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Sun, Motorola Want Radio Tags In All Consumer Goods

Posted by timothy on Sat Feb 17, 2001 11:09 PM
from the wait-for-cue-cat-mk.-III dept.
Privacy
NortonDC writes: "Now we know why Sun's Scott McNealy tells people to 'Get over it,' namely that his company is in the forefront of an effort to assault any hope of buying and using anything with privacy. This article from an MIT publication documents the collaborative effort by Sun, Motorola and others to tag all consumer items with transmitting radio tags that uniquely identify each individual item with a 96-bit ID, for less than a penny each." In fairness, there are a lot of fine and legitimate uses that I would have no problem seeing these used for, but the possibilities for tracking you closer than you'd like are obvious.
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  • Then how would it count how many were bought? Sure, ot could measure signal strength, but I presume that this would be affected by position too. Hard to distinguish two cartons far away from the sensor from a single one closeby.

    Moreover, there's the issue of not billing you again at your next visit to the store for items that are already payed for (clothes you wear, that half empty pack of tissues in your pocket, ...).

    These issues do not occur with UPC codes, because those are scanned individually, rather than putting the whole shopping cart through the scanner.

  • Do you have a new car equipped with an immobilizer security setup? If so, open up the head of your key, I think you'll find a little RF ID device inside of there. Granted, nobody should be reading your car key's RF ID other than your car, but I think it would be possible. In essence, you are already tagged!!
  • Prevents smuggling, shrinkage, and subscriber theft, right(ck the EULA).

    Take a quarter sized watch battery toss on a small RF emitter circuit and a little adhesive.
    The act of firmly placing the jammer on a scanner activates the power and the jammer works for about 20 minutes. That is long enough to unload that trailer full of PentiumX chips or sneak a shelf full of warez out of the local corporate mechandising centre. And the cost? Mere pennies as compared to the cent for each package they protected.

    Of course they really want to put the scanner in your cable box at home and scan the goods you bring home. And as long as Geeks keep making the countermeasures available , Joe LameAss Grifter will be just smart enough to use them in his thefts.

    Net Gain - some Marketing /Distribution info for the Corps.


  • Right, but I *want* to burn out the tag. If the store wants to verify a return item, they are going to have to do it the old fasioned way, by having a human read off the serial number. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: I insist that RFID tags be burned out on anything I buy. If stores won't do it for me, I will do it myself.
  • this isnt really anything new.. supermarkets have been after doing this kind of thing for years.. imagine it.. no more queing up stareing at the checkout girls breasts :/ instead just push yer trolley through a scanner and itll pick up all of the barcodes.. well.. this idea clearly has its pros and cons :)

  • Sooner or later, someone will find a way to query these tags at a distance, or listen at a distance as another reader closer to these tags queries them. I would assume that such attacks would be similar to the so-called "tempest" attacks we talk about being conducted against computers.

    A PBS special (I believe as part of Nova) showed a espionage expert watching a user type on a keyboard in an office complex across the street. He claimed he could have been a quarter mile away and still receive that data. This gives a potential watcher plenty of distance; they could mount such a watching device in the cable junction box on your street.

    I would assume that 96-bits of data would be sent at a reasonably slow rate for accuracy, although likely slightly faster than that of a keyboard. Given that fact, I don't see how these devices would avoid remote detection against a determined party. While we may not have to worry about big brother or big business doing this to everyone, I worry that many private investigators likely will jump at the chance. "Wonder what your spouse is doing? Wonder no more..."

    Granted, these could have some good uses as well. Combining existing at-the-door alarm systems with a database of which items were recently sold, and many thieves would just give up. But a permanent way to deactivate these tags after sale must be provided. The tag likely doesn't keep track of who has queried it.

  • Just to keep this clear, the main point here not being about Bush or Clinton, but that the over all trend of things keeps turning on the little red warning lights in the back of the skull.

    In response to your comments, there is a bit about how Prescott Bush made the family fortune. For example, there is this [geocities.com]:

    Interesting details on the financing of Hitler and dealings with the Nazi regime are in the book George Bush, The Unauthorized Biography (1992) by Webster Griffin Tarpey and Anton Chaikin. Published by the Executive Intelligence Review, P. O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390. ISBN # 0-943235-05-7. 659 pages. Price $20.00.

