Comments on: The man with the RFID arm

Should data-packed chips be implanted in people? One man with a VeriChip says being tagged is no big deal.
Photo: Armed with RFID
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[tbeckner]

RFID, Freedom, Fear, and Terrorism

It isn't just alarmed libertarians and people with strong religious beliefs who are alarmed. Today RFID is optional, but twenty years from now it may be mandatory. In fact, it might be required to be implanted at birth. Today a scanner may need to be within three inches, but in twenty years it might be detectable from a satellite, a moving car, or fixed scanners in businesses or on power poles where cameras are currently positioned in residential neighborhoods, like in Tacoma Washington. I am neither an alarmed libertarian nor a person with strong religious beliefs, but 32 years ago when I started my first job in IT, we discussed just this possibility and what it might mean. It appears that the fear of terrorism has created a situation where the free people of the world might ultimately lose their freedom. This nation appears to be losing its grip on reality.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt said during his First Inaugural Address on Saturday, March 4, 1933, ?So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes?? To me, the fear of terrorism has created unfounded fears, fears that have no place in our world.

RFID alone will not destory our freedom, it is the use of fear and RFID that will.

I would add

that with the bill the House approved today, which authorizes "unprecedented fines for indecency," up to $500,000 for an [i]individual entertainer[/i] who is found guilty of saying naughty words over the airwaves, our leaders are working on yet another "fear angle."

Their going to try to make us afraid to [i]say[/i] anything about it!

[casper2004]

You know what?

9/11 happened so that america will submit to the new world order, and that's all there is to that!

[casper2004]

I can't believe that people are falling for this crapola

Only through acts of terror will the masses be talked into RFID.

[Catgic]

K-Man with the bagels & cream cheese, coffee and CNET conference room

This is your first RFID focused article since many moons back. It offers good data, but is essentially about a narrow RFID subject, passive subcutaneous RFID ?REAL ID? tagging.

Yes, the detection-reading range for current state-of-the-art subcutaneous passive RFID tags is around 3 - 4 inches (8 - 10 cm), a detection-reading range that represents a very low threat of anyone surreptitiously reading one that?s implanted in a person. This very short reading-deciphering range application lends itself to containing and controlling the RFID security and privacy risks to individual citizens.

Techno-Netizens like me want CNET journalist-contributors to rattle out more in depth and detailed technical and philosophical reporting on all representative applications of ?passive and active RFID,? both state-of-the-art and what?s coming down the techno-pike. For example, applications such as ?E-Pass? RFID, ?Wal-Mart? RFID, ?Driver?s License?ID? RFID, ?USDOS Passport? RFID?etc.

It is my understanding that the typical, state-of-the-art maximum reading-deciphering range for E-Pass, Wal-Mart, DMV, DOS type RFID applications is around 33-65 feet (10-20 meters). Specially equipped Three-Letter Agency folks likely can easily double this stand-off reading range to 65-130 feet (20-40 meters) using cutting-edge RFID reading-deciphering technologies.

Order up some donuts, bagels & cream cheese, carafes of coffee and maybe some lattes and schedule a conference room. Then hold a ?Brain-Storming? meeting on all aspects of RFID. Invite Alorie Gilbert, Declan McCullagh, Jo Best, Martin LaMonica?et al. You know best whom else to invite to that RFID confab. Brain Storm in front of a white-board or newsprint flip chart then outline and bang out the full 5X5 RFID story, tamp it down into article or special report size like the one done on e-Terrorism back in 2002, and e-launch it to us CNETizens out here in the vast e-wasteland.

Enquiring e-Minds Want To Techno-Know. JP B-)

[Ubber geek]

Three-Letter Agency

http://www.analogstereo.com/mini_cooper_owners_manual.htm