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RFIDs Revisited
Quote:
from Wired News - 2004-07-07
European retailer Metro built the Future Store to be the premier live testing ground for RFID tags, and the world's biggest consumer goods manufacturers are lining up to have a gander. Gillette, Kraft, and Procter & Gamble are among the companies banking on RFID chips to track each cream cheese container, razor blade, and bottle of shampoo. They know precisely which package occupies what bit of shelf space and how long it takes the Future Store's staff to replace a purchased item.
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"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads." Katherine Albrecht is reading aloud from chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation. " and that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.'"
This is no wild-eyed street preacher. Albrecht is a Harvard PhD candidate in educational psychology and a reliable media staple, appearing on seemingly every TV or radio talk show on the topic of RFID. Red-haired and apple-cheeked, she's wearing a tasteful sweater with a silk scarf draped around her shoulders. Albrecht is the founder of Caspian, Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. She's well-informed, appealing, and adept at rebutting the pro-RFID arguments of industry shills and tech wonks. Most of all, she sees the danger and she's spreading the word.
An interesting, albeit long (4 pages) read...
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It may be of interest to know that WalMart is requiring future vendors to have their shipments RFID equiped or it won't stock any of their products or even do retail bisiness with them. Oh and ATM cards were the mark of the beast when they came out as well. :) I remember as a child thinking, hey I can get money when I need it, what's the deal? Oh and Walmart isn't the only one, in case you hate WalMart like me.... Target will as well.
WalMart
Target
ATM Cards
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I was gonna put and RFID tag in my cats collar, cos I have a cat flap that is done though magnets but of course other cats have the same collar and its not unique to all cats.
RFID developers kits can be had pretty cheap although its not difficult to build your own reciever and connect it to some form of microcontroller to do the processing
slightly extreme and only really thought about when theres next doors cat in my house,
i2c
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Another issue with pets is, I take long vacations out of country. If one were to get out and get caught, I run the risk that it would be adopted or euthanasia, in extreme cases they wait 5 days and zap. I hear Arnold wants 3 days in California? With a tag they would know it's mine and keep it until I was notified. I have been considering it since I have 5 pets, all very mischievous.
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when animals i retrieved by the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and put them up for adoption i think they tag dogs and cats (maybe other animals to) so that there all on a database and they can be scanned to find out the owner..
www.rspca.org.uk/microchipping
theres been a story in the papers today about how large amounts of cattle arent being tagged, which is apparently required after the BSE problems,
its an interesting use of the technology, makes you wounder how long itll be before they start implanting chips under humans skin.
i2c
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What if it's like "wild kingdom" where they shoot us in our cars, drug us, check our teeth, then secretly tag us.. then when we wake up we don't know what happened, except our teeth are clean. :D
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I was thinking of the X files personnally, never seen that film but the same principle seems to be used in both...
i2c
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Down a philosophical path:
I don't see that happening unless the world falls into complete chaos and the only way to control violence is through strict martial law. Something along the lines of a global breakdown in society and morality ala "Road Warrior" style. Or as recently experienced, a degradation of socialist culture to a Leninist style control. Even then, the holders of power will probably just shoot instead of tracking citizens, unless like in the X-files we are being cattled along for some secret extraterrestrial plot. If that is the case, keep me in the dark until the cattle prod ends my ride. My internal organs are pretty much pickled anyway so I’ll end up being some hyped up pet food.
The current view of western culture wouldn't allow such a thing to implant devices on my person, and I don't always buy into the "slippery slope" mentality. Meaning we already have our finger prints taken from birth and then several times over our lifetime, that does not mean it leads to Orwellian government, as long as we maintain the constitution and not slip into extreme socialist ideals. Perhaps in 1000 years that could be reality, or society may move in an entirely different direction.
As others see technology to be the dark coming of enslavement and the antichrist, I see it as a freedom mechanism of enlightenment. Take the internet for example, it does give one the ability to track my interests and violate privacy, but it opens up more knowledge and experiences than I have ever experienced hanging out at libraries and museum or walking around the great universities of the world. A bad and a good, perhaps a much greater good than originally thought possible.
As I look to the future - these little devices don't bring dark omens they bring intrigue. Sure I think, what if they use them to track me, I'll have to learn to change its signal to a random number? Hell I wear a cell phone 24/7 now so is it a big deal? (Open minded question not a statement.) If mankind plays the right card, many problems will be solved by technology and technology ALONE, it's the "slippery slope" that recedes and impedes that progress. It prevents those with ideas from trying on both sides of the political fence, those environmentalists who successfully halted all nuclear progress have forced us to rely on natural resources that are drying up, while at the same time SCREAMING about global warming. They care nothing outside of their personal causes except to relieve boredom.
