Chemical, Printable RFIDs

Syre writes "The RFID Journal says that CrossID, an Israeli startup, has developed an RFID system that can be printed using an inkjet printer. The 'nanometric' RFID system uses tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader. Since the system uses up to 70 different chemicals, each chemical is assigned its own position in a 70-digit binary number. 'Previously, there has been no way to protect paper documents,' says Moshe Glickstein, CrossID cofounder. 'We have created the first firewall for paper documents.' The big advantage is that the tag can be printed on just about anything. 'It's as easy to create as a printed bar code. And we can print in invisible mode for extra security. Printing the tags cost less than 1 cent each.' Their FAQ says that 'CrossID can be read from quite a long distance'. No word on whether it can be user-disabled..."

Comments

Tattoos

[TheSpoom]

*puts on tinfoil helmet covering forehead*

Seriously, this could be loaded into a tattoo gun, could it not?

I might not even know I had one if they knocked me out first:

And we can print in invisible mode for extra security.

Re:Tattoos

[Fermionic]

Flashback from bad movie. Oh yeah, Minority Report. Great, now I can be spammed as I am walking down the street.

Re:Tattoos

[TheSpoom]

Hehe, I was thinking that after I posted it. The movie was pretty good though ;^)

Re:Tattoos

[BiggerIsBetter]

Sure why not? 70 bits is plenty for every person on the planet.

Re:Tattoos

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt need to be invisible, they could just tatoo it on the inside of your ass and youll never know.

Re:Tattoos

[Fermionic]

Yeah, but it scared the shit outa me. Like that time in band camp, when I read 1984. hehe

Re:Tattoos

[iminplaya]

That tinfoil helmet has been tagged.
Watch out! - OJ

Re:Tattoos

[10101001 10101001]

>*puts on tinfoil helmet covering forehead* Now they can print a copy of the RFID on both sides of the tinfoil.

Re:Tattoos

[No_Weak_Heart]

And we can print in invisible mode for extra security.

So what -- I can post in invisible mode, been doing it for years.

Re:Tattoos

[blair1q]

Too late.

It's the original spam.

Everyone is into it.


It's so pervasive that

you don't even notice any more.


But some people are predictably taking artistic advantage

and some are merely advancing the art predictably


Maybe it'd be more obvious

if you could sell the old ones on eBay.

Re:Tattoos

[dickiedoodles]

Sure why not? 70 bits is plenty for every person on the planet.

Enough for 1180591620717411303424 people

Built Into the Bar Code

[egg troll]

If it is built into the bar code, would the stores that carry said products have to reveal to their customers that RFID tags were in items? Scary.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Arngautr]

RFID is considered the replacement for bar codes, the goal was 5 cent tags to justify making every item over a dollar (US) with a tag. This technique seems to achieve that. The thing about RFID is every single item (ie not brand name: product name like UPC) is unique and can be identified remotely. RFID has much potential for good, but like all things misuse will and probably has occured. They have been used in stores unbeknowst to customers. Another commonly cited example is that of MITs student IDs which had(still have?) RFID technology in them though most students at a privacy workshop were unaware of that fact. All very interesting.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[NanoGator]

"Scary."

Why? What's a realistic scenario where this could be abused?

Let me define realistic:

1.) Not something that'd be against the law.
2.) Not something that would be way too expensive to implement.
3.) Not something that a company wouldn't want exposed. (I.e. They'd be exposed if they started calling people and saying "I'll tell the world you bought a porn DVD if you don't come to our sale on Saturday.")

I'm not trying to bust your chops here, I just haven't heard anything but really extreme examples that are borderline science fiction.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Anonymous Coward]

What planet do you live on?

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[stratjakt]

But you have to get the reader up pretty close to get a reading, it's no more scary than someone running up to you and running a cue cat all over you.

Slashbots act like the shit can be tracked from a secret base on the moon or something.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Just answer his question, dumb fuck.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[realdpk]

A "clearing house" for RFID-based tracking data could be set up, where partner retailers submit their data about when a customer purchases an item, what identification they provided (be it "discount card" or identifying the customer based on them carrying past purchases), for data warehousing and consumer tracking. Of course, at first, the company would keep each retailers data private, but inevitably, someone will name a price for the data that they won't be able to pass up. Or we'll have another situation where insurance companies start buying data to deny claims.

There would be real money in retailers being able to identify relationships between their consumers, too, and a clearinghouse could help them figure that stuff out pretty easily.

It wouldn't be all that expensive to implement, and isn't science fiction. As far as I know, it isn't against the law either.

The paranoid in me would also suggest that they could pay off Waste Management et al to install RFID readers so the retailers could figure out how long you keep your items before tossing them (which may actually be interesting information, but not something I am seeking to share with said retailers..)

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Arngautr]

Just responding to this, but the article says 10 feet and no collision detection, that seems high to me but a paper could have a relatively large anntena-the thing that most determines read distance, aside from passive/active tags(if you know anything about this this example is obviously passive) but active tags have read ranges in free space of well over a 100 meters. hope this clarifies your understanding. Besides it seems the primary aplication for this company is document authentication, other uses of course exist and can be exploited, as I mentioned in a paper I wrote on the subject of RFID: Wal-Mart is pushing it, Wal-Mart is also pushing active/changable Point of sale signs, 1984 ring a bell? Despite the redundancy: tin hat on, though Coca Cola has been involved in RFID and they produce metal objects with high water content so good engineering can get around some technical difficulties but not the laws of physics... of course particles (photons included) can pass impassible objects (infinetly steep potential wells are the classic example: look up wavefunctions..off topic) by the laws of quantum mechanics. I tend to go off topic esspecially when it comes to physics -sorry- but 'nough said.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[NanoGator]

"A "clearing house" for RFID-based tracking data could be set up, where partner retailers submit their data about when a customer purchases an item, what identification they provided (be it "discount card" or identifying the customer based on them carrying past purchases), for data warehousing and consumer tracking."

Why does RFID open this door? Why can't UPC codes be used the same way?

"The paranoid in me would also suggest that they could pay off Waste Management et al to install RFID readers so the retailers could figure out how long you keep your items before tossing them (which may actually be interesting information, but not something I am seeking to share with said retailers..) "

Fair point. For that to happen, the serial number of each item would have to be embedded in the code as well in order to link it to you. Yes, that would be a new capability that RFID would be able to incorporate. I think you'd run out of numbers pretty quick though. (Well.. bad assumption, one can only expect the technology to get better.)

I can't say I'm quaking in fear of them getting that info, though. I have a difficult time imagining that they'd be able to find all the places that the trash ends up at.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[realdpk]

Why does RFID open this door? Why can't UPC codes be used the same way?

The RFID readers can do it passively, and can identify the customer based on what they're wearing/carrying - UPC codes can't be used for that passively.

Last I checked, some of the RFID numbering is at least 48-bit, but I'm sure they can go further than that. Still enough for tracking most people's possessions.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[NanoGator]

"The RFID readers can do it passively, and can identify the customer based on what they're wearing/carrying - UPC codes can't be used for that passively."

Okay. So what you're saying is somebody could walk through a store and have everything on them be read, right? How do they link what they're carrying to that particular person?

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Arngautr]

70 bits = 1180591620717411303424 unique ids, the EPC standard is 92 bits if I'm not mistaken: 4951760157141521099596496896 unique ids

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[realdpk]

If the items they're carrying contain the unique serial number, they'd at least know the item was purchased by "consumer X". They could make an educated guess if they see a number of items that they can track to consumer X. If consumer Y has one of consumer X's items, but mostly not, they'd know that there's some relationship between the two.

It's definitely not something they could turn on today and have something totally useful in a month or two - it'd have to be in place for a year or more probably before it was pervasive enough to begin to be interesting. However nearly every item we buy has a UPC symbol now, so it's not unlikely that, as RFID becomes cheaper, every item could have an RFID tag in the future.

As an aside, I really dig the ideas people have proposed to combat this, namely having phony RFID serial number generators on their persons. Could make the databases less useful, and maybe not cost effective. Of course, getting enough people interested in "fighting" the technology would be a bit tough.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[panck]

Is there any way to fuzz out the rfid so it no longer works? If there's a fairly cheap way to do it, I see a market for a little device that you can wave over your new jeans (ala the way they currently wipe the little magnetic strip on the CDs/books/etc your buy now).

RFID stuff seems kind of scary, but I have faith in the hackers and geeks to find a way around it. In 6 months we'll be laughing at the simple technique someone has found of rendering them completely useless from long range. Just tune your Belkin TuneCast to a certain frequency or something. Someone suggested spraying the same 70 chemicals everywhere.. who knows.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[originalhack]

1) You try to board a plane but are strip-searched because you were somewhere other than church last Easter.
2) You get audited because you were scanned near an anti-war rally.
3) At your job interview, you are asked what movie you saw last week at the theater that was showing an action flick and a politically unpopular movie.

Ever visit a friend who is a druggie?

Ever visit a friend who is gay?

Ever interview for a job while you still had one?

Freedom of movment and freedom of association are very precious. When you can be tracked at all times and constantly live under the threat of being "categorized" by having your movements tracked, you give up a very important fundamental freedom.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[TyrranzzX]

You decide to scan in an article from the newspaper of a story you want to keep, but since it's got an RFID tag, the scanner won't let you scan it, windows won't let you manipulate it, and applications won't let you copy it.

Your printer won't let you print a piece off of the internet, because the first few lines it prints is the RFID code which transmitts that it isn't sendable.

In George orwells 1984, nobody had newspapers, they were all destroyed the day they went out. Systematically collected and destroyed whenever it was convient to change the information. Just imagine what a electronic media monopoly could do. Ever watch Max Headroom?

I am not a science fiction writer, and that isn't an extreme example. That's a very close and very real possibility. I am not paranoid, you simply don't have a good grasp on reality. You can't just take an article and say "oh, that isn't scary". Combine this with DRM, longhorn with manditory autoupdating, and a media monopoly. Scared yet? How about chipping humans, clamping down on trade. How about internet ver 2?

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[blincoln]

How do they link what they're carrying to that particular person?

Probably similar to how you'd do it on a website.

The first time that person buys something with a credit or debit card, their name is matched up to every unique RFID on their person. After that, you could identify them any time they visit your store, just like using cookies to track when repeat customers come to your website.

Unlike cookies, there would be nothing to prevent a retailer from tracking the IDs of merchandise from other stores. Every time the same person goes into the store of the retailer that's tracking them with *any* of the ID'd items they've had in there before, the systems there can re-inventory them and add all of the new tags it picks up to the database.

