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Innovative Uses of RFID Tags
Roland Piquepaille writes "When your newspapers write something about RFID tags, it's almost always about Wal-Mart or how these tags are threatening our privacy. But they often miss the important innovations brought by this technology. For example, in Florida, RFID drives highway traffic reports on more than 200 miles of toll roads. Or take DHL, which is tracking fashion with RFID tags on more than 70 million garments in its French distribution center. Elsewhere, in Texas, 28,000 students test an e-tagging system which promises better security for them. And what about RFID tags which could prevent surgical errors and have just been approved in the U.S last week? So, what do you think? Are these innovations promising a better future for us or not? For your convenience, this overview contains the essential details from the different articles mentioned above."
I don't understand how pro-future and pro-technology people can have this knee-jerk reaction to RFID. Another example is the Intel processor serial number circa Pentium III. This could have been a really useful tool, but it was sunk by "privacy" types.
With the cyberthalamus, the singularity will happen.
Last month at the local open source group's installfest, I was talking to one of the compsci teachers from a university. He had recently attended some sort of college fair or something, and someone (MIT?) had set up a nifty display using RFID chips.
You see, they had disguised an rfid reader as a tablet, and embedded rfid things into little plastic discs. On the discs were images representing english, math, etc. Someone tosses a chip on the reader, and a load of information is displayed on the screen about that course. Nifty, nifty...
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
RFID tags *could* promise a better future. But, like anything that provides potentially personal information to anyone with the right scanning device, RFID tags could be abused on a scale never seen before.
Have you seen anywhere at all that mentions anything about the ability to turn *off* an RFID switch?
Not to mention the possible side effects of having a radio transmitting from inside a human body for long periods of time.
Abuse by car insurance companies able to read your car's performance?
The chance of abuse is too great...
Julie Moult is an idiot.
In Soviet Russia, road drives YOU!
- P2P - ooh it has legitimate uses (tho you have to look hard to find them in actual usage), you cant ban it
- RFID - ooh it can be used for bad things (but hasnt yet), ban it
I welcome this article, as it points out the many positive uses of RFID technology, so heres hoping it might change some slashdotters minds. Personally, I see RFID as a hugely positive thing, with a great potential in front of it (for good or bad, but thats the same for P2P).How about putting RFID tags in the end of footballs so that we can finally put an end to that oh-so-exact science of taking a timeout for a measurement?
Seriously! They just toss the ball wherever the ref thinks it should be, and those chains aren't exactly placed perfectly either. How about something that can actually work for once?
E-tagging students to provide them with security listed as a good thing? Roland Piquepaille, get the fuck out, you know nothing of geeks.
College is about drinking, sleeping late, cutting class and still passing because you are smart enough to do it all without getting caught. It certainly isn't about being tagged like cattle and herded from one carefully controlled, spoon fed 'educational experience' to another.
For all you Americans who don't want to suffer crap like that I suggest college in England where attending classes is a decision you make, and the consequences are entirely your responsibility. And to top if off it'll be cheaper (even with flights) and it only takes 3 years not 4 because you don't have to dick around with bullshit subjects just to jump your tuition fees up another thousand bucks.
Beep beep.
Did you know that you can use nuclear bombs to terraform mars? Or use snake venom to make antidote? Or use P2P networks for legit purposes? Everything has good uses and bad, it's just that the bad far outweigh the good for RFIDs. Or rather, they're so powerful that people WILL abuse them. Just like nuclear bombs, P2P networks and, err, snake venom.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
I work at a medical device company, and we're implanting RFID tags into the bases of our optical catheters so they aren't used for more than 72 hours. It's a liability thing, but it's just another instance of RFID. We track the product id of the catheter and the base station records the number and records how long it's been used in the body.
I know I'm going to be modded up on this
Can anyone point to technology that religion embraced in its infancy? I really would be interested.
Are you a good graphics designer?
Click here or here.
So...how much d'ya figure he paid for this one?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
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Global logistics service provider DHL Solutions Fashion is offering the French fashion industry a way to test and facilitate shipments of individually tagged garments.
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Isn't this one of the reasons we (We as in Slashdot) hate RFID? (but only on Saturdays!) Will these tags be deactivated once the garment is purchased? Or will my new $900 french neck-tie tell those rat bastards where i'm at 24/7?
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
This is in their Mark of the Beast Watch! World gone mad?!?!
Want to make $ 500.00?
Click here or here.
A simple implant in your hand will allow the Christians to make sure they get that 15% for using their facilities.
Posthuman since 2001.
When your newspapers write something about RFID tags, it's almost always about Wal-Mart or how these tags are threatening our privacy.
/. thing.
t nG=Search+News
I don't know if newspapers signficantly differ from online news, but the Wal-Mart and privacy issues seem to be more of a
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=rfid&b
are not tracked by RFID but instead by those sunpass things.
