Sun Joins RFID Program 155
per unit analyzer writes: "C|Net is running an interesting article on Sun's recent affiliation with MIT's Auto-ID initiative. The article is a layman's intoduction to passive RF tag technology. The concept is to replace the ubiquitous UPC bar code with a 5-cent RF-tag. When hit with the right excitation signal, the tag emits its own RF signal encoded with a 96-bit number. The privacy concerns are obvious; items people buy could be tracked anywhere they happen to go. How would you like the security scanners at airports or even the local high school be able to generate a complete inventory of the consumer products carried by each person coming through the door? (OK Johnny, hand over that pr0n magazine in your backpack...) The Auto-ID ilk includes many of the major consumer product manufacturers and retailers. Incidently, the American Radio Relay League is also currently fighting an uphill battle to keep the RF-tag technology of Audo-ID Technology Board member Savi Technology out of the 70cm Amateur Radio band in the US." We have a couple of earlier stories about RFID tags.
Never happen - frequencies (Score:1)
Re:Never happen - frequencies (Score:1)
Also, I bet the ARRL server won't be up for quite sometime. Yes, they are a big radio group, but internet wise slashdot probably blew their bandwidth cap for the next millenium.
Re:Never happen - frequencies (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't that what the amateurs said about the 1.25 meter (220 MHz) band before part of it was taken away?
Re:Never happen - frequencies (Score:1)
Re:Never happen - frequencies (Score:1)
The only thing that 220Mhz is going to be used for by the club I am a member of is PBBS forwarding. There are a few FM repeaters, but PBBS is about the only thing on 220, at least here.
So what happens when.. (Score:1)
Re:So what happens when.. (Score:1)
If we were to get really clever we could use one that gives a random response. Its a torch, a plane, panties or whatever.
Better pick a nice broadband one... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Better pick a nice broadband one... (Score:1)
It depends on how long you need the distraction though, if one were to sit there with a frequency counter and a note pad I image it'd help. Also if you are stealing you don't need long term protection, just enough to walk right through the door (like the Jane's Addiction Song).
Not a problem (Score:1)
Actually, you'd be surprised... (Score:4, Informative)
They're usually capable of withstanding some 200-500 or so watts of RF power before blowing out the chip's circuitry. The only way to really discombobulate these things is to detatch the chip from the antenna or remove the whole affair from the thing you're wanting it to no longer be tagged.
As for detecting them, unless you're knowing how they make the chip's transponder work, you're going to have a FUN time catching all of them.
There's very few tags out there that are like bugs that can be immediately detected with common stuff.
There's inductive loop tags (a' la Mobil Speedpass)- they will only respond when powered by a magic frequency and when triggered by the right modulation/data sequence.
There's the dual frequency units, where you send one signal and then the chip responds at a different frequency. These will usually only work in the same manner as the Speedpass type of tag.
Then there's the backscatter type of tags, commonly used by the toll tag systems. They act as a special mirror to the RF signal, re-radiating what they're recieving with a modulation carrier on it. If you don't have the right frequency, they don't work at all- and some of the more sophisticated tags (like the ones we're talking about here...) do handshaking with the RFID base system before re-radiating.
There's several other schemes out there, to be sure- I'm just naming the few I've had to work with in the past. (I worked for a division of Intermec (now owned by TransCore) that did RFID systems for parking, ground transportation management, railcar identification, and these little things they called "gamma" tags that they licensed the technology from IBM that are used for this very thing we're discussing- so I know a little something about it...).
Disabling the RF Tags (Score:2, Interesting)
Ray Benjamin
Re:Disabling the RF Tags (Score:2)
(What's really fun is when someone forgot to disable the tag built into a particular brand of shoe. So the poor fellow will set off every EAS scanner of every store he enters or exits until someone figures out why.)
Re:Disabling the RF Tags (Score:1)
That caused some fun on a store visit once (we sold retailing-related systems). I didn't even buy anything and I tripped the alarm on the way out.
