Slashdot Mirror
Students and Bodies Tracked Via RFID Tags
AT writes "The Brittan School District in Sutter County, California, is requiring students to carry RFID-tagged identity badges on them at all times. Readers are currently installed at the doors to all classrooms. Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested. The school district is meeting next week to consider parents objections to the system." Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."
Readers were removed from bathrooms when parents protested
They must have forgotten about those RFIDed toilet paper. Someone I know received a $94 invoice for "Excessive use of toilet paper" from her son's school.
Seriously though, tracking body parts is fine since they're donated "inventory", but tracking a human is a different matter entirely.
And I'm not going to make a joke about the ease of transition from that school to the university.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
So when the next columbine happens, it will be easier to recognize the bodies
now the school will know when kids leave campus and go to Steve Wynn's casino on the Las Vegas strip.
or the morgue.
Total Law Enforcement rules. And the trains run on time, too!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It reminds me of one class I had in High School. You signed in at the door, and the teacher never checked.
It was the last period of the day, and an extremely easy class. So despite there being the full list of students, the classroom was basically empty.
So, how long do you think it will be until students just give their badges to their friends?
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
How is using an RFID system which is more accurate, efficient, and convenient any different from tracking students on paper?
Most schools I've seen use paper attendance sheets; keep a paper copy of your schedule (ie. where you SHOULD be during that time period) and require a written record if you leave a class for any reason and also your destination--bathroom included.
I fail to see the difference here, let alone how it's somehow an invasion of privacy.
These have been around for years...
boggles the mind that someone modded this up.
Society, as a whole, needs to tell these swine that if you have that many children and that young of an age, you are the scum of the Earth and the planet would be better off without you.
don't dare speak for me (society) with hateful shit like that.
I don't envy this kind of freedom....
Hmm, if you need software to keep track of certain, um, parts, then, uh, let's just say you have other problems to deal with. ;)
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Well the upside to all this is that if a major school shooting takes place, the university will be all set up for the bodies.
(ducks)
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Sounds like fun to carry.
which then is translated into the student's name by software contained in a handheld device used by teachers to check attendance.
I can see it now: "Hey, Mikey - take my badge and scan it for English class, or I'm gonna beat you up with it!"
Bueller... Bueller... Bueller...
1. Students have rights, even in school.
2. The Court has evolved a right to privacy (a 1st, 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment mix).
3. Facism is not an American value.
Aside from that, please tell me: When did the GOP's big goal become to evolve the US government into a nanny state? The neocon "the schools are out of control!" rhetoric fits your asinine point way too well for it to be a coincidence.
Get together several times a day to trade id badges... and leave the staff wondering why the girls are going to the boy's restroom, etc.! They can require you to carry an ID, but can they enforce a requirement to carry YOUR OWN ID?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So what? I mean schools require students to reply to a roll call... making them swipe a badge is the same thing.
When RFID spoofers are outlawed, only outlaws will have RFID spoofers.
Like the beaver, it's just Dam one thing after another
"Consider". Heh, and all this time I've been spelling "override" the old-fashioned way.
>Relatedly (but not), Leilah writes "The University of California is considering using RFID tags or bar codes to help track their collection of bodies and parts. They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts - they've previously had legal trouble over improper disposal as well."
February 17, 2005: Minutes of School Board Meeting.
"PRIOR BUSINESS: [Board Member X] acknowledges that the Board, like the University of California, has had legal trouble regarding the improper disposal of bodies and body parts."
"NEW BUSINESS: [Board Member Y] reports that the cost of providing school meals has dropped by 40% over this fiscal year, and expects further cost reductions to continue in FY2006. The Board agrees to continue its joint development with Soylent Birkenstock, a not-for-profit collective between UC Berkeley and the School Board dedicated towards ensuring that No Child is Left Behind due to poor nutrition."
"CURRENT BUSINESS: When the floor was opened to parents for discussion, no objections were raised to our proposal that RFID cards be worn by all students. Existing objections were dropped. The Board is somewhat confused, but pleased, by this development."
NYT coverage.
Gadgetopia coverage.
CASPIAN/Rense coverage.
Slashdot coverage.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
I'm not a fan of radical RFID use. I'm skeptical of many uses, such as sticking them in bank cards so that when you step through the doors of your local branch, they know whether they can ignore you or if you're a significant enough customer that they should meet you at the door and give you tip-top attention.
This just doesn't seem like a big deal. Rather than wasting class time doing roll-call, they automate it so that as soon as you walk into the class, you're counted as present. This will help parents and school officials know that students are not missing and are where they should be. Maybe they'll even implement full blown java cards to ensure that only the AV-club students can access the AV room, only faculty can access the faculty lounge and so on. Even better would be requiring the use of a java card to gain access to the school at all. Swipe the card to get in the front door. No more lunatics wandering the halls.
Oh, and most adults have to use these cards in the real world, too. The only difference is that we have to swipe our cards and that swipe usually ends up in a database, logging the time, door and building we entered. The only difference here is that the RFID readers in the door eliminate the need to swipe the card.
I also don't see the big deal with tagging body parts like this. It enforced accountability and I'm pretty sure dead people or someone who no longer has that arm attached to them doesn't much care what happens to it - tagged or not.
Also, any remotely intelligent kid will just wrap the card with a couple layers of tin foil, stick it in their lunch box, etc.
Like I said, I'm a really skeptical person when it comes to RFIDs. I hate the idea of tagging, tracking and cataloging EVERYTHING under the sun. But these two cited implementations seem entirely reasonable.
Yeah, I'm totally for having to government replace parents and personal responsibility in general, too. I just don't know where I'd be today if I hadn't had Big Brother watching every move I made while I was in school.
It's amazing how quickly we've transformed from a country which at least claimed to value freedom, civil liberties and self-determination into one which pleads for the government to come in and run our lives, isn't it?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
- Using RFID to track inventory, such as spare dead body parts: Good.
- Using RFID to track people, such as students: Bad.
Explanation: PEOPLE ARE NOT OBJECTS!Like my sig, it is your leader talking. However, it is good to know that he will only donate .02 % of his billions to his 3 kids.e m /.
http://www.google.com/search?safe=On&q=exe
Keep your friends close, and your enmies closer.
Except on
Peace.
...when you can't remember where you left a cadaver?
They are attempting to reopen their body donation program which has been on hold since spring 2004 due to disappearing parts...
Somebody please clue me in here. What sort of a sick excuse for a human being would steal parts of a cadaver???
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Please quote from my post where I suggested that the role of a parent should be replaced by the government.
THIS ACCOUNT IS OFFICIALLY RETIRED/RETARDED.
if you wrapped the RFID badge in tons of foil, would it still be picked up?
I am getting the impression from reading rants on Slashdot that people think if you have an RFID badge that someone could be sitting at some screen watching a little dot represent a person as they move across a building. Watching the little dot move step-by-step down the building.
Yes, this is an invasion of privacy but this is not what RFID does. RFID is an inventory control method. Almost always, an [unpowered] RFID badge must be swiped within a foot a reader - and even then you sometimes have to swipe it once or twice to get a reading. RFID cannot and does not provide a method of tracking exact locations.
Parents that either don't care about their child's education, or ones that think their child is immune to the rules or does no wrong are the real problem with the school system.
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You have some rights of privacy in school. Otherwise, kids can be stripped searched randomly.
The more I read stuff like this, the more convinced I become that technology and politics are becoming so intermingled that the issues typically under consideration of "Nerds" have actually become much more important than those issues typically relegated to "Politicians".
I think that we (collectively) will need to develop a very distributed (P2P) governance system that connects up with others in a distributed trust fashion. You have a concern, zero in on the location (ala maps.google.com), perhaps get a satellite picture of the problem in question (pothole), and then make a proposal to have it fixed. It will then get routed to your neighbors who will vote on it, make amendments/counter proposals where the voting model can be determined relative to the scope of the work performed.
I'm sure ya'll will get the idea. I think this is critical since "governance" is way too centralized and inefficient as we know it now. While it may seem artificial to use newer technologies in such a fashion that they become so embedded in our lives, it's a network effect. Using such new technologies creates the problems that the old forms of organizations can't grapple with, and "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." So, applying technology to different types of social/governmental/organizational issues becomes just as sensible as using it towards other domain-specific problems (Human Genome).
I would say that the signs are pointing to this, and what's really needed is a secure, authenticated, distributed, global information bus, ala (SMTP2, semantic web) that is much different from the highly centralized HTTP architecture. Then, you could actually see who clicks on links, see if you know them, etc. The problem with all of these social networking sites is not the conceptualization of the features, but that the underlying architecture will never allow them to flourish in a powerful way beyond the curiosity they are now. I'm not going to upload my contacts to some website.
Discuss!
Hey, as long as we're shifting the blame from teachers to parents, why don't we go ahead and shift it to where it belongs, the students. EVERYBODY'S parent suck. Some worse than others. That is no excuse to go blaming your parents or anybody else for your own actions. Everybody, deep down, knows what is right. Even my three year olds do, because when they are doing bad things, they stop as soon as I come in the room.
If people don't do what is right, then they are to blame, not their parents, not their teachers, not society. If we are to get anywhere as a species, everyone has to be held accountable and responsible for themselves.
