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Embedded Microchips In Virtually Everything

Posted by kdawson on Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:08 PM
from the minority-report-by-other-means dept.
Privacy
Microsoft CRM recommends a long AP article laying out the nightmare scenario of RFID chips in everything tracking not only things but people. The darker possibilities of a technology capable of enabling ubiquitous surveillance are not news to this community, but it's not so common to see them spelled out for a wider audience. "Microchips with antennas embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items and consumers wherever they go. Much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed... [A director at FTI Consulting] said:] 'It's going to be used in unintended ways by third parties — not just the government, but private investigators, marketers, lawyers building a case against you.'"
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Submission: Embedded Microchips in Virtually Everything by Microsoft CRM (1227532)
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  • Class division (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webmaster404 (1148909) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:14PM (#22197984)
    I expect that all the new "smart devices" will create a class division within developed countries, those who can program and those who can't. We already have part of it with Best Buy and other computer retailers trying to sell you at least $300 in extra hardware/software/support even though you don't need it yet the uninformed take the bait and end up spending money they don't need. Also, the same thing is happening with computer repair and support, if you don't know whats wrong tech support is more than willing to test every combination and then charge you for the privilege of fixing it along with any other thing that /might/ be wrong.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tsa (15680)
      That's nothing new. It happened with cars, washing machines, and I bet horses in the olden days... People will always make use of the ignorance of others. That 'class division' always existed for all things that need maintenance by a professional.
      • Clearly not all, but maybe we can get some evolutionary pressure to become smarter. If the average person isn't smart enough to handle day to day life, then the average person will need to become smarter.

        • Re:Class division (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Dun Malg (230075) on Sunday January 27 2008, @11:29AM (#22200530) Homepage

          Clearly not all, but maybe we can get some evolutionary pressure to become smarter. If the average person isn't smart enough to handle day to day life, then the average person will need to become smarter.
          Unfortunately, the yardstick of "success" from an evolutionary standpoint is very simply "procreation". The bar remains exceptionally low for that, no matter what happens on the technology front. Even worse, the indications are that smarter folks have fewer children. With modern society having a distinct shortage of wild tigers roaming around eating the slow and stupid, there isn't any evolutionary pressure to become smarter. Between liability lawsuits and modern farming techniques, we've set up a petri dish where the foolish not only survive, but grow fat and multiply like crazy. No, the pressure won't be on the dense to become brighter, it'll be on the product engineers to make technology "friendlier", so even the daft can handle it.

          Salesman: This new user-friendly computer only has one button, and we press it for you before it leaves the factory.
          Dilbert: What does the button do?
          Salesman: Whoa, I'm in way over my head here. Let me give you our tech support number.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Cosmic AC (1094985)
        But computing is pervasive. In the future, more and more things will be controlled by software, rather than by cars or doctors.

  • Fuzz Busters.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aero2600-5 (797736) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:23PM (#22198036)
    As soon as RFID chips start appearing in all of our items, the market for devices that destroy them without damaging the article itself will very quickly materialize. Honestly, if I can figure out how to destroy them easily, I may be in on that market.

    And then they'll make tougher RFID chips, and we'll make tougher devices to kill them. And this war will escalate just like the Radar vs Radar Detector arms race. What are the cops using now? Negatively modulated phased arrays doppler assisted with frequency hopping? Exactly.

    Aero

    • And then they'll make tougher RFID chips, and we'll make tougher devices to kill them. And this war will escalate just like the Radar vs Radar Detector arms race. What are the cops using now? Negatively modulated phased arrays doppler assisted with frequency hopping? Exactly.

      This is fine in the principle of large devices for a small target group. But if you have to make the change across the entire retail/government/other sector to read and use these chips AND the cost goes up proportionally then at some point the war -could- be won. Or, like shoplifting, the costs^W savings can be passed on to consumers.

