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RFID Hell
Matrix2110 writes "Finally, somebody has stepped up with an article that descibes the potental abuse of RFID. Imagine being flagged for social tendencies.
Gattaca is not so far off as we think. it is simply a pass of a wand for your embedded tag rather than a drop of blood."
I'd really like to think that the people running our state wouldn't sink to this level. But the USA Patriot Act kind of disabused me of that notion. I'm offering donations for anyone who can make a device that will disable all RFID tags within a 50 foot radius.
Frea of the potential abuses of technology are as old as technology itself. I'm sure the first fire starters were considered sorcerers who would bring the wrath of the gods on your village if they were unhappy (i.e. burn it down at midnight).
Technology is netural, people use it and abuse it, but it does not take an RFID tag to make a man a monster.
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'Because it tracks where they go every day it would mean they would not have to be picked up every time there is an offence committed,' Wyre said.
This logically implies that unregistered "sex offenders" WILL be picked on every time there is an offence committed, most likely before any serious researching is done.
So when this is extended beyond known offenders that means it will be YOU being tracked, your every move logged.
What's good about that?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
don't be simplistic.
true, it's not RFID tags per se. however, the group targeted to wear tags is such that "no one" will oppose it--protect the children and all that stuff.
until, of course, some old politician gets caught with a teenager.
"convicted paedophiles" can quickly become "sex offender"-which is sometimes something as stupid as pissing in the park.
One often sees technology being used to combat the symptoms of a problem. But fixing the symptom does not equal a cure.
Why do we have child molesters in the first place is the question that should be asked IMHO. Is it the oversexed society we live in? The furstration of men (it allways seems to be men) who can not deal with grown up relationships? Or is it our reduced tolerance towards such things?
Do not forget, not very far in the past it was quite normal to marry a teenager if the dowry/match/social status was interesting...
Im not saying that we should not care about child abuse. It is horrible crime and it must be eradicated. I just wonder whether we are dealing with it in the right way...
Complexity is a measure of our ignorance...
Theres already quite a few options for tracking in an emergency - mobile phones, credit cards, license plates, pay-phones etc. but they all depend on the person using those things. RFID tags would be another thing on that list but it would be much harder to avoid them - you would have to cut them out of clothes and buy things anonymously and if you did have a tag on you that could be linked to you then you would have to avoid all shops and anyone with a portable tag scanner which would be even harder.
The technology is there to plant hidden tags on people so potentially anyone, or any government agency (legally or not) could plant these tags without peoples knowledge and make sure scanners are distributed around the place - so basically everyones screwed. Using a GPS system like this will give you more coverage but its much harder to hide so you have to tell the person they are being tracked and that if they try and remove it you'll be there in 2mins (well actually i doubt very much that the link is live 24/7 so if you did rip it off and smash the phone you would have a decent amount of time to get the hell out of there).
RFID tags would be cool aslong as their are strict laws against tracking people and once you are out of the shop you are legally free to remove and destroy the chip (they should indicate where it is and how to remove it without damaging goods). While this makes it pretty pointless as an anti-shoplifting device it has to be done. Also they should (under the data-protection act etc) have to remove the serial number from their database. If your not paranoid then RFID tags would be useful for finding all those lost pens and the tv remote and letting your fridge track what you put in and its use-by-date and all that stuff.
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As touched on above the tracking devices in use within the Unites States are used as an alternative to incarceration, not as a tracking device *after* a sentence is served. We worry about the infringement of rights perpetrated on the convicted but fail to realize that while in prison these individuals are subject to far more oppression than governmental oversight. I can assure you that while serving time within the walls of a correctional facility the precept of "tracking" inmates would not raise the first hackle on even the most liberal neck. Instead, release the inmate prior to the completion of his/her sentence and implement an oversight mechanism and - viola! we have rights violations. It is curtailing illusory freedom that frightens us. It was mentioned in the article that this "blurs the line between guilt and innocence" - I would think the real psychological struggle is contained in blurring the lines between freedom and incarceration...
If you consider the facts - I mean real facts from reality and not imaginations from scifi movies like Gattaca - then you have to conclude that RFID tag provide huge benefits for people and economy. Take some examples:
- RFID tags can be used for health, care and security protection and will enables us to fight problems like illnesses, crime and terrorism.
- RFID tags provide a huge range of new marketing and service opportunities.
- RFID tags can create new immersive environments increasing life quality at home and productiness at work.