If this hypothetical location was a grocery store or some other frequently-visited place, I could see building up a fairly accurate profile.

e.g. Ben Lincoln is 25, wears wears veggie combat boots, carries an umbrella from Nordstrom, buys a lot of soda pop - but nothing with caffeine in it, buys alcohol occassionally, other food shopping habits (etc.), probably has braces since he buys special floss at the drug store upstairs and then brings it into our store, probably is a gamer since we scanned him with Metroid Zero Mission (which he bought during the day and had in his shoulder bag from a defunct local manufacturer) awhile ago, probably is a sci-fi reader since we also scanned him with an Alastair Reynolds book at the same time, et cetera.

Once I've bought anything there, all they have to do is look for any of those IDs and can be pretty sure it's me. There would probably need to be some sort of pruning logic in case I gave my umbrella away or whatever (so that whoever ends up with it doesn't end up triggering additions to my profile if they visit the store), but it's not like the data they collect needs to be 100% accurate anyway.

I don't know if any retailer has plans for a system like this, but I could see it being pretty straightforward to design.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing I haven't had any school ID cards since high school. Am I the only once that has never had a need for one? I dont need another card under my ass causing more back pain. Offtopic: I also make a point not to memorize any identification numbers except my social secuirty number. Every bank and university reminds me to memorize my id number, I respond with "No thanks heres my social, look it up." I get a frown and some typing. Five seconds later my id pops up on the screen and its business as usual. Once I was told that there was a line behind me and I would have to return later. I didnt move and repeated my social. The nice lady refused to service me and I had a nicer talk with her supervisor.

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[zer0halo]

I don't think it's very realistic to assume that most retailers will set up databases to collect and process that MASSIVE amount of data. Because if they were, they why don't they collect and process it already, with targeted discounts for consumers? It's not like they need RFIDs to do so. Anyone who pays with a credit or debit card - which is most people these days - theoretically has a record in the store's database of everything they've ever bought. So why doesn't the store have that information fed into the teller-machine so that based on your previous purchases, at check-out time the teller can offer you a discount on certain items which you've previous purchased in order to entice you to purchase them again? Or, with places like Costco or Sam's Club, everyone has a membership card, even if they pay in cash, so they could do the same thing. Heck, they could very easily set up a little kiosk at the entrance of the store where you scan your card and it offers you targeted information, discounts, offers, etc., based on your previous shopping experience, which they have a complete record of because you've had to use your card every time you shopped there. If they haven't done it so far - and the technology is already there to do so - then who's to say they're going to do it just because they can now wirelessly scan the items? RFID's have their uses, but I don't think that will be one of them. What could be desturbing is if they decide to embed a little RFID into your driver's license or ID card, and then eventually could keep track of you wherever you are, or at least keep track of everyone entering sensitive buildings or areas. I could easily see that happening in the name of "security" in order to "prevent terrorism".

Re:Built Into the Bar Code

[spectatorsport]

Think the guy who kidnapped the Florida girl knew he was on camera? If cameras have become as ubiquitous as that, who's to stop sensors from being utilized the same way?

Disabled

[panxerox]

"No word on whether it can be user-disabled..." Im thinkin a paper punch would do wonders...

Re:Disabled

[K.B.Zod]

I'm thinking an eraser might do it too.

Re:Disabled

[Fermionic]

Ethics is an individual responsiblity.

Re:Disabled

[acone]

No word on whether it can be user-disabled.. Just add all 70 different compounds. Then a reader machine would see either all 1's or all 0's, making the tag impossible to identify meaningfully.

Re:Disabled

[FauxReal]

"No word on whether it can be user-disabled..." Im thinkin a paper punch would do wonders...

Or perhaps a dip in bleach, vinegar, or even water depending on what the chenicals are if you wanna keep it intact.

Re:Disabled

[Xenographic]

It's printed on the paper. Only the special ink makes it work.

Try a photocopier?

Unless they all get programed to do what they do for currency to prevent us from copying such documents. (E.G. time to stock up on good copying machines?)

Re:Disabled

[Anonymous Coward]

i knew it xerox stricks agian

Re:Disabled

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

After the tin foil hat, the tin foil binder. Faraday's cage saves the day again.

User disabled?

[Bagels]

*snip snip snip* done.

Seriously, though, if they worked it in as a watermark or into the text itself, probably not.

Re:User disabled?

[AnonymousCohort]

That would make a scissor a circumvention device.

Easy to disable!

[LagDemon]

Just cover your paper in tin-foil!

Re:Easy to disable!

[Fermionic]

Whadda we do for a hat then?

Re:Easy to disable!

[SoSueMe]

a tin-foil covered paper hat?

Disabling

[gricholson75]

No word on whether it can be user-disabled...

I think this might do it.

Re:Disabling

[ConceptJunkie]

Actually, I don't think it would...

Re:Disabling

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this?

Re:Disabling

[ConceptJunkie]

THAT would do it.

Can they print on skin?

[victor_the_cleaner]

That way all the 'cool' kids who get barcode tat's on their bodies can be serially controlled.

This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[corebreech]

Think about it... if it's so easy and so cheap to produce RFID's, then what's to prevent us from printing out reams of the stuff, like a stack of paper where each sheet has a thousand RFID's printed on it, and then carrying whatever documents we'd like within that stack of paper.

This also makes it easy to forge RFID's, doesn't it? Why pay full cost at the local market when you can play "The Price is Right" using your printer at home.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[DoorFrame]

I'm guessing that your standard printer doesn't have the 60 chemicals required to print out the tag. Hmmmm... let's see. Black, Red, Argon, Blue, Halfnium... I've only got five. Oh well.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Rick the Red]

what's to prevent us from printing out reams of the stuff, like a stack of paper where each sheet has a thousand RFID's printed on it, and then carrying whatever documents we'd like within that stack of paper

Nothing, but it won't work. The RFID they're looking for is still in that stack of paper, so they can still track you (or tell that you're stealing something).

This also makes it easy to forge RFID's, doesn't it?

Sure, if you can obtain the 70 different inks and the design of the RFID you're trying to forge, including its exact number.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[TheSpoom]

In addition to sibling replies, even if you could forge the RFIDs easily, it would only be referring to an entry in the store's database for the product, correct? So you wouldn't be able to change the price, only replace it with the RFID of a lower-priced item, which would look kinda suspicious to the checkout clerk if the product wasn't very similar.

Course, if stores go ahead with the whole "walking out" thing where people pay automatically without the use of clerks and/or cashiers, they probably deserve it.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[corebreech]

You're wrong. Look at how they're "reading" the data. They are using a fixed number of chemicals, using each chemical as a bit, i.e., no more than one type of chemical per RFID. Now suddenly you're introducing hundreds, perhaps thousands of identical chemicals. There is no way for them to discriminate between a chemical that's in a legitimate RFID and a chemical that is chaff.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[corebreech]

Cute. Of course, were the system they propose adopted, such printers would become standard fare.

(unless of course you're running Linux, and waiting for them to open-source the driver.)

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[corebreech]

I would fully expect that the entire point of stores adopting this technology would be to reduce costs, i.e., eliminate payrolls.

And even if that weren't the case, the filet mignon which goes for $14.99@lb gets its RFID code "augmented" so it looks like $1.99@lb ground chuck. Who's going to look that closely?

And what are they going to do even if they catch you? Just feign ignorance... they'll have to assume it's a snafu on their end.

Hilarious.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just a low-blow.

If you really wanted the printer, you'd setup Windows NT 4 from an old cd, on the spare P166 doorstop you have lying around and run a print server, for your unix network.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[ejaw5]

only five huh? Let's use some trusty MUXes! Have the five main outputs connected to a 5:31 (i think that's right) MUX, with those 31 outputs hooked to 1:2 Mux.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Monkelectric]

And even if that weren't the case, the filet mignon which goes for $14.99@lb gets its RFID code "augmented" so it looks like $1.99@lb ground chuck. Who's going to look that closely?

Actually, I worked for a month at a walmart one winter >shiverThe local Kmart where I live used to have a self checkout station. It even had a device where you could demagnatize your products. I kept thinking, what would keep me from demagnatizing something very expensive -- and then paying for something very cheap -- walking out with the expensive thing in my pocket, and when the alarm went off on the cheap thing I say -- oh look, heres my reciept, I guess I dont know how to use that machine over there, im not very good with computers.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Monkelectric]

Excuse the repost slashdot ate about half of my last message for some reason

And even if that weren't the case, the filet mignon which goes for $14.99@lb gets its RFID code "augmented" so it looks like $1.99@lb ground chuck. Who's going to look that closely?

Actually, I worked for a month at a walmart one winter *shiver*. The thing is, that is the oldest trick in the book. The checkers aren't stupid -- what you're forgetting is that they check stuff all day and they KNOW what its supposed to cost. Wanna-be theft monkeys would take a barcode off something cheap and stick it on something expensive. So the question is -- will they glance at the price? because if they do theres a very good chance you'll be caught. However -- if they scan a whole bag at once and don't examine the contents, you may well get away with it :)

The local Kmart where I live used to have a self checkout station. It even had a device where you could demagnatize your products. I kept thinking, what would keep me from demagnatizing something very expensive -- and then paying for something very cheap -- walking out with the expensive thing in my pocket, and when the alarm went off on the cheap thing I say -- oh look, heres my reciept, I guess I dont know how to use that machine over there, im not very good with computers.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[kenthu]

In addition to sibling replies, even if you could forge the RFIDs easily, it would only be referring to an entry in the store's database for the product, correct? So you wouldn't be able to change the price, only replace it with the RFID of a lower-priced item, which would look kinda suspicious to the checkout clerk if the product wasn't very similar.
People do this already by cutting out UPC barcodes. I've heard of people getting furniture for insanely cheap prices. I'm guessing that the checkout clerks, in general, don't pay a whole lot of attention to this kind of stuff.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Wiggin]

um, let me see.

hydrogen, helium, lithium, berilium, boron, carbon, and nitorgen, oxygen, florine, neon, sodium, magnisium, aluminium, and silicon, phosphorous, sulphur, chlorine, argon, potassium, calcium, and scandium, titanium, vandium, chromium, manganise, iron, cobalt, and nickle, copper, zinc, galium, germanium, arsnic, selinium, and bromine, krypton, ribidium, stronsium, yittium, zirconium, niobium, and mollyebdimum

but thats about all i remember off the top of my head. (sorry for the spelling errors, but i could never remember how to spell them all).