Yes, I realize this could be devastating to the law profession, which feeds mainly upon people holding other people responsible for their own foolish actions or lack of common sense.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
"You have no right to privacy in a public school system."
I'm not sure this is true. And the issue of privacy in a public school is further complicated by the fact that you're required by law to be there. It's not like you have a choice, they're forcing you to go. So there needs to be a little more respect for privacy and safety than in other public places.
is what the school gets in return. This article points out that the school got some computer equipment donated to them. However, according to the version of this story at MSNBC:
"InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom."
Seems more like this is less of a "it's for the safety of the kids" and more of a "let's make money by tagging our kids like cattle."
"1. Students have rights, even in school."
But they are not the same rights adults are accustomed to. Here's blurb with some of the key cases listed:
"All people in the United States are guaranteed this right by the Constitution. Students, however, do not have this right to the same extent as adults. This is because public schools are required to protect all students at the school. The major aspects of this right are speech and dress. Both the right to speech and dress are not absolute in public high schools. According to the American Civil Liberties Union: "You (students) have a right to express your opinions as long as you do so in a way that doesn't 'materially and substantially' dirsupt classes or other school activities. If you hold a protest on the school steps and block the entrance to the building, school officials can stop you. They can probably also stop you from using language they think is 'vulgar or indecent'("Ask Sybil Libert" ACLU 1998). Public schools can also restrict student dress. In 1987 in Harper v. Edgewood Board of Education the court upheld "a dress regulation that required students to 'dress in conformity wit hthe accepted standards of the community'"(Whalen 72). This means that schools can restrict clothing with vulgarities and such, but they cannot restrict religious clothing: "School officials must accomodate student's religious beliefs by permitting the wearing of religious clothing when such clothing must be worn during the school day as a part of the student's religious practice"(Whalen 78)."
Here's some other stuff:
"Veronia v. Acton 1995
In Veronia v. Acton the issue concerned the drug testing of athletes at an Oregon Public High School. In 1995, drug abuse was a major problem in Veronia, Oregon, and the school district reacted by implementing a policy of drug testing all student athletes. When a member of the Acton family had signed up for athletics in the school district, the parents did not sign the testing agreement. They believed this policy violated their son's privacy. The United States Supreme Court felt that this policy of drug testing was constitutional and that by voluntarily becoming an athlete the person gave up some privacy (Harrison and Gilbert 175). These cases helped all those involved with public high schools know exactly the rights of public school students."
I agree with 2 and 3, though.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Frankly, I don't really see any problem with the tracking of the kids, per se. It doesn't tell you what they're doing in the bathroom... it just lets you know that they are in the bathroom... which I don't regard as an invasion of privacy, really. All in all, it's good to keep close track of those meddling kids.
However....
The thing about this that really freaks me out is that it might give us a group of future voters who view this level of tracking as "the way things are". I'm someone who considers the Patriot act to be a dangerous step in the direction of Nazi Germany. However, I think that a group of kids just graduating from a school where they wore, essentially, tracking beacons for four year will think that the Patriot Act is downright lax.
if there was some common solution to both our problems?
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
The largest problem facing public schools in America is not parents opposing the system. I'll give you a hint what is: Poor distribution of funding. This trend has been apparent for a long time but no child left behind did NOT help. While we are at it, since I don't agree with your decisions, that makes you the scum of the Earth as well. Just like the 19 year old girl you so despise. Why don't we remove you/your parents/loved ones from the face of the Earth? People make mistakes. Deal with it, you don't have to help them, but you have no right to force abortions on someone.
"Im such a nonconformist I'm going to not conform to the rest of you!"
"Dude I think we just got goth-served"
Old and busted: "It's for the Fatherland!"
New hotness: "It's for the Children!"
From my understanding, corpse theft (or illegal corpse purchasing) often occurs on a piecemeal basis. In other words, one company or university might only need eyeballs while another focuses on the other organs such as the heart or brain. Would they put RFID tags in all these different parts?
:-)
Also, despite the really small size of the world's tiniest RFID tags, these tags can still be viewed with the naked eye. If I illegaly purchased a brain, and I had autopsy tools at my disposal, it would seem like a trivial task to remove the chip inside.
Wouldn't it be much more efficient to maintain a DNA database of donated bodies? This way if a fraternity gets caught with a pair of stolen eyeballs they can run a DNA test to see where it possibly originated.
Of course, I don't suggest they keep a DNA database on alive schoolchildren. Only when they're dead and unable to protest.
These same kids go say the pledge of allegiance... and we expect them to belive it! No wonder the kids of today grow up all depressed and twisted.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
When I was in HS (which was only 6 years ago), there was no "tracking system" of any kind. Sure, some teachers took attendance. But most did not. And there was definitely no school-wide system.
Seriously, how hard is it for a dumbfuck teacher to notice when a kid is missing 2-3 days a week? It is not like we're talking university-style auditoriums of hundreds of students.. a typical HS class side is only 30-45 kids.
Is there really a *need* to automate this? Seems like a waste of money more than anything else. If I was a parent this would be my protest angle - get the teachers in line.
RFID cannot and does not provide a method of tracking exact locations.
You are correct except in this particular case, since students are required to swipe the card within a foot of the nearest reader every time they change locations-- and are penalized if they do not.
If the parents are upset over this they should just microwave their child's identity card everytime they get one. The child can continue wearing the card but it won't do anything.
Ban the catalytic converter!
Parents are no longer on the side of teachers and the administration. It is a battle with the parents believing that their child can do no wrong and everyone is out to get that child.
That is because school administrators and teachers are losing their fucking minds.
Today you have kids getting suspended for having nail clippers. A kindergarten kid was punished for wearing a halloween costume that consisted of a fireman with a plastic axe. 3 kids were punished for possessing pornography because they had a drawing of a stick figure with breasts and a penis.
When I was a kid, if I was in the wrong my mother woudl have my ass in a blender. If I wasn't wrong, my mother would raise hell at the school.
If the school admins weren't such asshats, the parents wouldn't need to be so adversarial.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Did you notice that this system was put in without parental input? Or that the systems was actually a test for the company that makes it (payed for with a donation of equipment).
Also the badges contain name and age (grade) of the kids. If the kids forget to remove them after they leave the grounds then this is a threat to their safety.
So: No parental input.
A corperation testing a system on unconsenting individuals*
A potential threat to the children's safty
This does not seem like its the parents not working with the system, more like the system is not working with the parents.
Can you give me a reason this level of tracking is needed?
Can you give me a justification for the schools approach to the matter?
*Since they are children gaurdian's consent should be needed.
Here's the sort of prank this system is designed to prevent.
A (male) student steals a penis from a cadaver. He goes into a crowded restroom on campus and stands in front of a urinal for an excessively long time. Finally he pulls the severed penis out of his pants and throws it on the ground, shouting "Goddamn thing never worked right" and storms off.
Hilarity ensues.
This will certainly make it easier to find the zombies.
1) Put RFID chips in body parts
2) Wait for zombies to eat them
3) ???
4) Profit!
"Living-impaired" attorneys/advocates who will fight tooth and nail to keep RFID tags off of those who are disadvantaged by their lack of basic life signs. Dead people have rights (voting?) too, you know!
The UC system? Good luck putting RFID tags on Berkeley students.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
And they can.
Ever been in a gym class where something was stolen out of a gym locker? The whole class gets detained and searched.
The University of Warwick (UK) have been doing this for several years now - with remarkably little outcry.
i d_ cards/
http://www.warwickboar.co.uk/boar/news/library_
The "Warwick Boar" is the student newspaper.
Actually, since public school districts receive federal funds, there _ARE_ rights to privacy, free speech, and such as guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights - it's the same clause that applies to the colleges that accept federal funds.
However, ignorant parents and students often sign these rights away when they receive student handbooks and "behavior contracts" at the beginning of the year. The behavior contract includes clauses about "disruptive behavior" and "classroom disruptions," though no one really defines what those are. Students are usually barred from participating in extracurricular activities until said contracts are signed and returned to the school's office. If the student ever gets in trouble, the contract is brought out to remind the student what a good little sheep they agreed to be.
The legality of the contract is binding, as the school requires both the parent(s) and the student to sign it, thus circumventing any age-releases if the student's a minor.
Most schools are even starting to do this at the primary level.
I'll wholeheartedly agree with your comment about parents not being strict enough. I taught after-school computer classes for the kids at the primary school where I work for a year, and one day, the four-year-old son of a fourth-grade teacher walked out of my class with the biggest grin on his face. He turned around and said, with thirty kids in the class, his mother standing RIGHT behind him, and me showing a kid how to use Firefox...
"I swear to God I'll kill you all next time!"
He walks off, and no apology was forthwith from either him or his mother, and NO disciple was had in front of me or later when I brought it up with his mother (he was removed from my class permanently for that; I don't take crap from kids, ESPECIALLY not when I'm teaching others).
And don't think that all private institutions are good. Several charter schools down here have been horrible, not just in financial terms, but in terms of the discipline; one I attended (West Houston Charter School) regularly had violence in it (kids making homemade flamethrowers and using them on other kids and computers, beatings, and of course the ever-popular swirlie), thefts, and teachers not giving a damn about the kids.
