And They Shall Know You By Your Books

Val42K writes "People have been concerned about provisions of the Patriot Act that would grant law enforcement access to your library records. Now libraries are considering placing RFID tags into books instead of barcodes. The RFID tags will (supposedly) be turned off when you check out of the library, but could they be turned back on? What about the possibility of you being located and tracked by the books that you carry?"

Barcodes are lame

[v13inc]

RFIDs wouldnt be bad. If they threw one in your library card too, that would be good. You could then just grab your books, and walk out the doors, with it automatically being thrown on your card.

Alternatives...

[Ikari Gendou]

• Read the book at the library
• Photocopy the pages requires
• Get someone *else* to check the book out for you
• If it's recent enough, order/buy the book at a bookstore, use cash.

Any other suggestions?

Range

[doublebackslash]

I wonder how far away those buggers can be read from? not more than a few meters, I think, so if there is a person 'tracking' you with them, they can probobly see you. Also if there is a way to turn these thing off (or destroy them for items like clothes or furniture) or a way to block the readers if there is a network of readers to fear the geek community will find it.

Re:Barcodes are lame

[ewithrow]

My library is heading in this direction. They don't have RFID but they do have public scanners by the doors where you scan your card then your books and walk out. It works much like the self checkout lines at king soopers, only faster.

Their website is great too. Just enter your card number and name and it will show you which books are checkout out and when they are due, and you can push a button to automatically renew every one for another 2 weeks. It sure beats taking a trip down to the library because you're going to need an extra weekend to finish that book.

Getting back to the topic, I think that with a little thought many of the privacy concerns can be taken care of even with the RFID system in place. It sure would make it a lot easier to just walk out and you're automatically checked out, and in this case I think the benefits outweigh the concerns. They already have a database of what books you have checkout out! What more could they know!?

Re:RFID is inevitable

[jjshoe]

There are two types of rfid tags, passive and active. Active tags can be read from quite a range. Passive tags, which is what the library range would mostly likely use, are simply an antenna that pics up a certain frequency which goes through the antenna and reports back its unique number to the reader. I completely agree with you view on the use of rfid. Infact my work uses networked rfid readers and electric door strikes to control access to buildings. there are so many good uses for rfid that we should stop fearing.

Re:Complete nonsense

[drinkypoo]

It is not necessary to track you over a great distance. All they have to do is put the scanners nearly everywhere. First they'll install them in the doorways of every building the federal government is involved with. That means every train and train station, bus and bus station (bus stop!), gun store, public utility office, government office, garbage dump, freeway emergency phone. Then they'll install them everywhere else - payphones, commonly-traversed areas of streets starting with those with the most foot traffic, parking garage (they might have trouble getting a good signal through your car's body, but they can just wait until you get out) and so on.

Let us not forget that with a high gain antenna, and a good amplifier, you can extend your detection range. Differential receivers which take the local environment into account can achieve even more. And finally, directional antennas with only slightly sophisticated optical recognition and tracking systems can aim the antennae (power send, signal receive) at you and scan up and down your body.

Tracking people with "passive" RFID (a misnomer if I ever heard one, you don't just bounce a signal off it, it transmits) is a much more real problem than you think it is.

RFID? Cool!

[Madcapjack]

So, everyone is worried about privacy. I am too. But maybe, just maybe the real solution is not to secure privacy, but to completely eliminate privacy from the top to the bottom. No privacy for me. No privacy for you. And no privacy for Bush either. No privacy for CEO's, secretaries, geeks, diplomats, even private detectives. Not for the cops, certainly, and not for the FBI either. Its all there for everyone to see, anytime. So, if they can track my reading habits, I sure as hell should be able to track theirs. Just maybe it would work. Sounds crazy, but maybe. What scares me about privacy violations is not so much that my privacy is violated, but that the footing between me and the snoop are not equal...that they have power and authority to spy on me, but I do not have the power and authority to spy on them.

Re:RFID is inevitable

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, how cool would it be if you ran a restaurant, for example, and you never had to keep track of what food to order? Your garbage can would just detect that your chef had thrown a tomato can, and add a new can of tomatoes to the next delivery.

Sadly, that day is way off. Not because of any technology issue but a social one. I work at a gourmet food distributor, less that 30% of the chefs we support (internationally) even have e-mail yet. A company not too long ago tried putting PCs with DSL etc... into restaurants, they would foot the bill if they could broker ordering the food. In other words restaurateers simply sat down and pulled up a website and clicked on what they wanted. The nameless (to protect the unemployed) company went out of business as they could not even get it used for FREE. :-(

infodynamics: not just a good idea, it's the LAW

[Doc Ruby]

When something happens, it leaves evidence. While more esoteric (Godelian) boundaries of knowability are debatable, we act like everything that happens can be known. But we also act with a sense of privacy - even those who believe that Liberty is an illusion, don't deny that the *illusion* exists, and we operate within it. Keeping our privacy is more a matter of social engineering, where people are protected from people, than technology engineering, where people are protected from things. Rather than outlaw RFID tech, engineers can put RFID scanners in mobile phones, and entrepreneurs can put eShopping networks into stores to help customers shop. This empowers consumers with the same cheap tech as the producers, getting more value out of the expense, and putting the privacy issues in *everyone's* hands, where we can work it out as an extension of accepted custom. We live in an inherently P2P universe, which is very flexible and comfortable for those of us who can constructively adapt to our advantage in it.

