NYT on RFID 389
The New York Times has a piece on RFID tags. It's basic, but worth reading as a milestone - the technology is starting to enter the public eye. These RFID tags will have unique serial numbers - every RFID-tagged item you purchase will be uniquely different from every other nearly-identical item, enabling it to be identified and associated with you long after the purchase. And no, microwaving will generally not destroy the tags, and no, most items won't be microwaveable anyway. Try to microwave your couch.
Big Brother (Score:3, Interesting)
So how do you destroy them? (Score:1, Interesting)
Search and destroy (Score:2, Interesting)
"Cleaning behind the couch" will get a whole new meaning.
Power Source (Score:2, Interesting)
Airports (Score:2, Interesting)
RFIDs should make this much easier...
RFID detector (Score:4, Interesting)
How difficult would it be to build your own RFID detector? If it is too difficult for Joe and Jane Average, how much might one cost at WalMart/Target/Walgreens/geektoys.com?
Somebody want to start a business making these? I have a manufacturing background...
Re:Search and destroy (Score:3, Interesting)
For RFIDs to be exploitable in the way many seem to think they will be, and for them to be at all useful in a similar manner to bar codes for taking product inventory and the like, they're going to have to have a very generic way of checking the code. Otherwise the store is going to need several readers to check their stock, and the whole usefulness of the scheme will be lost.
If they can read it easily, you can read it easily. It's just a matter of getting a much lower power transciever or tweaking the wavelength in an existing one to manipulate the distance of the read -- you can easily narrow down the position of an RFID tag in an object if you have a modified reader that only works from a millimeter away, right?
Forget destroying them, I'm more worried about... (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm not so much worried about getting past and deactivating the tags, I'm more worried about;
1: radiation from the tags in my neighbors houses getting into mine and helping to contaminate food (energize particles, break them apart, they form new ones which are called free radicals, I eat them, get cancer or the same radiation breaks apart my dna creating cancer). Just think, if everything in your house was putting off a radio frequency that could be read at ~5 feet, that's a lot of radiation even in a room. If you go onto a train in Tokyo around midday it's like a microwave. Sure, RFID tags aren't as bad but still, everything in your house is getting exposed to it.
2: What happens on a day when there's some solar flare activity? RFID purchases are going to be affected one way or another aren't they? Eccess radiation in an area from other sources will show up on a scanner and may screw with equipment.
3: What happens if I go through the checkout with someone behind me and the reader picks up my bag, and their bag and charges me for all the groceries? How do I get my money back?
4: What happens when the stores decide paper money is antequated and require credit cards only? Don't tell me it won't happen either. When you use money your buying habits can't be checked but when you use credit they can track you. I prefer not to be profiled at all, but they're going to find one way or another to do it and make the vast and dumb majority think it's for their own protection against thiefs.
5: Did someone mention theifs wardriving with a scanner, figuring out what people have in their houses and also figuring out when they are there and when they aren't?
6: What do you want to bet that they're going to require people to get this imbedded in their bodies as well? There's already a rice-sized tag people can get that holds all kinds of information about them. And if you don't do it, they'll just make it difficult for you or impossible to not have one. Forget cash or credit card, we only accept RFID identification at the registers now. Oh, you're a criminal? Sorry, we don't sell food to criminals. Oh, your a hacker? You can't use that computer there. Then think about the real hackers who'll go waRFIDing. "Hey, lets make this sorry bastard a child molester." How many incarcerated or military personell are going to be required to get it manditorily?
Not good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have three opinions about them.
1) Everything you buy that contains an RFID tag must be properly labeled. The consumer should know what they are buying.
2) There should be a way to easily disable them after taking the product home. Ideally, they should be deactivated on your way out the door, but there are complications(non-technical) hindering the store's choices.
3) Any product that has a unique characteristic or property shouldn't have an RFID tag. For instance, if I go to the local Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, whatever and buy a personal fire safe(w/o the changeable combinations), I wouldn't want the safe to have it's combination somewhere indexed to the RFID chip's serial number. There is a greater security risk here, this is but one example.
How about read distances? (Score:5, Interesting)
In an unrelated subject, if someone has any clue about RF and DSPs and pulling several cruddy analog low powered alalog signals out of the either, I know someone that would like to talk to you.
RFIDs hidden in new cars. US federal initiative! (Score:1, Interesting)
TOP SECRET FACT:Most modern cars have tracking transponders!
Spy transmission chips embedded in tires that can be read REMOTELY while driving.
A secret initiative exists to track all funnel-points on interstates and US borders for car tire ID transponders (RFid chips embedded in the tire).
Yup. My brother works on them.
Your tires have a passive coil with 64 to 128 bit serial number emitter in them! (AIAG B-11 ADC v3.0) . A particular frequency energizes it enough so that a receiver can read its little ROM. A ROM which in essence is your GUID for your TIRE. Multiple tires do not confuse the readers. Its almost identical to all "FastPass" "SpeedPass" technologies you see on gasoline keychain dongles and commuter windshield sticker-chips. The US gov has secretly started using these chips to track people.
