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Hitachi's Tiny RFID Chips
paltemalte writes "Hitachi has just come out with a new crop of RFID tags, measuring only 1/20 of a millimeter square. That's 1/8 the size (in linear dimension) of Hitachi's currently shipping mu-chips, which are 0.4 mm square. The new chip's width is slightly smaller than a human hair. These chips could put an end to shoplifting forever, but they could also be used by a governments or other entities to 'dust' crowds or areas, easily tagging anyone present without their knowledge or consent. Will someone come up with a surefire way of neutralizing chips that may be on your body or in your clothing?" Hard to pin down a source on this. The article cites another blog, which points to an article in Japanese.
The people who are concerned about "crowd-dusting" have some valid concerns. It might be one of those nifty little ways of keeping track of who showed up at the protest march, or something like that.
On the other hand, I don't know what the effective range is on these RFID chips. If it is more than 30 feet, then I'd definitely worry. If it's less than 3 feet, then by-hand scanning or pass-through-booth scanning are the only ways of effectively managing that.
If it's between those two ranges, then... I wouldn't panic. Yet.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Not really - the range on RFID chips is pretty small, you'd have to have readers installed everywhere, and privacy groups would be up in arms about that (not that they aren't already up in arms about the issue of RFID slowly pervading many aspects of daily life).
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Unless you use a large antenna (several centimetres squared) you are talking about a range of millimetres.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Are these the same people they are going to use the microwave passive weapon on?
To elaborate, there are RFID chips with embedded antennas but they obviously have very limited range. The other issue that should be recognized by people with concerns about "crowd dusting" is just how hard it is to build RFID systems that can handle reading lots of tags at once without collisions.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
An RF alarm at the door going off is NOT probable cause that a theft has occurred (since the dumb cashiers often forget to deactivate them after purchases, and due to false alarms). So any retails store dumb enough to allow its employees to detain a person based on such an alarm had better get their checkbooks out for false arrest, battery, and defamation claims...
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You know, these damn things don't help find lost kids one bit. If a kid is lost no tag that basically says his name is going to be any better than the kid telling a cop his name. I think just about everybody in the world who can talk can pretty much remember their own name.
You can't take the sky from me...
Here's a scary thought :
You work for some branch of the Federal Government, and you attend a protest rally. You get "dusted", and when you show up for work the next day the RFID reader you walk through (in the metal detector you pass through) alerts your bosses that you were at the rally.
That information then effects your career, or worse.
I'm sorry, but if this is true , Hitachi has lost all of my respect (yeah, like they care)
On the bright side, a broad range RFID reader that oscillates from the lowest to highest frequencies could tell you if you were 'hot' , and possibly point out where on your body the 'flea' attached itself. I wonder if Hitachi will make those next? (If indeed there is merit to TFA).
Scary shit fellas. No doubt about it.
And they're already there as a means of anti-counterfeiting.
Do you really think our government is capable of putting into place the infrastructure you'd need to "track cash"?
Every POS machine would need to have this "secert uber reader chip" installed, and have some means of connectivity to report movements.
And still, they might know someone spend a particular $20 at 7-11 for a pack of camels and a bag of chex mix, but how do they track that to a who? I guess they install the video cameras with the face-matching technology to line it up. Which woul dmake me wonder, what useful information does the cash hold, that the video camera system wouldn't?
It's just so absolutely ludicrious on the face of it. If our government was capable of even launching such a program, then we'd have much, much scarier things to worry about.
I really don't see how "tracking cash" could be any scarier, or more useful to anybody, than playing the "wheres george" game online with singles.
Nothing ties you to a note of currency, unlike cheques and credit cards.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
We all know that RFID can be read from geosynchronous satellites - they have shown that in lots of movies. Also, those roving satellites that they can move around whereever they are needed. I'm sure you have seen that in movies also.
So, we have a micro-sized RFID chip that will let anything be tracked from orbit, easily and without anyone else knowing about it. This technology will soon be embedded in everything from the clothes we wear to the food we eat. That would be a really simple way to get the tracking devices into everyone, wouldn't it?
Of course we wouldn't want to interrupt our movie-tech fantasy here with even the tinyest bit of reality. So we can forget about RFID having an EXTREMELY limited range and requiring compariatively large antennas to work. No, no. We all need to be extremely concerned about the Government (any government) wanting to track individual citizens. And employers wanting to keep track of people every second of every day so they can be sure they aren't giving any help to competitors or making money outside of their regular job. And how could we be concerned if we bothered to learn about RFID and how it really works. It is much better to read blogs and scary opinions of people that are in the group concensus about how dangerous this is.
Remember, it is much better to be in a group of thousands and knowing they feel the same way about something rather than being the only one with the truth. Why, you'd be all alone then!
I don't know if "dusting" a group of people would work very well because after the event the tags would get on anyone that passed thru the area. You would get identified as being at the event when you simply passed thru after it was over.
Hmm, better also :
Wash your jacket (if you wore one, and never wear flannel to a protest rally), shoes, hat, backpack, etc, too, while you're at it
Then, hope, just HOPE the food you ate doesn't contain polymer coated versions of these that 'stick with you' until passed.
I'm kind of laughing at my own paranoia while writing this, the scary part is, this time its well founded. The only good that can come of this is millions of conspiracy nuts finally find the validation they've been searching for
Lucky for you Hitachi mentions the frequency: 2.4GHz. Assuming this device uses a quarter-wave dipole, you're looking at a 6.5cm long antenna. That'd be pretty noticeable.