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An ID Number for Everything
jon323456 writes "Put this in your privacy pipe and smoke it. According to news.com, MIT researchers have cooked up a new barcode that has enough dataspace to include a unique serial number for everything. And in combination with RFID tags...."
Damn man, MIT must be slipping. I could give you uniqueness using only 64-bits.
So could any coder who cut his teeth on machine language.
We need to stop teaching Perl/Python/Java as a first language. Make the uber-generation deal with opcodes and registers. Assembler will put hair on your chest boy!
The point is, bits aren't cheap. If we're going to set standards for their allocation, let's let somebody who knows what they're doing do it. Yes?
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Why call this a barcode? It's an ID tag. Kinda like a DSL 'modem' I guess.
There's no doubt the /. community needs this document.
Mark E. Petersen
Council of the 12 Apostles
Be assured that you can be cured of your difficulty. Many have been, both male and female, and you can be also if you determine that it must be so.
This determination is the first step. That is where we begin. You must decide that you will end this practice, and when you make that decision, the problem will be greatly reduced at once.
But it must be more than a hope or a wish, more than knowing that it is good for you. It must be actually a DECISION. If you truly make up your mind that you will be cured, then you will have the strength to resist any tendencies which you may have and any temptations which may come to you.
After you have made this decision, then observe the following specific guidelines:
A Guide to Self-Control:
1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.
2. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.
3. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don't suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will. You must get away from people of that kind. Just to be in their presence will keep your problem foremost in your mind. The problem must be taken OUT OF YOUR MIND for that is where it really exists. Your mind must be on other and more wholesome things.
4. When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress AND THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM into a room where you will have some member of your family present.
5. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.
6. If the temptation seems overpowering while you are in bed, GET OUT OF BED AND GO INTO THE KITCHEN AND FIX YOURSELF A SNACK, even if it is in the middle of the night, and even if you are not hungry, and despite your fears of gaining weight. The purpose behind this suggestion is that you GET YOUR MIND ON SOMETHING ELSE. You are the subject of your thoughts, so to speak.
7. Never read pornographic material. Never read about your problem. Keep it out of mind. Remember -- "First a thought, then an act."
The thought pattern must be changed. You must not allow this problem to remain in your mind. When you accomplish that, you soon will be free of the act.
8. Put wholesome thoughts into your mind at all times. Read good books -- Church books -- Scriptures -- Sermons of the Brethern [sic, Cistern too?]. Make a daily habit of reading at least one chapter of Scripture, preferably from one of the four Gospels in the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon. The four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- above anything else in the Bible can be helpful because of their uplifting qualities.
9. Pray. But when you pray, don't pray about this problem, for that will tend to keep [it] in your mind more than ever. Pray for faith, pray for understanding of the Scriptures, pray for the Missionaries, the General Authorities, your friends, your families, BUT KEEP THE PROBLEM OUT OF YOUR MIND BY NOT MENTIONING IT EVER -- NOT IN CONVERSATION WITH OTHERS, NOT IN YOUR PRAYERS. KEEP IT _OUT_ of your mind! The attitude of a person toward his problem has an affect on how easy it is to overcome. It is essential that a firm commitment be made to control the habit. As a person understands his reasons for the behavior, and is sensitive to the conditions or si
It takes all those PhDs to figure out that a really, really big number can hold lots of information.
So basically.. they're using a 96 digit bar code instead of a 12 or 14..
wow stop the presses.. thatis revolutionary..
oh wait I got an idea.. lets use 128.. or better yet 1024!!! we'll never need to make a new standard for thousands of years!
woooo!(ric-flair like woooo)
fp
Now I can start tagging my subatomic particle collection!
Is MIT now to get its own section?
I guess it's still in the queue. Still pending:
SCO (obviously)
John Carmack
And now MIT. Anything else?
So, my tinfoil hat will now have a unique code as well. What's a paranoid /. geek to do?
fp fp fp!
Maybe I'm the only one confused here, but why would anyone want to invest absurd ammounts of money into upgrading an id system when the current is good enough.
I don't remember anyone complaing about not having enough barcodes etc...
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
Slashdot readership desperately needs this document. Please read.
Mark E. Petersen
Council of the 12 Apostles
Be assured that you can be cured of your difficulty. Many have been, both male and female, and you can be also if you determine that it must be so.
This determination is the first step. That is where we begin. You must decide that you will end this practice, and when you make that decision, the problem will be greatly reduced at once.
But it must be more than a hope or a wish, more than knowing that it is good for you. It must be actually a DECISION. If you truly make up your mind that you will be cured, then you will have the strength to resist any tendencies which you may have and any temptations which may come to you.
After you have made this decision, then observe the following specific guidelines:
A Guide to Self-Control:
1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.
2. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.
3. If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, YOU MUST BREAK OFF THEIR FRIENDSHIP. Never associate with other people having the same weakness. Don't suppose that two of you will quit together, you never will. You must get away from people of that kind. Just to be in their presence will keep your problem foremost in your mind. The problem must be taken OUT OF YOUR MIND for that is where it really exists. Your mind must be on other and more wholesome things.
4. When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress AND THEN GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM into a room where you will have some member of your family present.
