Students Tracked By RFID 866
TheMeuge writes "The New York Times is
reporting
a new development in the unrelenting progress of the
RFID juggernaut. The school district
of
Spring, Texas has adopted RFID as a way to track students' arrival and
departure. Upon being scanned, the data are transmitted to both the school
administrators, as well as city police. I guess cutting class is no longer an
option."
Mark of the Beast (Score:2, Interesting)
In Australia, they use now swipe cards to check attendance at schools. Swiping at a terminal brings up a mugshot of the student on the screen, so the staff member can perform a visual check to see why Abdul Habib has blue eyes and long blonde hair...
Maybe this is a case (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cutting Class (Score:4, Interesting)
Wonder why (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sorry, this is good.... (Score:2, Interesting)
The real convenience is that the student doesn't have to make any effort to register in or out but to just ensure that they remember to carry their tag.
What happens with a faulty tag?
Will a student suffer a poor attendance record without recourse?
After all they might not find out until the end of year school report.
"...it must be true because the computer says so."
Anyone with kids in school should know... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ferris Bueller (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:RFID circumvention (Score:5, Interesting)
And finally, if they eventually decide to implant:
Thos are just the things I thought of in the last two minutes. I could probably think of more more.
Re:Sorry, this is good.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it's important to recognize that students (children, minors) are being entrusted to the public school system to make sure that while under their care, nothing bad happens to any student. They are, in essence, the largest daycare provider in any given area and they have a huge responsibility in keeping tracking and accounting of other people's children.
Now I can't say that it's a good thing that the information is fed to the local law enforcement agency unless there is a particular student they wish to keep track of and in that event, there should be some sort of formality associated with "I need to know when 'Johnny' came and went for the past two weeks and for the next two weeks from now." But to have that information fed to them on a regular basis feels kinda wrong.
But one thing to keep in mind -- while a person is a minor, there are no rights to privacy to speak of. The "rights" they might enjoy are whatever has been granted by their parents and/or the school system. I liken this to the same problem that students have with their "freedom of the press" rights in school newspapers -- while it's all well and good to want to exercise those rights, the fact remains that a school newspaper is a SCHOOL newspaper and as such is actually under the control and supervision of the school system, so guess who is in control of "freedom of the press" in that little world? Absolutely.
It just might be a good thing... I'd be interested to see what pitfalls are to be revealed by any of this.
Re:Just Imagine (Score:4, Interesting)
Turns out the girls do far better in single-sex class rooms.
But boys do better in mixed set class room!
Quite how you solve that, I don't know.
allergic reaction (Score:5, Interesting)
You have the poison ivy, you know what to do with the people who don't play along.
Re:The Slippery Slope.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet we're now seeing instances of the middleman, i.e the product tag, being bypassed altogether and people being tagged outright. Is this really what RFID was developed for in the first place? Tracking people?
Hhhhmmmmmm, odd that - that there's a product that most people think would be really useful for this one particular (benign) use, but that a minority want to use for bad things. Can't see how that could ever happen with any other technology.
You're right, this is wrong, and no I would not submit my daughter to this sort of treatment (and yes, I do actually have a daughter). But you seem to be implying that
a) this was an inevitable (ab)use of RFID technology
b) this one dubious use should see the tech banned/shunned despite all other legitimate uses
As with all things, don't blame the technology itself for the use to which some people put it. Do that, and you'll end up banning all tech, including sharp sticks and fire.
RFID tracking is data rape.
That makes you sound like an extremist; I'd suggest that if you're serious about fighting things like this that you avoid such emotive language. You'll piss off more people than you sway with it.
Re:Cutting Class (Score:5, Interesting)
My real problem is what will happen when they get lost. My school instituted mandatory photo ID cards this year and pretty much everyday there's a crowd of 20-100+ teenagers outside the main office waiting for temporary IDs. Personally I havn't worn mine in two weeks and no one has noticed, so~
I'm also wondering why it would be nessisary to CC the police on who didn't show up in the morning.
Not to mention the fact that someone could track anyone in the school after they figure out which RFID is theirs. I think that's a much bigger invasion of privacy than having to wear photo IDs. I have no doubt that this will be spreading to other counties and states in the near future so I'm glad I'm graduating next year. Saves me the trouble of explaining why my RFID badge has become a finely ground white powder.