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[JET 666]

so the stact of papers woulg be a "chaffstack"

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[Rick the Red]

Well, that's what I get for not RTFA.

OK, so you can jam it and forge it -- if you can obtain those 70 inks.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[danimrich]

Black, Red, Argon, Blue, Halfnium

I'm sure it is very easy :-) to print using a noble gas.

PS: it is spelled Hafnium.

Re:This makes it easy to defeat RFID

[instarx]

My printer has 8 colors. If the document is valuable enough it would be easy to just run the paper through 8 printers in series, allowing 64 "colors".

In search of...

[erick99]

This is a solution in search of a problem?

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:In search of...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about in counterfeit prevention/identification?

Re:In search of...

[SoSueMe]

Like the amendment to the SCO-Novell purchase?

Cheap to print...

[StuWho]

How much is a cartridge for one of these ink jet printers which can make these cheap RFID tags? Probably about $10o each.

Re:Cheap to print...

[mobby_6kl]

You mean how much it costs to make one cartridge? Well maybe $10. But how much will they cost to the end user... judging from how much a regular ink jet cartridge costs ($30-40?), this would cost much more.

Re:Cheap to print...

[StuWho]

Typo - I meant $100

Magnetic.../

[caino59]

"No word on whether it can be user-disabled..."

what about by using a strong magnetic field?

Shuddering at the potential

[Grrr]

Glickstein says that by the end of the year, the company should have its document-protection system ready. A year after that, the system for printing bar codes should be commercially available.

Tinfoil hat: on

<grrr>

70 different chemicals?

[slash-tard]

The printer is $99 after a 50 dollar rebate but they make it by up charging 75 bucks for each chemical refill.

Re:70 different chemicals?

[TecraMan]

Heh... You'd have no future in HP... They already charge us $75 for three colours... Try $1000 for 70!

Why is this needed?

[MakoStorm]

I mean seriously, is there some problem this if really fixing, do we need to track paper documents? How many paper documents are just prints of digital documents?

They say it will work well on SKU tags but the article says it has some shortcomings in nasty (industrial environments). Most production factories I have been in were pretty environmentally nasty, so if it cannot stand up to where it would be most used, why have it.

Zebra printers printing bar codes on plastic tags have worked so much better everywhere I have had to put them including some factories that are as close to the depths of hell as I want to get to.

Re:Why is this needed?

[hawkstone]

MakeStorm wrote: I mean seriously, is there some problem this if really fixing, do we need to track paper documents?

Working in a classified environment, I can certainly see a use for this. I imagine if they could, the government would absolutely like to know if a worker carries top secret documents home with them.

Re:Why is this needed?

[Avihson]

This would not stop them from photocopying, or photographing them as has been done all throughout the cold war. Proper document management stops the worker from leaving with classified docs. Well at least it did 10 years ago.

I can see ways to use and abuse this technology. Since it is a solution looking for a problem, I fear that the abuses will be perfected before the legitimate uses.

Re:Why is this needed?

[taped2thedesk]

Maybe it could be used to keep paper documents containing intellectual property from magically "leaving" the office without permission - sort of a anti-theft tag. I'm not sure how effective it would be in this case though.

Re:Why is this needed?

[hawkstone]

Sure, I agree this can't do much to prevent intentional removal of classified documents. I see it more as a way to prevent accidents. Much the same way that they don't allow classified media in an office of a type that can be read by an unclassified machine in the same office. There's nothing stopping someone from doing it intentionally, but it helps stop you from doing something stupid and causing an infraction through mere carelessness.

Re:Why is this needed?

[Prof.Phreak]

I mean seriously, is there some problem this if really fixing, do we need to track paper documents? How many paper documents are just prints of digital documents?

A lawyer friend of mine was VERY interested in this a while back (but RFIDs were `expensive' then). And it's not just for security, but for finding where particular documents are within the lawfirm.

Re:Why is this needed?

[phaggood]

the government would absolutely like to know if a worker carries top secret documents home with them.

You mean, using RFID on documents to detect that the hander, wearing a fiber-optically-lensed digital camera run through his glasses is storing hirez images on the memorystick in his shoes?

Ah, brilliant! No, wait...

"we have created the first firewall for paper docs

[Anonymous Coward]

"We have created the first firewall for paper documents!"

Dude, it's called a safe.

Try a safe.

[boarder8925]

"Previously, there has been no way to protect paper documents," says Moshe Glickstein, CrossID cofounder.

There's something called a "safe." Ever heard of it?

Pfiou! Tinfoil still works!!

[DRUNK_BEAR]

From the article: In environments where there are lots of metallic or water-filled objects, however, CrossID readers may not be able to scan bar codes printed with CrossID ink because metal reflects RF signals and water absorbs them.

Nothing will separate me from my tinfoil hat from now on!

Re:Pfiou! Tinfoil still works!!

[iminplaya]

Nothing will separate me from my tinfoil hat from now on!

Or my portable inflatable swimming pool.

Re:Pfiou! Tinfoil still works!!

[Fermionic]

So if you really want that doc bad enough, you just wear tin foil undies in, stick that doc in pocket, and you foiled their master plan. Sorry about the pun!

Re:Pfiou! Tinfoil still works!!

[boarder8925]

Nothing will separate me from my tinfoil hat from now on!

http://tinfoilhat.shmoo.com/

Currency protection?

[addie]

Seems to me this could be easily implemented to be an anti-counterfeit measure.

Re:Currency protection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me this could be easily implemented to be an anti-counterfeit measure.

Or a pro-mugging measure. Why bother accosting people at random when your RFID gun tells you the little old lady on the corner is toting around $5,000 in cash?

Re:Currency protection?

[kenthu]

Or a pro-mugging measure. Why bother accosting people at random when your RFID gun tells you the little old lady on the corner is toting around $5,000 in cash?

I was going to mention something about how little old ladies shouldn't be carrying around $5,000 in cash, but then I realized that owners of mom and pop stores probably need to carry around a large amount of cash when they take their weekly (or daily?) revenue to the bank.

Re:Currency protection?

[Lord_Dweomer]

"Why bother accosting people at random when your RFID gun tells you the little old lady on the corner is toting around $5,000 in cash?"

FINALLY! A synergy of technologies that actually makes sense! Screw all those cellphones with cameras, I want a gun that tells me how much money someone has on them so I know who to mug!

Re:Currency protection?

[zoney_ie]

> Or a pro-mugging measure. Why bother accosting people at random when your RFID gun tells you the little old lady on the corner is toting around $5,000 in cash?

Ah sure, we could just track who each banknote "belongs" to, thieves can then be tracked, as can defrauders/moneylaunderers. Unless they ACTUALLY "launder" the money.

Yeah, OK, I'm kidding here.

Still, I could see govt's (US, EU, particularly) being silly enough to introduce these RFID tags on currency.

Re:Currency protection?

[Library Spoff]

you were issued with this 20 quid note at an autoteller. How come Mr Big Drug Dealer paid it into his bank account?

Copy by hand?

[zymurgy_cat]

Hmmmm....so if they install readers in copy machines, how about I just hand copy the document (or just the very important facts, figures, etc.)? How about a little hand scanner? How about an older USB scanner attached to my laptop?

Re:Copy by hand?

[rhiorg]

...and if you want to keep the RFID in there, you'll apparently need 70 different pens.

Re:Copy by hand?

[victor_the_cleaner]

That's where DRM comes in. Soon the media lords will require that every device capable of creating content, i.e. pens, pencils. have DRM built in.

That way if you attempt to transcribe any document that you don't have rights to you'll immediately be apprehended. Or the pencil will explode in your hands.

Re:Copy by hand?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a pre-year 2000 copy machine that hasn't heard of paper being "watermarked" with RFID?

Re:Copy by hand?

[yy1]

I think this "solution" for "firewalling" documents is mainly for places that can (or think they can) secure access to an area (with the usual cameras, metal detectors, body searches, and so on) so you can't carry in some sort of electronic copy device (above mentioned cameras, scanners ,etc)

They also search you going OUT.

Now far be it from them stopping you from taking ANY work home to do on your own time, so this way they can just do a scan of your stack of "work" and verify that no classified documents are therein, and this is also a FAST thing, so that when 5 'oclock rolls around you don't have riots when people are leaving.

I think its a pipedream tho, sounds more like some great solution that they use to string along controlfreak corp-espionage and intel types so they pour millions in funds that aren't even officially budgeted in developing it and of course the people who are working on it have a great job.

I'm sure they have no end of great ideas couched in this scenerio because these are the people who are willing to spend money on this. Security managers probably make little gigglings noises, or excessive drooling when they get pitched stuff like this, when they are told that they could link every document to a person and therefore be able to LITERALLY follow the "paper trail" around to see who has come in contact with said paper. (use timecode from scanner to sync to timecode on camaras covering area and you could get a dozen snapshots or short clips showing a little storyline with everyplace the document was scanned. (i hear over doorways is what they are doing in warehouses)

Of course then there is the guy who is making a pouch for the EZ-pass that I hear uses RFID that is supposed to block it or make it transparent to scanners. Course then they will have scanners for what the pouches are made of etc. Either way the companies making these products will be happy to make new products to escalate the RFID arms race.

It concerns me that anyone interested in maintaining their privacy has to keep up this constant battle, facing stern legalse warning you not to provide the supermarket false information about where you live,etc. Instead they make it easy to give in, to just let it happen because of course why should you care if you have nothing to hide, essentially branding you a "criminal " or a "kook" if you do try to maintain your privacy.

Re:Copy by hand?

[Thor Ablestar]

how about I just hand copy the document

Put a tinfoil or a box of juice over your document.

+z: Funny?

[OverlordQ]

I fail to see the Humor in this.

Living in the country that tried to introduce CAPPS and CAPPS II and did pass PATRIOT but thankfully not TIA or PATRIOT II, or am I just the only one that could see the government trying to do this?

Re:+z: Funny?

[Rick the Red]

My greater fear is that they will outlaw individual possession of RFID readers. It's not too much of a stretch for the folks who thought up the DMCA to apply its "anti-circumvention device" prohibition to RFID readers. If we can't read 'em we can't find 'em, and if we can't find 'em we can't remove 'em.

Re:+z: Funny?

[starm_]

ah but if these chemicals are so cheap we can just spray them everywhere effectively jamming the signal

Re:+z: Funny?

[Frymaster]

My greater fear is that they will outlaw individual possession of RFID readers.

for the dedicated, though, such bans never seem to work. police scanners are illegal in my country... but i picked one up at a pawn shop for $100. and every city desker at your local newspaper worth his/her nacl has one.

only a few years ago, military grade crypto was restricted for private use in the state, and that didn't stop anyone who wanted it from getting it.