Honestly, whats going on with Michael and Roland Piquepaille? Is the whole /. crew in on it, or is it just Michael whos getting the blow jobs?
It cuts both ways. Back in the 70s and 80s, I recall seeing tons of conspiracy theories about how bar codes could be misused to observe whatever we did in our purchases.
Additionally, there's the whole so-called conspiracy about how "shopping club" members who bought a frequent shopper club card was having vast and horrible statistics collected about how much Mountain Dew, et al, they were purchasing.
Frankly, yes, it can all be used for wrong, but that depends on your definition of wrong. Do you spend sleepless nights wondering if your store is telling evil corporations how much Mountain Dew you drink?
Chances are it's just the caffeine.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I think the issue is not whether RFID is 'bad' or 'good' - it's just information-gathering technology, after all. The question we should be asking, the one we can not trust the corporation to make, is 'do the pros outweigh the cons.' You can be assured that, if left to corporate oversight solely, it will prove to be invasive and ultimately infringe upon our right to privacy, in addition to whatever benefits it may also confer.
- Bachelorhood is the father of necessity.
I've heard that we can use RFID to authorize access to people in a building and to automatically shut off all lights when no one is inside. We expect good uses like this, not silly things like tracking emplyee's locations.
Can they be used for evil? Again, sure. Tracking me.
The thing is to get privacy regulations in place before these things become too widespread. And questioning the uses of them is pivotal to getting those regulations. Because corporations/governments will want to use them to their benefit, not ours. If SearsMart can make 1/2 cent from selling your info to Nike/Hilfiger, you can bet your ass they'll do it.
Spam is bad. Rfid has nothing to do with spam. The only difference to using RFID to help spam is that you'll be getting targetted ads. But it has nothing to do with Rfid. Perhaps you should think about which chemist you go to if they send you spam.
If I buy something that has an RFID tag in it, I will rip the RFID out at my earilest convenience.
RFID is not to be trusted. It's not tinfoil hat-ness - just simple prudence and privacy.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
A4Tech has a batter-free mouse that works by using RFID. Pretty neat, though I have doubts as to practicality. Link:
t =2 3G00LDM1H7ED0D263HR5HBL84
http://www.a4tech.com/en/press2.asp?AID=69&ovmk
Why is RFID needed for any of these things? You can still monitor traffic density and speed without using personally-identifying information (as if traffic data helps anyone anyway). People have been following fashion for centuries without RFID. And if a school wants to know who showed up, they can simply take attendance, something schools have been doing for decades.
And what about RFID tags which could prevent surgical errors
This could be done with bar codes as well (not that RFID is particularly bad in this situation, since the tag would likely be separated from the patient before they leave the hospital).
My job is with a company that times races (i.e. runners) using RFID technology. We use ChampionChip products, but there are a couple of similar, up-and-coming solutions (AMB, DAG).
The whole system is really impressive and versatile. We time marathons with tens of thousands of participants (Boston, Twin Cities, Grandma's, Columbus, Indianapolis Mini) and the systems catch 99.99% of the runners. The chips are waterproof (for triathlons) and quite rugged.
Using RFID technology is TONS better than the old methods (tags and/or popsicle sticks, and lots of watching). If any of you has ever had to line up in chutes after a hard race, you'd know what kind of chaos can ensue when someone falls or gets out of line. Anyway, RFID means that runners only have to cross the finish line... then they can pass out as they please.
RFID has it's pro's and con's. It is great for doing shipping, I did a big report on it's uses for tracking products and controling distrubtion. IT could also be used for tracking people, which is bad. Everything in the history of this universe has both a good and bad side. If you can, please name just one thing that is only good or only bad. But for now, I say that when correctly implemented, RFID will be a great thing.
"Love is like a trampoline, first it's like "SWEET!!" then it's like *BLAMM!*"
I'm in a university society called the Assassins' Guild, which is a cross between roleplay and live-action Quake Deathmatch. The game we play involves hunting down other people playing the same game until only one is standing, and is cooler than it sounds (hey, we have girls playing!). The thing that's interesting with respect to this discussion is the excellent testing ground this gives for new technologies vis-a-vis the tracking of indivisuals.
Number one on the list is, surprisingly, static IP addresses on home-user machines. If you know your target's IP address, it is trivial in many cases to check whether he/she is in his/her room, and secondary information like lecture times (and hence the target's course) can be inferred.
On a more sophisticated level, it is possible to examine the movement patterns of a target by the public workstations he/she uses (they have to be regulars on the #assassins IRC channel for this to apply), although this is more easily maskable using screen/irssi off a unix server. The holy grail would be to scan the mobile phone command frequency band - one would only need to know one's target's phone number to triangulate his/her position. I don't know of anyone who's done this, but I'll be attempting it myself over the holidays.
RFID tags present an issue at a similar level, albeit with far greater possibilities for abuse due to their small size. If I were to have access to a reader (of the sort that, if this technology were to become widespread, would be available with no hardware hackery required), I would wait til the target were dumb enough to leave something outside his/her door and drop a suitably crafted tag in it. This would enable me to trail and ambush the target fairly easily when they didn't have any means of defense to hand.
