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RFID Leaders Talk Privacy 118

Posted by michael from the talk-is-cheap dept.
An anonymous reader writes "RFID News has released a set of interviews with EPIC, VeriSign, CASPIAN, HP and EPCGlobal on RFID and privacy. From CASPIAN founder Katherine Albrecht: 'In most cases, asking how a company exploring item-level RFID tagging can protect their customers' privacy is like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.'"
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RFID Leaders Talk Privacy More

RFID Leaders Talk Privacy

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  • Beat the system (Score:5, Interesting)

    by darth_MALL ( 657218 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:16PM (#9279264)
    Check it out: RFID Blocker Tag [csoonline.com.au]

  • Reading the article (Score:3, Funny)

    by h2oliu ( 38090 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:17PM (#9279274)
    Wow. There are 4 articles (or at least links) for slashdotters to not read before posting.

    Or will the posts be based on the sound bites?

  • It's great, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by abscondment ( 672321 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:17PM (#9279279) Homepage

    RFID is great and all, but until there is legislation preventing law enforcment from using/viewing the data collected by these companies, I wouldn't go for it.

    Buying products with these tags seems like asking to be tracked. I know there are benefits to using them, but I'd rather not volunteer a public record of everything I do while carrying these products. It contradicts the spirit of the privacy rights granted in the constitution.

    • Re:It's great, but... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What part of the constitution grants you any privacy rights?
      • It's right in there next to the 'seperation' clause and the right to fully automatic assault rifles with armor-piercing cyanide-tipped ammunition.

      • Re:It's great, but... (Score:4, Informative)

        by corsican ( 779264 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:39PM (#9279505)
        While the word "privacy" does not appear in the US Constitution, the US Supreme Court has interpreted a right to privacy to exist for individuals under the following amendments:

        1st: guarantees freedom of communication and expression of ideas.

        2nd: guarantees freedom of association and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

        5th: freedom from self-incrimination and right to due process.

        9th: recognizes that rights not specified in the Constitution are vested with the people.

        14th: due process and equal protection with regard to the states.

        • The second ammendment is the right to keep and bear arms.

          Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is in the 4th amendment.

          http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/ am endment04/

          Right of the people to freely assemble is in the 1st amendment.

          http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/ am endment01/
          • You're right of course; I don't know why I wrote 2nd. Thanks for not pouncing on me and calling me a moron for the error, like most /.'ers do.

            • this is way off topic, but don't you find that interesting when you offer something that most people don't know and make one mistake or spell a word wrong then you a morron.. what i find funiest is that usually the morons still know more then the acusers...

              now back to topic..well i don't have anythign onn topic to say.

    • Re:It's great, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ashkar ( 319969 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:31PM (#9279426)
      Your legal guarantees to privacy are not spelled out in the Constitution. They were only legally recognized when the Supreme Court said we had a resonable expectation to a certain amount of privacy. I believe this was actually relativly recently, say the 60's or so. Anybody have any more info?

      • Re:It's great, but... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        privacy was the reason SCOTUS cited when they overturned that Texas "gay men cannot have sex" law. The majority in their ruling stated simply that the men had an expectation of privacy when they were doing their thing, and the government (texas police in this case) had no right to intervene in the way they did.
      • You're right, privacy isn't in the constitution, but

        The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

        that sounds a lot like privacy to me. In particular that it says we have a right to be secure in our papers against unreasonabl

        • You're right, and add to that the Ninth Amendment:
          The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

      • Re:It's great, but... (Score:3, Informative)

        by jafac ( 1449 )
        Your legal guarantees to privacy are not spelled out in the Constitution.

        I have to say this again and again lately. . .

        What part of Article IX do you not understand?

    • Re:It's great, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cdrguru ( 88047 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:39PM (#9279508) Homepage
      Understand that the range of an RFID is perhaps at best a few feet. Many applications are limited to 12-18 inches. This isn't something that can be tracked from a satellite.

      Also, you miss the major point of anything like this. Forget law enforcement getting their hands on it - they have much better techniques. Look at the tollway automatic payment boxes (which aren't anything like RFID but do identify a car by radio) - at first they said they did not save the data. Then some enterprising lawyer got the idea of subpoenaing the data and it turns out they do keep it. This is now something every divorce attorney looks for. What you need to look at with dangerous applications of this is not law enforcement but the ability of the information to be subpoenaed.