- RFID tags will help to protect the enviroment
by enabling intelligent recycling, garbage disposal and reduing resource consumption thus preserving the creation given to us by the Lord for use.
This list can obviously enlarged by much more applications.So if you use your brain instead of irrationally technology fear then you will indeed conclude that RFIDs are essential for our future and therefore we should propagate their use instead of spreading the fear propaganda originating from some interested fundamentalist groups.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Now you're getting into the old discussion of whether technology can be good or evil, or whether it's always neutral.
On a personal note, I do think that technology is indeed neutral, only its uses can be good or bad. However, regardless of how many good uses there would be to determining someone's exact identity from DNA (crime solving, etc), Gattaca was an example of how this technology can be abused. Determining your genetic risks for certain diseases can also be good, if used to help prevent you from getting that disease, but when it's used for profiling, it's not. The movie used it for profiling.
So where's the problem with RFID tags and the such, and Gattaca-like DNA technology? Can you really trust that it'll be used properly? Or are we better off not risking our freedom and living without any benefits said technlogy may offer? That's a hard question, and I won't even bother offering my opinion on it.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
How long before the GPS tag is used for people who, while offenders in some shape or form, have not committed offenses of the nature that others feel they have to know where they are for the safety of others?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
- 'To be able to have "Talk down" with an offender because he is in a high-risk area and likely to offend is the single most effective control measure that be applied,' Crosby added
IOW, pedophiles that don't want to offend again, but feel they may be tempted in some situations can be given a optional program where assistance is available to help them control their "urge".This is called "rehabilitation", a concept that seems regretably foreign to the Department of Corrections.
Even more surprising, it saves money:
- Wyre said the new technology was far cheaper than the current tagging devices used to enforce curfews and probation orders which costs around 500 per offender each month.
So, everyone either a) don't read the article, b) misunderstand what it says, c) misrepresent the technology used and then condemn a pilot program that is trying to help pedophiles help themselves with lower cost to the taxpayer and lower risk to the community at large. After all, this isPeople like you really bother me.
Frankly, these perverts are lucky they have any freedom. No society can exist where people like this can prey on the young with impunity.
I'm 21 years old, should I be thrown into jail and have all my rights taken away for having sex with a 17 year old girl? When I was 18 if I had a 16 year old girlfriend should I be called a pervert? It's only a 2 year age difference but for some reason if we have sex it's statuatory rape and I can go to jail and be labeled as a pedophile for the rest of my life.
Isn't it great, a 50 year old man can marry an 18 year old but if a 22 year old touches a 16 year old he's a pedophile that should be thrown in jail for statutory rape for commiting such a perverse and disgusting act. And thanks to people like you they will have everyone knowing about their lives. When they get a job their employer will never know anything about the age of the girl, the situation they were in (did she consent to sex or not?) just "This person is a convicted child rapist and pedophile."
How is this simplistic? Because I feel that the *potential* for snooping and *potential* infringement of civil rights do not outweigh the *actual* benefits of keeping convicted paedophiles away from areas where they are liable to recommit their crime? If you read the article, you will find that they are discussing a "talk down" scenario, where offenders (who are on parole, I may add - not "free") that are spotted in a high risk area are phoned up to see what they are up to. How is the use of technology for prevention of crime to the most vulnarable members of our society a bad thing? Keep in mind that nobody is stating that the whole world is going to be implanted with RFIDs when they show up for work tomorrow, as the original, sort of hysterical, write up suggested. but that this is an *improvement* on an *already exisitng technique*. I am a rather privacy concious individual, but also realise whare the pragmatic boundaries are to privacy. Hurting people is one of those things where I personally find it acceptable to have you liable for close scrutiny, for example.
As a dad, I am happy that they are improving on this type of technology, as long as the use is "reasonable" in the eyes of overall society. The telephone has as much potential for abuse of civil rights, but I don't see you tossing away the phone, do I? Use credit cards? store cards? air miles? cell phone? internet? All these day to day items give away more about you, your location, and your day to day live then this device. So unless you are a card-carrying member of the Tin-Foil_Hatters-Club, I suggest you put things in perspective.
