shoplifting?
where you got it... Or you will jumped as a shop lifter. As it only takes a pic at the display then checkout.
http://www.englishfirst.org
I'm now going to make sure I keep all RFID tags I find, and each time I go buy some new blades I'll take them along to swapping their sensors... ;-)
the closed-circuit picture-snapping doesnt even matter. It's just a case of: for every razor picked off a shelf, one is also purchased. The CCsnapping is only important on the shelf-end. You are an idiot.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
All this for something that you're using to cut off a part of yourself that grows back in a short time.:P
Before even taking into account physiological differences due to genetics, no matter how much you spend on the blades, you're going to have to shave again tomorrow (some men even sooner). Which is why I gave up the price battle and just use an electric razor for most times, and a pack of the cheap safety razors around for use other times. If my body is going to force me to spend money, I'll certainly make it as little as possible.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Lost mine a while ago. I've always hated their intrusiveness.
I suggest that others lose theirs too before, like the article says, they become the ultimate "personality profiler".
Just lose the sodding things. Be apathetic *enough* to screw tescos.
h.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
UK highest crime than detroit?
oh my my my
Don't Tread on OpenSource
As per the back of a Gillette Mach3 box :
Questions? Comments? 0800 174543 (UK Only)
So, you mean instead of training a camera on you continuously as you shop, now they can capture only a few key moments?
You'd think people would be declaring this a privacy *win* since you'll be video taped less now, and only at the points that matter.
And I would have thought it was toothpaste...
this is just CIA trying to identify talibans before they go undercover.
Karma Whoring, mirroring from this sadly defunct comedy site...but I did go and order his book already
Right now, I want to be like the naked jet pilot, but I'm not like the naked jet pilot. He has three blades on his razor and I have only two.
You know who I'm talking about? The naked jet pilot on the Gillette commercial? He's got a uniform and a plane and then -- whoah! -- it all disintegrates and suddenly he's standing naked on what looks like the set of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? tenderly caressing his face. That guy. The naked jet pilot.
What a guy! I mean, he's lost it all: his uniform, his plane. What's he got left? A razor. Not even a can of shaving cream. But you can't keep him down. There he sits, rubbing his face. At least he got a smooth shave! He's looking on the bright side. Booyah naked jet pilot!
There's something homoerotic about a naked man standing around fondling his face, but I don't think the naked jet pilot is gay. If he is gay, it's just because he's so heterosexual that he's spun the meter all the way around. He appears gay because he's hyper-heterosexual in a way the rest of us can't understand. That's assuming he's an air force pilot. If he's in the navy, he's probably gay.
Gay or straight, he sure likes that razor! And why not? It's got three blades on it. Three! Check out the computer animated close-up: that'll take the hair off your face! I mean, the commercial implies that this razor disintegrated a state-of-the-art jet aircraft! That's a pretty good razor! They should drop planeloads of these things on Iraq! Even if they didn't destroy the Iraqi ability to make war at least Saddam Hussein could finally rid himself of that five-o'clock shadow he always seems to have.
(Then again, maybe the razor isn't responsible for the guy's plane falling apart. Maybe his plane just routinely fell apart because he's in the Canadian air force.)
Personally, I use the Gillette Sensor XL for my shaving needs. It can't destroy military equipment, but make no mistake -- it's a mighty razor. The top of the line in its day. You see, it has two blades. That's one to shave your face and another one, I guess, just to have. Plus, it has some kind of patented goop strip.
Admittedly the MACH 3, the naked jet-fighter's razor, has a higher blade count, but I'm not planning to upgrade at this time. And I'll tell you why: first off, I'm sitting on a large Costco-size stockpile of Sensor XL blades. Secondly, although I don't consider myself a nervous flier, the fact that the MACH 3 may cause jet aircraft to suddenly disintegrate gives me pause. Thirdly, and most importantly, I'm holding out for the new, four-bladed Gillette product which must be just around the corner.
Won't that be something! Four blades! One to shave your face, one just to have, one to be like the naked jet pilot, and a spare! That'll give you a smooth shave, I bet. Like, you'll really want to stand around naked caressing your face after using that thing!
I'm sure Gillette's labs are working on it now. Still, they have to be careful. I mean, if a MACH 3 can rip off a jet pilot's clothes and blow up his airplane and still leave him with a smooth shave, imagine what four blades could do? The guy wouldn't be left with any skin! He'd just be a manly skeleton, standing around on the set of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, smugly rubbing his mandible.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
take a Mach three from the shelf and set it down in a different isle everytime you are in the store if people do this in large quanitites it frustrates the snapshot game.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
I was gonna say that too.
If they wanted to test it for the supply chain side, they would put them tags in a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. Something high volume that would let them track some real sales and put their system through its paces. not some gimmicky, expensive razor blades that maybe a couple people per day purchase.
I can see the press conferences now...