This would be a slightly overworked solution for the purposes of the guild (albeit an excellent way of dealing with one of the more skilled assassins) but would come into its own in the hands of an actual stalker. Imagine someone you can't flee, can't hide from. Imagine what could happen if this technology were abused.
Imagine tags in designer clothes. An excellent way for criminals to know that yes, that coat is genuinely worth a hell of a lot. Imagine tags in young children. Do you really want paedophiles to know exactly when kids have run away from mummy's care? Imagine tags in students. Your grades are fine but you skipped too many lectures - you're out. Imagine tags in employees. Now your fundamentalist boss knows about your trip to the sex toys shop a block over from the office.
Imagine tags in you. Imagine anyone who wanted to being able to track your motions. How secure does that make you feel?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
-1 Flamebait
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
Right now Alien antennas are around 5k also with the current technology, i guess, one would have to put the antennas under the field. Are cleats made of metals still? They would cause interface to the RFID read. I have worked with a project using RFID so I do know a few things about it
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
It's obvious that whining about RFD abuse won't change anything. Especially on Slashdot. It's equally obvious that RFID and other privacy invasion abuse really threatens our personal security, info and otherwise. Unfortunately, it's also painfully obvious that the way we handle these new scenarios, through laws limiting abuse of our rights, is right down the toilet. Politicians are interested only in corporate bribes, and have succeeded in scamming the people into caring more about laws to stop their neighbors from going to hell.
--
make install -not war
RFIDs are a robot sense. They tell robots where and what things are, where to look for them, and what to do when they find them. if find(rfid) and ! if find(rfid) are very convenient directors of robot behaviour.
Not, of course, that robots can run around wholly unsupervised; but with automation to hand for filtering and first-level logistics, all sorts of responsible people like cops, nurses and safety staff can shrug off their robotic chores and get on with making decisions.
We all ought to be playing with this stuff; but the app I really want to see is, nuclear power plants and fuel recycling plants, with every fuel and waste element and every component accounted for. This is one area with universal support for absolute security. We've held off development of civilian breeders for fear of terrorists getting access at some stage of the fuel processing cycle, among other reasons. But turning, say, a 99% safe cycle with 20 critical inspection points into a 99.9% safe cycle with 200 points, 180 automated, is surely not beyond out current means.
So how do you feel about genetically engineered food crops? Surgery? The internet?
Greater technology always brings with it a greater risk of abuse. The same technology that gives your mechanic the ability to repair the very sophisticated car with the 400hp engine that gets 20MPG can jsut as easily be used by the police or insurance company to determine how fast you were going when you wrapped it around a pole, or to run from the scene of a crime.
So avoid products with RFID tags. Or buy a hammer. Drive a tenty year old car, or spend 200 bucks on an OBD tool that will let you clear the memory in your car. of course, that's going to make it harder for the mechanic to fidn the problem when it starts missing in cold weather...
I also work for a timing company that uses ChampionChip. And one thing that the above poster would agree with is a chip alone is useless, you need some sort of database or software to relate the chip to usable data.
This is a major issue that people seem to forget about with RFID. A passive RFID chip can transmit just a serial number, but what does that mean? If I take my Mobil Speedpass and pass it over the ChampionChip system it reads it, sure, but otherwise it's useless data. There is no way the system can know...'oh. that's Jim's Mobile Speedpass' For this to happen all RFID systems would need to be linked together, and share all data.
It is capable for some passive chips and active chips to store data, but the reader would need to know what type of data it was receiving, and what to do with it. So some of these tin foil hat scenarios are just not possible.
The debate is how the consummers will organise to set limits on the use of it ; for instance refuse the rfid to be made PART of the good (molded in the plastic of a handle for instance), and force the producer to leave the possibility to rip it after purchase.
Where not possible (for rfid embeded into a ID card), the citizens should have a LAW passed to clearly limit the scope of use, with regards to WHO may know, and WHAT should be known. And make abuses criminal under the law.
Just my 2 .
I don't get the big huge deal over RFIDs and "all the access to personal data they'll give" crap. RFID can't transmit a huge ammount of data, all it really can transmit is a little serial number. That serial number is then checked against a database backend.
RFIDs are great. Databases are what's evil.
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
Nobody is proposing to ban RFID, people here just don't want RFID forced on them. But hey, that wouldn't fit your argument so nicely, so I guess you can just ignore it.
What if I want to buy a product but do not want one with an RFID tag in it or don't want to pay the ~10 cents more(manufacturers' and merchants' cost for tags and equipment)? Do you think I will still have a right to choose and they will remove it for me? Yeah, right.
There are so many more ways of abuse of RFID tags than there are sensible applications that we should speak up against this invasive technology before it is too late. Abuse will happen and we can choose now but not later how much of it we will permit and how much more we let those large corporations enslave us.