Re:Disabling the RF Tags (Score:2)
Re:Disabling the RF Tags (Score:2)
Wouldn't most of these RF tags be on a sticker of some sort? Some stores, Eckerd's comes to mind as one, have the security tags built in to a UPC/price sticker. When you buy the item, it's disabled. But, if it were an RF tag, then you'd just peel it off and toss it in the trash. Of course, I suppose someone could scan my trash to find out what I had bought...but I don't think anyone with a UPC database would care enough to do that.
Great opportunity for hackers (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks who are really concerned about this as a privacy issue need to go visit and abuse all of the test sites they can identify. Drop the confidence level far enough, and the tech won't be adopted.
-reemul
Re:Great opportunity for hackers (Score:1)
Re:Great opportunity for hackers (Score:4, Insightful)
Rf readers (Score:3, Interesting)
protection? (Score:1)
Re:protection? (Score:2)
Re:protection? (Score:1)
Colorado Springs, Colorado, Jun 27, 2001 -- If you're thinking
about going to the mall in that snappy aluminum-lined underwear in the back of your dresser drawer, think again.
Beginning Sunday, it will be illegal in Colorado to wear aluminum underwear.OK, there's a caveat. You can wear aluminum
briefs and lingerie as long as it's for personal amusement - but not if it is to help steal by foiling stores' anti-shoplifting devices.
The new law is no laughing matter
"We have laws against using crowbars as theft devices, but if you were lining your underwear with aluminum foil, that
was not a crime."And by golly, said Takis, it should be.She cited several Denver-area malls that have caught
shoplifters with aluminum-lined shopping bags and even the so-called "iron pants" and could do nothing to stop it.
Steve Miller, an attorney who helped draft the bill:"I don't know if it was the highlight of my career, but I got the
assignment."Miller said the bill went through several evolutions - "or devolutions depending on your viewpoint" -
before it received Gov. Bill Owens' approval.Essentially, it makes it a misdemeanor to make, wear or know others
are wearing aluminum underwear if they intend to use it to fool stores' theft-protection devices.Those devices
electronically sense when merchandise leaving the store hasn't been handled by a cashier, and foil can interfere with that detection.
Miller said the new law also gives store employees civil and criminal immunity if they stop shoppers who crackle
when they walk.
Re:protection? (Score:2)
I don't understand. If they caught shoplifters, that means they had some evidence of shoplifting other than aluminum attire. Therefore it is not true that they "could do nothing to stop it." They (the malls) could arrest the shoplifters and charge them with theft. They did not need an additional law against aluminum attire.
If, as I suspect, there was no evidence that the aluminum-clad were shoplifting, then it is wrong to refer to them as shoplifters.
Re:protection? - HERF! (Score:1)
I want one of these (Score:1)
Expensive change (Score:2)
sorry, it might help retailers but it doesnt help a manufacturer at all.
Re:Expensive change (Score:2)
Plus, there's the issue of the SCOTS (Self Check-Out Terminal System) registers, that almost nobody seems to want to use at my store. They require customers to scan and bag the items themselves, then involve weight sensors in the bagging table to try to make sure that the customer didn't "sweetheart" himself and bag more items than he scanned. These are often unreliable as well. ("Wrong item bagged." "What do you mean wrong item? I just bagged the one I scanned!") A radio-ID tag would make this class of device a lot more accurate.
Some folks (who are older than I am) will probably recall the similar furor surrounding the adoption of UPC bar codes. I recall hearing about all sorts of privacy concerns, mostly from nutcases who thought these were the Mark of the Beast talked of in Revelations. (In my BBS days, I once downloaded a Tetris clone called Quatris, that included a lengthy readme file "explaining" this, complete with ASCII graphics of a morose-looking fellow with a bar code on his forehead.)
But by and large, bar codes seem to have done okay by us, privacywise, and they're used in the manufacturing and distribution of almost everything, from nonprescription medicine to package delivery. Similarly, I don't think that the people developing this system are secretly chortling and snickering at how this will take away everyone's privacy...well, hmm, maybe Scott "you have no privacy, get over it" McNealy is, but I don't think the other people are. Perhaps some sort of a compromise can be worked out.
Simple solution (Score:1)
Find tag.
Destroy tag.
