Slashdot Mirror
Officials secretly RFID'd at Internet Summit
ewoudenberg writes "A Washington Times article reports that researchers managed to gain entrance to the Internet and technology conference in Switzerland last week only to discover that the summit's badges contained undisclosed RFID chips. The badges were handed out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials from 174 countries, including the United States."
Politicians should be made to wear RFID's from the day they enter office in service of the public, to the day they leave that office.
...
"For the people, and of the people" can only be effective if the people keep a track on such people with power
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
With RFID.
Note for the humor-impaired: this is a joke.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/12/002825 6&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=158&tid=172&tid= 99
Lightbulbs are now being labeled a terrorist device, used to spy on people and documents at places including the pentagon, the whitehouse, and even the United Nations building. Hackers used the light bulbs to send out light, which when intercepted by their illegal hacker tools called "eyes", can identify diplomats, and read classified documents. Americans can rest assured that their safety is being protected by operation "hammerbulb". Democrats are concerned about a lack of hammers to complete the operation, but administration officials assure them that rocks can be used if the shortage proves true.
They met to discuss privacy matters on the internet (among other things).
I wonder what their policy will be?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Wasn't this already discussed?
For those of you who are experiencing the sensation of "deja vu all over again" please see WSIS Physical Security Cracked.
I know the Slashdot editors don't read the story submissions, because my earthshattering submissions are never accepted. But do they even read the Slashdot homepage? They might notice duplicate stories.
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make install -not war
Badges? We don't need no stinkin badges!
I hope the media catch hold of it and hype it to hell and beyond. Get some high-flying politico commentators saying how they should have been informed.
Understanding about fire being hot often comes after one has been burnt. Perhaps they'll feel that they shouldn't be "spied on" without their knowledge. Perhaps it might influence decisions they make in future...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Washington Post has their own agendas politically when it comes to reporting. Sure it's pretty shitty to be monitored, but there is nothing stating that any information used was used for anything other than maybe for the sake of having some card manufacturers new card being tested.
Remember intelligence agencies from all over the place keep tabs on each other via other means (ECHELON, HUMINT, OSINT, IMINT, SIGNIT), so I doubt this was anything to be concerned with. Strictly something `chick' to report on. It's far more easier to set up assets to bang (screw/lay/fsck) one of these guys for info, than it would to keep watch of what they do.
User gets in car to go to summit, user's Eazypass or other form of cardpaymentsys tracks what exits he uses via tolls paid. User stops at gasoline station, credit card is used, card information is transmitted. User talks the beltway, cameras capture this. Get the picture? Everyone else sure did. Again other than this being all the rage (RFID's) I doubt it was something major, but surely someone with agendas sees it to be so. When they can produce something absolute that was used with this information, not just 'oh my look at this an RFID story' than I'll worry.
PS... Proof doesn't mean `hey we're the Foobar Newspaper
MoFscker
I'd have a lot more respect for activist reporters if they would report the facts without hype. It's not the second coming, it's possibly a minor infraction of the Swiss information laws.
Slashdot monitor for your Mozilla sidebar or Active Desktop.
I wonder if someone is goign to make a killing by selling little RFID chip & reader detectors. Richard Stallman suggested RFID detectors and destroyers as a challenge for privacy adocates. Perhaps clothing with conductive/dissapative threads will be the next fashion trend (just don't count on your cellphone ringing if its inside your pocket ;) ).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
FP!
I would think that the information provided by the RFID tags would be invaluable - not in terms of violating privacy but for the planning of future conferences. I'd gladly wear RFID chips in my conference badge if it lead to improved trafficking for future conferences. One doesn't attend conferences for the privacy.
Perhaps if they RFID-tagged Slashdot submissions, they could detect dups at a distance, before they were posted.
The real irony is that the article ends with two advertisements for RFID products.
Dups provide a chance to post additional insights that emerge from the original story. I find that reading all the +5 comments from the first posting of the story provides more food for thought once the dup appears.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Creepy. It's just CREEPY. I am not sure Creapy is even a word. Jeez.
lmao!
From the that's-just-crappy dept, with an apostrophe.
The Slashcode already extracts URLs from stories into sidebars. Why not a revision that compares those URLs in a submission to those in past submissions? Then editors can see whether a submission is a dup as they go through their incoming queue.
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make install -not war
We should take this with a grain of salt; this is the Washington Times we're dealing with. They have a history of making up news stories. I wouldn't trust them.
I wasted my time reading that crap? I'll never get those 30 seconds back.
[lame joke]You're new here, arn't you?[/lame joke]
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Mod parent up...
Because the other two directions are already taken.