    Quoted without omissions from pages 33 and 34: "On March 19, 1934, Prescott Bush (father to George Snr) - then director of the German Steel Trust's Union Banking Corporation -initiated an alert to the absent Averell Harriman about a problem which had developed in the Flick partnership.

    Note the connection to a major German company, not a sin in its' day, but in the larger context it presents a possible problem.

    In that context, some folks can't get out of the thinking of like Father, like son.

    That being said, there were a large number of companies that tried to play boths sides for profit. The most recent news story on this had to do with IBM, but there are plenty of others that would like to string up some of the Rockerfellers for treason, etc. (for example)

    Mind you I am generally not a conspiracy theorist. but these guys keep coming up with so many little details that it is hard to track every thing down. And of course, if certain folks were that bad, then they would be busy all of the time, doing things.

    I am starting to think that fascism wears the face of a bean counter, and is generally otherwise apolitical (ie, not democratic or republican)

    I am sure that you can bring up the infamous dead friends of Clinton list, now rather incredibly long.

    As I said, the main point here not being about Bush or Clinton, but the over all trend of things keeps turning on the little red warning lights in the back of the skull

  • Here's a nice scenario: Thief wanders down the street and decides he need a Sony DS9 VCR. Pulls out his handy radar transmitter and thinks to himself - hey look like there's a DC9 VCR at house number 3, 10 and 12b. I think I steal the VCR from 12b. Now that he has the VCR, he can tear off the radio tag to prevent anyone using a similar technique to trace it back to him.

    Guess this will probably end up being another device that provides very little benefit compared to the loss of privacy endured by consumers.
  • The privacy concerns are raised by the plans, explicitly stated in the article, to push home scanners as indispensable appliances. The intention is to allow these scanners to communicate with the manufacturers and vendors, while gathering detailed information about consumer habits and camouflaging it as convenience (see the bit about the scanner in the fridge).

    If this marketer's dream came true, then there would be some serious privacy concerns. But if you listen to anybody who says "In the future, we'll all have [insert technology here]," we were all supposed to have intelligent fridges buying stuff for us 5 years ago. Right now, my fridge just keeps stuff cold, and that's the way I likes it.

  • It's the databases behind them.

    The tags contain nothing but an id (not stricktly true but hey), they mean nothing untill linked to a backaend database, which can then be used for tracking. Unfortunately this already happens, just not with the tags. Companies are already using snipits of information about each purchase (credit card number, name & address for warenty info) to build up profiles of individuals.

    The tags won't do anything new, just make it easier for people that already track us to identify A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT. not a person.

    RFID tags are only really usefull until the item is sold (for tracking batches from production to sale), the read distance is only short (I think the current max is 3 meters) and so cannot realisticaly be read once the item has left the shop. So what ties that item to an idividual? nothing we're not already giving them. Only if a name or bank number or other peice of info which uniquly identifies the person is given over as anyone got any chance of tracking YOU.

    Simple solution - never give your name or bank details out (!?!) then no one can link the purchase to you, whether the tags are used or not.

    I don't believe there has been any suggestion of using these tags as bank cards etc.

    DaveB

    btw, they can do other things than just store a number, some can be reprogramable, and it is perfectly feasable to have limited processing onboard too. Perhaps to allow traffic to be incrypted?

  • An interesting question is from how far away you could query the things if you were willing to go to enough trouble. You might have to transmit quite a bit of power to wake them up from a distance, but maybe not for very long. Radar transmitters transmit megawatts for nanoseconds, often with very low energy over time. You might be able to reach into a house that way and energise all the tags. On the receive side, a directional antenna, maybe even a phased array, would help the range substantially.

    We're talking about a truck-sized unit, but law enforcement might find this useful. Just drive around and inventory everybody's stuff. Correlate with income tax info, and find everybody with more stuff than they can afford.

  • What if I take it apart, and swap tags out with another item? Or even *remove them entirely* ohmygosh! :)
  • I see this causing the same sort of problems that the Pentium III chip had when it came out.

    Likely, it will cause the same sort of solution: consumers will probably gain the ability to disable the tag. At least, that's what I hope will happen.