Re:RFID circumvention (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just Imagine (Score:3, Interesting)
I know it's a lot of text and all, but read the comment.
Personally, I got a lot out of our 'state-mandated' curriculum... but then, I had good teachers, which can make up for a lot.
By the way, we had something similar to what you described in our school district. It worked very poorly, because most students aren't adequately self-motivated to learn. Except, as it turned out, about good places to get lunch in town, and which teachers would smoke pot with you.
Re:Cutting Class (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, subdermal tags are no match for an MRI... :-)
Re:The Slippery Slope.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Well, for those of us that have read 1984, this is starting to look at lot like it. But, then again, a lot of people in the world (non-Slashdotters, and there's a LOT more of them) haven't read it, and couldn't care less that that RFID tag is helping them be tracked, as long as they get their cigarretes faster, get on that plane quicker. Personally, I'd just microwave the damn thing out of my arm, or leg, or wherever. Even though that's really painful.
Re:Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever hear the saying "you can show a horse the water but you can't make him drink?" that's not just clever it's also what the christian right would call "divine". While I'm not a religious type I do swing for "choice".
It's upto the 14 year old kid to *choose* to act responsibly. It's one thing to show them what responsibility is but it's another for them to actually follow it.
It's because of people like you that I sit in a college where "easy tests" is a good thing. The students don't actually think of learning as a good thing. It's just something they were told they have to do. So in the end even with college grads we end up with [on average from what I've seen] really stupid, unmotivated greedy induhviduals.
I still routinely get the "why do you write free software when charging for it can make money" bit from people ranging from students to 52 year old retired HP engineers.
Hardly anyone does anything [particularly in academia] for the simple pleasure of doing a good job, learning something new and giving back to the community.
You say "we are doomed if we let the children fail" and I'm saying we're already doomed.
As for the "unwarranted searches" um well again it's public property. "Your" locker is actually "their" locker. "Your" safety is everyones safety.
Of course I speak as someone who finished high school without metal detectors on the doors...
Tom
Re:Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
It is insane to use RFIDs to track runners in a marathon? This has been done for over 10 years. It makes for a greatly reduced error rate for time reporting. It is cheaper than hiring people to sit at the finish line to record times. It allows immediate results tied to a person. If anything is insane, it is a person with an irrational fear of non-contact tags. They have been used for over 20 years in various implementations and have a near zero rate of illegal duplication, an absolute zero (from the information I have or even the worst posted about them here) rate of misuse of the types of misuses discussed here, and they are effective.
You haven't expressed a problem with this or any other implementation, but any use of it whatsoever. So my question is, why do you fear a technology itself?
Re:Just Imagine (Score:1, Interesting)
FUCK YOU. I hope you get FUCKING CANCER so you can spend day after day watching your life pass by being eaten away inside.
Re:Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
Its hard to seperate government regulation and a free country.
With less regulation it is more difficult to maintain an orderly society , which consequently puts limits on how much an individual can do because of the massive effort that is needed just to deal with the entropy of daily life.
A heavily regulated society will provide a baseline of order so that citizens can ignore the basics of day to day life, and concentrate on more complex things. But too much regulation makes a very rapid switch from freedom to oppression.
An analogy: Given a roadway: without order it would be impossible to go fast, as you would not be able to interpret where people would go. Conversly, with a very orderly system you can make assumptions that people will stop at stop signs, stay in their lanes, and generally follow the traffic patterns. For concrete examples (from my own experience) look at the difference between the Autobahn in Germany, where going 145mph is a common occurence (albeit pushing the limit), as opposed to going 70mph on an Indian highway, which is tempting fate as you dodge ox-carts, absent minded cows (Holy Cow!), flipped-over trucks, and people driving on the wrong side of the road because their lane was blocked by one of the above.
College == babysitting service? (Score:1, Interesting)
What's the point of college?
Is it to make the students attend classes - in which case tagging them with RFID might make sense; or is it to enable them to study and learn? If the latter, then monitoring class attendance is irrelevant. Just give the students examinations at the end of the course to test their understanding of the material. If some students can study successfully without going to the classes, why make them go?
The university I attended ... a long time ago in a different country ... had in its regulations something like the following (from memory, so it's not word-for-word): "A pupil may attend any lecture in the University, or not, as he please."