      • Actually, EZ-Pass tags are in fact active RFID tags. They have batteries in them to amplify their signal, and that's what separates them from the passive tags they talk about implementing in supermarkets.

    • OK,OK.
      Clarification:

      I'm referring to privacy rights guaranteed in constitutional amendments (4th, particularly). Most of these refer to search and seizure within the home. If devices (say, a gun for example) have RFID tags that can be read from outside your home, should law enforcment be allowed to do this? etc.

    • IBM and Metro Group (a German retailer) have developed a method to kill tags at the checkout counter, so that the tags are only used up to the point of sale. That way they are good for all the inventory control benefits but not useful for anything beyond that.
      • Wrong. They are NOT good for all the inventory control benefits if you kill the tags. In that case, you cannot use them to track returns.
      • If you follows some of the links in the referenced articles, you will find a demonstation showing that the tag deactivator in fact does not work. (See here [spychips.com])

        While it does clear the bar code field, it still keeps the unique item ID, meaning that item can still be tracked and still be linked to you forever afterwards.

        I agree with the writer, claiming to deactivate the tags without actually doing so is not only deceptive, but is far more harmful that not doing it at all, as it creates a false sense of secu

        • That is interesting. I would think that it should be possible to send a true deactivation message to a tag, if it had hardware support for such a thing. Too bad that the tag serial number isn't being overwritten or the tag disabled.
    • You can already be easily tracked without RFID technology through the time-honored tradition of having somebody to follow you around and write down or photograph everything you do. The legal requirements for leveraging RFID data should be similar to this procedure.

    • Regulating It (Score:5, Interesting)

      by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @04:13PM (#9280392) Homepage Journal

      The problem with technologies like the RFID tags is that we really cannot regulate it until we know what "it" is. We have to have the list of abuses of the technology before regulators have a track record that they can act upon.

      It seems to me that pre-emptive regulations generally do not acheive their goals. Often the regulations are influenced by the industry to be regulated. Generally, the regulations block a small firms from entering an industry and end up feeding the monopolies.

      Preemptive regulation generally has the effect of rewarding those companies on the inside track of the regulations (the politically connected) whild disenfranchising those who do not have the political connections to the regulators. As such it is best to put off regulation until the industry has matured a little.

      Preemptive regulations might be inspired by consumer fears. Lacking an actual history of abuses, the actual process of preemptive regulation tends to be controlled by the industry being regulated. As such, the regulation limits the number of players in a market and often comes up favorable to the companies being regulated.

      For example, you might recall several years ago when the House of Representatives considered a spam regulation bill. Without being passed into law, spammers slapped the House Bill number on their ads because the regulation was giving them legitimacy.

      Look at Internet porn. There was a great desire among legislators to find a way to block porn from kids. Without serious debates. The preemptive regulators listened to the porn dealers. The porn industry suggested that having a valid credit card number verified a person's age. Getting a credit card number is the first 90% of the battle to actually putting a charge on the credit card. While online news sources do not have a viable funding mechanism, the attempt to regulate an industry gave the porn industry the internet on a silver platter.

      Trying to regulate RFID tags in their infancy is likely to simply give an market advantage to the politically connected companies that draft the legislation.

      I wouldn't go for it.

      Unfortunately, since RFID tags are tags purchased by businesses for internal business use, the consumer really won't have that much choice about where and when they get used.

  • Aside from using blocker tags (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) <seebert42@gmail.com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:18PM (#9279285) Homepage Journal
    And other tech that disables the RFID tag at Point of Sale, how the heck is an organization using RFID supposed to prevent other organizations from reading the same tag into a database?
    • The same way they prevent other organizations from reading barcodes into a database - destroy them. You do realize that this is the equivalent of a remotely readable bar code, right? It's not like it has a password in there or something.
      • And thus the "other tech that disables the RFID tag at Point of Sale" in my original question.

        It's the remotely part that bothers people- and creates more of a possibility of abuse by other organizations. In addition, the resolution is a heck of a lot larger than your average bar code. The average bar code is unique per product; the RFID tag is unique per tag.

  • How to avoid intrusion ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:18PM (#9279288)
    OK, so you don't want to get fucked over by the 'evil' (I don't believe a technology can be evil btw, only its uses) that is RFID in the hands of corporates. Simple solution; don't steal stuff from Walmart. If you don't steal items with rfid on them, you won't get hassled. It's an anti-theft device, it's not like they're implanting them in your foreheads.