    Just keep in mind, giving products unique IDs is something which has happened all the time in the past. Intel did it. Microsoft did it. Don't be surprised. On the other hand, these companies tend to not be able to get away with these ids once the public notices. I hope the same thing happens with these tags as with the others. If not, that would be the surprise.


    ---

  • Maybe I can find out... (Score:5)

    by bcrowell (177657) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:15PM (#422737) Homepage
    ...who keeps taking my pens at work.


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • They should put them on... (Score:5)

    by stimpy (11763) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:16PM (#422739) Homepage
    babies and small children...damn things keep wandering off when I'm in the middle of a game of Quake. And does she get mad at them? Oh, no! For some strange reason she acts like it's my fault...
  • 60cm would be just fine... Remember that it's 60 cm in either direction. This would mean that any gateway less than 120CM (4 feet) across would be sufficient to read it. (The security gateways at the exits of most stores are only about 3 feet across). If you could build a 1 chip that could be read at 60CM, you could do things like read the brands of all my clothes (and the IDs on my credit cards!) as I walk into a store, and tag me as a high-end purchaser, or a penny pinching commoner.

    Then you'd know how to treat me.
    --

  • Mitsubisi. Perhaps one of their cars. Then I'll park my car in the kitchen. They'll have a hard time trying to figure that one out.

    ---

  • Um©© hate to break it to ya, but product ID's have been used by just about every manufacturer for a long time© Called serial numbers© The difference with Intel was that it was no longer just printed on the board for human reference, but accessble by the big evil corporations and hackers behind the internet©

    The big difference is the accessability of the serial numbers. It's hard to stay in business if you frisk your customers as they enter and record the serial numbers of any items they have on them. It's easy if it's done unobtrusively by a scanner embedeed in the doorway.

  • If he was really smart, he'd make these chips run embedded linux and apache, an give 'em an IPv6 address too.

  • This headline is flamebait. Anyone who reads about this technology knows that the radio tags are so small that they can only transmit a few inches. Basically the idea is to give the ability to bar-code something without having to locate the actual tag with the code on it. No fumbling around at the cash register, trying to get the product oriented just right so the device can read the code.

    Think again! You buy a pair of pants with your credit card. They know who you are, and the unique ID of your pants. A few days later, wearing your new pants, you buy a computer and leave the store. The scanner sees that a person wearing your pants and shirt bought a computer using your credit card. It's a good chance it's you.

    Later, somebody wearing your pants, and your shirt walked through the scanner of a book store and bought book X. Several days later, someone wearing Fred's pants, and Fred's shirt, Fred's shoes, and Fred's tie walked through a scanner at the mall carrying book X that you bought. Most likely, you and Fred are friends. The more times Fred's clothes go through a scanner along with an item that has also gone through a scanner with your clothes, the more certain they are that you and Fred are friends.

    Given enough data over a long enough timeframe, marketers will have information that they rarely get today. That is, a decently accurate map of who you associate with and what your relationship to that person is, where you shop, when you shop, what you buy, how much you pay, etc., etc. All of that from a series of data points gotten when you passed within a meter or so of the anti-theft pillars that are nearly ubiquitous in retail stores.

    You will still be able to anonymize yourself by burning out all of the tags, but you may find that you can never return defective merchandise that way. You can buy enerything in cash, and never send in a registration card, but one little slipup and unknown person 12873645 who they know everything else about (or at least have damned good guesses about) becomes JediTrainer who frequents /. (They know that because you slipped up back in '05 and let an ecommerce web site have your real shipping address. Guess you should have been more careful about the web bug on page three of the order form.)

    To think that all of this is going to happen overnight is a paranoid fantasy. To think it will never happen is a fool's fantasy. Back in 1905, who would have ever imagined that a complete stranger in another state could know as much as you yourself know about your credit history?

