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Streamlining and Testing RFID Technology
Multiple readers have written to let us know that an experiment at the upcoming Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference will use RFID to track the movements of at least 1,500 registrants for the duration of the conference. Those movements will be transmitted onto screens which "show in real-time where people go, with whom they associate, for how long and how often." The system will also be used for games which involve manipulation of the available data. Meanwhile, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a method for testing large quantities of RFID tags, which may serve to greatly speed distribution.
At random intervals, pick a stranger and offer to swap tags. You could even devise rules for doing this in groups...
Games could be invented involving your favorite randomizers (dice, coins, chicken bones, shots of whisky) to spice up the action. Sounds like fun to me.
There's nothing that bugs me more with nascent technology than RFID. I don't mind it in products -- it would be great to inventory a warehouse, or, say a refrigerator, in minutes. Theoretically, I wouldn't mind RFIDs in identification cards, if it weren't so darned close to the skin. What really concerns me is RFID implants.
It reminds me of the tattooing of numbers on Jews during the holocaust, for the Third Reich to track them and 'dispose' of them. I'm not a Christian, but the whole "mark of the beast" stuff raises my hackles. It just seems way too open to abuse for any totalitarian-minded politician. At first it's just for medical records, then it's for routine identification stops... finally, there's some computer screen somewhere in a mountain showing the movement of every American citizen.
I don't know, I just have a very visceral reaction against the idea of an RFID implant. I have a phobia of needs; that might have something to do with it. If it really came down to the point where you had to have an RFID implant to participate in society, I don't know what I would do. I really don't. I might just drop out at that point, try to live in a cabin somewhere.
What do other geeks think? Am I being paranoid?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
And they will all go stand next to the hottest marketing chic/umbrella girl/eye candy they can find so they can go home pull up the project web page and say they '...associated with this totally hot babe'. Really though, how can they tell with RFID who someone is associating with vs. standing next to?
Never trust anyone who takes pride in being called a 'geek'....
You mean like a worst case scenario RFID environment? Might be interesting to see if anybody comes up with a system to extract usable info from this.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
I'll be there selling RFID Blocking wallets and passport cases =)Hardly. I bet HOPE is going to be a circus of people hiding RFID tags on each other, unsuspecting passers-by, luggage carts, equipment crates, laptops, and probably in capsules hidden in hamburger buns in the buffet. I expect very few tags to remain on their originally intended targets.