5. When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.
6. If the temptation seems overpowering while you are in bed, GET OUT OF BED AND GO INTO THE KITCHEN AND FIX YOURSELF A SNACK, even if it is in the middle of the night, and even if you are not hungry, and despite your fears of gaining weight. The purpose behind this suggestion is that you GET YOUR MIND ON SOMETHING ELSE. You are the subject of your thoughts, so to speak.
7. Never read pornographic material. Never read about your problem. Keep it out of mind. Remember -- "First a thought, then an act."
The thought pattern must be changed. You must not allow this problem to remain in your mind. When you accomplish that, you soon will be free of the act.
8. Put wholesome thoughts into your mind at all times. Read good books -- Church books -- Scriptures -- Sermons of the Brethern [sic, Cistern too?]. Make a daily habit of reading at least one chapter of Scripture, preferably from one of the four Gospels in the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon. The four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- above anything else in the Bible can be helpful because of their uplifting qualities.
9. Pray. But when you pray, don't pray about this problem, for that will tend to keep [it] in your mind more than ever. Pray for faith, pray for understanding of the Scriptures, pray for the Missionaries, the General Authorities, your friends, your families, BUT KEEP THE PROBLEM OUT OF YOUR MIND BY NOT MENTIONING IT EVER -- NOT IN CONVERSATION WITH OTHERS, NOT IN YOUR PRAYERS. KEEP IT _OUT_ of your mind! The attitude of a person toward his problem has an affect on how easy it is to overcome. It is essential that a firm commitment be made to control the habit. As a person understands his reasons for the behavior, and is sensitive to the conditions or situations that may trigg
Gillette was listed as an attendee. This is the same gillette who took photos of customers purchasing their products using an rfid-triggered cameras.
M.I.T. researchers should maybe have some ethics that go a little like:
MAYBE WE SHOULDNT WORK ON PROJECTS THAT MAY BE USED TO ENSLAVE MANKIND BY BIG BROTHER
now I ask you is that so F**%ing hard for a bunch of brainiacs.
(damn, take em out get em laid,show em theres some life to be had out there and they pull a stunt like this)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Good thing they can't put the tags on Windows security holes, viruses, and worms. I bet THEN we could run out and not have one for "everything". Oh the humanity...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
will it ID my turds?
that's 2^96 = 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336
hosts... minus 2 for the broadcast and the network address. Um...No thats not right.. damn cisco.
I have always wanted to have my own serial number. maybe I finally can refer to other people with numbers!
To start with, let's give each of those ID chips a number! Oh wait... now there are no numbers left for all my other stuff!
Maybe, at this rate, MIT will rename themselves to MOT - Ministry of Truth
I don't have to settle for bar coding entire dust bunnies, I can barcode the individual pieces of lint. Does anyone know where I can find a very tiny Zebra bar code printer?
The article mentions "an ID on every car axle". Even my Hemi? How are you gonna get an ID on the axle of my Hemi with my boot shoved.. well you know where. Not likely! There will be a huge fight against these in terms of the privacy issues -- tracking cars, for example.
stuff |
oh my god!! oh my god!! we're all gonna DIE!!!!!!!!
shut up.
Thus with 80 digit barcode you should able to label every particle in the universe :)
...don't they know that their inventions will only be used for evil?
mbbac
Take a felt tipped marker. Make one of the lines thicker.
Problem Solved!
Did I just violate DMCA?
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Actually, having a unique bar code could be very beneficial when recovering lost and stolen property. If everything is uniquely identified, and you have somehow recorded your id codes for certain things that are of some value (either real value or sentimental), this could potentially aid in goods recovery. Granted, it could be taken to absurd extremes, but for more important items (artwork, computers, rare books, etc), this could be invaluable.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
This barcode tatoo on the back of my neck is going to seem So Dated.
due to amonia cloud in the air? that was only 'news' for about 2 minutes on the AP 'news' service. probably nothing anybody needs to know anything about.
i'm sure robbIE hasn't heard about IT?
Everyone knows how much street cred you get with a low /. ID..
Why not just give every item an IPv6 address? Assign the UCC a /16 for merchandise and you've got 2^112 == 5e33 possible codes. The IPv6 folks are going on and on about giving everything an IP address--wouldn't this be a perfect application?
Hmm. If everything can have a unique ID, and an RFID tag to go with it, then my cunning solution is to insist that each RFID tag has its own unique ID (and tag) as well. Privacy intrusion defeated by the power of recursion!
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
That's still no match for my pr0n collection.
I guess this guy is obsolete now!
He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
ID's? That's so horrible. I might get recognized, or oh, so horrible, my jacket might get id'd. Can't I get my privacy anywhere? Oh yeah, I forgot, privacy just went on sale at JCPenney's. Anyone for a shopping trip? Better yet, let's focus on privacy issues, not paranoia.
It has been shown that IPv6 will provide 4 IP numbers per square centimetre of space on earth. That should be enough to cover all products. My proposal would be to make the UPC the same as a IPv6 number, and then make the barcode show the item's IPv6 address. Network configuration would be simplified - just scan the barcode - and the item wouldn't need a UPC *and* a IPv6. They would be the same. That would simplify marketing and tracking as well, items such as coke cans and underwar could simply be ping:ed on the net. No need to bother with those RFID tags.
Put this in your privacy pipe and smoke it.
Maybe the things that I smoke in my privacy pipe is my own freakin' business- that never occurred to you now, did it?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Passive RFID can already do that.
