You Need Not Be Paranoid To Fear RFID

An anonymous reader writes "A story at the Boston Globe covers extensive privacy abuses involving RFID." From the article: "Why is this so scary? Because so many of us pay for our purchases with credit or debit cards, which contain our names, addresses, and other sensitive information. Now imagine a store with RFID chips embedded in every product. At checkout time, the digital code in each item is associated with our credit card data. From now on, that particular pair of shoes or carton of cigarettes is associated with you. Even if you throw them away, the RFID chips will survive. Indeed, Albrecht and McIntyre learned that the phone company BellSouth Corp. had applied for a patent on a system for scanning RFID tags in trash, and using the data to study the shopping patterns of individual consumers." I think they may be going a little overboard with their stance, but it's always interesting to talk about.

Comments

Just put them in your microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you purchase something, just fry the RFID chip by putting the stuff for 15 seconds in your microwave. Problem solved.

(Or just use cash).

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, if you want to buy something with cash, you have to carry that cash around with you, which means risking it being taken violently from you by a displaced New Orleans resident. It's quite a conundrum.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[LiquidCoooled]

The only problem I see here is that not everything is microwave safe.

How do oyu microwave your brand new microwave?

What happens when your steel toe capped boots go in there?

Will the fabric on your GFs dress screw up if you you zap it?

Will the DVD you just bought be playable or writable?

thats just a few thoughts, but microwaving should be safe... YMMV

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[Joakim A]

> How do oyu microwave your brand new microwave?
Simple, buy a new micro that fits inside your old one.

> Will the DVD you just bought be playable or writable?
I doubt that the micro can do either.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[Zog The Undeniable]

How do you microwave your brand new microwave?

Or, as the Roman poet Juvenal might have said, Quis microwavet ipsos microwaves?

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[moro_666]

since the rfid chips are all still based on common electronic circuits and microchips, you should just emit a strong enough emp signal at it, and it's fried ... and at least dvd disks and cd-roms should survive it quite well ... ( i wouldnt try it on the microwave :p )

when they make rfid based paying cards ... then emitting an emp signal at a store full of rfid card users could mean a lot of fun at the cashier :)

note that you dont need a nuclear bomb to create an emp wave, even smaller tools can do it, like the one linked to here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_fl ux_compression_generator

passive rfid chips are especially vulnerable to this because they by themselves rely on the signal energy to respond at all.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[advocate_one]

(Or just use cash).

and when the notes have RFID chips in them???

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[badfish99]

If you're going to use cash, beware of this

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[ajs318]

Use coins. I already do anyway. The authorities must think I have a massive gambling habit, but really I'm just going into amusement arcades to change serial-numbered notes for unnumbered coins. Coins, being made of metal, cannot have RFID devices embedded in them. Radio waves will not travel through anything that conducts electricity {this is a fundamental limitation of the universe and cannot be overcome by invention}. If you are really paranoid, you can test each coin for conductivity in several places using a simple home-built device {a store-bought AVO may have been rigged}.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[advocate_one]

If you are really paranoid, you can test each coin for conductivity in several places using a simple home-built device {a store-bought AVO may have been rigged}

wow... and I thought I was being paranoid...

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[gutnor]

In my city (EU) we need to sort the different waste in different bags for recycling. ( You can be fined if you don't do it properly - crap is a serious matter here )

The future will be exiting,
1. Paper is the blue bag
2. Glass Bottle must be brought back to the shop.
3. cans and plastic in the Blue Bag
4. Black bag for other waste ...
and now, after sorting all this, think about EMP the bag.

Total time 1 Man-day a week to manage the dirt ... if you are lucky enough to be single.
If not and you have 2 children and a cat, you may be thinking hiring a project manager.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[BVis]

Here in America...they've tried several times to come out with a dollar coin, only to have it fail time and again. Even when they try to change the color of the dollar coin so it's not confused with a quarter, people still balk at it. People want their paper money here.

The attempts at dollar coins have failed in the US because of several reasons:

• Non-removal of one dollar bills from circulation (at the bank level)
  
• Poor design of the coins themselves (too easily mistaken for a quarter, etc). This could be fixed by following the model of the UK one pound coin: it's about the same size as a US nickel but twice as thick, much easier to recognize in your pocket and in the cash drawer. Unfortunately this leads to:
  
• Resistance from the vending machine industry (machines would need to be retooled to accept a coin significantly different from the ones currently in use)
  
• The perception by the great unwashed that coins aren't "real money", lack of education about the new currency (think of the oft-repeated Taco Bell two dollar bill story); this goes hand in hand with Americans' fanatical opposition to being educated.
  

It's just another case of Americans' short-sightedness, where the fact that some inconvenience in the short term would lead to significant benefits in the long term (in this case, lowered US currency production expenses, in non-trivial amounts) is completely irrelevant, and stating otherwise supports terrorism | Communism | Socialism | the Liberals | the hippies | $randomUnAmericanGroup.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[FuzzyDaddy]

As long as were ranting about coins, can we finally get rid of pennies? If the copper coating is scratched, they provide a health risk when swallowed (as kids sometimes do), as stomach acid attacks rhe zinc and can lead to a sharp edge. No other coin is attacked by stomach acid, and who uses pennies anymore anyway?

Ok, I'm over it now.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[Ryosen]

$20 in dollar coins creates a lump in your pocket and weighs you down, swinging and bumping against your leg.

That's just great. One more lump in my pocket to feel inadequate about.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[CreatureComfort]

you have 2 children and a cat,

I thought the reason you had kids was for them to this kinda stuff. I envision a future where, as in the past large families were a benefit for getting the farm work done, large families will be a benefit to getting all the technological/recycling/etc. work done.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[Kaiwen]

If Americans can be educated to equate dollar coins with lower taxes (not that big of a stretch) I think you'll find resistance decreasing.

This argument fails to take into account one of the great universal principles of budgetary politics: politicians spend money, they never give it back. Thirty milliseconds after the mints realize their first dollar in savings, every politician in Washington will be lined up with a minimum of three proposals apiece on alternative ways to spend it, most of them involving the pocket linings of their bigger contributors back home.

Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[fredklein]

The point I was trying to make is that two dollar bills have been around for decades, and people are STILL ignorant of them.

And again, simple ignorance about one subject does not equal "fanatical opposition to being educated".

How often do you have 20 singles in your pocket? (And strip clubs don't count.)

Quite often. You see, ATMs give out $20 bills. Take out, say $100 and then use a $20 to pay for $5.99 purchase, and get $14 back, usually as a 10 and 4 ones. Repeat 5 times, and viola- $20 in singles.

Besides I didn't say "$20 in singles", I said "$20 in bills".

Stupid people need to be protected from themselves.

That is most often said by those who a)don't see themselves as stupid, and b)think they'd be the perfect ones to do the "protecting".