Re:+z: Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any good sources for buying an RFID reader so I can track what's being tracked (more like identify it and destroy it)?

Re:+z: Funny?

[halo8]

But if you ban the chemicals
then only the criminals will have the chemicals

Re:+z: Funny?

[chrome]

no, you are not.

Most people have a scar on their left arm from some innoculation that we all get when we're babies. I forget what it's for - measels I think. Anyway - what it's for is unimportant. (I think the X-Files had a wonderful episode where they postulated that the tissue collected from every innoculation went into a big storehouse for a genetic database)

One could very easily see how a government could set it up so that everyone was tagged during this innoculation.

We have it in Australia, and I see the same scars here all the time in Japan and I saw them in England - I wonder how many other countries do this innoculation?

God, I'm turning into a paranoid nut ... but in this day and age, I'm wondering if thats actually just a sensible precaution.

Re:+z: Funny?

[dryeo]

Smallpox scar from smallpox vaccination

Re:+z: Funny?

[blincoln]

Well I'll be darned. I'd never seen one of those before (I'm 25), but I guess they really were doing that up until a few years before I was born.

Re:+z: Funny?

[flosofl]

Its called a smallpox inoculation. They stopped around 1970 or so... I have one and I was born in 1969.. (69! Social! Everyone drink!)

Re:+z: Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, Actually they did pass patriot II, it's just that no one noticed because it was included in a completely unrelated financing bill.

Really cool technology

[Limburgher]

See, what they do is, they make a graphical representation of the tag data, a code if you will, in binary format for easy reading. They print it in a pattern easily scanned with an optical device, using long stripes, or bars, of shiny material, to maximize the signal pickup of the optical scanner.

It's like some sort of bar-code. Truly revolutionary.

User-disable...

[Anonymous Coward]

photocopy it?

A godsend, perhaps?

[Absurd Being]

Do human beings count as water filled objects? Keep them from cheaply tracking US, if we can distort the waves with our bodies.

Re:A godsend, perhaps?

[iminplaya]

Do human beings count as water filled objects?

Well, to some, we are just "ugly bags of water".

Re:A godsend, perhaps?

[HFShadow]

Heh, I was about to post the same thing.

Seems very useful for stopping mass theft of docs

[0xfc]

If the goal is to steal one sheet of information, take a picture, memorize it, copy it, etc... all valid ways to subvert this system.

That is not very practical in the real world.
Most times one wants to steal a whole bunch at a time.
I am sure we have all read interesting things that
are left sitting in the printer unattended... that might have
value to someone else outside the company doors.

So that seems to be what this system might stop.
One cannot stick 100 pages of information in their
pants, covered by their shirt and just walk out.

At one cent a page, it seems very reasonable to install those
directly into your printer. I want one too. Well as long as it
comes in a normal printer as an added feature. Let the printer
company pay the license fee, and I will buy the special inks.

Profit.

Not just for paper

[Syre]

By quoting the co-founder, I may have given the impression that this is just an RFID for paper.

Actually, they say they could print this on all kinds of materials, so it could be sprayed onto products before they are painted, etc.

I kind of doubt you could deactivate them by overloading them, as you can other RFIDs.

This could be a rather invasive and hard to counteract development...

Re:Not just for paper

[Witchblade]

Interesting. Everyone seems to have immediately thought of this being used by retailers besides the obvious document watermarking. My first thought was the entertainment industry would love something like this: DVDs, CDs, and whatever's next (especially whatever's next!) that can only be played on RFID enabled devices, and such devices that only read RFID printed media.

Next front for 21st century hackers: chemistry, bio, and molecular physics. Will the next DeCSS be a protein chain?

Re:Not just for paper

[pla]

I kind of doubt you could deactivate them by overloading them, as you can other RFIDs.

I doubt any form of RFID tag will survive 15 seconds in my microwave oven...

Re:Not just for paper

[Anonymous Coward]

deactivate? Yea, you got a point there. May be possible I don't know. . . .

counteract?, naw, just find out what those chemicals are, mix with epoxy or glue and put a dot on all of your stuff.

Effectivly it is jammed, everything returns 0xFFFFF....

Re:Not just for paper

[fermion]

I don't think deactivation would be that hard. Like many security devices, this is good to protect the innocent rather than thwart motivated criminal behavior. For example, this method would allow all secure documents and materials to have an RFID tag on it to prevent or track an item that are removed from a secure location. Offices could use it to keep writing implement from wandering out of the office. In both cases, the tag could easily be torn or scratched off.

I also wonder if they would make a good replacement for barcodes. Now that stores let you check yourself out, I have wondered if people bring extra bar codes with them. For instance, instead of paying for the 30 dollar bottle of wine, you swipe a bar code for the 10 dollar bottle of wine. Traditional RFID tags may be a counter measure to this, but this type of tag may not be.

Re:Not just for paper

[Thomas Shaddack]

Forging this kind of tag seems to be quite simple. There is no encryption there, the tag can be read raw. The tag is cheap to produce, essentially by printing. A big black market with tags will emerge, first fueled by employees with access to expensive printers, then by just about everyone, as the cost of the printers will go down with the growing market.

Re:Not just for paper

[Sven The Space Monke]

Neither will the CD it's printed on. Or the circuit board. Or... Get the ramifications yet? This is something that can be printed on ANYTHING. We're not talking little circuts sqirreled away inside a box. This is a little chemical signature that can be hidden ANYWHERE. Say Apple (just as an example) wanted to tag iPods. Okay, so you now know that your iPod is tagged. That means you have to crack it open and find the component that's tagged. Could be the case, the battery, a capacitor, an IC, etc. Sure, the plastic case (after being separated from the rest of the device) would probably survive 15 seconds in the ol' warmin' box. And so might the chemical signature. Since it's non metallic, it might not conduct the current needed to overload & blow traditional RFID tags. But if they tagged the LCD screen and you zapped that, it DEFINATELY wouldn't survive. The first step, however, would be to determine the part that has the tag on it. Good luck, since it's invisible and all. Unless you completely dismantled it and ran each part through a scanner, you're out of luck.
The point is, this new tech allows for ANYTHING to be tagged. I don't mean have a tag attached, I mean become a tag itself. You can no longer separate the tag from the object. This means that if the only way to deactivate the damn thing is to microwave it (or expose it to gamma radiation, or preform some pagan ritual, or...), they can put the tag on a part that will also not survive the process. Imagine if in the branding of the new P5 10gHz Double-EXXTREEM CPU "tuned for gaming!", they tagged the CPU right before they silk-screened the Intel logo over it. Microwave that.

Disabled

[redhat421]

This just opens the door for a belt clip with an active RFID jammer to be marketed.

Re:Seems very useful for stopping mass theft of do

[0xfc]

Well, I forgot a key thing.

I also need the special sensors. I have no idea what that would run for two exits/entrances. Maybe it would only
be a few hundred dollars and that seems
very reasonable for a small business.

At what point should this be illegal?

[Sarcasmooo!]

Anyone here optimistic enough to think that Congress will step in before we reach a point as catastrophic as, say, an era where all government documents are tracked and no whistleblowers ever succeed in bringing official misdeeds to light?

What a wonderful Democracy that would leave us with.

Re:At what point should this be illegal?

[Fermionic]

Why does someone always feel the need to talk about politics. It is a sickness, man. Get help!

Re:At what point should this be illegal?

[pla]

an era where all government documents are tracked and no whistleblowers ever succeed in bringing official misdeeds to light?

RFID'd document + Photocopier = anonymous leak

Re:At what point should this be illegal?

[Thomas Shaddack]

A 3-or-more-megapixel camera makes a good-enough image of an A4 page to be perfectly legible. A copier-equivalent device fits a shirt pocket today.

Re:At what point should this be illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone here optimistic enough to think that Congress will step in before we reach a point as catastrophic as, say, an era where all government documents are tracked and no whistleblowers ever succeed in bringing official misdeeds to light?

What a wonderful Democracy that would leave us with.

What makes you think we aren't already there? Photocopiers, printers, scanners, cameras and other devices are already starting to attach device identifiers to documents. In fact, color photocopiers have been doing it for the past ten years.

To top that off, anyone with a cell phone effectively walks around with a homing device. If a reporter leaks a story, the government would likely find out who had access to the material and also crossed paths with the reporter.

Firewall eh?

[noblefox]

But, does this so-called chemical firewall prevent you from burning the paper with fire? I think not...

Whats to prevent people from copying it out by hand? So it has an "invisible" mode... visible or not, if there are chemicals, it can be read... Any hackers out there with biochemistry or chemical engineering degrees? Heh...

It does raise an interesting point though, these folks could very well become the microsoft of the photocopying world. Whats to stop them from making this sort of printing mandatory for copyright sake? Assuming they managed to get that in line, I cant imagine what'd happen to Xerox stocks when people are no longer able to freely photocopy.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, 'I refuse to live in a world without freedom to steal other people's intellectual property!'.

Re:Firewall eh?

[kfg]

Whats to stop them from making this sort of printing mandatory for copyright sake?

Then your pencil eraser would become a tool for violating copyright.

Oh the ironies we weave.

KFG

Re:Firewall eh?

[Justice8096]

Actually, it has some very good uses in secure government contractor environments, if you only use it for classified documents.
One of the biggest hassles in that environment is making sure that the documents have been stored properly at the end of the day (locked in special cabinets), and disposed of properly. Add scanners at the copier and trash areas, and you have an effective way of detecting an attempt to improperly dispose of documents.
Line the secure document repository with a blocking material, and you only need to have someone walk down the aisle of cubicles with a scanner at the end of the day, or wherever uncleared personnel are present (especially if you can code the document paper to the dozens of clearance types)
Inventory parts used for specific projects, add scanners, and this could reduce the cost of implementing a SCIF by thousands.

Re:Firewall eh?

[noblefox]

And what happens when you end up with a German Enigma Machine-esque codebreaker?

Giving the government the ability to keep these documents "secret" but also to track them and the legitimacy of the document is a surefire that they get precisely what it is they want, and not necessarily what is socially responsible - there would be no leaks, there would be no unwanted information, they would have nearly complete control over them... thats a lot of power, a lot of dangerous power. There would be no room for one morally concious person, they could simply be squealched or fingered as a terrorist or a traitor... Its carte blanche for them to do whatever they see fit.

If you still have to make sure that everything is secure at the end of the day, is this 'safety measure' really ensuring the safety which it ought to?

one cent???

