RFID and Wireless Tracking

Me: I need more sugar in my coffee.

I wish retailers would actually follow through on their promises to RFID goods so we can just walk out of the stores without having to wait in checkouts. It would save everyone so much time.

I also wonder how effective personal tracking chips are. I plan to have my future kids implanted with these and I want to make sure they work as promised.

This hit news a few weeks ago. Very old. Long story short, these tags need to be deactivated when you leave the store. They have the potential to serve as tracking devices that keep tabs on ya. Some of these work long ranges and readers can pick up the data. It's scary and something needs to be done. Long story short, this was covered extensively and I'm amazed it took dslreports so long to put it in a topic.

I can't wait for that day! I hate going to Wal-Mart because of the loooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg lines.

If I can get in, and get out, without waiting, that'd be great!

What about the rfid chips being labelled as the wrong price ? no chance to discredit it.

I'd love to have all equipment, supplies and medications in my hospital embedded with RFID. Being able to find Operating Room stuff after it's been left on an inpatient floor, performing inventories, etc. would be greatly simplified.

Come to think of it, it would probably be a good idea to have RFID in patients' ID armbands so they could be easily located as well.

- Dan

Surely there will be a way to prevent such things from happening. Perhaps if a receipt was printed for you as you left the store. Or better yet, if the receipt is emailed to you as you walk out.

Wow... Gotta love today's surveillance society. Even parents (or future parents) are getting lazy. Let's let the chip and this tracking device do the job that building trust and a relationship with our kid used to do. $Deity forbid we take the time to do that and trust them like our parents did...

Provided we are informed about the fact that this type of monitoring is being performed, I don't see a problem. However, I would not want to be secretly monitored and then have that information used against me.

And some may even see the need to inform as unnecessary. Consider speed traps. If you know where they are, won't you adjust your behavior? I know this is different than continuous RFID monitoring but given mobile phone 911 systems, big brother already knows where our cell phones are.

And why is this bad? What if your child goes missing? I understand that at home, parents should be expected to monitor what their children are doing, but eventually children will do things outside of the house. If God-forbid a child goes missing, these chips will make it much easier to find him/her.

And why is it wrong to make things more convenient for a parent? Isn't it easier for a parent to track down the location of a child using technological means easier than calling around to friends' houses and hoping that the child is there?

You can turn off a radio/cell phone, and if you are REALLY paranoid, just remove the battery - try that with RFID's (if you can find them).

Guess that would be ok. But would we get the same crappy service via email or telephone that we currently get from outsourced support ?

No , you can't do that.

even when you turn off a cell phone it is still tracked to the tower. and if you turn off the location assistance in the phone itself , you are still tracked if you dial an emergency number.

Just removing the battery is dumb. especially with kids. Have them leave it on ALWAYS and that makes them a bit easier to track. But make sure they charge them. You know in case of emergency !

Rather than "old" I would say it's a continuing story. The use of these tags has increased over several years. There's no harm in more news stories - the more people are aware of it, the better.

I'd like to see a law saying the tags must be, not just deactivated, but removed on customer request at the time of purchase. This would force manufacturers to make them detachable, not embedded where they're hard to dig out.

The supposed purpose is only inventory management. Is tracking people post-purchase (and a bonus for clever thieves) merely a side effect the big companies don't care about? Or is it one of the real purposes?

RFID Privacy Issues
»www.rfidgazette.org/2005 ··· _is.html

And this:

RFID Privacy and Security
»www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node ··· ?id=2115

Regards,

Doctor Olds

that is until the kids goto the movies, because we know someday the theater owners will successfully lobby for cellular jamming to be legal in the theater itself(but not the lobby). that day will be heaven for me as a movie fan too, i personally try to leave mine in the car at the theater.