Simplistic? I find your obvious refusal to credit alternate opinions to your own with intellectual merit simplistic, not to mention a lot more dangerous then any kind of snooping technology.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Point taken, but the PATRIOT act is a law granting vast powers to the government of the US (who had those powers already, anyway - otherwise they would not have been able to pass the PATRIOT act), this is an *improvement* of a technology that is already deployed today in the United Kingdom. In case you are not from around here, the UK has a surveillance camara on practically every streetcorner now, so it isn't something terribly groundshaking here.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Reading through the responses to this technology, it seems that several issues are being addressed/readdressed:
1) Mandatory tagging of criminals - There seems to be a fundamental difference between tagging someone as part of their sentence and tagging someone after their sentence has been served (eg, after release from prison). The latter seems a dangerous trend since it indicates that the punishment for certain crimes may change in an arbitrary fashion, even *after* a criminal has served their time and been "rehabilitated" by societal punishments.
Granted, some crimes are heinous and deserve drastic punishments, but punishments should be known at the time of sentencing. Make the punishment as harsh as is warranted (eg, death sentence or consecutive life sentences effectively ensures that an offender never returns to society), but once a punishment has been fulfilled , no additional arbitrary punishments should be levied. Being unable to agree on what the rule-of-law is at the time of sentencing is very bad. A rule-of-law which is not transparent and clear is not a rule-of-law.
2) RFID technology is good|bad - Anyone who has spent their life thinking about technology knows that technology itself it neither our damnation nor our savior. It is amoral and merely a tool created and used by humans to leverage our ideas.
However, history has shown that we have a penchant for killing each other over issues with no obvious resolution (eg, Who's God is better, Who's skin color is better, etc). Technology just speeds up the process of letting us work out our differences, and, when that fails, subjugate/maim/torture/kill the enemy when they it is obvious that they will not take on our point of view.
3) The posters are "anti-technologist fear mongers" - since this crowd is generally very technology savvy, it is probably more likely that you misunderstand the message being articulated. People on Slashdot certainly seem to get more worked up that your general everyday nongeek citizenry. But that is likely because of the "slippery-slope" issues that are addressed. Looking at how humans use and misuse technology to abuse each other, it is often clear to those with a background in technology what form the abuses could take. Generally, it seems that humans eventually arrive at a solution better for everyone (eg, more tolerant), but only after a more short-term period which exploits the technology to the severe disadvantage of an unfortunate minority.
BTW, although annoying that the article is not based on RFID technology, that hardly matters in the grand scheme. GPS, RFID, biometrics, DRM, etc. are all just technologies. They have amazing potential for benefit of societies. But unless the potential for human-rights abuse is acknowledged and carefully monitored, things will get very bad before things get better.
No technology is without potential for abuse. Period.
This is not a good argument against taking the first step... it is a good argument for watching very closely to make sure the last four steps are never taken.
After all, we've already decided to lock up murderers... and by this logic I'll be eventually be locked up as well.
So, I am supposed to feel scared because the government is employing know technology to keep an eye on these "people"?
Whats to stop them from expanding it to other offenses once this is widely accepted? And there are plenty of ways to *make* volunteers: "you can either wear this tag or rot in jail another ten years. Whats that you say? You'll be happy to wear it? Look everyone, another volunteer!"
Frankly, these perverts are lucky they have any freedom.
The point of a prison sentense is that you finish it and then you're done. Not that you serve your time and continue to be punished after you're released.
Concern about well being of a fellow human is fine, allowing it to cloud your judgement isn't.
Your eagerness to punish these people is clouding your judgement. Has it occured to you that plenty of innocent people are convicted of this crime? And the overwhelming stigma attached to a charge of pedophelia almost certainaly destroys your life, even if you are found innocent at the trial.
passive rfid tags have many many possitive uses as well. For every good bit of technology someone will always find a way to abuse it
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
1. The medical and legal definition of pedophilia differ. An 18 year old can be convicted for having consensual sex with her or his 14 or 15 year old boy/girlfriend. For that matter, I know of at least one case where two minors (16 and 17, IIRC) were charged with a sex crime for having consensual sex. When I was in high school I knew several (underage) males whose greatest ambition was to have sex with an older woman (college, friend's mom, etc.). Those who succeeded were by no means abused (unless abuse is defined in a circular fashion), and I don't think their partners should be punished for increasing their popularity.
2. Pedophiles have a high recidivism rate, and this is part of the justification for permanent monitoring, sex offender registration, or "release" into permanent psychiatric confinement. However, other crimes with high recidivism rates are not treated equivalently. AFAIK sex offenders are the only criminals who are punished, subsequent to serving their sentences, for crimes they *might* commit. If we're going to punish people for crimes they have a high probability of committing, we'd better start locking up certain racial minorities, males, and poor people (one could argue we already do via drug laws, of course).
