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And They Shall Know You By Your Books
Val42K writes "People have been concerned about provisions of the Patriot Act that would grant law enforcement access to your library records. Now libraries are considering placing RFID tags into books instead of barcodes. The RFID tags will (supposedly) be turned off when you check out of the library, but could they be turned back on? What about the possibility of you being located and tracked by the books that you carry?"
I didn't realize RFID tags could be turned off. Are they not basically passive "reflectors", powered by the scanner's signal?
Anyway - from a privacy perspective there is much to fear about how RFID will be misued. However, as a geek I can not overlook the incredible myriad of practical uses for them. To be pragmatic about it, I'm quite sure that such uses will override the privacy concerns in the long run, just as credit cards have done to cash, for example. The best we can do, I think, is to push for sane privacy legislation like we don't have for banking.
I mean, how cool would it be if you ran a restaurant, for example, and you never had to keep track of what food to order? Your garbage can would just detect that your chef had thrown a tomato can, and add a new can of tomatoes to the next delivery. I can think of a thousand practical uses for RFID and I suggest that any geek with foresight should be thinking not about how to stop RFID, but how to protect our privacy in a world which will inevitably be filled with billions of the little things.
Seems to me that a serial number would actually be better in terms of securing your privacy. If the RFID sends back an ISBN, any knucklehead with a scanner can tell what books you've got in your bag. If it sends back a serial number, then they need access to the library's database in order to map serial numbers to titles. At least with serial numbers, you have some chance at privacy so long as the libary does the right thing in terms of protecting the database.
I still like my country and work to change it. (I'm even a gov contractor.) So I try to avoid using words and phrases that may be considered disrespectful to it. I find it helps to give my arguments more credibility when trying to talk some sense into people.
Feel free to keep using it yourself though. I'm fine with using whatever methods for change people think work best.
...because the same way your garbage can could keep track of what you're tossing out, someone else could walk by your place on trash-pick-up-day and discern from all of the RFID tags in your waste that you lare likely elderly (tags present for hearing aid batteries and Metamucil), have a cold (tags present for Tylenol Flu and Cold), have a really severe cold (tags present for four boxes of Kleenex), own decent stereo equipment (tags present from packaging for monster audio patch cables and old issues of Hi-Fi magazines), a small dog (tags present for Purina Small Dog Chow), have a visiting infant (tags present for Pampers), and isn't the fact that this information would be available not only in your trash, but on your own body as you're walking around, isn't that the least bit scary to anyone else?
I use something called an EZ-Pass, a device that lets me drive on toll roads in the Middle Atlantic, debiting a pre-paid account. It's cheap, convenient, and I don't have to experience panic each time I approach an exact-change lane. I had the interesting experience a year ago of using it to drive all the way from Maryland to the Peace Bridge between Buffalo and Canada; never had to shell out a dime, and each toll was about half the posted price. Most places have dedicated lanes, too.
Yeah. I know they could use it to track me. They could somehow link it back to my bank account. They could probably even watch and bust me for speeding.
My brother in law thinks I'm crazy to allow one of these devices of the Devil into my automobile. He no longer uses his home computer because he's convinced that his ISP (Verizon) has nothing better to do than to track his every move online. He pays cash for all but the largest purchases, won't use an affinity card for his groceries, and doesn't visit ATM's (jeeze, remember standing in line at the bank to get a check cashed?). He has no spare or leisure time because the very housekeeping of life takes him twice or three times as long as it does the rest of us. He makes my particular life miserable on every visit because I merrily use credit cards, ATM's, discount cards, an EZ-Pass, and my computer.
Yeah, I could probably have lots more privacy than I do. But you know what? Life's short. There are big things to worry about and there are little things. Worry about too many of the little things and you become as miserable as my brother in law. For some reason, I place sneaky library books squarely in the "don't sweat this" category. At least for now.
Anne
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