    • Re:Fuzz Busters.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BlueParrot (965239) on Sunday January 27 2008, @06:16AM (#22199292)
      So what do you do when you CANT destroy the RFID because it is necessary for the device you bought to function? E.g, when your credit card doesn't work without the rfid chip, when you are not allowed to enter the subway without an rfid enabled ticket etc... Take your money elsewhere? Say hello to cartels and monopolies that are in cahoots with the government.

      If it was as easy as just destroying the chip ( and if destroying the chip was legal ) then it wouldn't be a problem.

  • FUD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JRHelgeson (576325) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:25PM (#22198044) Homepage Journal
    The RFID chips have a transmission range of 3cm, thats one freakin' inch. If you have a large antenna, you can get 30cm range (1 foot).
    Half the people I know use a key card to access/unlock doors at work. Those things have an RFID chip in them. How close do you have to hold those up to the reader? Yup, 3cm.

    If you had a 6' satellite dish mounted on the back of a truck, you could theoretically blast out a signal strong enough to activate the RFID receiver and get it to reflect back a signal to the dish, but the weakness of the return signal is so minute that you still would not be able to hear the return signal past 10' away.

    Sorry, but does the government really care if you have any more "hot pockets" in your freezer? These articles are more about scare tactics than reality.

    Now, a concern that has been brought up is programmable RFID chips. If your can of Campbell's Tomato soup had a programmable RFID tag then a customer could program it with self replicating code and place it back on the shelf. Then, when the store took inventory and scanned the shelf, the "infected" can of soup would receive the energy pulse and reply not with the information the reader is looking for, but with a reprogramming signal that would "reprogram" the cans of soup around it with the self replicating code. Could you imagine a whole WalMart being quarantined due to an RFID worm outbreak?

    It isn't really possible, the return signal from an RFID chip isn't even strong enough to power up an RFID chip next to it, but it is nevertheless fun to think about.

    Read my /. journal article on RFID chips and the need to adopt them.

    Joel Helgeson

    • Re:FUD and not so FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by erexx23 (935832) on Sunday January 27 2008, @12:08AM (#22198210)
      I have read that passive tags can be read from 1 inch to 40 feet.
      And Active tags can be read up to a mile or more.

      The range all has to do with cost and need.
      With all tech reducing cost is only a matter of scale and time.

      As with all things its also only a matter of time before malevolent use any tool or technology occurs.

      So while I agree that Orwellian references to RFID technology are certainly overblown,
      Dismissing the need for caution and prudence with any technology can only lead to big problems in the long run.

      As you pointed out so well a soup can worm could shut the doors on a supermarket.
      I think that this is a simple example of what could be the tip of a greater iceberg once truely talented indiviuals
      start taking advantage of an embedded technology that is only bound to evolve.
      Once it become part of the system it will be hard to get rid of.
        • A cheap passive tag bonded to a capacitor and an antenna could burst back a signal far away. Never underestimate cheap.
    • No kidding, they're freakin' barcodes! I've used a RFID chip to get into my workplace every day for the last 3 years and it's not giving me cancer and I'm not being trailed by men in black. It's cheaper for the company than hiring a security guard on all 14 floors, and it's handier for me to be able to get into work after hours. It's not some satan technology from hell to enslave us all, it's a fricken' barcode.
      • Do you think that the logs from your security system won't be able to tell someone exactly which door you triggered at exactly which date and time? Your movements are being tracked. It's just that right now, nobody cares.

        While Christmas shopping with my mom, we purchased our items and left the store. As we were leaving the security system announced that apparently someone had failed to remove the inventory control tag from an item. We looked around to see who was making off with store goods, but just

    • Re:FUD (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sparky McGruff (747313) on Sunday January 27 2008, @01:33AM (#22198516)
      Okay, so your one example is that one type of RFID works at about an inch. And you imply that this is the only type of RFID that anyone is concerned with.

      So, how the hell is that useful for Wal-Mart, in tagging pallets? Having done inventory in a warehouse before in my mis-spent youth, I can tell you that on a pallet (wrapped in shrink wrap, stacked three high), an RFID tag that only read at one inch (or even six inches) would be completely useless. Pretty much the same usefulness as a bar-code sticker, or a metal tag with an embossed number. Those Wal-mart people must be morons to insist that their suppliers include tags on shipping pallets that cant be read from more than an inch away.

