RFID Production to Increase 25 fold by 2010 179
Luke PiWalker writes "The number of RFID tags produced worldwide is expected to increase more than 25 fold between 2005 and 2010, reaching 33 billion, according to market research company In-Stat. Total production of RFID tags in 2005 reached more than 1.3 billion, according to a recent report. RFID production will vary widely by industry segment for several years -- for example, RFID has been used in automotive keys since 1991, with 150 million units now in use, a quantity that greatly exceeded other segments until recently, according to In-Stat. "By far the biggest RFID segment in coming years will be supply chain management," said Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst, in a statement. "This segment will account for the largest number of tags/labels from 2005 through 2010." RFID has obvious privacy flaws, why is the world pointed in the direction of RFID?"
RFID and the Average Person (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help thinking that the average person is still pretty clueless about RFID tags and will still be even when there are 25x as many! Will understanding of RFID tags be similar to that of browser cookies? Will the security implications be blown out of proportion in a similar way? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about computer security, but cookies hardly scare me, and so far, RFID tags don't scare me too much. The counter solution should be pretty simple - get an RFID scanner so you know if there are any 'hidden' ones about.
Car Keys (Score:2, Interesting)
Most innovated use of rfid (Score:4, Interesting)
Non-RFID companies popping up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like there is 'hemp' clothing that seems to be bought as a stand against "The Man", does anyone see 'RDID-free' as a growing market? And if so, how long until they are bought out by the large corporations, and tags start going in?
Re:Most innovated use of rfid (Score:3, Interesting)
So for all of you concerned about RFID (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you decline to use your badge to open the building door at work?
Is it only a violation of privacy when it's used in supply chain management?
Re:r.e.a.c.t.i.o.n.a.r.y. that is how we spell.... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the whole idea. Look at the submitter's linked web page.
RFID brings MANY Privacy Considerations (Score:4, Interesting)
Q: Is it true there are plans to put RFID chips in Euro banknotes?
A: Hitachi has been working with the European Central Bank on the idea of putting RFID chips into Euro banknotes. This would eliminate the anonymity of cash by making it trackable. In essence, it would "register" your cash to you when you get it from the teller or take it out of the ATM. Euro banknotes could be RFID tagged as early as 2005. See: "Euro Notes May be Radio Tagged" at http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t295-s2135074,00
Re:RFID and the Average Person (Score:3, Interesting)
Today, perhaps. But tomorrow? :"An unusual pool of scientific talent at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, combined with new nanofabrication and nanocharacterization instruments, is helping to open a new frontier in electronics, to be made up of very small and very fast devices [suvalleynews.com]." and ""When the first computer hard disk was introduced 50 years ago, it required a rather large size to store each bit of digital information. On today's computer disks, the corresponding size is about one-50-millionth of that needed in the original disks. We are now moving well into the nanoscale range, and nanomagnetism is one of the real drivers of the nanotechnology field.""
Will it take 50 years to make RFID tags ubiquitous? Probably not.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
So if you don't want active RFID tags , don't steal!
The problem is telling them apart .. (Score:2, Interesting)
In this case it's easy to separate the two, but what if you don't even know you've been 'wired' with RFIDs in other articles? On the bright side, it at least means that you can use a London Underground scanner to check (it will tell you if it scans a code by stating that that code 'is not registered'
Now expand that to world + dog having RFIDs all over - you will be required to scann all the tags you find, and then match that whole collection against your 'own' list. Enter next problem: the volume of tags you need to match, and what you should do with a mismatch. Say you use it for access control: does the wrong tag mean someone's trying to break the system?
At leats privacy isn't that much of an issue as long as they truly randomise the numbering.
Given what I've seen of late of privacy violations (usually in the name of "fighting terrorism") I don't hold out much hope there either, so overall it really looks like the next Bad Idea heading your way. Combine that with DRM and you'll see we have a nice time coming for technology risk management. It might be worth retraining as a lawyer - they'll be laughing all the way to the bank on this (and, IMHO, rightly so, it's not like most technical people haven't been flagging these problems for years).
Re:I can't wait for them (Score:2, Interesting)
So I see RFID a bit like a car. Lots of folk die in car accidents, but for society as a whole the benefits seem to out weigh the problems. (although I doubt RFID will directly kill quite so many.)
Does anyone care to propose a solution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Limit RFID technology implanted in commercially available goods to a read distance of, say, 12 inches, and a mandatory lifespan of tags to 6 months, *or* require that tags be removed or disabled when the transaction is complete. The industry still gets useful technology, and we get our privacy.