Re:Simple solution (Score:1)
Useful (Score:1, Interesting)
DOS attack? (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine this... (Score:4, Funny)
And same in reverse. What if it's a laundry day and you have to go commando? Do you really want people to know?
Re:Imagine this... (Score:2)
Or perhaps she's wearing one of those lead-lined adult diapers.....
Re:Imagine this... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wouldn't BE in the barcode... (Score:2)
They're wanting to track for logistics the item from the factory to the store. They're just talking about using the same tag for replacing the sensormatic stuff (Since it's RFID, it could be ticked off reliably when they "scan" it for pricing) and the UPC code.
Re:Wouldn't BE in the barcode... (Score:1)
They've got designs that can do that too... (Score:2)
Re:Imagine this... (Score:1)
Disabling RF tags is easy... (Score:2)
Low Tech Solution - HAMMER (Score:2)
Riiight... (Score:2)
Re:Riiight... (Score:1)
Re:Riiight... (Score:2)
You don't want to microwave things like candles (there is a zinc wire in the wick of many of them these days for ensuring the wick stays upright throughout the life of the candle...) or gilt-edged china, etc.
Microwaving might work, but the best, most effective way of dealing with the RFID stuff is to take the tags off of the item. All other methods have some drawbacks- some more severe than others.
Different design with those... (Score:2)
You didn't sign a contract to give back true ID... (Score:5, Funny)
RF ID tags are not a big problem for those who don't want to participate. It's like Internet browser cookies. You can let anyone put cookies on your hard drive. But, you didn't sign a contract with web site owners to give back the same cookies that they recorded. You could have software that gave back, not the correct cookies, but something subtly different.
Similarly, you can allow them to irradiate your possessions with radio frequency signals. But you don't have to give back the signals they expect. If they ping your possessions, your own electronics can respond that you are carrying three large elephants from the zoo. If anyone questions you about this, you can confess that you have never stolen anything before, but that you carried the elephants away in an unusual moment of weakness.
--
Links to respected news sources show that U.S. government policy contributed to terrorism: What should be the Response to Violence? [hevanet.com]
Re:You didn't sign a contract to give back true ID (Score:1)
I just can't see this actually helping security at all. It would be too expensive to implement, (not to mention all the old products that don't have them), and would really have no great benefits in terms of security other than to lull naive people into a falser sense of it than we already have. This just seems like another stupid scheme to invade our privacy further, while not really providing any benefits to security personnel or consumers.
The only way I could see this working is if they don't notify consumers about it. I could see them attempting this, but the way the manufacturing process is described (replace the bar-code) I wouldn't think it'd take that long for somebody to figure it out. (How long did those copy-protected CD's go before word was out? Oh yeah [fatchucks.com] that's right.)
Hell even if it does what its supposed to, what good does that do? Uhh...sir, we see that you have a cell phone on you...well...umm...carry on I guess. (and if they actually got the point of putting it on handguns or weapons, then god help us if we need RF barcodes to detect them).
Maybe I'm just missing something really obvious here...please correct me if I'm wrong.
Re:You didn't sign a contract to give back true ID (Score:1)
It'd be useful, but again can't see it becoming mainstream, be kind of convenient in the whole (SpeedPass concept of the NY/PA/etc turnpike. Load up your basket and drive.
I need caffeine
Re:You didn't sign a contract to give back true ID (Score:1)
Well, unless you've agreed not to screw with the signals, as part of your RF credit card contract. Presumably there'd be a no-tampering clause somewhere or other in there, so if you did go through a checkout line and mess with the checkout system in any way, you'd get in trouble.
Re:You didn't sign a contract to give back true ID (Score:3, Informative)
Give it time: Legislation will no doubt be passed which will prohibit you from carrying on your person RFIDs with the intent of bypassing or otherwise interfering with RFID detection systems.
Causing confusion would be simple. (Score:2)
Interesting. But causing confusion could be simpler than this. Little boys could switch tags on things that you already own and were around the house.
If this goes on credit cards and drivers licenses (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If this goes on credit cards and drivers licens (Score:2)
There's no problem to be solved here the way there is with replacing bar codes/EAS tags. Credit card swiping is already a perfectly serviceable way of paying.
