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Students In UK Tracked With RFID Chips
An anonymous reader writes "Ten kids in a pilot program in the Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England will participate in a program that puts RFID chips in students' uniforms to keep track of their whereabouts. A group called 'Leave Them Kids Alone' is opposing the program. Bruce Schneier blogs: '...Now it's easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you're elsewhere.'"
lost my shirt trying to make the first post...
I think this is a very responsible use of "human monitoring". Its voluntary, its in there CLOTHES, and its only useful at school. Something like this I can understand. Now I did not RTFA, but I hope this is only used at exits/entrances to the school grounds. Just as a way of telling if they are there or not. Could be very useful in fire drills, bomb threaths, and lock downs. To tell who is at the school still, or left.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Ten kids in a pilot program in the Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England will participate in a program that puts RFID chips in students' uniforms to keep track of their whereabouts.
Clearly, this measure is needed, as the government doesn't yet have enough cameras to track everyone individually.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I think this is a very responsible use of "human monitoring". Its voluntary, its in there CLOTHES, and its only useful at school.
Yeah, but when you start requiring specific clothes, all you're going to do is entice the teenagers to get naked. You don't want to have naked teenagers on your hands, do you? I know I would. I mean, wouldn't. Right.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It's happening:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
1) Kids still need to have a physical presence. If they are not in attendance, but their shirt seems to be walking around the school, then it is clear that they have deliberately tried to circumvent the requirement to be in school during school hours.
2) RFID is only an identifier, not a tracker. For someone to actively track a kid, they'd still have to follow the tried and true method of skulking and bush-hiding and slow van driving.
I made the comment earlier that SecurityFocus and Bruce Schneier were causing more damage than good due to chicken-little-ism and this kind of reactionary idiocy. The "security experts" are fighting against Big Brother, but that's not where the security problems lie. Big Brother, at any time, can subpoena all your stuff and any security measures you've taken are for naught. It's the people who don't have the legal power to require you to open up that you need to be secure from. RFID does not make you any less secure because it doesn't increase your "securable surface area". It requires the same proximity that sight does, and if you're that close to danger already, then your risk quotient is too high to be affected by RFID.
But the record plainly shows he spent all day up inside the ceiling tiles. Off to search for the real perpetrator, cheery-o!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Clothes fresh from the dryer feel wonderfully warm and cozy, but who has the time to wait for the dryer to warm up all the way?
A quick, easy solution is to pop your clothes in the Microwave for a few seconds, and Presto!, warm and fuzzy!
Just don't try it with metal zippers or buttons, nylon might melt, you might start a fire...
There's a huge difference between the government being able to subpoena your records and records of your movement (e.g. cellphone provider logs) and the government being able to have "always-on" monitoring of you at all times "just in case." Automated tracking via software elevates government snooping to whole new levels that would never be possible with simple "sight." It's not really fair to compare the two.
Your other points are somewhat valid, but if you can't see that, I don't think you're qualified to make any judgments on Schneier or other security experts.
England Prevails.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Child abuse.
These two words describe a situation where an abuse is perpetrated on a child.
These people are children, and probably do not have the full context to understand just how bad life can get when they are older, and realize that most of the owrld is out for themselves and there are no parents or teachers around to protect them.
As for calling it abuse: using tech like this to track other people has not yet become abuse - but I feel strongly that is exactly where this trend will go. It will migrate from voluntary to beneficial to compulsory and eventually, to involuntary. Already in the US and in bars in Latin America do we hear about people putting them in their skin. In the name of safety, in the name of peace, in the name of efficiency, in the name of prosperity and growth and everything good, people will eventually be forced to accept the tracking chip that tracks them cradle to grave. And when we are there, we will look back at these voluntary, ignorant, precious children and realize that it was an abuse to start the process.
Somehow in this techstrubation system I see research like this that has completely lost touch with what is good about living simply, without gadgets or crutches or machines that inevitably make things better for a minority of people in power, but worse for a majority of not-in-power people.
Sensors have been added to warn school officials if the students' pants are being worn too low.
Have gnu, will travel.
I would sign up for such a program SPECIFICALLY to mess with it.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.