They are usually wrong on both counts.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[fredklein]

From ustreas.gov:

Q: Are there any plans to remove the one-cent coin (more popularly known as the "penny") from circulation?

A: You may be interested to know that the penny is the most widely used denomination currently in circulation and it remains profitable to make. Significantly, it is Congress that determines the denominations of coins that the Mint must produce and put into circulation. Each penny costs .81 of a cent to make, but the United States Mint collects one cent for it. The profit goes to help fund the operation of the United States Mint and to help pay the public debt. In 2000, this profit added up to about $24 million. As the United States Mint produces the coins that Congress mandates, it does not have the authority to abolish a unit of currency. If directed to do so by legislation enacted by the Congress and signed by the President, the Treasury Department would again study phasing out the penny. Because the demand exists and the Federal Reserve Banks require inventories to meet the demand, the United States Mint is committed to producing the penny.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[guaigean]

Here's the problem though. We moved away from the gold standard long ago. Now, when inflation happens, the value of a coin can become less than the value to make said coin. With paper, the value doesn't really inflate that much. Paper is renewable, we don't have to find another mine to produce it cheaply. It's easy to put out new currency and make changes, as opposed to retooling a minting press. Paper is economically more feasible (and just happens to be lighter to carry).

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[dajak]

1. Paper is the blue bag
2. Glass Bottle must be brought back to the shop.
3. cans and plastic in the Blue Bag
4. Black bag for other waste ...
and now, after sorting all this, think about EMP the bag.

That's not the way! I will give an example. Proper procedure of disposing of a tea bag with embedded RFID tag:

1. the bag and the label go in the paper container (blue in your case);
2. the tea goes into the green container;
3. the rope goes into the textiles container at the supermarket;
4. the metal staple goes with scrap metal, to be taken to the municipal garbage sorting center;
5. the rfid tag goes into the small chemical garbage container at the supermarket.

This is assuming that separating scrap metal (?) from an RFID chip would be as difficult as separating the plastic, paper, and metal in tetrapak (which goes into the general purpose grey container, and btw happens to be a great water proof, light weight, and heat isolating building material).

There is an even better alternative.

Technically speaking the shops in the EU are required to take old electronics back when you buy a replacement, so you can also save up the tea bags and give them to the cashier when you buy a new box of tea bags. You can get rid of all of your garbage with RFID chips in this convenient way, and inconvenience the manufacturers at the same time without any extra effort!

If not and you have 2 children and a cat, you may be thinking hiring a project manager.

I do think you need to hire someone who knows what he is doing, if you don't mind me saying it.

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[thesqlizer]

There's also shredding. :-\

Though as another poster points out, what about things that are particularly large? Finding the RFID tag in a new pair of boots may be tough--to say nothing of that new bookshelf.

The new slogan of the RFID age:

"Some things are priceless. For everything else, there's cash."

Re:Just put them in your microwave

[slumos]

First point stipulated. However the Sacagawea a.k.a Golden dollar:

• Was easily distiguishable from the quarter by size, weight, color, and texture (specifically, having smooth sides in contrast to the quarter's ridges);
• Was quickly adopted by vending machines. For example, all of the vending machines on my campus were able to take them before I could even get one. After all, coins are much easier to take than bills. The SBA had failed before vending machine started to take dollars at all--I'm sure the vending machine companies would really have prefered SBAs to inventing bill scanners;
• Was promoted much more strongly than any newly introduced money before it, although I have to admit to getting some dirty looks for tipping with golden dollars at first.

On the other hand, there was really poor distribution. I had to go to my bank to get them, and often they did not have even a single full roll on hand (!). These days, my only source for dollars is the vending machines at the post office. And I don't buy nearly enough stamps to make that a viable option.

The course of action here is obvious...

[raehl]

Patent tin-foil garbage bags.

Re:The course of action here is obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick with aluminum foil, as the paranoid community has much more confidence in the anti-psychotronic properties of aluminum.

Are you out of your mind?????

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you realise this is essential to stop terrorism????? Think of the children for a change instead of these stupid "rights" or whatever they're called.

Patent War Chest

[Anonymous Coward]

The Good News:
1) BellSouth is a huge company that can't figure out what to do about PTSN loses, much less how to deploy RFID scanners.
2) This is just a patent to be added to their war chest. Every large company is likely to be sued, so they need methods to fight back. Patents are often the most cost effective manner, since getting them is cheaper than mounting any defense against of a real lawsuit.

I see a market..

[jcr]

...for RFID-killers. Shouldn't need more than a watt or so at the right frequency to kill the chip.

-jcr

Re:I see a market..

[dawggy_daddy]

1. Or an RFID reader killer.
2. Cash is being phased out to the ubiquitous 'magnetic identification' tag found on credit and atm cards and very soon on passports.
3. Toll booth passes ( like the EZpass in the northeast U.S. ) are already in great use. Just place a EZpass reader unobtrusively on a intersection traffic light to catch speeders or red light runners. Why do drivers on toll roads speed when calculating their speed by the amount of time between entry and exit of the toll road or speed through the EZpass toll booth reader ( I've been dinged by this already ) is trivial.
5. The market is ripe for mu-metal EZpass storage containers. Or 'Faraday shielding' ( SCIF ) for your automobile or house.
6. Even my two doggies have RFID tags implanted, the vetinarian can read it, but when I'm walking them, so can 'big-brother'. Do I need 'mu-metal' woven into vests or collers for them.

Am I being too paranoid?

Physical counteraction

[ettlz]

Surely this is nothing a drill*/pair of scissors/giving up smoking/strong high-frequency magnetic field couldn't solve. After all, it's your RFID chip. So destroy it!

*You probably shouldn't try this if the chip is on a condom.

You don't have to be paranoid - but it helps

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Already the scenes from 2002s movie Minority Report, where your retinas are scanned and "personalised" advertising is beamed at you, seems quaint. Now we know you'll be RFID scanned, and up-sold on the shoes you're wearing, as the brand, size and age of your shoes will be instantly known. And cash won't help, because RFID chips will be in that too.

Re:You don't have to be paranoid - but it helps

[FidelCatsro]

On the plus side , RFID does not involve Tom Cruise

Shopping patterns

[Jugalator]

What's so bad about studying them?

Like with Google ads, if I have to live with ads, I much prefer directed ones with at least some research behind them than undirected ones. In other words -- in this case with shoes, if they wished to send me ads by mail, I'd rather only get ads for men in my age than women and kids.

Of course, connecting these studies to other databases from other companies could make it very wrong, but that's another problem I think need other laws (unless there aren't any already -- IANAL).

And at least where I live, there are already laws against storing personally identifiable data in a database, such as your social security number. I guess age, gender, and other purely statistical data don't fall under this law, and I don't see a compelling reason to why it should. Is it really such a big deal?

Re:Shopping patterns

[aussie_a]

Like with Google ads, if I have to live with ads, I much prefer directed ones with at least some research behind them than undirected ones.