(The effect, by the way, for those wondering why you need a rule like this at all, is to prohibit attending part of a lecture, walking in or out in the middle of it). There were a (very) few exceptions,
Someone should introduce... (Score:3, Interesting)
No more "Family Movies Act of 2004" banning skipping of commercials. No more COPPA Act, keeping kids off the Internet. etc.
Re:Cutting Class (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
Where is this different from taking attendence? This is just an electronic way of doing it. Doing it on the bus is just another cover for the schools in our lawyer/litigation happy society.
As long as these are only on busses or at the entrances to schools, I have no problem with them. If they are used for internal tracking, that is going a bit overboard.
This is a reasonable use of the technology.
I am not trolling on this as some clodhoppers think by the moderation. The legal enviroment has created this morass. However, you know what? My office has the same system. I can not get into the building without my electronic pass key. My company does not go as far as to use it as a time clock. However, what is the difference between this and punching a card in a time clock? It is just a newer version of the technology.
As far as the idea that this will lead to "embedded chips", that is something that will lead to a huge fight. There are fights worth fighting. This is not one of them.
Re:Insanity (Score:3, Interesting)
*cough*
I thought "easy tests" were a good thing. on the other hand, that was becasue I thought preparing for tests wa a waste of time. if I can't walk in an do very well, I don't know the material well enough, or the test is badly written.
example: multivariate calculus. 6-problem exams, where each problem was quite trivial if you knew the material and pretty much impossible if you didn't. now that is a good test. it's also an easy test, assuming you're where you need to be on the material.
> Hardly anyone does anything [particularly in academia] for the simple pleasure of doing a good job, learning something new and giving back to the community.
well, I am in academia, but I'd have to say that pretty much anyone in academia does it because they're highly motivated, since grad school can be pretty miserable and demanding. (perhaps we have different definitions of academia. I'm thinking grad students and profs, basically) what you're citing as a rate event I'd have to say is the norm. sure, publishing a paper helps me out, since it makes getting a job easier, and I want to get people to pay me. however, the reason I want people to pay me is so I can do interesting things, learn interesting things, and teach interesting things. it's incredibly fun to go to someone with something new and interesting you did and say "look! cool!"
Lea
Re:Sorry, this is good.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Arguably, this system will account for student attendance. Factually, it will account for RFID presence.
Realistically, it is a crutch to relieve your administration of the effort required to meet your legal obligation. Once so relieved, will any administrator or teacher actually know where Johnny is unless a report tells them? Roll call will end, being redundantly unneccessary. Teachers may miss Johnny Goodstudent in the front row or Johnny Troublemaker in the back corner, or they may not, trusting the system to do its job.
The nice thing about human systems is that they make zero tolerance become an active choice. With this system, good students and bad who make a mistake or suffer outrageous fortune must hope for an active choice for clemency. Even if the system works perfectly, where is the opportunity to learn to be responsible when you are compelled to be?
Kids, resist! This is one more step toward a totalitarian dystopia for the convenience of our 'betters.' Fight the system by making it unworkable and expensive. Fake your Photo ID, even (especially!) if you do nothing else wrong (you might want to carry the real one concealed in case they notice you're not "Winston Smith"). Conceal your RFID in an RF bag. Fry your RFID in your school's microwave (only a few seconds should do). Study the system, what are its costs in money and labor, what it assumes, and how it fails. Then attack its weaknesses.
Then be prepared to resist the "American Communities Survey". Google it. It's even worse than this, and is excused with the same bogus reasoning.
All free persons are affected by this erosion of privacy and personal accountability. Sometimes those goals are in conflict. That's a good thing. You, REBloomfield, are the one who should, please, shut the hell up.
Re:Cutting Class (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow....school has sure changed since I went (I'm assuming high school). We had a photo id card, but, didn't have to 'wear' it...and frankly, I don't remember ever having to use it for anything after we got it...maybe to check books out of the library or something.
Do they not have 'open campus' out there anymore? We could drive in...and drive out at lunch to go get something. I think the rule for abscenses was like 15 days per class. You got 15 unexcused absenses from a class...you were dropped from that class, dropped from 3 classes...you were kicked out of school for that semester. Tardies counted for half an abscense. So, most everyone kept a good running record.
