Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Privacy Your Rights Online

Embedded Microchips In Virtually Everything 186

Posted by kdawson from the minority-report-by-other-means dept.
Microsoft CRM recommends a long AP article laying out the nightmare scenario of RFID chips in everything tracking not only things but people. The darker possibilities of a technology capable of enabling ubiquitous surveillance are not news to this community, but it's not so common to see them spelled out for a wider audience. "Microchips with antennas embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items and consumers wherever they go. Much of the radio frequency identification technology that enables objects and people to be tagged and tracked wirelessly already exists and potentially intrusive uses of it are being patented, perfected and deployed... [A director at FTI Consulting] said:] 'It's going to be used in unintended ways by third parties — not just the government, but private investigators, marketers, lawyers building a case against you.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Embedded Microchips In Virtually Everything More

Embedded Microchips In Virtually Everything

Comments Filter:

  • Class division (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webmaster404 ( 1148909 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:14PM (#22197984)
    I expect that all the new "smart devices" will create a class division within developed countries, those who can program and those who can't. We already have part of it with Best Buy and other computer retailers trying to sell you at least $300 in extra hardware/software/support even though you don't need it yet the uninformed take the bait and end up spending money they don't need. Also, the same thing is happening with computer repair and support, if you don't know whats wrong tech support is more than willing to test every combination and then charge you for the privilege of fixing it along with any other thing that /might/ be wrong.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't see how that translates into a new class division. What you describe is the benefit of being proficient in any field. Likewise, a mechanic could take me for a ride while someone who knows cars won't be so easily fooled. A doctor (or nurse) would be prevent themselves being taken by another health care provider (when they go to the doctor)....

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Cosmic AC ( 1094985 )
        But computing is pervasive. In the future, more and more things will be controlled by software, rather than by cars or doctors.
        • That doesn't really mean a damn thing. I mean, computing is already pervasive, but knowing how to use a computer or write code still doesn't help me use my microwave or refrigerator, even though both of them probably have microcontrollers.
          • No, but if there is any rule with technology that all devices almost always follows is that the more advanced something is the higher probability that it will break, fail or malfunction. If say there is a "great refrigerator worm" you can either protect yourself from it therefore not needing to spend an extra $300 on a new fridge, or not get scammed by people who are selling "fridge antivirus" that protect you from all the "threats to your refrigerator's well-being" that really doesn't do much. Not to menti

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >Also, the same thing is happening with computer repair and support, if you don't know whats wrong tech support is more than willing to test every combination and then charge you for the privilege of fixing it along with any other thing that /might/ be wrong.

      This is different from cars... how?

      If you come in with an unusual problem (outside of simple stuff like "timing belt", "spark plugs", "oil"), and give them a vague description like "Oh, well, you know, I was just driving it and now, well, it doesn't

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tsa ( 15680 )
      That's nothing new. It happened with cars, washing machines, and I bet horses in the olden days... People will always make use of the ignorance of others. That 'class division' always existed for all things that need maintenance by a professional.

  • Fuzz Busters.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aero2600-5 ( 797736 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:23PM (#22198036)
    As soon as RFID chips start appearing in all of our items, the market for devices that destroy them without damaging the article itself will very quickly materialize. Honestly, if I can figure out how to destroy them easily, I may be in on that market.

    And then they'll make tougher RFID chips, and we'll make tougher devices to kill them. And this war will escalate just like the Radar vs Radar Detector arms race. What are the cops using now? Negatively modulated phased arrays doppler assisted with frequency hopping? Exactly.

    Aero

    • And then they'll make tougher RFID chips, and we'll make tougher devices to kill them. And this war will escalate just like the Radar vs Radar Detector arms race. What are the cops using now? Negatively modulated phased arrays doppler assisted with frequency hopping? Exactly.

      This is fine in the principle of large devices for a small target group. But if you have to make the change across the entire retail/government/other sector to read and use these chips AND the cost goes up proportionally then at some point the war -could- be won. Or, like shoplifting, the costs^W savings can be passed on to consumers.