Google doesn't connect me with my credit card number and name. It also does this up front, not going around to your house and going through your garbage.

Although it seems simple to me, pay cash, don't give any stores your name, phone number or postcode. If they insist, lie or stop shopping there.

Re:Shopping patterns

[gr3g]

One thing that I worry about in targeted advertising is my ability to abstain. Even without ads targeted specifically to my tastes I have a problem with buying too much crap, I don't need my psyche pummeled into submission by seeing things I *need* put on display all the time. I have come to the realization that I am no different than that child many years ago who was way too tempted by the check-out isle displays of candy, only now my desires have shifted to electronics and gadgets (oh to desire .$50 items again!)

So for the hope of one day coming out of debt, I say no to the targeted ads.

Re:Shopping patterns

[Illserve]

It is a big deal, because directed advertising is more profitable.

And because it's more profitable there will be more of it.

So given the choice of less undirected advertising and more directed advertising, I'll take the former.

Also, directed advertising is harder to ignore. The more they know about how your brain works the better they'll be able to create ads that draw your attention to them.

Calm Down: You're Being Paranoid

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, people, think about it. RFID on everything? It's not going to happen. The statistical data gained would be horribly inaccurate because nobody would ever know whether or not you're actually the one wearing the shoes. For instance, what if they were a gift for somebody 3,000 miles away?

Re:Calm Down: You're Being Paranoid

[foreverdisillusioned]

Oh look, an Anonymous Coward who has absolutely no concept of statistics. Modded up to +3 too. Impressive and/or sad.

RFID on EVERYTHING means that anomalies like that become less and less significant. Cross-reference enough data and you can spot patterns without having the faintest idea why they're there. (There's actually a famous psychiatric test based on this principle, though the name escapes me. Basically, it's a bunch of crazyass questions designed to give the shrink a statistical probability that you're suffering from a mental disease. The individual answers themselves are irrelevant; only the statistical whole counts. Thus, the potential for an individual to purposefully alter his answers is in effect built into the final percentages--there's really no way to cheat.)

You've missed the point completely. How often do you send shoes to someone living 3,000 miles away? Do you think Nike or Reebok care about the handful of people who've done such a thing? Marketing people only care about the fat, juicy center of the bell curve. Yeah, there are also those niche markets at the edges, but the instant you change your focus to that niche, then it becomes the center of the bell curve.

On the whole this isn't all terribly evil so long as it's used for relatively non-obnoxious advertisements, but the potential for abuse by insurance agencies, banks, law enforcement, etc. is very, very high. If you're not in the statistical norm for the targeted advertisement, who cares? You ignore the ad. But if you're far out of the statistical norm for "law abiding citizen" and the local PD finds out, you can bet your ass you'll be hounded until the day you die (or move to a saner country.) It won't matter if you're an exception; it won't matter if there's only a 55% chance you're a criminal. They'll do it because it's efficient. It'll be like racial profiling except it will apply to every single minority conceivable, from Yanni fans to gays to diehard otakus to atheists. Your difficultly in the world will be inversely related to your conformity. Stray too far out of the norm and your insurance rates will skyrocket, you credit rating will plunge, and cops will look at you that much harder next time they've got an unsolved crime on their hands.

It's not bizzare; it's not even inherently evil. Living by statistics is just an efficient way of doing things. The problem is that greater efficiency is bought with something far more precious; individuality. For now, I can ignore the ads, but for heaven's sake let's not get complacent.

Ubiquity

[the bluebrain]

Looking at the way the **AA are carpet-bombing all and sundry with outree requests in support of their business model - in the hope that the odd one will stick - once RFID tech is used widly, I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".

=> EULA when you buy a Ralph Lauren shirt, making it illegal to disable the tag?
=> Extra tax if you nuke your trash before putting it by the roadside? ("WallMart has a right to know!")
=> Automatic searches at the airport when a scan of your luggage turns results that deviate from the norm?
=> A new "coming of age" rutual, whereby you have your mandatory kiddy-goes-to-school tag removed when you turn 18 21?

Re:Ubiquity

[the bluebrain]

Damn. Every time I aim for "maximum cynicism / paranoia", someone comes along and trumps me :)

Re:Ubiquity

[dajak]

Looking at the way the **AA are carpet-bombing all and sundry with outree requests in support of their business model - in the hope that the odd one will stick - once RFID tech is used widly, I foresee a future where first major brands, then other retailers and law enforcement will be making similar requests, more or less "because it's technically possible".

That makes sense. The most basic tests for legislative drafting we use here in the Netherlands are: 1) it is possible to comply efficiently (= without disproportionate economic side-effects), and 2) compliance is effectively and efficiently enforceable. That's why minor immorality like softdrugs and prostitution are 'tolerated', and capital gains tax is for instance charged on a fictional gain of 4% instead of the actual amount which is too easy to misrepresent. Many of our small liberties are based on little more than lack of enforceability. Off-topic sneer: the US legislator doesn't have a reputation of taking enforceability very seriously.

We need fundamental debate on privacy, copyright and fair use, patents etc. instead of complaining how the new regimes are more restrictive than the old ones like most critics do. That has never been a valid argument. We need to face the fact that the majority of the population would happily prohibit anything they don't do, like, or understand if it can be done efficiently without too much inconvenience to them. The tolerance (or should I call it political correctness?) taught by the 17th century religious wars and WWII seems to be wearing off again.

Generally, who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean really. Right now, anyone can go through my garbage and recyclabes and see:

- what my spending habits are like (empty product boxes along with the other trash)
- what my diet is like
- what my consumption rate is
- what my interests are (above mentioned product boxes, tossed junk mail, etc)
- what my personal timeline is like (how much trash is developed at various times)
- samples of my dna (various personal care item cast offs, hair, finger nails, etc)
- samples of my finger prints

and lord knows what else. Really, all we're really talking about here for the average person is that they can do several of the above without getting really messy and stinky.

Re:Generally, who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Today you need to *go through* that garbage to get the information. It's a manual, long and expensive process.

With RFID, the process is completely automatized and takes less than half a second. You can integrate a reader in the garbage collection chain (or even in the garbage collection trucks) and get all that information at an industrial scale -- i.e. big-brotherize everyone.

Generally, who cares? Well I do.

Re:Generally, who cares?

[Alef]

Yes, you can do that, but it is messy and takes a lot of time. With RFID tags you could do it without even having to open the trash bag, and the whole process could be automated and performed at a massive scale, and that makes the information cheap.

I'm not saying anyone would actually do that, but it is certainly feasible from a technological point of view.

It has always been possible to gather personal information about someone, if you have sufficient resources. Secret services all over the world do it routinely. The scary part is that such information could soon be available to anyone (large corporations anyway) for a couple of bucks.

Re:Generally, who cares?

[ifwm]

"My trash bin sits on my property, and the only person who has any right to step onto my property and take are the folks who work for my garbage service. So that means that anyone else who tries this is going to be looking down the barrel of a 12-gauge"

Or they could simply drag your bin onto public property and take their time.

