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Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat
ndansmith writes "Bruce Perens posts in his blog about an amusing encounter between Richard Stallman and United Nations security at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. It seems that RFID technology, which Stallman opposes for privacy reasons, was used in the identification badges for the conference. From the blog: 'You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently.' During a keynote speech, Stallman also passed around the tinfoil for other to use as well. It seems that UN security was not amused, however, as they would not let him leave the room for some time." What makes this even funnier, of course, is that tin foil hats won't stop them.
They really had no idea who they were dealing with.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Wasn't the whole point of the MIT article that aluminum amplifies and tin degrades signals?
I'm confused... who am I supposed to root for? Stallman or the UN?
;)
Excuse me while I go curl into the fetal position in a corner until I resolve this dilemma.
I am an Army of 1 in 10
But I think this was just a message he was trying to get accross. Now what I wonder is why the security didn't let him leave? OH NOES HE HAS TIN FOIL OVER BADGES!!1 Unless they had something to hide...?
If the holeys in a mesh are half the size of the average wavelength of the radiation, practically none will get through, assuming it is made of the right material. The proper size mesh for RFID technology is left as an excerise for the reader.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"What makes this even funnier, of course, is that tin foil hats won't stop them."
:P
what are you talking about? Tin foil hats stop everything
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
You deserve what you get if you use aluminum foil. Any conspiracy theorist worth his salary won't accept anything less than genuine tin.
I take exception to many things that RMS says and does, but I'm with him 100% on this one. Way to go, Richard!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat
Best. Slashdot Heading. Ever.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
For months as this RFID contraversy has progressed, people on the 'dot have said, "well, you can always block it with a piece of foil if you don't want to be tracked".
Well, guess what? As predicted by a quick examination of human nature, they WON'T let you block your tracking devices. You will not have a choice as to when and where you will be tracked. This is just the very beginning, the closing of the gate, of our World Prison.
Tell me why again we have to have tracking devices embedded on our persons? I seem to have missed the reasoning. Terrorism?
Exactly. The story does NOT say "Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat". It says he wrapped his RFID card in aluminum foil, which is 100% effective in preventing reading the card without the card carrier's knowledge. The story also says that Mr. Stallman willingly took off the foil at checkpoints.
The guy has balls and he'll make a stand against what he believes in no matter how it looks. Sure, the tinfoil hat doesn't actually work, but it's a visible symbol that cannot be ignored. Without people like him making a visible protest on a forum that so many high-level people will notice, protests against tracking technologies are just pissing into the wind.
Rock on Richard.
I'm going to be flamed for this so I'll post AC.
I respect RMS. He's contributed a lot to the FOSS movement (but no, sorry, what I run is Linux). Several of his writings are thought-provoking. But on the other hand, we all want to see Linux become mainstream. Is this the image we want corporations to have about FOSS? One of its leaders childishly and purposefully gets in trouble with UN security for shielding his pass in aluminium foil. A movement led by immature pranksters. Is that the image we want?
Not at all. The "major purpose" of Bit Torrent is to transfer large files efficiently. Bram Cohen intended that to be used for entirely legal purposes such as Linux distributions. The fact that, like most tools, it had wider application is completely irrelevant. You can break into someone's home with a screwdriver ... that doesn't make a screwdriver inherently evil.
Bit Torrent and similar technologies simply give individuals more power. Yes, more power to do things that some organizations would rather they didn't do, but also more power to make their lives better as well. A trade-off, in other words, and one that (for once) is on the side of the many, rather than the few.
Valid complaints about RFID are generally not "RFID rechnology is just inherently evil", but are oriented against governments and/or criminal organizations that would use it to hurt people. Yes, there are many legitimate benefits conferred by RFID tech, but those must be balanced against the potential for people to get hurt by them. Thoughtless dissemination of RFID technology (such as the U.S. State Department was all set to do with passports) will cause a lot more damage than it is worth.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Are you sure it was the tinfoil?
I mean, if I was a security guy and got confronted by thisthis, I would be pretty nervous too!
Richard will surely be using transparent aluminum in many creative ways. It is the best of both worlds, you can see the RFID tag, you just can't scan for it.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The real story for this conference is the sad irony of having an information summit in Tunis, which violently suppresses freedom of expression.