[sleepypants]

Considering regular inkjet ink is more expensive than champagne, how much will rfid ink cost? On par with liquid gold?

RFID and Barcodes != Security or Trust

[PetoskeyGuy]

If this thing is so easy and cheap, I wouldn't use it as certification that confidential documents haven't been tampered with. The same scan that could be done to verify the papers were legit would also allow you to get the get the RFID, then just print the same RFID paint on your new documents.

It's just a RF barcode. It lets machines read things a little bit easier. There is nothing very secure about it, especially once it becomes widespread.

The biggest change I forsee is that the cashier at the grociery store - if they still have a job - won't have to touch anything. The conveyor belt will scan all the food as it goes down to the bagger, and probably your RFID Credit Card too.

Re:RFID and Barcodes != Security or Trust

[stratjakt]

The cashier will still be there, they'll call 'em attendants, or whatever..

Self checkout lines are everywhere now, but you still need humans around. On the surface, they keep you honest, but I always need them to reset the stupid machine everytime I accidentally lean on the bagging area and it starts flipping out "unexpected item in bag! danger danger will robinson"..

Or I buy something thats too light, and it doesnt recognize that I bagged it..

It's just another barcoding method..

Frankly, though, this whole website looks like some kind of bunko job, the FAQ is vague and reeks of someone looking to squander some investor bucks. I'll believe it when I see it in production..

Re:RFID and Barcodes != Security or Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Why even bother unloading the cart? I always pictured RFID readers located at stations near the exit. You should simply push the cart near them on the way out then your total will instantly be displayed. Now you can pay with your prefered method. If thats an RFID credit card you won't even have to stop walking. I cant wait. I will finally be able to buy tampons! (hidden under a 6 pack of course)

funny..... it is

[segment]

, it is funny... Oh, by the way... No back to Martha Stewart's shoes...

Not your grandpa's RFID

[lcracker]

This sounds awfully worthless. Think about it, they have a set of up to 70 chemicals, not an electronic device with collision avoidance. Since you have these collisions, if you had two distinct CrossID codes within range, then the reader will do a binary OR of the codes.. the reader will report a third code entirely.

Re:Not your grandpa's RFID

[Thor Ablestar]

Use only selections of chemicals that have a constant number of ones. Then, any code that has more than this number is a collision. See the Official Phreaker's manual for 2-of-6 code.

Developer offers Linux-based RFID

[_type_linux_]

The problem with RFID technology is that while it works well at close range with limited sensors, in a real world environment with noise, reliability goes down significantly. Companies like WalMart are already spending millions on research on RFID technology. We're still not at a stage when sheep or bees are equiped with unique rfid tags. Imagine having the power to ssh into a bee and mess with it's brain! Watch out for the new species of "killer bees"...

Re:Developer offers Linux-based RFID

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the short range can also be listed as a pro, you don't want to be read every where you go just when its needed. The range for each chip can be selected depending on its task by varying sized of antennas.

Re:Developer offers Linux-based RFID

[SmittyTheBold]

Interesting? This is a joke/troll/retarded post.

You're not controlling anything - it's an ID system. It's not RFControl. It's RFID.

sorry for dupe post

[segment]

Considering most Americans gave their privacy away, nothing via way of RFID's nor laws should concern anyone.

Seems easily defeated

[GuruHal]

I'm no chemical engineer, but the chemical properties of this system seem easy to defeat by simply adding more chemicals to the mix and marking up the RFID. They used the system of chemicals ABCD representing the first 4 binary digits and only A and C present to form the binary value 1010, then properly adding chemical B after the fact should still produce a value of 1110 which negates the entire process.

Re:Seems easily defeated

[0xfc]

I am not quite sure that method would work for 100-1000s of pages.

I am sure people will start using it on
asset tags soon enough also.

I am so tired of company equipment i need to do my job ends up missing. And I mean taken off company property when it should not have been.

Where did that matching rack monitor go???

Re:Seems easily defeated

[KitFox]

I would expect that they would have to narrow it down to "If C, D, and E are present, the person shouldn't have it." Which really just makes it more complicated alarm tags.

The point you bring up is quite valid as well... If you have a paper that is A and C (1010) (A picture of a llama) stacked on top of a paper that is A and D (1001) (A picture of Tux) and you read it from 10 feet away, the reader will NOT say that you have two pieces of paper, but rather that you have one sheet labeled "1011" (The critical evidence in the court case that may not leave the building, and if anybody tries to take it out, shoot first and ask questions later.)...

An extreme example, of course... But still... Scary...

Re:Seems easily defeated

[timeOday]

Then again, look how much mileage we've gotten from UPC symbols, which any printer of any kind can produce.

Getting through building exits

[NetworkNeighbor]

What's to keep me from changing the "70 bit code" by spraying a few more chemicals onto the document? Then I'll just walk out of the protected area with a new hat or something instead of the "protected" document.

Re:Getting through building exits

[DangerSteel]

Yeah but what if you cannot leave the protected area, building, airport, city, or state without that document...

Welcome citizen, do not lose your ID card, we will be watching.

Re:Getting through building exits

[KitFox]

What if they use it as simply "70-bit alarm tags"? With the Chemical A, B, C, D, etc concept...

Your idea:
"If we see B, D (0101) try to leave the building, stop it." *Spritz* "Oh, 1111 can leave, no problem."

My idea:
"A is fine and just an indicator. B is 'Make sure the person doesn't have any big bags'. C is 'Search the person for illegal documents'. D is 'shoot on sight'."
Then 1010 (Search the person for illegal document removal) becomes *Spritz!* 1111... and that could be painful.

So, what if bit 56 means "The object this is on has a value of at least $100." and bit 57 has a value "The object this is on is sensitive intelligence" in the company? Spraying extra alarm tags doesn't help.

Of course, at that point, it also becomes a question of "What if this Snickers Bar uses bit 56 to mean 'expires in January'?" and you happen to carry that into work?

Re:Getting through building exits

[Thomas Shaddack]

Spray the chemical *on the reader*. NOBODY can get out then. The likely outcome is that it will be shrugged off as just "another problem with that piece of crap", or fallback to manual processing (which is likely to make the people angry against the technology, making it less appealing politically to deploy even more widely).

Re:Seems very useful for stopping mass theft of do

[bersl2]

One cannot stick 100 pages of information in their
pants, covered by their shirt and just walk out.

Are those 100 pages of documents in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

Sign of the beast

[Anonymous Coward]

I think geeks should unite and play up the "sign of the beast" angle, that way the fundamentalist christian crazies will resist it, and hence the republican party.... :)

Re:Sign of the beast

[static int]

The "mark of the beast" IS the answer to many problems facing governments and corporations of our time.

With a system where each person has their own id (read mark) imprinted into their wrist or forehead things like identity theft (bogus sellers, bogus buyers - think ebay, think credit card,...), piracy (copyright infringment), tracking of individuals (think terrorists, enemies of the state, rapists, kidnapped persons, etc) would (seemingly) fall by the wayside.

With the many converging technologies of today this is getting easier all the time. With technologies like the internet, and wireless access points (hotels, corporations, restaurants, ...) you have the necessary infrastructure. And with the various RFID technologies and entities pusing for implimentation (Walmart, US military) you have things shaping up pretty nicely.

Revelation 13: 16-17:

"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..."

Re:Sign of the beast

[orthogonal]

I think geeks should unite and play up the "sign of the beast" angle, that way the fundamentalist christian crazies will resist it, and hence the republican party.... :)

But in all seriousness folks, this would probably backfire. The Fundamentalist Christians support the state of Israel precisely because they expect Armageddon to start there, and -- according to their Holy Book -- Armageddon has to happen before Christ returns to reward the Fundies.

That Armageddon is supposed to leave Israel hip deep in blood is one of those regrettably necessary evils. It'll be th blood of the Jews and the Muslims, not the Fundies. The Fundies will rule for 1000 years at the side of Christ, or rise bodily into heaven or however it is their Sky-Ghost is supposed to reward them.

Since another Sign of the "End Times" is the ubiquitous appearance of the Mark of the Best on foreheads or hands everywhere, I wouldn't be surprised to see Fundies being all for it, on the theory that the sooner the Beast comes, the sooner Christ follows.

Re:Sign of the beast

[nounderscores]

what happens if you were in a bad fire and lost your right hand and forehead? like the skin was all pink and scarry so it wouldn't take the tatoo?

Re:Sign of the beast

[JanusFury]

Of course, we all know how much sense it makes for men to determine the time of Christ's return by creating their own armageddon, right?

Re:Sign of the beast

[Anonymous Coward]

Since another Sign of the "End Times" is the ubiquitous appearance of the Mark of the Best on foreheads or hands everywhere,

Mark of the Best? Like Best Buy? How evil...

I wouldn't be surprised to see Fundies being all for it, on the theory that the sooner the Beast comes, the sooner Christ follows.

No... They'd be thrilled to see it, but certainly against anything that'd require them to get stamped.

Revelation 14:9-11
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Eventually (to spoil the ending for you) they get cast into a lake of fire in 19:20.

Re:Sign of the beast

[static int]

The printable RFID is just one (possible) way this could be done, chips and the like are others. But, perhaps you still have a skull that can be printed on?

Hmm

[ColaMan]

It would appear that all you need to do to fuck this up is to have some extra chemcials on the paper.

They say that they have 70 different chemicals that all resonate at different frequencies, they assign each chemical to a certain position in a 70 bit string.

So if you want to mess with it, all you need to do is add a few drops of glue with (say) 15 of the chemicals in it onto the item, then the reader reads a 70 bit code with 15 extra 1's in it.... which is not the code that it's looking for, move along.

Re:Hmm

[foniksonik]

I'd guess that for many applications they would place this as a watermark somewhere, possible visible for verification of tampering or possible somewhere random and invisible even embedded or sandwhiched at a specified depth.... in any case it doesn't seem unlikely that they will prepare for obvious tampering possibilities.

In a book for instance the code coulld be printed in invisible ink on a random page... that would foil most attempts at tampering.

This is assuming you are talking about a consumer purchased item. Many applications of this will have nothing to do with point of purchase commerce... more likely inventory control as has been proposed previously.

Verisign?

[victor_the_cleaner]

What's a good discussion without our friends at Verisign?

With RFID built into currency as an anit-counterfeit tool, now they will be able to cross-reference my cash-on-hand with products in the store. As I reach for the overpriced Ben-N-Jerry's a voice will say "you can't afford it bud!"

Re:Verisign?