      But, since you insist, there must not be any other kind of RFID. I'll go edit the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] now. It's obviously written by a conspiracy nut.

      Passive tags have practical read distances ranging from about 10 cm (4 in.) (ISO 14443) up to a few meters (Electronic Product Code (EPC) and ISO 18000-6), depending on the chosen radio frequency and antenna design/size. Due to their simplicity in design they are also suitable for manufacture with a printing process for the antennas. The lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small: commercially available products exist that can be embedded in a sticker, or under the skin in the case of low frequency RFID tags.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by BlueStrat (756137)
      Half the people I know use a key card to access/unlock doors at work. Those things have an RFID chip in them. How close do you have to hold those up to the reader? Yup, 3cm.

      We must have had RFID-enabled employee badges/pass cards on steroids then. The aircraft service facility I worked at used them, and were required to enter not only the main employee entrance, but also to access doors to various departments. The doors would unlock when someone with an authorized pass/badge would walk within a couple feet.

  • vote with your wallet (Score:3, Insightful)

    by timmarhy (659436) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:26PM (#22198052)
    I won't buy anything that tracks me, just like i refuse to purchase software the requires it to phone home.

    • Cell Phone = tracking device (Score:5, Interesting)

      by megamerican (1073936) on Sunday January 27 2008, @12:17AM (#22198248)
      If you own a cell phone and often carry it with you everywhere you go, you can be tracked. You can even be tracked with your phone turned off. The government has been asking to track people even without sufficient probably cause(and probably doing it illegally since we know about it).
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201444.html?hpid=topnews [washingtonpost.com]

      I believe this was mandated in the 1996 Telecommunications Act for all cellular devices and has been implemented long since.
      • They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by novakyu (636495)

          They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?

          However, they can make it very difficult to turn our phone REALLY OFF. I assume you already know the story about roaming data charge on iPhone [boingboing.net] (which may or may not have been entirely the user's fault). Assuming we can put any stock in anecdote, I had a similar experience with my RAZR (yeah, behind the times, lame):

          I had an important meeting with my boss and a few colleagues, so I turned my RAZR off before the meeting. I usually have a bunch of alarms and reminders that go off every couple hours or so. Wel

          • I assume you already know the story about roaming data charge on iPhone (which may or may not have been entirely the user's fault).
            Oops. Wrong story. This [newsday.com] is the one I was thinking of.
        • But remember it is a soft switch. There's nothing stopping it from just pretending to be off.
      • if the device is powered off, they can't track you since it can't emit a signal. case closed thanks for playing.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Zymergy (803632) *
          Incorrect. I respectfully beg to differ.
          If the wireless device is powered off, if its is battery is removed, and if it is placed *inside a closed Faraday Cage*, would I then agree it can't emit a signal.
          Besides, What makes you think that similar techniques to RFID passive pinging reply signals are not already used in current/future cellular devices with their much higher gain omnidirectional transceiver antennas?
          Even without the main battery, these devices contain efficient capacitors with stored curr

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DigitAl56K (805623)
      Voting with your wallet is effective only when a large number of people do it. Take Walmart for example - you can easily find lots of people who claim a Walmart has ruined their neighborhood, but as long as thousands of others hand over their cash to get the cheaper goods on offer it doesn't make any difference. If you suffer for your cause, but your suffering has no impact, why make yourself suffer?

      RFID is poised to go this way - I don't like it either, but unless it's widely rejected a handful of people p
      • thats the same mentality that's got your country all messed up with a 2 party polical system - "why bother i can't make an impact no matter how i vote". you all need to stop that nonsense thinking and realise you DO make an impact no matter how small.