ALA champions privacy

[Whiskey Jack]

If you'd like to discard some of the paranoia now, Librarians are probably geeks best friends when it comes to championing personal liberty, privacy and free speech.

The ALA didn't simply back down at the records seizure provisions in the PATRIOT act, they have fought it every way they can: from petitioning local congressional reps, to finding technological solutions to the privacy issues raised.

Hell, one library here in Iowa has a sign by the circulation desk that says "The FBI has not been here today." (The PATRIOT act says they cannot tell you that the FBI has visited a library asking for circulation records. It does not, however, say that the library is prohibited from saying the FBI hasn't been there.) If government agents ever do visit, the sign will disappear.

You're right.

[LiberalApplication]

...but I think I still have a point. Sure, the same could be done with a little effort and devotion and surveillance, and whatnot, but the fact that it will become exponentially easier to carry out these tasks is what bugs me. Sure, there are all sorts of criminals (and government agencies) who will take the time to sift through your refuse and follow you around, but if Ron Popeil were to release over television infomercials a Ronco Scanomatic, then any Joe who would otherwise be too lazy and stupid to become a prosperous miscreant could get a head start on the path to figuring out what you own.

I've said it before, but think about it. There's been talk of placing RFID tags in paper currency. Doesn't this mean that I could say, hang out in front of a bar at night, having a smoke, scanning everyone who stumbles out to see how much they're carrying? It'd be like having your cash and valuables taped to your head, instead of tucked away in your wallet and bag.

Do you own an iPod? Top of the line? You carry that around with you everywhere. Same with your schwank new PDA/Phone. Do you advertise the fact that you're carrying a thousand dollars worth of gear when you're walking around the city at night? If everything has an RFID tag, you might as well.

PS: Of course I'm paranoid! I'm a geek!

Librarians are Your Friend

[waldoj]

Remember that many librarians are hard-core civil libertarians. The ALA should be every geek's new best friend. Having served on a library board, I can tell you that most libraries as entities are quite concerned about privacy issues, doing all that they can to ensure that patrons leave as short of a data trail as is possible. (That is, they don't retain records of books that people have checked out [once they're returned], schedule their data backup system such that the trail of patron data is as short as possible, etc.)

As both a geek/privacy nut and a library advocate, I am excited at the prospect of library books using RFID tags. The benefits to libraries will be enormous -- checkout and return will be greatly simplified, to say nothing of the ease of sorting and confirming placement of shelved books.

I, for one, welcome my new library RFID overlords.

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:I've Quit Worrying (some)

[ChaosDiscord]

I use something called an EZ-Pass,...Yeah. I know they could use it to track me. They could somehow link it back to my bank account.

As a general rule I don't worry as much about the government. If the government is out to get me, I'm boned.

However, consider the ramifications of an individual out to get you. If the government has the information, you have to consider that a dirty government agent might sell it [slashdot.org]

Of course, who might attack you? Now, maybe you live the boring life and have no potential enemies. Good for you, everyone should be so lucky. But many people do have to worry. Get into a messy divorce? Your ex-spouse may be interested in whatever dirt they can dig up on you. Perhaps your religious views are unpopular where you live, but you can't afford to move. Someone who hates your religion might notice that the times and locations of your trips correspond to visiting a religious site.

jeeze, remember standing in line at the bank to get a check cashed?

Not really. I only started banking after ATMs were moderately common. Thanks to people using ATMs, my bank usually has no lines. I find it funny to occasionally pass busy ATMs to arrive at my line-free bank.

He has no spare or leisure time because the very housekeeping of life takes him twice or three times as long as it does the rest of us.

I find that surprising. I do most (but not all) of the same things he does and I find it has little to no impact on my life. It really doesn't take any longer. I'm a bit baffled as to how not using an affinity card takes more time.

That said, maybe those remaining things he does make the difference...

He no longer uses his home computer because he's convinced that his ISP (Verizon) has nothing better to do than to track his every move online. ... doesn't visit ATM's

I suspect your brother is getting a bit unhinged. Part of making decisions like these is seriously considering what the risk is. There aren't any real privacy implications of using an ATM provided you consistently use a small set in locations already associated with you. Using the ATM in your grocery store links you to the grocery store. But using the ATM nearest to your home or office just links you to using convient ATMs. Not using his computer? At all? Or just online? There are solutions [freedom.net], and if you're completely unwilling to trust anyone, well, he needs some help.

For some reason, I place sneaky library books squarely in the "don't sweat this" category. At least for now.

Freedom to read is an essential element for democracy. To ensure that everyone has this freedom, we have public libraries to help ensure that everyone, no matter how poor, can learn on their own. To really have freedom to read, you need freedom to read anonymously. If you're afraid of the ramifications of reading something, you are effectively censoring it. Another wave of McCarthyism might drum up another irrational wave of hatred of communism. Suddenly a list of who has checked out and read Karl Marx's books would be very useful for tracking down people deemed to be unamerican. Perhaps the list was gained from library records (a reason many libraries do not maintain records longer than necessary), or through hidden RFID monitors on the sidewalk by the library scanning your books and your RFID library card (or one of the many other RFID items purchased on your credit card). As a friend pointed out, "Once you've burned the books, you have to track down everyone who read the books and burn them too."

It's highly unlikely, but government must be held to the highest standards.