Slashdot Log In
Innovative Uses of RFID Tags
Posted by
michael
on Sat Nov 20, 2004 08:01 PM
from the you're-it,-forever dept.
from the you're-it,-forever dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "When your newspapers write something about RFID tags, it's almost always about Wal-Mart or how these tags are threatening our privacy. But they often miss the important innovations brought by this technology. For example, in Florida, RFID drives highway traffic reports on more than 200 miles of toll roads. Or take DHL, which is tracking fashion with RFID tags on more than 70 million garments in its French distribution center. Elsewhere, in Texas, 28,000 students test an e-tagging system which promises better security for them. And what about RFID tags which could prevent surgical errors and have just been approved in the U.S last week? So, what do you think? Are these innovations promising a better future for us or not? For your convenience, this overview contains the essential details from the different articles mentioned above."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
RFID is cool! (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, they had disguised an rfid reader as a tablet, and embedded rfid things into little plastic discs. On the discs were images representing english, math, etc. Someone tosses a chip on the reader, and a load of information is displayed on the screen about that course. Nifty, nifty...
On/off switch... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you seen anywhere at all that mentions anything about the ability to turn *off* an RFID switch?
Not to mention the possible side effects of having a radio transmitting from inside a human body for long periods of time.
Abuse by car insurance companies able to read your car's performance?
The chance of abuse is too great...
Re:On/off switch... (Score:2)
This is the only thing that prevents RFID from having my approval, for whatever that is worth.
I mean, if everything I own had its own RFID tag, nothing would ever get lost in my room!
Straw-man argument (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On/off switch... (Score:3, Insightful)
RFID chips don't use wavelengths capable of causing damage (radio waves don't have enough energy to punch pieces of your DNA out). Your privacy concerns are probably valid but from a health standpoint you have more to worry about the radiation from sleeping with your SO then you do from radio waves.
Re:On/off switch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:On/off switch... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On/off switch... (Score:4, Informative)
Here's another [worldnetdaily.com] about an implantable GPS system, currently the size of a pacemaker, but the inventors believe it can be shrunk down to as much as 1/10th the size.
And, one last [worldnetdaily.com] one about Wal-Mart, tracking customers using RFID "from company headquarters some 750 miles away".
So yes, RFID can do those things, and IS doing some of those things now.
Parent
Re:On/off switch... (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, there are two kinds of RFID chips, the active kind, that contain a power source and constant transmit and the passive kind that only activate when they are around the reader.
Most of the tags in existance today are passive models, they are cheaper and have a virtually unlimited lifespan. They are powered by either a electric or magnetic field (depends on unit frequency). These models DO NOT CONSTANTLY TRANSMIT and would be unlikly to cause any problems to humans unless they were read a lot (1000+ times a day).
The active kind are unlikly to be used alot around humans do to cost. The battery installed into them means that they usually only have a lifespan of around 5 years, and would have to be replaced then. Chances are after a cycle or two of battery usage, whatever the tag was doing will be replaced by a better technology.
Medevo
Parent
Re:On/off switch... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On/off switch... (Score:3, Insightful)
RFID tags can be read by a bunch of folks for a bunch of reasons, but the "why" is relatively low. Wal-Mart could track your time in their store via the RFID tag in the shirt you bought there, but that'd only affect the portion of their customer base that buys shirts at Wal-Mart. They could do the exact same thing with random surveys and in-sto
All I will say is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
- P2P - ooh it has legitimate uses (tho you have to look hard to find them in actual usage), you cant ban it
- RFID - ooh it can be used for bad things (but hasnt yet), ban it
I welcome this article, as it points out the many positive uses of RFID technology, so heres hoping it might change some slashdotters minds. Personally, I see RFID as a hugely positive thing, with a great potential in front of it (for good or bad, but thats the same for P2P).Re:All I will say is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
With P2P its the people theoretically hurting artists and record labels. Record labels certainly aren't considered worth helping and artists are generally felt to live a good life. Whether this is true or not I don't want to get into.
If RFID is abused as in the slashdot paranoia, it means a clamp-down on the freedom and privacy of the masses. I consider this a far worse fate than some obscenely rich people not getting much richer and artists having to perform live to make a living.
Parent
Re:All I will say is.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:All I will say is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, all I see in the article are abuses of the system.
The only one I might grant you as a good thing is tracking students. Not that it isn't an invasion of the privacy of students, because it is, but because as a society we've decided that that information MUST be available on-demand to parents, and if we've decided an invasion of privacy is important the least we can do is do it efficiently.
The most important use of all (Score:5, Interesting)
How about putting RFID tags in the end of footballs so that we can finally put an end to that oh-so-exact science of taking a timeout for a measurement?