Disclaimer: I am a network administrator at a public elementary school in Texas. I have firsthand knowledge of this, as I work for the district I went to school in.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Saving two minutes at the start of class for the low, low price of constant surveillance and complete loss of human dignity? Geez, how could anybody say no to that?
My girl has a university class that has over 400 students. To sign in to class everyone had to buy a 18 dollar little remote sign in thingy. Like a remote control. Yes after a little while some students would have their friends "beam" them in for attendance. In one class a bunch of students got caught cause one guy had like 10 remotes for all of his friends that ditched. Although I don't know how he got caught cause you can basically beam in from the back of the auditorium. Haha
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If you're a single mother, you made a mistake. I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you. Just the other night I saw on the news a 19 year old girl who had 3 children and was being brought up on child neglect charges. It is simply sickening. Society, as a whole, needs to tell these swine that if you have that many children and that young of an age, you are the scum of the Earth and the planet would be better off without you. I am sick and tired of supporting someone else's mistake. And of course, those 3 children will grow up to either steal my car, have children they can't support just like their mother, or both.
My mother was single.
I don't steal cars and, as yet, I've not had children that I can't support. I'm three units away from a university degree, I work part time as a software engineer and I do a lot of contract work on the side.
And in my opinion, the education system will never teach anybody who doesn't want to learn: whether they have good familes or bad families, it all comes down to the individual.
Honestly, you bitch and bitch like you know what you're talking about.
You don't, it shows: families aren't perfect. You're obviously not in such a situation, so for fuck's sake stop moaning like you're somehow better than these women. You're not. It's not up to you to judge moral values.
People make mistakes. Life goes on.
This is a serious violation of our civil rights and the people responsible for this need to be taken before a court of law and brought to justice.
My ACLU donation will be at least twice as much this year and I will become more involved in raising awareness in regards to those issues.
The minor one is that they need some external system to detect a human presence. This covers both the cases of one student trying to carry several students' IDs, or the case of someone who does not have an ID.
The more serious and intrusive extension is to link the ID to the bearer. There are various ways this could be done. For example, a proximity-linked surgical implant would be hard to beat, but not necessary. For example, the ID could include a finger scanner and at random times it would beep and require the bearer to press a finger on it. (Also required when a thermal sensor indicated it had been too far away from the bearer.)
The solution? A legal principle that you own the data about you, with Fifth Amendment protection. They could collect any data they want, but if it identifies you, they have to let you store it on your own computer. If they want to access that data at any later time, they have to show probable cause and get a search warrant.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Put the device under you tin foil hat - problem solved!
"Well, Timmy, according to this printout, yesterday you entered the girl's locker room exactly... lemme get this straight... eleven times. Care to explain that?"
"Boobies?"
Why not just tag us at birth.. add sensors everywhere.. stores. schools. homes. cars.
"Its for the children"
My kid would be home schooled if our system here tried this garbage.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That if any of those kids take any bother to read the news, they will find that people care far, far more about the "one nation under god" part than the "for liberty and justice for all" part.
Michael Jackson will be buying a reader!
Personally, I don't see a problem with these devices, especially since the RFID chip itself no critical data. We're talking about a 15 digit student ID number.
I think the major problem is the lack of communication between the school and the parents. If all you heard was, "Your child's movements are going to be tracked the whole time he is at school," you might react negatively. I doubt the vast majority of these parents even understand the nature of the tracking system used. Futhermore, it is unlikely the school staff members that explained the technology to the parents thoroughly understands it either. I remember that in high school (which is rather recent for me) that even the supposed "IT" staff had no more than the most basic understanding of the technology for which they were responsible.
As for how effective this will be, I have enough faith in the ingenuity of an eighth grader that they will quickly find ways to bypass this system should they so desire.
Brittan School District in Sutter County, California is just plain wrong to use tags on kids.
Students' Civil Rights are being violated, they have less rights then prisoners.
(And All prisoners get free health care!)
Instead of wasting money on Fascists Progroms how about spending their money on better teachers?
How long until the chip in the forhead or in the hand people? - a clear violation of conservative christian beliefs.
Parents need to draw the line in the sand and get the whole school board fired, the superintendent fired, sue the school, and withhold their children until they are treated better than animals and slaves.
I just am wondering, is this a racism case too, or are they treating all children like scum bags?
I hope you don't have kids of your own, for their sake. Not that I would force an abortion on you if you were pregnant. Since you think you are so wonderful, maybe you should be forced to procreate. Society can pick a good mate for you and when you go out in public you can be publicly impregnated. I suppose your spawning could be limited to a healthy rate so that you superior parenting resources aren't taxed.
Seriously, where do you think up this shit and what justification do you have for your statements. Are you a parent, a teacher or are do you just get scared about the dangers outside your safe little shelter by whats on tv and feel that makes you an authority. Do you personally know any single mothers? Do you think its easy to break out of a cycle of poverty and that poor people just don't want to put in the effort? Do you even come into contact with the people you broadly characterize as little more than animals? Sickening.
This is great news for my company! We sell tinfoil pants! Come and get 'em, repressed and paranoid college students!
http://www.brittan.k12.ca.us/
On a personal note, I know someone who works in an inner city school and the stories I hear are simply awful. People who have no business being within a mile of children are spawning at unhealthy rates. This is for a number of reasons but one is because there is a culture in this country that seeks not to judge anyone. Well guess what - I will. If you're a single mother, you made a mistake. I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you. Just the other night I saw on the news a 19 year old girl who had 3 children and was being brought up on child neglect charges. It is simply sickening. Society, as a whole, needs to tell these swine that if you have that many children and that young of an age, you are the scum of the Earth and the planet would be better off without you. I am sick and tired of supporting someone else's mistake. And of course, those 3 children will grow up to either steal my car, have children they can't support just like their mother, or both.
Wow...just wow. Better hope you never have a child that makes a mistake, or a grandchild, sister, brother, friend, etc. Then again, judging from the venom in your post, you might be happy to pull the trigger yourself. Don't get me wrong, there is a problem that exists, I just don't think executing offenders is the best solution. Then again...
I'm sick and tired of supporting people 65+ that I'll never meet, all the while knowing that I'll very likely not see the benefits of the program I dump thousands of dollars into every year. So lets kill old people, all they do is soak up money from the productive people and take up space for the new generations. Some of these leeches go on and get benefits for 30, 40, 50 years!!! All the while they contribute NOTHING to the economy! It's ridiculous! Off with their heads! Hope your grandparents are already dead, otherwise it might be a sad goodbye. But, it's for the best, so chin up. Take it like true patriot.
On a more serious note; some people are so quick to snuff the lives of others, until suddenly their decision comes to effect them or someone they know. Before you suggest any kind of edict, stop and think for a second if you think it would be fair and just if it happened to someone you considered yourself friendly to. Because it's not just going to effect the very limited range of "scum" that you've probably seen, but not really met.
On the back is a tube roughly the size of a roll of dimes.
I'm starting my production of tinfoil dime rolls immediately... I'm going to rich, rich I tell you...
*yawn*
I graduated from high school in 94 in upstate New York. Every teacher kept attendance charts for every class. Even back then, they had computer systems that they would input this data in to.
Why you ask? In New York, the state government has made funding for local school districts contingent on attendence. Every school in the state is required to track attendence and if the attendence drops below a certain level, they lost funding. So we had not just a school wide system, but a state wide system.
The end result is that administrators focus all of their energies on keeping attendance at certain levels, and nothing else. It doesn't matter what happens, as long as those attendance figures are up.
So yes, high schools are often ran like prisons. Especially when you get a bunch of well meaning but ultimately clueless politicians that think that all kids want to learn and just need to be forced into classes.
The post above mine makes good points, but the parent post misses the point entirely.
A student has no right to privacy in a public school system, not because student aren't entitled to basc rights, but because *no one* has a right to privacy in a *public* space.
You have no right to privacy in a public park either: anyone can take photos of you or track your movements, even the goverment, no warrant required.
That being said the RFID tags are still mind-bogglingly stupid as the students will hack the system (here, hold my badge a second) immediately.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This isn't big brother. This is a school tracking students, something schools have always done. Hall monitors keep an eye on where kids go. Teachers track when a student is in or out of class. As I read it the RFID's are just to make the teacher's job easier, not to add something new to what is already being known.
What privacy is there in school? How many dark corners are there that students should be allowed into with no one knowing? Schools try to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen. So how do the RFID id's violate privacy any more than a teacher at the hall corners with a notebook watching when and where students go?
The better question is how will the school keep one student from carrying around another students' id.
I love my sig.
Which perfectly describes what is wrong with the school system.
Speaking of which, is it necessary to take attendance in the bathroom? Afraid little Johnny's bowels might not be up for that mystery meat? If Suzi visits the bathroom 15 times a day, does she get advised to get checked for an UTI (and possible of nice embarrassing confession as to how she contracted an UTI)?
The fact that the school wanted to install readers in the bathrooms for "inventory control" (moo) suggests something more than simply taking attendance.
And as other posts have enumerated, this is no different than the ID badges used at work.
Except I don't have to accept any job where that is a requirement.
I am forced to go to school.