    • How many cops actually know what they're using? I see there being more of a market for competitors to use each other's rfid implementations against them (as in espionage and sabotage) rather than a market for flat out destruction of devices. http://infiniteadmin.com/ [infiniteadmin.com]
    • Although disabling the RFID tags might help, it might not do much good. If only one percent of the population consistently disables all of the RFID tags they carry then it will be relatively easy to just correlate the sensor detections of people who don't have any readable tags. That probably wouldn't work on the side walks of New York City, but on roads or less heavily used side walks you could probably still be tracked. Also if you're one of the few with no tags then you might get some extra scrutiny. Als

    • Re:Fuzz Busters.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BlueParrot ( 965239 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @06:16AM (#22199292)
      So what do you do when you CANT destroy the RFID because it is necessary for the device you bought to function? E.g, when your credit card doesn't work without the rfid chip, when you are not allowed to enter the subway without an rfid enabled ticket etc... Take your money elsewhere? Say hello to cartels and monopolies that are in cahoots with the government.

      If it was as easy as just destroying the chip ( and if destroying the chip was legal ) then it wouldn't be a problem.
      • Pack it in tinfoil...
        that won't solve the problem completely, but at least you will only be traceable at the points where you use the thing in question.

  • FUD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JRHelgeson ( 576325 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:25PM (#22198044) Homepage Journal
    The RFID chips have a transmission range of 3cm, thats one freakin' inch. If you have a large antenna, you can get 30cm range (1 foot).
    Half the people I know use a key card to access/unlock doors at work. Those things have an RFID chip in them. How close do you have to hold those up to the reader? Yup, 3cm.

    If you had a 6' satellite dish mounted on the back of a truck, you could theoretically blast out a signal strong enough to activate the RFID receiver and get it to reflect back a signal to the dish, but the weakness of the return signal is so minute that you still would not be able to hear the return signal past 10' away.

    Sorry, but does the government really care if you have any more "hot pockets" in your freezer? These articles are more about scare tactics than reality.

    Now, a concern that has been brought up is programmable RFID chips. If your can of Campbell's Tomato soup had a programmable RFID tag then a customer could program it with self replicating code and place it back on the shelf. Then, when the store took inventory and scanned the shelf, the "infected" can of soup would receive the energy pulse and reply not with the information the reader is looking for, but with a reprogramming signal that would "reprogram" the cans of soup around it with the self replicating code. Could you imagine a whole WalMart being quarantined due to an RFID worm outbreak?

    It isn't really possible, the return signal from an RFID chip isn't even strong enough to power up an RFID chip next to it, but it is nevertheless fun to think about.

    Read my /. journal article on RFID chips and the need to adopt them.

    Joel Helgeson
    • Wouldn't you burn out the RFID chip before you could read at more than a few feet? The wires used for the passive antennas in cheap RFIDs cannot take much current.

    • Re:FUD and not so FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by erexx23 ( 935832 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @12:08AM (#22198210)
      I have read that passive tags can be read from 1 inch to 40 feet.
      And Active tags can be read up to a mile or more.

      The range all has to do with cost and need.
      With all tech reducing cost is only a matter of scale and time.

      As with all things its also only a matter of time before malevolent use any tool or technology occurs.

      So while I agree that Orwellian references to RFID technology are certainly overblown,
      Dismissing the need for caution and prudence with any technology can only lead to big problems in the long run.

      As you pointed out so well a soup can worm could shut the doors on a supermarket.
      I think that this is a simple example of what could be the tip of a greater iceberg once truely talented indiviuals
      start taking advantage of an embedded technology that is only bound to evolve.
      Once it become part of the system it will be hard to get rid of.
      • What kind of passive tags can you read at 40 feet?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dattaway ( 3088 )
          A cheap passive tag bonded to a capacitor and an antenna could burst back a signal far away. Never underestimate cheap.
          • So, how are you going to integrate this package into a electronic product code for say, a T-shirt or on a soup can? As distance increases you start talking about needing to store larger amounts of energy before you can send it back, which means a higher capacitance. You'll quickly get to electrolytic can packages. The fear in the article is that you'll be tracked based on these items, which means that the rfid has to be small enough to be unobtrusively left in many items on your person. The type of RFID

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by c6gunner ( 950153 )
      Hrm. Your post is intelligent, well thought out, and rational.