    • Re:How to avoid intrusion ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by darth_MALL ( 657218 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:20PM (#9279318)
      There are many more uses Wal-Mart (and others) are touting for RFID, such as improving returns, inventory control etc. I still hate it, but anti-theft is just the tip of the iceberg.
      • There are many more uses Wal-Mart (and others) are touting for RFID, such as improving returns, inventory control etc. I still hate it, but anti-theft is just the tip of the iceberg.

        How about firing all the checkout personnel?
        That's the ultimate goal, of course.
        You walk in the door, pick up stuff off the shelf, carry it to the door and swipe your card on the way out.

        Minimum wage isn't low enough for these people.
    • their primary purpose is not anti-theft, but is inventory tracking and statistical analysis. The RFID tags are there when you BUY the stuff, and can (and will) be used to track you and the items you've purchased after you consider your interaction with the store to be done.
      • track you and the items you've purchased after you consider your interaction with the store to be done.

        Do we have any evidence of that besides the raving of tinfoil-hat loonies? I haven't even heard a convincing argument why companies might want to track items after they leave the store.

        • They can, they plan to and they will (Score:4, Insightful)

          by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06&email,com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:59PM (#9279692)
          The ability to track you if the RFID tag is still in the item is intrinsic to the technology.

          If you look at the examples that Albrecht from CASPIAN notes, you'll see from internal discussions by the industry that they already plan on this sort of tracking. They're just looking for ways to counter public pressure and present a positive spin on it.

          They will as long as it isn't explicitly illegal because they believe that it will provide them with an enormous amount of information that they can mine to eventual increase sales and sales margins. That's their job. The fact that they are attempting to do this on the backs of our privacy doesn't enter into their conversations.

        • Its the "slippery slope" argument. You dont get from point A to Z overnight, you go in increments.

          Picture a Minority Report scenario with you walking around the mall and getting voice ads targeted at you based on what tags you have. You have a coke in your hand with an RFID tag? Maybe Pepsi will pester you to try a Pepsi, etc..

          Personally I like some targeted ads. I use yahoo and gave them accurate information for where I live and I get ads based on my location.

          • Its the "slippery slope" argument.

            There's been a trend on slashdot in the last year to talk about "slippery slope" arguments as if it's a valid thing to do. A slippery slope argument is fallacious, by definition.

            Although I'm not going to bother replying to everyone who responded to me (as they all say approximately the same things, and yours was the only reasonably-stated one of the bunch), none of the things mentioned require (or are neccessarily made easier) by the tracking of individual items after th


        • Well let's see:
          1) To track return of items (both by item and by customer),
          2) To offer "enhanced" services to frequent customers (as evidenced by the number and type of RFID tags they have on them entering the store),
          3) To offer "enhanced" services to people wearing competitor's RFID tags.

          And those are just a few reasons. There are companies [about.com] already trying to leverage the information that will be available from this data. From the linked website:

          Offer a total system that identifies, tracks,

          • To offer "enhanced" services...

            There it is... the Holy Grail of marketers: the Customer Relationship. Every marketer wants the ability to "maintain" a "relationship" with their customer even (some might say especially) in the face of that customer's express wish not to. Ubiquitous RFID can turn Customer Relationship Management into Customer Relationship Mandate. I'm reminded of a quote (can't recall the source and Google fails me) from the early days of the Commercial World Wide Web: "I don't want a

  • setup one... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kabocox ( 199019 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:22PM (#9279328)
    like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.

    Well, they are your chickens. You must insure that other predators don't eat them. You must keep them penned up and guarded so only you can eat them. You don't want to share those chickens do you? I didn't think so. You kill everything else that might eat them.

    Let's see, RFID wise. My business owns that data on Job Blow. Other businesses should be able to use my data to their advantage that would be wrong. I need to have laws implemented so only my business can track my consumers. I need to buy or destory in the stock exchange other businesses that may compete with me.
    • like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.
      Well, they are your chickens. You must insure that other predators don't eat them. You must keep them penned up and guarded so only you can eat them. You don't want to share those chickens do you? I didn't think so. You kill everything else that might eat them.


      Like asking a hacker how to protect your business from ddos/intrusions?

  • The data will be safe! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:22PM (#9279330)
    like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.