Seriously! They just toss the ball wherever the ref thinks it should be, and those chains aren't exactly placed perfectly either. How about something that can actually work for once?
Re:The most important use of all (Score:2)
Re:The most important use of all (Score:3)
E-tagging? (Score:2, Interesting)
College is about drinking, sleeping late, cutting class and still passing because you are smart enough to do it all without getting caught. It certainly isn't about being tagged like cattle and herded from one carefully controlled, spoon fed 'educational experience' to another.
For all you Americans who don't want to suffer crap like that I suggest college in England wher
Did you know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did you know? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious--how is the parent poster so certain that RFID's negative uses will outweigh the positive ones?
Parent
Re:Did you know? (Score:3, Interesting)
RFID tags at my work (Score:4, Interesting)
Religion versus technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Can anyone point to technology that religion embraced in its infancy? I really would be interested.
Are you a good graphics designer [aloesoft.com]?
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:5, Informative)
The Printing press [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't assume that all religous people are of this opinion toward science/technology, though. I'm a fairly fundamentalist Christian and cautiously pro-technology. I hold to Neil Postman's [amazon.com] philosophy on technology: it's all in how you use it; it changes peoples' lives for good and ill, so neither fear nor hate it.
Religious technophobia is a shame; I don't really understand
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:3)
The supplantation of hand copied manuscripts with printed works was not received with unanimous encomium. Not only did the papal court contemplate making printing presses an industry requiring a licence from the Catholic Church (an idea rejected in the end), but as early as in the 15th century some nobles refused to have printe
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:3, Informative)
Can anyone point to technology that religion embraced in its infancy? I really would be interested.
The most obvious would be the printing press, in Europe (not just Western Europe--all of Europe). Markedly different from the acceptance of the printing press in other areas, such as Islamicate Ottoman Turkey. A distinction which, imho, has a lot to do with religious acceptance and usage of the technology.
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:5, Informative)
Anything having to do with construction (building churches, etc), communication (radio, tv, the internet) and transportation (bussing those seniors in for Sunday Mass).
Parent
Re:Religion versus technology (Score:3, Interesting)
A unique identifier of a person, used to control behavior (in this case, commerce), and those who refuse the identifier, ergo, the control, are "retired"
The "mark of the beast", in this example, the RFID, is no more evil than the social security number. It is the USE of the number by a larger entity which has been 'evil'. The tattoos on people
Roland Piquepaille (Score:5, Insightful)
So...how much d'ya figure he paid for this one?
Cheers,
b&
More religious stuff versus tracking technol (Score:2)
This is in their Mark of the Beast Watch! World gone mad?!?!
Want to make $ 500.00 [aloesoft.com]?
Dunno (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know if newspapers signficantly differ from online news, but the Wal-Mart and privacy issues seem to be more of a
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=rfid&b
Everything is a double edged sword... (Score:4, Interesting)
Additionally, there's the whole so-called conspiracy about how "shopping club" members who bought a frequent shopper club card was having vast and horrible statistics collected about how much Mountain Dew, et al, they were purchasing.
Frankly, yes, it can all be used for wrong, but that depends on your definition of wrong. Do you spend sleepless nights wondering if your store is telling evil corporations how much Mountain Dew you drink?
Chances are it's just the caffeine.
timing road races and triathlons (Score:5, Interesting)
My job is with a company [theendresultco.com] that times races (i.e. runners) using RFID technology. We use ChampionChip [championchip.com] products, but there are a couple of similar, up-and-coming solutions (AMB [amb-it.com], DAG [chronometrage.com]).
The whole system is really impressive and versatile. We time marathons with tens of thousands of participants (Boston, Twin Cities, Grandma's, Columbus, Indianapolis Mini) and the systems catch 99.99% of the runners. The chips are waterproof (for triathlons) and quite rugged.
Using RFID technology is TONS better than the old methods (tags and/or popsicle sticks, and lots of watching). If any of you has ever had to line up in chutes after a hard race, you'd know what kind of chaos can ensue when someone falls or gets out of line. Anyway, RFID means that runners only have to cross the finish line... then they can pass out as they please.
The chip alone means nothing. (Score:3, Informative)
This is a major issue that people seem to forget about with RFID. A passive RFID chip can transmit just a serial number, but what does that mean? If I take my Mobil Speedpass and pass it over the ChampionChip system it reads it, sure, but otherwise it's useless data. There is no way the syst
Nuclear plants too (Score:3, Interesting)
RFIDs are a robot sense. They tell robots where and what things are, where to look for them, and what to do when they find them. if find(rfid) and ! if find(rfid) are very convenient directors of robot behaviour.
Not, of course, that robots can run around wholly unsupervised; but with automation to hand for filtering and first-level logistics, all sorts of responsible people like cops, nurses and safety staff can shrug off their robotic chores and get on with making decisions.