Driver's licenses, OTOH...well, as much as they're "national ID card"ifying these, I could see it happening. I could see a cop checking your license plate and reading your driver's license (to be sure it's not suspended or out of date and matches to the list of people authorized to drive the car) at the same time he hits you with a radar gun...
Re:If this goes on credit cards and drivers licens (Score:2)
One word: Speedpass [speedpass.com]. It's nothing other than a keyfob RFID tag that you carry around and use in lieu of a credit card. For all intents and purposes it is your credit card to a Speedpass reader.
Mobil and Exxon use these things at their pumps. McDonalds is testing them in the Chicago area. If it catches on I expect to see the readers in more places.
And, I expect someone to devise a little portable interrogator for these suckers. Stand in line next to your target, interrogate his Speedpass tag to get its ID, then use the ID yourself to make your own purchase. Hopefully some sort of challenge/response protocol is used to prevent this sort of abuse, but I haven't come across any sort of information about it.
Re:If this goes on credit cards and drivers licens (Score:2)
A simple farady cage (card sleeve) takes care of the snoops. Not a problem, just a new line of security products for the business traveler.
Making Destruction of the Tags Illegal? (Score:1)
Re:Making Destruction of the Tags Illegal? (Score:2)
Hrumph (Score:1)
First of all, I'm sure the readers for these things, particularly ones that can read without a person's knowledge, would be horribly expensive and simply beyond the reach of most of the people involved in examples people have been proposing on here.
And that's not even considering how easy it would be to disable these things. For many things you remove the packaging from your groceries, and the RF tag would be thrown away with the package. If you were really paranoid you could follow the suggestions of some people here and EM blast your trash to hell before it goes out.
For things like your porno mags simply deliver a swift holepunch right through the tag.
The real negative of this thing is the cost. 5 cents is still huge compaired to the cost of a UPC. The payoff in convienience to consumers is great, though.
Imagin buying the entire shoppe... (Score:1)
So, with my RF equipment, I walk into the store, making sure I get to within a couple of meters of every product in the store.
When I (innocently, mind you), walk through the checkout I hapily respond with all product codes I recorded.
</imagin>
VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever see that IBM commercial where the guy grabs all this stuff, hides it under the jacket, and starts to walk out of the store? The security gruard grabs him, and you're supposed to think he's going to arrest him, but he really just says something stupid. Then the guy keeps walking, and these scanners pick up all the stuff he bought, and he just pays for the stuff. He's out of the store in like 15 seconds, none of this waiting in line for 15 mins.
Now, I know I may be speaking to the wrong crowd here (who in slashdot actually COOKS stuff???) but I HATE grocery store lineups (Can I have a pricecheck on canned tomatores????) and the delays they cause.
If these tags were somehow keyed to a specific store (with something like a public encryption key?), so that once you exited the premises they became disabled and/or useless, I can see no real privicy concerns. After all, they are just tags or stickers, if you're really paranoid just trash em when you get home. But the benefits to shopping would be immense. Not only would it speed up checkouts, it would be a very effective shoplifting deterrant (alot like existing systems that have a magnetic tag, but these ones you cant "sneak" around the scanners, cause they run on RF.)
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking as a cashier who's worked with this system, I would find it very convenient not to have to scan every item before I bagged it (especially with the arcane "rings per minute" efficiency monitoring system my store uses, which requires pressing weird button combinations to stop the clock when we're not doing something). And speaking as a customer, I would find that sort of speedy checkout much more enticing.
They just have to balance the convenience with privacy concerns somehow...
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:1)
But these things are insidious, one minute its RF tags, then next its iris based passports controlled directly by politicians.
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:2)
I suspect all the cashiers would be replaced with a couple of guards to make sure nobody "jumps the gate" (so to speak).
Cashiers' jobs in no danger (Score:2)
Re:Cashiers' jobs in no danger (Score:2)
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, a lot of the current anti-theft tags DO work on RF already - they just resonate at a particular frequency. The detectors on the doors emit that frequency, and detect an "echo" which sounds the alarm. To deactivate the tag, when an item goes through the barcode scanner a much stronger pulse at the same frequency burns out the little tag, so it no longer echoes.