Excuse me; I am forced to be inventoried. Might as well introduce these into nursing homes Except old people have rights.
Except in Korea.
I also had a single mom, and while it could be argued that the software company I work for now isn't "good," it's an excellent job. I don't steal cars either, and again - no kids that I can't support.
It works for toll tags and the corporate RFID badges I've used.
Now you see me.
Now you dont!
A student's "role in the educational system" is to be indoctrinated and obey at all costs. Nothing less. If the purpose of school was education, this wouldn't even be an issue.
--
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
That would solve the problem of students giving their badges to friends in order to play hookey. I cant imagine a teen giving up their phone for any significant amount of time.
So you're saying that snapping pictures up women's skirts in subways is a-okay? Millions of letches, freeks and Internet entrepreneurs will be thrilled.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I am no longer a student, I'm "inventory".
MIT has had RFID student ID's for a while now....
If the students don't want to be read then they should just line their wallets with tin-foil....
It's not the RFID tags, that are the worry... What should worry people is who has access to the databases that run the system, when, and for what reasons. What is the policy that drives this system.... Data security/integrety... How secure is the data as it goes from RFID readers back to the central monitor, How secure is that system....
These guys are a highschool so that is what maybe five interconnected bldgs... They'l probably have hard lines going from the bldg to the central db... but that will likely be on some network connection, unless they are paranoid and isolate it... But then how is it managed...
There are a lot of good applications that can come out of people carrying ID that can be read (the first one that comes to mind is also one of the most extreme, but ID'ing bodies after major disaster/acidents... also being able to check for missing/abducted kids, knowing their last location...)
There is also a potential for abuse, and that needs to be clearly discussed with the community.
It sounds like your daughter is going to a day care, not a university. I don't recall anyone ever taking attendance at university, they probably thought we could think for ourselves or something silly like that ;-).
...because Bush saying something and a local municipality's school district have a LOT in common, dipshit.
Maybe we should have all of the faculty, staff, and administrators at the school wear earplugs and blindfolds, and ban surveillance cameras of any kind, because the people who are the stewards of minors and entrusted with their protection in a public, tax-funded school system have NO RIGHT to no where those students are, and definitely don't have a right to use technology to make their lives easier.
Fight the power, man! Oceania was always at war with Eurasia, dude! Power to the people!
Shut the fuck up.
Gee, now the drug companies know where they can get some new experimental test subjects...
'Take the blue pill, Johnny, or you're suspended!'
This unauthorized experiment was performed on children without their consent and without the consent of the parents.
IANAL - but, you can't go experimenting on children, doubly so when the school workers seem to have a conflict of interest - between profit - and the rights and well being of the students.
They should fire the principle and fire the 'Technology Worker' who was using the school district for live test subjects.
Wear jeans if you don't like people being underneath you.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Wow are you an insensitive clod (by which I mean a complete and total asshole). /. needs a "mod insensitive clod".
I know people like you exist, but I didn't think I'd see them here. Please don't ever come to where I live, or reproduce for that matter (or if you do, give them up for adoption so they'll have a better chance at life than having you as a parent).
*shudder*
*yawn*
> Not Meta-modding until I get an apology for being > rtbl'd. In TeraCo vs. "All the people who hurt my feelings", the Supreme Court ruled "Grow up and play nice, or we'll make you ambassador to Uzbekistan."
That's not quite random. They had cause. Random strip searches for drugs is illegal.
Just get an account at Washington Mutual. They treat everyone like shit. :-)
They also seem to have a strange teller to customer ratio. For every 10 people standing in line, have 1 teller. Oh, but always have 10 teller windows - but never staff more than 3 at any given time.
...the luddites.
Or at least so it seems.
So let me get this straight: even though the school is implicitly and explicitly responsible for minor children during the day, they have no right to keep track of them with technology?
Are cameras ok?
Is physically looking at someone ok?
Would full-time bathroom and hall monitors be ok?
Or is this just not ok because it makes it *easy* on a large scale? Also, your argument implies that the school administration doesn't have a right to know where they are. But they do. Secondly, everyone seems to be talking about the bathrooms (which, for drug reasons is probably a good place to track [as I hear all the pro-drug slashdotters cringe]), but that's one of the places they REMOVED scanners, so it's moot.
Further, you're pretty "freaked out" about something that no longer exists. There is no "PATRIOT Act" law. The "PATRIOT Act" was a bill that MODIFIED EXISTING STATUTES across the entire body of code. It's not some new monolithic set of laws. It expanded definitions in some areas - mostly for modern times to account for technology - and it expanded rules and regulations in other areas. It, like all bills that become law, wasn't perfect. But it's hardly the abomination you think it is. (And it seems like we need some more Schoolhouse Rock specials about what happens to a "bill" when it becomes "law".)
The code changes enacted by PATRIOT are just a symbol for you; something to hate for people who irrationally hate anything done by anyone described as "conservative" or "Republican" (ESPECIALLY the nasty "neocons").
So in sum, the school district does have a right to keep track of the students at all times, and it would probably be ok if they did it manually, but all of a sudden it's not ok if they do it with RFID. (Ooooh...scary TRACKING BEACON!) Then, you use it as a soapbox to talk about unrelated federal legislation (???).
And, to top it all off, you opened with saying you had no problems with tracking the kids...sheesh. (AND it gets modded to +5, mind-bending contradictions and irrelevance and all, naturally, since this is slashdot.) Can your own brain keep up with your doubletalk?
This is not a big deal. Not a big deal at all. It seems the school simply replaced paper attendance sheets and hall passes with an autmated electronic service. Who cares? There are much bigger problems these parents should be handing the school board for "consideration". It seems to me that the longer the school board can keep the parents milling over this litte-to-nonexistant violation of rights the longer the school board can dodge the serious questions.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
This is being used to automatically take attendance. That's it.
Nobody's "rights" are being violated, nobody is forced to take any drugs... Yes, you look like a bit of a dork wearing one, and I am not sure that there has been a rash of elementary kids that have been trying to infiltrate the school.
I am pretty sure that this is not serving any purpose other than enriching the school. How hard *is* attendance anyways? But surely, this is no big deal.
Don't complain. Stay quiet.
Carry the 666 bone as required. Smile.
Every night before you go to sleep, zap it with a bulk magnetizer.
Once a week or every 3000 miles, microwave it.
Do the same with replacement bones.
Jesus loves a soft-spoken systemfucker.
Amen.
I agree with you 100%. I had a handful of extremely talented and down-to-earth teachers during my 4 years of high school. Many of them took time aside to help me out with projects unrelated to their classes. One helped me start a business and another helped me with legal advice when I got arrested. One teacher even took the time to show a video tape of the Feb 15 Iraq War protests on Democracy Now to our class. This teacher had no reason to do so except that he felt it was right we see what was truly happening in our country. After seeing the video which featured American protesters and interviews with everyday people living in Iraq, it completely changed my perspective on the war.
I realize I'm going off-topic, but the fact is that many people rant about the poor quality of teachers. I'm not saying every teacher I had was great - with the handful of outstanding teachers, I also got a few really bad ones too - but thats life. But getting back to the point, the teachers I mentioned were frequently in trouble with the administration. Never in my life have I seen such a power-hungry group of people so detached from their constituents and reality. They're policy was "we're always right and the students must obey." When they fucked up, no reparations or even an apology were ever considered. When I look back at high school, I do not have one good thing to say about the way my school was run.
In 4 years of highschool I witnessed a number of confrontations involving parents who would basically call a teacher a liar to their face over the behavior of the student. Nine times of ten the student WAS in fact being a complete asshat, disrupting class, starting fights or otherwise breaking rules.
I don't disagree that in some cases administrators take things too far, but there are PLENTY of parents who simply can't fathom their child misbehaving and become very angry when it's suggested he or she is.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Parents that either don't care about their child's education, or ones that think their child is immune to the rules or does no wrong are the real problem with the school system.
silly me... and I thought it was lack of funding... but, hey, what do I know?
seriously, though... why does everyone want to blame someone... most of the time, problems are far too complex to blame a single person, group of people, or any single cause for that matter.
It really just kind of makes me sad.
*yawn*
Tagging people, yes kids really are people too, to see where they are for the sole purpose of shaving about 1 minute off of role call is ridiculous.
And how is this going to 'keep kids safer'? "Yes, your son was taken off the swing-set just before noon according to our webpage, but unfortunatly the male gym teacher was too busy flirting with the female students". Yes, I am a geek that does manage to have a few female friends so I know this to be true.
The real issue is that schools have too much power over not only the students, but the parents as well.
When school officials can kick your child out of school because you won't put that child on Ritalin, which is a Class 2 narcotic, and then have the government come and court order you to put your child on that drug to get them back in school because they are truant, then something is very wrong.
We cant even force someone to take a drug that will save their life. But the school can force this and now perhaps RFID? Too much power.
Very good link BTW.
I see that it worked in your case.
So, is the life of a gas station worker all it's cracked up to be? I mean, you get to read in that little booth, right? What happens when you have to use the latrine?
You're a very narrow-minded and hateful person aren't you? Oh wait, you're from Microsoft, of course you are.
I wonder about the cost? Surely there must be something better to spend the schools money on?