Shop Spokesman: We are not using these RFID tags for security purposes. It is just pure coincidence that we happen to pick the "most shoplifted" item in Britain to test these on. A very important link in our supply chain entails comparing photos of who picked up an item and who is exiting the store with that item. We are not interested in testing this technology to track the location of something like a case of these razor blades in our warehouse.
and this isn't a joke, what about those who dislike having their picture taken due to religous reasons? Shouldn't mandatory picture-taking be against some kind of law based on religion? Isn't it descrimination or...or...something?
..According to the spokesman,"there are certainly not any privacy concerns" in relation to these tags...
Of course there are not any privacy concerns, from their point of view. They don't give a damn about *our* privacy concerns.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
...is that they can be "scanned" from a distance away.
I don't see why a picture is necessary. If someone has an RFID'ed item (say in their pocket), it should get scanned and charged for just like an item being held in the hands or resting in the cart. RFID SHOULD potentially eliminate shoplifting, with NO privacy concerns.
Imagine going into walmart and instead of each item being scanned separately, the cashier just aims the scanner at your cart, then you, and instantly everything is added to the total. No questions about what you may have slipped into your pockets because it just get's added. The scanner makes no value judgement.
RFID can be used to make life simpler, as long as we don't start using it to invade privacy.
Hey, I got one! What if you just dont like having your picture taken? No gods/spirits involved! Could you, possibly, be a fuckwit? Allowing people to practice whatever religion they choose does not automatically exclude them from having non-religious prefrences.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Everyone knows linux hackers and users don't shave, and the more hair the better.
:)
Also, simply using the Tesco Online Grocery Shopping system would get round the problem.
...store managers or corporate execs are going to get upset if I use my own lead lined shopping cart from now on...
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
A solid beard lets you look sage while stroking it and giving a measured Hmmm and a nod, while you try to figure out what the hell to do next.
Alternately I could extend my moustache to a Fu Manchu and try out for the next Evil Overlord position that opens up. (I've got the laugh, but an extreme moustache is a job requirement, bastards.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
bad idea, since razor blades are metal, unless you like fire. fire is fun! I swear, this 20-second/2-minute thing kills your ability to actively participate in a discussion here...
- Pick-up some blades, making sure you are snapped by the camera.
- Move outside of the camera range
- Dump the razor blades somewhere else in the store
- Pass at the cash
- When you are stopped by store security, insist that they call the police to search you - only the police has the right to search you
- When the police has found nothing at all, sue the store for false arrest (the manager will perhaps make a counter-offer for free merchandise - I have an aunt to got herself a free mink coat this way after she was arrested by store detectives at Eaton's [Macy's equivalent])
- ????
- profit!
After 10-20 people do that trick, mabye the store will reconsider it's policy...No, I do not have a loyalty card. No, I do not want an application form. I would tell you why, but then I would have to charge you at my usual hourly rates...
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Did anyone else think (from the title) that the RFID tag itself took the picture? My next thought was, how could they make it that small, and cheap enough to put on razor blades?!?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Don't you realize how important the data built up on that card is to the store? You can't just throw it away like a common piece of trash!
You've got to trade it to somebody else!
That way, the store can have a fine old time pondering why a loyal customer has gone from purchasing beer to bottled water, or has suddenly developed a taste for Norwegian Yak cheese. Has it been a while since your favorite soda's been on sale? Trade with a friend who only buys the competition's brand.
they took the simple step of moving the blades behind the counter at the store pharmacy. Shoplifting drops overnight, no added cost and no privacy concerns.
And sales should drop too.
I can't speak for everyone, but I bet a reasonable percentage of people will avoid making a purchase if it involves lining up for an extra 5 minutes (in addition to the checkout time) at the pharmacy. That'd be enough for me to go back to cheap disposables.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I've done this. It's a definite item to steal.
Blades are very expensive.
(oh, and the only reason there is a Mach3 - is that they need to push a new product with a new patent. they would look really bad if a generic blade came out at 1/6 the cost)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
I just hammer it in and then chew it off from the inside. Remember to spit afterwards; furballs are a bitch to cough up.
...when you take the entire stack of razors, then leave them in the next aisle.
What's all this fuss about razor blades on Slashdot!
:P
Especially when all you geeks look the same!
Save yourself the hassle, save money, protect your privacy - get one of these
but you can never "leave"
my sig
I used to be a Gillete user but stopped using their products right now! I informed them of that via their customer service site at http://gillette.custhelp.com/
How many times do you ask your shopping companion to pick up something you forgot....
sure, this makes lots of sense, particularly since no one ever takes an item from a shelf and then looks it over and puts it back. And no one ever goes shopping with some one else, and picks up at item at the other person's request and hands it to the other person before they get to the checkout counter. Such persons are clearly criminal and deserve to be confronted as they leave the store, arrested, and strip searched to find the article they were photographed picking up at the shelf but never buying at the register.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
1) Get blade and get photographed.
