Wall-Mart Following you Home?

1) A 120-digit serial number has enough capacity that every human on earth can be assigned a trillion, trillion, trillion different RFID numbers. Will you buy that many products in a lifetime?


2) I've already written programs that sift billions of figures down into patterns of a few dozen. It's trivial. People do it every day.


3) The hardware is common household technology.
One can already buy wireless networks for a home computer, some with 23 mile range. For years, we've been using temperature and light sensors, electricity controllers for lamps, appliances, window shades, etc (using X10 interfaces). Weather stations and security cameras plug right into your computer through the same interface.

So a RFID detector across town could easily be just a Palm Pilot with wireless network card stuck in a cardboard box. You'll buy it at Radio Shack for $100, until they start getting really cheap.

A computer program to collect data from an X10 device is ridiculously simple to write. A 250GB(!) hard drive cost only $250. There is nothing difficult about this technology. The data collected is easily computed and plotted on a map or analyzed any which way. Plucking individual data from a massive data stream is exactly what network cards do. The amount of data used to recognize and track 1000 RFID's across 1000 "events" would be smaller than your typical MS-Word document.

Logistics -- To recognize one person's collection of RFIDs, simply watch as they walk by two different sensors. The sensors might pick up 10,000 RFID signals in a couple minutes, but only the 10 signals that occurred at both points, at those moments, uniquely identify that one person. Programmers love this stuff!

Within two years, 14-year-olds could easily write webpages that track RFID's around town, the same way kids have already placed remote control cameras around town.

What's the logistics problem you see?
Sheer quantity is what a computer does best!

Farmerman- Once a part of a keyboard goes, there is nothing more to do than replace it. When my letter "D" died, I got a dandy new keyboard for a little over 10 bucks (it had a rebate).

One thing that you might try before you put it in the trash heap, is to pull off the caps lock button, carefully, and see if there is any dirt collected inside of it.

The logistics problems comes from tens of thousands of RFID within a small area. If the RFID were not specifically identified, it could well be that the id's being tracked are those of items which will not remain on the target's person. Otherwise, it would be necessary to identify the provenance of each id--is this a pair of socks? is this a cell-phone battery? Those sorts of resources are not going to be available to everyone you describe as potentially abusing the technology, such as stalkers, or teeny-bopper pranksters. If you are waling down the street, the only way for someone wishing to track to assure that they've "captured" the RFID's which are specific to you is to assure that no one else is in range at the time of the "capture." In most situations, such an attempt will result in the would-be tracker standing out like a sore thumb. If a government agent were the tracker, it would only take one or few cases of such activities to raise the hue and cry in the civil rights protection sector. Having simple computer technology to accomplish something in the comfort of your egonomic chair before your CRT is a far cry from attempting to apply such technoloby usefully in the hurly-burly of the crowd at a mall. The question of access to data, the question of the timeliness of data, the question of the specificity of the data vis-a-vis an individual, the question of acting covertly, the question of the usefulness of the data, the question of possible sources of signal interference--all of these beggar a bald contention that the software is simple. It is not information which makes this a possibility, it is the application of the information; that means logistics (the "how to" of using the information), and that means an entirely different can of worms than just what a particular program can accomplish with the data under ideal circumstances.

Posh! Identifying the RFID serial numbers that a person is wearing (from a huge data stream) is straight-forward:

1) Scatter 100 sensors around town.
2) Sit at home
3) Get a rough idea of where the subject has gone in the last hour.
Walked past the front door at about 8:30am.
Walked past the driveway about 1 minute later.
Drove onto the street about 3 minutes later.
4) One database query will find all RFID's that fit that criteria.
5) Simply follow those RFID's for the next few hours, until another sighting can be confirmed.


By comparison:
If 100 sensors all over town read thousands of ID's every minute
that's still less data traffic than a decent website like A2K logs!
Identifying and tracking one particular usage pattern
from a monstrously huge website log is FAR more complex and demanding task
than tracking some RFIDs. But it happens every day, using fairly moderate PCs.