But, sure, we'd cut class somedays...first sunny days of spring, we'd get beer, and hang out down by the river throwing frisbee, etc. Good clean fun, no one got hurt...and most everyone I know not only graduated HS...but, went on to college and are successful in life now.
We came and went as we pleased back then... sure kids got stoned or drunk on occasion before/during school...but, no one got in serious trouble, and grew up to be just fine.
Man...I'd hate to be a kid today with all the 'rules' , political correctness, tracking....seems they are taking all the fun out of the 'rights of passage' and being a teenager.
Re:Funny (Score:3, Interesting)
http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/ [houstontranstar.org]
Re:barcode (Score:5, Interesting)
For clarification of this position see the parallel prophecy given to the prophet Ezekiel at Ezek ch 9, where a 'secretary' from God is seen marking the foreheads of those that would be saved. It is clear that they get their mark because of their inner groaning over the detestible things being done in the Earth -- detestible according to God's standards, not their own. All others, starting from the sanctuary (those saying that they are Godly but are falsely so) are to be destoyed by the six other messengers.
The physically tattooed marks and RFID tags are a means to control others, and of course things like these appeal to the masses because these measures seem benign, even helpful. After all, if you've done nothing wrong, what's to fear? But in the end they are a means of control. Today we have security cameras monitoring everything, even traffic flow, cross-referencing vehicle tags. People are being photographed hundreds of times a day in public places and their faces cross-referenced by high-speed computers, police now dress and train as military combatants. Core Internet routers are now archiving every single packet without prejudice. Voice recognition systems are scanning phone conversations in real-time. Fully automted packet-data-examining systems. And so on...it's all very sad, but it is also a warning.
When Hitler began rouding people up, it all seemed benign and even helpful to the majority. Even those being rounded up believed that they had nothing wrong and thus had nothing to fear, according to their own testimony. But those that would not go along with the round-up got rounded up too. Compare that to the entire context of Rev ch 13. Hitler's actions were a dry run for the larger showdown that is to come, but it will be a world-wide affair according to Revelation. And God steps n to protect his own, and gives them the gift of the new paradise on Earth which he has promised.
But now for the University science: According to Stanley Milgram's famous experiment, most people will go along with those perceived to be in authority, no matter how objectionable the request might seem upon first glance. And the Stanford Prison Experiment shows that most people in charge of others will without fail revel in sadism in very short order when given control over others. So, that people will attack those who desire to serve God en masse -- preventing them from even maintaining livlihoods and even from buying and selling to sustain life -- will be willing participants, even those of you who are convinced right now that you would never had help Hitler. Reliable scientific research consistently shows that most people would have, regardless of what they say when asked hypothetically.
(Okay, mighty moderators, protectors of the /. common good, have your way with me. At least it wasn't posted anonymously. And, furthermore, I've actually read and sudied the Bible -- unlike most who are happy to comment as if they know what it says or mod down those that have the courage to repeat what it says -- hehehe.)
Re:Cutting Class (Score:3, Interesting)
The other side is to make the reader part of the equasion too (such as those USB/fingerprint combo drives). This means you keep any latent prints on the reader with you--and you'd need a card just to try to fake out the system in the first place.
Combine the fingerprint reader card with the rotating key sytem (like those on many dial-in access cards) and you shouldn't have to worry about all the fancy stuff I mentioned above anyway
Re:barcode (Score:4, Interesting)
Someone who is thoughtful, and willing to explore the ways in which his beliefs mirror the world, and to consider as metaphysical those beliefs that DON'T mirror the world is much more congenial, and, to my mind, a much better kind of person.
That many of which we hear are both biblical scholars and dogmatic fundamentalists should not blind us to the fact that many biblical scholars are intelligent people that would be nice to know. And AREN't dogmatic lunatics.
I, personally, am not a Christian of any denomination, despite having been raised as one. I follow a much less common religion with a gnostic (but non-christian) basis. And I don't have any church. This causes me to be occasionally terrified about the fundamentalist Christians, most of whom don't even realize that they are followers of the cult of Osiris (historically speaking...not denying that there was a Jesus Christ just because I have no evidence indicating that such a person actually existed except in the sense that Nicolas Bourbaki did).