Or they could dump your bin out and take the trash with them.

I know you don't sit in your yard guarding your trash all day.

Re:Generally, who cares?

[Hrodvitnir]

I mean really. Right now, anyone can follow me around all day and see:

- what my spending habits are like
- what my diet is like
- what my consumption rate is
- what my interests are
- what my personal timeline is like
- samples of my dna
- samples of my finger prints

The point is, people don't do these things because it's not worth it. Now it is.

Re:Generally, who cares?

[Jardine]

I know you don't sit in your yard guarding your trash all day.

Maybe you don't.

Yeah, rivetting subject...

[richy freeway]

but it's always interesting to talk about.

I think you may be confusing RFID with womens beach volleyball.

I hate to break it to you...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but this already happens WITHOUT RFID. I work for a marketing company (who will remain nameless, and hence why I'm posting as an AC) who's work is partly geared toward this sort of work. You go to a store. You pay with a credit card. It stores your CC # (in an undecryptable hash format of course) and what items you bought. It looks for patterns and even gives competitors a chance to gain your marketshare. If Pepsi wants Coke marketshare they can pay us to print a coupon for the guy who buys Coke everytime he goes to the grocery store. We don't need RFID for someone to be monitoring our purchases.

Re:I hate to break it to you...

[SimilarityEngine]

But now: you go to a store, you pay with cash, and the f**kers can still snoop on your spending habits by scanning the RFID tags in your trash, without even getting their hands dirty.

We've been over this before

[dougman]

Sure - in theory all that's possible. However, when the world's largest retailer (Wal-Mart) will be disabling them at checkout you can bet others will follow. The market will take care of itself. Look - people thought barcodes were going to do the same thing and now you wouldn't do without 'em (everything from UPS to all the food in your kitchen).

Personally I would like to have it in some items. Books and DVD's could be quickly added to my delicious library (currently I scan the barcode), I could manage the inventory in my kitchen much better (which would integrate well with recipe software) and it would be great if I could just put my wine on the racks in my cellar and not have to track it manually.

Take off your tinfoil hat and put on your thinking cap. Let's figure out how to take advantage of a great technology and figure out how to make it safe.

Re:We've been over this before

[Red Flayer]

"Books and DVD's could be quickly added to my delicious library (currently I scan the barcode), I could manage the inventory in my kitchen much better (which would integrate well with recipe software) and it would be great if I could just put my wine on the racks in my cellar and not have to track it manually.

Take off your tinfoil hat and put on your thinking cap. Let's figure out how to take advantage of a great technology and figure out how to make it safe.

I wear my thinking cap under my tinfoil hat... how else would I keep them from controlling my best thoughts?

Seriously, though...

Once again, we are prepared to sell our liberty for a little bit of convenience. You can already track your wine inventory automagically, get a cheap barcode scanner. Is it too difficult to scan a bottle at the door of your cellar? Is that really worth not worrying about potential government misuse of tech?

At what point are we going to look back and say, "If only we hadn't allowed THAT, we wouldn't be living in a Big-Brother type dystopia?"

Every year, we get a little closer. As the need for dissent grows, the ability to control dissent grows also. Do you think there is any correlation?

Re:We've been over this before

[virtcert]

> Look - people thought barcodes were going to do the same thing and now you wouldn't do without 'em (everything from UPS to all the food in your kitchen).

You're missing key differences here:

1) Scope of Identification

Bar codes identify a type of product
RFID identifies a unique item.

2) Size and Stealth

Bar codes are fairly large and obvious
RFID chips have already shrunk down to the size of a grain of sand

3) Scanning Requirements

Bar codes must be visible with line-of-sight with the barcode reader
RFID requires only proximity, no line-of-sight with the chip required

From what little I've read, RFID scanners are already sensitive enough to pick up tags from 30 feet away, and the technology is still in its infancy.

I don't have any problem with the use of it by informed choice, but I have no doubts that there will be abuse of the system (as there is with any system). I had to tell the cashier at Target the other day that she missed scanning an item, I have little doubt that disabling RFID tags will be overlooked as well.

And the information is easily correlated. Just driving through the Toll Booth on I-95 with your EZ-Pass RFID toll-paying-gizmo could trivially be linked with picking up the responding tags of all your RFID-enabled property in the car that can get a signal out and associating it with you personally.

The state could make all kinds of money selling off that information to marketers, and considering the cash-strapped condition of many states, I doubt "ethics" would interfere with anything that could increase revenues.

You can make all the crazy projections you want as to abuses, and they still probably will pale with what actually happens in real life.

Just don't walk into your sin-preventing RFID-scanning church door with those smokes, flask and that copy of Big 'uns under your jacket... :-)

  - Brian

Re:We've been over this before

[Stripe7]

Kind of works for a while, then they embed RFID scanners into your DVD players and use it to "Protect" their content. Each time you play that DVD your "connected" DVD player authorizes your use after suitable charges are made to your CC account. Or it just refuses to play on your friend's DVD player if you loan it to them as it has already been authorized to play only on your DVD player.

Condoms?!?

[binaryDigit]

*You probably shouldn't try this if the chip is on a condom.

Duh, just wait until after your done with it ;)

Actually, now that I think about it, I could see an interesting market for personal rfid scanners. You can sell it to women to take on first (or 2nd or 3rd) dates and it can scan for the product id's for condoms. That way they can catch a bit of a glimpse of what types of intentions (or hopes, or in the case of most /.'ers, dreams) their date has :)

Re:Condoms?!?

[ettlz]

Duh, just wait until after your done with it ;)

Easier said than done. Even if I could be bothered, in a post-coital daze, to get out my Black & Decker and mangle the chip, the resulting noise and mess would hose the mood something proper. And as for waiting until morning and rummaging through the bin — no way!

Need a portable tag shredder

[smchris]

Don't leave that empty pack of smokes at the bar. They'll show up at the crime scene later.

Re:Associated credit cards with products?

[Joakim A]

No, because
Barcodes do not identify the individual item.
Barcodes cannot be remotely scanned without the owner noticing.
Barcodes are usually on the packaging material and not on the product.

Mistaken Identity!

[ami-in-hamburg]

Ok, you buy a second hand jacket. I wouldn't, but a lot of people do. The tag has been connected with a child rapist by the FBI. You go to the train station. You get scanned.

Suddenly, 15 FBI agents slam your face into the dirty floor and take you away for questioning in hand cuffs. You submit to a DNA test (no, not like the CSI TV show, it really does take a long time). It will take days if not weeks to prove they got the wrong person !!! In the meantime, there is no way they are going to let you out.

Since perception is reality, you lose your job, your wife, your friends, etc...etc... because you're a deviant child molester. I mean, you must be, the evening news said you're a suspected deviant so it must be true.

Perhaps a little bit extreme for an example but not out of the range of RFID possibility.

