User: crnjapan

tracking passports and collision avoidance ID

On: Hackers Clone E-Passport

I have read that all rfids have a unique serial number called a collision avoidance ID. Its apparantly very low level and little talked about. But its necessary so that a scanner can differentiate between multiple rfid's places next to each other. Think bag of groceries or even a queue of people waiting to get thru customs. So if you have an rfid in your pocket, you can be tracked, period.

Re:Tamiflu

On: Bird Flu May Be Developing Drug Resistance

What Chinese farmers have reportedly been using on birds is not tamiflu, but the antiviral amantadine. So any immunity to amantadine will not effect tamiflu. Tamiflu is not cheap, so dont worry about them switching to it in the near future. Also, the WSJ had a story on Dec 12, 2005 titled "Chinese Scientist Says Bird-Flu Virus Is Stable" with the following quotes. (sorry, cant find a stable link to it, but search wsj.com to find it.)

Also encouraging is the possibility that the antiviral drug amantadine may be more effective at combating bird flu in humans than scientists believed. Amantadine is far more widely available and less expensive than oseltamivir...

All of the samples of the virus that have been isolated from patients in China would be sensitive to amantadine, Dr. Shu said. Those findings dovetail with research on virus samples that have been taken from patients in Indonesia and also show sensitivity to the drug, according to Hariadi Wibisono, director of vector-borne disease control for the Indonesian Ministry of Health in Jakarta.

So although I do read the above with some skepticism, given the historical level of truthfulness of the source country, it does raise the possibility that even amantadine may have some punch left. Ill be stocking up.