That someone hit the bathroom at 12:30pm and then again at 3:30pm. They also exited the room for a smoke break after their bathroom break. Oh and don't forget the super secret buying of a Snickers bar at 3:35pm.
Maybe its just me, but this seems like a whole lot of noise over nothing. Those badges were probably security badges. You know, the kind many of us corporate workers wear every day to work. If you are one of those workers who have to swipe your ID badge in front of a little box that goes beep, and an LED turns green, and the door opens, the you are carrying an RFID tag (possibly even a smart card, but this is not as common). This is no big deal, its simply a way to control access. Technically, it provides some employee tracking, but its also very useful for security.
Heck, even parking garages are using these for employees now. My girlfriend has a little card (HID Prox card), which she uses at work to get into and out of the parking complex for work. Myself, I work at a company that builds physical security systems, so I work with these things every day. And, I find, that most of the privacy concerns are way overblown. Though, I still don't like the idea of carrying one on me, I am a bit of a privacy nut afterall.
If anything, this article sounds like a bunch of reporters got pissed, because they weren't allowed into a closed door conference, and broke the rules to get an access badge, and then reported on the evil RFID tag in the card, despite this being a very common thing, especially in places where security is an issue.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
"Re:Welcome Welcome to to Slashdot Slashdot (Score:1, Redundant)"
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make install -not war
For those who doubt the concerns about RFID, it's about who controls your own information: you... or others.
We will get no regulation of the uses RFID is put to, while the Party is in power, and so it's up to us to sort this out.
Be advised that cellphone mfgrs are now adding technology that PUSHes ads to you. Will you be able to turn it off? Doubtful; if all the carriers do it, there's no place else to go.
And of course CDMA has always had geo-location... they promise it's only used to catch indicted criminals, but that claim is very doubtful, given some recent events.
Delegates at a conference could be identified as they approach their car. Obscuring codes don't matter; a sample could be taken at any time prior, at great distance with a parabolic dish. Soldiers could be accurately geo-located by the enemy.
Did you know that all GM cars since 1999 have black boxes in them, which are NOT being used to help you understand what happened 5 seconds before an accident, but to INDICT you for that accident, and expose you to civil litigation as well. Your inanimate *car* has become a prosecution witness against you, even though your own wife isn't supposed to be forced to testify against you.
This is the difference between the old way, and the neo-way, of managing the citizens. The deeper question is, why is our society becoming more and more adversarial, so fast? How do Nordic countries and Canada, get away with cooperation, rather than ever strengthening offense and defense, every day? They don't worry about NOT being something, like we Americans do. Double-plus ungood.
You say that when out in public, you have no expectation of privacy? True, but RFID expands that 'public' from your immediate surroundings (which you are aware of, and choose to inhabit), to the known universe, and for all time. If in 10 years it is considered treasonous to question RFID, some of us will be screwed, now, won't we? We all go places we'd like to keep private sometimes, now, don't we? Care to give that up, for no good reason other than FEAR?! Of our own government/corporate oligopoly? How much of your day do you spend in FEAR?! WTF are you afraid of NOW, FGS?!
RFID is a great idea for inventory, but should be disabled/disablable when purchased. I doubt those chips now in tires, can be disabled, given the vulcanization process. And tags will soon be microscopic.
RFID has no business on a person, as long as corporations and politicians behave adversarially toward their public at the highest levels.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
RFID concerns are overblown, except when the tags are on YOU.
The filter must compare the submission to every article, or the omitted archives might contain dup's. Why not? How about a Bayesian filter? How about a hash of the "salient" details against which a dup would match?
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make install -not war
Maybe slashdot should add RFID to the stories, so that when they come the 2nd time around we can detect them right away...
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
Hasn't anyone noticed that the Washington Times was founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon? I can't imagine anyone taking this publication seriously.
"The badges were handed out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials from 174 countries, including the United States."
so each official was from an average of 3.5 countries?
I've been reading dup's on Slashdot since 1998, although my current UID dates from later. Help me write a dup-matcher filter for the editors' submissions queue, and we can help do something about it. The Slashcode is OSS, so we can back up our complaints with constructive solutions by patching the code.
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make install -not war
They use it to track runners for the LA Marathon. No biggie.
This sig no verb.
Why?
So you Pussies in Europe can Bitch and Moan about our imperialistic goals?
Fuck you,
Clean up your own yard trash, We cleaned out the Big Pig sty.
Now that's secrecy for you.
how quickly they will forget and proceed to do on to their citizens what they complain loudly of.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
people make a deal out of dishonest politicians getting tagged? but not civilians?
Why the hell are you always waiting for the USA to remove these dictators? You guys can act too, you know!
