Government Says RFID Human Tracking Is A Bad Idea
from the a-bad,-bad-idea dept
There's just something about RFID technology that seems to get a certain group of people very upset about how the technology will be misused. It's certainly reasonable to keep tabs on the potential for misuse of a technology -- but too often these folks don't come up with any constructive solutions, preferring to completely ban the technology. This clearly isn't going to happen. A much better solution is to work on better technology that makes the threats of RFID misuse much lower. Of course, poorly thought out plans by the US government to put RFID chips in passports without thinking through all the security implications doesn't help people feel any calmer. Nor, of course, do ridiculous statements from companies that sell RFID chips that we should implant such chips in migrant workers (this statement, though, comes from VeriChip, who has a long and well-documented history or making false or misleading statements -- so it's hard to take them seriously. After all, even their own board members seem a bit shy about using the company's technology). However, it appears that at least some in the government are recognizing the problems with RFIDs in tracking humans. A new report from the Department of Homeland Security specifically says that using RFIDs to track humans is a bad idea.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Tracking humans
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I s it just me?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: doesn't get it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
RFID is a very short range tech. so unless said "sick person" is trying to sneak his stolen child past some sort of check point equipped with a RFID scanner it is not going to help find him/her.
as for the negatives, well I will just point you to the book "1984" and think of the implications of anyone knowing all your movements.
GOM
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Human Tracking
ZombieWire RFID News
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mark of the Beast
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mark of the Beast
http://zombiewire.com/?n=312&id=312
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mark of the Beast
Go to Zombiewire and look on your top left VeriChip Video
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mark of the Beast
This means no after market parts.
This means you can't do any work on your own car.
This is vendor lockin at the dealership.
This is extortion against 3rd party mechanics.
This means you can't use recking yard parts.
This means that it takes a dealer's bay and about day to program all the chips with your information or unique customer ID the first time the car is purchased. Even some dealers think this is moronic.
In turn we as the consumer only get one thing (BMW corporate is really the only true benefactor here...), and it's quite small: stolen parts can't be used. It basically means your car once stolen only allows for joyriding. They can't strip it and sell the parts.
That's not worth it. People argue that most BMW owners don't give a crap about after market parts or 3rd party mechanics. So? That's a lame excuse. There's still a few owners that do, but it really screws the rest of us if the rest of car industry decides to do this.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
FUD
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree with Dittobox
I think this would just complicate things. Good idea for groceries, bad idea for people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Finally
Anyway, it's about time they're recognizing the issue, especially after touting the idea of plugging passports with all these little chips. It's suprising enough that there are uncrypted chips (though the ones in passports are of course.. still doesn't satisfy me) used anywhere as it is. Unless you want to flip on and off a small freq jammer around your card, you're pretty much open to anyone who bumps into you on the sidewalk.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Crazy as this may sound...
The problem is not technology and it's not laws and it's not security.
The problem is us.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SCAN & ROB
This is a really BAD idea, c'mon people, I really for some reason can't get upset and be amazed....just a matter of time I guess.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tracking Humans.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
True story concerning the RFID in humans
American history was far down the list of my favorite school subjects for Mac and I had to used my Government book to keep my lunch money by gluing it inside my notebook and using it like a mace. However, after graduating from high school and moving to California, his attitude changed.
Returning home for short visits, Mac developed an interest to visit the many sites which He had previously ignored discovering the historical relevance to everyday life. With each succeeding trip Mac visited as many landmarks as time would allow - - Plymouth Rock, Salem, Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill,
Philadelphia, Gettysburg, Washington D.C. and Mount Vernon, Virginia. Armed with his camera, Mac captured a pictorial essay which was entertaining as well as educational. These slides, and the commentary that went with them, expanded rapidly to four one-hour presentations which Mac was pleased to deliver to service clubs, schools, hospitals, church organizations, and even to teacher's groups.
I met Richard L. MacMurray on the fish line from Atascadero State Hospital were he was raped by three guys who wanted to teach a sex offender a lesson.
It was my 1st day on the job and I was asked to look out for him. Giving a 24hr. heads up I had the night to think just what would I like offered to me when I arrived in prison. The options were without end, but there was one common thread. What was this guys desire, and how could I turn it into a positive for everyone where something good could come from it.