Its kind of like FBI "Taggants" in fertilizer and "Taggants" in Gasoline and Bullets, and Blackpowder. But these car tire transponder Ids are meant to actively track and trace movement of your car.
I am not making this up. Melt down a high end Firestone, or Bridgestone tire and go through the bits near the rim (sometimes at base of tread) and you will locate the transmitter (similar to 'grain of rice' pet ids and Mobile SpeedPass, but not as high tech as the tollbooth based units). Sokymat LOGI 160, and Sokymat LOGI 120 transponder buttons are just SOME of the transponders found in modern high end car tires. The AIAG B-11 Tire tracking standard is now implemented for all 3rd party transponder manufactures [covered below].
It is for QA and to prevent fraud and "car theft", but the US Customs service uses it in Canada to detect people who swap license plates on cars when doing a transport of contraband on a mule vehicle that normally has not logged enough hours across the border. The customs service and FBI do not yet talk about this, and are starting using it soon.
Photos of chips before molded into tires:
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:TAQIKjBI01g C: www.sokymat.com/sp/applications/tireid.html
(slashdot ruins links, so you will have to remove the ASCII space it insertess usually into the url above to get to the shocking info and photos on the enbedded LOGI 160 chips that the us gov scans when you cross mexican and canadian borders.)
You never heard of it either because nobody moderates on slashdot anymore and this is probably +0 still. It has also never appeared in print before and is very secret.
Californias Fastpass is being upgraded to scan ALL responding car tires in future years upcoming. I-75 may get them next in rural funnel points in Ohio.
http://www.tadiran-telematics.com/products6.html
but the fact is... YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE A RADIO TRANSPONDER not counting your digital cell phone which is routinely silently pulsed in CA bay area each rush hour morning unless turned off (consult Wired Magazine Expose article). Those data point pulses are used by NSA on occasions.
The us FBI with NRO/NSA blessings, has requested us gov make this tire scanning information as secret as the information regarding all us inkjet printers sold in usa in the last 3 years using "yellow" GUID barcode under dark ink regions to serialize printouts to thwart counterfeiting of 20 dollar bills. (30 to 40 percent of ALL California counterfeiting is done using cheap Epson inkjet printers, most purchased with credit cards foolishly). Luckily court dockets divulge the existence of the Epson serial numbers on your printouts... but nobody except a handful of people know about this Tire scanning upgrade to big brother's arsenal.
YOU MUST BUY NEUTRALIZED OR FOREIGN TIRES!!!!! Soon such tires will become illegal to import or manufacture, just as Gasoline must have "Taggants" added or gasoline is illegal, as are non-self-aging 9 mm bullets.
It is currently VERY illegal to buy or disa
Saving lives (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microwave the couch (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.voltsamps.com/pages/project
Let's enforce a no-resale clause (Score:3, Interesting)
Then it goes round the car boot sales and picks up the items (doesn't even need to buy/touch them - scan as they walk by), tie back to the original sale (you did pay by credit card didn't you ?) and hit you with a court case.
Result: more profit
It's late at night on slashdot and the nightmare (Score:5, Interesting)
They are going to put these in tires. When you buy your tires the seller is going to be required to enter your information in a database.
One day when you are going a little too fast in a school zone or run a yellow that switches to red too fast an underground computer is going to sense the rfid in your tire, immediately reporting the number via rf link to police headquarters.
You would think that this would be for the purpose of giving you a ticket. You're right, you will get a ticket. But that is not the end the trail for your rfid number.
It immediately gets sent to the state government where it checks to make sure you are not a deadbeat dad that the wherabouts of are unknown. Simultaneously sending it to the FBI to see if you are a name on the "patriot" act watchlist and indexes your location. If you drive on the same street on a regular basis they will know where to find you.
You're not a deadbeatdad, lawbreaker, or terrorist you say??? Well the trail that your rfid number takes does not end there. Your rfid number is sold by cashed-strapped states to a commercial database under the auspices of "risk mitigation" that insurance companies subscribe to. Because you were speeding, you are at an increased risk and your car insurance rates are subsquently raised. Because you drive dangerously, your health insurance rates are also raised. Maybe they cancel your policy outright.
You're thinking I'll just remove the rfid. No you won't. Driving with unregistered tires is against the law, and if the police can't scan you as you drive past his cruiser he pulls you over and immediately suspends your license and impounds your car. But you won't be able to remove it anyway, without destroying the tire, as it is purposefully integrated with the "steel belt".
Does the trail end for your rfid tire number now? No, it most certainly doesn't. To see where it leads further, you are going to have to talk to my patent attorney.
Re:Not good. (Score:3, Interesting)
What we need is an open source RFID reader so we can identify the id tags we buy.
Since the details of the tech is coming out we as a community need to respond make readers to read the tags. And then we can a isolate them by finding them and removing them from items or b create dummy tranmitters duplicating the id of items and place them in silly places like the chewing gum under every desk or table you find.
C&C: Zero Hour (Score:3, Interesting)