Another Possible Use (#6): Lose your keys? Your sunglasses? Wallet? That old credit card? Walk around with a RFID detector until it picks up the correct serial number, somewhere in your house. (That's what stores are doing, already today.)

The range and capacity for RFID vary quite a bit from system to system.
(bold emphasis mine)



Excellent overview of RFID at Wired.com a year ago (May 20, 2002):
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52343,00.html
"We're probably looking at five cents (tags) in 2005."

Good overview of privacy issues, from a journal dedicated to RFID:
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/276/1/1/

Nov 17, 2002 -- "Gillette announced its intent to purchase 500,000,000 RFID tags from startup Alien Technology. The company expects to introduce RFID tags into its pallets and cases, according to the article. Alien Technology was the first company to introduce an RFID tag with price lower than 10 cents,..."
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/11/17/0327244.shtml?tid=126

Jan 17, 2003 - Michelin this week revealed that it has begun fleet testing of an RFID transponder embedded in its tires to enable them to be tracked electronically. [...] The Philips I-Code HSL chip operates at 868-915 MHz stores about 2 kiliobytes of information.
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/269/1/1/

The Navy used an RFID system in Iraq, to track injured soldiers. It holds 2 kilobits of data, read/written from 6 inches away.
http://www.embedded.com/story/OEG20030520S0034


Jan 6, 2003 -- "...market demand expected to grow rapidly to tens of billions of units per year. ...
EPC labels much more than a radio "bar code" because they contain individual item serial numbers and other information such as manufacturing location, date codes, and other vital supply chain data. Manufacturers also expect dramatic reductions in counterfeit branded products due to the use of EPC.
... Shipments of the first Alien EPC products to Gillette are expected to begin within the next few months."
http://www.alientechnology.com/library/pr/alien_gillette.htm


"March 12, 2003 PARIS -- Philips Semiconductors' RFID chip will be embedded into the label of every new garment bearing the name of Benetton's core clothing brand, Sisley."
Philips estimated that it will ship 15 million RFID chips, based on its I.CODE ICs, to Benetton in 2003.
... The I.CODE chip used in Benetton's labels includes 1,024 bits of EEPROM and operates at 13.56-MHz carrier frequency. It can be operated without line of sight up to 1.5 meters."
http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/OEG20030311S0028


There are now hundreds of millions of RFID devices in circulation, and companies like the giant Proctor and Gamble want billions more.
Eleven McDonald's restaurants are running pilot programs with RFID payment wands made by Texas Instruments. [...] readers can detect tags as far as 90 feet away. RFID tags can also be detected faster, often in less than 100 milliseconds, and can store more data, up to 1MB."
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/machineshop/column.html?ArticleID=111


One manufacturers specs are available at:
http://www.alientechnology.com/product/rfid_products.html
The 915 MHz model -- reads 200 tags/sec, 5-meter distance, 64-bits memory


"the tags can be had already for as low as 10 cents each. "The cost of tags and readers will decrease over time."
http://news.com.com/2100-1022_3-1013767.html


"Wal-Mart intends to ask its top 100 suppliers to put tags carrying Electronic Product Codes on pallets and cases by Jan. 1, 2005.
... Wal-Mart receives roughly 1 billion cases per year from its top 100 suppliers. Dillman said that the company would not be tracking every single case from the top 100 suppliers by Jan. 1, 2005, but rather that it would ramp up over time. "Our goal is to track all pallets and cases," she said in response to a question from RFID Journal."
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/462/1/1/


"... Procter & Gamble will notice if a case of Pantene shampoo does not make it to the Wal-mart Supercenter in Broken Arrow, Okla. Its truck is equipped to monitor signals continuously from chips hidden in each case. If any case stops sending its ''Hi, I'm still here'' signal, a monitor in the ''smart truck'' will record exactly when and where."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20D13F634590C768EDDAB0894DB404482