Question: Could RFID be used by US workers in Iraq so that if one of them gets kidnapped, we could track them down?
Anything that can be forced on school children now can be forced on the whole population once the children grow up and form a significant fraction of the adult population, since they will be habituated to it and put up little resistance. Given this, the following comment near the end of the New York Times article is very disturbing:
"... they do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags. More immediately, they said, they could see using the technology to track whether students attend individual classes."
I just lost my wallet, and am fairly certain it's somewhere in the mess of my house. I was just wishing it had an RFID tag so I could take, say, some sort of wand and sweep my house to locate which pile of clothes it's in. This would also be useful for keys, remote controls, eyeglasses, and other things people are constatly misplacing. Just stick a small RFID tag on the item and somehow tell your wand what item it is so it will know how to find it later. Just don't lose the wand :) Obviously, if my wallet is in the middle of some parking lot this wouldn't be too useful, but again, chances are it's in my house and I simply can't find it.
RFID tags are usually passive and have extremely short range, for tracking somebody you'd be far better with something more powerful than an RFID tag. You'd know that if you were really interested in tracking someone, it's not exactly difficult information to come by is it?
Generally, no. Football cleats for natural turf may have a metal core, but they're coated in plastic and/or rubber. Cleats are not used on artificial turf, which I would imagine is the best place to pioneer this technology. Baseball or track cleats may be different.
Or if you're cheap and only have one rfid reader, then use a number of rfids with fixed known locations, extrapolate the location of the rfid reader from those, make a pass of your home or apartment and get the location of everything else that way.
Is 750 miles extremely short range to you?
Julie Moult is an idiot.
Originally from the NY times, but copied on my site here:
l #1 10068134140406229
http://cryptogon.com/2004_11_14_blogarchive.htm
"They do see broader possibilities, such as implanting RFID tags under the skin of children to avoid problems with lost or forgotten tags."
Half of the people supporting P2P are aboslutely against "piracy", but they care about P2P because they're tired of the RIAA trying to steal their fair use. RFID has hardly any uses that would help the average joe, so average joes here on slashdot generally don't like it. RFID definatly has it's positive uses, like tracking luggage with electric labels... The average airport traveller would likely not even be aware of this RFID though, and it wouldn't matter. I think you can see how RFID is untrusted because anywhere it's necessary to mention, it's bad for the consumer.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
RFID has been with us since WWII. It's not new technology, and like anything else, it can be abused. What Roland probably doesn't know is that detecting RFID tags is kids' play. He doesn't realize that the cutting edge in RFID technology is presence sensing: How is an RFID tag associated with its taggee? How do you track both the RFID tag and the thing it's supposed to track? And even more importantly: How do you track direction? Goods moving off a truck are a good example: How do you differentiate goods being offloaded from goods being onloaded? What's to prevent a thief from passing detached RFID tags through a sensor, and simply driving off with the load? How do you verify the association between tag and good?
These are the real issues being addressed today in the RFID world. So many think that RFID is new technology, when in fact it's very old technology that is just now becoming the center of focus for industries that are trying to remove as many humans as possible from the supply chain. If there's an inherent danger to the proliferation of RFID, it's not whether we can be tracked (we can, get over it), but how many jobs will be subsumed by the growth of automation that technologies such as RFID have to offer.
Lets cluster them into BEOWULFS!
How about putting a RFID tag in each sheet of toilet paper so we can track how many times I have to flush because of the stupid low flow toilets. We could also put them in Ben and Jerrys so we know how much ice cream or other food item is consumned every day. We could also tag each dose of Tylenol to see how often I get a headache because of the stupid ideas of Big Brother. Jeez, what will they think of next. (Seacrest, Out /;)
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING!
I assume that this is a reference to the difficulty of tracking someone? I was thinking more along the lines of not being able to lose someone who is actively stalking you rather than that person being able to pick up your trail at a later date. That obviously can't be done with rfid tags - you'd have to go back to older methods like credit card checks.
RFID tags are still practically the ultimate ultra-short-range tracking tool. No amount of tricky driving or sneaking out the back of shops can help you lose your stalker. As a member of the assassins' guild, the most practical use would be as a simple way of checking whether anyone was round the next corner (once tags become standard in clothing this'll be easy). Less threatening but it again shows the power of these tools. Another, less palatable thought is that it would be possible to track the clothing of every person on a demonstration and, with access to the clothing and credit card companies' databases, identify a ridiculously high proportion of them.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
*RING*
Mister Jacobsen: Hello?
Voice: Hello, Mr Jacobsen.
Mr. J: Who are you?
V: Mr. Jacobsen, our records indicate that you checked into the Inn 'n' Out motel last night with your wife.
Mr. J: So? What's this all about?
V: We verified that your charcoal suit indeed proceeded from your office to that hotel, but Mrs. Jacobsen's housedress moved around your home all evening.
