RFID The Wave Of The Future (Washington: sales, coupons, credit card)

[Maineah]

Coming soon to a store near you. RFID. We have all seen the RFID devices on store items which trigger an alarm when someone tries to walk out of the store with a protected item. They work by broadcasting a tiny radio frequency identifier which is either de-activated at the check out by the scanner, manually by the clerk ,or if not deactivated, the signal is picked up by the alarm detector.
The newest RFID chips on the market will be so small the entire chip will be 1/10th the size of a grain of sand! THAT’S SMALL! So small in fact they can be imbedded in a piece of paper. The technology is moving quickly. Wal-Mart and other big stores are already switching from bar code readers to the newer RFID technologies.
The range of the RF signal needs to be improved and ways of doing that are in the works. There are new RF scanners being developed that will be able to read multiple items all at once. The time is coming within 10 years you will bag your groceries yourself and put them in the cart as you shop. Deli and loose items will have an RFID chip embedded in the label as they are weighed and printed out. At the checkout the RFID scanner will scan your entire cart in seconds without having to remove the groceries. You pay for the items with an RFID chip in a card, key chain wand or even a ring and you’re done. Groceries are handled only twice, off the shelf, and loading into the car! It will save a lot of time and labor! Pretty Cool Stuff!
Of course there will be some applications people might not care for. Tiny chips could be put in drinks for instance. When you get pulled over by the police for weaving in traffic the cop could scan you to see if you were drinking, how many you had consumed, and how long ago you drank the drinks! With any new technology comes responsibility and useage laws. We'll have to see how it all pans out!

[Zymer]

If it can be abused, somebody will abuse it. While the technology does have its advantages, it is also ripe for abuse. There are some very ominous implications here, from invasion of privacy to violation of constitutional rights and "laws" will do little to stop them...especially if it is Big Brother who is doing the abusing.

And if you think I'm being paranoid, think again. Even if we leave BB out of the equation, think about some of the other aspects of this technology and the data collection: for instance, you have a heart attack and are rushed to the hospital, after much expensive emergency treatment you get a bill for an enourmous amount of money. Your med ins. refuses to cover it. Why? Because they've seen your grocery list and have decided that your lifestyle habits are the direct cause of your problem and they feel they shouldn't have to pay for that.

Think it can't happen? Look at what they are doing to people who smoke, plans they are trying to push through relating to overweight people eating fast foods.

Think that data is "safe"? Look at what happened to Hannaford's recently...and that was rinky-dink crackers who loaded software to acquire data. What happens when it is well-funded corporate or other entities who want that data?

That speedy checkout convenience may be nice, but unless the speedy-pay option can be done with an anonymous device (that the IRS probably won't like), I'll be paying cash. It's nobody's business what I buy, and when/where/how often I buy it.

I have recently been getting LOTS of junk mail solicitations at the new house, from all kinds of places, and I'm not real happy about it. I like my privacy and don't like my name being floated around as it apparently has been. Interestingly enough, one of the recent solicitations was from Hannaford's- some coupons with nice savings on them...and bar codes on the coupons. In the fine print was a notice that use of the coupons authorized them to collect data and to do whatever they want with it.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Speaking from first-hand knowledge and experience, if you value your rights and privacy, it is my opinion that you *need* to be a little paranoid about who is collecting what information about you, and what they are doing with it...and what *might* be done with it.

Even if you aren't doing anything "wrong", information can be collected and used detrimentally somewhere down the road, whether it is common crooks, sophisticated fraudsters, Big Business or Big Brother.

</rant>

[mainebrokerman]

i think someday soon, each carriage or basket will have a scanner , so as you place your groceries in the basket, they are scanned as you shop and ready to go to the car, no unloading and reloading the carriages

or

grocery delivery services will be available,,(tho maine is a rural state)
however, there is savings, that would offset the gas cost to deliver,,,,the display cases, are expensive and require a huge amount of energy, and also the shrink factor,,,
peapod is doing very well delivering groceries.