Can RFID technology be adapted to track duplicate Slashdot stories?
And I will take gladly endorse that viewpoint just as soon as the same courtesy is extended to consumers and private citizens.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Imagine if the RFID numbers got leaked to the wrong people. An assassin could have the exact location of their target at all times. The consiquense of such immoral behavior as undisclosed RFID tags could have been disasterous. Seeing as how nobody got hurt though this is probably a good thing. This happend to alot of high level people with power to do something about this privacy threat as apposed to having happened to the rest of us where we would just be ignored. This is the type of thing that could really put the fear of God into these people too as far as the entire technology.
Imagine I want to knock someone off. I bribe the store clerk at a place he frequents to leave the tag on something he buys turn off the alarm and phone me the item number. He now has a nice homeing device that I can use to trak him all around town and stike at the first good opertunity, fumbling with the keys to his appartment garage or something when noone are around. Not only are there privacy risks when important people are being taged it could easily prove dangerous, that was just one potential situation.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It didn't take long for that technology to be misused now did it? I can see the day when you go by RFID ready ad displays in the mall, and will be taylored to your 'interests' as they carefully read what stores you've been to and feed a 'revelevent ad'. Pretty soon RFID TVs will be made too, all sorts of fun and interesting uses for this technology will pop up! yay! Take me now Lord.............
~UltraSkuzzi
This comment is liscensed by SCO.
Yeah, Europe are next. It's about time we show them who's the boss! whimps.
or deja vu. Maybe this is a flaw in the matrix. I always suspected CmdrTaco was Agent Smith.
Did you know that one of our Generals recently, actually said that if there is a national emergency, the first American dictator would have to be appointed?
WTF?! Are we being prepared?
How bad of an emergency? Like 9/11? And exactly who decides? Dick Cheney, as usual?!?!
Campaign finance reform is national security.
I wasn't kidding, actually...
That is when the public revolts.
If the "researchers" couldn't get any information of the RFID chips, how do they know what they're used for? Maybe they simply log which speakers you went to see, so they can collect info on interest in various topics.
Actually, that's when intellectuals depart from the masses, but have little effect.
The masses will put up with anything, witness Soviet Russia and N. Korea.
Campaign finance reform is national security.
And the USA/world? post GWB.
I want to leave the country for exactly that reason.
Because I couldn't think of anything funny to say
you that were I in the position of supplying
security to such functions, I would NOT tell
Anyone anything about my procedures and equipment. Let alone some dickhead
reporter or whatnot.
The Washington Times is owned by the Unification Church, also known as the "Moonies". They are quite right-wing, even by US standards.
The Moonies now also own the once-great United Press International, UPI. Just about all the good journalists left UPI in disgust when the takeover happened a few years back, and it turned into a sort of National Enquirer Newsfeed, practically overnight.
Toss the offending article of clothing in the microwave and cook for 5 minutes. Bingo! No more RFID.
The system used by the conference identified badge holders at the door. Were attendees to think the badge magically communicated with security?
All the information that could be gathered by this RFID system is public- the system can only record when a tag moves within a proximity of a reader. Given the limited read distance of contemporary readers, this information could more effectively be gathered by hiring people to write down the names of attendees as they enter a room.
RFID is an extremely useful technology in broad use today. Imagine the backlash when the public finds out millions of automobiles are "bugged" with RFID tags (the E-Z Pass system.) This article irresponsibly suggests that RFID inherently threatens privacy.
More at RFID News, http://www.rfidnews.org
"I don't give a stuff who they're screwing in private. I want to know who they're screwing in public!"
Slashdot (and now The Washington Times) seems unable to do an RFID story without a strong sense of panick. While this story has even less detail than the one posted a few days ago, it is pretty clear that nobody was being "secretly tracked". People attending the event presented their badges to enter a meeting and that event was logged. It isn't like they can tell where you are withing a meter at any time. It also isn't entirely clear that these are RFID badges.
Lasers Controlled Games!
[Why am I replying to a troll?]
Europe != France & Germany
Britain, Spain, Poland, Italy, Norway, Turkey and Romania all supported action in Iraq, and Britain in particular contributed a lot.
My question is, how is this "Flamebait"?
Going by GWB's track record so far, would this really be all that suprising? And really I saw no flame war started after I posted this....
Fact: Republicans spent millions of dollars on many investigations of the Clintons.
Fact: The worst thing they could come up with was Bill fudging on his sex life.
Deal with it.
