RFID (Radio Frequency ID) Tags

[Spudkilla]

I saw something very disturbing to me today in the newspaper.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/0703/29radioretail.html

Imagine, retailers tracking their products from the production line to your house... I can see where Big Brother would like this very much...

[Nihilist]

shouldn't be too much of a problem. If the tag is on whatever you buy, then it shouldn't be too hard to deactivate it. You will probably just be able to run a powerful magnet over it, in order to disable it.

[mrloud]

Hopefully the tags will be embedded into the packaging rather than the product itelf. This technology is fine with me as long as the tags self destruct as you leave the store. But how will we ever know?

Standard practice for me is going to involve zapping purchases in the microwave oven for a few seconds when I get home.

An interesting idea... A handbag sized microwave emitter could be used to destroy the tags while still ih the shop. This would allow you to simply walk out of the shop with any number of 'toasted' items hidden in amongst the other items. As long as it looks like you have payed for ~something~ on the way out the door, you'll be fine.

[nbk2000]

Here's a better idea.

Rather than futzing about with ways to disable the tags so you can steal PETTY shit, come up with a way to make buea coup dollar by exploiting the technology yourself. :p

One thing that comes to my mind is embedding an RFID into the shell nucleus used to manufacture cultured pearls. Then, every pearl that is harvested can be identifed as to its orgin, value, ownership history, etc.

When you're talking about single pearls that can cost as much as a high-end sports car (think porsche), and strands of them worth multi-millions, the ability to have a provable ownership record (that can't be removed without destroying the pearl in the process) sounds like a surefire winner to me. :)

Rich people can afford their privacy, poor peons can't, so exploit the very technology that would further enslave the poor to make yourself rich, ensuring your own privacy in the process. There's an RTPB in there somewhere...;)

But you're not going to have to worry about these things for many a moon to come, so don't worry about it (for now) when there's so much more (and immediate) things you should be worried about.

[Tuatara]

A very funny article. Mostly scare-mongering and pipe dreams.

I've been looking into RFid myself, as part of the vehicle alarm I'm working on so let me set a few things straight.

1/ though the chip is only a couple of mm square, the antenna is much bigger - up to 50mm diameter, depending on range requirements, but at least 10mm for everything I've seen.

2/ range : you'd be lucky to get more that 300mm (yes, thats 1 foot!). So the thing is not going to be broadcasting its whereabouts to the whole world

3/ they are not self powered, they are energised by the RF coming from the scanner. No scanner = no workee :D

4/ frequency : they operate at 125kHz or 13.6MHz usually, not microwave frequencies, though a trip through the microwave wont do them any favors:D


Nice idea with the pearls NBK! Just a shame about the size constraints :(

[nbk2000]

I've seen RFID chips embedded in a glass envelope the size of a grain of rice that are intended for use as pet ID tags and have the antenna built into the glass envelope

Now, since the shell nucleus for large pearls can be bigger than 8mm in diameter, such an ID tag would fit quite nicely into the bead.

The only hassle would be in drilling the hole for the ID tag off center so that, when the pearl is drilled, the tag isn't. This would require X-ray equipment because (obviously) you can't see where the tag is in a finished pearl (which is the whole idea).

This care in drilling wouldn't be necessary if the resulting pearl came out fucked up, so you could drill it anyway you wanted to then. This would only be needed for the gem quality pearls that are worth a fortune.

I'd assume crooks ;) could figure out some way of disabling the tags, but that may entail destroying or damaging the pearl, reducing it's value to thieves, which is the whole idea. :)

If a tagged pearl had multiple drill holes (visible in X-ray photos) or an inoperable tag, especially if it was a strand of them, then any legit dealer would know they were stolen goods.

Giving how the tags only cost a few dollars, and would be implanted in things that would be worth tens of thousands of dollars, I don't think there'd be much resistance to the idea. Now if I could figure out a way of getting them into solid gems like diamonds...hmmmmm....

Now, as for the paranoid factor of RFID....

Imagine you buy a pair of Nikes at a store with your credit card. The RFID of the shoes is matched in the retailers database with the name of the person buying them.

Then, at some later date, some terrorist who bought your nikes at your garage sale, goes through airport security with a bomb that he plants that kills a bunch of people. He escapes and, thanks to human error, someone forgot to remove the video tape, so it got recorded over, thus no face.

BUT...thanks to a homeland security test program...RFID scanners have been secretly built into the airports security scanners, secretly recording the RFID of every item (and person) coming through it. After going through the logs, and consulting the "Terrorist Informational Awareness" database, they narrow down the suspect to one person...the one person who was wearing a pair of nikes bought at wal-mart with a credit card at 9:47AM on march 24, 2007. They get the video for that day and Voila'!...your face and name on Americas Most Wanted.

Congratulations, you're now Public Enemy #1 because you were foolish enough to have bought an RFID tagged item that you later sold for $5 to some abdula on a mission.

Less ominous, but still annoying, would to be tracked at stores. Imagine that you just like to wander around, window shopping to kill time. The anti-theft scanners are also recording any tags that enter the store, as well as those that leave, so they know how long someone is in the store. Same for the registers which can tell if a person is near them (presumably to pay for things) or not.

