RFID Will Stop Terrorists?

W33dz writes "Retailers and manufacturers around the world are enamored with the new radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices. The problem? What about when a thief or the police want to find out what you have in your house? Oddly enough, according to a Wired magazine article, the United States' largest food companies and retailers will try to win Dept of Homeland Security approval for radio identification devices by portraying the technology as an essential tool for keeping the nation's food supply safe from terrorists. This will give them blanket immunity from all law suits related to the product."

Comments

Article has wrong focus

[corebreech]

The danger isn't in criminals scanning your home to see what you have, but rather the government installing/having access to scanners in public places that will allow them to track your movements.

Obviously, these things aren't just going to be attached to foodstuffs. They'll be used in clothing and other personal effects that you'll carry with you at all times.

The article fails to mention this. Frankly, the article reads like the sort of propaganda piece the industry would put out.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[robmandu]

Yah... illegal search & seizure and all that jazz.

Think how cool it would be for the individual though. You could instantaneously inventory your belongings. Lost your keys... just whistle up the RFID embedded in your keychain.

What I'd like to see is a way to uniquely setup "ownership" of RFIDs. Like you enter your uid and pwd into a scanner, and all of "your" RFIDs in range reply.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[corebreech]

What you describe sounds an awful lot like WozNet.

And that would be great, provided it wasn't corrupted too, that is, that governments weren't able to hijack the system and use it to track its citizens.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[kableh]

Right, unless it involves "suspected terrorists", then you don't even need a warrent.

Thanks for Ashcroft, asshat. You obviously vote Republican.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[chill]

Thank you. Is refreshing to see that there are people out there who realize the fundimental problem with government doing ANYTHING is that it takes inneumerable signatures, and approvals before it goes forward. The whole process is more bloated than an MS product.

But once all those signatures ARE in place, all it takes is one bored tech to browse through the system. It happens all the time at the IRS -- bored employees checking the financial statements of celebrities, friends and enemies. Cops doing intensive background checks on their ex-girlfriends, etc.

Government initiative are like a massive boulder. A bitch to get moving, but once it is going almost impossible to stop.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[Knife_Edge]

So, you are saying that it would work like this. I go to the store, and buy a pair of shoes with a credit card. The RFID in the shoes is scanned in order to bring up a price to charge my card. So conceivably there could be a database somewhere that matches my financial info, including my name and address, etc, to an RFID tag in my shoes. Presuming the government could get access to a database like this, they could track people with some kind of device that could read the RFID tags from a distance. Thereby tracking my movements with my shoes.

With each step in this process I have detailed, things become more and more implausible. Retail store having database records of purchases, likely, I am willing to believe. Government getting access to database, not too likely but possible with warrants or something. Government having device that can read the tags from a distance great enough to use it to effectively track your movements, probably next to impossible. I doubt these things are detectable at a range that would make tracking people practical. If you are willing to believe the government has the resources to put the trackers everywhere, on every streetcorner, without anyone knowing or getting upset, for budgetary if not privacy reasons, well...

Another obvious problem is what happens if I resell my shoes, or donate them to charity, or any number of other things that could cause inaccurate information in the database.

Finally, isn't it legal to observe people in public places? That is the very definition of public, a place where you cannot control being observed by others. The government might as well be looking at you if ten or twenty people you don't know personally are. I'm not saying that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, or some other silly thing. I just think expecting privacy in public is unrealistic.

However, such a system would make this exchange possible -

Spook #1: Hey, she's going to the mall again.
Spook #2: Looks like the shoe store. Lemme see, yep, she's buying more shoes.
Spook #1: Why does she keep selling them off for cash? It makes her harder to track.
Spook #2: Dunno, maybe she likes to keep up with shoe trends.
Spook #1: I think she's a goddamn terrorist.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[MunchMunch]

Chiiilll man.

I think the article sounds pretty skeptical to me. Title is "Claim: RFID Will Stop Terrorists"--already they're distancing themselves from that assertion. In fact, I'd say the article is pretty cut & dry in saying "RFID companies are trying to speciously use the issue of terrorism to push privacy-eroding RFID into nationwide use."

Re:Article has wrong focus

[Kallahar]

Apparently you haven't heard of Catalina Marketing... They're one of the companies behind those store cards that get you discounts. In return for getting that discount, you're letting them put your buying habits into a giant database (250 million transactions per week for Catalina). It's already tied to who you are, and it already tracks what you've bought and when and where. The government doesn't have to get a search warrant for every store you visit, they just need one for the giant corporation that collects all that info from its clients.

