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Why One Man Got a Guerrilla RFID Implant
Shannon writes "One of my writers just did an interview with Amal Graafstra, who just had an RFID implant put in his hand and has been building appliances for it to simplify and automate his life... "I guess I have my own Big Brother paranoia. Given the choice of Orwellian societies, I'd rather live in one based on RFID tags than fingerprints, DNA, or facial structure; an RFID tag system is easy to manage and opt out of, whereas DNA sampling or facial recognition, well, isn't.""
So I guess this guy just doesn't take his hand with him if he doesn't want to be tracked?
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So he has traded something unique and personal for something that can be read at a distance, copied and used freely by others. What is the advantage exactly?
an RFID tag system is easy to manage and opt out of
Hahaha! So you think - until it becomes absolutely mandatory and illegal for you to remove them.
Or -- imagine -- systems which would just not function without an RFID implant, or harm you if you do not have one.
What would you do then?
Get over it, you're slowly losing all the privacy you once had. It's one of the prices we are paying for certain advancements (and obvious advantages).
Whether or not you choose to have them - that would be your choice, at the moment. However, you really may not have the ability to make that choice a while from now.
Instead of going with a permanent implant, why not just get a stylish gold ring or watch or other thing with an RFID chip? I never take off my watch so it would give me almost the same functionality. Or maybe a false fingernail or something that is semipermament. This allows me to opt out without having to cut myself open.
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Wired article as proof
but I have to say it strikes as, well, stupid to think that you can "opt out" of having somebdoy read something that is implanted in your body and has absolutely no built in security measures at all.
Saying the read range is only two inches is to count on two things: (1) that the guys who might want to read your implant without your knowledge don't have access to better technology than you do and (2) they aren't clever enough to plant the reader where you will trigger it and won't notice.
The guy almost has the right idea though. An important quality of a system, if it is to have privacy, is the ability to know when you are being scanned and potentially tracked. This is why biometric face recognition systems, which are advocated by some people on the right, are actually much more dangerous than a national ID card, which is anethema.
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So when the identity thief goes to the dealership to buy a car with your id, when they can't recite the GUID assigned to you, they are instantly arrested and displayed hanging from their toenails in the town square for all to see.
:-)
Have you ever mistyped your password? Would you like to be arrested if you did?
What if the buyer is sick the day he goes to make payment on your car? What he's hungover? What if he's getting old, and his memories are fading? What if she's got dislexia, and can't visualize numbers, let alone memorize them?
With it being globally unique (theoretically), it would be nearly impossible to memorize anyone's other than yourself
You define "nearly impossible" differently than I do.
If you ask most people if they can memorize ten digit numbers, they say "no". If you ask them their best friends phone number, they rattle it off without thinking. People with a vested interest can write down and then memorize darn near anything. After all, you learned to memorize your number. Why can't someone else?
What's to stop, say, the car dealer from keeping a copy of your global identifier (say, he's got a tape recorder in his pocket when you say it out loud), and then buying a vacation to Cuba with your identity?
The answer is, of course, not much.
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>Q: can't they track you?!
>A: no. the read range is only 2 inches max. even
*Your* read range is 2 inches - I'll bet a bit of tweaked hardware can extend it to multiple feet. If I pass near you with a reader in my coat pocket, I'll get your tag #. Then I can spoof it, and enjoy the same physical access you do.
>with a high powered reader, the chip itself does
>not have the capability to transmit farther than
>a couple inches tops. this makes it very
>difficult to scan my RFID chip without me
>noticing, and it's definitely not possible to scan
>it just by me walking by a sensor or something.
>It has to be pretty deliberate.
Wanna bet? *You* might not be a target right *now* (too obscure), but wait until lots of people are carrying RFID'd stuff. Then it's worth the effort. It'll be just like wardriving.
Then again, you've just raised your profile enough that it might tempt someone near you to try and hack your system. Just for the cred - are you sure you can engineer it securely enough?
>Q: what about the mark of the beast!?
>A: well, last time I checked, this chip wasn't
>required, I won't be killed for not having one, I
Not yet, anyway...
>don't need it to buy/sell things, and with
Ever try to travel without a credit card? You can't buy an airline ticket, reserve a hotel room, rent a car, or a number of other things without using a CC. Oh, it *might* be possible in some cases, but those are getting rarer and rarer.
>billions of unique ID codes (numbers and
>letters), I don't see how each unique code could
>be calculated in some way to 666. bottom line, if
They don't have to. In fact, you'd want the tag to be very unique to the person. But the very *act* of agreeing to such an implant could be used as a loyalty test.
>this ever becomes an oppressive technology,
>required by some government, I can simply take it
>out.
Really? You're applying today's legalities to tomorrow, which is always tricky.
A cashless economy based on implanted RFID tags has, on the surface, a lot of positives. Theft would be a lot harder. Not impossible, but harder (at least compared to stealing cash or credit cards). And convenient - no more forgetting your checkbook at the supermarket. Stores will love it - no robberies (no cash on hand), and complete tracking of individual purchases.
Governments will love it also. Buying patterns could be mined for potential anti-establishment patterns. Assuming a central authorization system(s) somewhere (needed to prevent fraud, you see), a dissident could become a non-person at the touch of a button. Put this in a global government, and there would be nowhere to run. Total control, on a scale impossible before computers and global networking.
The best part of all is that taking a tag doesn't have to be legally mandated. If you can't buy food without one, that'll be incentive enough to "volunteer". Use PR to associate the tags with some social or patriotic feeling ("All *good* citizens have the chip - why don't you?"). That way, peer pressure will take care of most of the casual resisters. The rest can be left to starve or try to survive on the fringes of society.