I don't know about you, but when I was in High School I used to sneak off at lunch to fuck.
Right, cue slashdot nerd jokes about none of us getting laid in high school. *waits* Done now? Let's move on.
As soon as this data is available, parents are going to want access to it. All of it.
There is a limit to how much a parent can be involved in a child's life before that child becomes warped. Many, many parents are so scared of teen pregnancy and AIDS because of fear-mongering news programs that they over-interfere. Other parents come from more conservative cultures than the ones their children are adopting. To a certain extent, a child should have the freedom to develop its own values.
See, there's a huge distinction between knowing:
A) "Billy went to all his classes."
and
B) "Billy went to his first class, then his second. He had a spare before lunch, so first he went to the bathroom, then he had lunch in the cafeteria, then he went through the parking lot doors and came back in twenty minutes."
and
C) "Billy went to his first class, second class, bathroom, lunch. Then he went to the parking lot for twenty minutes. Billy and Sarah went through the doors together on the way out and the way back."
If Sarah's parents don't like Billy, this last one is big, big trouble. It's not damning evidence, but maybe Sarah's been told to stay away from Billy. Maybe Sarah's parents are a bit paranoid. Who knows? In a large school system, there will be some bad parents.
There were times in school I'd be furious with a teacher. I'd ask to visit the washroom, and instead I'd take a quick walk around the school. With this kind of monitoring, that trip around the school would be logged, and I wouldn't have the psychological room to calm down. Every door I passed would be a trigger. What would have happened under those circumstances? I don't know.
Students are in school for twelve years. Twelve years of surveillance is just too much. They'll crack. They won't be able to separate themselves from what their parents think of them. It's a big deal, because the amount of data *is* much larger. Having very precise times at which each student passed each scanner is orders of magnitude more than "They were in a classroom near the beginning of that class."
I'm just glad I'm already out.
As has been pointed out by several others, students do have rights within a public school, but they also have some responsibility. We as a society have failed the education system. Not just the primary and secondary schools, but all public schools (including universities). Funding is an issue in almost every school. Left without funds, teachers fight an uphill battle to present information in a manner that students who have been educated by the "soundbite" nature of the television will pay attention to.
I deal with the "professor is out to get me" attitude constantly. It appears to be a product of the no-blame society we live in.
"My computer got a virus, it's Microsoft and Symantec's fault for not protecting me."
"My child failed because they didn't show up for class, it's the fault of the professor for not taking role properly."
I'm not saying that RFID is necessarly a good thing, but I can see where it might fit in the overall scheme of things. Everyone has to accept some of the blame for this.
*Taxpayers need to fork over enough money to improve schools and help high school graduates pay for college.
*Parents need to be active in the education of their children.
*Students need to be shown the benefits of education and take it seriously.
*Educators need to teach without dumbing it down. How many of us were taught something in middle school only to be told that was only half true when we were in high school?
I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you.
Nice. Might I point out that this sounds a lot like the Eugenics laws passed by Nazi Germany. If you don't do it for the good of the Volk you need not do it. It's not just 19-year-olds that might neglect children. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/09/Citrus/Accused_c ouple_stayed.shtml A 50-year-old couple tortured thier children. Further your stereotyping of children of single parents (don't just assume there are only single mothers) sounds to me like a nice availability heuristic. It might help to educate yourself some more.
> Jesse Ventura for president in 2008
In the Voters vs. Common Sense, the Supreme Court ruled that "Jessie Ventura has been governor. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been governor. Clearly the time has come for Predator to make a bid at the GOP."
We need to be able to provide a little *feedback* into the devices to help the *education* of the students. I can see it now...
"Please stay inside the yellow line. Do not cross the yellow lines. Do not cross the Red lines."
Ohw, Ohw... No we should have electronic colloars that are paired to another unknown student. If one of them trys to play hookie, ka-boomie.
Serriously, to make sure the students carry them just put a Nike mark on it and charge $125+ for them. Now its a must have fassion accessory.
I think the reason people are weirded out by this, but not by paper attendance lists and other traditional methods of getting kids to go to class, is that technology has a tendency to be regarded as absolute and infallible, and its records are used instead of human judgment. This creates the "well, the computer says so. the computer's never wrong" situation which popped up in old jokes about banks etc.
You can argue with the principal that you forgot to sign the attendence sheet but what if they rely on the sensors and you later find out your tag wasn't working, or was sitting inside your metal pencil case or something. Odds are they won't listen, because there'll be a "zero-tolerance policy" in effect which forces them to punish you. I had a rough time in high school but at least the admin didn't treat us like incarcerated criminals.
And yes, this sort of thing WILL create a generation of people who think technological intrusion is "normal". Maybe not desirable, but normal, the way we all hate to pay taxes but don't demand they be rescinded. And thus the ratchet tightens.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Dude, where's my corpse?
Where's your corpse, dude?
Dude, where's my corpse?
Where's your corpse, dude?
I don't respond to AC's.
You're implicitly assuming that "rights" means "legal rights in the US of A".
But "legal" and "right" are different. Slavery still was wrong, and so slaves had a right to be free and to fight for freedom, even when the US Consitution explicitly permitted slavery. Likewise Jews in Nazi Germany had a right to live, no matter what the Nazi legal system said.
Whether or not students have a right to privacy at a public school is a moral question, no matter what the US Supreme Court says. So parents claiming their students have a right to privacy aren't "mistaken about their kids rights" - they are disagreeing with the school about their kids rights.
Sean
it is now easier to fool the system.
"Hey paul, carry my badge to class, I'm going to go surfing."
or
"Hey since the kids have these anyways, why don't we do spot checks?"
or
"Hey, those students come in here with those RFID tags, why don't we use it to see if any students come in to our store, becasue we know there all thieves anyways"
also
Who pays for a replacement when they are broken? how much is maintainence of the system goint to cost?
For some wierd reason, people trust technology, no questions asked. That is truly the path to abuse.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Shan't!
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Don't go there. I prefer to go to a University that spends its money on other stuff, like a really big football stadium where I got drunk every Autumn Saturday for the past 5 years. Ahhh... such memories.
Berto
Is there any research regarding rfid and cancer, in animals etc.. ? How is being bombarded by rf waves in every doorway at school and stores, cell phones, and wireless access points going to affect our children? I already use the cell with speaker phone, looks like i wont have a choice soon tho..
I had two parents. And I do steal cars!
when ever technology has been used, it has been abused.
A) Doing it manually requires you to see the student, thus more difficult to defeat.
B) This will lead to constant tracking of the students. I know people who are already thinking this way in my local school system.
So now a student talks to a 'trouble maker' and that gets noted.
then said 'trouble maker' is accused of something, not all the students he tlaked to are under suspicion.
C) Cost. A schools system now needs another mantainece cost? what will the cut? Art? Math? science?
D) it would be far healthier to use this money to teach music, or basic car repair, or basic fiscal education.
E) Why don't they make it so it would be a violation of policy to use it for anything beside attendence? How about the school staffe gets fined 100K if it is abused?
No protections for the students and there family. Great.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The legal system disagrees with you:
Illegal to record license plates of voters in South Dakota
There are easily more examples, but since you said *no one*, I figured one example would do.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Seriously. That would be some fun hacking.
the government keep cutting taxes, cause God know Schools, libraries, roads, etc . . . are all funded by Santa Claus
People say the government wasted money on 'pork barrel' projects, so we keep cutting taxes. What nobody seems to relize, 'Pork Barrel' projects will be the last to be cut.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I misread the article to say "help track their collection of bodies or parts".
A little of too much the wannabe Dr. Frankenstein types on college campus maybe?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
"Where are your papers" is a phrase an American adult should ever endure while minding their own business in the USA. And it is no one's business where an American adult goes, except maybe his wife's.
Minors in a school are a different thing altogether; and I don't buy the slippery slope arguments on that point. Kids do leave the schools without authorization. And no, that is never a good or welcome thing. This way school admin has another tool to know where they are, or are not, during school hours.
Some people have different thoughts on this matter. The most reasonable approach might be to assign these cards only parent request.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Yes. I can definitely see how society would be better off with mandatory abortions. In fact, why not simply sterilize people who are a burden on good, upstanding citizens like you and me? We certainly wouldn't want the lazy and stupid to be encouraged to breed! You know who I mean, the riff-raff of society, the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refuse of our teeming shore.
"It's Dot Com!"
One problem with this system is that it seperates the true identity with an RFID tag. Do you not think the students with swap the tags around?
The only thing the system garantees is that x # of RFID tags have entered or left. It doesn't garantee x # of students entered or left. That's the problem.
Another problem is that students can be identified *outside* the classroom, from a distance. Do you not think RFID scanners will become popular contraband at a school where RFID tags are mandatory?
At least the hackers will know if miss so-and-so is getting with mr so-and-so behind the gym. They can see them through the walls with the scanner...
You could scan your suspicous gf's house and see who else is hanging out...
do you not see the privacy concerns?
The solution to this is simple. The student just has to put their ID in a microwave oven for five seconds or so on medium power, and the RFID tag will be destroyed, leaving no external evidence of damage.
Problem solved!
people like to throw blame.
yet they fail to see one blatent part of humanity that has existed for over 90,000,000 years.
some people are complete wastes of space and are 100% useless turds.