I asked one of the guys to check in with him. Sit with him and talk to him and find out what he wants to do with his time. He told us his need to write a book, a history book.
The best thing for anyone is to have a purpose and the D-Quad Psych. Department inmate staff chose to join the project. Mac decided to really get serious and spent hours in the library, as well as in book stores, researching each President for uncommon, yet noteworthy stories.
Mac orchestrated the guys on the project having them incorporate their studies in classes missed in the real world wile Mac worked hard to help each one with their studies wile gleaning more information for the book.
All I had to do was sit with him for an hour each morning on the yard till the gate racked to go to his teachers' assistant job at the prison. Once he was in the education area he was in his environment. Each morning he would feed the birds with bread which he took from the chow hall.
After about a year passed and I was giving him bread I took for him along with others dropping off bread out of site of the guards. Mac spent the hour each morning with us helping us learn wile feeding the birds.
We knew the only investment we could make that could not be taken away was an investment in ourselves and looking after Mac had become important to us.
We had questions that would sometimes take a week or two for us all to agree on an answer. We found our viewpoint was in essence quite like our founding fathers viewpoint since they were the criminals of their time looking to survive and grow in a new place. Others would join in on the yard and soon D Quad was not divided by ethnic foolishness. The D-Quad Psych. Department inmate staff was doing a project that was getting some outside attention which meant less pressure. The guys were a mix matched batch of everything from Tyranny's to Homophobes but we could all appreciate the honesty of men who also had something more important than themselves.
Mac was especially grateful to a long-time friend Mike Birkholrn. Mike not only encouraged him from the very beginning, but he also offered the resources of his company (Hemmings, Birkholm & Grizzard) to publish the manuscript in October 1993 Dr. Ken Barclay of California Polytechnic University (Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo), offered much encouragement and advice.
The office of Congressman Bill Thomas (R-Calif. 21st District) provided up to date information on Cabinet Officers, Supreme Court Justices, government agency addresses, and other statistical information.
The last time I really saw Mac was when he told me he was going to be placed in the civil commitment program. I had an offer from the California Department of Corrections to place a microchip in my hand so I was going home in about a month. Our support system was breaking down and Mac looked rough. He knew I was sad for him and he forgave me for not attending at the gate and he was going to cell up.
That was the day he gave me a signed copy of our book with a note to my mom and step dad letting them know I was making positive use of the time.
The four years we were incarcerated at the same facility the topic was the human factor in history and understanding we are all imperfect.
What our founding fathers chose was to build not destroy yet instead of sending a nation to college we send our most valued resource, humans to prisons.
The process of punishment is counter productive in my humble opinion, sending someone to college seems more productive allowing perspective when most inmates come in believing the world is still flat.
Please take time to see:
Don and Nancy Part3
See through the eyes of a therapist who has worked with sex offenders for over 23 years, and a woman who's son has been imprisoned after his sentence was served ten years A look into the conditions that Megan's Law has created through the eyes of a therapist who has worked with sex offenders for over 23 years, and a woman who's son has been imprisoned after his sentence was served ten years ago, yet is still incarcerated and RFID use.
http://krrjr.blogspot.com/ Keith Richard Radford Jr's Blog spot.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Tracking CHips.. GReat Idea
or do you think rehabilitation really works??
Its mulit-purposeful.. if the technology becomes GMS sateliite freindly , then keeping out children safe , whereabouts known is also a great thing..
Have you taken a look at the number of innocent faces on milk cartons lately ??
Come on Politicians Wake the FXXX UP..
Thank God we still have the right to bare arms. just in case one of them bastards thinks he can pounce into my home..
i said my peace..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anyone pusing rfid is a moron
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: the truth about these media screwballs putting the screws too peoples balls
Let me tell you about my families setting me up for an exorcism and her need for money through political, and religious pandering concerning sex.
I remember living behind a church were Brian Lamb, and a bunch of these Cspan guys used too have a wood shop. At that place of residence my mom thought I needed an exorcist, after playing in the mud the way very young children will sometimes with my uncle who mixed a glass of this red clay in water and told me it was chocolate milk.
