Slashdot Mirror
RFID Not Just for Kids
dritan writes "News.com is reporting that a theme park in Florida is tagging all members of your group when you enter. The park has kiosks throughout the park that let you find the other members of your group in "real time." The park's web site makes it seem that you will only be able to find members of your group, instead of seeing everyone in the park. Slashdot has previously reported about tagging kids with RFID in order to keep track of them."
Great, there goes my plan to leave my crazy no-good kids behind.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
... slashdotters will spot the magic phrase "RFID", and remember that this is something the hivemind has told them they're against. They will proceed to explain why a private entity using RFID tags -- entirely on its own property -- to track and locate lost children is an appalling infringement of their civil liberties.
This should be good.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
link you to any vandalism or trouble making.
:)
They can pin point your location so lets say a little boy and a "older man" magicly end up in the same toilet cubicle..... well then
Could be very useful for this kinda thing
I like muppets.
Am I the only one who is gets a bit freaked out by theme parks?
Sure, there is this nice image of happiness and friendliness.. but it's also obviously fake and false. (Even as a 7-year old at disneyland, I felt it)
At the same time, there are guards and surveillance cameras everywhere, not to mention the rigorous safety measures.
It's like being inside a Soviet propaganda movie or something.
And that was before they started tagging people. I can't say I'm surprized.
For a theme park, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. One of my least favorite things about theme parks is the potential to lose the rest of your party - resulting in much tedious wandering around. sure, you can call or SMS, but this seems like a genuinely good feature.
Can the park individually track where you are? probably, but it's their right to do so - you've voluntarily entered their private property after all, and paid for the privilege. Can they track your preferences within the park? probably.
will they store any personal identifiers? there's the rub. if their database links your RFID tag to the visa card number you paid with, THEN we're talking problems, and of course the article doesn't make it clear if this can happen or not...
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
move on, nothing to see here
OK, I not a die-hard libertarian, but this seems like a good idea. This is not the same as tracking someone's movements all the time, as a theme park is ostensibly not the real world. It should stop kids from being getting lost; and it would save school and youth organisation groups from having to hammer around in those big chain gangs with flags, etc.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
How am I supposed to have any fun if I can't accidentally get separated from the wife?
paintball
Wow! Now you can find your other family members via a tracking system. Next thing you know the government will be using it to "track" you in airports, grocery stores, masterbating in the bathroom, etc. In Mexico they are implanting RFID tags into goverment officical to track them in case of kidnapping. "Experts" say that there is nothing to fear. Yeah, right. My paranoid buddy said a few years ago that the dreaded U.N. black helicopters could fly over your house and scan it to see how much money you had in it. Now that's possible; The EU is putting RFID tags in it's money. Also, within 5 years, EVERYTHING you can buy will have the damn tags on it.
I hate to sound like an apocalypse nut, but within 15 years it will be capable of one individual (i.e. antichrist) to control/track just about everyone on the planet, including money and food.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Slashdot says the park is tagging everybody, but the article says it's issuing tags to everyone. So is the park really 'tagging' everyone as they enter? Like what happens to cows?
Anyway, unless it's mandatory, it should be okay. It's pretty close to being watched by CC cameras when you wonder around a department store.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
RFID is IMO not inherently "evil". It is a tool, like a screwdriver. Now, a screwdriver can be used to turn screws, or it can be plunged into someone's head. RFID is fine with me, as long as:
1. I know it's being used
2. I'm not required to use it
3. I can turn it off
I wonder when workplaces will start using rfid in security badges to monitor start and finish times, lunch breaks, toilet breaks etc..
generic
I'd like to see posters in this discussion indicate if they have kids or not. I'm going to guess that those who post "not over my dead body/evil CIA tracking device/civil liberties being eroded by govt." are the single adults who've never lost a small child they are responsible for in a large, crowded public place.
Get everyone to take off their tag and attach it to the roller coaster cars ... then sit back and watch as park officials panic when they realise that there are 578 people riding around and around.
... as you take a journey through a ride, take off you tag and through it as far as you can into the diaroma ... and watch as park officials try and hunt down the lost kid
... flush a tag down the toilet and then say your kid is lost ... and watch then chase the 'kid' as it 'travels' around the park
Or
Or
Most of these have RFI tags in them. Seems like a good idea to me, for fairly ovious reasons.
Regards,
treefrog
No big deal. Seems to me, one can just remove it, unless it is required for the attractions. (Still can break the tags, I guess.)
Theme parks are all about control anyway. The better ones have good control which results in a good experience. (That is what you pay for.) The poor ones have not thought everything out resulting in problems. (Which is what you don't pay for.)
It's a good feature. Pay cash if you don't want your prefs tracked to your identity.
Blogging because I can...
This could lead to a cool modern day version of hide and seek. One person is the fugitive, gets hmmm 10 minutes to 'escape' then the others have to use the rfid to track the fugitive down.
Given that both the hunter and the hunted can see each others locations - but only when visiting the booths - then some interesting strategies could come out.
What would be really cool would be if you could tell the park you're doing this and they limit access to the location data to something like 1 minute access every 5 minutes to prevent 'booth squatting'!
Now I'd visit that park.
as long as the technology can't be used by pervs to find kids that are alone... the technology is more of a threat than an aide for groups if it isn't implemented properly...
finding loopholes in this type of system isn't something that you can afford to do after it's been widely put into use.
All the torrents you could want.
... welcome our new Theme Park Overlords.
With the right controls, I'd welcome this. Whenever my family and friends head to Cedar Point, we always take 2-way radios to keep in touch (emergencies, when its time to eat, etc). They really help out though when you can't find someone at 4 PM where we're all supposed to be meeting for dinner. Well, with these little kiosks, we can leave the radios at home and have one less thing to worry about losing on a ride. Just pop onto a kiosk and see where they're at. Most likly they're STILL in line for (insert newest ride here) and that they're not going anywhere any time soon.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Since the tags they'll use probably wont contain all the information on you they can possibly gather, this probably isn't that big a deal. They're probably just matched to a group set up in the park database when you enter so you can find each other. Sure they can track you too and provide you with ads and garbage for when they get a new rollercoaster if thats where you spend all your time, but one would like to think that's not the use.
People spend too much time being paranoid of what RFID can be used for in all the wrong ways. If they don't go overboard this isn't a bad idea, because we all hear about the person who had their kid wander off. Imagine if you could just go to a park booth and say hi I'm so and so and my kid just wandered off, they could tell you where the kid was instantly.
Presently here, but not there.
Dollywood's Splash Country in Tennessee does this. For a couple of bucks, you can tag your kid with a radio transponder and one or more of the parents. The tags are paired at rental time. At any kiosk throughout the park, you can hold your transponder up to the scanner and it will show you the location of all other matching transponders on a little video map, as well as the last time it was detected.
I found it *extremely* useful since I could let my daughter ride the waterslides without worrying about how to find her when it was time for lunch or time to go home. Likewise, she could find me quickly and easily if she needed to. I certainly didn't feel that my privacy was being invaded and I wasn't able to track any other users in the park.
Is there potential for abuse? Of course there is, but it's like any other tool. It can be used for good or evil. In this case, I feel there's no evil intent and it helps prevent lost kids.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"