This system could be used in a similar way: as you walk through a detector arch, the computer identifies and deactivates each tag it senses. Once there are no more tags present, everything you're carrying has been scanned and charged for - and you aren't carrying any working tags any more, so there are no privacy concerns: once you've paid for the items, the tag is deactivated.
Don't forget the risks either (Score:2)
So if a person in a mall walks up to an item with a homebrew pocket RFID transceiver which accepts payments (into /dev/null), that person is then free to leave the store with goods in hand?
To avoid suspicion, it wouldn't even have to be carried out of the store on the same day or even by the same person.
Even video camera surveillance could be defeated as long as people trust such a system - for example, to remove a sweater from the store, wear modest clothing, just pick up two already-paid-for sweaters off the rack (a little slight-of-hand to make it look like you're just taking one helps), go into the changing room, put one of the sweaters underneath what you were wearing, return the other one to the shelf, perhaps buy something else, and walk out the store wearing the paid-for sweater.
Practical jokes (Score:2)
"WTF! - pickled pigs feet!?"...So I can imagine that people might wind up paying for stuff that they didn't want (Little kid chucks stuff into the cart, etc..)
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:2)
Cooking is science you can eat [goodeatsfanpage.com]. There's a lot to like there.
Re:VERY dangerous, but don't forget the benefits (Score:2)
The security gruard grabs him, and you're supposed to think he's going to arrest him, but he really just says something stupid. Then the guy keeps walking, and these scanners pick up all the stuff he bought, and he just pays for the stuff.
The security guard said "Sir, you forgot your receipt" and gave it to him. He'd already been scanned and had paid.
I always wondered why the receipt wasn't sent to him electronically...
Opt-out shopping bags and backpacks (Score:4, Insightful)
Spy vs. spy ==> tag vs. bag
Re:Opt-out shopping bags and backpacks (Score:2)
RFID Design Guides (Score:2, Interesting)
An excellent source of information on RFID basics (quite technical, actually) is Microchip, Inc.
RFID Design Guides [microchip.com]
NB, they're in PDF format.
Ken
Bad Sci-fi (Score:1)
First, $0.05 is a lot of money. Yes, I actually said that. Screw you, I've been poor, depression poor. Someone else pointed out that $0.05 is 50 times the cost of a UPC print and the manufacturers cost would actually be double that anyway. What I need to survive is the milk, flour, eggs, and cheese and I'm willing to pay for that. But at the end of my shopping trip you've tried to extract about $2.00 for some tags that don't do me, the consumer, squat? No, I don't think so.
Spoofing is another reason it just isn't going to work. Say I'm wearing a coat I purchased last year and I go into a store to buy my brother the same coat this year as a gift because he liked mine so much. I'm in the checkout line and they're gonna scan two tags (the one I want to buy and the one I've had for a year). Sorting out stuff like that is going to be a costly nightmare for the retailer, especially if it goes so far that we have to go to small claims court in the end.
Bait and switch spoofing will be as bad or worse than it is now with UPC scanning. For those of you who don't know, that's where you put a copy of a UPC (or the RF tag) of a products low end cousin on the package of the high end model. Checkers are trained for speed these days and told not compare scan reads with the product being scanned. I know one guy who got out of Wal Mart with a $500 TV for only $90 doing that.
Bad idea. Very bad.
RF Tags already used (Score:3, Insightful)
I am an engineer with a systems integrator, and I can say I have used these sorts of things many times. Many manufacturing plants use an rf tag that transmits a signal when excited with a certain frequency. They also have the ability to write to the tags as well. These tags generally have to be real close to the transmitter/receiver in order to work, and they don't work quite right if more than one tag is in range. Since all the transponders will most likely resond on the same frequency, there is going to have to be some tricky decoding going on to capture all the transponders within range.
As for privacy, I don't see the problem. Like has been pointed out before, you just remove the transponder when you get home. Heck they could even have a transpoder return program similar to the can/bottle return in some states. Then the transponders can be reused and cut costs even more.