...and can be read at greater distances, can't be duplicated, can be used in any type of material, is more durable, etc...
So we can give the barcodes barcodes, and the barcode's barcode a barcode? What about a barcode for the barcode's barcode's barcode?
"79228162514264337593543950336 bar codes ought to be enough for anyone."
--MIT, 2003
That green slime had it coming.
Infinite numberspace for numbering, well, pretty much anything and everything.
http://www.alvestrand.no/objectid/
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
How do I know that I will not accidentally eat one of these chips when biting into my next apple? To really put these RFID tags on everything, they have to make them edible, too. Also, many fruits and bulk items have no packaging and are often sold by weight, so how will they make an RFID chip for that?
10 Bits= $.25
100 Bits= $.50
110 Bits= $.75
1000 Bits= 1 byte
This is fantastic. I can RFID tag every single item that I own and find anything at any time. I'll never lose the TV remote, or have to use my clapper key ring again! I'll even be able to find that 1980's Member's Only jacket when it comes back into style.
--- I'm Green Hornet's sidekick not Inspector Clouseau's!
A ninety six bit R F I D and Ashcroft privacy will die...
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
Maybe it'll be like vanity phone numbers... I got dibs on 1337!!!
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Rich area of pop-cultural history, examples like this. "All the grains of rice in the world" sure sounds like a lot. When people want to describe a huge expense, they often stack one-dollar bills "to the moon and back" a certain number of times. (If they want to diminish a similarly huge cost number, they can store those same bills in a modest-sized imaginary dumpster.) They didn't used to use the moon so much, it was more "X times around the world" back in 19th century papers, I think. Grains of rice are a good one, though sand would be more impressive.
Every molecule, though -- kind of transcends metaphor, doesn't it? How do they even get an estimate of the number of molecules in the world? Makes you wonder how God handles revision control...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Wow! This needs some kind of cool name, like... like...
MIT Everyware, perhaps?
Tweet, tweet.
I think that everyone that is working on making this sort of thing happen should be assassinated.
I am the new number 2.
I am Number 2
...
Who is Number 1?
You Are Number 6.
What do you want?
We want Information!
Just a guy with an opinion
We're talking some heavy crunching power.
To have any useful application, those codes would have to be linked to transactions and locations.
Imagine trying to update the transactions and locations of just every can of Coke sold every day.
Manufactured
Shipped from the manufacturing plant
Received at the warehouse
Shipped to the store
Sold to the customer
Does it hit good?
The 12-digit bar code that's used across the United States was introduced in the 1970s, and the retail industry is close to running out of new combinations.
UPC-A barcodes are 12 digit long. There are many many other types of barcodes, including 2D barcodes that can hold up to 1K of data on them. They just have to pick another type of barcode, like CODE128, for consumer products and declare it the new standard. No need for revolutionary changes here.
Look in the SUPPORTED_BARCODES file in the cuecat driver archive to see how many 1D barcode types already exist.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
barcodes for every thing, even cash. It could be well nigh impossible to have an anonymous transaction, unless you resort to barter, but make sure that you have removed the RFID (if it is legal to do so). So you microwave you dollars to fry the RFID, this could be illegal and no business would accept your cash. The possibilities are endless, and very scary.
But if you are not doing anything illegal you have nothing to worry about
Tell that to the Cubans who simply want to loan books to their friends---oops Animal Farm, 1984, the Bible are illegal in Cuba.
You're a complete asshole. I just wish that you would SHUT UP! Congratulations, by the way. You're the first person I've told to shut up, and thus, you're the first person I am going to put on my foes list! STAY TUNED for more of me telling people to shut up.
"No more inventory counts. No more lost or misdirected shipments. No more guessing how much material is in the supply chain--or how much product is on the store shelves."
Wrong. Completely wrong. If you have ever worked for a major retailer, you will come to understand this reality.
ID's are not a panacea. You have to have a system of control and accountability over your inventory that makes use of a unique ID and checks itself constantly, forcing correction.
Brilliant. I've still got cancer though.
I wonder how much MIT paid VA Software today...
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasSSSSHole
When some doofus screws up the "next ID" field and a bunch of items get duplicate ID numbers? Creation of unique ID's is a PITA problem and I don't think that the average manufacturer is going to get it right for some time.
Top Ten Differences Between Democrats and Republicans (from the perspective of a Democrat):
10. Democrats take your money and give it to social programs. Republicans take your money and give it to their friends.
9. Democrats lie about sex. Republicans sex up their lies.
8. Democrats think international cooperation means working with the United Nations. Republicans think international cooperation means working with Exxon/Mobil.
7. Democrats try to save the planet. Republicans try to pave the planet.
6. Democrats are elected. Republicans are selected.
5. Democrats make treaties. Republicans break them.
4. Democrats support a social welfare system. Republicans support a corporate welfare system.
3. Democrats defend the rights of white supremacists. Republicans are the white supremacists.
2. Democrats govern. Republicans rule.
1. Democrats call people who don't believe in the separation of church and state a threat to civil liberties. Republicans call them judicial appointees.
the numbers serialise *you*.
And to think I only read the article to make sure, afterall I at least remembered this story from not so long ago ... looks like you didn't read the article then either, did ya :)
That was one of the best (Score:5, Funny) posts I have ever read.
But still, shut up, and welcome to my "Foes" list. You sub 200,000 bastard.