Mr. J: All right, who the hell is this?
V: It's your cleaners, Mr. Jacobsen. Don't you think you really should have that suit cleaned? We'd hate to have to call Mrs. Jacobsen and ask her about it.
Mr. J: No, no...that's okay...
V: We have a full clean and press special going on today only. May we pick up the suit?
Mr. J: *sigh* Yeah, it's at my office, corner of...
V: That's ok, Mr. Jacobsen. We'll have someone there in a few minutes. Thank you for your business!
*RING*
Mr. J: Hello?
Voice #2: Hi, Mr. Jacobsen! This is Eddie, from Lingerie Etc. We have a great special going on right now on black lace teddies.
Mr. J: What the hell? So what?
V2: Our records indicate that your last four mistresses all wore them. We just thought you'd be interested in our special pricing, in light of your recent...activities.
Mr. J: Argggghhhhhhhh
Yes, I'm scared of what the government *could* do with this technology. However, I'm even more scared of what the fucking marketeers will do. 1984? Hardly. More like $19.95.
http://xkcd.com/386/
You can't read RFID tags from 750 miles away, you can't even get our local radio station at that distance and they have a much more powerful transmitter than an active tag.
prior art!
patent this idea!
TrustE's Watchdog Reports invariably results in a decision of "Issue Handled with no changes necessary to the Privacy Statement nor the Site". They get about a hundred complaints per month, but don't do anything. The last time TrustE made a site change anything was in 2002.
In the early days of TrustE, their seal actually meant something. But they've totally sold out.
There's also the Commerce Department's "Safe Harbor" list. No enforcement action has ever been taken under that.
So don't believe any "privacy certifications" associated with RFID tag use. They're meaningless.
I would like to talk with you about English schools. I am curious about the lack of "bullshit subjects" you speak of.
Please email me at slashdottemp@r1n.net
Thanks
-Fran
For those who don't know, he posts a lot of rehashed news on his blog and then by some act of god (or Benjamin Franklin) gets his stories constantly posted to Slashdot, which gets him massive ad revenue.
I recommend that nobody visits the links in the story to deprive him of this ad revenue.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
GPS implantable tracking device.
Wal-Mart tracking customers. Quoted from the article: Proctor & Gamble teamed with the retail giant in the test over a four month-period which allowed researchers to view the Wal-Mart shelves from company headquarters some 750 miles away in Cincinnati, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
You're right, why worry about 750 miles, when in the near future they could track it ALL THE WAY AROUND THE WORLD.
Julie Moult is an idiot.
Actually, I think RFID technologies are neat -- clothing, products, vehicles, I actually can't wait to start experimenting with some of this stuff at home. As someone mentioned above, all kinds of new technology has potential applications, as well as potential abuses.
We intend to explore RFID's location-based potential, but with an emphasis on privacy, which we've held to.
There is lots of potential here, but there's a way to fight for our privacy and rights -- we can fight back by tracking the RFID tags, coming-up with ranges of unique numbers for products, ways to modify tags, or insulate their signal.
What I really worry about, is where people are forced to have them (shopper cards, bus passes, etc), where people themselves can be tracked. Keep an eye out.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Also this competition you're promoting has a horrible condition - "The remaining entries' designs will remain the property of our company to be used or showcased as we see fit".
This condition is rubbish. It is evil. It sounds like you're not thinking of actually paying anyone - and will use whatever logo you want, without compensating it's creator. Given that's your attitude, maybe you won't mind if I pirate your software because I wasn't going to buy it anyway?
This "are you a good graphic designer" ad is well and good, but can you put it in your sig, so that those of us who don't want to be bombarded with ad's/spam can choose not to see it? Also this competition you're promoting has a horrible condition - "The remaining entries' designs will remain the property of our company to be used or showcased as we see fit". This condition is rubbish. It is evil. It sounds like you're not thinking of actually paying anyone - and will use whatever logo you want, without compensating it's creator. Given that's your attitude, maybe you won't mind if I pirate your software because I wasn't going to buy it anyway?
I used to believe the PIII serial number was a good idea. It would have made network management a lot easier as tracking by computer name or ip address is not real reliable on some networks.
That was then...
I spend about half my time cleaning up spyware off of peoples computers. The people that write this crud would have looooved to get serial numbers. And they would have. Even with the systems that required a reboot to 'activate' the serial number. Most people don't even think twice about a random crash. Make the config change (bios or os), make it look like something bad happened and reboot (or just be patient and wait for it). Presto, on your way to a hugely correlated database. Yuck!
I have the same problem with rfid. It's wonderful technology and if the rfid tags get burned out when you're done, great. But the *same* problem exits:
People with a clue will Own the People without a clue.
I keep on seeing all this neat stuff and then i ask the question: how can this be mis-used?