"...approximately $5.8 billion worth of inventory was lost in 2001 due to administrative errors alone. RFID tracking can help companies overcome this and many other obstacles."
http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=4592&ml=3%0A


"one out of every 10 supermarkets in North America has self-checkout machines, and he estimates that there are 35,000 supermarkets and between 8,000 and 10,000 large discount stores that could potentially adopt the technology"
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/080102/checkout.html

Scatter 100 sensors around town . . . oh yeah, that's not going to attract any attention, and malicious adolescent pranksters as well as psychotic stalkers would have no problem with this. Thousands of signals per minute? Try tens of thousands per second. Unless you focus on one RFID, then a change in the pattern is not going to be recognized without a very finely-tuned recognition protocol, one which a teen-aged nerd might manage, but much less likely among those with criminal intent (most often, not the brightess of citizens). Teen-aged nerds might be annoying, but hardly dangerous, and they would generally lack the maturity necessary to follow such a project for very long with spilling the beans, by bragging, by pushing the limits of their personal, physical participation. Your scenario begins with scattering the 100 sensors around town--obviously, the point about logistics just hasn't sunk in with you. If you intend for them to overlap within the 20 foot range by even a few inches, then 100 sensors wouldn't effectively cover a single neighborhood--and attempting to place even that number of senors would very likely blow the plan sky high because of the suspicious nature of the activity. There are so many reasons why this would not work, even for the government with all of its resources, that this just a laughable proposition. I strongly suspect you don't have much experience in coordinating the activities of several individuals along with various types of technology, over an extended area. When our company does it within the limits of a single county, we need five employees just to chase after the service calls. We're in the security industry, so it would be very unprofessional to provide any details. Suffice to say that, under the best of circumstances, in which surveillance is legal and above board, this kind of coordination is a complex and never 100% successful activity, even for large groups of professionals. The notion that an individual working alone could accomplish this reliably over time is nonsense.

My ex-girlfriend already did this using 20 wireless video cameras all over town. No complaints so far. No "suspicious activity" making her project clinically paranoid. Just one person, by herself, with the resulting live video streamed directly through internet webpages. And live video streaming is a heck of a lot more data than 200 RFIDs/second that the Gillette system uses.

Jeez, we can debate evolving technology and logistics forever, but my whole point is:
a) the technology is coming
b) we can't stop it
c) it will get simpler, easier, and much cheaper every year

That by itself indicates that within our lifetime you will find 100 RFID sensors operating within 100 yards of you. It's gonna happen.
That's all I'm claiming. No paranoid delusions or conspiracy theories. I'm just looking at what the technology can do.

What people actually do with it, is whatever people choose to do with it.






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There is some debate about privacy within the RFID industry already.


Jan 13, 2003 -- "RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of sand
... Most RFID tags have no batteries: They use the power from the initial radio signal to transmit their response.
... It becomes unnervingly easy to imagine a scenario where everything you buy that's more expensive than a Snickers will sport RFID tags, which typically include a 64-bit unique identifier yielding about 18 thousand trillion possible values. KSW-Microtec, a German company, has invented washable RFID tags designed to be sewn into clothing. And according to EE Times, the European central bank is considering embedding RFID tags into banknotes by 2005."
... Police gain a trendy method of constant, cradle-to-grave surveillance. You can imagine nightmare legal scenarios that don't involve the cops. Future divorce cases could involve one party seeking a subpoena for RFID logs--to prove that a spouse was in a certain location at a certain time. Future burglars could canvass alleys with RFID detectors, looking for RFID tags on discarded packaging that indicates expensive electronic gear is nearby. In all of these scenarios, the ability to remain anonymous is eroded.
http://news.com.com/2010-1069-980325.html



Aug 12, 2002 -- "Only an aggressive PR campaign and an enforceable code of ethics will get people to accept self-regulate of RFID tracking of consumer products."
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/view/144/1/1/