Wah, that's society. Some excel and decide to make something of themselves, some decide to be a drain on everyone and do what they damn well please.
Personally, I remember a few from school, I remember when most of them ended up dead because of their stupidity. (Example, riding a mororcycle drunk in the rain at night without a headlight. He smeared himself all over the highway. I was one of the brave that said "the world is better off without him" because the guy was nothing but an asshole in everything he did, said or wanted. He was proud to be an asshole and would go aroud slicing tires in the campus parking lot for fun.)
Personally I take pride in knowing that the bottom of the gene pool usually stay's there and certianly does not live long.
you succeded because of WHO you are and WHO you choce to be. Many others fail and are crap because of who they are and who they chose to be.
dont defend yourself to that waste of space, it's a waste of your valuable time and he certianly does not have an IQ high enough to even understand what you are saying.
in another RFID post today, someone mention that the radius of the signal is only reachable within a few inches somewhere between 3-6".
are they planning to have students voluntarily scan themselves everytime they walk into or leave a room?
or was my source of the radius incorrect?
HD Trailers
I think that the debate here has been interesting thus far. However, for the most part, it has focused on the invasion of privacy, the precedent it sets for future generations, etc. I feel that the impact this would have on children is just as important.
To anyone who believes that this is no more an invasion of privacy than roll call, I certainly disagree. I would also ask you to imagine the fundamental difference here. Children in school currently grow up with, for the most part, a healthy amount of supervision. My high school has its share of rather worthless rules, and perhaps an oppressive atmosphere at times. The RFID system places tags around the necks of each student, and logs every movement through a doorway.
Should this system be adopted, students would grow up in an enviroment that reminds them every minute of their day that they are not trusted, and not worthy of this trust. I can only imagine that this would be harmful to a developing child.
The remainder of arguments for the system is fundamentally flawed. As has been mentioned several times, students who wish to do anything wrong could simply leave their tag in the classroom, plant it in a bathroom and retrieve it - much harder to monitor than switching tags. This way, they would have an alibi for their time missing.
Furthermore, the system would do nothing to prevent any such behavior, only aid afterwards in punishing those involved. Perhaps a valid reason, though this is not the argument proponents have made.
Herr Fuhrer Bush says we must give up our democracy and our civil rights to secure our free society from the terrorists who wish to destroy it...
I think its like ignoring the UN to attack Saddam for ignoring the UN...
"Well guess what - I will. If you're a single mother, you made a mistake. I don't support your decision and I think the world would be a better place if abortions were forced upon you."
Excelent, truely inspiring. I propose that we expand on that idea and abort anyone below the poverty line to keep them from taking society's hard earned money away. And since we all know that the only family values are the christian family values. I say we "abort" any nonchristians.
While we are at it we also know caucasians make more than non caucasians therefor we should also "abort" all non caucasians to ensure that they don't become a drain on society. Hey that line of thinking sounds familiar, where have we heard that before.....?
I read the first paragraph, which made some valid points, and wondered if it was just the prevailing Slashdot opinion that RFID tags are evil which caused this post to be modded flamebait.
Then I read the second paragraph, and I realized the moderators were right.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
3 kids were punished for possessing pornography because they had a drawing of a stick figure with breasts and a penis.
Serves 'em right. Pre-op transexual porn does not belong in our schools.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Well said
...More to the point, we will Always Be at war with _____Eurasia ( or, Hey, kids! Fill in your boogieman-of-choice ("ter-or-rizm" is a popular selection, as is "druggz")) !
Home school.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty." - Ben Franklin
> Taxing those guns, hell no. Paying for the
> inspection, hell no.
why the hell not? why should the civilised majority (who see no need to own guns) pay for you to indulge YOUR hobby?
as well as taxation (or permit fees) and inspection of guns, there should also be mandatory annual psychological tests. only the most stable of people should be allowed access to guns (and that includes cops - cops are a necessary evil, but they MUST understand that they are granted their legal powers in order to serve the public, not to rule them. not a common attitude amongst cops, i know, but it is the one thing that makes their existence tolerable).
> But telling the government that you do in fact
> own twenty rifles and help train your friends
> in civil insurgency? Sure. It'll keep them
> honest.
do americans actually believe rugged-individualist fantasy crap like that?
of course it won't keep them honest. it'll just mean they make sure they have enough firepower when they come to wipe you out. suicide by cop. or suicide by BATF. or the army. or the national guard. etc.
face it, armed revolution can not overthrow a modern, well-equipped state. it doesn't have even the faintest chance of doing so.
the only thing that does have a chance is the non-violent(*) refusal to participate - refuse to work, refuse to buy, refuse to consume anything beyond the requirements of survival (and, in extreme case, go on hunger strike). spend your time protesting and picketing and blockading.
if enough people refuse, lots of things can change. if not enough people do, then you have to at least consider the possibility that you're just another kook completely out of touch with reality (another possibility is that you are surrounded by bleating sheep- but since you believe that guns are necessary for solving political problems that isn't as likely as the first theory).
note also that civil disobedience is not a "get out of gaol free" card - do what you must to satisfy your conscience but be prepared to accept the consequences.
(*) you *must* take the moral high-ground, it is the only defence you have against the relentless propaganda you and your cause will be subject to in the mainstream media.
Well I'm paranoid sometimes, but there is a slight possibility that the statistics gathered on a stuents behaviour might find there way into terrorist profiling.
:/
Also it's most likely a bad way to track attendance too, people stealing others badges so they get into trouble for non-attendance, or people taking in a friends badge so they can watch TV or hang with there gang
Oh, yeah - MTBE?
California wants to take it out, but the Feds say keep it?
I've lost track of where we are on this.
Ya, know, if they just let us use up the gas as fast as we can, without messing with the markets, we'll either run out and the pollution problem will be solved, or we won't, and they will have been wrong, again.
No more tinkering with the natural order of things. Leave alone = low state of Irony. Tinker = higher state of Unintended Consequences.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I've always wanted to perform some daring movie-like stunt, like, say, attaching my RFID tag to a remote control robot and leading school officials on a merry chase through sewers while I hack into the schoolwide network and reprogram everyone's RFID tags into a sentient swarm AI designed to do my bidding by controlling their host bodies. Or something like that.
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
Taser, boot heel, or the more subtle wearing of hugely static-generating clothing. Short out any tag you're given, plus any of your friends', in two seconds.
"Track this." *ZZZT*
That is so spot on. The problem with later school years isn't that students aren't being taught right, its that students don't want to be there. There is this push to keep kids in school for a good deal longer then they want to be there. Believe it or not some people would like nothing more then to get out of school at sixteen and get a job doing a trade they are interested in.
I live in Australia and the compulsury age that you have to be in school to is sixteen, after that you are only there because you choose to be.
Furthermore after about sixteen people are, especially males, much less willing to take crap from teachers. You simply can't lump prepubesent students and postpubescent students under the same rules. Treating young adults as children is a surefire way to make teens disengage.
I was lucky to have the oportunity to go to two seperate schools in my two final years of education. When I was seventeen I went to a school dedicated to Year 11 and 12 students it had only these two years and was a very well funded state school. It was constantly excelling in the state and it was perhaps the best school I ever went to. What I especially liked was that it bridged the gap between highschool and university so well, there you were treated as an adult, allowed to leave the school grounds in recess and free periods, no uniforms. In short you were responcible for your own education. They did have some rules such as no smoking on school grounds and so forth and they kept strict control of your attendance. Couple this new freedom with the fact that after year 10 only people who wanted to be in school were there and it was great.
In my year 12 I moved to another state and started back at a state school that simply went from year 8 to year 12. It was the worst school I had ever been to. I was trated as a child again and was back in a uniform. I wasn't allowed to leave the school grounds for any reason without a note from my parents (I was lucky to be 18 at the time and could write my own notes)
The difference in the maturity of my classmates was incredable. These people had never had to orgranise themselves in their life and struggled with their homework on a regular basis.
The majority of my graduating class who went on to university did not last one term, I put this largely down to the huge amount of freedom hoisted on them so suddenly.
I would have my kid's ID in the microwave the same day. Or maybe I could rewrite it.
The school would be mighty confused by an 8 pack of Gillette Mach 3 blades showing up for 5th period Algebra.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
Dear Moron,
Are you unaware that there are constitutional rights that you cannot "contract" away?
Yours,
A friend
This is a result of the majority of parents thinking that the school system is a Free babysitter for their children that teaches them everything about life and all the parents need to do is pick them up and drop them off, because of this whenever their child does something bad eg.: cuts class, gets in a fight, wears offensive or revealing clothes... its the schools responsibility to take care of these problems and when the school does either by punishing the child of by making a new policy the parents cry outrage and go after the school.
Although i am against rfid tracking of people and would not let my children wear anything that could put them in any sort of danger aka giving their identity away to anyone that could read the chip hanging from their neck, the school thought there was a problem and took care of it.