      U MUST B 1 OF DEM!!!!!11!
    • No kidding, they're freakin' barcodes! I've used a RFID chip to get into my workplace every day for the last 3 years and it's not giving me cancer and I'm not being trailed by men in black. It's cheaper for the company than hiring a security guard on all 14 floors, and it's handier for me to be able to get into work after hours. It's not some satan technology from hell to enslave us all, it's a fricken' barcode.
      • Do you think that the logs from your security system won't be able to tell someone exactly which door you triggered at exactly which date and time? Your movements are being tracked. It's just that right now, nobody cares.

        While Christmas shopping with my mom, we purchased our items and left the store. As we were leaving the security system announced that apparently someone had failed to remove the inventory control tag from an item. We looked around to see who was making off with store goods, but just
        • Sure, right now it's just a barcode. But it would not take much to change that barcode to a Universally Unique IDentifier, readable from multiple, integrated systems.

          So... what? Who cares? What impact does that have in my life?

          This is the problem with paranoid conspiracy theories. They go on and on about what "can" be done, and how information "can" be linked together, but they never talk about the "so what?" I used to have a pot-head buddy who loved to tell me about the secret caches the Illuminadi would k

    • Re:FUD (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sparky McGruff ( 747313 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @01:33AM (#22198516)
      Okay, so your one example is that one type of RFID works at about an inch. And you imply that this is the only type of RFID that anyone is concerned with.

      So, how the hell is that useful for Wal-Mart, in tagging pallets? Having done inventory in a warehouse before in my mis-spent youth, I can tell you that on a pallet (wrapped in shrink wrap, stacked three high), an RFID tag that only read at one inch (or even six inches) would be completely useless. Pretty much the same usefulness as a bar-code sticker, or a metal tag with an embossed number. Those Wal-mart people must be morons to insist that their suppliers include tags on shipping pallets that cant be read from more than an inch away.

      But, since you insist, there must not be any other kind of RFID. I'll go edit the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] now. It's obviously written by a conspiracy nut.

      Passive tags have practical read distances ranging from about 10 cm (4 in.) (ISO 14443) up to a few meters (Electronic Product Code (EPC) and ISO 18000-6), depending on the chosen radio frequency and antenna design/size. Due to their simplicity in design they are also suitable for manufacture with a printing process for the antennas. The lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small: commercially available products exist that can be embedded in a sticker, or under the skin in the case of low frequency RFID tags.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by BlueStrat ( 756137 )
      Half the people I know use a key card to access/unlock doors at work. Those things have an RFID chip in them. How close do you have to hold those up to the reader? Yup, 3cm.

      We must have had RFID-enabled employee badges/pass cards on steroids then. The aircraft service facility I worked at used them, and were required to enter not only the main employee entrance, but also to access doors to various departments. The doors would unlock when someone with an authorized pass/badge would walk within a couple feet.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheesey ( 70139 )
      Interesting. Another piece of (mis)information about RFID is that the chips can be made very small, when miniaturisation is limited by the minimum size of an effective antenna. An earlier discussion on that topic. [slashdot.org]

      However, RFID could solve a variety of problems in the surveillance business: how do you track everyone's movements without protests and objections? You can't rely on image recognition, so getting everyone to carry remotely readable electronic tags seems to be the best way. Mobile phones are good,
    • I can see all alcohol and tobacco products having a RFID chip. I can see that in order to purchase said product one would have to scan a machine readable ID. Now if said product is found in the hands of a minor than the person who purchased the product would have to explain why. If no one purchased the product(shoplifted) than the store that purchased it would have to explain why they can not prevent the shoplifting. If one is caught DUI I would tell them they can not purchase alcohol for at least 5 year

  • vote with your wallet (Score:3, Insightful)

    by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:26PM (#22198052)
    I won't buy anything that tracks me, just like i refuse to purchase software the requires it to phone home.