Re:Mistaken Identity!

[patio11]

>>It will take days if not weeks to prove they got the wrong person !!!>>

Crimety, you're right! If only people would carry their name and photo on a little piece of plastic inside their wallet, with a copy of the same information backed up on a network law enforcement had access to, then we wouldn't have to wait a week to prove our identities! We could just show the card!

Re:Mistaken Identity!

[mateomiguel]

If only people would carry their name and photo on a little piece of plastic inside their wallet, with a copy of the same information backed up on a network law enforcement had access to, then we wouldn't have to wait a week to prove our identities! We could just show the card!

What a GREAT idea! Don't tell any criminals though. Those bad people might try to make fake versions of these cards, and then the police might stop trusting them! Good thing no criminals read slashdot or they might profit from my extensive imagination.

Shoplifters have already worked this out

[Zog The Undeniable]

Shoplifters in Manchester, England, put small high-value items into a metal biscuit tin lined with aluminium foil (a bit of overkill there) which is supposed to screen the RFID tags from the sensors by the door. I saw it on a documentary about junkies last week - it's common for the police to find these tins in their houses along with the usual drug paraphernalia.

Oh, the irony

[Dachannien]

Indeed, Albrecht and McIntyre learned that the phone company BellSouth Corp. had applied for a patent on a system for scanning RFID tags in trash, and using the data to study the shopping patterns of individual consumers.

I seem to remember that, back in the day, a large portion of the information used in phone phreaking was gathered through dumpster diving for internal manuals at Ma Bell. I guess turnabout really is fair play.

Re:FUD

[Zog The Undeniable]

Er...no. The RFID tag can carry a unique code for every individual item, not the same code for every item of that type (as a barcode does). That means YOUR new shirt has a different code to all those others on the rail.

No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

That would infringe on my patent for tin-foil panchos!

DMCA voilation??

[doublem]

Since RFID tags are so useful to corporations, I see any "RFID Killer" being classified as illegal as soon as it hiss the market.

After all, it could be used to steal items from a store, or interfere with the RFID chips that people DON'T want deactivated!!!

It'll be classified as a burglary tool or something worse in short order, if there aren't aspects of such a devise that aren't already illegal.

Re:DMCA voilation??

[Hammer]

Can't be DMCA violation. You are making it HARDER to decrypt :-)

Re:DMCA voilation??

[jcr]

Since RFID tags are so useful to corporations, I see any "RFID Killer" being classified as illegal as soon as it hiss the market.

Well, I don't have quite such a pessimistic outlook. It would probably be illegal to zap an RFID tag in a store, because until you buy it, it's not yours. Once you own it though, you're entitled to fry the RFID, rip off the tags that say "do not remove this tag", etc.

-jcr

Ehh...

[mkirsten]

So here's another business idea:

The RFID-shredder®, "Increasing the entropy since 2006"

Re:Unwanted Advertising?

[tuxette]

I mean, is it so hard to understand why someone would want to know when they're out of something and should go buy more?

I (and lots of others) have no problems remembering to pick up a liter or two of milk on the way home from work, and this is without having to have some chip installed in my refrigerator, recycling bin, garbage can, whatever...

Chilling effect

[badfish99]

From TFA:
His organization has a code of ethics ... So how about putting these principles into law? ... any regulation "would have a chilling effect that would put us back years"

In other words, the RFID maker claims to have a code of ethics, but doesn't want to be held to that code.
That smells to me like his code of ethics is going straight out of the window the instant it suits him.

Some things you might want to keep private.

[twitter]

What's so bad about studying them[shopping patterns]?

Here's a short list of things that you might not want everyone knowing:

1. Your drinking habits.
2. Your method of birth control.
3. Medications especially for things like anti-depressants or treatments for STDs.
4. The books you read.

All of these things can be used against you by your employer or insurance company.

You only think you want targeted ads. Imagine your wife getting ads for the wrong brand of tampon at just the right time. That's how invasive and awful your phone company's snooping can be. The grocery store comes close right now. The targeting works as intended and is as annoying as hell because the stupid coupons are always for the wrong brand.

Finally, ask yourself what snooping through your garbage has to do with phone service. Is this why federal, state and local laws protect incumbent phone providers from competition? BellSouth, thank you for a new low.

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post is right on. 20 years ago, political operatives wanted SC nominee Robert Bork's video rental records. 10 years ago, everybody wanted to know who didn't pay tax on their nanny's salary. Last month, the New York Times wanted SC nominee Roberts' children's adoption records, just in case the children might have been illegally offered to him and thus be a sensational story. The threshold of who is snooping continues to move downward; the pool of who might incidentally want that information and have the means to get it continues to increase; and the threshold of privacy they want to invade continues to move inward. And it won't respectfully stop when it reaches your comfort level.

In the near future, your neighbor, the blogger, might just decide you need to be put in your place by posting what his Acme RFID-Max SuperScanner can find next time you're away. And the Internet Wayback machine and Google may ensure that it is never difficult to retrieve or forgotten.

The best way to secure sensitive data is to NOT enable its collection in the first place. Unless you actually want a society where everyone is afraid to deviate from the community's blandest common denominator.

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[Generic Guy]

As I said before, if this info is publicized or shared, it's a completely other problem and I do believe it shouldn't be shared.

And no, I wouldn't mind the store I shop from knowing my drinking habits. I have nothing to hide, I'm no alcoholic, if they see I indeed prefer a brand of beer over any cider, big deal?

There was recently a case in my state where a fellow slipped and fell in a store and ended up needing to sue for medical treatment. It seemed like a pretty clear-cut case, but the store was trying to weasel out of responsibility and decided to pull up his "customer loyalty card" info and tried to use a defense implying that the guy was a drunkard based upon his alcohol purchases -- on the public record in court! Anyway, it didn't save their case and the guy won. And as I recall, he bought a lot for hosted parties and the like, and didn't drink much of it himself but irregardless he should never have been put in a position to defned his purchases let alone even needing to explain himself.

Anyway, it was the first time I actually saw the media show concern about all this personal data collection. And that was just with a store card. I stopped using all my store loyalty cards after that expose. RFID seems more insidious if anyone (think: lawyers) can scan your car, house, or trash trying to establish patterns for whatever reason. The old 'I have nothing to hide' argument doesn't mean we should allow any of this, because it will be abused. No one should have to actively think or worry about how their shopping purchases might look to uninvolved RFID observers after the fact, especially when it can be so easily twisted against you.

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[Rob the Bold]

1. Your drinking habits. . .

2. Your method of birth control. . .

3. Medications especially for things like anti-depressants or treatments for STDs. . .

4. The books you read. . .

All of these things can be used against you by your employer or insurance company.

HOW? You can't just throw FUD out there and hope it sticks. How these things could be used against you?

Just a few examples off the top of my head.