We all ought to be playing with this stuff; but the app I really want to see is, nuclear power plants and fuel recycling plants, with every fuel and waste element and every component accounted for. This is one area with universal support for absolute security. We've held off development of civilian breeders for fear of terrorists getting access at some stage of the fuel processing cycle, among other reasons. But turning, say, a 99% safe cycle with 20 critical inspection points into a 99.9% safe cycle with 200 points, 180 automated, is surely not beyond out current means.
Phone call from the near future... (Score:3, Funny)
Mister Jacobsen: Hello?
Voice: Hello, Mr Jacobsen.
Mr. J: Who are you?
V: Mr. Jacobsen, our records indicate that you checked into the Inn 'n' Out motel last night with your wife.
Mr. J: So? What's this all about?
V: We verified that your charcoal suit indeed proceeded from your office to that hotel, but Mrs. Jacobsen's housedress moved around your home all evening.
Mr. J: All right, who the hell is this?
V: It's your cleaners, Mr. Jacobsen. Don't you think you really should have that suit cleaned? We'd hate to have to call Mrs. Jacobsen and ask her about it.
Mr. J: No, no...that's okay...
V: We have a full clean and press special going on today only. May we pick up the suit?
Mr. J: *sigh* Yeah, it's at my office, corner of...
V: That's ok, Mr. Jacobsen. We'll have someone there in a few minutes. Thank you for your business!
*RING*
Mr. J: Hello?
Voice #2: Hi, Mr. Jacobsen! This is Eddie, from Lingerie Etc. We have a great special going on right now on black lace teddies.
Mr. J: What the hell? So what?
V2: Our records indicate that your last four mistresses all wore them. We just thought you'd be interested in our special pricing, in light of your recent...activities.
Mr. J: Argggghhhhhhhh
Yes, I'm scared of what the government *could* do with this technology. However, I'm even more scared of what the fucking marketeers will do. 1984? Hardly. More like $19.95.
TrustE "enforcement" now nonexistent (Score:3, Interesting)
TrustE's Watchdog Reports [truste.org] invariably results in a decision of "Issue Handled with no changes necessary to the Privacy Statement nor the Site". They get about a hundred complaints per month, but don't do anything. The last time TrustE made a site change anything was in 2002.
In the early days of TrustE, their seal actually meant something. But they've totally sold out.
There's also the Commerce Department's "Safe Harbor" list [export.gov]. No enforcement action has ever been taken under that.
So don't believe any "privacy certifications" associated with RFID tag use. They're meaningless.
Roland (Score:3, Informative)
For those who don't know, he posts a lot of rehashed news on his blog and then by some act of god (or Benjamin Franklin) gets his stories constantly posted to Slashdot, which gets him massive ad revenue.
I recommend that nobody visits the links in the story to deprive him of this ad revenue.
RFID tags which could prevent surgical errors (Score:3, Funny)
RFID in custom guitars and music instruments (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.snagg.com
Been in Houston for quite some time (Score:3, Interesting)
Congress (Score:3, Funny)
I want to serve the people, by passing laws to protect personal freedoms, privacy, free speech, and consumer rights.
This is the feeler of interest for my campaign; the real campaign will take place in about 10 years.
Real-life abuse - a possibility (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm in a university society called the Assassins' Guild [ucam.org], which is a cross between roleplay and live-action Quake Deathmatch. The game we play involves hunting down other people playing the same game until only one is standing, and is cooler than it sounds (hey, we have girls playing!). The thing that's interesting with respect to this discussion is the excellent testing ground this gives for new technologies vis-a-vis the tracking of indivisuals.
Number one on the list is, surprisingly, static IP addresses on home-user machines. If you know your target's IP address, it is trivial in many cases to check whether he/she is in his/her room, and secondary information like lecture times (and hence the target's course) can be inferred.
On a more sophisticated level, it is possible to examine the movement patterns of a target by the public workstations he/she uses (they have to be regulars on the #assassins IRC channel for this to apply), although this is more easily maskable using screen/irssi off a unix server. The holy grail would be to scan the mobile phone command frequency band - one would only need to know one's target's phone number to triangulate his/her position. I don't know of anyone who's done this, but I'll be attempting it myself over the holidays.
RFID tags present an issue at a similar level, albeit with far greater possibilities for abuse due to their small size. If I were to have access to a reader (of the sort that, if this technology were to become widespread, would be available with no hardware hackery required), I would wait til the target were dumb enough to leave something outside his/her door and drop a suitably crafted tag in it. This would enable me to trail and ambush the target fairly easily when they didn't have any means of defense to hand.