2) Drop blade at another part of the store where the cameras aren't pointing.
3) Check out.
4) Be submitted to embarassing treatment. The worse the better.
5) SUE!
6) PROFIT!
See? And no "?????" step even!
Why does a cookie provide a problem? One of the nicer things about cookies is that the client-side (i.e. YOU) have *complete* control over them. Unlike RFID tags, which you have no control over.
Will people get over cookies once and for all? If you don't like them, turn them off. If you can't turn them off, delete them after each session.
Say I went to the hardware shop to build "Mousetrap 2010 - The Terminator" and I put on an 'inspired' face ( whatever that looks like. I'll have to look in the mirror next time I have a really good idea ). Do you think I'll be the only person who know's this list ? If it gets "collated" does that mean the same as "published" ? Also, open question: can video face recognition software detect moods yet ? Just wondering.
Do the cameras take your picture if you put the item *back* on the shelf? There have been times when shopping that I have taken something off of a shelf, walked around the store, changed my mind, and put it back. By my math, at least, this would make the store think that I now had *two* packs in my possession.
Not that I shop at this particular store, but the first time my grocer stops me and accuses me of shoplifting in this type of scenario, is the last time I will shop at his store.
Not all technical innovations are good.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
If you don't like the fact that the store does this, find another place to buy (or steal) your razors from. Pretty simple, really.
As long as companies make their customers aware of what they are doing, I don't see a problem with anything like this. The market dictates that if people don't like it, they'll vote with their wallet and shop at a different supermarket.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
When I was last in the UK I was shocked from the number of cameras and CCTVs they use. There is not a spot without a camera. They seem to be obsessed about cameras and when you turn on the TV you see footage of robberies or other stuff captured with these cameras. The bottom line is: the majority of UK citizens seems to like that or at least not to care. They are a sick society, second only to the US. The rest of the world is struggling to catch up with the madness.
No, it's a complete load of shite. Anyway, Hep B is a real bastard. Hep A is the one that's not too bad, usually oral transmission (faecal-oral to give it its proper term). Hep B and C are blood/body fluid borne, no chance of getting them airborne.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
If they start pulling this in the US, I'm going to remember to grab a few packs every time I go in the store and then ditch them in the toy department.
This space available.
Damn. That's it! I am off to the store this afternoon (half hour before it shuts).... I am going to drop 'em as I grab some blades - then when they challenge me, I'll say - "but I wanted to check they would fit in my crack?!"
Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.
I find that many of the disposables to be as good as the expensive blades. Try a couple of different ones, I prefer the Wilkinson Sword disposables which are mid priced.
Course, then you also get the real cheapy cheapy disposables which seem to be designed specifically to draw as much blood as possible.
Deleted
"Here's your Americano, sir, would you like some Creap with that?"
mmmm....onegai...
"Katherine Albrecht at Caspian doesn't. 'Why would I take the kill switch seriously?' she asks. 'I have no way of knowing if they have done it or not, I have to take their word for it.'"
I work Security for Target so I am very familiar with the EAS (Electronic Alarm System) devices. The towers send out a weak FM radio signal which hits an antenna (EAS tag) and sets off the alarm. To make it so that honest customers don't set off the alarm there are pads (EAS pads) that deactivate these tags. (They also deactivate Credit cards, the chip in smart cards, and generally screw with things that are sensitive to magnets.) I don't know for sure how the ID tags work, but it likely would make the alarm go off. So the stores would then make it so The EAS pads deactivate these as well, if they do not already.
The article also mentions security personnel would compare the photos of people who buy razors. No they won't; it takes too much time. In order to compare photos in a somewhat timely manner, it would most likely take an extra person per shift whose job it was to check photos, and that's just a waste in resources. Another thing to consider would be that in order to get a shot of the product you would need to put the camera on the other side of the aisle, facing the razors, which would give security a nice picture of the customer's back. You could put the camera on the side of the aisle, but that would still only give you a profile shot and not the straight on face shots that security likes. How would the camera know when you picked up the product? It's much easier to skip the RFID tag and just put a camera recording the aisle all the time.
That which is not dead can eternal lie,
and with strange eons even death may die.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
the brand "Gillette Sensor".
Not Found
The requested URL
Homemade tin foil of course. You can't trust that store-bought stuff.
of course, you seem to be missing the point- you could read the fucking post. Just because some idiot is paid to compare two images doesnt mean the second image is in any way actually used. Not to mention that you could get that without reading the article- it was in the summary, moron.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
...who dry-shaves with a pair scissors?
ascii art
Walk out the door; you've bought or stolen them at that point, black and white. Starts to become grey (intent to steal etc) if you bypass the checkout and hang around between them and the door.
I'd just get a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and rinse the blades off with it after you use them. Isopropyl is cheap, certainly much cheaper than replacing blades all the time.