I'm sure they can come up with an algorithm for when you sell/give something. Say you're always carrying 15 RFID's at a time, if one of those shows up on another person then it'll get flagged as being shared.

The more you think they can't do it, the more they're able to do it without you noticing.

Privacy is not a crime.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[Knife_Edge]

I think that terrorism happens only when there is some fundamental injustice in the world.

I wish I could agree. I think that terrorism, and most serious crimes, happen because some people are, for lack of a better description, innately evil. Perhaps they are responding to injustice, but their response is to amplify it, not to fix it. There have always been people like this, who are frequently incorrigible in their behaviors. Unfortunately, they do not respond to kindness, even though nearly everybody does. We will always have to have ways of controlling these people, and I will resign myself to that.

Whether a threat to those who run a society is a threat to the society as a whole depends on how just the society is to begin with. I like to think I live in a pretty just society, even if there are some exceptions.

And even though the American Revolution produced great benefits for the American people, it is not hard to find counterexamples of revolutions and revolutionaries who subjected countless people to death and misery. I'm thinking of such leaders as Hitler, Mao, and Castro. I hope we never reach such a low point where social revolution is the only option for us, because it has such unpredictable outcomes. There are always people around that think that social revolution is the only way to fix whatever they think is wrong with society, but they often fail to realize that it comes at a terrible price. In most cases, allowing them to have their way would be to distort the priorities of society away from just goals, not towards. Therefore I am opposed to revolution in general and I do not think it is reasonable for it to be possible in modern America. If our society were falling apart at the seams, I might think differently, but to be realistic means to see that it is not.

All sorts of things are inevitable, but the decline of our society due to increasingly rigid control by those in power is not. Enough of the populace is well educated and alert to this kind of thing to prevent true abuses. We have extrapolated very far in this discussion, with only the glimmer of a possibility raised by a technology as a stimulus. Other people think of these things too, I assure you, and don't like them any more than we do. That keeps me from worrying too much.

Re:Article has wrong focus

[Ryosen]

>> You obviously vote Republican.

You obviously have no idea as to what the political position is of anyone in office. Democrats are just as "guilty" of poorly thought-out legistlation as Republicans. Members of both parties are given to rash, ill-advised, and hasty decisions made in the name of "National Security." A little education might be in order before you go making such blanket statements as the one above. I suggest you start here, here or here.

And how you got modded as Informative and not as a Troll is beyond me. Makes me wish that I hadn't burned up my mod points yesterday.

No Supprise.

[Irvu]

Having watched the SSSCA (now CBDTPA) run through the paces this makes perfect sense. If you have a bill that you want to sell, wrap it in the current craze so that anyone who passes it can claim that "they have worked on X" where X is the issue dujour.

The way the game is played.

So if ...

[Rick.C]

a terrorist doesn't have a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup in his cupboard, then he's obviously poisoned the tomato soup supply!

Drown him!

Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Tin foil will replace vinyl siding as most popular home exterior.

Re:Prediction

[in7ane]

Once again, will rolls of tin foil have RFID's in them?

Great... You Want Chips With That?

[spun]

I can see it now... Immune from lawsuits, they start putting chips in the food, "To keep it safe" of course. Eat the food, eat the chips, instant tracking implants in everyone.

Sorry, let my paranoid side get the better of me for a minute. I'm sure it's all for the best ;-)

Re:Great... You Want Chips With That?

[southpolesammy]

Of course when the thought police comes looking for me and tracks me down to the bottom of container #4 at the city's waste processing plant, I'll have the last laugh....

Re:Great... You Want Chips With That?

[Catbeller]

Yes, they would work from your gut. The strength of the signal is not dependent on the chip, but rather the raw power of the exterior detector. The chip merely modulates the incoming signal before it "echoes" it. Using a powerful enough detector, they could probably track you from blocks away.

Remember, these things are designed to be detectable in the bottom of a stack of pallets. Your gut ain't no problem.

Yes! Ultimate Solution!

[Kenshin]

Just put an RFID tag on all terrorists. That way when they try to board a plane, you can detect them!

Or maybe not...

Re:Yes! Ultimate Solution!

[in7ane]

Yes, and set the evil bit in the RFID tags...

Hmmm...

[Robert Hayden]

So they just arrest everybody that buys the fixins to make falafels?

hmmm.

