Are you ready for the spychip driver's license?
I was sent this link Tuesday night by the venerable sports radio personality and onetime host of the E! Entertainment TV show "Digital Turf," Patrick Mauro.
The article, from World Net Daily, suggests that, sooner than some might wish, we might all have driver's licenses that are embedded with a very clever chip. Clever in the kind of way Heath Ledger's Joker is.
It's an article with many words, some of them technical and some political. The gist, however, seems to be that your driver's license could soon be adorned by a radio frequency identification, or RFID, chip. This might have some advantages, but I'm not quite sure what those might be just at this rainy moment.
However, as I understand it, anyone with the appropriate reading unit will be able to scan your personal information, even though your license is tucked into your wallet, your jeans, or that secret pocket near your chest area, just by passing you by.
"OK, chief. We got two senators, four clergymen and the president of the National Abstinence Society. Do we go in?"
(Credit: CC Stephen Witherden)So you could be at your favorite mass event--the synagogue, the Daytona 500, the peace rally, Hooters--and someone from law enforcement or the KGB or the Sopranos could wander through the crowd and identify everyone in it.
Apparently, the powers-that-are remain clear that no important personal information will be divulged.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security suggests that when you get one of these so-called enhanced driver's licenses, which are already being offered (but not mandated) in New York state, you will also receive "information on how to use, carry, and protect your license, and a shielded container that will prevent anyone from reading your license."
I am constantly being told by those in the technological future that there is no such thing as privacy. But at the most basic aesthetic level, do I need a shielded container to carry my license and protect my vital statistics? I have been known to mislay shielded containers on a regular basis.
And, well, please, technological experts and futurists out there, comment, could you? This all seems a little odd to me.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
I'm completely 100% against this.
I don't like the thought of anyone knowing anything about me, without me even realizing that they're checking.
For instance, there are cop cars that drive by through my neighborhood on a regular basis, making sure that everything's safe or whatever.
I don't mind that, because I know that if I'm in trouble for something or if they're personally checking me out, they'll have to stop at my house and knock on my door.
If I had this technology in my driver's license, everytime I'd see a cop car pass by, I'd get paranoid, and cover up my license (or shield it with the stupid box thing...)
It's a complete invasion of privacy.
I don't like it one bit.
http://www.rpi-polymath.com/ducttape/RFIDWallet.php
So now the crazy tinfoil hat crowd becomes the tinfoil ass crowd (?)
Ha ha. But seriously, I would do that if my id cards had RFID. It's not just cops that can scan those things - identity thieves might could even get your SSN and things...
Here's a commercially made RFID blocking wallet box:
http://www.flipsidewallet.com/
Basically, you can be tracked very reliably with this ID, and it is unlikely the sleeve will help you. Personally, I will be hacking the thing so it "malfunctions" when I get assigned one. Hopefully, you live in one of the 5 states that rejected the law; however, once the law is fully in affect you won't be able to fly if you live in those states.
;-)
We seem to going big time into the Surveillance Society, where we are being watched and tracked 24/7. In his book "1984", author George Orwell predicted that we would eventually be monitored in our own homes--to help "protect: us, of course, and to make sure that we were being good comrade citizens.
Scary stuff. You wonder if eventually we will have implanted computer chips so we become like versions of the "Borg" in Star Trek....
Fusistance is retile.
Your ass will be laminated.
LOL!
You can see some good uses, for instance instances when you are involved in a car accident and are injured. But I don't think that is enough justification for doing what seems, ostensibly something that has little use.
Privacy? The average individual gives more away about themselves than they care to know through casual conversation. The question is who cares about you? No offense intended to anyone, but how important do we really think we are that others would be so interested in having all that data? And what do you do with all that data once you have it?
I would be more concerned with identity theft than whether the cop driving by is scanning me. We have police cars with scanners on their roof that look like speakers. They scan number plates of parked cars looking for stolen cars. Turns out the program has been very successful. So I guess they can scan drivers for suspended licenses.
Unless the driver is shielding his license.
*The current RFID sniffing record is something like ONE MILE. Shield yourselves.
There is no need for this technology. None whatsoever. It can accomplish no good, only evil and I don't care what some idiotic politician wants to tell us while selling it, I will NEVER accept it. Period.
I can understand the concern about identity theft and such. But if you shield the thing (or just, you know, leave it at home) all you're doing is preventing Mr. Smith from accessing the information on the spot. He wouldn't be learning anything that's not already on record.
I'll admit that when I read the tagline for this, I imagined a Robocop-esque HUD where someone's name and vital statistics appeared when you focused on them. That'd be sweet.
As a security consultant I own RFID reader devices and have my staff test all closets of our clients for RFID tags (retail applications etc). On average we find three (e.g. in high class shoes) which we disable with an high energy directional EMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse) - you can accomplish the same thing by putting the object three seconds in the microwave on "high", but that can potentially damage the object (metal parts etc.) and will destroy any electronic device (i.e. a cell phone with an RFID chip), so try at your own risk.
The privacy implications are huge. Scenario: You, frequent the meat counter, or if you are female, the baby book section in Wal-Mart (or any other store) where the retailer has hidden RFID readers installed, then selling the data sets of customers passing by to health insurance companies... your premium skyrockets, because you are more prone to a heart attack (meat counter) or because you are very likely to become pregnant soon (baby books)... and that is just one very tiny example...
You can get them at http://www.idstronghold.com
If you have any technical questions feel free to email me at walt at idstronghold.com I founded the company.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173&hl=en
- by altek85 March 6, 2009 6:57 AM PST
- this comment definately misses something like:
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Have fun tracking my ip you ***********...