Re:RF Tags already used (Score:2)
Read the FAQ. Some models of tags have collision avoidance and detection.
The Fridge of the Future (Score:1)
Re:The Fridge of the Future (Score:1)
I would take that one step better, and say that your frig. could read the transponders and know the optimum temperature to keep that compartment, thus making your food fresher for longer. Also your cooker (oven, toaster, microwave, etc.) could read the transponder and know the optimum cook time and temp. for that hungry man dinner. Then when you are done, recycle the transponder for a $0.05 refund, similar to cans/bottle in many states.
Ah, but it could also be useful . . . (Score:1)
Um, I dunno... (Score:2)
Is that not possible with these tags, or is this whole discussion one big retardathon?
Not another big brother (Score:2)
It would be just as obvious, so you'd be able to choose whether or not you wanted to be scanned.
Re:Not another big brother (Score:2)
First, with a sufficiently directional antenna on the querying unit you can appear quite "close" to the tag while being physically distant. This applies to both sending the power signal which is rectified to power the tag, and receiving the information signal from the tag.
Second, even if that weren't true, during the 70's the Soviets (and probably the US) used dangerously high power levels of RF targetted at adversary facilities to excite passive listening devices inside the target facility such as flourescent ballasts and even simple diodes. Of course a rig like that would not get FCC approval, so it would not power a commercial threat to privacy.
Third, this creates a niche for a DoubleClick-like company which would install scanner frames around the doors of retail shops. This would provide physical "walk trails" of shoppers and show the correlation between shopping at diferent stores. Participating merchants would have access to the data. This would be great data to have because it would tell the merchant about the non-buyers - those who looked around and didn't see anything they really liked. Every RFID on the person's body represents a buying decision he made in the past - couldn't that provide some clues about what the merchant should be selling/promoting/discounting?
Farraday cage (Score:1)
There is one other nice thing about constructions like that: they block RF emissions.
I still have to figure out what to do with tagged clothing... I don't fancy walking around in something that closely resembles chainmail (except when I also get to wield a sword and a shield).
product registration (Score:1)
Try a little shoplifter trick.... (Score:1)
Scottie's idea (Score:2)
washing (Score:2, Interesting)
To do it right... (Score:2)
I want a protocol that looks something like this:
Just a thought,
How many unique numbers in a 96 Bit number? (Score:2, Interesting)
79 octillion, or
79,228,162,514,264,337 trillion, or
79,228,162,514,264,337,593,543,950,336
unique identifiers.
According to the Population Reference Bureau [prb.org] there are 6.137 billion people on earth [prb.org], 1.193 billion of those in "more developed countries".
Doing a little quick math:
Each human can be equally assigned
12,909,917,307,196,405,017 IDs, or
12 quintillion ID's, or
12,909,917 trillion ID's per person, equally distributed among all humans.
I don't think I have that much stuff in my house, even if you break down every item into its simplest parts. And I have 6 PC's!
So my question is, can someone drive by in a van, by my house, and get an entire inventory of what I have in my house? Or does it only work within a few feet?
Could the Gas Man (natural gas) with a little wand walk around my house and get a good idea of what I have? Yikes!
The Amateur Radio Perspective (Score:2)
Actually, that sounds like fun, 440 has a tendency to mess with stuff anyways. I wonder what product it would report if I decided to say "kc8qrm* monitering" on the right frequency with a good amount of power? I'm thinking it might just report back by giving some nice Magic Smoke.
Ok, granted that's all a bit tongue-in-cheak, but the truth is that just because some company can't figure out how to get this to work on another band (2.4Ghz? 900MHz?) correctly, we shouldn't be allocating them new frequencies. Radio Amateurs perform public service and are there in case of emergencies. Take a look at amateur radio everyone, it's really pretty easy to get involved these days. There is no morse code requirement now for a Tech. license, and the highest requirement is only 5wpm. It's a fun hobby, and it'll help you get a higher geek rating on your score card
--Josh
*kc8qrm isn't my callsign. It's in a different regon than I live, and they'll never give those 3 letters in a call, QRM is a Q-code that means interferiance.