[garcia]

With Ridge's approval for RFID, the food and drug companies and retailers hope to win over a wary public. They also may get legal protection under the Safety Act of 2002 -- a tort-reform law that offers blanket lawsuit protections to makers of antiterrorism devices, should those devices fail during a terrorist attack.

What major backlash is coming from the "weary public"? I have said this a billion times before. No one outside of our geek culture has any idea what this is. If it's not on Network TV's latest reality show, it's not real. I am too lazy to find my other posts about my attempted discussions with co-workers about their privacy being invaded with Patriot I and II and how they look at me as if I am speaking Greek. "You mean you do something other than watch Paradise Hotel?" (this isn't a slight exaggeration).

People have NO FUCKING clue what is going on in the world around them. I deal w/100's of people daily who freely give out their SSN to me to look up their records. I specifically ask if they know their student ID first (even though it's a unique identifier, it's not as bad as just throwing out your SSN everywhere) and people just utter, "uhhh, no, but I know my SSN!"

So if people are so willing to just give up their nationally unique identifier, you really think that they are paying attention to RFIDs? Go outside of your cube and ask any non-geek, "do you know what an RFID and how it impacts you personally?" or possibly, "do you know what the Patriot Act is?" I guarantee that they won't have a clue what an RFID is and they will say something like "do you also talk in letters?" and they will seriously believe that the Patriot Act is something having to do with the military giving missles to another country (if they are even THAT clueful).

Post your results here please, I am seriously interested if this is just a localized phenominon here where I live (my gf, her co-workers, my friends, and my co-workers are 100% clueless when it comes to anything privacy related), I would like to know what the rest of the non-geek world sees.

Re:hmmm.

[garcia]

you are not so much smarter than everyone else that you are the only one who gets it

I want you to show me where in my post I said that I was?

I want you to get a clue, and re-read and then re-think what you said. Obviously you are trolling.

What I did say was that NO ONE PAYS ATTENTION to this stuff. No one reads anything outside of the sports section and the front page. No one is scouring the net looking for what information they can find about what is going on "behind the scenes".

People these days want to watch their "reality TV" a "escape reality" (I have heard people say that too many times not to laugh).

They want to ignore what is really out there and would rather be forcefed a bunch of made up, scripted, bullshit on network/cable TV.

I might not be smarted, but I am certainly more informed and more concerned (and rightly so) of anything that might infringe on the anonymous past we had.

Re:hmmm.

[PIPBoy3000]

That means you accept students SSN as a valid proof of identity? I work for a healthcare organization and we come across this issue all the time.

SSN is a wonderful identifier. The problem isn't that someone knows my SSN, the problem is that far too many organizations use it as a password. That, IMHO, is a very bad thing.

As for radio tags, I think of them as cookies in the physical world. If they were encrypted properly, you could even block other people from knowing what the tag really says. All you'd know is that there were x items with tags on it, but only the person with the private key could see what it was.

Not that I think it's necessarily a good idea, except possibly if they were required to be removed before leaving the store.

Re:hmmm.

[Nexzus]

Not just privacy, basic rights as well.

Couple years back when I was in high school, the school officials and the police liason officer did a school-wide locker search one day. I stood in front of mine, asking to see a search warrant for my particular locker. They had none. I asked if they had any evidence that there were drugs in my locker. They had none. I said you can't search my locker. They said they could do want they want, it's school property. I said, fine, look through the locker, but not the bag and jacket, which were my property. They restrained me, *thoroughly* searched my bag and jacket, found nothing, and let me go.

I was repeatedly asked why I made such a stink even though I had nothing to hide. I always responded "Where does it end? Would you let them search your car or home at anytime, without provocation, even if you had nothing to hide." Sadly most people didn't seem to care.

Re:hmmm.

[Travoltus]

[populus Romanus] qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, PANEM ET CIRCENSES"

"The people who had once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else now longs eagerly for just two things, bread and circus games."
- Juvenal

Re:hmmm.

[ScrewMaster]

This comes under the heading of the "so what did you expect" department. Other national populations may be different, but we are so complacent here in the "world's only remaining superpower" that we don't want to hear anything that might upset our delicate emotional applecarts. Forget anything that might take research and some actual thinking. To be honest, the whole flapdoodle over 9/11 just astonishes me. The average Israeli or Palestinian citizen wouldn't have been particularly bothered by the attack, at least not on a personal threat level. Collectively, neither of those two societies would have allowed their entire economies to tank over a single terrorist attack. We, on the other hand, completely overreacted, have allowed the government to pass numerous Draconian laws in the name of anti-terrorism, willingly kissed our privacy good bye (if we even saw it leave) and generally behaved like headless chickens. Frankly, I'm not real impressed with how we handled ourselves in the aftermath of September 11th.