The threat to privacy and democracy by RFID is NOT overblown. It seems clear to me that the wide acceptance of RFID tags is a serious threat to privacy and even to the democratic form of government. Here is an interesting scenario:
You walk down a street and a government scanner in a van detects that you went into a gun shop (or an opposition political party office or Greenpeace or an abortion-rights office or right-to-life office... you take your pick). That scanner is connected to a national Homeland Security database (probably named something like "Patriot Scanning and Verification System") that identifies you and simultaneously associates all your RFID tags. From that point on anytime you go anywhere those RFID detectors around town know exactly who and where you are. Because all those tags embedded in your clothes have now been associated with your RFID-embedded credit card they don't even have to have personal information on them to identify you. The government can now tell who you hang out with (aka "known associates") by associating your companions' tags with yours. They also know what cities you visit and where you go while you are there.
It won't even be possible to remove or smash all your tags to escape the spying. Just the act of having NO tags would raise a flag and single you out.
Do you think it unlikely that the government won't have agents walking around with RFID loggers at unpopular (to them) political rallies identifying all the subversives?
Simply by entering your name in their computer the government will be able to tell where you have gone, what political rallies you have attended, what activist organizations you have visited, where you travelled, what you bought, who your associates are, and even when you didn't leave your house for a week (no hits). And they will be able to do this for every single person in the country!
Is it really not a concern to you that this can easily be done today? Right now the only thing keeping the ultimate police state from being available to any paranoid right-wing administration, agency or government is that we simply aren't carrying around many of these RFID tags yet.
AP SPOOFWIRE -- Two microwave ovens were seriously damaged today at the Internet and Technology Conference in Switzerland when numerous conference attendees, annoyed when they discovered that their badges contained RFID chips, tried to disable those same chips through "nuking" them in the ovens.
Cafeteria staff were stunned by the spectacle produced when each oven was crammed full of badges, and the 'Start' button pressed. "I'd always heard stories about what would happen if you put anything with metal in it into a microwave" said head cook Rowena Splatt, "But I never thought I would ever see it in action! That horrible buzzing noise, the showers of sparks -- though I will admit that all those colors were kind of pretty -- but the smell! Oh, that was the worst part!! It reminded us all of last week's liver-and-onion special, with hints of burned cranberries and overcooked zucchini..."
Security personnel monitoring the RFID receiver systems also reported strange occurrences. "It was like thousands of these tinny little Munchkin-like voices screamed 'Help Meeeeeee!' all at once" reported Lt. Take-Emin Andbookem, head of security for the event. "And you wouldn't believe the volume! I've still got six people in the hospital, getting checked for hearing damage."
The event's organizers have reported that the badges will be reissued -- without RFID chips, this time -- and that the homogenized melted-together masses of the other badges will be made into holiday mobiles which will also feature unused AOL 9.0 CDs and old 30-pin memory SIMMs.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
It's not their concern if private individuals want to use mind-alterting substances or engage in unusual (but consensual) sexual practices in private. It's not their concern to monitor our e-mail, web browsing and library and bookstore records. So when they respect our rights to privacy, and only then, are they entitled to the same respect. And this principle should apply to employers as well as the state.
Imagine finding out after the fact that your charge "POTUS" was being electronicly tracked through a structure with such bad security that a name and a 2 min fake id can overcome.
I would really hate to be the fellow in charge of that detail. His ulcers are probably having ulcers...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
I double-dog, thirty resolution dare them. Bring it; maybe they'll send in UN troops from Zimbabwe to Marina del Rey, CA (33.9803N, 118.4405W). Or maybe they'll RBL everything .us/.com/.net/.org/.gov to europe.... oh wait, that's 99% of the net; passive-agressive seems to be the French way. Or, bring UNSECO in on it, let them make dozens of toothless resolutions: "The UN has become a point-less debating society" that panders to the little Fidel's of the world, along with the finger-pointing and empty threats to the Saddam's. Face it... ICANN (unfortunately, that dirty NGO) rules the net with a copper wire. Cut the cord, and there will be fighting over IPv4 subnet ownership and we'll end up w/ a fragmented internet (pun not intended). Let's just go to IPv6 (and not hand it over completely to big companies), and have a completely free TLD for dynamic dns / hobby kinda stuff, say .alt or something. Let's not give ownership to these dimwit politicians because they ask for it, and let's not allow big companies to create artificially low supply as the case is w/ IPv4 subnets. Stanford, UCB, UCD, etc. dont need a class B, it's completely stupid how every admin and bozo employee has a public, unfirewalled IP.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Was founded by Ted "Better Red Than Dead " Turner
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
Who gives a shit? STFU!
If I remember correctly, it was Tommy Franks who said it, and he was warning about losing our consititution if a WMD even led us silly people to abandon the constitution for security. not advocating, but warning against.