But I already have 666 just above my hairline.
If I remember my physics correctly, there are approx 2^(1E80) particles in the universe. This is going to be one heck of a long barcode. I hope I'm not in a supermarket self-checkout line with someone with a whole basket of these things. :-)
sig--we don't need no goddamn sig
I hearby claim first bar
|
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
So where are they gonna put this barcode, oops, ID Tag on people? If it's on the ass no one will be able to scan mine through all the hair.
"Sheep just follow the easiest path and run from scary noises and intimidating creatures." - Me
"Every molecule on Earth is what the MIT boys said," Abell said.
Wow, them MIT boys shure know their tech-nology!
on a side note, with radio frequency barcodes can I phone my cereal to pour itself? I'm still waiting for that oven I can call from my cell to turn itself on... or a successful internet business model.
I'm so tired of you sub-1000 numbered bastards hanging out on here and getting free Karma for putting the toilet seat down when you're finished. Just shut your big face.
Pie hole. Shut it.
SHUT. UP!
WELCOME TO MY FOES LIST.
I will continue to campaign against lower numbers getting free karma points for being elders. This place reeks of geritol.
Let's see... 2D bar-codes have been able to hold more than that for... how long?
To be fair, I higher density 1D bar-code that can be reliably read would be useful to a whole lot of industries, but it's just not revolutionary.
You'll always have a need to do a physical audit.
Roflmao....we havent had privacy for almost a generation maybe two..... We have had an illusion of privacy....the only thing this technology is doing is destroying the illusion.... Stop worrying the war was lost before we new it was being fought........ The only thing that stops any oligarical entity from knowing anything and everything about you is a lack of profit motivation or interest.... Your only defense is to be as boring as possible... Of course thats no fun....so to hell with them... My answer is that randomly once a day you should drop your pants and moon the world..... Let them add that to their database of activities... It would give a whole new meaining to the term: Moonies......
..., it's instead of 12 or 14 digits not bits.
For 12 digits you need at least 40 bits...
What about using IPv6?
I'd rather have each item identified by a unique bar code than a unique RFID chip. Bar codes don't broadcast information. Unfortunately I predict the more invasive technology (RFID) will become the industry/worldwide standard.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Man, I don't want to be respomsible for that database.
Hey, Microsoft, maybe you'd like a shot at this one? Then everyone would be happy knowing that there data may not be secure, but when it crashes (not if), we all get to start over.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
GOTCHA
I know there is the potential for this to be misused, but to be honest, I don't think the potential is much worse. If a big bad tracking company is going to follow me, I don't feel any worse about them knowing that I bought this specific can of Coke rather than just a can of Coke.
On the other hand, if my bike is stolen, and can be uniquely identified, I'm happier.
Plus, the advantage that this would give to controlling the supply chain, inventory levels and statistics for sales etc and nearly endless.
It's just my 2, but I don't feel that the potential risk of these identifier chips outweigh the potential benefits.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
If I had ever signed up...
I would give you a +1 Funny
AND (for a limited time only):
a +1 Funny for the person who gave the +1 Interesting
While reading another article about those nasty RIFD tags the other day, I suddenly had a thought....
Why not just attach the RFID tags to the product packaging rather than permanently to the product itself. The packaging gets thrown away, not the product. Most of the privacy issues simply disappear. (Other than that someone could run your trash through an RFID scanner, but would still need access to a database in order to determine that that number is a particular subversive book that you should not be reading.)
I'm not saying it's a total solution to the problem of RFID tag privacy. But if tags were affixed to packaging rather than products, most / many privacy issued just go away. (Some remain.) Or have I overlooked something major?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
So you have a 96-bit ID number. That means you have 2^96 unique numbers.
Make a tag for each one.
Let's say for the sake of argument that the tags weigh 0.01 grams.
Now make all 2^96 of them. You have just created 792,281,625,142,643,375,935,439.50336 kg of tags.
That's a shitload of tags! For reference, Planet Earth has a mass of 5.972e24kg. Your tags would weigh 1/132 as much as the entire planet.
That's less than 1%, but that's still a MAJOR volume of tags. We'd be choking on them. They'd be everywhere.
At 1,000,000 tags per second, how long would it take to manufacture 2^96 tags? 7,922,162,514,264,337,593,543 seconds. That's 2,512,308,552,583,217 years.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"Under EPC, every can of Coke would have a one-of-a-kind identifier."
It occured to me that it's quite possible that such unique id's on consumable items could later get tracked back to their purchasers, then automatically impose a littering fine on them if said Coke can is found empty and discarded on the ground somewhere.
I don't really see that as becoming a reality, but it's possible.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
If we ate a tag with every meal, in theory we could associate our bowel movements with what we ate. This could be useful in determining what gave you food poisoning or diarrhea.
Since they're already identified by their own unique IPv6 address, they don't need another barcode!
Only problem is that you can't get just one. Try it, and another one will come ripping right out of the vacuum. Guess it's a two-or-three-for-the-price-of-one deal, though.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Actually, 2^96 = (roughly) 8 10^28
Now, Earth's mass is 6 10^24 kg, so their calculation is wrong, since a molecule weighs far less than 0.075 g (6 10^24 / 8 10^28 = 7.5 10^-5).
However, they said "on Earth", so I guess they are not going to ID the core and most of the mantle. In that case, it oughta be enough.