Or just get an electric.
London uses CCTV to impose a congestion charge on you whenever you drive into downtown London. The camera photographs your car and you get a bill for driving in the city. The idea is to reduce traffic to a manageable level and provide revenues for the bus system.
The tax is politically unusual in that Milton Friedman, a conservative economist at the University of Chicago, came up with the idea and Ken Livingston, a socialist, implemented it.
I have no idea where you live, but maybe you should check out Simon Delivers?
http://www.simondelivers.com/
Have you ever seen a clean-shaven terrorist?
-a
Why isn't there some company making cheap blades that fit onto Mach3 handles? I mean, my car maker is not forcing me to buy particular bulbs when my car breaklights die, or particular oil for my engine. Is there some mad patent or something?
Rocket science is easy. Neurosurgery, now *that's* difficult.
For shame! Who do they think they are?
There are like X varieties and they are are all about same price per quanity (+-20%). That is a monopoly...
hahaha. Perhaps you should look up the meaning of 'monopoly'. Pricing things similarly does not equal 'monopoly'. 20% off? That's huge for such common items especially in an arena like disposable consumer goods where profit margins are razor thin. (that pun is COMPLETELY intended)
But I'm going to guess that since you don't know what a monopoly is, you don't know what a profit margin is either, or the nature of consumer goods manufacturing.
-
Pick 'em up off the shelf, carry then arround and put them down in another part of the store. Pick 'em up and hand them to a friend in another isle, have him buy them. keep an old box with the RFID tags still in it in your pocket whenever you go to the store. Encourage others to do the same.You havn't done anything wrong, but it will cause them headaches, and may cause them to rethink the plan.
Take a hammer into the stores and smash the cameras. Everyone in England should go around and smash every single camera in the entire country. England is the absolute epitome of Big Brother bullshit and the just get worse and worse and worse. And when you think that they can't get any worse, well, they do..
People should storm the places, factories, plants, stores that make and distribute these tracking devices, chips cameras etc. The people that make these things into policy should be sumarily tried and executed in public.
Everyone that is connected with these devices should be sumarily tried and executed and all the machines that are connected to this technology should be destroyed.
These people are EVIL. There is no other evil like what drives these people, they are EVIL..
RFID works on frequencies and power levels that are perfctly legal to receive and re-broadcast. Imaging walking around with a tiny device that constantly listens for RFID codes and randomly rebroadcasts the last 5,000 codes it's stored.
Another cute device but trickier to make might listen for RFID codes to start and jump in in the middle drowning out the last half of the code with random garbage.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Admittedly, the 2450MHz band is the same as WiFi, so most of us would be opposed to jamming that on general principles, but it looks like the 915MHz band is what is being used more often. The Alien Technology tags for 2450 look really big and expensive.
It should only take about a watt or two with a bandwidth of 26MHz in the low band or 56.5Hz in high band. (These numbers from the FCC web site:FCC frequency spectrum PDF Some sort of pulse modulation would probably help the jamming, too.
Heck, you could probably take the RF shielding off an appropriate-speed laptop and walk around with it as a first iteration of the design. I remember the old Apple ][+ used to jam channel 6 pretty well.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
Not that I recommend doing such a thing - but just to highlight
why this is a silly idea...
1) Go to the razor blade stand - pick up a pack of blades - get
photo taken.
2) Hand pack of blades to your wife as she's buying cornflakes in
the next aisle. Say "Honey - please pay for these - I have to go
to the store next door."
3) Leave store.
4) When they stop you leaving the store and accuse you of not paying for
the blades you picked up - tell them that you left the blades in the
Cornflakes aisle. Let them strip-search you - you don't have
the blades. Make a terrible fuss.
5) They let you go with profuse apologies.
6) Your wife then leaves the store - with pack of blades in her pocket
'forgetting' to pay for them. Nobody bats an eyelid because her photo
didn't get taken at the razor blade shelf.
So why don't they simply correlate the RFID tags that they detect going
through the exit of the store with an RFID tag on the till reciept and
directly check that every tag that they detect as marked as being in the
store's inventory is also in the database as having been sold against
that reciept?
Nobody's privacy is invaded - it's all perfectly anonymous.
I don't see the need for all the photography and consequent invasion of
privacy.
www.sjbaker.org
What if I just let the camera take a shot of something else other than my head? After all, the camera can't tell the difference between feet and face. And what if the employeers try to take upskirt shots with these cameras? I can sense a whole new voyeur trend coming...
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
What if I put tha package back (and in the wrong place)? Will they see I only have one photo and put out an APB for my arrest?
"Excuse me sir, can you hand me a pack of those razor blades you're standing next to? Thanks..."
Okay, maybe this will help them catch the dumb shoplifters.
Here is a guy who claims that cheap pink ladies' disposable razors are the best you can get. I'd love to see some empirical testing. In the meantime, I'll stick with my cheap electric shaver and learn to love stubble.