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.

RFIDS are not invincible

[Amadaeus]

RFIDs, like bar codes, are not emitting devices, meaning that they don't send out signals. They interact with an external data source, like a scanner, to retreive data and to respond to data requests.

As such, they can easily be evaded. In fact, it's easier to tamper with RFIDs than barcodes simply because of the fact that tampered RFIDs are as not visually identifiable as barcodes (i.e. The naked eye can see if someone's ripped out the barcode or taped something over it). Any man with motivation can buy a RFIDs reprogrammer on EBay, walk into Walmart, and effectively make all boxes of whole wheat cheerios identify as gold-pressed latinum. Imagine the riots that could occur at the checkout lines when old ladies have to pay thousands of dollars to satisfy their daily intake of fibre.

All that tampering can be done without drawing attention to the culprit: you can hear a person cut or rip a box apart, but you can't hear binary code being reprogrammed through a contactless RFIDs programmer.

There are greater dangers than old ladies not getting their recommended daily intake of fibre.

Re:RFIDS are not invincible

[silas_moeckel]

Funny most of the RFID chips I have seen are a simple serial number imprinted at manufacture. The device goes through a fiield gets charged up and emits that data as an rf pulse.

Re:RFIDS are not invincible

[Rick.C]

There are greater dangers than old ladies not getting their recommended daily intake of fibre.

My mother-in-law lives with us.

Sorry, but you are totally-wrong, squared, dude-guy.

Re:RFIDS are not invincible

[windchill2001]

The one part of the RFID protocol that I don't know is weither all tags attached to boxes of whole wheat cheerios will respond with the same number. If they do, they can not provide a unique number to track a person. They can only tell that the signal coming back is from an RFID tag from a box of cheerios.

Sorry to tell you this, but even if they are as general as just identifing a Box of Ceral, or a Blue Hat, White Gap Shirt, Old Navy Carpentar Jeans, and Hanes briefs. The Combination of these seemingly generic ID come together to create a very unique Indentifier.

What are the chances that a whole lot of people are goign to be wearign the same combination of RFIDs.

RFID tags

[ihummel]

Any electronic marking device that isn't removed when I buy the item is an outrageous violation of the privacy of my home. I can understand tags being used to prevent shoplifted, or to somehow safeguard against tampering, but they really need to be removed by the store at purchase, easily removeable by the end consumer, or at least able to be turned off in such a way that they cannot be turned on again remotely.

I want RFID because...

[vrmlguy]

I want a robot that can pick up my dirty clothes, look up their washing instructions based on their RFID tag, sort them based on said instructions, and load them into my washing maching along with the proper amount of soap and/or bleach.

I'm still working on how to get them dried and folded.

"Having numbers burned into your forehead ...

[burgburgburg]

has been determined to be an effective tool to prevent terroristic identity theft" says Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. "Remember, not allowing us to burn numbers into your forehead and the foreheads of your loved ones means the terrorists have won."

AHA!!!

[corebreech]

See???

Now how did you *know* I was wearing a tinfoil hat????

I rest my case.

Let's think this through

[WheelDweller]

Everyone's up in arms about identifying things we buy, and I'm sensative to that. I have no 'good ole boy' network that I fence diamonds through from Rio, no drug involvement, and nothing that I couldn't account for, standing in front of my Mom...so as long as the information is correct, I have nothing to worry about tracking.

But the uncertainty comes in them getting it wrong; one byte's difference might be all it takes to identify me as someone else, and that, for me, causes the stress.

There's one thing we have to remember here, though: we're on a mission. It has a defined ending, but we're too far away to make sense of the roadmap. Orwell. Revelation. Pick one.

Let's say that all the money from the lobbyists falls down a rathole and mutes every advocate on the side of RFID. Do you really think that a capitalist system is going to deny a technology that could, and probably will, save them millions of dollars?

No, I don't have an answer to this worrysome decision. But If I did, it would probably include a lot of 'getting along' with the RFIDs, and an equal amount of "they should have a warrant to CHECK my id's.

Just some food for thought.