    • Cell Phone = tracking device (Score:5, Interesting)

      by megamerican ( 1073936 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @12:17AM (#22198248)
      If you own a cell phone and often carry it with you everywhere you go, you can be tracked. You can even be tracked with your phone turned off. The government has been asking to track people even without sufficient probably cause(and probably doing it illegally since we know about it).
      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/22/AR2007112201444.html?hpid=topnews [washingtonpost.com]

      I believe this was mandated in the 1996 Telecommunications Act for all cellular devices and has been implemented long since.
      • They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by novakyu ( 636495 )

          They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?

          However, they can make it very difficult to turn our phone REALLY OFF. I assume you already know the story about roaming data charge on iPhone [boingboing.net] (which may or may not have been entirely the user's fault). Assuming we can put any stock in anecdote, I had a similar experience with my RAZR (yeah, behind the times, lame):

          I had an important meeting with my boss and a few colleagues, so I turned my RAZR off before the meeting. I usually have a bunch of alarms and reminders that go off every couple hours or so. Wel

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by novakyu ( 636495 )

            I assume you already know the story about roaming data charge on iPhone (which may or may not have been entirely the user's fault).
            Oops. Wrong story. This [newsday.com] is the one I was thinking of.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Lehk228 ( 705449 )
            If a phone that's supposedly "off" can do that, why do you think they can't make it so that they can still track you while the phone is "off"? Monitoring battery usage isn't exactly an exact science, and not everyone has access to electronics that can tune to GHz signals that cell phones use (and good luck discriminating it against background noise). For now, we can remove the battery to be doubly sure, but what stops them from installing a "backup battery" that can't be removed short of de-soldering conne

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mgblst ( 80109 )
            If you are that paranoid, keep your phone switched off and next to a speaker. You will soon here whether it is sending signals or not.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by pembo13 ( 770295 )
          But remember it is a soft switch. There's nothing stopping it from just pretending to be off.

        • They can't track your phone when it's off. It can't be tracked if it's not emitting a radio signal. Maybe you think off means something other than off?
          You can always remove the battery* to your phone.

          * If you're not using an iPhone. *G*
      • if the device is powered off, they can't track you since it can't emit a signal. case closed thanks for playing.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Zymergy ( 803632 ) *
          Incorrect. I respectfully beg to differ.
          If the wireless device is powered off, if its is battery is removed, and if it is placed *inside a closed Faraday Cage*, would I then agree it can't emit a signal.
          Besides, What makes you think that similar techniques to RFID passive pinging reply signals are not already used in current/future cellular devices with their much higher gain omnidirectional transceiver antennas?
          Even without the main battery, these devices contain efficient capacitors with stored curr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nurb432 ( 527695 )
        That is why some of us pull out the battery when its not in use. At least they cant track me *between* calls. ( and since phone-booths are being phased out _ )

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DigitAl56K ( 805623 )
      Voting with your wallet is effective only when a large number of people do it. Take Walmart for example - you can easily find lots of people who claim a Walmart has ruined their neighborhood, but as long as thousands of others hand over their cash to get the cheaper goods on offer it doesn't make any difference. If you suffer for your cause, but your suffering has no impact, why make yourself suffer?

      RFID is poised to go this way - I don't like it either, but unless it's widely rejected a handful of people p
      • thats the same mentality that's got your country all messed up with a 2 party polical system - "why bother i can't make an impact no matter how i vote". you all need to stop that nonsense thinking and realise you DO make an impact no matter how small.

        • thats the same mentality that's got your country all messed up with a 2 party polical system
          I assume you are implying that I am an American. You sir, would be incorrect.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by wellingj ( 1030460 )

        If you suffer for your cause, but your suffering has no impact, why make yourself suffer?
        I would suffer because it makes a difference to me. This is why the US is sliding into the crap-hole, its because everyone shrugs and says "Well that's just the way it is." Fuck that. And if you are going to be one of those people who doesn't stand up for themselves, well fuck you too. By giving up like that you just made it harder for anyone who does give a damn.
        • Oh, I give a damn. I don't use a credit card, I pay cash for almost everything.

          At the same time I walk around all day with a cell-phone in my pocket and I expect most everyone here does also. You already know the US government is listening to all of your calls, what makes you think they're not tracking your location and who you associate with also? But you don't disconnect the battery from your cell phone when you're not making calls, do you? Well there you go, you aren't standing up for your privacy!

          My po

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )
      Hope you don't use a credit card.