Of course, the googly eyes cost extra.
The solution here is to break the system. Take razors off the shelf then leave them elsewhere within the store. You're not shoplifting and you can cause enough noise that the system is worthless.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
"bad idea, since razor blades are metal, unless you like fire. fire is fun! I swear, this 20-second/2-minute thing kills your ability to actively participate in a discussion here..."
Couldn't something be made akin to a bulk eraser that will send the correct frequency of RF at the tag to overload and destroy it?
RF devices ARE vulnerable in that way...
Corporatism != Free Market
Let's say you have all of these RFID tagged items in your shopping cart and a camera has taken your picture and logged your picture and all of your items into a database. Then on every trip to the store, they could not only have an idea about when you shop and how often, but what you are buying and how your buying habits are changing.
Of course, people who use credit cards when shopping would already be susceptible to such a thing (though I have not heard of any cases of this). Unlike a credit card, the cameras at least wouldn't be tying your identity to your purchase...at least not in a certain sense.
Think I need to wear baseball caps more often...Or maybe I should upgrade to a sombrero.
Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
1) go pick up a pack of blades
2) dump it elsewhere in the store
3) when security wants to search you for shoplifting, ask them what compensation they're going to give you for your inconvenience when they find nothing
4) if there's some cute (to your specification) security people, then do it several times a day
Get enough people to do this, and they'll give up on the practice.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
You know, I went through that whole damn article looking for something negative in the deal. There simply isn't one.
I'm so annoyed by whiney, irrational Slashdotters screaming out "No, you can't track me! You might use the data!"
But so what? I swipe my frequent buyer card at the grocery store and they track me. So what? I pay what I want to pay for groceries and if they somehow manage to lower the prices by profiting off of the information they got from me then great. Even if they simply profit and don't lower prices for me, why should I care? I don't loose anything just because the store makes more of a profit.
"Oh, but you loose privacy! The store will know what you're buying!" Right...... so?
The entire argument in these types of things is a completely irrational one that goes, basically, "We can't let them have our information because then they'll know things about us," but never in the conversation is there ever anything rationally negative. It just goes by this understanding that there's some unstated problem with people knowing things about you, even when you give your permission with like frequent buyer cards (that is, even when you know it's happening).
GOD Slashdotters piss me off.
In the video on cryptome, the designers demonstrate this technology and if you buy more than three it creates a theft alert. why three? do they have something against people who buy in bulk?
Razorbaldes.com -- Order on-line and we promise we won't need your picture to process the order.
--
Ok, so it points to Amazon. Oh, well.
At the Tesco Cambridge store, reports the magazine, a camera trained on the Gillette blade shelf, and triggered by the tags, captures a photo of each customer who removes a Mach3 pack. Another photo is taken at the checkout and security staff compare the two images to ensure they always have a pair.
So you and your wife are shopping, you drop a pack of blades in your common cart, then you go out to the car. Meanwhile your wife gets to the cashier, and her photo sure doesn't match the scratchy-faced guy who put the blades in the cart. Hey, lady, you tryin' to kipe these or somethin'??
Now what? It seems innocuous enough on the surface -- your wife merely pays for the blades and life goes on as before. But multiply this by every family with kids who shop in the usual random way, and it's a helluva lot of inconvenience (and if there's any justice, more cost to the store than the theft prevention is worth).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
My immediate reaction would be to start avoiding that store and patronize other stores instead. If they see a drop in revenue after they put these in, they'll get the message that it's not a good idea.
Hint to stores: being too nosy is not a good way to inspire loyalty in me.
I think of all the times I take a package down to read the label and then put it back.
I guess I would have to stop reading labels. Which means I would probably not buy.
you consider that "usage", you appear to be a moron.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Yes, I have seen a clean-shaven terrorist. Here's a big picture of him.
Will I retire or break 10K?
In actuality, the Gillette smart shelf logic only signals for recording from the surveilance camera system when three or more packages of replacement blades are removed at the same time... this is indicative not of shopping but of theft. No store has enough security people to monitor, track and verify all the shoppers who purchase blades nor would they want to. Waste of money.
BSD is undead!
My husband actually uses these blades, and from now on every time I go to the market, I'm going to pick up several packs pf Mach3s and gleefully distribute them throughout the store. Wheee!
n/a
My comments here are my own; I do not speak for my employer.
A protesst for this would be a perfect action for one of those email/web random event things.
People on the list who want razors (and a good chunk of non-buyers for good measure) all go at one time to a store and madly swap razors after they pick them up off the shelves. Even if security doesn't go completely bonkers (someone _must_ be stealing something), it would certainly screw up their tracking systems.
This would be great for any number of RFID/super spying consumer tracking methods. Keep in mind this is also how car thieves steal cars: set of the alarm a few times first until no one cares.