Wake me up when there's something interesting

Let me tell you, that chip would have been a life saver for me last weekend. I have a 4 year old son with Downs Syndrome. He was staying with a babysitter while my wife and I were at a church membership class. Well, he decided to go outside through a door that had been left open while the sitter was changing my other sons diaper. You have to understand that he has no sense of fear or being lost nor does he understand things like boundaries. Well she sees that he is gone a couple of seconds later and then goes outside to look for him. She doesn't see him and then calls us. Long story short, myself and my wife along with half of our church and about 10 city officers and a helicopter from CHP looked for 2 hours before a neighbor found him playing in their fenced back yard in their small pond (don't ask how he got back there, no one knows). There is more to it but if we would of had a chip on him, we could of found him in just a few minutes. I would not hesitate for a second to have this kind of technology with him because of his attitude. The most favorite thing in the world is to play in water and there was a large pool a couple of houses down and the fence was down. Needless to say I know what might have happened if he would have found that. This is just my 2 cents but if there is something out there that could help protect my children in cases like this then I am all for it.

Won't happen. As long as emergency workers etc. that are working on call are attending theaters, cell phone jamming will not be legal. Thats why they can't be blocked because you would have to ban multiple frequencies as there are 850/900 and 1900mhz ranges in those. And some emergency services use regular cell phone providers and equipment to communicate, I personally don't see anyone powerful enough to get banning of radio signals with a jammer legal. I know at my local indigenous American based casino, there is no service from most cell phones. But it's not from a signal jammer.

I find that article sort of disturbing...

However, I don't believe if I buy a pack of Gum at Grocer X that Grocer Y will know that "3F2504E0-4F89-11D3-9A0C-0305E82C3301" means a pack of Gum bought on 11/25/2008 at 11:15PM with a Visa ending in 4415. That would only be possible if Grocer X -SHARED- their purchases and inventory with Grocer Y. The only company that'd know is Grocer X. I seriously doubt that the gum company would be giving all their RFID GUIDs to every company they sell to. It'd just be a list of IDs and the type of item.

Gah, I'm just tired of the paranoia.

So what do emergency workers do when they are riding the subway?

Nuke the RFID in the microwave oven for a few seconds, that should kill it, that or a cattle prod.

This RFID bullshit has gone far enough, time to nip it in the bud. This will end up being another tool for the government to abuse and CONTROL sheeple.

Good intentions pave the way to hell. Do sheeple really think themselves that important, they can't stand 10-15 minutes in a check-out aisle to pay for their purchase? Perhaps sheeple are to damn lazy for their own good?

Don't want to wait in line, then buy on-line and use your hi speed connection.

IMO, all this does is put peoples mind at ease to eventually accept this pre-view of the coming mark of the beast, where it will be readily accepted.

From the looks of it, it will be easy to convince people to welcome it with open arms because people are lazy.

I don't know what kind of magic phone you have, but when I turn my phone off, it doesn't connect to anything. Turning it off means the cellular radio is off, meaning no connection to cell tower.You aren't magically "tracked," you are triangulated, and triangulation requires that you are close enough to three cell towers. If you aren't, the can't find you.

Cell phones and cellular networks are not magic tracking devices, my friend.

I have done a couple of races in which instead of timing chips, my race bib had an RFID built in. This way the race director does not have to worry about getting back all the timing chips.

Probably LOL.

Interesting indeed. No doubt if retailers put these in, full force, many people (myself included) will be figuring out how to disable/remove/sabotage the RFID chips that are placed on the products we bought, and/or shop at places which don't implement it.

BosstonesOwn is sort of right. There are phones that do stay in touch with the cell tower(s) unless you pull the battery. According to people who make it their job (security types) some of those phones can even transmit area noise/conversations while in the off position (my question is, would not the radio get a little warm and die faster doing that much transmitting?). Since I do not have any cell phones, I can not verify any of that other than the fact that people in my line of work are required to remove the batteries from the cell phone or to put them in a metal box outside the room.

Here you go:

»gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadg ··· 1578.php

Ah...TAFB. I worked at DGMC.

Frankly I'd love to have them activated in all the products I purchase, so I can use them for inventory tracking in my household. A device for consumers to deactivate them should be pretty simple, If a cell phone can erase your Nissan key, I'd bet it could scramble an RFID chip.

There is also a GPS watch specifically for kids: »childlocator.com/