You can read lots more stories here. I'm pretty surprised the freedom-loving editors at slashdot didn't pick this up as a separate story, it's much more important than Stallman's RFID-tinfoil stunt.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
By definition, it doesn't work if you play by their rules. If he'd just chosen not to show up, nobody would care. Doing this, however, caused enough of a commotion that we're now reading about it on Slashdot. This is exactly what RMS WANTED to happen!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Actually, beeing an electrical engineer, I can tell you that aluminum or tin would be an equally effective shield for RFID or any other frequency in which it is relativly large enough. (Relative to the wavelength used by the transmitting device..in the case of RFID it can use anything from 52 mm to 2398 m. No matter the frequency, encasing an entire object in metal foil will block its RF output as explained loosely below.)
If you wrap any RF transmitting device in tin OR aluminum foil, you are going to completely shield the device and no RF will get in or out because the foil would act as a farady cage.
This is because aluminum conducts electricity just fine, and as RF is composed of electro-magnetet waves, a solid conducting surface will act as a ground (short) and bounce the signal. If there is no way for the signal to escape, it wont.
Any electrically conductive material would have this property. You could (and it has been done many times) make a faraday cage out of aluminum just as easily as steel or tin. Aluminum of course only has about 60 percent of the electrical conductivity of copper so copper (actually silver but obviously too expensive) would be the ideal material, but for weak signals like RFID it is irrelivant and both would work fine.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
This is exactly what he intended. If they hadn't harassed him, then the story wouldn't be in the news, and nobody would know about it. However, he knew that this would most likely cause some kind of stink, which would generated a news story that gets people talking about the issue. Now we're all here thinking about RFD, just as RMS wanted.
RMS played the UN security like puppets on strings just the same way as terrorists play the administration and congress: they know what the knee-jerk reaction will be and they use it to their advantage.
lead is the only way to go
I used to use a anti-xray film bag for shoplifting, works a treat
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I always wonder what youin the West would do in the face of true evil. Soil your panties and faint, I imagine.
Perhaps you'll find that "true evil" can turn wusses into heroes. We sit on our fat asses, because we can.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It is extreamly common for people in authority to use other who have no say to deliver their messages. This is often done with the express purpose of pushing unreasonable requests on people, and creating exactly your feelings on anyone who complains. This is not just in government, but in jobs, and even in families.
How many people have had a review, that included a "wage review", at work where they are told that someone not involved in the meeting, and unaccessable to the employee, is the final decicion on their raise. This was the same thing.
So basically you are wrong. In most situations, being a jerk to the innocent guys just trying to do their job is the only way to get things changed. If your job is Henchman, expect to be treated like it.
Ladies and gents: Aluminum foil may not work for head-gear, but it will work just dandy for covering an RFID tag.
;~)
Tag == 100% wrapped.
Head != 100% wrapped (one would hope)
Aluminum foil is conductive. That and complete coverage is all you need for a faraday cage.
There are like 30 posts already that act like it won't work: it will. Want to test it? Wrap your walkman in foil and try to listen to FM. Freqs are different for RFID (probably), but it doesn't matter.
Take care not to touch the ant. of the radio to the foil though, or you may actually improve reception
--Mike--
``aluminum amplifies''
So now I know what they were doing with me in that incubator. They were installing an aluminum hat under my skin. Clever. I'll cut it out, though!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Stallman wanted to make a point, not actually stop the signal.
To him, the message was more important than what it actually did.
People more immediately understood the significance of wrapping it in tin foil than anything else.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Way to go, RMS! :P
Then Richard Stallman can run the world, of course.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
I oringally picked this up from Technocrat, a slash site where Perens is an editor/author (I added that fact in the post but it was scrubbed by CowboyNeal). His headline was as follows:
Richard Stallman gets in trouble with UN Security for wearing a tinfoil hat.
I wanted to preserve his concept while still getting the story out to the greater Slashdot community. Perens wrote the headline knowing full well it was aluminum over his name badge. Here is how I interpert his intention, and why I did it how I did it.
1. The difference between aluminum and tin foil is irrelevant. RMS was trying to make a point, and aluminum foil was all that was available.
2. "Tinfoil" hat was was indicative of its function, not position. Or perhaps this will help: he put a tinfoil hat on his badge. Anyway, the location of the foil is not the point of RMS's action nor Perens' post.
3. It's funny. Laugh.
RMS played the UN security like puppets on strings just the same way as terrorists play the administration and congress: they know what the knee-jerk reaction will be and they use it to their advantage.
With the small but important difference that RMS did not harm or kill anyone. Makes it easy to sympathize with him and his cause, which is not possible with terrorists.
Stallman did something completely appropriate. It made a point. It made a valid point. It made the point effectively by attracting attention and publicity. It did not hurt anybody. It caused the barest minimum of disruption and inconvenience.