Okay you UK blokes. Go to the stores where this is happening and get all of the Mach3 blades and then put them somewhere else in the store. Then leave.
What about existing magnetic inventory control tags that are deactivated at the register? I know many stores use these, are easily embedded in the products, and don't invade privacy as much. I don't see how the RFID labor-intensive process will gain adoptance over the relatively passive inventory control of the existing magnetic tags -- intervention is only required when a tag is either accidentally not deactivated or someone is actually stealing something.
Not unless you maul the package, take out the rfid chip, and hide it in your sock.
Don't be so quick to rule out this kind of thing. I just read an article the other day about a man who did
exactly that.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
The best shave is with an open razor.
It's a lot of fun, too. Not to mention a lot of time and effort -- but if you have the time the results over electric and the Mach 3 are nothing short of fantastic.
Thanks,
--
Matt
C'mon guys, here's the real scenario that causes the problem:
A customer walks in, takes a pack of razor blades and puts it in his cart. The cameras take his picture and link it to the RFID of the blades.
Before checking out, he decides he doesn't want them. Perhaps he sets them down in the cereal aisle. Perhaps he puts them on the Schick rack. The customer pays for his other items and heads out to his car.
A thief who is aware of the system, sees the razor blades that are no longer being tracked. He steals them. He walks out the door.
What now?
And, while I'm ranting, why not simply scan the damn RFIDs on the way out the door and verify that they've been purchased...if not, sound the alarm. Such a system would be far superior to employing someone to compare photos of razor-blade takers to razor-blade purchasers. It'd be the exact same idea as the magnets they embed in clothing, and wouldn't be nearly as offensive.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
If such a system ever gets to the states, I think I would do that just for the hell of it.
A related vulnerability is that you could have one kid go in the store, pick up a few razor blades, then hide them behind the paper towels... then accomplice #2 comes in and picks them up from the un-monitored location.
I wonder why they don't just have a light by the door that goes on anytime someone with razor blades goes by? Then if you see someone leaving without paying you know something's up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With all this Big Brother crap coming out of England, it's no wonder George Orwell was British.
-R
Guys, maybe I'm shot away, but I think many of you are missing the point. The whole point of RFIDs are for stock control- shelf and point of sale. If you take it off the shelf then a backoffice system registers it to be restocked/reodered the next time it runs a batch. Put it back on the shelf - it gets readded to the stock level.
The holy grail of this is to eliminate the time wasted at cashiers, as your trolley can be wheeled though a checkout and all the RFIDs check themselves out. Two seconds later a bill appears, you hand over the cash, away you go. In bigger supermarkets you will probably be verified as you walk out the door with a more sensitive scanner to make sure that your outgoings match what you just paid/billed for. With the token minority thug in uniform just to make sure you don't do a runner. Chances are if you "forget" that those mach 10 mega supercharged blades are in your back pocket you would have been billed for it anyway - depending on the checkout setup.
The whole idea of the photo I imagine is a convenient piggy back on the rf technology - as there is an event triggered when the product is removed. It makes sense to do it then. If this wasn't such a big problem, nobody would have been bothered enough about this to develop these systems. I also wouldn't be worried about being tracked/categoriesed/etc by these things. Supermarkets don't really care what you look like. To them, you are a number. (see next paragraph). Not to mention the medium strong data protection laws in UK don't make this attractive for supermarkets.
All the tracking/categorising they can use is already gathered through use of debit/credit cards, and loyalty cards. US viewers should appreciate that over here we use debit cards for amounts greater than 1.50 pounds like sheep without too much thought. Loyalty cards are very popular too. Note that supermarkets here can't even deal with there loyalty schemes. They're all outsourced to professional agencies for pattern analysis due to the sheer amount of stuff that is collected.
But back to rfids - supermarkets and Britain in general has more cctv cameras than anywhere, more than most of us still actually realise. The point of taking the photo when you take the item off the shelf is to eliminate the easy "I didn't put that in my pocket" etc rubbish excuses. These can then be cross referenced with the cctv system.
Families included, even briefcase style exchanges will probably be picked up.
RFID systems mean more convenience to the shopper, and it will mean you can just run in and run out of a shop as queues will move much faster, less and less sore arms for checkout staff, less theft will mean cheaper prices. (and more profit) Get a grip guys, its just simple economics - not everything is X files material.
how about in 20 years when every single product has one and the IRS uses a sattelite to simply tally all the shit in your house and the dates that they were manufacturered and sold to you with your reported income...
uncle sam needs all the money he is entitled too after all right?
if they try shit shit in the US i won't be buying their razors anymore
gillette sent me a free mach 3 on my 18th birthday and i liked it a lot and was impressed that such a company even existed, i dont' recall coke giving me a free 12 pack or any other company
as a result i've been buying their blades and razor's exclusively since that time but if they want to get draconian they will start losing customers one at a time the same way the gained them.