" Graham said that in retrospect parents should have been consulted about the program rather than simply notifying them about it with a brief blurb in the school newsletter. "
Does the school have to put a huge banner on front letting the parents know about this, I really don't think so, last time I checked almost every School in the US has students carry around an ID card of some sort and i don't hear parents crying outrage over it, it's not an invasion of privacy, students have limited rights at school, something like what you would have at work, your employer can track you with cameras everywhere where you work, excluding the bathroom and elevator, and i don't see a problem with that you are on their time, just like at school, students are on their time. This problem like all future ones like it have an easy solution that takes both the effort of the school and the parent, they need to keep in constant communication about policies like this that could pose a sever safty threat to the children.
You haven't been following current news very well. UCLA medical school got in big trouble last fall when cadavers were sold against the wishes of the good people who donated them for medical students.
This is a very big deal because Gross Anatomy students depend on donated bodies to learn how the human body works. Donation of bodies is one of the greatest gifts a human being can offer. NPR aired part 2 of an ongoing series on Thursday regarding people who will their bodies to medical science. Part 1 was aired last September. Both available on-line at the NPR website.
Many NPR listeners have opted to donate their bodies to medical students after hearing one or both NPR stories. Next time you say it's not a big deal, ask someone who really cares.
signature pending slashdot approval
Everybody, deep down, knows what is right. Even my three year olds do, because when they are doing bad things, they stop as soon as I come in the room.
Wow.
Just . . . wow.
30-45. At my school, we were around 30-33 kids I would say. But I knew of a few kids in the district where there was up to 36-38 in their homerooms for various reasons. I kind of 'rounded up' to 45 to be safe, who knows what it is like now, 6 years later.
First, this wont work as soon as they figure out how to spoof the system, by giving their tag to their friends.
Second, this reduce further the teacher-student personnal relationship. Roll call should be part of the relationship.
This remind me of this movie, where after some time students would just leave their tape recorder assist the class, and finally the teacher would just leave his tape player speaks for him...
The only good point, this might make kids want to learn to hack sooner....
That is because school administrators and teachers are losing their fucking minds.
You know who made them that way? Parents.
Nearly all of this shit is a preemtive strike against sue-happy mothers irate that their precious little girl might lay eyes on a "Lesbian Barbie" t-shirt in a public school. Just like the dog-and-pony show of post-9/11 airport security, it's principals and teachers and school boards trying to show parents, "See? We really are trying to protect your baby."
Anyone know of any?
witold.org
I would like to check them out as an investment opportunity, but my last search came up short on prospects.
witold.org
So you start kids off having to wear badges with RFID tags in them? Then they get them in highschool, college maybe? And of course, when you're in the work force your employers will have you wear RFID badges too. Heck, if people are so used to wearing these bages all their lives, they may be willing to wear government issued badges, you know, for homeland security or some nonsense. If they have been taught since they were kids that wearing an RFID tracking badge is acceptable, why would they protest? We only tend to protest when things change, not things that creep on us.
Yes - Home school. Run, Forrest, Run away from the public school system! Keep in mind that most of what the school district will tell you is false. I have been there. As soon as you realize that they can't really control your life, you have the power to make your own decisions. Depending on the state you live in, there are different ways of going about it. There are many alternatives for schooling. A quick search at google for 'home school' and your state will result in some good information. I also recommend checking the 'Alliance for theSeperation of School and State' site.
I know you think you are exaggerating, but you are not; you bring up a totally legitimate point there with the inspections. For example, here, in Switzerland, utility companies must approve for sale and subsequently inspect your end-user equipment. And, yes, that implies the partial disassembly of the devices in situ.
Last week, an inspector from the natural gas utility company came to our home to take a look at our heaters and our range, and he lectured to us at length on their proper care and maintenance. Now, the appliances are not owned by his company, but his company is charged by the authorities with keeping all parts of the natural gas delivery network safe -- which they do. Interestingly, at around the same time, we saw a news report about a natural gas related explosion in Spain in which many people died; now, I lived in Spain for years and never had the pleasure of even witnessing a tirade by an inspector from the natural gas utility company (perhaps the inspections occur less often there) so the news was tragic but not surprising.
The point I was trying to make is that, when people live so close together that one individual's irresponsible behavior can endanger the very lives of those around him, some monitoring (even of the kind that some here would see as an intolerable invasion of their privacy) seems justifiable. Well, at least where stuff like utilities is concerned. There are things one should fix before they're "broke" because the only alternative is being really sorry afterwards, and sometimes that's not good enough.
And, in case you were wondering, Swiss trains do indeed run on time. ;)
"we now treat children as propert"
"the premise that children are property"
"we must ask ourselves who's propery"
Choose a spelling and stick with it. I would suggest the second spelling, for great justice.
BTW, it's "whose," not "who's."
Homeschooling is beginning to look more and more attractive every day. At least I'll be able to teach my kids what "rights" are.
How long will it be until a smart kid figures out how to program his own cards, OR figures out how to get access to the school administration system in a way that he could arbitrary change the locations (or HISTORICAL locations) of him and his buddies or his enemies. Want to get someone in trouble? Just change their ID badge location to say they weren't in the right place at the right time -- this is assuming it would be independent of other checks though.
.. You're an illegal alien.. The border patrol guy checks his screen against all registered units (people) .. He sees you moving, and BAM, you're dead... Shoot first, ask questions later. Then they roll the guy over and realize they shot somebody really important, and go, "Oh shit." :)
Either way I'm against this system. It's lame. How hard is it to track a bunch of kids without making them wear tracking devices? I seriously fear the future. These are PUBLIC schools from what I understand, and I think it's a breach of freedoms to have these kinds of things in place. If we can do it in a school, we can do it to ALL CITIZENS. Imagine
You just outed yourself. Normal blokes would use the term "shemale".
... but I've just checked the emissions after doing some work on the engine. Before final adjustments I was seeing emissions of 1.2% CO and 650ppm HC, with a decidedly rough idle - clearly overfuelling a bit, but still within the non-cat limits of 3.5% CO and 1200ppm HC. After a bit of tweaking I had a nice steady idle at 800rpm, with 0.32% CO and 110ppm HC - just slightly above the limit for CO for a cat equipped vehicle, and just over half the limit for HC. This is on a 2.2 litre, 1988 Citroen CX with 114,000 miles.
Put yourself in a kids shoes. Just because you are an adult NOW, it's easy to say they should be monitored constantly 24 hours a day.
What do you teach children when you have to tag them and constantly monitor all their activities?
That you don't trust them. They never learn to be trusted, thus either will rebell even more than the kids of today or become complacent slaves to society (neither is healthy for anybody).
When many of these kids grow up, they'll be so used to being monitored and bitched around, when society requires this for adults too, they will not have a concept of freedom that we do. It's the American way of life to be monitored and put under constant surveillance then. Corporations monitoring for maximizing profits will seem natural, because that will make more money, and you don't really have any other options. The concept has been eradicated.
Kids become adults you know. And they become what we teach = our own example mixed with our treatment of them.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
...every election for the past several decades now I have heard that you shouldn't "waste your vote" and vote any independent or third party. They, this "the public" guy, have been taught that, it is now carved in stealth-stone that only the combined criminal cartel of the Democrat and Republican parties are the legitimate government, and will remain so forever. Forever.
Anything else, any other strongly held belief, makes you a fringe extremist whacko kook cult member or something, and who wants that label?
They are taught as a religious belief starting in grade school by public school teachers paid by public tax money that we have a TWO PARTY "system". Third parties are mentioned briefly as "fringe" parties, with the snicker under the breath. this religious belief is so well brainwashed into them that once they reach adulthood it has "stuck" and is part of their personality, even though intellectually they know it is false, realistically they know that that is the way things are now.
Any abuses or criminal actions in the syndicates cash and power generator corporation called "government" by any so called "elected" persons or hired on or appointed personel inside this "two party" political system are investigated by- drum roll-the two party system, or like I prefer, the cartel, or you can even call it a syndicate. On the street it would be a gang, once they get large enough like the international drug dealers they get to be called a cartel, when they are involved in all the rackets it's called a crime syndicate, so that really fits the best.
All the "judges" are part of this syndicate.
All the cops just follow orders from this criminal syndicate.
The military follows orders from this criminal syndicate.
These latter two are points to rember, because it's important for your physical safety, and we have all learned this. We are well educated on it.
They, the syndicate crime bosses, will rig reality all the way to the point of "very harsh measures" if you do much more than talk about it, and there's no way any so called "elections" will occur that even have a chance of unseating any significant part of this syndicates complete control. None. They love running those little political melodramas, more for a chance to let people think they have any influence than for anything else, because they can't just one day just suspend it, that would give the game away just a little to much, *at this point in time* anyway. Sometime in the not so far distant future I think they might though.
The crime syndicate decides who will be in the public "national debates" and therefore in the "elections" and it has been decided only the syndicates "candidates" or back room appointees as is closer to the truth participate in this process. Because of scares they have gotten in the past, they decided on a technique to insure their continual "success" in the sham polls, this is via use of electronic voting and counting, which is 100% owned operated and run by-the crime syndicate.
The controlled mass media is owned and ordered around from the top levels by people whom are all members of this crime syndicate as well, so the news functions primarily as a way to keep the propoganda efforts in check and on track.