Here is a wonderful example: There is a goal of putting rfids on bulk bottles of medicine (in the caps? which could end up on the wrong bottle? did it matter which cap went before?). ok, I see the advantage for inventory and quality control, as you really do want people the get the proper medicine. What about the dark side? If I'm am understanding this correctly, you can use sensitive scanners that allow for greater distances. Does your pharmicist want anyone to know when the next 1000ct bottle of Oxycontin gets there? (any maybe where in the store to look for it?) Does this mean rf shielded storage?
If the problem people have with being phished is any indicator, RFID is just going to be a disaster.
eric
how hard will it be to hack RFID tags? 1. Get a reader 2. Figure out what your transmitting 3. Change it
I would really like these devices to be used to identify blood products issued from hospital transfusion services. You could set it so if an the wrong unit of blood were brought to the operating room, alarms could go off. Fewer mistakes are a good thing.
Just watch for lawsuits on behalf of the RFID tag manufacturers, on the contention that the RFID tags on their RFID tags invade their privacy.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
I work for the Roman Catholic Church, and for most of our history, we fought hard against the distribution of printed works. We still fight against it in many ways.
I studied RFID applications for a few years. There are some interesting, practical uses: They are going in tires to facilitate recalls. Remember the Firestone fiasco? Toy companies are looking to RFID for "talking" action figures. A RF reader can detect which character(s) is near and "say" the appropriate thing. Also, collectable card games (Magic) or Baseball cards tagged with RFIDs to update stats. There are some interesting industrial uses. One involved RFID tags embedded in epoxy in a factory floor. Forklifts with readers and wireless PDAs could instruct the driver where the load was supposed to go. In one case, the forks would be disabled if the lift was trying to dump a product in the wrong bin. And finally, RFID put a guy out of work. IN a auto paintshop, the car bodies move on automated tracks. However, there was a guy who sat watching the bodies go by and redirected the body in to the right paintroom or bake oven. With the addition of temperature resistant RFID tags, his job was automated.
I can see the security guard at the front doors now: "Whoa, hold on there sir, you can't leave the hospital--you have the wrong spleen. That's right, the RFID tag identifies it as the wrong one. Just hand it over nicely, sir, and we won't have to involve the authorities..."
Here's a fascinating application that I came across. This little company is making big waves in the music instrument manufacturing sector. They're doing some cool R&D on tracking technologies that combine GPS and RFID as well.
http://www.snagg.com
Fucking luddite. The machine counts for us! It's utopia. Machines never fail.
I wasted less real estate than your response.
You are too cynical. We fully intend on paying, and I paraphased other contests I found on the Internet. I have since rephrased the line to just say that we will not return other submitted items and we have the right to post submissions to our website to feature the contest.
We simply thought that this would be a great way to help us create a logo, while placing a small line at the end of a posting on this high-traffic site. No rip-off agenda. We are nerds, supporters of Slashdot, funders of open source software, and just some guys needing some help in a start-up company.
Click here or here.
Acccckkkkk! Liberals....
Houston Real-Time Traffic Map. It reports on freeways as well as the tollroads. There's electronic signs along the roads informing you of traffic conditions ahead. You can view the signs online, first check the "Message Signs" option in the Map Control box on the lower left, the click a sign on the map to see what its currently displaying.
This is pathetic. Here's how the Walmart example works:
The RFID tags are read from inside the store -- most likely from a reader that is only a couple feet away. The reader then sends that information to a computer in the store. The computer in the store sends the information to the researchers 750 miles away using a normal internet connection.
You cannot track somenoe with RFID tags. To do so you would need to be several feet away from them, and if you are that close, you don't need any externel help tracking someone.
I would like to see all marked police vehicles with RFID tags...finally a way to get out of speeding tickets!
Elsewhere, in Texas, 28,000 students test an e-tagging system which promises better security for them.
More like it promises better slavery for them.
Oh well, best to whip 'em into place and make them love Big Brother at an early age, right?
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I don't care if I have less chance of medicine being switched. I don't care if I can check out groceries without waiting in line. I don't care I can zip through toll booths. I really don't give a damn about any positive aspect of RFID. It's junk. Not one of those things is even remotely worth having your every action and location logged in some database to be used in god knows what manner by people who are unelected and unaccountable to the public. I can't even begin to imagine the awful abuses this technology will be put to. But here's a start:
1) pre-crime/thoughtcrime: all your actions are analyzed by a computer to determine if you at risk for comitting a crime. The police helpfully show up before a "crime" is committed and question you to make sure everything is OK.
2) Microphones throughtout the city analyze everything that is said by anyone. The technology for the microphone system and voice decoding to text was already used in Athens for the olympics security. When combined with RFID identification and location, everything you say will be logged into your file. As ridiculous as it sounds, this could enable outrageous things like fines for swearing.
3) If your cholesterol is too high, you will pay a huge tax to buy a pizza.
etc. etc.
MAYBE under very strong democratic control this technology could be a benefit to humanity. But especially with the current fascist regime in the US the whole idea seems a nightmare of potential abuses and abrogation of fundamental rights.