I design RFID stuff

[lcsjk]

I am presently designing to use RFID to help keep foods safe. RFID for foods, especially meats,will include time, temperature and bacteria sensors. As for the tracking issue, there has already been enough outcry about Bennetons attempt to put hidden RFID in clothing that they had to resend the idea. (RFID JOURNAL) We are aware that there are privacy problems and no-one wants to have things that allow tracking in the home or other areas. Right now, the trend/plan is to kill tags at the cash register when the item is purchased. You may have noticed that that is already being done to enable you to leave the store without setting off an alarm.

Re:I design RFID stuff

[ewhac]

Right now, the trend/plan is to kill tags at the cash register when the item is purchased. You may have noticed that that is already being done to enable you to leave the store without setting off an alarm.

Uh huh, right.

Assuming the RFID has a globally unique serial number in addition to a UPC code, then all that has to happen at the register is for that serial number to be marked as, "purchased." Then when you walk out the door, the computer sees the serial number, looks it up in the database and sees that it's been purchased, and doesn't sound the alarm. A software-only solution that's much more "cost-effective" than designing the extra circuitry for a killable RFID.

It also has the added "benefit" of allowing the retailer to scan the cloud of RFID numbers coming off you as you enter the store (or even as you stroll past the entrance), thereby triggering special discounts or incentives ("We're having a special on shirts that match those pants you're wearing.").

In effect, what you're working on will afford unprecedented snooping powers to government agencies as well as corporate entities (who, unlike government agencies, don't even have to pretend to be accountable). And, of course, it will do absolutely nothing to improve public safety.

Schwab

I don't follow your logic

[corebreech]

So because the government isn't competent, we should allow them access to our whereabouts in real-time?

Isn't their being incompetent actually an argument for their not having access to this information?

Nuke the suckers!

[jgabby]

How much power would it take to fry the RFID tags? I doubt they could survive a couple of seconds in a microwave oven. Simply nuke your clothes right after you buy them, and you'll be free.

Paranoia

[t0qer]

A few months back /. had an article on sewer traversing robots. Does anyone know why they made these? I mean the REAL reason why these were made?

The goverment is out to get us man, they want to know every fart let in your house. THE MAN is trying to KEEP UP DOWN. Sure they may say that these sewer traversing robots are for laying down CAT5 in the sewer, but I know the real reason.

Each of these robots is SECRETLY equipped with a miniature spectrometer, which takes your sewer water, and breaks it down to determine its chemical makeup. All this information is then passed back to the DEA to assist so they can profile which houses do, and which houses do not have drug users living in them.

Now they are preparing phase 2 of the program for use by the USDA to profile the eating habits of Americans. By secretly implanting RDIF tags into your food you poop becomes a "stool pigeon" on your eating habits. The USDA will use this information to adjust prices on certain key products to help promote growth in our sluggish economy.

Just say no to RDIF. It's worse than you can imagine.

Since terrorists don't tend to buy lots of ...

[burgburgburg]

typical consumer items (storing up their money for explosives, plane tickets, guns, etc.), sending government vans to scan peoples residences for items like consumer electronics, sneakers, new furniture and the like would be an effective way of pinpointing the terrorists among us.

And even if they are technically not terrorists, they are an impediment to the recovery that the administration keeps declaring is happening any day now. Which is practically as bad as being a terrorist. Maybe worse. Either way, Hello Guantanamo Bay!

What's Wrong with this picture?

[4of12]

Quick!

There goes Osama bin Laden out the door of Walmart with a whole case of Gillette razors!

Ron Paul R-Texas: seeing the light

[paiute]

The Wired article links to Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is opposed to the RFID idea. Republican opposed to the wishes of big business? Who is this guy? I looked at his web site and read his latest speech:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec 2003/cr07 1003.htm

(sorry about the URL - seems a space gets put in between the 7 and the 1 in cr071003)

Anyway, who does this guy think he is, calling the Bush gang empire-building big-gummit perpetuatin' neoconservatives?

He better watch his back out of his rear-view mirror around the two shotguns and three rifles in his pickup truck rack, the terrorist-loving pinko.

In other news...

[natet]

Wal-mart claims that RFID tags will stop ballistic missiles from striking targets in the US, and seeks dept. of homeland security sanction to deploy them in defense of the nation....