1. Alcohol. Higher insurance premiums for drinkers, or heavy drinkers, or malt-liquor drinkers. The question of did he or did he not actually consume it would be irrelevant for the users of the data, they're not trying to prove it in a court of law, they're just using it as an excuse.

2. Birth Control. Again, higher insurance premiums for people who use too many (or too few) condoms. Increased risk of STDs and pregnancy. Or maybe you're the IT director at some fundamentalist whack-job church -- any purchase of birth control gets you sacked for not being fruitful and multiplying enough.

3. Perscriptions. Your employer probably already knows if you're on the company insurance plan, and your insurance company certainly knows unless you self pay. But again, insurance co. would love to know as much as possible about you, legal or not. They're not going to tell you they went through your trash.

4. Books. Again, I think we'd assume for harassment purposes that you read any book you buy. Whole categories of readers could be assumed to be untrustworty in their jobs because of their reading habits. Jobs with secrets, or working with children, or the elderly, or in a pharmacy, just to name a few.

I imagine someone paid to come up with evil things to do with personal infomation (like HR director or Insurance risk-analyst) could make a much longer list than mine.

Also, with regard to "throwing FUD out there" . . . the "U" is "uncertainty", the unknown. You cannot, by definition, enumerate the unknown. It's difficult to discuss the future without some degree of speculation.

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[Kaiwen]

I notice you fail to allow for lower premiums for those who drink in moderation.

So do many insurance companies. Which, of course, was his point.

There's no way to know WHEN you used a condom....

Unless each one were individually tagged. Next morning out goes the garbage with a couple of condoms in it. But never mind that. Purchasing records show Tom Jones picking up a 10-pack of Trojans on the way home from work on Monday. Friday night he purchases another. That alone tells us a hell of a lot about Tom's sex life, even if we don't know exactly when each condom did duty.

You CAN'T penalize someone for seeking treatment for a disease/disorder in the US. The ADA makes it a civil rights violation to do so.

But I can easily imagine drug companies bedding down with insurance firms to subtly pressure their customers into seeking the right brand of treatment. And in the real world it's only a violation if you get caught. Remember, age- and race-discrimination are also civil rights violations. Doesn't change the fact that it happens a hundred thousand times a day in the U.S., and 99.44% of the time it's damn near impossible to prove.

Unless of course you believe your employer/the government is going to follow you home and scan your books while you're out.

Ah, then you've forgotten the flap over Amazon.com's "purchasing circles" back in '99. Do employers care about what their employees read? Damn straight they do. Just ask the Microsoftees who found themselves in deep doo-doo when Microsoft discovered they had been purchasing anti-MS books.

Only a couple of years ago RFID tags couldn't be read from more than a few inches away. Today it's 30 feet. Within a few years it will be possible to inventory your entire house in a couple of seconds from inside a moving vehicle. Insurance companies would love to know what's sitting inside your medicine cabinet or fridge. Legal or not, I expect in the near future drive-by scannings will become part of the standard background check all insurance companies and employers do.

Or forget insurance companies. I imagine even those of us who have nothing to hide are happier living in a country where police can't just come barging in our doors on a whim. There's a reason police need subpoenas for anything that's not in plain sight. But we're now entering a world where police can search our homes from the comfort of their squad cars, where every police-wielded radar gun has a built-in RFID scanner, and "plain sight" just may include anything in the EMF range.

Lee Kaiwen

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[DaveJay]

There's no way to know WHEN you used a condom....

Unless each one were individually tagged. Next morning out goes the garbage with a couple of condoms in it. But never mind that. Purchasing records show Tom Jones picking up a 10-pack of Trojans on the way home from work on Monday. Friday night he purchases another. That alone tells us a hell of a lot about Tom's sex life, even if we don't know exactly when each condom did duty.

Even better, Tom is married, and never buys condoms -- except when he travels for business once a month. That tells us a LOT, eh? And you can already find that out if he buys with a credit card. Presumably Tom is smarter than that, but you never know. I personally always buy my extramarital-affair condoms in cash, and discard the receipt immedia-- what, honey? Oh, no, just typing on the computer, nothing speciNO DON'T LOOK WAI~=$#

Re:Some things you might want to keep private.

[Bent Mind]

I've been watching the debate over RFID for a while now. The technology could have a lot of benifit. I currently work in a high security warehouse. I have to walk through a metel detector, have a wand passed over my body, pull my pockets inside out, remove belts and shoes, pull my pant waist away from my body, and pull up my pant legs to get outside. It would be nice if RFID would allow me to simply be scanned for RFID tags and exit. In the home, it could make computerized inventory a reality. My pantry would be able to tell me I'm low on tomato sauce before I go to the store.

However, I can also see the dark side. I've lived in neiborhoods where you're asked to leave if you don't cut your grass a certain way. RFID would be a godsend to the busybodies that live in these places. Just think, they could kick you out for buying generic food. Of course I can choose not to live in such places. I currently avoid them if I know about them in advance. However, I can see other problems.

1. Alcohol. You say good because If you engage in a risky behavior, your insurance premium should be higher. You go on to say that premiums might be lower for those who drink in moderation. What about those places where alcohol is illegal? What if you have children? Have you heard the garbage taught in schools concerning alcohol?

2. Birth Control. You say There's no way to know WHEN you used a condom, so this is impossible. What does it matter if anyone knows you used them? The fact that you have them can cause all sorts of problems. Many religious groups would like to see birth control made illegal. The examples are only silly if you exclude all of the silly people out there. Thinking back to high school, I wonder how many girls carried condoms. I wonder if people would have considered them sluts if everyone knew they were on birth control. It kind of discourages the use of contraceptives.

I'll pass on three. Though I don't want everone knowing what perscriptions are on my body, thieves don't need RFID to find out what is in my garbage.

4. Books You say More ridiculous alarmist thinking... I'm not too worried about my employer knowing what books I read. Actually, I'd be more interested in knowing what books my employer read. However, I can certainly see getting nasty anonymous letters in the mail based on my reading habits. When you expand this to movies and games, I might even end up in jail or having my children taken away. I have violent games in my house. My daughter loves to watch me play Halo. However, she's not allowed in the game room when I'm playing Doom III.

On my way to work this morning, there was a news story on the radio about a couple that had been arrested for watching porn. They confiscated the TV and DVD player. The police had received a complaint about the TV being too loud. Just think, with RFID, the police won't need a complaint to dictate how you live your life in the privacy of your own home.

Let's not forget the government

[LaughingCoder]

All this chatter is about potential abuses of RFID by nasty corporations. I imagine that their are areas in the government simply drueling over the possibilities ... that bullet was purchased at KMart in Osh Kosh on October 19th at 7:22pm by ...

And what about the IRS, and the state governments. I am sure the state of Massachusetts, which never leaves any revenue stream untapped, is intrigued by the possibility of being able to "capture" all those lost sales taxes from people shopping outside the state (neighboring NH has no sales tax and the parking lots in the malls are always filled with cars with Mass plates). Imagine getting a retro-active sales tax bill with an itemized list of everything you bought.