  • No, a degaussing coil probably wouldn't work, even on an inductively coupled RFID (this story is about capacitively coupled RFIDs).
    The degaussing coil puts out a field at 50/60 Hz. RFID power supplies are designed to resonate at a higher frequency, such as 20 Khz. However, the degausser field might be so strong that it cuts through that filter. If you could send a huge DC pulse through the coil instead of a sine wave, it would be more likely to work, because a step wave contains energy across the whole spectrum. So if you can charge up a bank of capacitors and then rapidly discharged them through a coil, you can probably nuke the RFID that way.
  • They need only be unique on a single subnet. If you take a look at a sun with multiple nic's, they all have the same mac address, which is derived from the machine's hostid. Similarly, as the other poster already mentioned, almost all nic's have software reprogrammable mac addresses.
  • That is exactly what you would want to do. The primary legitimate purposes of these devices are for inventory tracking from manufacture to purchase. At that point the tag should be burned out.
    Except that, in the case of each unit having a unique ID, there's no need to burn it out. You can track EACH AND EVERY unit as it goes out and comes back in. Make sure that you're returning a unit to the same store you took it from, and make sure that it was actually purchased before they give you a refund.

    I can definitely understand why SUN would like this, because the volume of data that something like this would generate is the sort of stuff that a nice, big SUN box is designed for.

    Brother SUN, Sister Oracle.
    --

  • The bozos that did the article did it in such a way that it renders in about 2 point font for the majority of the story in Netscape 4.6, and it doesn't increase in size with Control-]! I really do wish I could have read it.

    --Mike--


  • That is actually a valid point. However, I don't believe you can lump it into the seach & seizure group just yet.

    I believe that Slashdot (ie: the editors) is falling more and more towards the yellow shade of journalism every month. Their news post made it sound as if, in a few years, the FBI can just drive past your house and automatically get an inventory of everything you own through radio tags. This is *so* far from fact that it's not even funny. The article specifically says that the ideal application for these tags would be for tracking retails goods. Right now, the tag reader has to be less than 1cm away from the tag in order to register anything.

    I'm not an expert, of course, but I just don't see them suddenly increasing range to 50m over the course of a few years. Don't get me wrong, I'm a privacy advocate just as much as the next slashdotter, but I think it's funny how Slashdot can post subjective news like this and then have the balls to call 2600 fans "paranoia zealots."

  • The second amendment has been null and void since 1933 at the latest. Or maybe you can go down to the hardware store and pick up a Thompson submachine gun and a crate of dynamite and a box of blasting caps with no interference where you live?

    Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

  • Every time I read an article like this one, with
    privacy implications, I'm reminded of David Brin's
    "The Transparent Society." In particular, he
    suggested passing a law that if a company collects
    information about people, then that information
    about the top N officers of the company should be
    made publicly available. You want to know what
    I buy? Fine, tell me what you buy.

    Having said this, one cool application for these
    tags would be to find my own stuff. It'd be neat
    to be able to home in on that misplaced Beatles CD
    with a scanner, rather than look all over the
    place by hand.
  • I don't know why this hasn't caught on. It'd be really neat if someone could get some law passed that made it mandatory for all kids under the age of 18 to have radio tags under their skin for tracking purposes. You could also use them like a smart card and store credits and stuff in them for school lunches. Then if your kid wanders off or gets kidnapped, break out the tracker and just go find him. I suppose people would freak out about "privacy" and "mark of Satan" and stuff like that but I think it'd be a swell invention that would help out law enforcement all around. Problem is finding a battery that'd last 18 years I guess.
  • Call me old fashioned, a Luddite, whatever, but, if there are things that have built-in radio transmitters that could track me wherever I (or really, it) is, I wouldn't buy it or use it. (Assuming I knew it had it, of course.)

    I like my privacy. I like my anonymity. Yes, I don't have it to a degree -- I run a personal diary-type web site -- but there are certain things that I don't need broadcast.

    Back when I got hit by that drunk back in March 2000, the only reason my wife couldn't find me was because I wasn't able to answer the phone at home. Let's say I had one of these devices that would reveal my approximate location.

    what would it mean, knowing that I was still technically in Savannah, Georgia, but... how could it say where specifically? The coordinate given was not my house. It could be anywhere. What use is that?

    Even so, I don't want it. Scott McNealy may unfortunately be right, but there's a lot that we can do to protect ourselves and our privacy. I'm actively doing that.

    Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.

  • Yep, you're wrong. Because the U.S.A. isn't "great."

    Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

  • Re:Corperate Communism (Score:4)

    by phaze3000 (204500) on Saturday February 17 2001, @09:51PM (#422805) Homepage
    It was _decentralized_ property ownership that made this country great, not centralized corperations. Centralized capitalism has the exact same problems as communism. Hell, just look at all the corperate welfare we have today. That's the great sucking sounds of centralization which killed the USSR.

    Actually, many who would describe themsleves as Communists (myself included) would say that the USSR was an example of state-run capitalism, not Communism. The potential for even greater abuse when the entity controlling everything doesn't even have to pretend it's doing anything in anyones best interest, other than the shareholders, is seriously scary.

    --

  • Limited range is not a limitation. (Score:5)

    by q000921 (235076) on Saturday February 17 2001, @09:55PM (#422808)
    People say that with the limited range, this isn't going to be a problem. But the range is going to get bigger; there is no technical reason why it shouldn't. The main reason why the range is limited right now is because the scanners need to be fairly cheap for its current market. If you can spend $100000 per scanner as opposed to $1000 for a scanner, you can do a lot more. And lots of people will have an incentive to spend just that kind of money to track people.

    If you carry a set of tags that respond to RF, you can bet that they will be used within a few years for tracking your every move through a store. You'll probably get incentives to carry special ones that are linked to your identity. If you don't, some services may not be available to you, and people will track you based on the random tags that came with your clothes anyway.

    Of course, you will have the "right" not to use them, just like you can, in principle, make all your transactions in cash, not drive a car, and not have a telephone number. Well, actually, in the US, there are people who live that way: the homeless.

    See, that's the problem with this kind of infrastructure: once society accepts it widely, you don't have a choice but to use it yourself.

  • world domination at it's best (Score:3)

    by Eil (82413) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:19PM (#422816) Homepage Journal

    Steve Halliday, vice president of technology at AIM, a trade association for manufacturers of tagging technology, says, "If I talk to companies and ask them if they want to replace the bar code with these tags, the answer can't be anything but yes. It's like giving them the opportunity to rule the world."

    Ironic.
  • Simple prevention: Gnaw on them. As Scott Adams said, "A few bite marks can be more effective than The Club at preventing theft." That's why nobody steals my 88 Festiva even though the doors are rarely locked and the key is in the car.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • Especially if they meet a price point such that it is economical to use the tags in a throw-away manner. Imagine being able to poll the contents of a warehouse/transit container/etc. in real time and without worrying about a guy missing something with his handheld inventory scanner.

    Another cool use would be at the grocery store. Fill your cart with tagged items, when you walk out (no lines or cashiers) the scanner tallies the total and sends you an itemized bill at the end of the month or charges your debit/credit card. Or the book store (same idea). "But... but... then the Man would know what I bought!" He already does. Database A (books sold to CC#) JOIN to Database B (CC# to customer information), SELECT as needed. Note that all of that already exists except that a human and a POS system facilitate the transaction instead of radio waves.

    Heck, if they're really cheap, combine them with microsensors for things like soil nitrogen content, soil moisture, etc. and some triangulating receiver stations for dumped-out-of-the-back-of-a-plane microagriculture monitering stations. Or if they're really light combine them with a streamer and some triangulating stations to measure air currents inside of a tornado/storm (combine with thermometer and or barometer for information from inside the storm). The whole unique-id-to-position thing could be extremely handy for field measurements of all types, particularly if it is effectively zero marginal cost to the instrument.


    --
    "Overrated" is "overfuckingused".

  • Devices On the Market Already (Score:3)

    by PatJensen (170806) on Saturday February 17 2001, @10:06PM (#422831) Homepage
    There are devices already on the market that can do this and are quite cheap. Dallas Semiconductor makes pin sized ROMs that can contain serial numbers or product IDs used for warranty tracking, product tracking, authentication, whatever.

    You can get more information and SDKs on how to program them at http://www.ibutton.com/ibuttons/memory.html.

    While I think the radio element does leave an element of traceability, I can see them having a use for service records, warranty and inventory tracking for businesses, say renting out handheld radios to field staff or phones or whatever.

    -Pat

  • Yes, or where the other sock went. That is truly one of the greatest mysteries of the twentieth century.