After drinking it as he would force me to do thing all the time like the time he made me cut off the limb I was sitting on and the device came out of my shoulder being more powerful and in control I broke out with ring worm all over my body and my mom told me it was writing that could not be understood so she had priests come in from the church.
I guess my Dad did not know that one of the people at the church was in line for being my new dad but that was not in the cards because I guess he felt I was in need of discipline after an accident in the wood shop. I had been check out on the band saw by my grandfather who was a millwright in Arkansas and to do some jobs the blade shield had to be removed. Some kids came in and wanted to use the saw, then got mad that I wanted to warn them to put the guard on and they told me they owned it all and I was not to tell them anything, and after this head strong kid cut his thumb off the other kids said they would tell their fathers it was all my fault, but it was not.
I had a fever of well over a hundred and I was a bloody mess with the infection. The priests came in with outer guys and one had a camera. The priests would throw me across the room well the other snapped a picture. I would fall on furniture and the floor and they would tell me get on the bed, don't get off the bed very loud and when I would crawl back on the bed they would pick me up and throw me over and over again well the other priest would snap another picture and this went on till one guy said we have enough picture and they left me in the blood, mud, and bedding, then my aunt came in with some save that was for ring worm.
She spread the save and kidded me about dying when the rings got to my heart. After getting well I went back to the wood shop and the guys had made me a special shield and gave me my sword which were both made of wood and I had to fight one of the guys in my shorts because I did not want to remove them and the other guy was naked (he know who he is). I was still not up too speed and lost the battle. They then called me the bad guy and this group was supposed to be my gate keeper or something like that appointed by the priests. My Dad did not like them much also but that did not matter much because someone at the church was going to be my new dad till he said no, my mom cried allot, my dad was gone, I healed up, but I still have a case.
Please know that there is nothing any of you can do to make what you and the rest of the ones involved can do to make this my fault. See at the time I was about seven years old. Since then the church has made an effort to kill me, to the extent of trying to pass laws to kill sex offenders.
Come on, keep it up, keep pushing laws that you as a group of very said individuals know have no value. Take me too court so I can own a network. I have met with your staff members in private since along with military personal and others.
Now lets note when this happened I was only a small child being thrown around a room like a rag doll by people that started all this clear back in the late fifty's and the steering by very bad people that think abusing kids to make laws to stop abuse, Ha! these laws are bogus and the fact that they can not kill gays anymore does not justify the use of laws too kill someone set up by them to create some worthless set of laws by a fusion of church and state is wrong and realty designed by them to harm us all.
My case was pragmatic but more than that I know what was done and who was involved making vendetta laws that really have no bases in truth, and are based in lies.
Keith Richard Radford Jr
PSS don't be cowards, let me know you received this e-mail through a response.
It's time to communicate
richard.radford@att.net
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
bruhhh
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ILLEGAL OR LEGAL CHIPPING.
MY QUESTION IS THIS? DID YOU EXPLAIN TO THE INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS THE RFID CHIP THAT HE OR SHE WAS GONNA BE CHIPPED? DID YOU GIVE THAT INDIVIDUAL DO'S OR DONT'S? RULES & REGULATIONS, POLICIES & PROCEJURES? OR DID YOU TRICK THAT PERSON INTO BELIEVING THEY ARE CRAZY & THAT YOUR PROGRAM IS PART OF THEIR PERSONALITY AND IN THEIR HEAD? DID YOU COMMIT IDENTITY THEFT AND STEAL THEIR PROGRAM MONEY OR DID YOU DO IT THE WAY YOU ARE SUPPOSE TO CONDUCT A BUIS? VIOLATING ANYBODY'S CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS & CIVIL RIGHTS IS AGAINST THE LAW AND SOONER OR LATER YOU SHALL BE PUNISHED IN THE U.S.A. THIS IS NOT JUST TALKING OUT MY BUTT, YOU CAN NOT THROW PEOPLE IN YOUR PROGRAM WITHOUT COMPENSATION AND WHILE YOU GET MY PROGRAM MONEY'S FOR OVER 37 YEARS, I COLLECT SSI-DISABILITY. '''GET YOUR CRAP TOGETHER AMERICA'''!!!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]