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Brazilian Schoolchildren Tagged By Computer Chips
New submitter smi.james.th writes with an AP story, and extracts from it: "'Grade-school students in a northeastern Brazilian city are using uniforms embedded with computer chips that alert parents if they are cutting classes, the city's education secretary, Coriolano Moraes, said Thursday.' Personally I don't find this too inspiring. Mr. Orwell certainly has warned the world about this."
I sure hope pedophiles in Brazil can't hack or learn to hack. Holy crap this is bad on so many levels
Doing this with chips is barbaric. We must do this with cameras and biometrics, hopefully also we'll get drones involved somehow. That's the American way!
Sounds like the ideal provocation to strip buck naked and cut some class.
Technology CANNOT solve social problems. It can only hide symptoms.
It promises security and at the same time obviates the need for the parents to be responsible - the perfect American dream.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I'm assuming this is just an rfid system and not something more elaborate. The question becomes what happens to students who are reported absent by malfunctioning or poorly set up equipment and incorrect information in databases?. In an ideal world, this wouldn't be a problem since the student would be able to verify their presence some other way, then the problem would be conscientiously addressed and corrected. This is the real world, however. In the real world, school administrators tend to be authoritarians and extremely blunt thinkers. The prevalence of ill-thought out "zero tolerance" policies in the area of education makes this perfectly clear. Students identified as absent by this system probably won't be given a chance to prove their innocence and may stand a good chance of being punished more harshly if they try.
Declaring that this is bad is a joke. These are tags in the uniforms of CHILDREN. It is as orwellian as putting RFID in my dogs. I would love to know if my teens cut school. And I am just fine with using a tag in their clothes.
Now, if they want to do this to an adult, or forced embed it in a human, that is a DIFFERENT issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That is probably illegal in Brazil. Even if it is legal to do that to the kids, their parents might object.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Don't tell the kids there are 'magic transmitters' in their school uniforms - they'll just take off the RFID tag-laden article of clothing and put it in a friends backpack...
And the teachers will wonder how her computer says every student is in the class when half the seats are empty?
Ken
That works until classes start moving around, like gym, theatre, shop, etc or meeting in different rooms. Not to mention having to make special cases for days with assemblies, field trips and other special circumstances.
I'd guess that would be a huge load of work, and schools would be better off just making sure kids are in the school itself, and letting the teachers and staff ensure that students are in class once they're inside.
Take off your T-shirt and give it to a friend. He will enter and stay in school with it. At the end of class, take it back outside the school.
The actions those kids take when not in class could have a harmful and costly impact on others (vandalism, illegal drug use causing health problems that must then be paid for, a lack of education resulting in more stupid grown-ups that can't hold a job and drag on the economy, etc.). In addition, plenty of parents want their kids to go to school because it keeps them safe and is ultimately good for them.
I guess you didn't take into account the psychological harm from obsessive, oppressive, non-stop surveillance into every aspect of life.. your statement here is also quite black and white.. school is not pure 'good' or pure 'bad', nor does cutting a class equate to 'vandalism' or drug use (which is also not pure 'good' or pure 'bad.')
This doesn't just apply to kids, it applies to everyone. The actions any person takes impacts one's neighbors, and as such everyone has direct incentives to encircle everyone else in systems of control. This isn't a matter of "them" wanting to take "our" freedoms away. It is am matter of "us" wanting to make sure "they" don't do things that have a negative impact on "us." This principle is universal.
and this is the attitude that will ensure we do live out that dystopia of infinite control of others = infinite freedom for the individual. is that really what you want?
How long until little Suzie is carrying around 4 shirts/skirts in her bag for $10 each for her friends?
It sounds like it's just automated attendance. Your RFID in your shirt gets scanned at the door. No different than a teacher taking attendance the old-fashioned way. A lot of schools call the parents if their student is marked absent, so it's no different than that.
With a big clump of people moving thought the door at the same time may lead to missing a few reads and with a big load of people beeps may not help as much as they do with one person at a time with a turnstile.
Many kids already enter their school single file through the metal detector, so they'll be able to get clean RFID reads.
