RFID Tags
http://www.rf-id.com/rfidtech.htm
http://www.rf-id.com/apps.htm
http://www.cens.ucla.edu/Research/Technology/documents/RFID.pdf

New technologies can pinpoint your location at any time and place. They promise safety and convenience—but threaten privacy and security

By Jay Warrior, Eric McHenry & Kenneth McGee

  The terrorist blast had destroyed the office building. Piles of glass and concrete littered most of a city block, the air was thick with dust, debris still smoldered. The police had no suspects but had already sent out an all-points alert. Then, when troopers pulled a van over for making a couple of risky lane changes, they found a pile of fertilizer sacks and an empty fuel-oil drum in the back. A duffel bag held a change of clothes, a small kit with a new razor and other toiletries, and a .45-caliber pistol. The truck had been stolen, and the driver wasn't talking. ...

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jul03/e911.html


By JOHN MARKOFF

S AN FRANCISCO, July 20 — The co-founder of Apple Computer, Stephen Wozniak, recalls that it began with a series of lost dogs — a runaway husky, a roving Shar-Pei, a wayward bichon frisé.

The problem led inexorably to a Wozniak solution: wireless location-monitoring technology that would use electronic tags to help people keep track of their animals, children or property.

Now Mr. Wozniak, whose new company, Wheels of Zeus, has been operating in Silicon Valley stealth mode for 18 months, is ready to talk about the technology. This week the company — whose name is derived from the Woz in Wozniak — plans to announce its formal management structure. Its investors are: Mobius Venture Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Palo Alto Investors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/21/technology/21ZEUS.html?pagewanted=print&position=
CNet (05/05/03); Shim, Richard

Philips Semiconductor, Matrics, Alien Technology, and other
manufacturers are expected to debut radio frequency identification
(RFID) tags outfitted with kill switches this summer, according to an
announcement from the Auto ID Center last week. Although the tags'
primary purpose is to make inventory management more efficient and cut
costs, privacy groups have raised concerns of what they could be used
for once the retail products they are attached to have been
sold. Philips' Dirk Morgenroth reports that kill switch-equipped chips
will move from the prototype phase to full production by year's end,
and adds that the tags cannot be turned back on once they are
disabled. Auto ID Center research chairman Sanjay Sarma assures that,
should such tags be incorporated into retail products, consumers will
be given the option of having the chips disabled when they leave the
store. "It might seem that our actions are a knee-jerk reaction to
recent privacy concerns, but we have been discussing this for three
years," he explains. Morgenroth says the disablement feature should
not raise RFID chip costs, but the tags' potential usefulness in the
home will make the kill switch an optional rather than standard
feature. Philips announced earlier this year that it had marketed RFID
tags to manufacturers that would be collaborating with Benetton to
incorporate the chips into apparel, which provoked an outcry from
privacy groups.

http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-999794.html

Chipmaker Texas Instruments on Monday announced a wireless identity chip aimed at clothing going through the dry cleaning process, creating a new market for a technology that is expected to revolutionise the way products -- and people -- are tracked and identified.


http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/chips/0,39020354,39115640,00.htm
By Brad Templeton

We often see people say that there is no need for the tags post-sale,
and as such they can be permanently disabled post-sale, and that some
stores may even decide to do this as a matter of course.

However, it is not necessary to imagine Orwellian merchandisers to
see problems from RFIDs.

Customers will not want them disabled.  For many, having a working
RFID in all their portables -- eyeglasses, watches, wallets, cell
phones, and of course, car keys, will be highly desireable to most
consumers.   Never ask "where did I leave my keys?" again.

And not just these items.  Instantly inventory your closets, everything
in your house.   Immediately note any clothes out of fashion, do automatic
gift to Sally Army with automatic receipt.  Find where you put that shoe,
that sweater, that book, that camera.

How can we resist?  We won't.  We'll walk down the street covered in
RFID tags.  Some of them will be overt -- they will be our keys, our
car and our door recognizing our approach and opening for us.  Others
will just be there in the sweater or wallet or glasses.

If they are the ordinary retail RFIDs planned, they will be available
for ID by anybody, and they do indeed become the infrastructure to
easily build Minority Report/1984 style scanning.

People will not disable them.  Stores will not disable them.  People
will clamour for them.  Will any small child be allowed outside without
many RFIDs on their person, so that, if lost, the parents can query all
scanners to see where the child has passed by?  Even scanners the child
passed before the child was reported missing?

There is alas, only one answer, and that is more expensive RFIDs.  These
are RFIDs that can be told to only respond to a reader which transmits
a specific code.  A reader that only I have, so that I can find my glasses,
and my door can recognize my watch, but nobody else can.   And this
must apply to not just the specialized RFIDs but also to the ordinary
one in my coat and boots.

To add complexity, the RFIDs must be set to respond at first to general
scanners (in the retail store) and then, upon sale, this function must
be disabled, and response only to the customer's scanner turned on.

This is hard, not doable I as I understand it with current price goals
and technology.  It's not enough to only respond to a reader that only
knows your code.  Anybody who can listen to you scanning one of your
devices (ie. listen to your car talking to your watch) can know its code
unless you use more complex "rolling code" systems that follow a
sequence unpredictable to outsiders.

So don't listen when they tell you these things can be disabled.
Technically yes, but that's not relevant as it turns out.
By Ron Rivest

You recently posted a long note from Brad Templeton that
(correctly) points out that improving RFID tags to
protect privacy may be too costly to be workable within
the limited per-tag cost budget for these devices (e.g.
ten cents).

There is another way to approach this problem, however:
leave the RFID tag alone, but provide "blocker" RFID tags
to consumers that can selectively block readers from reading
any chip on the consumer's person.  Such blocker chips can
be built cheaply---they only need to interfere with the
"singulation" protocol that readers use to address each
RFID chip individually in turn.  By giving consumers the
ability to block unwanted readers from reading their RFID
tags, as well as allowing consumers to "kill" their RFID tags,
one may be able to provide consumers with sufficient
control over how their RFID tags are used to allow implementation
of acceptable privacy policies.

The "blocker tags" can also be used in more refined modes,
so that only some tags are blocked.  For example, you could
choose to block reading of tags on "personal" items you carry,
but allow reading of RFID tags on your business cards.  (This
would be your choice; such a policy might not be for everyone.)

Some details and further discussion can be found in a recent
paper by myself, Ari Juels, and Michael Szydlo:

http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/JuelsRivestSzydlo-TheBlockerTag.pdf
I didn't read the report, and I'm not knowledgeable at all in this field
anyway. Nevertheless, I see a classic "trap" being laid for consumers. It's
called "opt-out".

We have seen it fail with cookies. We have seen it fail with
telemarketing. We have seen it fail with spam. We have seen it fail with food warning labels.

All systems in which John Doe can be harassed, tricked, harmed in any way,
unless he/she takes decisive action to change it, are against the public
good. Such systems leave consumers at the mercy of corporate propaganda and
selective (dis)information by the media.

Why should I opt-out of 24/7 global surveillance? I dare someone to claim
with
a straight face that five years from now, we will have a free choice to use
RFIDs or block them. RFIDs will become the ultimate mandatory means of
identification, and anyone refusing to use RFID will automatically be on a
"bad citizen - suspected terrorist" list.

Hasn't Gillmore taught us anything?


http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1229497,00.asp
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=74&contentid=900&page=1
http://tinyurl.com/k38a