RFID for Laptop Inventory Tracking?

An anonymous reader asks: "We are in the process of getting new laptops and I was wondering if anyone has used RFID for inventory control of them? Like many places laptops have had a way of going MIA. In an ideal world I would like to be able to get a 'real time' update of where the tags are located. I also would like to know when a RFID tag goes by a fixed location such as a door. What are people's experience both good and bad with RFID? Is this realistic? Where do I start? Had this been done with open-source?"

Comments

Re:Random points

[billcopc]

RFID is easily foiled (*rimshot*) by any sufficiently massive _OR_ properly positioned hunk of metal. I played with the RF stickers at a video store that was once blessed with my dutiful presence, and soon discovered that they were rendered silent by merely holding an Xacto knife against the little bump in the center of the sticker. The knife would absorb the energy from the RF towers and thus the poor passive tag couldn't sing.

Now it is safe to assume that most of my customers were too retarded to even try the obvious, but I'm equally sure that a select few elite weirdos had perfected this art, or maybe even just lined their travel bag with a few layers of foil/sheetmetal, cuz we sure lost tons of tapes.