Even though I got the boot for keeping a slip'n'slide and a quart of crisco oil in the office, I'm still very excited to announce the results of the latest RFID lottery.
For the 30,000 people we found carrying Al Franken's "Lying Liars, and the liars who...", you are all now being audited, and, free of charge, we are in the process of moving all of your houses to a mosquito infested flood zone in Alabama. (not to mention that every channel on your cable system will now feature 24 hour reruns of the Trinity Broadcasting Network)
We also were able to find 5000 good Americans who possessed Ann Coulter's "Slander: Liberal Lies about...". For those lucky individuals, we are awarding a FREE Ann Coulter Talking Doll. In addition, I will send you a personally autographed 5 gallon drum of Crisco oil blessed by Pat Robertson, with a full sheet of visqueen.
Look, this is just another technological two-edged sword. From the invention of the Folsom Point thousands of years ago, to nuclear power, computers, RFID ... they all have tremendous potential for improving the quality of our lives. I used to think that it was always best to forge ahead and not worry too much about the how an advance might be misused. However, given our current administrations penchant for misusing pretty much everything it lays its hands on, I'm inclined to wait a bit on this one.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Peace
Dammit I hate RFID. I'm a Clemson student and I fucking lost my ID card for the 3rd time so now I can't get back in my dorm. Bleh bleh bleh me so drunk...
--Moi-même
All things Good have some manner of Evil. That's what I think
Sure, RFID tags might have some benign uses...that's exactly what the fascists who want to tag us all like penguins will try and sell us on. The idea is to gradually break down resistance to the concept by using them in other areas first where they genuinely might be a convenience, in order to try and condition people into thinking that they're "really not so bad."
The only question you need to ask about this technology though is this: If they're not so bad...if they're really so benign and harmless...then why are some governmental and commercial groups so passionately, unrelentingly determined to bring about a scenario where we are all using them?
My own belief with this sort of technology is that it is unfortunately somewhat inevitable that it will be adopted by people to some degree...as we're seeing in certain American schools. No matter what setbacks politicans experience in this area, they keep trying...precisely because they know that once people are using them, governments will have a completely unprecedented level of control and knowledge about where people are and what they are doing, at all times.
I'm not even against some possible uses for biotechnology, myself...but RFID tags are possibly the only technology I've heard of which I believe should be universally and completely banned. The potential for abuse in my mind far outweighs potential conveniences...especially when a non-critical convenience is all they are likely to be.
Governments must not be allowed access to technologies which have the potential to render them immune to revolution.
How hard is it to get elected to Congress?
I want to serve the people, by passing laws to protect personal freedoms, privacy, free speech, and consumer rights.
This is the feeler of interest for my campaign; the real campaign will take place in about 10 years.
...switching the world over to systems using RFID tags is going to be big business. The more they are used, the more the demand for developers to implement the systems. Bring it on I say...
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Here is an article about a US ski resort using RF watches to track skiers around the area.
Like many people, I use RFID every day. When I go to work, to get in to the building, I wave my RFID impregnaed badge in front of a reader. The door unlocks and lets me in the building. When I enter the storage room where our new computers are kept, I use the RFID tag to open that door too, it has controlled access so only a few of us can go in there. I also have data center access.
I wish I had to "clock out" using the tags too, that way the company would know if everyone had left the building in the event of an evacuation.
On weekends, when I go to my place "up North" I use an RFID tag to open the gate, it is a key-fob kind of thing. This means only authorized people can access the facility.
I had a Mobile Pass for buying gas and automatically charged my card but got rid if it when my teenager got her driver's license (she may have abused it). It made my life a bit easier.
I can see the day where RFID tags will be impregnated in things like charge cards. When that day comes, I hope that the RFID card will be an extra, additional step in security, used to verify that the card is not counterfit. I don't think it should be used to pass ALL the information. But it can be used as a security feature.
I can see RFID tags being used to even improve national security. Currently about 95% of all cargo coming in through our ports is uninspected. We all know that is a major hole in our defense. We could work out an arrangment with major trusted corporations outside of our country to package sealed cartons and containers with high-power RFID tags so that the manifest can be read, the sealed container scanned and allowed to pass where other containers have to be searched. This isn't perfect but would be a damned sight better than what we have today.
I, Kim Son Bo, would like to see the decadent
American military carry out its proposal to require RFID cards in all new uniforms sold to its running dogs. Company that make its uniforms now in China and this company is also making RFID scanner. This scanner come in two models. Short range model go to stupid American army. Long range model to to Patriotic Forces of Peoples Republic of North Korea. Our Dear Leader's Juche has forsawn this. When we and our 5 million Chinese Brothers who have been here since 1994 retake the South from the decadent capitolists usurpers, we will use those long range scanner.