Now, imagine that the stores start monitoring for people who come in and hang around, but never seem to spend any time near a register...might they not start thinking that these people are either loitering or possibly even *gasp* stealing?

A person is allowed in a store by invitation only. Retailers are free to refuse entry to, or to force a person out, at anytime with no reason needed. Might it become common that retailers will have databases that they share between each other about who spends and who "loiters", and start denying entry to those who they deem are time-wasters and possible thieves?

We could establish a whole new social caste system based on your economic worth. If you're poor, you wouldn't be able to go mall browsing because you'll be barred at the door.

Sounds far fetched now, but wait till the tags are everywhere, and in everything. The trend for "security" and control of peoples movements and identities, as well as the trend towards greater privitization of (what we now think of as) public spaces makes me think this highly possible, if not probable, in the future.

I could see people without any tags being suspected of being criminals who are trying to evade the system and arrested on probable cause (if even that much excuse is needed in the future :(), since only criminals (or the poor) wouldn't have any RFID'd clothing on them.

[Tuatara]

I had no idea that the seed for a pearl could be so large (poor oyster!). As for the hole drilling issue - since the antenna coil can be air-cored the whole rfid seed could be built spherical, with a hole through the middle of the coil, ready for redrilling when the pearl is finished.

Maybe you're onto a winner there after all!

As to the security/privacy issue, I think things like facial recognition and other biometrics are far scarier technologies. rfid is too easily defeated . The lawyers would have an absolute field day with the scenario you describe. As for being 'id less' a quick trip to the nearest waste dump would yield a handy pocketful of id chips, for those without the means to purchase.

[Spudkilla]

Nihilist, running a magnet over an RFID tag wouldn't do any good, if an actual person was the item, in the case or NBK's pearls. Since all high quality pearls would be embedded with RFID chips, then the honest pawn shop owner scanning the pearl would notice no RFID, thus thinking that is fake or stolen.

[nbk2000]

Pawnshops couldn't afford the kinds of pearls I'd be tagging. :)

And the lack of an RFID wouldn't automatically mean the pearls are stolen, since there's so many pearls in existance now that aren't tagged. What would be sus' would be a tagged pearl that had an inoperable RFID. Since pearls don't have any metal content, any cheap-o metal detector, or maybe even a rare-earth magnet, would pick on the presence of an RFID in a pearl. Once that was known, it could be passed over a reader to determine ownership history.

Naturally, there'd have to be a central database that kept these ownership records. Guess who'd own that too? The same person who sold the RFID'd pearl nucleus to the pearl farmers in the first place. ;)

And what could a person do with a database of who owns high-dollar pearl jewelry, thus also being highly likely of owning other high dollar jewels? Hmmm....:D Though I'd be too rich to give a fuck about stealing other peoples jewels, though lord forbid I ever got sued into bankruptcy or such. It'd be a terrible shame if the database was ever to be abused by a felonious criminal bent of taxing the rich bastards who stole his business from him. :p

[Spudkilla]

I thought of this while taking a shower: RFID tags embedded in firearms, knives, bullets, and concealed carry permits. Upon entering a store, the RFID scanners would state that you had a weapon, and wether or not you had a concealed carry permit. In the case of convience stores, it would automatically alert the police with certain information (name, age, etc.) gathered from the RFID chips embedded in your 80 dollar credit card bought shoes and the gun/bullets/knife. Seems like a great idea, a way to cut down on the crime, but I came up with a little paronioa thing, too.

You are Fox Mulder, and you have just discovered the ultimate truth, and you are planning to tell everyone in the known universe, aliens included. But, this will ruin Big Brother's plans, but, being a high profile paranormal investigator, you disappearance would set alarm bells off in everyone. So, they just do something very simple. Big Brother takes your gun and bullets, conviently left in your office.

Meanwhile, Bobby Joe is buying some Marlboro regs at Jihad Ahmed's convience store, when some crazy fucker bursts through the door. He is clothed in all black, with a ski mask and leather gloves. The RFID scanners go crazy, saying "Fox Mulder has entered the store with a Glock 17 handgun, with seven 9mm bullets in the clip and one chambered. Fox Mulder does not have a concealed carry permit, I am alerting police now."

Bobby Joe sees "your" eyes, obviously disgused by red colored contacts. Then he is shot, along with Jihad Ahmed and two other clerks. The gun is left at the scene. When the police, arrive, they scan the gun and the bullets to make sure it was you that had done the shooting. Bobby Joe lives long enough to scream "Red eyes! He had read eyes!!" They head off to your house to apprehend you, with a warrant in tow. Upon arrival at your house, they find a box of red colored contacts, and with the help of RFID scanners, find that you bought them. You are arrested and convicted with four counts of murder, and one count of concealing a weapon without proper liscences.

Thus, Big Brother had rid itself of another nuisance.

[yt2095]

sounds fine IF you base it on that evidence alone :)

[Anthony]

I don't think it'd be much different from your personal items being linked to you in conventional ways. I.e gun registered to you, fingerprints, red contacts bought with "your" credit card etc.