I would like to place a bet with you.

[hummassa]

Coins will be made of plastic (the rfid being the way of authenticating them) before 2020.

Re:every product will be unique?

[manarth]

http://www.rfidjournal.com/faq/23/102 [RFID Journal] says that:

The Electronic Product Code (EPC) was created by the Auto-ID Center as an eventual successor to the bar code...EPC tags were designed to identify each item manufactured, as opposed to just the manufacturer and class of products, as bar codes do today.

You should be more paranoid

[o0SupaCB0o]

They don't need RFID to collect anymore information than they already.

I've seen the amount of information they collect at these POS systems. You use a credit/debit card, your card encodes your zip code, first name, last name. Your purchase is collected already by scanning the item into the register.

Your info is then sent to the 3 credit bueraus and your infor is merged with those large databasese. If you give your email to the retailer, your email is attached to your credit report. Through those credit reports the credit bueraus then sends back your address to the retailer and all other information the retailer can afford.

Your information is already available in catalog dealers, your internet info is available at experian online (yup experian started an internet division). How much you make and how much own is already available at experian, transunion and can't remember the last one.

The retailer already got the information they need, RFID is just a way to track inventory, really no joke. RFID does not add any additional information that the retail/catalog industry does not already have. Oh yea, they used to be able to get large amount of info through the DMV before 9/11.

Experian will sell your info to ANYBODY at the right price, private detective already have this ability, without license. Now the funny thing is the only person that has a hard time getting your info, is yourself! Oh yea don't get me started on the 2 files they keep, one public one that you see, and one that is hidden, that keeps every single transactions you've made in your life. the law says some items fall off the report, but the hiden one is available to anybody with money and can make your life horrible. There are no laws saying that your bank need to tell you they based their decision on this second file. So you think your report is clean, but the hidden one says otherwise. Oh yea that second one contains all your purchase habbits too.

God where's my hat? I can't see an after market of people scanning garbage from a particular locale/district etc. The marketing drones already have this information. Retailers routinely sell their lists to each other. Catelogs company give them to each other as "gifts". Or worse TRADED like comodity. You people are not paranoid enough!

Re:You should be more paranoid

[Knight2K]

If your two file theory is true, then I think the easiest way to solve this is: mandate by law that the 'second file' (obviously some different legal terminology could be used here) be available to the consumer for free. These companies are obviously making a lot of money off the residue of our consumer lives, so this wouldn't affect their revenue stream. But I would love to have a record of every transaction I make, if only because I'm not the world's greatest bookkeeper. Then I would see some actual value from providing this information to retailers, rather than feeling f*&ked over when asked for it.

And if people become upset about how much information truly is stored, then public outcry may see some changes made. As long as the information collection is effectively invisible, then it will be difficult to get the public excited about this.

Re:You should be more paranoid

[sirwired]

They don't need RFID to collect anymore information than they already.

I've seen the amount of information they collect at these POS systems. You use a credit/debit card, your card encodes your zip code, first name, last name. Your purchase is collected already by scanning the item into the register.

Your info is then sent to the 3 credit bueraus and your infor is merged with those large databasese. If you give your email to the retailer, your email is attached to your credit report. Through those credit reports the credit bueraus then sends back your address to the retailer and all other information the retailer can afford.

Your information is already available in catalog dealers, your internet info is available at experian online (yup experian started an internet division). How much you make and how much own is already available at experian, transunion and can't remember the last one.

The retailer already got the information they need, RFID is just a way to track inventory, really no joke. RFID does not add any additional information that the retail/catalog industry does not already have. Oh yea, they used to be able to get large amount of info through the DMV before 9/11.

Experian will sell your info to ANYBODY at the right price, private detective already have this ability, without license. Now the funny thing is the only person that has a hard time getting your info, is yourself! Oh yea don't get me started on the 2 files they keep, one public one that you see, and one that is hidden, that keeps every single transactions you've made in your life. the law says some items fall off the report, but the hiden one is available to anybody with money and can make your life horrible. There are no laws saying that your bank need to tell you they based their decision on this second file. So you think your report is clean, but the hidden one says otherwise. Oh yea that second one contains all your purchase habbits too.

God where's my hat? I can't see an after market of people scanning garbage from a particular locale/district etc. The marketing drones already have this information. Retailers routinely sell their lists to each other. Catelogs company give them to each other as "gifts". Or worse TRADED like comodity. You people are not paranoid enough!

You can take this "two-file" theory and flush it down the toilet.

1) Do you have any idea what kind of database would be required to keep track of EVERY purchase you ever made, everywhere, and attach item data? Do you have any clue how long it would take to search such a database? Most credit card companies keep statements on file for a year, and that only covers where you purchased, and the amount.
2) No, the banks cannot deny you credit based a file that you cannot get a hold of. This is pretty plain in the law, if you chose to actually read it, instead of spreading rumors. (See the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681)
3) Yes, your credit card company (and maybe Experian) will happily tell whoever pays them exactly where you shop. Of course, you can write them and tell them not to, but that isn't nearly newsworthy enough. They still won't know what you bought, they would have to pay the retailer themselves for that.
4) Exactly how would Experian know how much you own? They can't possibly know what you have and what you have gotten rid of, outside of what is already available in public records. (Any schmuck can find out where you live, what real estate you own, which elections you voted in, all campaign contributions, etc. That all comes from your local government.)
5) Considering my credit report never can even get my employer right, I doubt they have any idea how much I make.

Yes, our privacy is pretty bad, but spreading paranoid, ignorant crap like this doesn't make things any better.

SirWired

Re:You should be more paranoid

[Reziac]

Costco (and probably every "membership" store of any sort) keeps a complete record of everything you ever bought there -- you can still return stuff for a refund even if you don't have the receipt, because they can instantly look up your purchase history to see if you bought the item there or not.

My VISA card sends me a year-end statement that itemizes *every* time I used the card for the past year.

So those are two that I know for a fact keep my complete purchase history for at least a year. (And I can pull my Edison records online going back about three years, tho I know they have more on file since I did once order it back to the beginning of my current account.)

This isn't very much data in terms of raw bytes; for myself, I'd estimate my annual total for all such data (including not only purchases, but also my mortgage, phone, electric, etc.) is less than 10k. Given today's storage arrays, that's pretty trivial, even if there's an entry for every man, woman, and child.

Anyway, the "hidden file" theory may have escaped from an ill-fitted tinfoil hat, but there are already outfits that keep ALL your transaction data. And you may not have control over whether that is used only for non-personally-identifiable marketing (not a problem) or something more nefarious (see someone's post above about the slip-and-fall lawsuit where the store brought the guy's purchasing record into court, trying to prove he was a drunk. This was a real case, BTW.)

Not paranoid enough ...