Two Issues

[saintjab]

I only have two major issues with this proposal. One, is that in no uncertain terms, this is a direct violation of human privacy rights, and is an open invitation for the powers that be to 'spy' on every facet of our lives. Second, because of the way they are going about getting this legislated (under the guise of Homeland security) is absolutely criminal. This is exactly how they got roving phone taps, and illegal searches, pushed right back under our noses. For the sake of our own "safety". Yeah right. I would rather worry about the terrorist trying to attack us, than the terrorist government trying to *cough* protect us! This is just plain wrong. -just my opinion.

This is a surprise to you?

[John Jorsett]

Post your results here please, I am seriously interested if this is just a localized phenominon here where I live (my gf, her co-workers, my friends, and my co-workers are 100% clueless when it comes to anything privacy related), I would like to know what the rest of the non-geek world sees.

You sound like this is some sort of surprise. Well, it isn't to me; people are clueless in general. Huge swaths of humanity don't know how their car works, which century the Civil War was fought in, that the sun is a star, what the hell the politician for whom they're voting stands for, who the Secretary of State is, or any of a myriad of other things that don't impact their day-to-day lives. They think John Edwards can actually talk to the dead, "government money" is unlimited, and that space aliens are making those crop circles. Why should they be any better on the subject of Patriot I and II?

RFID technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because an RFID tag was within your house doesn't necessarily mean anyone else could read it. The tag and the reader must be properly oriented and the tag signal strength is dependent on the tag size and the readers' power. Getting the right orientation from outside someone's house seems tricky.

Oh how wrong you are

[zapp]

RFID tags cannot be reporgrammed. and they do send out signals (on request from scanner).

RFID tags have a very small amount of READ ONLY memory on board, which is used to store their unique ID. Furthermore, the devices to not have the functionality to write to the memory, even if it was writable. So you can be sure no one will ever buy a RFID reporgrammer on Ebay, well... maybe they will, but you can be sure it's a hoax and they got ripped off.

Secondly, they DO send out the signal. barcodes need a clear direct line of site to a scanner to be recognized. RFID tags work in a much different manner. A scanner could be put in every light post in a city to monitor the RFID tags planted in tires, and track individual cars (or general traffic patterns). Worse, due to the nature of the technology a directional antanne could be used to read an RFID tag from large distances.

In conclusion, your comment is crap.

Hello John Anderton

[A55M0NKEY]

Walking through the mall, soundwaves from different sources designed to sound like whitenoise individually converge on John Anderton's eardrums producing understandable speech.

Hello John Anderton, I see from the RFID devices in your stomach, that you ate a Super Combo Taco Deluxe combo meal with extra guacamole for breakfast. Come into CVS and buy some Pepto Bismol - CVS the only price you need.

Hello John Anderton, you've had those sneakers for a year. They're getting kinda ratty I bet. Come into SportShoe and get a new pair before someone faints.

Hello John Anderton, The RFID in your Hemmorhoid pad tells us that you are in pain. In 56% of all hemmorhoid cases the major irritant is toilet paper that is not soft enough. Let us interest you in Charmin Lotion Soft toilet paper. The soothing lotion makes wiping a joy. And it is much stronger than that no-name brand stuff that left it's RFID sticking to your ass hair..

News just in...

[agby]

The Department for Homeland Security has just announced that putting 'locks' on your 'doors' will stop thieves burgling your house.

Latest research also indicates that umbrellas keep you dry in the rain, women like chocolate, oranges are not the only fruit and it's dark at night.

Re:Its a global problem

[gweihir]

Clueless people are a global problem. They are part of why we loose our rights and freedoms at a blindingly fast pace these days..

Not a new phenomenon and democracy does only help so far. After all Hitler was voted into office. All it took was a stalemate between the other powers, a talent for making speeches and the right promises.

Make no mistake, people: Any democratic government can be replaced by a totalitarian one if the voters are blind for a decade or two. Signs aof this happening: Constitutional and civil rights are suspended for some people (the jews and other "undesirables"), a drive for war together with a hugely inflated national self image ("tausendjaehriges Reich", "am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen"), surveilance of individuals is intensified ("Blockwart", the GeStaPo),...

Look for these signs in your society today and if you find them, act against it democratically as long as that is still possible. Alternatively be sorry tomorrow.

Any skepticism? Anywhere? Bueller?

[HarveyBirdman]

I'm not trying to be flamebait here, but is there ANY evidence these things have enough range to really cause concern? Aren't these passive devices that have a range of about 4 feet after they have been activated by a scanner? Wouldn't the police have to be in the house anyway (and thus need a warrant) or the thief (thus he's already broken in and can SEE what I have)?