With all the references to razor blades in his story, perhaps George Orwell was trying to tell us something in 1984.
"Got any razor blades brother?"
This could be enormous fun. Imagine now. A group of people go into a supermarket and disperse. Half the group each select a packet of razor blades, then pass them to members of the other half of the group, who take them to the tills and pay.
Or just keep picking up packs of razor blades, wandering around the store for awhile and putting them back on the shelves. Or wave a packet of razor blades back and forth in front of the sensor to keep taking photographs.
In some stores, you can go out to the exit side of the checkout e.g. to go to the tobacco kiosk - there is only one exit, with security guards in attendance. You could sneak packets of razor blades out of the main sales floor, then pass them backward through the checkouts, triggering the cameras as you go. Put the blades back on the shelves.
If there is an easy way to kill the RFID tags or blind the sensors {this will require experimentation} then maybe this can be done right there in-store.
Yes, there is plenty of potential for fun to be had with these things.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I understand that this is because of shoplifting - but as far as the 'kids steal them then come back to return them' issue - seems to me it goes something like this:
...
yes i'd like to return these.
Okay. *scans item* Thanks, our records indicate this item is already stocked on the shelves and hasn't been sold - would you mind showing me your reciept.
uhhh I lost it.
weren't you just in here yesterday?
uhhh.
and of course someone counters with "but the kid will just argue that they made a mistake" - yeah, well, then don't bitch about them implementing camera or behind-the-counter.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
Step 1: Take one pack at a time off the shelf ... letting the camera take your picture each time. Stroll nonchalantly to the checkout counter.
Step 2: Checkout person sees your photo on their console, asks if u have a loyalty card. Start your statement with "i do not have a sodding loyalty card".
Step 3: After checkout person rings up all yor items, politely ask "do any items have RFID tags on them? if so, i will not purchasing them".
Step 4: Checkout person calls manager to confirm and eventually is is forced to remove razor blades from list. Since they had to remove the blades there is no allegation of theft.
Step 5: Lather
Step 6: Rinse
Step 7: Repeat
Step 8: RFID tags gets unpopular with retailers and data miners start to see RFID tagged items being returned.
and the obligatory last two steps
Step 9: ???
Step 10: PROFIT !!!
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Why is this a problem?
IT just so happens that razor blades are the most expensive things that you can slip in your pocket in a supermarket, so Gillette's 'overheads' can be quite significant.
I don't know about non-australian supermarkets, but every single aisle is under video surveillence any way. I'd prefer to have my photo taken whilst buying razors so the price can be kept down, as opposed to me scratching my arse between the cornflakes and pumpkin aisle.
I might be alone here, but I don't care what the hell the stores use RFID tags for as long as there is some way to remove their tags from my product when I leave their store (which I don't think there is but I'm not too up on this issue so I don't know). I walk under the eye of a dozen security cameras a day. I don't like it, but it's no better than having my snapshot taken when I grab some razor blades. Privacy is something I don't expect when I am in public.
I don't care what techniques they use to prevent shoplifting within the confines of their store, but once I leave their store I don't want to inherit the artifacts of their internal systems.
You don't buy all thes fancy fraggin' blades. We have TWO-blade razors forever, then suddenly they discover THREE blades are better. What about next year (or next decade?) Will they discover FOUR blades are better?
/.'rs, yeah, right...
Just buy a vibrating head razor and use the cheaper two-blade razors. A vibrating head razor allows you to cut closer than any electric razor and almost never cut youtself. And you can extend the blade life this way.
Jeez.... High-tech
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Hmm? If you're going to use something this silly, at least use it to protect your store against theft of more expensive items!
First, people are already being videotaped in stores without any signs being posted. Second, I pick it up off the shelf and hand it to my wife who always has the checkbook. Does she go to jail or me for not picking it up and being the same person buying it. Third, how many security guards will you have to pay to compare the photos. Maybe they can hire a facial recognition programming expert at $100 an hour to write software to track this clearly criminal behaviour. I am sure the RIAA is behind all of this.
At my local supermarket there is a large sign on the door warning that unauthorized photography is not permitted inside the store. As soon as you walk in the door, if you glance upward, you can see yourself on tv via their cameras. At least one supermarket chain here will absolutly refuse to give any discounts without their store ID card. I find this appalling, as this is food, something that we need to even exist, and they have the gall to say that if I want the same price as everyone else for the stuff that actually keeps me alive, I must allow them to track my every purchase, and sell the data to who knows who, and use it for who knows what. May they all rot in hell along with the telemarketting industry.
Kate and Kate's Feiancee try to scan a bowl with a hand-held self-checkout scanner to buy it as a present for kate's father (the 3 star general guy). The scanner doesnt work, prompting him to say "I hate machines."
The rest of the movie shows that machines hate them right back.
Compare and contrast.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
...because i picked up some blades and then tossed
them in my wife's cart. Then I headed for the car.