I've run dozens of road races where literally hundreds of people were running across the RFID mats at the start, finish and random split locations, and I can only think of one instance where I didn't get a chip time (which is recorded separatly from clock time), and that was the time that someone stepped on my foot in a crowded start, flattening out the RFID tag (which put a kink in the antenna). I think RFID can handle a few dozen kids walking through the doorway together.
The actions those kids take when not in class could have a harmful and costly impact on others
Right. Just like you could be a murderer. But I'd prefer not to assume guilt or restrict actions based on what could happen.
They might want them to be in school, but I don't see that as a reason to be overly paranoia about it. It's not the end of the world if they skip class a few times.
and is ultimately good for them.
That would really depend on what you think of the current public educational system.
Do you really think they're putting a GPS (plus some kind of GSM modem to keep track of the location ) in each uniform? And that whole setup fits "underneath each school's coat-of-arms"?
It's probably a basic RFID tag that gets logged by a reader by the door.
They don't need GPS to track RFID chips on-campus, they just need RFID readers at every classroom and building exits.
Ah yes, the conservative mentality: children are pets of their adult owners.
Conservatives are the ones for freedom and elimination of government oversight at all levels.
Liberals are the ones who do things "for your own good".
Get it straight man or you end up voting for exactly the opposite result as you desire. See: present.
Actually conservatism is all about worship of the status quo. It is the belief that it should change very slowly if at all. It's misused all the time by people who don't understand it, and so has become one of those words that means whatever the speaker intends it to mean. But that's the actual definition; look it up if you doubt me.
Libertarians (similar to classical liberals, nothing like modern liberals) are the ones who want to maximize freedom. Libertarianism is the belief that consenting adults should be able to do whatever the hell they want, no matter who disapproves, so long as they don't pose a threat to non-participants. Libertarianism would seriously take off as a political movement if it were possible to get candidates on the ballot for all major elections, which is why the two-party duopoly creates ridiculously elaborate, inconsistent, burdensome electoral rules and deeply entrenched funding mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
Of course, "convervative" has been co-opted as a term and now tends to mean someone who is prudish, religious in an institutional (not personal) way, and wishes their preferred lifestyle to have the force of law, combined with the celebration of corporate power over state power. Just like "liberal" has become co-opted to mean "we know what's good for you" social engineering as well as an obsession with group identity (black, white, female, etc) at the expense of dealing with people as individuals. In that sense conservatives tend to be materialistic while liberals tend to be utterly childish and unable to separate their emotions from reason. Both are the delight of power-hungry politicians everywhere because both can be pandered to.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The chips are placed underneath each school's coat-of-arms or on one of the sleeves below a phrase that says: "Education does not transform the world. Education changes people and people transform the world."
Well, challenge one done, location of the chips
Challenge two:
Moraes said adding that the chips have a "security system that makes tampering virtually impossible."
Challenge accepted! This is going to be LEGEND----- wait for it---- DARY!!! (-- Barney)
Back in the 1980's when they started tagging dogs and cats, - by inserting a chip into the neck of the animal, - in the name of "identify owners of lost pets", I already wondered aloud when will they start doing the same thing to human beings
This Brazilian example only tag students via chips embedded in their school uniform
Wait till someone come up with similar scheme with what they did to dogs and cats - insert chips into the body of human beings - and I am sure they can come up with whatever grandiose reason to justify what they do
It would be not that dis-similar to the tattooing of Jews by the German Nazis
Those who do not learn from history will find ways to repeat it
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I feel like this will encourage streaking. I streaked a few times during high school for laughs, now it will be useful for cutting class. I am certain this will backfire in short order.
-g
Not only that, but he never predicted RFID chips. Orwell wasn't the only person to predict government surveillance, people give him too much credit. He wrote of video and audio surveillance, thought police, and media control, all of which already existed at the time of writing. His main contribution in terms of new ideas was popularising the whole package as a well known dystopia (not that it seems to have helped), and the idea of doublespeak and language corruption.
I get a SMS if my car moves 2ft when I'm not in it. My 3 yellow labs all have id chips as well as GPS trackers. My laptop and phone have "find me" features so I don't loose my precious terminal.
However your kids, your husband, wife, parents run around in complete secrecy under the guise of "privacy"
When people aren't looking, people do HORRIBLE THINGS. When teachers aren't looking kids do screwed up things, uncles "touch" and ask to not "tell", priests take advantage, people have strokes on hiking trips, pass out in bars.