And there are those who mock governments for allotting money to pursue technological advances, because there are people on the street starving. Even though they have been there since man first started moving it's clan based society into cities. Perhaps those pre-history men and woman dealt with the issue by killing them and eating them? Sounds cruel, but hey they were barbarians. Some seem to think this just started happening in the last century. Perhaps one day someone will discover a method to change the behavior of a man who cannot function and establish a basic need such as demonstrated by Maslow.
What if this “cure” came from stem cells of aborted infants? Rebuilding connections in the Brain that have failed. Would we then NEVER discover the solution based on politics and the selfish motivations of people who devote enormous amounts of energy into a single and personal cause of righteousness? Whether that be against advances and use of technology such as RFID, or true Nano based devices, or Stem Cells, or alternative power devices, or forced treatment of homeless, or any number of items that when viewed could be considered evil or a global godsend. Black and white.
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interesting arguments/ views.
My previous posts have been of a rather un-serious nature your post brings to light some interesting views and I would suggest also that it would be rather unforeseeable that these device would be used in the manner that we joked about. I believe that in democratic society this would never happen despite growing fears among privacys activists surrounding the use of technology of this form. I could however see it happening in like you say in Leninist style govered countrys and also countrys with ethnic cleansing "ambitions"
as for a country ruled in the style of the book 1984, i cant see any goverment having the overwhleming paranoia to place covert microphones in the country side or introduce spys and doctors to abduct and brainwash people to the correct state, although perhaps it has happened to a certain extent such as in north korea.
As many people say technology flourishes in times of war, this is of course due to politicians wanting a quick resolve to situtations but also maybe because the political structure that often holds back technological development is slackened somewhat? becuase of greater concerns rather than if a technology is ethical or whether it is truely needed. Take for instance the atomic bomb, it started developments in nuclear technology which lead to things such a nuclear power and treatments to cancer becuase of a greater understanding of the physics.
I total agree with you on your beliefs about the behaviour of environmentalists concerning nuclear energy. A large percentage of Nuclear power stations in the UK have been decommissioned and now only 25% of the UK's power is supplied by this method this is alloot less that other coutrys in the EU with some using around 40-50%. I belive that this is the only way to prevent global warming increasing at a much greater rate, yet enviromentalists insist on using old technologys and relying on the development on renewable energys which arent being developed to the full extent that maybe they should be being if we are to reach the targets that have been said that need to be met. I believe a great deal of these groups lack the proper scientific backgrounds to comment on these matters and thus just happer progress. Renewable technologys are great however and i believe they should be developed more, and having studied at a university which is involved heavily in the development of wave energy devices I can say that we're slowly getting there (not fast enough though) I have see proposals for many innovative projects, but again there are a group of people that have objections to them much like the enviromentalists. Take for instance the windturbine, the 4 bladed turbine is cheaper to manufacture and can cope with greater wind speeds and devlop larger amounts of power, it is used thoughout europe...yet in the UK it is not used because it is said to be an eyesore and therefore 3 blades are prefered. absolutly stupid... Its a catch 22 people want to be using renewable technologys but theres a "not in my back yard" attitude which is preventing there installation.
I beleive that eventually these "selfish motivations" of people are going prevent further developments until the moment arises that there desperatly needed and then people my sit up and realise that they were arrogant and stupid....or maybe there'll just blame it on the goverment or someone else.
i2c
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its not all the enviromentalists however, some have seen the light though there clouds of marijuana smoke and john lennon style sun glasses -
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1115187.htm
not the most indepth article in the world....
i2c
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That is interesting. I grew up amongst the demostrations and hatred spit upon the nuclear power plants in the USA. Even in Ohio a very very populous state, a nuclear power plant that was to feed 1/4 of the state was eventually backed out and turned into coal. You should see the smoke that thing puts out. I even saw some signs hanging from bridges on Motorways in England. Yeah let's bow to a small minority of idiots. And now most of them or like, oops. Perhaps we made a mistake. Movies coming out of Hollywood didn't help either. There are dangers inherent in technology, how many people have been killed in plane crashes? The impact of a super powerstation tossing acid smoke into the air in one area, multiplied by thousands could have talready surpassed he same impact of a total meltdown? Even 3 Mile island is a joke compared to what they made it out to be, back in the 70s. I think given the time span and extreme research in the technology we could have overcome even the low risk items? Who knows, but that is the slippery slope BS I was talking about.