[7th generation]

An appliction for the RFID tag is in hospitals. When a newborn leaves his mother, a tag is attached to the baby's ankle with a corresponding one given to the mother. This is to ensure there is no mix up between other birthing mothers and to keep non custodial persons from snatching the baby.
Of course the case can be made given 4.2 million births a year in 3,500 facilities, abductions by non-family members is between 0 and 12 per year and of these abductions the mother is reunited 95% of the time.
So in this setting are the RFID tags intrusive? Ask the 5% of mothers that never get their babies back.
As far as either implanting chips in people or inserting one in a drink.
Hey, at least I'd get home after a night at the bar!!

[Boomerang]

How about chipping the date of purchase and warranty information onto or into a product when it's purchased, so that if it self-destructs within the warranty period, the customer can return it for repair or replacement without having to dig up receipts, etc.

[Maineah]

The applications seem endless! They're thinking of embedding the "powder chips" as they call them in money. They can't be faked of duplicated so counterfeit bills may become a thing of the past.

[quiet walker]

There was a recent story in the Washington Post regarding these chips. Like that key ring thing you wave at the gas pump to pay. And ones that are being placed in newer credit cards, etc. We had a card at work that had all your biometrics and a bunch of other stuff, used for secure access and other things. It was rumored that this card's position could be tracked by satillite, like a GPS. The rumor was never confirmed nor denied. But I kept mine in a secure metal safe in my office rather than carry it around (like you were supposed to). Didn't want the boss to know where I went to lunch and stuff.

But the Post article said that there are portable readers that can get your information from these cards and chips just by getting near you. Like your credit card numbers and any of that biometric and other stuff that's on work id's. And that these reader devices are being used by criminals for a new way of identity theft. The article had a picture of an aluminum foil covered wallet and said that the "tin foil hat" crowd were finally proved right

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by quiet walker

There was a recent story in the Washington Post regarding these chips. Like that key ring thing you wave at the gas pump to pay. And ones that are being placed in newer credit cards, etc. We had a card at work that had all your biometrics and a bunch of other stuff, used for secure access and other things. It was rumored that this card's position could be tracked by satillite, like a GPS. The rumor was never confirmed nor denied. But I kept mine in a secure metal safe in my office rather than carry it around (like you were supposed to). Didn't want the boss to know where I went to lunch and stuff.

But the Post article said that there are portable readers that can get your information from these cards and chips just by getting near you. Like your credit card numbers and any of that biometric and other stuff that's on work id's. And that these reader devices are being used by criminals for a new way of identity theft. The article had a picture of an aluminum foil covered wallet and said that the "tin foil hat" crowd were finally proved right

Crooks are always there to screw up the works! Perhaps a RF proof wallet or purse will become necessary...There's your ticket to your next million!!

[Nor'Eastah]

Originally Posted by Maineah

There's your ticket to your next million!!

Speaking of a ticket to your next million - I find all this stuff scary, depressing, and downright anger-producing (it makes me pretty mad, too!) I was surfing the web one night, thinking about these RFID chips, figuring the world was going to h*** in a handbasket, when I came across something that gave me some hope!

Seems a group of tech students in Germany - where RFID is rampant and hated everywhere - were working on a gizmo they called an "RFID-zapper". The zapper would locate the chip, then "fry" it with an EMP pulse. Now you can do this in your own microwave, but it'll either ruin most stuff, or set it on fire. For instance, they say that very soon, all clothing, including shoes, will have RFIDs, and the moment you walk into a store, a "reader" in the doorway will tell the sales staff what size you wear, what price range you prefer, even how old the stuff is that you're wearing!

So if we could figure a way to combine a "reader" to identify where the chip is in your merchandise, and a "zapper" to fry it with a quick pulse (these things rely on their antennas to transmit, and the antennas are quite fragile), we could de-chip most anything. Some people might pay a lot for that kind of "security"!

Persuant to our discussion of the Michelin tire guy , all Michelin tires now have a chip. But the Michelin man told me - not in Latin - that he had nothing whatsoever to do with that decision!

[RMoore007]

I need one that automatically locks my fridge when I've reached a maximum calorie count. And another that locks my wallet when the check comes. Plus, my remote control and mouse will zap me a few volts unless I get to the fitness center. As far as the grocery store 'smart' basket, I want one that warnings will go off as the basket rejects spoiled, outdated or tainted foods. Now THAT I could live with.