I should not only know where my most precious humans are, but I should know they are safe, conscious and alive.
Sex trafficking, kidnapping, dump luck kill, wounds and mentally damages the brother and sisters and wives and husbands of all of us, and we sit around saying " oh it's totally worth it, because "privacy" is so critical.
I grew up in a town with a secret gov facility. We were all under constant surveillance We all knew it.
If sunlight or starlight can touch you, so can anyone who wants to. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.
It's time we get over that book and start taking care of our loved ones.
It MUST be transparent. It MUST have watchers watching watchers watching watchers. It MUST be optional.
and we MUST stop losing humans like car keys.
And what purpose does this serve? have teachers completely forgotten how to take attendance? I know it's low tech, but it's a whole lot more accurate, cheaper, and much less orwellian.
Not to mention it puts the responsibility with an adult that should already be investing time, energy, and interest in the child's welfare. Not only will that always be better than an automated system, it's also the right thing a teacher should be doing anyways.
That means, they'll use whatever equipment an expensive contractor can sell. And it won't limit the liberty of the children, because it will work badly for 6 months and none at all after that.
That is, it will have a chance of working badly if some tribunal somewhere don't declare it illegal. Otherwise, it won't even be turned on.
Rethinking email
TFA says the following:
The T-shirts, can be washed and ironed without damaging the chips, Moraes said adding that the chips have a "security system that makes tampering virtually impossible."
A microwave probably would destroy the chips, as would any strong enough EM source, but they're used to monitor whether a child is entering or leaving the school. So in other words, if the chip is dead, even if the child is in class, the system wouldn't have registered him because of lack of chip and the parents would get a snotty text message.
FWIW, I'd probably try and destroy it as well though. Just to show how much I loved it.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
Well, the Nazis started with badges on the clothing, and moved up to embedding the ID on the person.
I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find someone to double up on uniforms... or you know, find the chip, take it out, stick it in some else's pocket, which is what I would have done in school.
But now I'd probably just start collecting uniforms and microwaving them in the cafeteria... "I paid for the uniform, the uniform is fine, too bad about your chip"
Libertarianism would seriously take off as a political movement if it were possible to get candidates on the ballot for all major elections, which is why the two-party duopoly creates ridiculously elaborate, inconsistent, burdensome electoral rules and deeply entrenched funding mechanisms to prevent this from happening.
By your argument, in countries where political systems do not have a two-party duopoly, and third parties can easily get on the ballot and garner votes, they should do really well. Why, then, it does not happen in practice?
E.g. in New Zealand, the parliament is elected using MMP, making it pretty easy for small parties to get at least one candidate in. Yet, their Libertarian party has never managed to get a single seat - they've tried five times under MMP, getting less than 1% of votes every time (in fact, 4 out of 5 times, they've got less than 0.1%), and their individual candidates didn't fare well in any district, either.
I'm not aware of any country, no matter what electoral system is in place, that had ever given a libertarian party a notable presence in the parliament, much less a majority.
actually, it's quite different. one is a local track driven by relationship between teacher and student, the other, part of a database that becomes a permanent record and sets misguided expectations of the future.. the real harm is that it teaches the kids...err politicians/economic leaders of tomorrow that computer programmed heuristic driven surveillance is acceptable, even for trivial things, and psychologically healthy. it sends a message that people are cattle or assets that need pervasive tracking. this is not an attitude we need in a culture that aspires to individual liberty. I'd even argue that attendance itself is a step in that direction.. there's no need to know where the kid is every minute of every day. if his grades are good, it's fine. if they're not, well, then look into why. this is another cowardly example of school systems wanting the power, yet shirking the responsibility with automation (ie getting to know your students in this case).
1984 was puerile, unsubtle propaganda, and almost as laughably hysterical as the commenters who refer to it at least once per thread. Don't you realize how utterly boring and mindless it is to repeat, again and again, that "Orwell warned the world"?
Do you think that gesticulating wildly in the direction of 1984 makes you look smart? It's a children's book.
I agree 100%. Being made to go to class is EXACTLY IDENTICAL to being put in an oven.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Indeed. The problem is this - Most people aren't libertarians.
Everyone wants to be free, but few want everyone to be free.
Until this changes, none of us can be free.
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