Well 96 bits is a little inconvenient for storing these values in a database.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
How the hell am I gonna get IDs for my collection of 128-bit barcodes?
Dumb comments post MICHAEL!!!!
6^66
that's 2^96 = 79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336 hosts... minus 2 for the broadcast and the network address. Um...No thats not right.. damn cisco.
Actually, it's minus three. You forgot to allow for the Evil bit.
No, no, no, you'd label each _molecule_ within the paint can and query that silly ;)
No Comment.
obviously manufacturers want to make money, but i feel soooo owned now. It just never ends. I give up. Best I can do is kill myself but barring that, i'll probably just end up solidifying my skills at tuning out their hype altogether.
2^96 is not nearly enough for every molecule on earth. Avogadro's number is 6 * 10^23, which is approximately the number of protons that weigh 1 kilogram together. Most molecules weigh less than 100 protons. 2^96 = 8 * 10^28. So at most 10^7 kilogram can be tagged uniquely with ECP. The earth weighs approximately 6 * 10^24 kilograms. Yeah, those "MIT boys" are really smart...
I thought all those RFID tags already HAD a unique number. So you don't need barcodes *at all*..
I love this idea. I'll never loose my keys again, or I could track what everyone who comes into my house has in their pocket, or track the exact route of every part of my car.
Or I could find the history of an item at a tag sale or on eBay. Gee, I could walk by a person's trunk and see what they havein their trunk, or what they have in their house! That way I know exactly what I want to borrow from my neighbors. It's CueCat gone wild!! (this might also keep thieves away from my house, since I have nothing of value and they would know it before they tried to break in)
I could put tags on my kids, or on me and have my house welcome me home! No more motion-detector lights, RFID detector lights are the future.
You fools with your tinfoil hats. Don't you realize that ALCAN is behind it all. They're the ones pulling the strings. You worry about signals from satellites? Don't you know that the brain scanners are in underground caverns? From there, your tinfoil hat makes a beautiful parabolic dish with the focal point in your brain. They *WANT* you to wear your tinfoil hat!
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
It's too bad the original poster didn't actually read the article, since it's pretty clear that they are not talking about a new encoding for barcodes, they are talking about replacing barcodes with rfid chips. (See the very first paragraph of the article, "which could someday replace with a microchip the series of black vertical lines found on most merchandise", or the group's website) This is ground we've covered a dozen times. Oh, well, I guess that's to be expected for stories Michael posts.
Unless, of course, that your whole business is the warehousing and distribution of RFID tags. If that's the case, you're probably just about set.
Does this barcode spec have enough dataspace to represent all the barcodes that can be generated from the spec, AND anything else? Huh?
Those MIT people think they're *so* smart...
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
You'll always have a need to do a physical audit.
Of course, but it's faster and easier to have your physical auditors just running around looking for damaged goods than it is to have them walking around with clipboards counting everything.
everything in moderation
class A's (large blocks with only the first few digits fixed)) will go to nabisco and rj reynolds,
and other major conglomerates manufacturing facilities..
it will peter down to small manufacturers, (voodoo pc, jolt cola, tshirthell.com) getting the level of a 'class c' allocation each.
inevitably, as a result, there will be bizarre imbalances, as there are with such as MIT's multiple class A ip space which is excessive, and others who get a class C for a third world location.. (if memory serves, there are 1 or 2 'dark' class A allocations out there)
imagine the owners of Marlboro (in a few years, when they finally fold) never using their assigned prefix again, that would be a huge chunk of not-used prefix code.
is this barcode type encoding to allow for the requirements of both all 1- Types of things out there, 2-individual units of each type, and 3-assignment inbalances? each Manufacturer having a "BLOCK" that they will never use all of?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
This is really nothing compared to RFID.
Y'see, if a policeman asks to scan my barcode every time I get on a bus or train, I know that I'm being monitored, and I can avoid it if I really want. If shop owners want to scan my barcode before I enter a store I can refuse, or go to another store. Or remove the barcodes from all my things.
However, if the RFID in my shoes is logged by the government owned scanner on every street corner, I'll have no idea about it. I can try removing the chips from all my clothes, but the chances are I'll miss one.
RFID is scary because it allows you to be identified or monitored without your permission and without your knowledge. People dislike RFID because they aren't disabled when you leave the store from which you bought your item, and the only uses of an active RFID chip on something you have legitemately bought are privacy invading.
(And just to prempt some replies, I really don't buy this 40cm range crap. 40cm max now, on consumer tech maybe. 40cm max in 5 years time, on equipment owned by the government, I highly doubt it.)
The same exact thought occured to me. Right now, if someone dumps garbage in, say, a park the only way they can investigate it is if there is a witness or they find addressed mail (or similar papers) in the pile. Now they'll just have to put bar codes on all of those damn Dunkin Doughnut coffee cups I constantly see on the ground.
I'm sure we'll see a market for microchip destroying devices of some sort for home use if RFID's ever take off in significant numbers.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Morally
Indifferent
Technologists
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
When our whole lives are encoded in a database, what is to stop future legislation that punishes people for crimes they never knew they commited? What about people who make mistakes in their young adult years and want to reinvent themselves somewhere else but can't due to their digital legacy? What about people whose business isn't our own but who have access to this data and use it against us?