Re:The Amateur Radio Perspective (Score:1)
interesting tidbit [arrl.org]
Privacy, what are you on crack (Score:1)
How to combat this easily (Score:1)
Uh, you do have a handheld EMP generator don't you?
(A Stargate Zat gun will do in a pinch.)
Current Applications (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a systems integrator [flexint.com] and I have evaluated and used RFID in a couple of systems. There are only a handful of scenarios where using the RFIDs makes sense right now.
One scenario where RFIDs do make sense is in large warehouses and storage systems. With barcodes, the fork truck operator must be fairly accurate in his aim to get a proper ID back. With the RFIDs, he has a lot more room for error. A single RFID can identify what is in a skid of product, so the cost is relatively small.
A situation where RFIDs don't work well is in the consumer market. Currently, beverage makers are able to print the barcode directly onto the container (case, can, bottle). With RFIDs, the manufacturing must add an extra step in order to apply the ID. The additional cost of the ID, plus the cost of modifying the packaging system is far too great right now to justify using RFIDs. Add to this the fact that most supermarkets will need to install new equipment at the checkout for identifying the products. It is a change that is not worth making when the current barcode system works very well.
For those concerned about someone scanning all of your products in a single sweep, don't be (at least not with today's version of RFID). You have to be within a couple of feet of the ID to get it to respond. Also, several brands of the RFIDs are reprogrammable, so you could simply reset all of the IDs when you got home. Most likely, the ID is applied to the packaging, and not the product itself, so you could just throw out the box as well. I have found in my testing that if more than one ID is within the activation range of the reader, the reader will not get the right value. So you can rest your fears (at least until a better RFID tag is created).
I already deal with enough rfi on the... (Score:1)
RFID (Score:2)
Alternate Uses for RFID Technology (Score:2, Interesting)
You can make passive radio frequency, RF, tags with diode arrays. Semiconductor diodes fluoresce in RF when illuminated by microwaves. The fluorescence wavelength is determined by the energy band gap of the diode. Combinations of diodes with different energy gaps fluoresce in different combinations of radio frequencies.
There is a technique for making microscopic (tens to hundreds of nanometers) dust from the surface of a silicon wafer. I forget who invented it but it's years old... you use hydrofluoric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and ultrasound. I think Science News did a piece on it.
Here's the part I thought of:
A very diffuse cloud of this diode dust has interesting properties. You can illuminate it from one direction with a microwave beam and you can observe the cloud with a RF receiver. Now, any sound waves in the cloud cause the RF signal from the suspended diode particles to oscillate (Doppler effect)... it's straight frequency modulation.
You can hear everything within the cloud and only sounds passing through the cloud. You just have to demodulate the RF coming from the dust.
Spread the dust through a building and you can listen anywhere in the building by controlling the volume of overlap between the microwave emitter field and the RF receiver antenna field.
I don't have the money to do this but I'll bet any one $5 that it would work.
Computer users need an ARRL (Score:3, Insightful)
Now contrast this with how the same drama would play itself out in computer-land:
Anyhow, I respect the ARRL for understanding the rules of engagement and for not waiting until the enemy brings the fight to them. Whether they win or lose this specific battle is not as important - the important thing is that they have preserved the right of ordinary citizens to operate radios. Looks like that right may outlast the right of ordinary citizens to operate computers.
What would it take for the computer world to grow an ARRL?
Re:Seems far-fetched (Score:1)
My thoughts exactly, but apply that to the 'airport' scene layed out. 96 items on hundreds of people? A little interference maybe?
Re:How is this a problem? (Score:1)
Cumulatively it could be a problem though, look what happened in 1930's Germany. These things are insidious as opposed to blatant.
All mobile phones have ESN and SIM numbers so they are pretty identifiable. In Europe the GSM code to see the ESN is *#06 .
Pagers have always been incredibly easy to listen too, POCSAG, FLEX and all of the other standards are not much better than the telegram. I have seen people transmit passwords and pin-numbers on local (private - and I had permission to listen) pager networks.
As for your mobile company. If someone turns up with a badge are they going to keep your details secret and/or give them access to the network proper?