Rick Bradley on Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:12:11 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Re: [IP] Benetton adds RFID tags. |
(X-License: Permission to redistribute, with attribution and this notice, is granted.) [ in response to: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200303/msg00162.html ] * Dave Farber (dave@farber.net) [030312 10:58]: > RFID tags have the same privacy issues as SpeedPass, but are much more > insidious. Most citizens will be unaware that they've been tagged as > thoroughly as an endangered animal. > > Maybe I should start microwaving my underwear..... A friend and I were discussing RFID tags a few weeks ago. Of course the obvious privacy concerns came up. Then we started thinking, "Hey, these tags are supposed to be dirt cheap because the technology has gotten dirt simple to implement..." If that's true then, we reasoned, what's to stop us from getting access to RFID signals? If /that/ is true then what's to stop us from recording and replaying RFID signals (after all they're basically just 128-bit or 256-bit integers broadcast at low power when a detector energizes them)? Imagine going around with a recorder which detects RFIDs, records every RFID it encounters, and then replays them. You could have the system replay random known RFIDs, replay RFIDs that it has heard recently, have it wait for ten minutes to start replaying (enough time to be well away from the area where the "real" RFIDs are), etc. (this purposely ignores the utility of creating one's own RFIDs wholecloth). This would wreak havoc with "merchandise control" systems, and other forms of tracking. What happens when an organization is trying to track the location of people by RFIDs in their clothing and there are 5, 10, or 100 people "wearing" the same clothes in the vicinity? The RFID Big Brother schemes (and fears) are dependent on an unempowered populace who are either incapable of using the technology themselves or cowed into foregoing the RFID technology. There's no reason for this to be so. Rick -- http://www.rickbradley.com MUPRN: 908 | login question... X-UIDL: random email haiku | 2baecdb29d35d281dc4055880c6cca0f Status: RO I | concur on this one. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net