Databases of this scale are immensely dangerous regardless of what trivial conveniences they allow. These databases can take our lives out of their social context and make us vulnerable to blackmail and extortion by public officials.
These databases also violate the Fourth Amendment. What about a future where law enforcement officials don't even need to step on a person's property to execute a search?
Simply, privacy is fundamentally important and is a fundamental human right. Only when citizens can control their own information, can a proper balance of power be mainained in a representative democracy like the USA. Remember, those who hold the information are those who are truly in power.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Usually people say every atom, instead of every molecule, since it's a more understood number. Anyway, I want an ID for every arrangement of atoms. One atom of H is as good as another, I they don't need labels. It's the combinations that I want to label!
You have a troll! Joy. Seems to me they have little to do with each other beyond being product identifiers. But leave it to /. to hype up a news story...
The article is pretty confusing. This is not a barcode at all: it is just setting up the number space that will be used for RFID tags. All that has been decided, AFAICS, is that it will be a 96 bit code in the RFID chip, MIT will hold the central registgry, and many interested manufacturers are meeting to agree on how to divide up and administer that 96 bit space.
Bit of a "Duh" if you ask me. Of course it has to be done, but this is pure implementation territory: it doiesn't affect the privacy issues on bit.
Mind you, I do wonder what the delta cost on the RFID chip of moving from 96 bit to (say) 128 bit - or even 256-bit. While I agree that these things are going to be produced in trillions and therefore millionths of a cent add up, I would have thought that most of the cost was constant per unit - slicing, packaging, testing etc.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Bad situation:
mom and dad walk by little jimmy's room, pull out the scanner, and find jimmy has:
2 packs of cigs
5 porno videos, including the tommy lee video
a 50 pack of condoms
and a "3 foot long tobacco enhacement product (tm)"
dad says to mom "thats my boy!"
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.
Reality is that the likelihood of extortion and blackmail over previous events in life becomes far less likely if everyone is held accountable. Currently the system is built more around how much money one can throw to make things go away.
The sad state of affairs, particularly in the US, is that everyone is expected to live up to a high level of morality, because everyone hides what they've done wrong. When no one can hide what they've done wrong, the system as a whole becomes far less black and white.
The real issue of privacy is whether or not we can build a system by which equal accountability will be maintained, not whether or not being able to hide one's past is a right.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
because eventually we will all be tagged. I, for one, welcome our new tagging, RFID-issuing, serial-number giving, camera-spying, transaction-monitoring, computer-tracking, satellite imagining, Big Brother overlords!
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
This is tha main problem with most technical people, they keep forgetting that technologie is a tool. If yoy can't trust the bar code how can you trust a tag???????
This won't catch missing stuff (like stuff where the tags have "fallen off" with a little help from employees - the tags are still on the shelf, but the merchandise has developed feet), nor stuff where tags have been "swapped" between higher and lower-priced items (like the current scam of printing your own barcodes on adhesive labels, so that $700 TV scans as a lower-priced model at $239.99 at the checkout).
mmmmhhh. delicious :)
To be usable, the new system would have to mimic the current one, with some bits dedicated to a manufacturer ID number, and some bits for a product-id-within-that-manufacturer numbers, with the new system adding more bits for individual-item-id-within-product number. Each field must be made large enough to accomidate all manufacturers (ie, CocaCola has few products, but ships millions of each, while a book publisher would have thousands of products but with some only shipping a few hundred). This means that a lot of bits are "wasted" -- although they would be available to the manufacturer for their own subdivision. (Let's say it give 32bits for individual item id. A vender could say 1 bit indicated continient it made one, 3 bit for the country, 3 bits for the factory within that country; 7 bit, year; 4 bits, month; 5 bits, DOM; 9 bits, items made that day.)
I want all this because it makes me a better consumer, and isn't that what we are all striving for these days?
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
They could be tracked anywhere. And what is to stop someone else 'planting' a tag on any person or vehicle even if the tag was not originally designed for that purpose?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
And I suppose the aforementioned barcode will be tattoed on my forehead for convenience sake?
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Maybe the QueCat will get a new lease on life - Not!
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.
A Microchip? RFID readers? And so it begins--the method by which the AntiChrist will be able to mark us, as well as that which we buy.
Interesting....
In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the c
According to the Tao Te Ching there are only 10,000 things, so why so many bits? There must be extra info in there, like where I am going and what I am doing. The chips are spying on me!
Is my ROT13 working?
-----
Actually, it is worse than that. It takes all those PhDs to figure out that you can count really high if you just keep counting...
Dilberthas a good take
Now every SCO lawsuit and every RIAA subpoena can have its unique idenitifier.
...
Their products can also have an unique ID. for SCO I suggest 2 and RIAA 3
MIT Researcher 1: so , should we make it 96 bits or 128? MIT Researcher 2: "96 bits should be enough for anybody."
Finally, a way to find the odd sock...maybe I could see where my karma goes...
Warning: May contain nuts
Finally a use for IPV6!
I said molecules, not atoms...thus this would just be a wasted use of IPV6 ;)
No Comment.
After reading the article I don't understand a few things:
1. Why the article's title on CNET mentions "futuristic barcode" when the project is apparently in relation to low capacity (96bit) RFIDs or the like.