    Your Data will be safe with US, we are contractually obligated to do so!

    fine print: In order to keep our technology up to date, we reserve the right to amend, modify, change, alter, append, add, delete, subtract, change, morph, alter, vary, transform, renovate, make over, differ, diverge, rework, revise, adjust or otherwise perform any act similiar to any word or synonym of any word in addition to, but not limited to those listed above, for any reason whatsoever.

  • Quoth the Fox: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Giant Ape Skeleton ( 638834 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:23PM (#9279348) Homepage

    "I had to eat the chickens to protect them"

  • I'm confused why more people don't see ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06&email,com> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:25PM (#9279357)
    the positive side to widespread RFID chip placements.

    Once firmly implanted beneath the scalp, behind the nape of the neck and/or in the palm of the hand, the RFID chip(s) will enable law enforcement agencies to instantly know your location without the need to task satellites or get involved in wasteful car surveillance. They'll no longer need to burst in to make sure you're in the hotel room with your mistress. They'll know you're in there with her. And since they'll instantly know your exact location, they can be much more respectful of your belongings when they break in (with a court order, of course) and rummage through your stuff. They'll know exactly how long they have so they'll be careful.

    Now if they just legally abolish these cumbersome doors (that terrorists so often hide behind while plotting their evil deeds), why I'll be glad to have traded any semblance of liberty for perfect security.

    Thank you, Big Brother.

    • For some reason, this is modded 'insightful'. I'd like to point out that RFiD requires antennas in a proxity of about 10 feet to be detectable (that's with the best one, 915 MHz version). Moreover, it is very susceptible to interferences, be it metal or water (and thus a human body).

      Good luc, Big Brother, you'll need it!
      • Actually, the range on a passive tag(the small ones) is like 10 inches, not 10 feet.

        I have NO idea what all the privacy concerns are about. The govt. isnt going to be looking in your house, tracking what products you're using, etc.

        What is the exact privacy concern here?
        • Passive tags are already in widespread use in anti-shoplifting security applications today. They have an effective range of roughly 6-10 feet, based on manufacturer, tag technology, etc.

          One of the major selling points of RFID is that the tag itself will not only be the "magic barcode" but it will also serve as a security tag to prevent unpaid-for merchandise from walking out the door. It will save the not-inconsiderable cost of a second tag that exists only for security purposes.

          The concerns are that

  • So what about ther good uses? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mackermacker ( 250587 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:26PM (#9279375) Homepage
    OK, so the new Library in Seattle uses RFID to keep track of their books, and uses an automatic sorting machine to deliver them to the correct location depending on their RFID. I see no harm in that. What next, the Patriot Act will allow the government access to the books you check out, heh.
    • OK, so the new Library in Seattle uses RFID to keep track of their books, and uses an automatic sorting machine to deliver them to the correct location depending on their RFID. I see no harm in that. What next, the Patriot Act will allow the government access to the books you check out, heh.

      Next step is the bookstore that you walk by on the way home reads what books you have from the library, reads what mp3 player you are using (bought from a company that has a cooporative agreement with the bookstore) a

      • What color shirt you have on as you walk down the street is public (obviously) but what books or medications you have in you backpack is not currently but would be unless we have some regulations (again, IANAL but it would appear that unless otherwise regulated RFID tag info does appear public but I very well could be mistaken).

        So they link all the data together and they figure out that you like red shirts since you wear them 3/4 of the time. Then they see what kind of magazins are you subscribed to and c

        • What color shirt you have on as you walk down the street is public (obviously) but what books or medications you have in you backpack is not currently but would be unless we have some regulations (again, IANAL but it would appear that unless otherwise regulated RFID tag info does appear public but I very well could be mistaken).

          So they link all the data together and they figure out that you like red shirts since you wear them 3/4 of the time. Then they see what kind of magazins are you subscribed to and


  • ... to become full tin foil clothes

  • Blown out of proportion (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zed2K ( 313037 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:37PM (#9279478)
    Ahhh, RFID. The latest topic that gets some slashdotters panties all in a bunch.

    But with RFID at least the store will instantly know what kind of panties they are so you can reorder them.

  • Great for married men... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tenebrious1 ( 530949 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:38PM (#9279495) Homepage
    Tired of buying gifts your wife hates? Unsure exactly what size she wears? RFID is the answer! Put a detector by the door, collect a couple weeks of data, and voila, you have a list of her favorite clothes! Then you can go buy similar items and she'll think you're wonderful and so intuitive about her tastes!