[Arngautr]

verisign is a scary thought, but last I heard the EU has plans to incorperate RFID tags in Euro notes, this method would work for that. The US wont be ble to do this though. It reminds me of a document that the ACLU, and a bunch of other groups published a while back. saying that: "(1) Merchants must be prohibited from forcing or coercing customers into accepting live or dormant RFID tags in the products they buy. (2) There should be no prohibition on individuals to detect RFID tags and readers and disable tags on items in their possession. (3) RFID must not be used to track individuals absent informed and written consent of the data subject. Human tracking is inappropriate, either directly or indirectly, through clothing, consumer goods, or other items. (4) RFID should never be employed in a fashion to eliminate or reduce anonymity. For instance, RFID should not be incorporated into currency." Every one of these I agree with wholly: http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/RFIDposition.htm

Good plan but what about photocopiers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you be able to track me down if I can photocopy or even scan the documents...Follow that paper trail if you dare ;)

Uhhhh, machine guns do wonders

[MajorDick]

'Previously, there has been no way to protect paper documents,'
Well, if youve ever been to a secure records center, like where they keep classified archives (I have) the guys at the doors with machine guns do wonders to "protect" the documents :)

My Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote this invention as "Super Double Un-Good"

Re:My Vote

[vrtsdaemon]

I vote this invention as "Super Double Un-Good"

I like the allusion :).

Quite scary if you ask me.

RF Jammin

[Fermionic]

There are plenty of cheap RF jamming products. And we could use Tin foil hat as an antenna! Don't laugh, I have done it!

The black magic marker strikes again!

[chocolatetrumpet]

Remember that black magic you used on your drm cd?

Yup... here it comes again!

Also, whiteout... and.......scissors...

Re:The black magic marker strikes again!

[BaerWulf]

Actually, My first thought for disabling such a device would be to draw on it with a drawing (graphite) pencil. As graphite conducts electricity the RFID circuit would short out.

Tonight is NOTHING!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the teenage angst directed at this poor RFID company is bad, wait until tomorrow night's posts. Nothing says rage like the contributions to the Internet by people sitting in front of their computers on Valentine's day night.

Simple, start making possession illegal

[modder]

For all the tin foil hat wearers...

They just have to make it illegal to possess certain RFIDs unless you are using them properly.

E.g. only RFIDs designated for drivers licenses can be carried on drivers licenses. Possessing them in any other form would be illegal, and you lose a whole spectrum of rights...

[Outer space becomes the new South America etc etc.]

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[LouisZepher]

Off topic, but oh well... I would like to point out to the paranoid people that either joke about, or actually wear tin-foil hats in order to block "mind-rays". This is absolutely ludicrous, and only a moron would ever believe it. These people lack the common sense that wearing tin-foil doesn't protect against mind control/reading! As a child of the 80's, I had a television without cable. This meant that I needed to use "bunny-ears" to recieve my channels. Now, anyone who needed to use bunny-ears would know, tin-foil actually boosted the signal, when wrapped around the ends of the actual antennae.

Keep this in mind next time you wear a Reynold's Beret.

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[modder]

Oh I only make Reynolds berets out of plastic rap, so there should be no need to worry.

As for your initial comment, you might find that references to tin foil hat wearers are common here and it is simply a light hearted way of talking about the "ultra paranoid". (At least for some of us.)

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[LouisZepher]

Yeah, I know, after seeing the one millionth reference, I couldn't help but make the comment.

To be honest, your reference to plastic-wrap hats isn't too far off. I found the best way for paranoids to deal with mind-rays is to take a 5-gal baggie and place it over their head, securing the edge around their neck and shoulders with duct-tape (this is to ensure that no stray rays leak in or out). After about 5-10 mins, one won't need to worry about big-brother eavesdropping on their Natalie Portman fantasies any more. ;)

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[Cruciform]

Unfortunately they tear the bag apart by reflex as they pass out.

That's why bag suicides usually take a couple of sleeping pills or restrain the hands.

So if they weren't successful you'd now have a delusional paranoid convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that you were out to get them. Don't make any long term investments :P

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[modder]

lmao that's definately a way of dealing with paranoids. (Probably make them more paranoid though if they knew they would be dealt with this way.)

Sometimes a bit of paranoia is a good thing.

Re:Simple, start making possession illegal

[modder]

Yes, dealing with the paranoids is tricky business at best and is usually better solved by using our secret and proprietary technique which only we know about.

(Hint: rumors indicate our technique might involve certain types of kitchen wrapping material and cranial accessories.)

this is huge!

[l0ungeb0y]

Wow, if the article is right on and the tech is solid, this is something that will revolutionize the way we live.

With a 3-10ghz range wireless reader, these would be the most feasible types of tags to use as a security device.
When entering a secured facility, you could get a unique card printed up and be allowed or denied access to rooms/areas via installed card readers. I'd much rather have a throw away card over biometrtics any day. And this such much more reliable over all.

And what about home security?
These could act as keyless entry, and also allow you to tag your belongings so that if they were detected as leaving your premesis, the authorities could be contacted.

There are plenty of 1984ish applications such as embedding these into ID cards/Drivers Licenses, which could in the future be a very effective way to monitor peoples comings and goings. But, I'm sure there are hundred of tinfoil cap wearing slashbts who could delve into those areas for me.

Re:this is huge!

[Fermionic]

Let get this straight. You wanna lojack your easyboy by stuffing paper between the cushions. hmmm

Re:this is huge!

[Anonymous Coward]

When entering a secured facility, you could get a unique card printed up and be allowed or denied access to rooms/areas via installed card readers.

FYI, this is already being done. You wave the card near a reader, the system does a database lookup, and if you're allowed through that door, it unlocks. All within a fraction of a second. Of course these things are a lot more expensive than printing something up on an index card, so the cheaper chemical RFIDs will probably make this more pervasive.

Re:this is huge!

[mindstrm]

Won't happen for high security.. the problem is, there is nothing tying the card to you. Anyone with a reader could, from a distance, read your RFID tag and then make their own, and wander around the building.

This is the problem with current proximity cards... from several feet away, you can clone one, without anyone knowing.

Re:this is huge!

[GuruHal]

Given the range of readability and the ease of reproduction, I don't believe this will ever become a keyless entry system. With the readable range they have, anyone could scan your RFID from a few feet away, duplicate the key on a bubblejet and walk into your home. It may be used to track individuals inside an office building, but the entry should be done with something far more secure than an RFID that can be read at a distance and reproduced inexpensively and easily.

Re:this is huge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you will have a new type of criminal, one who removes skin/appendage/etc. from people and traffick them on the black market.

~Coward

Future Jeopardy question

[modder]

"Back in 2010, Crayola introduced this RFID into it's standard box."

Re:Future Jeopardy question

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Prussian 3.75 ghz

Defense

[namespan]

You might be able to create an n-bit hash from document appearances and combine that with some unique identifier for the document. Then, any copier/reader in the area the document is not allowed to leave, has to recognize both the document id and match its hash in order to do any copying....

Of course, then there's the challenge of keeping the document in the area (could have the tag snipped out and be removed) or keeping unauthorized document copiers out of said area. So it's not perfect.

Re:Defense

[DesertFalcon]

Or turning the document sideways a bit, or moving it while it's being copied just a tad.

Re:Defense

[weston]

Hmmm... no, you do that, you ruin the hash, and so the document doesn't match up with it, and so the machine stops. The idea I think the poster had was that the id/hash combo is the key that lets you do anything with the document -- if it doesn't match up, then the copier shuts down.

And then made illegal

[modder]

Like my other post about making posession of various RFID "transmitting agents" (I presume they'd be called.) illegal. (Or Weapons of Spectral Destruction.)

Re:And then made illegal

[Thomas Shaddack]

What about "passive jammers"? De facto modified What about a passive solution? RFID tags that won't honor the collision detection and just transmit on full power, drowning the signal of other tags, but only when subjected to the reader's field, not having any power supply of its own? Suitable construction of the tag's antenna, being more effective than the "default" one (which may not be difficult because of the size constraints of the "default" configuration) should provide in order(s) of magnitude more power for the tag.

Live by the electron, die by the electron

[AndresFerraro]

I can already see myself walking into a WalMart where a large sign reads "It is a felony to carry an RFID Jammer into a public store." Gotta love the promise of a battle of wits between the "RFID everywhere" camp and the inevitable industry of "jammers" and "cloakers" that will spring up. PS: Wait until paper money has this...

But according to Bush's economic team

[Anonymous Coward]

This is beneficial to privacy.

Disabled

[jmv]

No word on whether it can be user-disabled

Ever heard of the "cisors" algorithm?

price change?

[chocolatetrumpet]

A world where people can't photocopy...

So much music is photocopied because, for instance choral music will be $2 per booklet; while you probably buy a decent sized set (20 or 40), you probably don't buy 200 to even thousands depending on the size of the choir.

If people had to pay for them, maybe the price would come down, otherwise composers would find their music losing popularity fast...

I can see the scams coming

[victor_the_cleaner]

And we can print in invisible mode for extra security

Ignorant Client: So you say you've secured all my paper records

Scam Artist: Yep, that's correct

IC: All you did was run them thru my copier, I don't see anything different

SA: That's because we used 'double-secret Invisible Mode'

IC: How do I know their secure?

SA: Just take this device and point it at your documents. If it doesn't make a sound your all set.

IC: Well this morning's paper doesn't register anything?

SA: That's becuase they're also a client.

Re:I can see the scams coming

[Fermionic]

That is hilarious. Do you want my director's phone number. I get 50%! Don't make me SCO your ass!

Of course they already do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Using a technology known as the police department. Can't go anywhere without your papers, Mein Herr.

A bold statement

[LuxFX]

'We have created the first firewall for paper documents.'

I don't get it. If somebody steals the paper, how is this going to protect it? This might be a good way to sign a piece of paper, but it isn't going to protect them.

Now if you want to prevent copying, that's a whole other matter. But that's DRM technology, not firewall technology. Are we really supposed to feel good about a technology when we hear it from a company that doesn't know what a firewall is?

Re:A bold statement

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, you don't get it.

It makes the papers in your office (or a protected government facility) synonymous with items in a store.

If you try to take something you shouldn't out of a store, an alarm sounds.

Likewise, with these tags printed on paper, if you tried to remove the papers from the office an alarm could sound. Like a firewall for paper.

Re:Seems very useful for stopping mass theft of do

[NanoGator]

"If the goal is to steal one sheet of information, take a picture, memorize it, copy it, etc... all valid ways to subvert this system."