2. Why it took 5 years to develop. RFID technology is readily understood. Databases are readily understood, wireless communication is readily understood. Prototyping hardware and writing some connectivity software should not have taken 5 years for such a "group". I'm either dissapointed or confused.
3. Why give each tag a only specific serial number that MUST be looked up in the database to ID it. The current barcode mass-grouping is still valid even with more bits. A stripped down database could then be used for off-line reading and you would still know the manufacturer and possibly the product family. For example barcodes starting with "636920" are from O'Reilly; all barcodes starting with "05000" are from Nestle. Isn't that much easier than having NO idea what "aj380dk358fh3k8i" is?
4. Why access a database directly? Why not use the Internet and stanard DNS and HTML/XML? Purchase a domain and make simple IRLs that include the tag info: http://www.taginfo.org/044254 ? The server would see the code, and send back a response containing one of two things: 1: the product information in XML (including a link to more info from the manufacturer), 2: an error. Such a thin HTTP/HTML client could be written quite quickly and be embedded in almost anything. There are already many synconization and caching sytems in place for HTML.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
i don't have a privacy pipe you insensitive clod!!!
So what are the ID's for Life and The Universe?
Go hug some trees.
I like this. Give everything an id. Put the machines in chare. This will make life more efficient all-around. Make it easier for the machines to do stuff for us, so that we all have more time to sit around drinking beer and discussing the meaning of life.
.. that i don't count for squat compared to you. Then again I have the advantage over others (mwahahahaha)
A bar code the size of the universe!!!!!
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Actually, if you read carefully it appears they're replacing a 12 digit code system with a 96 bit one. (I hope you're not taking any physics classes right now.)
So basically they've increased their address space from
10^12 = 1000000000000
to
2^96 = 79228162514264337593543950336.
I think tha should last a while, don't you?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Gosh. Imagine every toothpick with an unique IPv6 address. ...Internet-enabled toothpick, that automatically sends your dental records to the central database.
GET ME HELL OUTA THIS PLANET!!!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I call #42. It's mine, I said it first!
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Did you mean to type http://www.pdf417.com/?
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
Just like MIT is talking about putting a unique ID on every consumer product, what if there were a way to, using a central clearinghouse, put a unique ID on every e-mail that is sent across the Internet?
The way to pay for this would be to make people pay per recipient on their messages. Even a small amount would be fine--$0.001 (1/10 cent) per recipient gets you 10,000 messages for $10.00--because it would be significant enough incentive to keep spammers from sending out messages to EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. The nice thing is that this still allows for commercial e-mail, because businesses would have an incentive to create MEANINGFUL mailing lists, and I don't think most people mind if they receive an occasional e-mail ad for something they are truly interested in.
The central clearing house is key here, because then you've got someone who can verify that the sender has paid the fare for the message that is being received.
I've got a couple of ideas for business models for this, including profit incentives for ISPs to adopt this "AMTP" (Audited Mail Transfer Protocol) system, such as franchising the clearing-house aspect of it and much more. If anyone is interesting in working on this sort of thing, I'd love to work with you!
How is this connected to the main topic? Well, I don't think the world is ready for individual codes per consumer item, but I know for a fact that the world is ready for a disincentive for SPAM (and unfettered distribution of worms, for that matter), and I think this sort of centralized serialization is the key to doing so.
The CB App. What's your 20?
I thought about mentioning that but it was already off-topic... ;-)
It will easily be millions of years again (and one could make the case for billions in the case of some minerals) before another species on Earth will have a chance to do what we do. In fact, the proof for this far-off species that there was an intelligent species preceding them in history is that the natural resources that replenish on the timescale of billions of years are all gone. (How they will curse us, though we still have the moral imperative to make the best of it, I think, rather then trying to modify our behavior for a hypothetical future species who would then themselves just 'use up' the resources.) Everything we've built will be gone, but not the resources we took.
The fact that we really are using this planet up is not a reason to try to cut back our use; that's doomed anyhow, a "boil the ocean" approach ("an approach that only works if everyone on the planet immediately buys in, which can't happen"; many dot-coms had "boil the ocean" business plans). The fact that we're the last shot means we need to go for broke and get to space while we've still got the resources to do it.
Actually we just need something to combat this. I think an RFID tag that changes its barcode randomly would do a lot to prevent worries.
Unless, of course, that your whole business is the warehousing and distribution of RFID tags.
No, not if you have to RFID tag your RFID tags.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
It's a little early for April fools joke right?
For those MIT grads now starting on a new project to see if there is a way store the IDs... let me save you the pain.
USE A DATABASE. DON'T USE YELLOW STICKIES.
I am not a number, I am a free man!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
About 96 bits, from the article:
Every molecule on Earth is what the MIT boys said
Lets do some math.
From Avagadro's number, 6.022E23 molecules per mole.
There are 22.4 liters per mole of an ideal gas at STP.
There are 1000 liters per cubic meter.
2^96 molecules * (1 mole / 6.022E23 molecules) * (22.4 liters / mole) * (1 m^3 / 1000 liter^3) =
2947 m^3
2947 m^3 is about 14.34 meters cubed.
There aren't even enough tags for every air molecule in an average sized building.
Lets do the calculations again, but this time for water:
2^96 molecules * (1 mole / 6.022E23 molecules) * (.018Kg / mole) = 2368 Kg of water. That's only 2.368 m^3 of water. I've seen aquariums larger than that!