The other top economic powerhouses and "leaders" in this nation are members of this syndicate and contribute overt and covert funding and support in order to keep the syndicate in power. These economic "leaders" frequently rotate in and out of "poltical office" as well, or are members of high military "rank" and are rewarded on exiting the military with very very lucrative and powerful positions and extreme sums of very easy money. They know this so they go along with the crime syndicates orders.
This "combination" of factors is an old design but well proven and successful in the past, the descriptive term for it was dubbed by Mussolini as the state of "Corporatism" and is the most accurate way to describe our combined econom
"There's more regulations that cover a shipment of oranges coming into California than there is a shipment of human knees that are going from a body parts broker in one state to Las Vegas," said Dr. Todd Olson, director of anatomical donations at Albert Einstein Medical School of New York.
you can't compare knees in Vegas to oranges in California.
Many kids would have otherwise first encountered the term "Big Brother" in its original, very negative context when reading George Orwell's 1984 in school.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
We're talking about teenagers here, right? Does anyone doubt this system will work other then me? All they have to do is put the card in the pit of their arm and walk through the reader. RFID works almost not at all through high fluid content items, such as a Human. Forget about it, the kids will know how to bypass these faster then a thousand electrical engineers with a Cray.
Enforcement is the best way to have a bad law repealed.
Well unfortunately Martin Prince was the only one who agreed to get a tracking device.
The teacher would read out my Name every morning, and i'd say "Yes". These files were centrally stored and who knows what evil purposes those stats were used for!!!
Your other points are very valid. Bust most schools now require an ID that has the child's name and grade on it. Some schools even require you to have it visible at all times (around your neck).
School ids are nothing new.
Free Mac Mini
Proper equipment, lack of staff, dated materials are all issues as well, but I wouldn't lump it under "lack of funding" because sometimes the funds are there, but they are not spent correctly. At least not if your goal is to have better educated children. (A school in my city just got a multi-million dollar field for the football team, but they still have portable classrooms due to lack of space).
Free Mac Mini
I think there are so many possibilities for titles with students and bodies.
"Students and other corpes' tracked by RFID Tags"
"Students' bodies tracked by RFID Tags"
"RFID tags, students wouldn't be seen dead without them"
Or in the style of tabloids:
"RFID Tags studentbody becomes carrier, tracking the dead."
"RFID tags following you into the grave"
"'I can see dead people,' say RFID trackers"
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
Just another way to slowly desensitize our youth to future Big Brother projects.
And I pretty much agree with everything you said.
Until:
Thanks. If you had your way, I would never have been born.
Now, don't take this too personally (not that you will), but on that comment in isolation, allow me to reply: "fuck you". A single parent is certainly capable of raising a law-abiding, well educated, stable, successful and considerate child. My upbringing's taught me not to take things for granted. And most of all, that your kind of thinking on the subject is absolutely wrong. Now I'm by no means special or unique. So simple logic would suggest that there are hundreds of thousands of single-parent children out there who are just as healthy individuals as I am, if not more so.
Hehe. Now, if you were just talking about stupid people here, and this comment hadn't been coloured by your earlier parental-quantity slur, I'd have to say that I find myself agreeing with you at times. It turns my stomach that parents seem to prefer to buy their kids new trainers every week than pay for daycare, books, or something useful.
But that's not because of their age. It's because of their priorities which are not always linked to their numerical age.
Mindless government pay-outs are just feeding this disposition. However that's what happens when you privatise everything. Government 'welfare' becomes the simple case of throwing money at the poor (and/or uneducated). Then we act all surprised when the schools that serve them are shit, and they'd rather spend the money on 'flashy' consumer goods than anything that'd actually help get them out of the rut.
Government welfare should be services. Guaranteed quality of education. Childcare, so parents can work without harming their children. You know the rest...
Being a young mother doesn't automatically make you a bad mother. It's immaturity, or lack of support (parental, spousal, societal), or illiteracy or ill-education which makes you a bad parent.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Chalk up another reason not to attend university. If I were a parent, I would seriously consider not sending my children to attend. The return on investment is getting worse for each year that passes.
Everybody, deep down, knows what is right. Even my three year olds do, because when they are doing bad things, they stop as soon as I come in the room.
You know, you could also explain this behaviour by the fact they know they will be punished if caught doing something they are not supposed to be. Since the punishment is something they probably don't enjoy, they are learning to avoid it.
You can train animals like that too, it doesn't prove thy know deep down what is 'right'. Given how different human cultures have arrived at very different ideas of what is right over history, I'm afraid you assertion that deep down everybody knows what is right looks pretty shaky. Whose definition of right?
Not that I disagree at all about holding people accountable for their actions, right there with you.
In Canada we putting location tracking tags (actually ankle bracelets) on prisoners. We do this to track and punish prisoners who are under house arrest. The US and their concept of "freedom" continues to baffle us.
schools already do track every move the children make. when they go to class or do not attendance is taken in each room. if they go to the library or any other additional service that the school offers they have to sign in on paper. if they check out a book they want to know who has it. as far as having the info on it try banoculars to read the tag they have better range then an RFID reader does.
by the way did anyone else notice this is. based off a post under the casino RFID issue from yesterday.
But whose job is it to hold these children accountable? The parents. But instead, most let their offspring do whatever they want.
They do have to be held accountable, but it has to start at home.
The police state back on track - you had us worried there for a moment.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
What's all this talk about students' rights? The real question is how to preserve the inalienable rights of our dead bodies!!
Not to mention our precious bodily fluids.
Yes. You've stumbled upon one of the deep, dark, secrets of the universities, and now we must 'fess up.
.
Many people have noticed that there haas not been a single report of a vampire attack in a major city for over a hundred years. Few have wondered why.
Think about it from the vampire's perspective. THere's always tons of people chasing you with a wooden stake after every little snack. Hiding is necessary. And where better to hide than graduate school? I'ts normal to arrive before the sun comes up, and stay in the same building, likely below ground, until after it sets. Pasty complexions are also the norml Mirrors are rare. And noone misses the occasional freshman . .
But now UC is ruining everything with these plans to track the student bodies. Just one little "Girls of UC" shoot and they overreact, ruining things for us, err, vampires across the country . . .
Heh, a few years ago, when I went to high school, the situation was kinda reversed.
:p
The school went "hi-tech", and all the teachers got laptops to use for routine tasks like registering attendance, etc.
The laptops all had built-in wi-fi, and the school rolled out access points accross every building. There was an access point next to every classroom.
Of course the admins didn't have a clue about how to secure wi-fi, their servers, or any other part of the network.
To cut a long story short, I wrote a neat utility which would track the location of all the teachers based on what access points were in range of their laptops - complete with a nifty GUI.
I remember whenever a teacher was late for a class, I would glance at my laptop, see a map of the school along with moving red dots representing the teachers, and know where they were, and when they would be likely to walk into the classroom.
Everyone here is collectively underestimating teenage kids in classic adult ways. The real question is: "Why do you all believe this will even work?" Highschool is so increadably boring and you introduce this new system that is just ripe with hundreds of ways to abuse it.... And you actually believe it won't be? That the noise and problems of the abuse methods won't drown out the increadably minor benefits? Sit back and watch it fail and laugh folks!
--kids making homemade flamethrowers and using them on other kids and computers--
Imagine - it took this long to figure out what was wrong in the US.
Kids with flamethrowers where the f*ck is the parents? and the police?
Freedom or George Bush
This is expensive and invasive. How is it better than teachers taking attendance by hand?
Hey, you try to find an open nick these days!
If we want to hold children completely accountable for their actions, then we also have to afford them the privelages that come with accountability. We would have to abolish minimum age limits for everything, drinking, smoking, voting, the age of consent. It would make no sense to hold every to the same degree of accountability, but not allow them the same degree of privilege. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, just maybe something you hadn't thought about.
Stupid like a fox!
Sounds like fun to carry.
I agree. In fact, It'd be even more fun to carry, say, a backpack loaded with them to classes, and to encourage other students to do the same. Some could look like other students' IDs, some like IDs for nonexistant students, some could just spew gibberish at the system. The more people carrying as many of these as they can, the better! Bring their tracking system to its knees!!! >:)
well... if i was the student i'd better keep my RFID inside a frends pocket! huh! THOUGHT THAT DOOD?
You are mistaken, AC, but you are not.
//right now// RFID requires close proximity to a reader.
Yes,
But RFID is an 'always on' technology, in that anytime sufficient signal is applied, the card will respond. How long before someone figures out that all they have to do is [ (a) plant a buttload of readers throughout a building, or (b) just make a damn reader that puts out signal over a longer range ] and poof, you have real-time user tracking!
RFID is the tempest before the storm, Mr/Ms AC. It isn't hard to picture small advances in this technology suddenly providing huge information stores and long-range access.
RFID is why The Man is so afraid of digital commerce and goods. You can't implant a physical tag in an MP3 and track it. You CAN implant a physical tag in, say, a gun, or a car you don't want resold, or anything else you think should be "one user only", and then sue anyone who has one and shouldn't. All you need is a EULA on whatever device it is, and suddenly, GE or the MPAA is driving down your street checking for compliance.
For those who doubt this could ever happen, please ask a Brit if you can sneak a few colour tellies into his house for a fortnight, and see what he has to tell you about black vans and license fees.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.