Is this another blown out of proportion nothing? Don't we have enough REAL issues to face that we don't need to make up new ones? One poster below talks about how only the geek community knows about this stuff. Fine. But shouldn't the geek community also be able to filter out the real threats from the piffle? If someone has any reliable information that a privacy threat from RFID exists, I'd happily review it, but all I have found is stuff on websites devoted to the black helicopter set that requires these devices to do things that are quite basically impossible.

It all sounds like the scare a few years back about the metal wires in the new dollar bills that were supposed to magically transmit their values from hundreds of feet away, through walls, to any G-man with a Dick Tracy scanner-watch. I think those people moved on to believing airplane contrails are full of poison chemicals or something.

So far all I see is a way to get out of a store without having to wait while Grandma writes a check for a pair of socks.

Re:Any skepticism? Anywhere? Bueller?

[gr0nd]

If there range is long enough to be activated in a warehouse, then the range is at least 30 feet (floor to ceiling). Even at a range of 10 feet, that will be enough to cover the entrances of most public places (airports, train stations, etc). I easily see these becoming as ubiquitous as video surveillance is today.

The General Rule...

[lynx_user_abroad]

Whomever builds the computer controls the computer.

We do not know what functionality these "remotely controllable mini computer devices" offer today; we do not know what functionality they will offer in the future. But we do know that the functionality will evolve toward the functionality desired by the people who create them. And we know it likely won't be you or I building them.

Do you want to live in an environment swarming with millions of little computers all working to fulfill the desires of someone-who-is-not-you?

Fourth Amendment

[missing000]

Finally, isn't it legal to observe people in public places? That is the very definition of public, a place where you cannot control being observed by others. The government might as well be looking at you if ten or twenty people you don't know personally are. I'm not saying that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, or some other silly thing. I just think expecting privacy in public is unrealistic.

Time for a law lesson!

The Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

i.e. The government is expressly forbidden from domestic spying on citizens without probable cause citing specific persons locations and evidence.

Re:Fourth Amendment

[Knife_Edge]

Time for a you're a dick lesson. There are exceptions to this, and one of them is if evidence of a crime is in plain view of a police officer. What, did you think it was illegal for cops to look at you while you are in a public place, that they have to get a warrant with your name on it first? That would make enforcing any laws at all nearly impossible!

How is a system that tracks your movements through a public place any different than a police officer looking at you? I think if you are in public, you are in public, period.

Listen, I also think the technology to make this a reality does not exist, so don't worry about it.

Question...

[windchill2001]

So Are all RFID's Unique? Or is the ID more generic to the product.

Is the number unique to my new pair of shoes, or is the number the same for all size 12 brown hush puppies.

Consumer group against RFID (CASPIAN)...

[wherley]

This group, CASPIAN - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering has information on RFIDs including Auto-ID: Tracking everything, everywhere. The group is also against loyalty shopping cards for similar reasons.

Re:RFID used to track pets...

[Catbeller]

RFID is also being marketed to parents to track their kids.

Prediction: first pedophiles, then common criminals, then anyone wanting to get a job with a company... finally, everyone.

If you're agin it, you're a terrorist enabler. Maybe even a terrorist yourself.

Maybe we'd better chip you, just in case.

Answers

[zurab]

Most of what you describe is quite possible and feasible as well. Here are the answers:

So, you are saying that it would work like this. I go to the store, and buy a pair of shoes with a credit card. The RFID in the shoes is scanned in order to bring up a price to charge my card. So conceivably there could be a database somewhere that matches my financial info, including my name and address, etc, to an RFID tag in my shoes. Presuming the government could get access to a database like this, they could track people with some kind of device that could read the RFID tags from a distance. Thereby tracking my movements with my shoes.

They already have you beat on this one. Gov't can already access commercial databases without your consent when you purchase an airline ticket and get to the airport. This is a new color-coding system that they assign a color code to each passenger and to their "threat level".

With each step in this process I have detailed, things become more and more implausible. Retail store having database records of purchases, likely, I am willing to believe. Government getting access to database, not too likely but possible with warrants or something.

See above. If they do it to the airline industry, they can extend it to other industries as well. E.g. they can get your threat level before you enter a railroad station, public parade area, football game, concert, etc.

Government having device that can read the tags from a distance great enough to use it to effectively track your movements, probably next to impossible. I doubt these things are detectable at a range that would make tracking people practical. If you are willing to believe the government has the resources to put the trackers everywhere, on every streetcorner, without anyone knowing or getting upset, for budgetary if not privacy reasons, well...