    Greetings,

    Raindeer

  • What about theives? (Score:3)

    by crlf (131465) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:27PM (#422844)
    What about digitally masterful theives? I don't want to allow some punk riding down the street to know exactly what I have in my house!.. If this were EVER to be made, then I'd be the first to push for a blocker technology that would stop anyone from ever being able to determine what I had. I'd make it into a keychain on top of that so that I'd be query-safe from anyone everywhere I went. Just a thought.
  • There are those out there who claim that cell phones cause brain/eye cancer.
    Now imagine zillions of little chips emitting radiation. So if you're a Coca-Cola delivery guy, and handle many, many cases of Coke each and every day, you ain't having any kids... Sorry.

    And then, we'll have script kiddies and hardware gurus making an electronic version of the dog whistle. They turn it on, and VOILA! each and every chip within 10 miles responds and gets fried. And Coca-Cola loses track of 100,000 items. So they produce more, and all other companies who's chips got fried produce more of their products. There is no demand, they lose money, America goes bankrupt and civilization collapses. Conclusion: Your privacy will be violated only for a little while: then we'll all go back to the Stone Age.

  • Knowing slashdotters, the first thing that's gonna happen is everyone is gonna have a fit about consumer rights. Now they can track us wherever we go. Now they can tack away are basic privancy. Etc.

    One thing that the article makes clear and the everyone should keep in mind is the range of these things is extremely limited. We're talking 1 cm, right now, maybe a couple of feet when the tech is perfected, and even then the devices don't continually broadcast, they only respond to speciall readers. So no, companies can't follow their produts to your home.

    This said, the radio tags seem like a good idea to me. With devices like retail bcomes a lot cooler. The checkpoint devices will actually work correctly, for one. When you walk out of the store, a reader on the entrance will only sound an alert if you have a tag that is in inventory. No more false alarms. And checkout will be very easy. Instead of scanning every item by hand, a reader can quickly tally every item in your cart. Not to mentioneEvery cart could have a reader that keeps a running tally for you. No more overspending.

    Things get better on the other side of the equation, too. Taking inventroy is very easy. Walk down the isles with a reciever, and it tallies everything. Put recievers in trucks and make sure your stock isn't dissappearing. The list of cool things that these can do go on and on.

    This isn't a technology to be afraid of. Read the article. Be happy. These things are already working wonders is things like ski lift tickets and livestock managment. Don't let paranoia get in the way of some cool technology.

  • Here we go again (Score:3)

    by JediTrainer (314273) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:32PM (#422879)
    This headline is flamebait. Anyone who reads about this technology knows that the radio tags are so small that they can only transmit a few inches. Basically the idea is to give the ability to bar-code something without having to locate the actual tag with the code on it. No fumbling around at the cash register, trying to get the product oriented just right so the device can read the code.

    It's not like they're sticking a transponder in there which can be tracked by GPS. Sun's not going to watch your new computer go home with you in your car.

    In addition, it won't give them more information about you than they already know about you, since most electronics hardware already has its serial number which is globally unique. This tag still won't give them the ability to trace the unit to you personally, unless the store you bought the unit from gives them access to their customer records (not very likely, IMO), including credit card info. I'm not sure about the legalities, but since Motorola is already able to tell that you own one of their Cell phones for example (which transmits its ESN for everyone to hear), then this really isn't anything new.
  • . . . by a unique hardware ID.

    Namely my NICs MAC address. Unique hardware IDs are ultamately necessary for networking. The question is will all of their uses be fully disclosed and optional.

    -Peter


    "There is no number '1.'"

  • Re:Hardware hacking (Score:3)

    by jfunk (33224) <jfunk@roadrunner.nf.net> on Sunday February 18 2001, @08:41AM (#422904) Homepage
    Why do you want to "burn out" the tag? ("burn out" is a pretty dumb term, considering that you would just want to remove them. Any process the "burn out" will describe would be likely to damage you or your equipment.)

    That serial number on the bottom of your equipment can be read at a greater distance. Do you scratch out serial numbers from the bottoms of equipment you buy?