My wife did the checkout thing. Next time I went to
the store, I was dragged down to the gaol and anally
searched.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
wow, you really don't have to be a total asshole, you know. here's some advice to you: try being civil to people and they might take you seriously. (and there's no way I'm stupid enough to stick my laptop in the microwave for any amount of time.)
Buy RFID-tagged products! Keep the tags! Spread them around!
I think I will push Mach 3 RFID tags into, oh, a bunch of banannas. Or a loaf of bread. Drop it into a shampoo bottle. And if WalMart starts RFIDing underwear, it will be even more fun...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
This is amazing - read that link and copy it into a letter to Tesco pointing out that you object (if you object :)
while sco {
wget -O
}
Here is a nice site that shows the technical info about RFID tags. I am sure there is someone out there that can offer up a solution for us all to use. http://www.spectraid.net/Products/Spec.htm
BTW, they apparently operate at 915.3 MHz or 869.4 MHz (for those to lazy to read the specs)
Go to razor-blade shelf. Pick up razor blades with RFID tag. Hide elsewhere in store. Repeat.
I don't remember, actually.
So does this mean that I'm the guy responsible for people in the U.K. having the thumbscrews tightened up on them another notch?
Sheesh. Sorry, guys!
Actually, I stopped shaving with blades altogether many years ago, so clearly this is a case of over-reaction. I don't know about Gillette, but fuck Bic, anyway. Cheep bastards! I know a past executive of that company who, back in the Seventies, got fired because he had a moral problem with planned obsolescence; Did you know that for abut two cents more per unit, it's possible to make razor blades that last 10x longer? --Which, according to the Fuck-The-Man-Rules-Of-Engagement, meant that to do the system proper justice, one had to keep track of the blades you stole, and pay for every 10th one. --Becase, you know, shoplifting without a rules set leads to savagry. I'm not a barbarian, after all.
Who the hell needs 5 blades? And those packages are simply bands of cardboard which leave the product exposed to the air, just begging people to make the most rational decision in the world, which is, of course, "But I only need one. These bastards are trying to screw me! Well, screw THEM! They'll never catch me! They put the magnetic strip on the cardboard, not the blades! Fools!"
--And look where this leads us. . ! To the creation of the exact atmosphere we're seeing here. One in which, a ridiculous over-reaction, with embedded chips and video cameras and all, can enter our reality on the wings of a somewhat reasonable-sounding argument. "But shoplifters!" --Yeah, because you're greedy assholes who make it too easy. What? Shrink wrapping would eat up another 2 cents profit? --Not to mention that you wouldn't even need to do that, if you would be so kind as to make a GOOD product and sell them ONE at a damned time!
Greed, folks! We all know it, and we all know where it's taking us. (WWIII and the borgification of humanity.) Now pardon me, but my thumbscrew needs oiling.
-FL
What if somebody picked up a pack of razors then decided not to buy them later on while still shopping. Rather than returning to the razor isle, he sets them down right there. Later somebody else see's them sitting there and picks them up.
Now the store saw him pick them up, but didn't notice the remainder of the interaction with that particular pack of razor blades. Now you've just tweaked the system.
So if I don't set them back down in the same isle I could get searched as I walk out because I didn't purchase razor blades?
I wonder -- what's the feasibility of walking by the display and discharing enough power at the RFID tags to make them give up thier magic smoke?
How Politicians Lie: http://www.factcheck.org/
It is recommended that your defragment your store now.
Razor blades (especially the Super-mega-penultimate-mach-1000-now-UltraLax(r) ones that you don't need but they try and sell you anyways) are apparantly one of the most stolen items, particularly stolen then returned. Price:size ratio is pretty high (at a 1cm x 5cm x 4cm package costing $20 or so), plus they force obsolescence on you (gilette sensor excel blades are half the price, but try actually picking up a razor for them. and while i'm on that point, why is it that all the acceptable razors (the ones that don't scrape half the layers of your skin off while you try to use them) are expensive as crap... every other product in the world you can find a mostly accepable, affordable alternative for). Not to mention the fact that they're basically required in the western world (like deoderant, or even better example, toilet paper), you'd be a damned fool not to steal them.
Reminds me of a MadTV skit. The Gilette Mach 20 "The first blade cuts the stubble. The second blade cuts it even shorter. The 5th blade removes the skin. The 12th blade removes the remaining flesh from the bone", etc
I was going for a Funny moderation. I don't sincerely believe that the President is a terrorist. I wanted only to show that there exist people who don't have a mustache or beard and who are regarded by at least one organization as a terrorist. Mod me to heck with your other account if you want.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I don't think they care if the pair match, I think they work to ensure that there is some form of pair: one taken pack mates with one purchase. The photos become useful when a pack is taken and not purchased. The article does make it sound like they're trying to get them to match, but as you suggest, that doesn't make a lot of sense.