"their" counting on it (Score:1, Interesting)
do you really believe all this modern technology is going to be use to make the world a better place for the common man
from: Your Rights Online
do you still believe you really have some rights that you are not able to enforce with your own might ???
The milgram and stanford experiments are also why you can't trust the majority of the people to make the right decision
and why they are willing to accept a so called democracy
"in a real and true democracy there can be NO representation in lieu of the people"
it is also why the powers that be in the US have not found it necessary to point out that because of executive orders passed into "law" since the regan era
just how many of the current US population of those of draft-able age do you think it is going to take to win a Global war on terrorism
just a short list of some of the executive orders involved
#10995 - Seizure of all communications media in the United States.
#10997 - Seizure of all electric power, fuels, and minerals, both public and private.
#10998 - Seizure of all food supplies and resources, public, and private, all farms and farm equipment.
#10999 - Seizure of all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and waterways.
#11000 - Seizure of all American population for work forces under federal supervision, including dividing families as necessary according to governmental plans.
#11001 - Seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private.
#11002 - Empowers the Postmaster General to register all men, women and children in the U.S.
#11003 - Seizure of all airports and aircraft.
#11004 - Seizure of all housing and finance authorities, to establish Forced Relocation. Designates areas to be abandoned as "unsafe," establishes new locations for populations, relocates communications, builds new housing with public ('tax-payers') funds.
#11005 - Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, public and private.
#11051 - Provides the Office of Emergency Planning complete authorization to put the above orders into effect in times of increased international tension or economic or financial crisis.
#11490 - Combines Executive Orders #11001 to #11005 and #11051 into a single Executive Order.
#11921 - F.E.M.A. is authorized to develop plans control energy, prices and wages, credit and the money supply to U.S. banks in the event of a 'National Emergency.' Congress may not review a President's decision to enforce a 'National Emergency' for six months
Re:barcode (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes I do, based on the Scientific Method. Most people that understand it recognize that it is still a theory. Proof? Simple: If you yourself contracted a cancer, is it good or is it bad? Cancer, according to evolution, is the engine of progress. Truth is, you'd leave everything just the way it is. Nobody wants their DNA fooled with because they know intuitively that it's a bad thing. Stanley Miller gave up trying to prove his organic soup theory because he could never make it work (one initial success followed by a career of failures) and that he could never eliminate himself from the experiments. Ironically, his experiments were to prove all this could have happened blindly, without intelligent intervention, but he realized after years and years of failures his experiments never worked without his thoughtful intelligence guiding it. So, in pure scientific terminology, evolution is still a theory, since no one has demonstrated exactly how it works and demonstrated it experimentally. And I might also point out that evolution relates to how organisms morph across specie boundaries, not how life appears in the first place. That is the providence of abiogenesis vs. panspermia.
I arrived at creationism using the Sherlock Holmes method: Eliminate the impossible, and whatever's left, however improbable, is the truth. Since evolution is mathematically so remote so as to be impossible I gave up on it. After years of objective and deep academic research that had nothing to do with Bible research. I initially set out to disprove the Bible, but could not unless I abandoned objectivity.
The book The Blind Watchmaker, often cited as having proved evolution, says in one chapter that to transform (evolve) an ordinary squirrel into a flyiong squirrel, one simply needs to find a clumsy squirrel with loose skin and have it fall from trees so often that it soon learns to glide to the ground. Okay, fine. Show me how it's done: get all the regular squirrels you want, and throw them from trees and produce a flying squirrel. If you can, you still haven't proven evolution, because I don't beleive that such an experiment would demonstrate a crossing of specie boundaries. When you've accomplished that feat, you woill have progressed from theory to fact. Otherwise, it's just a theory (hypothesis, actually, since it lacks the detail in the specific mechanisms involved).
As far as the Earth being flat, the Bible pointed out it is a sphere some 3,000 years ago (Isiaih 40:22), some 250 years before Pythagoras. And it never said the Earth is the center of the universe. So, you're just making those things up. And the Bible clearly says that the subconscience is very treacherous and must be carefully monitored and curbed by the conscious mind (James 1:14,15).
As for the final outcome, whether you are correct that the world will continue and man will evolve into some higher species through blind chance, or I am correct in believing the Bible's predictions, only time will tell.