  • UPC labels and those little "plus cards",plus credit card numbers equals it's very, very easy to track people's purchasing. If you think they'll come to your house and use an antenna to see what you have inside, forget it. It's way easier to just watch people walking out of the store, and see what they buy, and what car they drive, for example.
    • UPC labels and those little "plus cards",plus credit card numbers equals it's very, very easy to track people's purchasing.

      Some of us have been avoiding shopping at stores with the "optional*" membership cards for that very reason. With RFID it will no longer make a difference.

      * they're "optional" if you don't mind paying 2x what something is worth when the retailer decides to put it "on sale" for people with the cards.
  • regarding RFID tags, but one question that never seems to get answered is: What are the range of these tags? If the tags have a range of many miles, I can understand the privacy concerns, but if the tags' range is inside the store or the parking lot, I have a lot of trouble seeing what the big deal is.
    • It is already a regular practice for Police to drive around neighborhoods with thermal scanners. When they come across a house that has a lot more heat, they start an investigation to see if they have an indoor garden.

      If the range is as far enough to be detected from inside your house to the street, your privacy is compromized.
    • The passive tags on individual items have a range of about 3 meters.

      There are active RF tags for larger things like containers, box cars, maybe down to palettes on the warehouse floor.
    • The range of the tags varies, but is typically between a few inches to six feet or so. Notice the "Checkpoint" gates you walk through when you enter or leave a store? Those are the transmitting and receiving antennas that "talk" to the RFID tags, and the distances you see in the stores pretty well defines the range of the tags they're sensing.

      The tags work by retransmitting energy that they receive. In simpler terms, I'm saying "the tags don't have batteries." They have an antenna that is energized by

    • I saw 300 feet as the outside limits on RFID.

  • Just like the supermarkets (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:41PM (#9279523)
    Its just like the supermarkets with their "discount cards". Which to get one you must give your ph#/name/address etc... (of course you can give bogus information). But now the supermarkets start tracking exactly what you buy and when you buy it....

    If I buy a 5lb bag of bran.. should I get a call from the exlax salesman?

    • There is a guy that gives out stickers with copies of the UPC on his Safeway Club Card [cockeyed.com], which means that there are hundreds (thousands?) of people crediting their purchases to his account.

      I think he is a slashdotter and that's how I found his webpage. I don't remember. I might be able to talk, but toasters don't have a whole lot of memory. I should join in and buy lots of embarrassing items. I wonder what his Terrorism Quotient [slashdot.org] is.
    • Yes, except that you have left out the "other" side of the story.

      It goes something like this: store also use the cards - not to track what you have bought - rather, what has to be replenished on their shelves and what is and isn't selling. They do this to make the supermarket better for their customers (ie: having items in stock when you need them, removing unpopular non-selling items and replacing them with items customers want, etc)

      I can definitely see both sides of the equation here. I mean, on
    • Albertsons actually had a checkbox "I don't want to give you this info, but give me the card anyways". I checked it, and after the little old lady finished freaking out, she gave me a card.

  • RFID reality check (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ls-lta ( 681694 ) <{moc.ibtta} {ta} {maps_dnes_tnod}> on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:43PM (#9279543)
    1) They are only used on things that are cost effective to track (tags are expensive, about $.25 US to about $200).

    2) Not all RFID tags are unique (the same signal could mean two different products).

    3) All EPC tags should be unique.

    4) RFID is an old technology that is still about 2 years away from being mature.

    5) Some types of RFID (i.e. EPC) do not work well on metal or liquids.

    6) It's not a matter of the fox ruling the hen house and we own the hens. The fox owns the hens and the hen house and sees this as the best way to manage her inventory. The fox doesn't care what happens to the hen once you buy it (returns excluded).

    7) I've had failure rates reported to me of up to 30% with cheap tags out of the box, 10% in the field. This cuts down greatly on the cost effectiveness of the technology.

    Disclaimer, I own a Data collection [fasterinventory.com] company
  • Nielsen is certainly a guru of usability studies, but so far his crystal ball of futurism hasn't been so well tuned.

    His most famous prediction, that most website would be funded by Micropayments in 2000 [useit.com] hardly came true.

