Using Tech To Create Safe and Ethical Retail Supply Chains (forbes.com)

As manufacturing gets more distributed, it gets more anonymous in some ways: the parts for one computer might have been made in several countries, and even the assembly might have been split between more than one place; place of origin is complicated, and typically opaque for the purchaser of consumer goods. However, modern logistics and tracking mean that it doesn't have to be a mystery, and stages of a device's production can in theory be traced, which means that buyers and intermediaries can decide to buy essentially identical products and components based on factors like whether coffee is shade grown, or whether production line workers are treated in line with the buyer's own ethical demands. A slice from an article at Forbes about this kind of logistics-based practical ethics: An anonymous reader writes: Certain companies are taking this a step further, by using technology to assist workers in their day-to-day activities – for example, BMW is creating bespoke thermoplastic polyurethane thumb protectors for their factory workers. Others are working on ways of incentivizing behavior on top of these systems. Levi's is piloting a program where they offer cheaper short-term credit to companies that meet their safety levels. While it's true that this would result in an initial upfront cost, the whole reason CSR programs were created to begin with was to obtain legitimacy and the appearance of good corporate citizenship. If consumers wanted fair supply chains to be a priority, they could let their shopping habits speak louder than their words. Technologically speaking, we are not far off from a point where price tags could also include a QR code that has a geotagged history of all the places the item has been.

Comments

Forbes again???

[wbr1]

FUCK FORBES! http://www.extremetech.com/int...

This behavior will stop.. this is our internet.

History of all the places the item has been?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Technologically speaking, we are not far off from a point where price tags could also include a QR code that has a geotagged history of all the places the item has been.

Do we really want that on sex toys?

A good idea, but perhaps not a new one?

[ClickOnThis]

At first glance, it appears to resemble the objective of the Kimberly Process which is to eliminate the trade in so-called conflict diamonds.

One industry already does this, as far as I know

[morethanapapercert]

If I understand the certification process, this is already being done with aviation and aerospace components and certain critical types of military equipment. If you purchase, for example, a grade 8 bolt and matching castle nut for an aviation application, it comes with a manufacturers document that guarantees it met spec when tested at their plant. The testing equipment the manufacturer uses also has its certificate(s) indicating who made it, when it was last calibrated, what the accuracy can be expected to be and so on. EVERY part on a commercial aircraft is supposed to have this chain of documented specs and testing. All of that testing and record keeping adds to the manufacturing overhead, in turn greatly increasing cost. As a result; there is a thriving black market in stolen, superannuated or outright counterfeit aviation parts. There is enough margin there to make creating counterfeit documentation well worth the effort.

Another example; more closely related to the point expressed in the article is jasmine rice. Like legitimate champagne or shade-grown fair trade coffee, jasmine rice is much sought after in the marketplace. Like champagne, "real" jasmine rice is supposed to be rice of a specific variety, grown in certain regions. There have been efforts to form grower and marketer groups that can create brands, authorize use of group logos and so on. And yet, adulterated or counterfeit jasmine rice is rampant in Asian marketplaces.

The point I'm making here is that, if a given product can demand a premium price compared to alternatives or competitors, disreputable people will find a way to get a taste of that action. Using technology can make the documentation process cheaper to implement and maintain, but ultimately I doubt it can provide as much assurance of product provenance as the public believes. The best that I think could be done would be a collection of RFID tags attached to every product. Each organization, at each stage of the manufacturing process, would add their own RFID tag, encrypted with their own key. A customer who doubted the provenance of the product could, in theory, decrypt the tag using the manufacturers public key and thus be assured the manufacturer is responsible for that tag.

This would be unwieldy as hell, an added expense, and wouldn't work anyway. You still have the problems of a) Is that the product the tag was originally attached to? b) Can we be sure the manufacturers key hasn't been compromised? c) Can we be sure that the manufacturer isn't lying? d) how far back along the chain are any users or value adders expected to go to ensure the nature of the product? e) how can we arrange things so the end user will actually bother to check these things? (and keep checking them every now and again) Some people read the label, but not everyone. And even among those who read the label, how many read that label every time they purchase it? Doing the due diligence is a huge pain in the ass, you're going to see non-compliance all over the place.

Slashdotters will easily recognize that this situation has a lot of resemblance to the problem of internet security. It all boils down to a chain of trust and every link in that chain is a potential flaw to be exploited.