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RFID Leaders Talk Privacy
An anonymous reader writes "RFID News has released a set of interviews with EPIC, VeriSign, CASPIAN, HP and EPCGlobal on RFID and privacy. From CASPIAN founder Katherine Albrecht: 'In most cases, asking how a company exploring item-level RFID tagging can protect their customers' privacy is like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.'"
Check it out: RFID Blocker Tag
Wow. There are 4 articles (or at least links) for slashdotters to not read before posting.
Or will the posts be based on the sound bites?
Ok, I give up, why you?
RFID is great and all, but until there is legislation preventing law enforcment from using/viewing the data collected by these companies, I wouldn't go for it.
Buying products with these tags seems like asking to be tracked. I know there are benefits to using them, but I'd rather not volunteer a public record of everything I do while carrying these products. It contradicts the spirit of the privacy rights granted in the constitution.
And other tech that disables the RFID tag at Point of Sale, how the heck is an organization using RFID supposed to prevent other organizations from reading the same tag into a database?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
OK, so you don't want to get fucked over by the 'evil' (I don't believe a technology can be evil btw, only its uses) that is RFID in the hands of corporates. Simple solution; don't steal stuff from Walmart. If you don't steal items with rfid on them, you won't get hassled. It's an anti-theft device, it's not like they're implanting them in your foreheads.
like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.
Well, they are your chickens. You must insure that other predators don't eat them. You must keep them penned up and guarded so only you can eat them. You don't want to share those chickens do you? I didn't think so. You kill everything else that might eat them.
Let's see, RFID wise. My business owns that data on Job Blow. Other businesses should be able to use my data to their advantage that would be wrong. I need to have laws implemented so only my business can track my consumers. I need to buy or destory in the stock exchange other businesses that may compete with me.
Your Data will be safe with US, we are contractually obligated to do so!
fine print: In order to keep our technology up to date, we reserve the right to amend, modify, change, alter, append, add, delete, subtract, change, morph, alter, vary, transform, renovate, make over, differ, diverge, rework, revise, adjust or otherwise perform any act similiar to any word or synonym of any word in addition to, but not limited to those listed above, for any reason whatsoever.
"I had to eat the chickens to protect them"
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Once firmly implanted beneath the scalp, behind the nape of the neck and/or in the palm of the hand, the RFID chip(s) will enable law enforcement agencies to instantly know your location without the need to task satellites or get involved in wasteful car surveillance. They'll no longer need to burst in to make sure you're in the hotel room with your mistress. They'll know you're in there with her. And since they'll instantly know your exact location, they can be much more respectful of your belongings when they break in (with a court order, of course) and rummage through your stuff. They'll know exactly how long they have so they'll be careful.
Now if they just legally abolish these cumbersome doors (that terrorists so often hide behind while plotting their evil deeds), why I'll be glad to have traded any semblance of liberty for perfect security.
Thank you, Big Brother.
OK, so the new Library in Seattle uses RFID to keep track of their books, and uses an automatic sorting machine to deliver them to the correct location depending on their RFID. I see no harm in that. What next, the Patriot Act will allow the government access to the books you check out, heh.
wow a "tinfoil hat" that I can keep in my pocket. Actually a Tinfoil Forcefield!
Ahhh, RFID. The latest topic that gets some slashdotters panties all in a bunch.
But with RFID at least the store will instantly know what kind of panties they are so you can reorder them.
Tired of buying gifts your wife hates? Unsure exactly what size she wears? RFID is the answer! Put a detector by the door, collect a couple weeks of data, and voila, you have a list of her favorite clothes! Then you can go buy similar items and she'll think you're wonderful and so intuitive about her tastes!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
UPC labels and those little "plus cards",plus credit card numbers equals it's very, very easy to track people's purchasing. If you think they'll come to your house and use an antenna to see what you have inside, forget it. It's way easier to just watch people walking out of the store, and see what they buy, and what car they drive, for example.
stuff |
their primary purpose is not anti-theft, but is inventory tracking and statistical analysis. The RFID tags are there when you BUY the stuff, and can (and will) be used to track you and the items you've purchased after you consider your interaction with the store to be done.
Its just like the supermarkets with their "discount cards". Which to get one you must give your ph#/name/address etc... (of course you can give bogus information). But now the supermarkets start tracking exactly what you buy and when you buy it....
If I buy a 5lb bag of bran.. should I get a call from the exlax salesman?
1) They are only used on things that are cost effective to track (tags are expensive, about $.25 US to about $200).
2) Not all RFID tags are unique (the same signal could mean two different products).
3) All EPC tags should be unique.
4) RFID is an old technology that is still about 2 years away from being mature.
5) Some types of RFID (i.e. EPC) do not work well on metal or liquids.
6) It's not a matter of the fox ruling the hen house and we own the hens. The fox owns the hens and the hen house and sees this as the best way to manage her inventory. The fox doesn't care what happens to the hen once you buy it (returns excluded).
7) I've had failure rates reported to me of up to 30% with cheap tags out of the box, 10% in the field. This cuts down greatly on the cost effectiveness of the technology.