And among all that, they make the SUV an issue. Is it really feasible to sustain cities on wind power? Some punk as evironmentalist was trying to get me to sign a petition to start a porject here. There are already a couple and I asked him some details and he got pissed I was not going to sign his petition without some answers. But if it's really feasible then I could support that notion. They have been around for decades but do they really produce?
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Hollywood uses technology to make its movies seem more exciting that they actually are, they rarely use technology in a good light, technology in films is protrayed to the common man as the root of evil, the causer of doom. To a certain extent I can undertstand this becuase when you start talking about the real uses of technology you inadvertinly gonna end up talking in a documentary style of film, these types of films arent great at pulling crowds and certainly theres isnt as much mechadise sold for none action films.
The chernobyl disaster aided the enviromentalists as it gave them something to say was wrong, up until then there hadnt been anything like this in the energy industry (there is something in the states that happened i think, although im un sure of whether it pre-dated chernobyl). Its only recently that they havent used it as a reason not to use nuclear power, although i think that if push came to shove they would. Chernobyl only occured anyway becuase of tests being conducted to see what the limit was (guess what they found them alrite), not becuase of some underlying inherintly dangerous process that wasnt known about.
I want to see the world use more renewable, im no hippy but i think if we're to survive its defiantly important that we start using more renewable and more nuclear, theres an interesing article in the magazine that i recieve cos of the professional body im a member of regarding using nuclear as a suitable means to ease global warming, if I can get it online ill provide you with the link if your interested, or scan it if i cant get it online. I think is becoming accepted amoungst professionals and techno biased people that is a viable solution if managed correctly, but living in a democratic society means that we cant start throwing up power stations everywhere.
As I said before the problem with renewable is the space it takes up, 75% of this earth is water, not all of that is sea, infact a large portion of it isnt. so mooring things at sea isnt viable as it would create problems for marine life, becuase if you were to use solar and moor large banks of solar arrays at sea youd need massive areas to be covered,
entire earth = 164 Watts per square meter over a 24 hour day, thats 84Twatts per day, the earth uses 10Twatts, so the earths surface is 10^15 m^2 so 10TW/ 164 = 60000000000 m^2, which is well over half the planet so that means that youd cover in solar cells to generate the required amount of power of the world. imagine transimitting power from a mesh of panels like that around the world!
wind turbines generate more for the amount of space they take up, theres problems with this.
If the world continues to use all the electrical products its using now theres no way in my eyes that itll be possible to rely on renewable energy, nuclear solutions will need to be sort. Yet some people dont understand these caculations and expect miracles to happen, cos they dont understand the issues surrounding the consovation of energy.
my calculations assumed a perfect day and no loses, which of course there are so the actually size needed would be even larger!
If a new technology is developed thats renewable and will sustain the world, when its found and implemented im all for it so bin the nuclear, but its not gonna happen (so he says). we'll see anyway, we'll have to keep in touch then in 10years time when all fossil fuels have run out and the earth is suffering power failures we can sit back and say i told you so..
ohh yea this page is pretty cool, its about chernobyl its unrelated to what ive said here but its quite interesting. www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/
i2c
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Regarding the world adopting the Orwellian view, in the UK there is the RIP act, in the US the patriot act, and the Sanders ammendment to the Patriot act (whcih stops the Govt from getting records from book stores and libraries), was defeated in the house, so whats next? We now have Biometrics for Visa visitors coming into the states (haven`t all these folks already gone through a background check?) so maybe it isn`t such a giant leep to some kind of tagging. I think it was Jefferson who said that in times of war there is always a greater erosion of freedoms then is needed (or something similar). People like to feel safe (even if its completely misguided), so sacrificing your freedoms to catch all the bad people seems to be a fair trade..
As for technology alone solving our problems, I don`t think that is realistic, people control how the technology is used and many of those in power are more motivated by money then the greater good, so sure, we can make fuel efficient cars, but hey, we can also drill all over Alaska and have our own oil which can keep all those gas guzzling cars on the road for afew years.. and just because people have always been starving does that mean that we can`t try to help them out a bit? In the U.S food is abundant, you walk into applebees and are given a chicken sandwich that could feed 4 people, so maybe a little less gluttony could help out?
technology is always abused it seems, people with good intentions create stuff which then gets warped by those with the cash. Shortcuts are taken which turn safe (ish) technologies into dangers (3 mile island, chernobyl) so as long as we continue chasing the eternal buck its never going to be as easy as we would like to think.
Apolgies if this jumps around a bit, its early and I have hangover..