3. There are well-documented cases in which children were influenced (via "interview" tactics conceptually equivalent to brainwashing) by therapists or prosecutors to believe that abuse occurred, which was later shown to be incorrect if not impossible. A few of them are quite outlandish and unbelievable (vast satanic conspiracies with baby sacrifices were popular several years ago). Grep for "false memory syndrome" on google and you'll find plenty.
At present our society approaches child sexual abuse in a highly irrational manner. What really worries me is that this could make it *more* difficult to actually find, convict, and lock up the people who are abusing children (sexually or otherwise). Understandable or not, hysteria is rarely helpful.
Everyone seems to have missed the one truly scary idea in this story.
The electronic diary can be studied remotely by experts to build up a profile of the offender which will help them predict whether the person will offend again.
I've heard this idea before.
The point about narrowing the pool of usual suspects when a crime has been comitted is very fucking scary as well. What if a tagged individual is in the area when a crime is committed by an untagged individual? I sure wouldn't want to be in that guy's position.
The idea of tracking an individual during probation is not in itself objectionable. Those on probation are not considered absolved, they are still serving a portion of their sentence. However, the story indicates the promoters of this technology are not making much of a distinction. And that they expect the offender will continue to wear the device. I'd give this one an 8 out of 10 on the slippery slope scale. If it works with paedophiles, why not track bank robbers to ensure they only use ATMs? How about B&E artists? The system could tell the cops if they were in a strange neighbourhood in the middle of the night. And why not anyone with a history of violent crime? Think how many police officers would be saved by knowing in advance that the car they are stopping contains ex-cons?
This is an incorrect assertion.
It assumes that legislation that limits the liberty of [insert class of people who are nearly universally reviled] will not be applied incrementally to [insert class of people who are only slightly less universally reviled].
Arguing slippery slopes is a very slippery thing indeed; there are many problems, even though the base argument is sound. Which is why I am an absolutist when it comes to crime and punishment issues. Either you're being punished for a crime, or you're not. If you're not, you should be as free as anyone else. Megan's law, or bracelets that phone the cops if you're near a school, or surveillance cameras "just in case", are all tools that blur the line between a free society and a police state.
I forget what 8 was for.
You're so fired up being self-righteous you can't even see what I object to in your post. I'll give you a hint, think about trials for witchcraft, or public beheadings. That which we condemn in others we fear most in ourselves. To be clear, I'm -not- saying you're a paedophile, but ask yourself, what are you so angry at, really, deep inside? Is it your responsibility to take out every paedophile, or just the ones near to your kid's school? Will you kill the old boy who talks to kids because his wife is dead and he lives on his own.
How is the use of technology for prevention of crime to the most vulnarable members of our society a bad thing?
I just thought it might be pertinent to point out that this is the same sort of "prevention" principle behind speed cameras - none at all.
There's nothing in the system to *stop* one of these people wandering into a playground and attacking a child, there is merely a near guarantee they would be caught if they did so. Sure, they get a phone call if they stray too close to a school (wonder what happens if the bus they take to work drives past a school everyday ?), but how hard is it to ignore a phone for long enough to attack a child ?
As a dad, I am happy that they are improving on this type of technology, as long as the use is "reasonable" in the eyes of overall society.
This is, unfortunately, why people like paedophiles are chosen for these sorts of trials - it makes it seem more "justifiable". Trouble is, then it gets expanded to all sex offenders. Then to "violent" criminals. Then to minor criminals. Next thing you know, every 12 year old caught shoplifting will have one of these and their parents will be getting a phone call whenever they walk into a convenience store.
There's another disturbing trend along similar lines appearing here in Australia, where certain sex offenders can now be kept in gaol indefinitely if they are considered "likely to reoffend". Note that this has been applied retroactively, so people who were sentenced to, say, 10 years in prison 9.9 years ago can now be kept in gaol for the rest of their lives. Scary stuff. Completely blows away the rather fundamental principle of "do the crime, do the time".
Thank you Thank You Thank you for this response. You bring sense to the chaos surrounding RFID. For a technical forum, people don't know Jack Squat about RFID and ALL IT's limitations. So before more crap is spread about it, please spend an hour on the physics of RFID and you will quickly see (unless your a frickin idiot) all it's limitations. RFID to track sex offenders, you got to be kidding me. Please research topic...Pitiful.