Without the RFID, you cannot prove that you didn't just make up the info.

Yeah then we can all

[Kjella]

...go play "Dark Angel" from TV ;)

Kjella

chemical, printable, eh?

[MoFoQ]

wonder if shoplifters will now eat/lick those tags....

Ahem, A-hole

[Attaturk]

Surely in order to disable a watermark I could photocopy the original, et voila: I have an unprotected duplicate version of the self-same 'protected' original.
Better yet I could read it and rewrite it with a sophisticated device I call a 'pencil'. =)

After all folks, remember there is no protection from the almighty A-HOLE!

Re:Ahem, A-hole

[Barbarian]

You won't be allowed to do that if the RFID tag is on currency...

sounds pretty useless

[ajagci]

From the description, it sounds like if you have multiple pages with different signatures, you get back the OR of their bits. That means you have to ensure that the pages are scanned one-by-one, and at that point, you might as well use an optical barcode anyway.

Scissors become a circumvention device?

[coldnight]

That would really be sad. Not to mention every paper cutter and shreader. Can you see a day when the oldest tool known to man ( a sharp bit of rock ) might be outlawed by the DMCA?

Crazy world.

Re:Scissors become a circumvention device?

[Anonymous Coward]

These will be modified to detect any RFID signatures that will disable them ;)

Re:Scissors become a circumvention device?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone every watched Mighty Python?
hehe "pointy sticks"

*Goes to his Time Warner box, to use BBC on demand*

Re:Scissors become a circumvention device?

[OrangeTide]

I assumed the idea was the print the entire document using this 70-bit ink. so even the letter A could trigger an RFID scanner.

also shreadding the document is fine, then you can't read it anymore. the idea is companies, government, etc don't want important documents to be leaked out of a location. So the entries and exits could scan for documents, but more importantly. All of the copying machines could keep a log of how many times various documents were copied (and if you combine it with a smart card, users couldn't print anything without using their security card + pin).

[ and no. i didn't bother reading the article, I prefer to use my imagination ]

Re:Scissors become a circumvention device?

[fuzzybunny]

That's the problem with mechanisms meant to safeguard against theft; there's always a way around them. Think camera cellphones.

Re:Scissors become a circumvention device?

[OrangeTide]

Well what's sad is that microfilm cameras have been used by spies all around the world for half a century. So this "protection" could be circumvented with "ancient" technology.

I guess I'm still uncertain what use this protected ink is. Other than prevent the theft of original documents.

Au Contraire

[LouisvilleDebugger]

Merrell Williams, an unemployed theater arts teacher, walked out of the headquarters of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation in Louisville Kentucky with over FOUR THOUSAND pages of company documents. He was hired as a temp by the company to reclassify documents according to how damaging they would be in a Federal investigation.

He did it by slipping small numbers of the documents in his back brace (a very wide belt that ties around the waist.) I don't know whether he photocopied and then returned the documents or just stole them outright, but the whole batch wound up getting mailed to UCSF's medical school in San Francisco, IIRC.

I wonder...

[ricochet81]

if the US military/law consider this "chemical weapons" seeing as how encryption is a "munition".

This might be the way to end GW's problem in *raq.

The human body: Sack o' water.

[KitFox]

Yes.

You know those Sensormatic tags that look like a "White bandaid with two metallic (foil) dots in the middle"... Those are simple RF alarm tags with a fuse-like thing in the middle connecting the antennas. The 'gun' burns out the circuit in the middle, thus deactivating the tag.

Or, just cover the tag tightly with your water-filled hand against your water-filled body and not have the RF reach out and set off the alarm.

Disclaimer: this is in NO WAY an invitation, encouragement, or otherwise saying that it is a good idea to steal anything from any store using this system. This information was gleaned entirely from working at a store that used this system.

Allergies?

[orthogonal]

But I'm allergic to chemical 37, and to Big Brother.

Magnetism? I cannot believe this!

[hndrcks]

If this stuff works off of magnetic signatures, then a magnet can block it, and:

Nobody alerted us to a new use for our Alex Chiu immortality rings!

Never again

[Anonymous Coward]

... an Israeli startup, has developed an RFID system that can be printed using an inkjet printer...The big advantage is that the tag can be printed on just about anything.

Would you like that RFID printed on your left forearm, or your right forearm?

MICR and mixing

[k4_pacific]

Two thoughts come to mind.

Firstly, this doesn't seem that different than the MICR numbers on checks and we already have that, only now it works over greater distances.

Secondly, I would think that you could do this with two types of ink rather than 70 by having the printer mix the inks in varying proportions before blowing it onto the paper. If you have one ink with a very low resonant frequency and another very high, you could create a printing that resonates at any frequency in between by mixing the inks in the appropriate proportion. Also, I would think that the amount of ink on the paper might affect the resonant frequency as well, so you could just print darker to get a lower frequency.

But I'm not a physicist and I could be wrong.

Re:MICR and mixing

[mzo23]

Wouldn't that be IANAP? Or better yet, just take out the "am", I NAP. ;) Gotta love slashdot abbreviations.

RFID your boss! hmm

[Fermionic]

Just print RFID, get a little Gecko Tape, pat the Boss on the back (Good job in that budget meeting Mr. Dumass). Then set up your readers at each end of cube isle. When RFID is detected pc gives audible alert, such as, Mr Dumass is coming! Then just quit playing game, surfing, or whatever, and pretend to be framing his new budget proposal! hehe

What's next - RFID Tattoos ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the fun you could have ;-)

Cant avoid them

[Nihynjahs]

How is the government going to track this stuff? RFID camera deals on every single streetblock? This rfid seems like it could be very useful to deter counterfit stuff, what about using it on money. Then we could track you down to place where you are spendidng your ransom money! the real problem is getting these things on every single street corner. i Think rfids will mainly used in a commercial sense where they can track your purchases and best buy can be alerted when one of their best customers come in so they can greet them with a sales rep who knows nothing. oh here's another idea RFID toilet paper, yes you can find out who the damn kid was who tp'ed your house!

user-disabling?

[DesertFalcon]

"No word on whether it can be user-disabled..."

Umm... it's printed on paper. Tear it off?

Re:user-disabling?

[mzo23]

I thought of the same thing at first, but if it's watermarked into the text that kinda doesn't work...

Perpetual Identification

[aauu]

Unlike the current anti-theft technology where bulky visible tags are easy to spot and remove, the RFID tag can be a permanent invisible part of each product. The next time you wear any RFID tagged clothing back to the same store/chain, they can greet you ala minority report, aggregate your purchase history, sell such history to others. When you purchase items with your credit card, then you provide additional information useful to many people. The police could find you with scanners in public places such as airports by retreiving your purchase records from stores by determining where you bought your clothes from your bank transactions. We do not need a national id card when every retailer is going to tag the population for the government at no cost to the government. RFID scanners are much less obtrusive than the video cameras with face recognition. Add RFID tags to currency to prevent counterfeiting and trace illegal transactions. Am I being too paranoid?

Re:Perpetual Identification

[Thomas Shaddack]

Will we have to find-and-remove tags frou our clothing and possessions to maintain privacy? Will we have to organize "swap-meets" of banknotes, similar to what's already being done with loyalty cards?

Hey - we can finally put religion to some good use! I suppose there is something in some holy text that could be interpreted in the way that being subjected to this kind of tracking is against the basic premises of the given faith, then use the Constitution-guaranteed freedom of religion to back the objections.

Re:Your Attention Please {OT]

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to say Simoniker as well. That bar on the left is pretty cool, and the Games section always picks me up when I'm bored.

Hey Mr. Bond

[88NoSoup4U88]

How bout a digital camera ? :P

How to disable the bad old mag barcode

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, photocopy anybody?

User-disabled?

[iamdrscience]

Just xerox it!

I violated the DMCA

[Nuclear Elephant]

Oh great, now that pair of scissors in my desk is a stinking DMCA violation...and I guess that stapler is an illegal bondage device.

So...

[blair1q]

...to defeat this I add a few more of the 70 chemicals and nobody's the wiser... ...ain't it great when you can point out the security holes from a thousand miles away ten years before the technology manifests...

First Firewall for Paper Documents

[Esion Modnar]

was known as a safe. It had an authentication system known as a combination lock and/or key. This firewall system was best designed for interfacing with Sneakernet 1.0, formerly known as Loafernet.

BS

[BetaJim]

I believe that this company's technology is a hoax. The description from the RFId Journal page is nonsense. The CrossID homepage is very vague and lacks any useful information (just read the last FAQ item at the bottom of the page.)

The description that the RFId Journal gives reads like pseudoscience. Here's an example:

The system uses "nanometric" materials--tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism--that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader.

Some elements and molecules will resonate (emit electromagnatic energy [EM]) when exposed to EM radiation of a particular frequency, but only in the presence of a magnetic field! The process the article describes (without mention of the magnetic field) is that used by MRI machines. Why didn't the article or homepage mention the superconducting electromagnets necessary for the RFId tags to operate?

Even if the tag materials are magnetic (in which case its composition must be a ferrous metal, ceramic, or a magnetic plastic), then the very weak magnetic field is still not strong enough to cause the atoms/molecules to resonate in an EM field. Another sentence from article shows more inaccuracies:

CrossID is testing readers that operate at three to 10 GHz, which is higher than the frequencies commonly used by wireless LANs and handheld computers, although the company has not made a final determination on what frequency the readers will use.

They claim that 70 tag compounds are used which all have different resonate frequencies. Fine, the reader would use a wide-band receiver. I read the above as the tag reader using one transmit frequency. The trouble is that it is unlikely that those 70 compounds will all resonate when exposed to the same frequency EM waves. Anyway, it states that a "final determination" hasn't been made for what frequency to use! If the RFId tag ink exists then it MUST already be known what frequency must be used. This tech is bogus.

This article is just like the "Ubiquitous LED" article a few days ago. (if you want the reasons just reply) This article should not have been posted. It is not even wrong ;)

Re:BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.

Where could we possibly find a magnetic field?
One that encompasses the earth? Someone would have noticed that, the pesky thing would be making needles point north and stuff.

And those DSP-based, spread-spectrum radio transmitters, those don't exist either. Except of course all the new police radios are those kind. Oops....

Yeah, total BS. Whatever.

more routine than that

[djupedal]

Just the final step in any circumcision....no big deal :)

ACT NOW!

[_ph1ux_]

Cheap RFID INK JET REFILLS here - with our patented ink refilling system YOU SAVE. CLICK HERE up to 45% off regular RFID InkJet Cartiges.