      And anyway, there is no way that voting with you wallet is going to work. Most people just don't care. Nothing will change that.

  • Privacy Already Gone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webword ( 82711 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:26PM (#22198054) Homepage
    RFID and related technologies will only continue to push us down the path we are already on. There are cameras all the place, we constantly give up our addresses and credit card numbers, and even our grocery discount cards are tracking our purchases. This isn't going to slow down or let up. The trick will be to understand and govern what is in place, not necessarily slow down the technology changes we're seeing.

    There's little in the way of choice left regarding the use of this technology. It's too pervasive, in more sense than one.
    • I still pay cash on most items. Its really no ones business what brand of bread i *personally* choose. My 'discount' card is linked to a long address off a short peer.

      Sure, its not much, but its something.

  • Over here! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You can effectively already be tracked via cellphones, electronic transactions, and all the cameras out there, both public and private. Not to mention al the people who see you.

  • Will it be a hard sell or a soft sell? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Saturday January 26, 2008 @11:32PM (#22198086) Journal
    In light of the obviously undesireable implications of having every detail available to any spook with a scanner, I imagine that we'll start seeing systems designed to detect and neutralize the tags. Given that they are designed to respond to scans they shouldn't be too hard to ferret out(until the RFID equivalent of port knocking comes out, of course). Presumably a variety of little arms races will be kicked off, between the cypherpunks and the feds, the counterfeiters and the corporations, etc.

    The more interesting question, though, is what the reaction will look like on a social scale. Will RFID tags be routinely removed at point of sale, the way dye tags are, or will they be aggressively integrated into products in an effort to make them tamperproof? Will people at large see neutralizing RFID tags in items you own as a common, sensible, precaution, like shredding important documents, or will that be seen as the sort of thing that only hackers, criminals, and other shady characters would do?

    It will also be interesting to see what sorts of uses the vast amount of ambient information will be put to. Obviously, the usual surveillance and marketing stuff will be pretty thick on the ground; but there might be some rather more curious things as well. I can just imagine the horde of social networking gimmicks that will spring up around the ability to detect the consumer goods carried by those around you. It'll be just like Zune Squirting; but ubiquitous!(Does anybody else miss the days when the future was going to have flying cars and robots?)

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Fishead ( 658061 )
      I don't know too much about RFID, but I thought the deal was that it is encrypted so that the chip only responds if the code transmitted is correct. Much like my car alarm. This makes it more difficult to "sniff" hidden chips.

      As far as removing the unwanted RFID chip, if the RFID transducer is fabricated on top of a PIC microcontroller, and the microcontroller has no added external markings, everything that has a microcontroller could have a hidden RFID chip. This means your key fob for your car, your US

    • Will people at large see neutralizing RFID tags in items you own as a common, sensible, precaution, like shredding important documents, or will that be seen as the sort of thing that only hackers, criminals, and other shady characters would do?

      Well, knowing the government, I'd say they'll be paid to start up their propaganda machines and convince people that consumers who remove RFID chips are terrorists wishing to hide from the law. A fine and jail sentence will also be handed down to those who are disc

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 )
      I can imagine that an appeal to the widespread enthusiasm for "competitive consumption" could probably be used to increase consumer acceptance of RFID in a fair number of demographics. A system that scans the tags embedded in the goods carried by nearby people and reports the provenance and approximate value of those goods would likely be a hit in some circles(and with muggers; but never you mind about that). A likely implementation of such a system would be in cell phones. RFID reader + data connection to
  • Now i know how the Cashier scans Meggy without a bar code.
  • Fortunately I have a disguise.

  • ubiquitous surveillance are not news to this community

    Because a lot us are the ones installing those applications. Some suit with a genius idea will burst in and ask, "Hey, can you install that tracker....thing...what do we need to track our employees?" And they'll want the weekly report in two different formats and ad hoc custom reports, which they'll ask for at 4 pm on Friday afternoon and want you to send them on their Treo.

    The smart ones here will make millions selling counter-measures and runnin

  • does this mean I have to microwave my cloths?
  • Privacy advocates could do a lot of good just giving away RFID erasers for everyone. Not everything with RFID embedded will survive zapping in a microwave.