It has probably brought the matter to the attention of U.N. officials who honestly didn't know or understand the problems with RFID, and regardless of their visible behavior I am sure that it educated the security people as well. I don't know whether this in itself will change policy, but I'd bet a nickel that behind the scenes there have been some discussions and briefings.
Now, the U.N. security people did as close to the right thing as you can imagine them doing. You can't expect them to make an instant technical analysis of the situation. The facts they were presented with were: a) the badges are being used for security, to make sure that only authorized people attend; b) Stallman was conspiciously doing something or other with the badges; c) they had no way of knowing whether it was any kind of security threat, but at least the possibility existed. Screwing around with a security pass is suspicious, even if you don't know what exactly to suspect, and even if in this case it was innocent.
They didn't arrest him. They didn't beat him up. They created the barest minimum of disruption and inconvenience to Stallman and to the meeting.
I say Stallman was effective, on a matter that has some real society importance. And I say the security guards' response was measured and sensible.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Or how they are trying to get the US to renovate the UN building in NYC and expecting to spend about a billion extra to do so (American Tax Dollars)
The USA is 1.3 billion dollars in arrears. How about you start paying what you owe before whining about it?
If the UN was so great, why the hell didn't they send in troops, kick the crap out of the warlords in Zimbabwe and Somalia (no official government to speak of) and then rebuild the crumbled societies?
Yeah, that's it. An organisation whose primary purpose is to stop war should invade countries! You must be American.
That was in 1997. STFU until you pay your debts, deadbeat.
mentioning the child rapes
Seriously, STFU.
Most infamous of which is the gang rape of a japanese schoolgirl in the 90's, which so outraged the population that the base is being relocated.
You can't take the sky from me...
Of course, one might want to make the argument that it didn't have the leverage to prevent it because the US never joined.. But let's not have facts get in the way of a good UN bash, right?
How often did Trump go bankrupt? That makes him an expert on projection cost and project planning how?
And that makes it the UN's fault how?
Look, the UN is not perfect, but it's better than any other option. Sort of like democracy.
Why exactly should we be carrying 25% of the total cost of the UN?
I'll bet that there is no reason we should pay 25%. We are one of 185 countries. We are one of I believe 7 on the permanent security council. The US I doubt has 25% of world economic output either, so I can't determine any other reason other than "the US should pay". Nice logic.
I don't get the sense of entitlement people have. What's your country paying?
It saddens me that so many here don't seem to understand a simple but very important concept behind Stallmans protest. It was a catch-phrase in the '60s. I was born in the '70s, but I guess I'm lucky that it was effectively taught to me.
I wish I could make this huge:
QUESTION AUTHORITY!
That is all RMS was doing. And when he did put the question to them we saw their reaction. It scares me, the number of people who think the UN's reaction was appropriate.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
What if you're doing something morally right, but illegal, or socially unpopular?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Well, yeah.
The human mind is meant to handle a tribe. We can keep track of a small group of people, knowing who can be trusted and who to be wary of.
Now we have cities with millions of people and transportation that takes us everywhere. Every day, we are faced with people we don't know.
We're struggling. Our tribal brains can't keep track of all the people we meet.
Every other rich country pays a little bit more than its fair share to compensate for countries in civil war or deep economic crisis. Japan for instance is paying 19% of the budget for less than 10% of the global GDP, Gernany 8% of the budget for less than 5% of the global GDP and so on. So with 24% of the budget for 21.17% of the global GDP, the U.S. contribution seen as a share of its GDP is already the lowest of all developped countries: in raw dollars, the U.S. assessments of $440,000,000 is 0.0037% of its GDP when Japan for instance pays $346,000,000 i.e. 0.0092% of its GDP. So you personally are contributing almost 3 time less of your annual incomes to the U.N. than a japanese or me in Europe. What about "everyone except the US has already paid its (proportionaly larger) share"?
If the U.S. was at least paying 21.17% of the budget instead of 24%, the complaints would not be so loud. The problem is that the U.S. has not even paid half its commitments for 2004, and not even 15% of its due for 2005 (that is less than 4% of the U.N. budget). In contrast, every other major contributor has already fully paid 2004 and 2005.
If you aggregate the effective payements made on the last 12 months, the U.S. is only the 6th contributor to the U.N. budget, behind Italy (2.89% of the world GDP)!
Here are the hard and daunting data (remember you asked for it):
http://www.globalpolicy.org/finance/tables/reg-bu
Why do you think U.S. officials always speak of the assessments (never the payments)?
Money owed by U.S. to U.N.: $1bn
9 p3.htm
Money owed by U.N. to U.S.: $4.7bn
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa10319
Slay a dragon... over lunch!