This is not spam - you are receiving this because you opted in.....

user-disableable?

[dj245]

No word on whether it can be user-disabled...

In one word, Sharpie!

Re:user-disableable?

[SmartGamer]

The thing is, it's magnetic. It would need something to damage the data or block electromagnetic waves, not just something to block visible light.

Sandpaper should do the trick for damaging the data. This strikes me as a very vulnerable-to-corruption format.

Re:user-disableable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can disable this, Xerox...

Re:user-disableable?

[mzo23]

That is until they make xerox machines detect the RFID's within a certain distance and refuse to make any copies of anything until the RFID is far enough away. Kinda like HP printers and adobe photoshop's currency copying protection. Gotta love a corporate amerika!

Element vs Chemical

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Your forgetting the two chemicals (molicules)can be made from the same elements (atoms) and have very different reations to their enviorment.

Also lets not forget that you don't always need to individualy identify a piece of paper, only where it was printed, ie which department/floor/printer/etc. to narrow down who could have generated it.

Think about it. Remember that each of the 70 chemicals can be used as a single bit in a very big number, add some chemicals to the Black ink and you have a id for the printer, how hard would it be backtrack from there?

This may not seem like much and I may sound paranoid but this is something that could end up endangering our freedoms.

Already got a tagged ID card.

[jeti]

As far as I can make out, the German Identity Card (Personalausweis) already has a simple kind of radio tag. It's pretty hard to make out, and I wasn't aware of it until recently.

Have a look at feature #7.

PS: Could a microwave oven disable them?

Cheap? Not at all!

[Thor Ablestar]

I see the only method to create something with characteristic frequencies distributed evenly in microwave band: Piezoelectric quartz nanoparticles that resonate on different frequencies due to different size. Let us estimate the size. Speed of sound in solids is somewhere 1.5 kilometers per second (plus-minus 1 order of magnitude), so 1 GHz resonator crystal is about 1.5 micrometers in size. Such nanoparticles are easily printable, but I still see no way to create them equal.

And the second: I hear the word "magnetic". But I have heard about some magnetic resonances such as used in magneto-resonant tomography - and they all require the specific ambient magnetic field.

Let us wait for more info. For instance, a lot of IDs sticked together will be a good jammer.

Posible Danger

[Tei]

Maybe paper makers and printers makes can join, then you will be able to print with HP printers and HP paper, but whatever other paper will not work. And HP can increase the price of HP paper to whatever. If actually ink is very expensive, maybe someday with this paper itself will be terrible expensive!

aarggh!!..

Support RFID branding, Erm, No thanks...

[zoney_ie]

Ummm... This makes about as much sense as saying folks should kill themselves to go straight to the next world... (yes, I know, it's been tried)

I am pretty sure God is all for people using their head... You know, all the stuff about knowing what's right and wrong after having eaten the fruit in the Garden of Eden...

So let's think now, should I support everyone being branded with chemical RFID tags to hasten Armaggeddon. Let's think now... Ummm... Maybe, NO!!!!!!

How?

[Gorimek]

One could very easily see how a government could set it up so that everyone was tagged during this innoculation.

Actually, I can't see how. Assuming they would want to keep the tagging secret, that is.

You either have to rely on the silence of thousands of low level civilian nurses, or come up with a believable explanation for why military special forces handle child vaccinations.

Re:How?

[chrome]

Or, you package every innoculation as a self-contained shot - one shot per child - and stuff each one with unique nano RFIDs.

The nurses etc wouldn't have a clue.

Thats how :)

Re:How?

[Gorimek]

OK, that goes half way, but you still need some way to know which child got what shot. Maybe you could come up with some pretext for having the nurse register that too, but it would certainly have the tin foil hat up in arms.

Re:How?

[chrome]

You don't have to register their tags at the same time. You could do it any time afterward, like, while they are waiting in line for a driver's license or when they walk into any government office for some other reason such as a birth, death or marriage. And you'll still be able to TRACK the id's, and record it in a DB from day 1.

Even if you don't know who they are, if for any reason you wanted to find out - maybe you suspect ID #7234237990162 of being a terrorist - then its not hard to find out, is it?

And then you just fill out the last fields in the DB - Name, Address, Birthdate .. etc, and it all falls together.

Re:How?

[spectatorsport]

Or just tell parents that if their child is ever kidnapped, he or she can be easily tracked. Remember the fuss a couple of years ago when some parents said they'd be willing for their babies to be implanted with a chip? There would be objections at first, but eventually some child would be kidnapped, and would be found promptly, and after that, anyone who objected would be labeled heartless and indifferent. Of course, there is still a fairly large contingent of parents who object to vaccinations period. You might have to come up with something a little more drastic to get them in line.

The power of google:

[S3D]

Here is the technical description of this CrossID thing.

• CrossID ppt presentation

Everything in hebrow. Translators ?

Firewall, shmirewall

[Anonymous Coward]

'We have created the first firewall for paper documents.'

That is, until someone sticks his documents in a metal-lined folder or briefcase and walks away with them undetected.

That's really interesting.

[SquareOfS]

The technology as described in the article seems to be binary relative to "detected presence"; i.e., if we can detect this "note" from one of the 70 chemicals *at all*, that binary digit is on. So it would be remarkably easy, if one had the inks (or even a decent subset of the inks) to corrupt the signatures of the tags.

So that would seem to incline towards a control of the ink materials or production. I wonder how hard these chemicals would be to produce in a non-industrial setting?

I also wonder if the detectors could be improved to detect relative density -- of course that would just mean you need to do a little tinkering with the "eraser" so that it detects the signature and adjusts the masking mix . . .

Also, of course, having detectors capable of detecting relative density would increase the "namespace", though 2^70 already gives us ~200 million unique identifiers for each of 6 billion humans.

How far apart do tags have to be?

[SquareOfS]

So if the reader works by hearing a particular frequency or "note" from EM excitation of one of the 70 "inks", and assigns a binary digit based on the presence or absence of that note, how does it read multiple tags at once?

Does it triangulate the signal source and disambiguate the return signals that way (i.e., by physical location)? If so, what kind of distances can be easily discriminated?

Or is there some other technical trick I'm missing?

Do regular, plain-vanilla RFIDs have this issue too?

RFID-jamming

[bigattichouse]

ok, so when does the "color-box" crowd publish an RFID jammer?

That's not the problem....

[h4rm0ny]

True - there will be ways of detecting these... but consider blending legitimate and illegitimate purposes. You know that you have a RFID in your computer, your watch or the medical-entitlement tattoo that tells the ambulance crew to treat you (hey - that's capitalism), but how do you confirm who accesses this information. It's only a number that the chip emits. Now how do you know that the RFID in your car that you use to allow the police to return it to you when nicked, is not also scanned by the FBI, the taxman and the insurance company for other monitoring purposes?

I can see that different users of RFID might pool resources for monitoring (share recievers and transmitters) just like mobile phone providers share network bandwidth.

My point is that its not the detecting of these numbers (IDs) that matters, but the access to the database that contains that number. Of course, you could just avoid carrying any RFID tags altogether, but unless you can persuade the rest of society to join you, you'll have problems.

Re:That's not the problem....

[Anonymous Coward]

You will not be able to buy or sell.

How soon before we see....

[KC7GR]

...Laundry detergent ads touting their product as "RFID-ink safe!"

Personally, I'd want one that would eat the little buggers for breakfast. Go Clorox!

America, not EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever read the 13th chapter of John's Apocalypse?

military applications? Who's afraid of Big Bro?

[iamhassi]

No one mentioned how great this would be for people in the military. No more POWs, just fly over with a plane and pick up their RFID signature. Same with recovering bodies of dead servicemen.

Course you'd need to make sure the signal's undetectable by the enemy, otherwise they could just sit there with a RFID sensor and know exactly where you are at all times.

This would be great for journalist as well. Remember that journalist for the Wall Street Journal that was kidnapped and killed?

I think all these people with the tinfoil hats are paranoid. If the gov't wants to find you it can and will, remember the movie Enemy of the State with Will Smith? The gov't already has satelites that can see a dime from space, but the real question is do the really want to find you? Like these Amber Alerts, they could publish your description, license plate and car model on every electronic billboard & radio station in the country and find you within hours, the point is why do you believe you're so freakin' special that they really want to bother finding you?

Disable in three steps

[Atario]

1. Scan document
2. Print out new document
3. Shred/burn/stir old document

Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

Who moderated this offtopic? I would think that defeating this crazy scheme of tagging documents is a reasonable topic for discussion here.

Besides, it's also a problem with the original scheme--it doesn't survive scanning, copying, etc. unless all those devices are remade to detect the ink (which is not entirely impossible--it's done now for currency--even if it might be somewhat more difficult without the national security angle).

I guess that the trolls with lots of alternate accounts are gobbling up the mod points.

Re:military applications? Who's afraid of Big Bro?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, but you just answered your own question. Right now it takes a few hours to find you. That's worth time and money, so if you stay uninteresting, then you are anonymous.

This technology allows them to rapidly index data from the equivalent of a google search, and you don't get to choose what data is made part of the search.

It Has happened before.

[Irvu]

In World-War II, despite laws to the contrary the Census Department's data was used to locate and round up Japenese Americans for "interment" (see here) And, while the truth has indeed come out as most sanctimonious defenders of PATRIOT Et al, insist it will, it came out 50 years later. The pendulum it seems is quite slow.

Ummm, they DO do this already.

[UncleGizmo]

Apologies if you were being satirical, but much of this has been done already. In some places, based on the items you purchase at a grocery store, you get special coupons at checkout [if Coke is scanned you may get a coupon for Pepsi]. The retailers [savvy ones, anyway] have your history of purchases and use it for directly marketing to you.

I agree that the 'wireless' scanning won't give any greater degree of tying an item to a person [unless the person has a unique ID attached to them]. But this could easily happen with either a smart card or RFID embedded in a grocer's frequent shopper card.

I also agree that there are massive amounts of data [which make it cost-prohibitive to mine]. But keep Moore's law in mind - running through terabytes can be done today by a machine that can fit under your desk.

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some senator will have the brilliant idea of embedding RFID in ID cards in the name of National Security(tm). Heck, if you've bought a new car recently, you know the keys are RFID coded - and the VIN is tied to your name.

Personally, I'm less concerned about marketeers using the info to sell more to me. It may be an annoyance, but their end goal is for you to want to buy from them - they don't want to alienate you or make you angry. Our elected officials, however, seem to me to be frighteningly uneducated/shortsighted when it comes to wanting to use technology to make us all 'more safe'.