        • thats the same mentality that's got your country all messed up with a 2 party polical system
          I assume you are implying that I am an American. You sir, would be incorrect.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by wellingj (1030460)

        If you suffer for your cause, but your suffering has no impact, why make yourself suffer?
        I would suffer because it makes a difference to me. This is why the US is sliding into the crap-hole, its because everyone shrugs and says "Well that's just the way it is." Fuck that. And if you are going to be one of those people who doesn't stand up for themselves, well fuck you too. By giving up like that you just made it harder for anyone who does give a damn.
        • Oh, I give a damn. I don't use a credit card, I pay cash for almost everything.

          At the same time I walk around all day with a cell-phone in my pocket and I expect most everyone here does also. You already know the US government is listening to all of your calls, what makes you think they're not tracking your location and who you associate with also? But you don't disconnect the battery from your cell phone when you're not making calls, do you? Well there you go, you aren't standing up for your privacy!

          My po

  • Privacy Already Gone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webword (82711) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:26PM (#22198054) Homepage
    RFID and related technologies will only continue to push us down the path we are already on. There are cameras all the place, we constantly give up our addresses and credit card numbers, and even our grocery discount cards are tracking our purchases. This isn't going to slow down or let up. The trick will be to understand and govern what is in place, not necessarily slow down the technology changes we're seeing.

    There's little in the way of choice left regarding the use of this technology. It's too pervasive, in more sense than one.

  • Will it be a hard sell or a soft sell? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:32PM (#22198086) Journal
    In light of the obviously undesireable implications of having every detail available to any spook with a scanner, I imagine that we'll start seeing systems designed to detect and neutralize the tags. Given that they are designed to respond to scans they shouldn't be too hard to ferret out(until the RFID equivalent of port knocking comes out, of course). Presumably a variety of little arms races will be kicked off, between the cypherpunks and the feds, the counterfeiters and the corporations, etc.

    The more interesting question, though, is what the reaction will look like on a social scale. Will RFID tags be routinely removed at point of sale, the way dye tags are, or will they be aggressively integrated into products in an effort to make them tamperproof? Will people at large see neutralizing RFID tags in items you own as a common, sensible, precaution, like shredding important documents, or will that be seen as the sort of thing that only hackers, criminals, and other shady characters would do?

    It will also be interesting to see what sorts of uses the vast amount of ambient information will be put to. Obviously, the usual surveillance and marketing stuff will be pretty thick on the ground; but there might be some rather more curious things as well. I can just imagine the horde of social networking gimmicks that will spring up around the ability to detect the consumer goods carried by those around you. It'll be just like Zune Squirting; but ubiquitous!(Does anybody else miss the days when the future was going to have flying cars and robots?)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Fishead (658061)
      I don't know too much about RFID, but I thought the deal was that it is encrypted so that the chip only responds if the code transmitted is correct. Much like my car alarm. This makes it more difficult to "sniff" hidden chips.

      As far as removing the unwanted RFID chip, if the RFID transducer is fabricated on top of a PIC microcontroller, and the microcontroller has no added external markings, everything that has a microcontroller could have a hidden RFID chip. This means your key fob for your car, your US
  • Fortunately I have a disguise.

  • ubiquitous surveillance are not news to this community

    Because a lot us are the ones installing those applications. Some suit with a genius idea will burst in and ask, "Hey, can you install that tracker....thing...what do we need to track our employees?" And they'll want the weekly report in two different formats and ad hoc custom reports, which they'll ask for at 4 pm on Friday afternoon and want you to send them on their Treo.

    The smart ones here will make millions selling counter-measures and runnin

  • Privacy advocates could do a lot of good just giving away RFID erasers for everyone. Not everything with RFID embedded will survive zapping in a microwave.

    Sponsor dry cleaners and laundromats to "debug" clothes with RFID found and erased, and give the customers the report.

    I could see a great public demo of an RFID reader out in a park or at a busy intersection with a big display superimposing the tag#s over video of the people on whom they're riding. With an eraser and some pamphlets. In fact, that setup co

  • Easily blocked (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dan East (318230) on Sunday January 27 2008, @01:11AM (#22198456) Homepage
    RFID tags transmit incredibly weak signals. The only power available to them is what the tiny antenna can convert from RF transmitted by the reader. A simple battery-operated transmitter operating at the same output frequency(ies) as the tags can easily interfere with the RFID tags transmission making it impossible for the reader to decode its signal.