I'm not accusing you of any paranoia, Code, but i am saying the contention that this is a proximate danger (which is the point being made in the e-mail circulating on this topic) is a case of ill-considered paranoia. There are video camera all over England in public places. This has not happened on public property in the United States precisely because there are far to many individuals and groups who have appointed themselves the watch dogs of our privacy. Your friends cams all over town are a potential timebomb. Nothing may ever come of it. But if they are discovered, and anyone raises a legal objection, even a frivolous one, the cost to your friend in legal fees alone could beggar that friend. I would advise that you don't make this common knowledge, if only form regard for your friend. If the sensors ever were as ubiquitous as you allege they will be, they will not be in private hands, unless our personal liberties have gone out the window altogether. This is the kind of scenario which makes the mouths of personal litigation lawyers water. I'm in the industrial security industry--believe me when i tell you that surveillance is not a toy, and those who play with it too much get burned.

It *is* a dangerous thing, and we need to be aware of how it may go.

At first, only larger retailers will be able to afford RFID. Wal-Mart is pushing the entire industry, just as they really pushed the UPC symbols into wide usage.

Then your local supermarket will use RFIDs. Then your smaller shops. And restaurants. Then any small business that wants to do inventory control. It won't happen next week or next month, but there is huge pressure to get this technology into everybody's hands!

Within just a few years, any individual will be able to buy the whole system, legally or not, the same way we can run down to the store and buy a UPC-reading laser or a magnetic card writer today. There are so many uses for RFID, how can they not?!

There's already "hundreds of millions of RFID devices in circulation" right now, even before the public is broadly aware of them. If we think 5-10 years ahead, all the licensing and regulation in the world won't prevent individuals from using and abusing the technology. So, it's useful to run through all these scenarios. The privacy and fair-use questions will have to be answered.

And you're right, the lawyers will have a field day! When the public realizes how far the technology can really go, I predict there will be massive objections, lawsuits, and legislative arm-wrestling before we get it all figured out.

There's gonna be a lot more publicity about this one...





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Was there an email going around? Can I get a copy?

RFIDS CAN ATTENUATE A CARRIER SIGNAL OR SIGNALS THUS NOW MAKING THEIR RANGES MUCH FARTHER THAN YOUVE MNENTIONED. ITS SIMILAR TO WAAS TECHNOLOGY FOR GPS ACCURACY.

Wall-mart in all their glory have come to the UK, buying one of our homegrown chains. Haven't used 'em yet. The supermarket and multi-outlet stores is a very competitve field here. A cut throat business with 5 national chains plus Wall-Mart and local independants all slicing up the cake. We've got 'em all nearby, within 4 miles or so and on these out of town retail parks. They all do specials, some do loyalty cards and they are now in the financial/bankng business as well. On-line shopping and home delivery is popular with busy people.
Retailing has changed hugely in recent years.
Good for Joe Public ? Bad for Employee ? or t'other way round ?

A woman I know works on a s/m checkout for a major chain and gets paid the equivalent of about $8.00 per hour plus perks. I don't know how that compares with the States but most people seem happy in their jobs and shoppers are for ever going in and buying.
No wonder the small stores downtown are having a hard time and closing down.

Wall-Mart seem to have upset a number of people if the sites below are to be believed.


http://www.walmartwatch.com/know/commentary.cfm?subsection_id=105

http://www.walmartwatch.com/

What companys are involved in the chips being used at the WalMarts, What other tech. is it being used for? What good can it do in, maybe in airport security or heplng track people with disabilities

I was thinking of putting someRFIDs chips in my chickens so I know where they aare laying eggs.

I got my keyboard fixed on the laptop Phoenix. Now I have a problem with my ww 's they seem to want to type multiples of themselves, and they do thiws everyso often without telling me.

Un huh. My keyboard don't spell so good, either.