We will spot all the American dogs with special scopes on sniper rifles. Their stupid bodies will shine like beacons in our crosshairs. We will even be able to see them fall. Our hero Lenin said stupid capitolist would provide own rope for their own hanging. Now I and my brothers rejoice in their huge stupidity. We also so hope that the decadent Republik of Korea army will be forced to use these too, then we can get them all. Some of enemy might get smart, but tag will be in everything, and location of tag will be secret and looking for it would be illegal under DMCA. Those boys will have to go naked. We attack in winter, probably around their xmas holiday when all of them are drunk. This way when they have to run naked in the dark, we will see them even better using other function of our RFID scope, the infrared imaging detector. Chinese provide us with many of these. Seems American hunters like to use them to spot game, so price come down. When shippment to USA 'get lost' it really go to us. When war over and your soldiers bones bleach in Korean summer sun, we will make statue to honor of RFID that made our Glorious Victory possible.
Wish I ain't use erry one of my pizzies already today. Somebody hook a brother up and mod parent up. S/he is 100% correct.
Peace.
The abuse of the technology is the problem, not the technology itself. Guns are a great idea too until someone has one pointed at your head.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
RFID transmitters on every piece of gauze? You are a fscktard.
Here's a piece of gay plastic jewelry that you have to wear. Again, you are a fscktard.
I still think most RFID uses could be handled by bar codes, while sacrificing your privacy far less than RFID because you need visible contact to read them -- which gives me control over who sees them. With RFID, I am entirely out of control. I may even not know that I carry an RFID equipped part with me. No thanks.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
The scanner needs to be close to the scanee. However if that scanner is networked then yes, you can track the entire RFID-bearing public from anywhere on earth. The more scanners there are the more you can track them.
Embed a RFID tag in the football and put readers everywhere on the field so that you can get real time 3d tracking of the football.......
And, for Karl, go Seahawks
The chances of putting em in footballs is about the same as putting them in baseballs to do away with umpire error in the strike zone. As one channel 5 sportscaster informed me the judgemental errors of umpires and referees are part of the game and he wouldn't change a thing.
If an RFID tag was developed that could be embedded in a bullet and withstand the force of impact it could make solving some crimes involving handguns easier. Have every bullet in a box of ammo tied to the UPC and require identification for purchase. Then when John Doe is found dead with one of your bullets in his head the cops know who to look for.
If you'd see this as "progress", I find it a clear invasion of my privacy, and nobody has the right to track you or your habbits without a "clear" privacy agreement.
"Evil thrives when good men do nothing"
Ammo could be stolen from stores by smart thieves/corrupt store owners/employees that left NO forensic evidence (for the CSI guys) and sold on the 'underground' at a premium....
In the end, the homocide is just one more entry in the police cold case files.... =/
What are you going to do--hold the gunstore chain/owner responsible (who might be blameless) for an otherwise unsolved murder?
Then the John Doe could have been shot by a bullet manufactured by a foreign ammo maker who REFUSES to put the RIFD tags in the ammo.
To toot my own horn a wee bit -- I'm writing a series of contest articles for the IBM developerWorks Power Architecture zone. This month's contest involves the most creative use of locator (GPS, RFID, etc.) chips. Come on over and send us some entries!
c hipschall2.html
The link is:
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-
If it was mandated by the government then all new, legal ammo sold would have an RFID tag just as every new car comes with seatbelts and airbags.
Dealers that sell ammo should be held to the same scrutiny and level of responsiblity as pharmacists. The products they dispense are more likely to kill innocent people. You don't walk into CVS and pick up an allergy prescription without appearing on several cameras and providing AT LEAST a signature, why can anyone buy ammo without ID?
Walmart isn't held responsible when someone uses one of their rifles to pick off commuters during morning rush hour. A stolen rifle is reported along with the serial number, which can be filed off. It wouldn't be so easy to disable the RFID without great effort and possible destruction of the bullet. They may not have the thief and can't tie the rifle to the crime or point of purchase without possession for ballistic testing (or other evidence),
Regardless of how a criminal obtained bullets embedded with passive RFID tags, a digital trail would exist and provide more clues to the identify of a killer than an inert piece of metal. The RFID could be like a computer's MAC address and indicate manufacturer and caliber in addition to a GUID for each box sold.
With federal mandate "untagged" ammo would be illegal to possess and harder for the average criminal to obtain. Stolen legal firearms would have tagged ammo.
If you really wanted to shoot someone you could load your own bullets, switch to black powder or bow and arrow. Illegal drugs are a prime example of the fact you can't stop the black market. If the goverment put half as much effort into blocking the import of untagged ammo as they do into blocking prescription drugs from Canada for seniors the country would be a safer place.
Rather than all the negative carping, lets look at this as an opportunity to hack! And since both E-voting and RFID seem to be inevitable, why not figure a way to enjoy it?!
P2P is seen as empowering individuals over corporations. However, RFID has the potential to empower corporations over individuals. It is problematic when people are not aware of RFID being used.