This would be a slightly overworked solution for the purposes of the guild (albeit an excellent way of dealing with one of the more skilled assassins) but would come into its own in the hands of an actual stalker. Imagine someone you can't flee, can't hide from. Imagine what could happen if this technology were abused.
Imagine tags in designer clothes. An excellent way for criminals to know that yes, that coat is genuinely worth a hell of a lot. Imagine tags in young children. Do you really want paedophiles to know exactly when kids have run away from mummy's care? Imagine tags in students. Your grades are fine but you skipped too many lectures - you're out. Imagine tags in employees. Now your fundamentalist boss knows about your trip to the sex toys shop a block over from the office.
Imagine tags in you. Imagine anyone who wanted to being able to track your motions. How secure does that make you feel?
Parent
Re:RFID unnecessary for these purposes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RFID unnecessary for these purposes (Score:3, Insightful)
The use of RFID in any capacity for surgury is a cruch that is not necessary.
ID the paitent? How about doing a hand geometry check to see if the paitent on the table is the right one for the charts that have been brought up?
Tools count? (I.E. don't leave surgical tools in the paitent you did surgury on) As the grandparent of this missive points out, it might be a good idea to take a count of how many tools have been brought to
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, by "no laws", I don't mean the usual blend of common law and a few odd state laws that protect everything from letters to phone calls to internet, etc. What I mean is that the only "privacy protection" you now have on the internet is that there is no feasible way to track each packet from users of interest. In other words, you have some privacy because your traffic gets lost in a sea of user traffic, and there's no easy way to fish out just yours across sessions.
If P-III ID tags were enabled, the enormous processing power and computational state it would otherwise would require to track individuals would be eliminated. Transactions would be tracked across sessions. Now, that's a key term: "across sessions". Just what do I mean by it? And why is that so important?
Consider, for example, that the police can observe your car on the street, and by consulting a computer, the cop will know it's your car, where you live, etc. But there's no way for the police to also know that 2 weeks ago, you were at the same intersection making a left. And that 34% of the time, you instead make a right. And that you usually blow through the light at 30MPH, even if it's raining. Your driving sessions are not tracked and correlated across sessions. The cop can see you just this instance, but we don't expect that we live in an old East German state where every little action gets recorded and reported to some authority.
Similarly, on the internet you can visit a web page and (if you remember to flush your cookies and use DHCP), there's no easy way for the site to tell that it's you again.
The key idea is that in accumulation small pieces of information add up, and infringe on a piece of liberty that we all hold dear: privacy. We reasonably expect that our actions, although observed and perhaps inspected in a given instance, are not tracked and correlated with all our previous actions.
So, while you think the P-III unique ID was a cool technical idea, it in fact was:
Consider that if a corporation tracks every piece of individual information you "leak" throughout the day, it's called market research. But if an individual did this to another individual, it's called stalking .
So, be thankful for us "privacy types". We and others see these social problems not as black and white, and perhaps a little grey, but as the complex hues they really are.
* * * If you or other readers appreciated my explanation, I'd be happy to write more, and submit a short piece for consideration by the editors (such as they are) of Slashdot.
I can be known by this key fingerprint: 2D57 1CCA 24C8 9AFE E35D F3B1 3665 B3F3 0E35 F221
Parent
an example.... (Score:4, Insightful)
That was then...
I spend about half my time cleaning up spyware off of peoples computers. The people that write this crud would have looooved to get serial numbers. And they would have. Even with the systems that required a reboot to 'activate' the serial number. Most people don't even think twice about a random crash. Make the config change (bios or os), make it look like something bad happened and reboot (or just be patient and wait for it). Presto, on your way to a hugely correlated database. Yuck!
I have the same problem with rfid. It's wonderful technology and if the rfid tags get burned out when you're done, great. But the *same* problem exits:
People with a clue will Own the People without a clue.
I keep on seeing all this neat stuff and then i ask the question: how can this be mis-used?
Here is a wonderful example: There is a goal of putting rfids on bulk bottles of medicine (in the caps? which could end up on the wrong bottle? did it matter which cap went before?). ok, I see the advantage for inventory and quality control, as you really do want people the get the proper medicine. What about the dark side? If I'm am understanding this correctly, you can use sensitive scanners that allow for greater distances. Does your pharmicist want anyone to know when the next 1000ct bottle of Oxycontin gets there? (any maybe where in the store to look for it?) Does this mean rf shielded storage?
If the problem people have with being phished is any indicator, RFID is just going to be a disaster.
eric
Parent
Re:Use in schools is particularly worrisome (Score:3, Insightful)
Hoping to prevent the loss of a child through kidnapping or more innocent circumstances, a few schools have begun monitoring student arrivals and departures using technology similar to that used to track livestock and pallets of retail shipments.