    Sponsor dry cleaners and laundromats to "debug" clothes with RFID found and erased, and give the customers the report.

    I could see a great public demo of an RFID reader out in a park or at a busy intersection with a big display superimposing the tag#s over video of the people on whom they're riding. With an eraser and some pamphlets. In fact, that setup co

  • Easily blocked (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @01:11AM (#22198456) Journal
    RFID tags transmit incredibly weak signals. The only power available to them is what the tiny antenna can convert from RF transmitted by the reader. A simple battery-operated transmitter operating at the same output frequency(ies) as the tags can easily interfere with the RFID tags transmission making it impossible for the reader to decode its signal.

    Also, reading the tags is really easy (and cheap). I bought a reader for $50 that uses a simple serial interface. I connected it to a PIC microcontroller, wrote some relatively simple software for it, and output IrDA via an IR LED so I can display the data on a Pocket PC.

    Dan East
  • I hear metalized mylar is the latest thing in fashion!
  • Range is defined as the maximum distance for successful Tag-Reader communication. Read range difference will vary and can be very-short, short, or long.

    Very Short Range: approx. up to 60cm (2 ft)
    Short Range: approx. up to 5 m (16 ft)
    Long Range: approx. 100+ m (320+ ft)

    High-frequency (850 MHz to 950 MHz and 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz) systems, offer long read ranges (greater than 90 feet) and high reading speeds. High-frequency systems are used for railroad car tracking and automated toll collection.

  • Brainwashing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Notable in the comments on this story is what seems to be missing. Deep outrage.

    Previous generations of Americans - of all political leanings - would have been deeply offended by the idea that governments, or anyone else for that matter, had the right to snoop into a free citizen's private life unless a judge had determined probable cause, meaning it was likely the person was a criminal where the court would authorize an investigation likely to lead to that citizen losing his freedom or at least some of his
  • A friend of mine [livejournal.com] was in charge of the latest release of Gamma World, for d20 Modern. One of the suppositions they made was that, before the Crash, technology had advanced to the point where even AI was so cheap that it was added to absolutely everything, for no other reason than that they could. Hammer? AI. Light switch? AI. No one even thought about it; it was just done. It was funny, but also kinda scary, because ours is a civilization where I can definitely see that happening.

    This reminds me of that, and
  • The short distances discussed in this and other articles, as I understand things, are reserved for the devices which send out energy to charge RFID chips, thus giving them the ability to transmit their information. Reading this subsequent RFID signal would then logically be limited in distance and resolution only by the sensitivity of the reader. We have had for some time now satellites that we know about which can from orbit pick up small and discrete packages of information, such as license plate number

  • No, we'd never misuse this for our own ends. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rc5-ray ( 224544 ) on Sunday January 27, 2008 @03:05PM (#22201836)
    My favorite quote from the article is:

    "Heady forecasts like these energize chip proponents, who insist that RFID will result in enormous savings for businesses. Each year, retailers lose $57 billion from administrative failures, supplier fraud and employee theft, according to a recent survey of 820 retailers by Checkpoint Systems, an RFID manufacturer that specializes in store security devices."

    So, a company who makes RFID chips does a study showing the businesses lose $57 Billion every year? That sounds as reliable as some of the Business Software Alliance statements on losses from piracy. To call this self-serving would be an understatement.
  • That's all. You know what to do.

  • Dark Matter (Score:2, Insightful)

    by EdIII ( 1114411 )
    What I find so very interesting, and always have, is the "lack" of information being provided by these surveillance systems.

    What is more concerning in a secured environment? The 999 objects that you can track visually and with RFID in a given area, or the ONE object you cannot track.

    This is what has concerned me from the beginning. If all the sheeples around me are not fighting back and forcefully taking their privacy back, then I will certainly show up like a big red target on the security software that
  • Burn those little RFID devices to a crisp, I say. Sure, I can't fit my car in the budget model (not that it would probably even run after getting a nice jolt) but I can see putting my clothes in one as soon as they come from the store. That tales care of the "everything I wear" part of the surveillance. Now how do we take care of the remainder?

Slashdot Top Deals

"The Computer made me do it."

Close