[quarkscat]

"Just imagine tracking every single good sold every year in just the US - that's like 1 trillion items per year. That's one insane database you're talking about."

The whole problem with your scenario is that you are visualizing a single gargantuan database of RFID data. This is totally unworkable. Instead, think about each retail store, each manufacturer, and each service provider maintaining their own RFID datasets, and then making such data available to whichever marketing company (or government) pays the fees for access to that data. The USA government, under the aspices of the DHS and MATRIX (Poindexter's successor to TIA) the sharing of commercial databases with the governnment is already happening. That little nugget of info, plus the recent history of data collection companies like "Checkpoint" should bring images of Orwell's "1984" and "Minority Report" into proper perspective.

The concerns about the invasion of personal privacy are not "being paranoid", and the prospect of RFID tags being nearly ubiquitous in the future is not some "Reality Distortion Field" paranoid delusion.

The 'Necessary and Proper' Cycle

[The Monster]

I see any "RFID Killer" being classified as illegal as soon as it hiss the market.

Well, I don't have quite such a pessimistic outlook.

Ever hear of 'paraphernalia' laws? Tommy Chong went to prison for selling pipes that could be used to smoke marijuana. This is typical of how new laws are often made: A law is passed to criminalize activity based on a correlation to an existing illegal activity as a means to make the latter easier to enforce. After some time passes, the process repeats, with a new class of behavior criminalized to make it easier to enforce the prior law.

Soon we'll see laws against making 'precursors' to 'circumvention devices'; just you watch it happen.

The best way to fight high-tech is with low-tech

[pushf popf]

Nobody has ever developed an RFID chip that's mallet-resistant,

And if you have way too much time on your hands, you can swap them with your friends and neighbors for hours of fun and enjoyment.

No EULA = stolen jacket

[smose]

If only people would carry their name and photo on a little piece of plastic inside their wallet...

...then you'd get busted for wearing a stolen jacket. Until you re-register the jacket in your own name, and pay the applicable licensing fee, you aren't allowed to wear it.

Waiter! A tin foil hat for my friend, here. No, no, I insist. My treat.

Re:Paranoia is egotism

[lmlloyd]

You would be surprised who would care. Many businesses ask for permission to run a credit report on applicants before hiring them. They will then pay a fair amount of money to get a fairly detailed report that tells them a lot more about you than you might be comfortable with them knowing. By the same token, once they have that permission, they never need to ask for it again. Performance at work dropping off? Let's run another detailed report and see what's going on in his life outside of work, before we decide how to approach this. I have even known (particularly unpleasant) women who would run a detailed credit report on a guy before deciding if they wanted to get serious with him! I also know several people who rent properties they own, and you would be amazed at the detail they can (and do) get before deciding if they want to rent you a house. I have a friend who lived at my apartment for quite some time, simply because a good job, plenty of money, and a clean-cut appearance wasn't enough to get him over some irregularities on his credit report. He couldn't rent an apartment in any decent part of town, he couldn't buy a house, he couldn't stay in a hotel (no credit card for them to hold). He was a grown man forced for years to live with friends, simply because of his credit report. If that isn't ruining someone's life, then I don't know what is. Sure, if you own a house in the suburbs, never plan on moving, have a stable job, and plenty of money in the bank, I suppose you can be cavalier about how everyone is being paranoid. But if your life is at all out of the norm, then the amount of information being tracked about up can actually cause some very real problems in a society that is evermore leaning towards treating a credit score as an indication of how good a person you are.

RFID, making theft easier

[Dark Fire]

Theft and Burglary have just gotten easier with the aid of RFID technology. Now you can find out what is in someone's home or business just by driving by the building! No need to waste your time trying to profile homes and select the most profitable targets. Just drive through the neighborhood and make out your Christmas list. Point and click profiling. Brought to you by IBM.

hard money

[ChristTrekker]

Another reason to get back on the gold standard. Not only can't the gov't screw with the value of money by practicing inflation, but RFID can't work either.

Ay corrumba! A wacko sequel!!

[Rick Zeman]

But (no shit) she's already releasing a sequel:

The Spychips Threat : Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Computer Tracking

An updated version of the authors' previous Spychips, this book explores the inherent dangers of RFID (which stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is a technology that uses tiny computer chips to track consumer items and consumers) and shows how this powerful new technology actually fits into the schema of many evangelicals' interpretation of biblical prophecy. Compiling massive amounts of research with firsthand knowledge, Spychips explains how RFID works, reveals the history and future of the mater planners' strategies to imbed these trackers on everything (from postage stamps to shoes to people themselves), and ties in these ominous new devices to current Christian thought about the coming New World Order.

From:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1595 550216/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-0662104-7062340?_encodin g=UTF8&v=glance

I'm taking out a patent for a faraday cage lined..

[NecrosisLabs]

..trashcan.

I'm trying not to be paranoid about this stuff, and I understand the need for companies to make a buck, but this stuff just gives me the willies.

I also have a dream about those "loyalty" cards that are used to track shopping habits, it goes like this:

At the common areas in a public place (office, gym, whatever) there is a fishbowl filled with these loyalty cards. You need to go grocery shopping, so you go over, and pull out one for the store that you need, tossing in the one that is already in your wallet. You shop, and get the "discount" (as opposed to my perspective that I resent having to pay a premium to retain my privacy). Next week, you happen to be somewhere else before you go shopping. Toss in that last card, grab a new one! This would really do a number on their datamining accuracy.

I'm aware that some people use these cards for check validation and suchlike. This would only work for those who have them for the discount.

Re:Someone already tried microwaving the euros!

[Thud457]

Whuuuuuhh?

Re:Someone already tried microwaving the euros!

[badfish99]

What I want now is a note detector. It needs a range of about 10 feet, and a little screen that says how much money it is detecting, and shows a little arrow pointing in the right direction.

This will be extremely useful for my new career as a pick-pocket.

Re:The best way to fight high-tech is with low-tec

[HungWeiLo]

Imagine swapping RFID chips from various underwear vendors with your next-door neighbors.

Hilarity ensues from these outlyers of the marketing data.

Yes, carrying your ID works very well...

[Dr. Manhattan]

Pensioner freed after FBI bungle

"Derek Bond, 72, was held at Durban [South Africa] police station under FBI orders for nearly three weeks after being arrested at gunpoint while on holiday with his wife."

the real reason for dollar coin failure

[mkcmkc]

I recently had occasion to spend several hundred two-dollar bills in my day-to-day transactions, and it's made this question of why unconventional coin and currency haven't succeeded quite clear. In my experience, people almost uniformly love these rare items.

The reason they don't achieve widespread use is because merchants pull them out of circulation, rather than giving them out as change. Why do they do this? Perceived inconvenience, the idea that employees will mistake their value, etc. The solution? Remove alternatives (as the parent suggested), or offer them at a discount (e.g., 100 dollar coins for $99).

All of this theorizing about customers not liking them is just so much self-serving bilge.