  • RFID wardriving as a competitive tool (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @02:59PM (#9279690) Homepage
    How would retailers feel if a competitor, say Wal-Mart, parked a van just outside the mall entrance and tracked what their customers were buying?

    Present examples like that when talking to retailers. They value their own "privacy". Mall operators hate it when you take pictures of store displays.

  • The ad in the sidebar has an eyechart that reads "PORN SPYWARE INSTANTMESSAGING BANDWIDTH MALICIOUS MOBILECODE INTER..." with a little lens magnifying "P2P".

    The text below flashes "Peer-to-peer is clearly a problem." "Stay focused on managing P2P with [OurProduct]" from Websense.

    Clearly, an enormous problem.

  • And so it begins (Score:3, Interesting)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @03:30PM (#9280003) Homepage
    And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
    And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
    Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six.
  • hmmmm RFID seems to me no real problem. Some people will care, some will not. If you are one that cares then you simply don't buy RFID equip gear or disable them if you do. To remove, locate it, cut it, crush, EMP, or whatever. As a side note these will likely not stand up to 5 sec in a microwave (usefull if you don't have your own EMP for use on clothes or other non metal goods). If you what to get rid of them to steal, then you are on your own as i advocate not stealing.... If they are trying to bui
  • Forgive the obvious title. The thing I think a lot of people don't get when they say RFID is like barcodes, is that a barcode is just for a type of object. It's visibly printed on the package. It has to be visible to scan.

    RFID will allow companies to have tags embedded into the products, be readable from a short distance without being visible and without knowing it's been scanned, and have the capacity to track individual items.

    A bar code scan could show something you what brand Razor Blade you have us
    • Like with all ideas like this. It's starts out sensably: "It's for a good reason" and "it's only for a few feet" Well that's with *todays* technology. Pan out a few more years (say 20) when RFID is common place. Well, in the meantime the burgeoning now-cashed-up RFID R&D industry has been "improving". Now it's no longer a few feet, it's ... You get the idea. Sure it *might* be benign NOW. But it won't take long before it's exended, more and more. It might sound paranoid, (and hey, that *is* probobly
  • Since when did Verisign ever care about privacy? Isn't this the parent company that OK'd the sale of millions of email addresses from whois records? I'm not sure if Verisign is in my corner [nuclearelephant.com].
  • is like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.

    I understand the sentiment. However, how safe is asking a former hacker to work on your network security?
    It's all about keeping them in line. Privacy legislation. I find nothing wrong with using RFID tags for inventory control, but using the tag and the personal information in, say, the method of payment to track purchases is wrong.

  • Won't someone think of the children? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Friday May 28, 2004 @05:46PM (#9281206) Homepage
    CASPIAN seems a bit loony to me. Here's a quote from their spychips.com website:

    Unlike the bar code, RFID could be bad for your health. RFID supporters envision a world where RFID reader devices are everywhere - in stores, in floors, in doorways, on airplanes -- even in the refrigerators and medicine cabinets of our own homes. In such a world, we and our children would be continually bombarded with electromagnetic energy. Researchers do not know the long-term health effects of chronic exposure to the energy emitted by these reader devices

    (Emphasis theirs). Unless they give some numbers on how the reader emissions compare to the thousands of other sources we are being subjected to, that's just baseless speculation, with the old "think of the children" cliche thrown in to tug at our heartstrings. That's usually a good sign that someone doesn't have a real argument to offer.

  • like asking a fox how he can best ensure the safety of your chickens.

    actually, that wouldnt be a bad idea, kinda like asking a hacker how to best secure your systems no? wouldnt the best person to ask be the person with the most knowledge of how to screw your stuff up? that said, this article is more analagous to asking the sleezbag who led the fox to the chicken coop for a price how to bes insure the safety of the chickens, you wouldnt trust him even as far as you could throw him.
    --Aaron
  • Following links from links from the article, I came across http://www.ti.com/tiris/ [ti.com] which is the list of the RFID equipment that TI is already selling to companies. In fact, their item RI-TRP-RFOB [ti.com] looks exactly like the Mobil SpeedPass that I stopped using a few months ago, although I wonder which version it is- they have a 64-bit read-only, an 80-bit read-write, and an 88-bit read-only with a challenge-response mechanism, all working at 134.2kHz.

    Even better (or worse for consumers,) their RI-I01-110A [ti.com] loo

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