They could equip FBI, local police, and maybe even security guards with such devices - I don't see a problem here. As far as privacy concerns - yes there are and will/would be a lot, but the attitude that you express doesn't help that. Even with the airline passengers color-coding system, where did these privacy concerns get? Almost nowhere with only one major admission that the gov't will not store your color-coded data for more than certain period of time.

Another obvious problem is what happens if I resell my shoes, or donate them to charity, or any number of other things that could cause inaccurate information in the database.

Charities that are accreditted as charitable organizations by the federal gov't could be required to report all RFID tags that they have received or transferred.

Will these types of devices draw us closer to licensing products to you and not selling them? Could it be illegal to sell an object equipped with RFID because it contains someone's IP, plus you'd probably be supporting terrorists? That's a far-fetched, yet interesting thought.

Finally, isn't it legal to observe people in public places? That is the very definition of public, a place where you cannot control being observed by others. The government might as well be looking at you if ten or twenty people you don't know personally are. I'm not saying that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, or some other silly thing. I just think expecting privacy in public is unrealistic.

This has already been answered by others. Gov't cannot invade your privacy by tracking your every move and recording it without a probable cause, at least according to the U.S. Constitution anyway. But who's paying attention to that silly thing nowadays?

Tremble before the mighty microwave

[Angst Badger]

I'm as paranoid as the next guy about RFID tags, but folks, remember this -- there isn't an RFID tag on the planet that can survive fifteen seconds, probably much less, in your househould microwave oven. Most of the goods to which they are attached, on the other hand, would be largely unaffected.

Now mind you, it's theoretically possible that microwaving your shoes would then violate the DMCA, but prosecution is practically unlikely unless Hilary Rosen is sitting inside your microwave right now.

In which case, set it to maximum intensity for an hour.

Then sir, You are a fool.

[nurb432]

I have a better handle on other countries governmental maneuvering then you realize.

Example? the Britain banning all weaponry, incrementally, until the peoples rights to defend themselves are almost totally gone now. Or cameras on most every street corner, monitored by the police..

I could go on, but since you choose to live in a fantasy world where the government is benign ( which is by definition contrary to reality ), I wont. That's why I chose couple rather simple examples.

Perhaps after you have no rights or freedoms left, you might wake up and see what is happening.. But again, that will be a day late. Remember its incremental, and all designed to have the populace ( sheep ) gladly accepting each small step towards total control... as apparently you have.

Though I do agree that many nations in the world don't have as many rights and freedoms we have here in my country, so you are already 1/2 way gone.. so you don't notice it as much when what is left is slowly taken away.

That said, even ONE single right or freedom that is encroached in even the slightest amount, is wrong, and should be fought. Regardless of what country it is. Never grow complacent and accepting..

Those cards are easy to outwit...

[Akardam]

It's as easy as one person volunteering to be the "blind". Then all you need to do is to know that person's phone number, and type it in. You'll notice that they never complain if you don't have your card - sure, go right ahead and type in your number.

I am one of a group of about two dozen people who use one phone number on one of our number's card. That ought to be enough to make their data practically useless :)

I do that with manners!

[MarcQuadra]

Good job! Seriously! Our rights only get trampled on because of apathy. Human decency/manners/rules of safety are regularly broken for convenience in this world and it'll only get worse as long as people don't stand up to it.

A few nights ago while shopping some lady in front of me brought at least 50 items to the express lane, I was behind her. I followed her out to the parking lot and told her that if I ever caught her doing that again she'd pay for my time with her blood. That's one less asshole in the express lane FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE because I stood up to her and put fear into her.

A few days ago someone was double-parked at the mall. It was quite apparent that she decided that since a shopping cart was taking half the space she wanted she could take two spaces. I parked my car right where I should have, between the lines, but it was under two inces from her door, she was totally blocked in. I watched her climb though the passenger side from the mall,, and approaced my car just as she was pulling out. She asked why I blocked her in and I gave her a nice explanation about RULES and how to use the 'P' on her transmission to leave the car and move a blocking cart. There's another asshole of the world who will probably NEVER double park again because it's not worth the trouble I made it.

RFID "Poppers"?

[rdmiller3]

Looks like there will soon be a market for gizmos which can burn out RFID tags. It shouldn't be too hard to drive enough energy into them to make them go "pop" somwhere inside.

Small ones could become a problem for store owners who try to rely on RFID to catch shoplifters though.