    Do you realise that they already know if you bought it if you sent in that warranty card?
  • One thing that the article makes clear and the everyone should keep in mind is the range of these things is extremely limited. We're talking 1 cm, right now, maybe a couple of feet when the tech is perfected, and even then the devices don't continually broadcast, they only respond to speciall readers. So no, companies can't follow their produts to your home.

    No fair using facts, I wanted to have a fit...
    --
  • just walk into the mall, fire it up, and let it rip (imagine the whine from the ghostbusters backpacks followed by a really loud crackle ...) .... oh you wanted kids? tough ....

  • Re:What about cancer? Or end of capitalism? (Score:3)

    by ksheff (2406) on Saturday February 17 2001, @06:55PM (#422934) Homepage

    From the article:

    At the heart of this scenario is a little device called a "radio frequency identification tag" - a silicon chip that boots up and transmits a signal when exposed to the energy field of a nearby reader.
    These things don't start transmitting until someone scans them. Even then, it's verly low power. I have something very similar that is the area of a credit card and about 2-3mm thick. It's used as an ID badge at work. They don't do anything until they are scanned by a reader and then they transmit a weak signal back w/ the card's serial number. This is compared to a database of what doors that card can open and if it matches, the door unlocks and I walk in.

    I can certainly understand why some companies would want to this in order to get a handle on inventory control and shrink. It would be great for them. I don't like the tracking and marketing aspects of it at all. I don't like junk mail (real or virtual), whether it's random or targeted. (After the lawyers, can we kill all the people in Marketing? =)

  • Re:What about cancer? Or end of capitalism? (Score:3)

    by b1t r0t (216468) on Saturday February 17 2001, @07:00PM (#422937)
    There are those out there who claim that cell phones cause brain/eye cancer. Now imagine zillions of little chips emitting radiation.

    Sigh, another karma whore who posted before reading the article. These things only transmit a signal when exposed to "the energy field of a nearby reader". Which means they're obviously RF-powered. No power signal, no radiation, no cancer. The FUD line is over there in Redmond, take a number.

    And then, we'll have script kiddies and hardware gurus making an electronic version of the dog whistle. They turn it on, and VOILA! each and every chip within 10 miles responds and gets fried.

    But I like that idea.

  • Re:Hardware hacking (Score:5)

    by norton_I (64015) <hobbes@utrek.dhs.org> on Saturday February 17 2001, @07:02PM (#422938)
    That is exactly what you would want to do. The primary legitimate purposes of these devices are for inventory tracking from manufacture to purchase. At that point the tag should be burned out.

    Chances are, you can do this the same way they handle the anti-theft "stickers" on CDs and such. They work by the same principle (inductive coupling) but have a simple RC circuit at the center of the spiral antenna. In a weak RF field, they couple to the field and give a detectable signal. when the store runs your CD over the eraser, it generates a moderate strength RF field that burns out the RC ciruit.

    You could do the same with these tags, either at the store, or once you got it home (if the stores won't do it for you). Enough power down the antenna will burn out the circuit, and render it useless.

    These types of tags really have the potential to streamline production and shipping, and are in general a Good Thing(tm). We just have to be careful how they are used. Almost exactly like every other technology in existence.

  • Re:Hardware hacking (Score:3)

    by norton_I (64015) <hobbes@utrek.dhs.org> on Saturday February 17 2001, @07:08PM (#422947)
    That whole mattress tag thing is a myth, and the RF tags would be the same situation. Mattress tags are not to be removed, except by the consumer. They contain information such as materials and safety warnings that need to be given to the consumer. It really isn't much different from the "nutrition facts" label on food products -- this is the same reason that when you buy a bag of candy bars, they say "not labeled for individual resale" -- they don't have the government mandated nutrition information on individual bars.

    Likewise, you will be permitted to remove RF tags from products you own. Hopefully the government will prohibit placing them where it is hard to remove, but if not, they can be burned out with an RF field slightly stronger than used to read them.
  • Try removing the tag and carrying it with you for a while. Wander through some area that you know has plenty of readers, like a large store or mall. See what happens when they think you're driving your car through Radio Shock. One could have plenty of fun messing with removing and/or transplanting tags, as long as such activity doesn't become illegal "marketing circumvention."

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