    Also, reading the tags is really easy (and cheap). I bought a reader for $50 that uses a simple serial interface. I connected it to a PIC microcontroller, wrote some relatively simple software for it, and output IrDA via an IR LED so I can display the data on a Pocket PC.

    Dan East
  • I hear metalized mylar is the latest thing in fashion!
  • Range is defined as the maximum distance for successful Tag-Reader communication. Read range difference will vary and can be very-short, short, or long.

    Very Short Range: approx. up to 60cm (2 ft)
    Short Range: approx. up to 5 m (16 ft)
    Long Range: approx. 100+ m (320+ ft)

    High-frequency (850 MHz to 950 MHz and 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz) systems, offer long read ranges (greater than 90 feet) and high reading speeds. High-frequency systems are used for railroad car tracking and automated toll collection.

  • No, we'd never misuse this for our own ends. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rc5-ray (224544) on Sunday January 27 2008, @03:05PM (#22201836)
    My favorite quote from the article is:

    "Heady forecasts like these energize chip proponents, who insist that RFID will result in enormous savings for businesses. Each year, retailers lose $57 billion from administrative failures, supplier fraud and employee theft, according to a recent survey of 820 retailers by Checkpoint Systems, an RFID manufacturer that specializes in store security devices."

    So, a company who makes RFID chips does a study showing the businesses lose $57 Billion every year? That sounds as reliable as some of the Business Software Alliance statements on losses from piracy. To call this self-serving would be an understatement.

    • Re:Ok, (Score:5, Funny)

      by Shatrat (855151) on Saturday January 26 2008, @11:15PM (#22197992)
      Tinfoil hats.
      Do you think we wear them because they look cool?
      • Yeah, well, just remember to pull out the microchip(s) before you put it on.

        • I have a friend that uses his passport as his main ID. He showed it to me once: He keeps it wrapped in a couple of layers of tinfoil. It's one of those newfangled RFID passports :P
          Check out the RFID Blocking Passport Billfold at ThinkGeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/security/910f/ [thinkgeek.com]

          Now you can be paranoid with style!

      • Learn to code, how to defeat the technology, how to be smarter then the "smart" devices. All this stuff isn't so scary once you learn how it works and how to disable it.

        Yeah, sticking RFID encrusted stuff in the microwave is so very hard.

        Maybe you should write up a "RFID for Dummies" book.

        Profit!

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by theoverlay (1208084)
          I agree that rfid is not so scary if you know the details of the implementations. There are many systems already implemented that are a lot tougher to circumvent than these things. The recent Dutch $2B transit system [hitekhome.info] is a great example although I know this article is referring to somewhat different usage scenarios. The knowledge is power as always. http://infiniteadmin.com/ [infiniteadmin.com]
        • Yeah, sticking RFID encrusted stuff in the microwave is so very hard.

          Doing that to disable the RFID chip in something like an iPod or a cellphone would tend to disable more then just the RFID chip.
    • I don't know...

      I have a pretty big ass.
    • Hmm. How about the threat that there will be RFID tags that are designed to store data every time they're hit by a reader? That doesn't sound that bad, until you start seeing areas that are periodically flooded with reader signals. Now the tag is starting to build up a timestamped list of locations. Now someone brushes up against you on the sidewalk or in a subway, and your tag gives them all the information.

      Huh, looks like they don't have to follow you around with a reader an inch away from your ass.
    • just like global warming. the real threat to our environment comes from deforestation and over fishing, yet everyone is focused on global warming even though it's a total crock of shit.

    • Quit shouting, it makes you look like a freaking idiot. Try reading http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?id=52356-long-distance-rfid [foodproductiondaily.com] , and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID [wikipedia.org] for starters. Or google and find the article when a guy build an rfid sniffer that could eavesdrop on an rfid exchange between a reader and chip from 30-meters away. It's not as implausible as you make it sound.

      Why bother putting cameras on all the street corners and deal with face recognition software to track people, lik

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