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."

Comments

Cool.

[torpor]

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 ...

New terrorist spying method

[brian728s]

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.

Re:Summary

[Crash Culligan]

To summarise the article, a group of reporters were pissed that they weren't invited to attend the conference.

That's no surprise. If I recall correctly, the G7 summits are intended to be discussions on global economic policy, to which none of the affected people (pretty much everybody but government officials) are ever invited. (In fact, I don't hear of many economists going to those conferences either; if I'm wrong, please correct.)

As for press not getting in, sure you may loathe muckraker reporting (many people do), but sometimes there's just too much muck to allow to pile up. Do you really want your government to be deciding elements of policy without any input from its constituency? That's becoming the norm, and guerilla reporting may soon be the only way the operation of said government can come to light.

They disected a security card, and found (shock, horror) that it contained features designed to maintain security at said conference. Since this is the only dirt they managed to find, they spin it up into a sky-is-falling end-of-the-world privacy story.

Yeah, I see where the article could sound like sour grapes. But then there's something to be said for the irony of the situation, and I'm glad that someone was in there to highlight it.

1. Government officials attend privacy and security conference.
2. Reporters crash privacy and security conference, demonstrating lack of security.
3. Reporters analyze badges from privacy and not-security conference and find RFID tags, demonstrating lack of privacy.
4. Article about lack-of-privacy and not-security conference reaches the public.
5. ???
6. Privacy!!

I'm not perfectly sure, but I think that next-to-the-last step should be Citizens of the world slap their respective governments upside the head and scream "What were you goobers THINKING??"

At least, that's my take on it...

WTF, Over...

[Sylver Dragon]

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.

Self-Defense

[Quantum-Sci]

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.