Disclaimer, I own a Data collection company
The second ammendment is the right to keep and bear arms.
/ am endment04/
/ am endment01/
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is in the 4th amendment.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution
Right of the people to freely assemble is in the 1st amendment.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Present examples like that when talking to retailers. They value their own "privacy". Mall operators hate it when you take pictures of store displays.
If you look at the examples that Albrecht from CASPIAN notes, you'll see from internal discussions by the industry that they already plan on this sort of tracking. They're just looking for ways to counter public pressure and present a positive spin on it.
They will as long as it isn't explicitly illegal because they believe that it will provide them with an enormous amount of information that they can mine to eventual increase sales and sales margins. That's their job. The fact that they are attempting to do this on the backs of our privacy doesn't enter into their conversations.
There is a guy that gives out stickers with copies of the UPC on his Safeway Club Card, which means that there are hundreds (thousands?) of people crediting their purchases to his account.
I think he is a slashdotter and that's how I found his webpage. I don't remember. I might be able to talk, but toasters don't have a whole lot of memory. I should join in and buy lots of embarrassing items. I wonder what his Terrorism Quotient is.
Howdy Doodly Doo!
Anybody want some Toast?
The tags work by retransmitting energy that they receive. In simpler terms, I'm saying "the tags don't have batteries." They have an antenna that is energized by the transmitters at the gates. They modulate the signal with the data contents of the chip, and rebroadcast it (typically at double the frequency of the received signal.) Since the strength of the signal fades with the cube of the distance, in order to read from a greater distance you have to transmit exponentially more power to read it from further and further away. Don't forget to double the distance measurement, because your transmitter has to send enough RF energy to power the chip circuit, which has to turn that into enough power to make it all the way back to your reciever. And no matter how much power you pump into these little chips, they're not capable of retransmitting more than a few milliwatts, which means that as the distance increases your receiver needs a bigger and bigger antenna.
The concern for privacy isn't that the guys with satellites are watching your every move from 90 miles up. They don't need to. They simply need to subpoena the store's RFID log to see who's been coming and going, and when. It's much cheaper.
John
Well let's see:
1) To track return of items (both by item and by customer),
2) To offer "enhanced" services to frequent customers (as evidenced by the number and type of RFID tags they have on them entering the store),
3) To offer "enhanced" services to people wearing competitor's RFID tags.
And those are just a few reasons. There are companies already trying to leverage the information that will be available from this data. From the linked website:
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
And the inclusion in the soles/linings is from RFID industry sources. If the item is easy to remove/displace like the security patch, then it has little value for the sort of tracking planned.
The problem with technologies like the RFID tags is that we really cannot regulate it until we know what "it" is. We have to have the list of abuses of the technology before regulators have a track record that they can act upon.
It seems to me that pre-emptive regulations generally do not acheive their goals. Often the regulations are influenced by the industry to be regulated. Generally, the regulations block a small firms from entering an industry and end up feeding the monopolies.
Preemptive regulation generally has the effect of rewarding those companies on the inside track of the regulations (the politically connected) whild disenfranchising those who do not have the political connections to the regulators. As such it is best to put off regulation until the industry has matured a little.
Preemptive regulations might be inspired by consumer fears. Lacking an actual history of abuses, the actual process of preemptive regulation tends to be controlled by the industry being regulated. As such, the regulation limits the number of players in a market and often comes up favorable to the companies being regulated.
For example, you might recall several years ago when the House of Representatives considered a spam regulation bill. Without being passed into law, spammers slapped the House Bill number on their ads because the regulation was giving them legitimacy.
Look at Internet porn. There was a great desire among legislators to find a way to block porn from kids. Without serious debates. The preemptive regulators listened to the porn dealers. The porn industry suggested that having a valid credit card number verified a person's age. Getting a credit card number is the first 90% of the battle to actually putting a charge on the credit card. While online news sources do not have a viable funding mechanism, the attempt to regulate an industry gave the porn industry the internet on a silver platter.
Trying to regulate RFID tags in their infancy is likely to simply give an market advantage to the politically connected companies that draft the legislation.
Unfortunately, since RFID tags are tags purchased by businesses for internal business use, the consumer really won't have that much choice about where and when they get used.
If you bought any of the items on you with a credit card, or a membership card, or a "discount friendly" card, then the merchant can tie all of those items to you directly (even if you paid for the rest with cash). And they can use that information to create a profile of your purchasing habits.
Unlike the bar code, RFID could be bad for your health. RFID supporters envision a world where RFID reader devices are everywhere - in stores, in floors, in doorways, on airplanes -- even in the refrigerators and medicine cabinets of our own homes. In such a world, we and our children would be continually bombarded with electromagnetic energy. Researchers do not know the long-term health effects of chronic exposure to the energy emitted by these reader devices
(Emphasis theirs). Unless they give some numbers on how the reader emissions compare to the thousands of other sources we are being subjected to, that's just baseless speculation, with the old "think of the children" cliche thrown in to tug at our heartstrings. That's usually a good sign that someone doesn't have a real argument to offer.