Those MIT boys should get their facts right.
Because there are lots of comparisons to the 128 bits from IPv6, that would allow the tagging of all air molecules within about 1 foot of the earth's surface! You would need about 165 bits (give or take a few) for every molecule on earth.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
Sounds like a violation of the DMCA to me.
This is reply 0x9F58706330A1857839DB0F2C. Please refer to this ID in any correspondence.
a Beowulf cluster of those.
Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Then you realize how expensive it is to make your RFID circuits keep all those bits around. Printed electronics will probably bring RFID cheaply enough to be useful, but then you have the cost and area constraints on the number of bits.
A recent research paper showcased a 40-bit adder via printed electronics. And you want how many bits for your tags? Remember each of these RFIDs should cost $0.01 to print.
-Geoff
Actually, it's relatively easy to build in some sensor tech into your RFID circuits. Many people want printed RFID tags using organic conductive molecules and there are already shipping "electronic nose" devices for detecting all sorts of airborne molecules with the same compounds.
Add in a mass sensor to realize your paint cans are half-empty, one to determine that there's pigment in the "white" paint, etc.
In *theory* at least you can do all this with the same circuits. It's chemically possible, the electrical engineering and the physics has been done, etc. Now if someone actually makes a cheap enough RFID that can return this sort of information anytime soon is someone else's thing.
Dammit Jim, I'm a scientist, not an economist!
-Geoff
96 bits? 2^96 is the number of molecules of water in 2368 litres of distilled water.
I'd think that 128 bits would be the minimum to ensure uniqueness (number of molecules in 10 cubic kilometres of water).
It could be worse. You may be tagged as having purchased a bag of anal dildos.
If they're trying to invent a universal and perpetual ID-tagging system, 96 bits is too low IMHO. First off, we're not that far off from extra-plantery commercial activity, so the number of atoms on the planet is becoming irrelevant in the long-term view. Here's a more practical starting point: 99.8% of our Solar System's mass is in the Sun, which is roughly 75% hydrogen and 25% helium by mass. Using the known atomic weights and the mass of the sun, it becomes clear that 192 bits can enumerate every atom in the Sun with some margin for error. The remaining 0.2% of mass in the Solar System is small even in terms of mass - but since we counted the first 99.8% as hydrogen and helium atoms (the lightest), and some significant amount of the remaining 0.2% would be heavier elements, the margin of error between atoms in the sun and atoms in the solar system should be even smaller than this.
So, 192-bits, we can comfortably say, can enumerate the atoms in our solar system. Add another, what, like 16 more bits in case we decide to address more-fundamental particles like quarks and gluons and whatnot. We're at 208 bits now. Then remember than a database indexed by a 208-bit random number with no structural information would suck to search - therefore prefix codes will have to be used to classify objects and assign them to various owners and/or databases, which will lead to large wasteage in the number space. Add some headroom to cover this, round up to the nearest power-of-two bitsize, and you arrive at the reasonable number of 256 bits.
Considering that it requires the use of more particles to construct a number in some memory storage device than the number of particles *in* the enumerated things (like, it may well take a few atoms worth of particles to store the number for one tagged atom or whatever), this means that since the current system can address the particles we know of in the solar system, we'd be incapable of assigning all the numbers in the system until we were building storage systems from matter found outside our solar system, which should provide a reasonably huge amount of time to come up with a new system of numbering things.
11*43+456^2
I thought OID standard already gave hierarchical structural ID-numbers to every particle in the universe we ever want to give ID to.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3061.txt
Will they implement OID-codes into the EPC-codes or put EPC-codes part of the OID-codes?
Maybe OIDs are too sparse and should be compressed losslessly and then encoded in BASE64, huh?
Running out of 12 digit numbers is incorrect. The move to 14 digits is to harmonize both the 12 digit UPC and the 13 digit EAN systems. No additional UPC will be added. In fact, all 14 digit UPCs will be the same as before, with the addition of 2 leading 0s. For non-consumer applications, the leading digit is used as a 'Packaging Identifier', and will probably never be seen by most people. The UPC allocation process, on the other hand will be changed. In the past, a unique 6 digit number was given to each manufacturer. This left 5 digits for the products and 1 digit for the checksum. The new process will allocate cheaper, longer manufacturer numbers (7 or 8 digits), for companies that have less than 99,999 products.
It'll be "retro".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Of course, this might be ten years out or something, but it's entirely possible today, just prohibitively expensive. I'd be surprised if someone didn't make something like this for some specialized purpose. I'd be really annoyed if no one was doing it today for, say, wines and spirits.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Soda cans as well as other foodstuffs have unique IDs printed on them. Maybe it's not per can, but it is per lot. Check the bottom of your can.
And imagine the cost of putting a microchip on every can. The current method works just fine.
I'd rather take a few hits from my privacy bong.
?tag=fd_top
link (with proper &, even)
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
For certain given values of 'everything', presumably. Every molecule on Earth, they say. I hope the number of each molecule needs less than a molecule of ink to write down, or we have a problem.
Doubt.It, The comic
Yes, but to do that audit all you do is walk down each aisle of the warehouse or store with a magic scanner that excites all the RFID tags in a 3m range. This is in contrast to having to pay some slob to physically count each package on each shelf every so often and record the results.
Ask any auditor whether they would accept anything less than a physical count.
Hits great!