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Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes?
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Nov 03, 2000 05:06 PM
from the paperless-office-and-grocery-store dept.
from the paperless-office-and-grocery-store dept.
Chris writes: "From EETimes:
"International Paper Co. and Motorola Inc. have developed a low-cost RF identification system that could become commonplace on disposable items like cereal boxes, replacing the ubiquitous bar code."
While the article does mention that the cost of the technology must drop further (from about 10 to 30 cents per ID to a couple of pennies), it overlooks the potential impact on privacy. (Just imagine embedding these tags in your clothes.)"
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Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes?
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See "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling (Score:3)
Briefly, in Sterling's world there is no such thing as privacy once someone cares enough to try tapping you. But this technology is so cheap and ubiquitous that anyone can use it to tag anyone else and trace them around. There is lots else besides. Strongly recommended.
Paul.
Oh no! (Score:3)
"Where's Louis? Activate the building wide EM field generator!"
"Sir, the sensors indicate a response in location F12"
"Where is that?"
"He's in his cube, sir!"
Alternatively:
"Sir, sensors indicate his shirt is in location F4 and his pants are in location F7, and that his shoes are in location E1"
"What?!"
The nick is a joke! Really!
Oh no! (Score:3)
kinda scary (Score:4)
"hmmm, all these 'Debby Does Dallas' tags are coming from that house, what a weirdo"
"the signatures from those 2 stolen cases of PS2's are coming from there..."
"click, click, Hey! that house over there has a tag for that new Expensive TV set, lets go break in and steal it!"
Re: not.......really ..scary. (Score:5)
they are merely a number encoded chip connected to an induction coil. when the coil is brought near an oscilating magnetic field it induces a current that drives the IC and emits a small amount of coded RF energy from a tiny antenna. simply make the driver field strong enough to cause the ohmic heating in the tag's induction coil to burn it out and no more "the gubment's trackin' me!" delusions to worry about.
Re:The "P" word (Score:3)
Perhaps not too far. That's when you turn up the exciter power until a satisfactory response is achieved. High gain directional antennas are wonderful. Aim the antenna to different portions of the house to scan the inventory.
Sounds like a fascinating project. Measure the range of these things and what you can get out of a house.
Soviets used this before... (Score:3)
The gist was, the KGB could park a van a block away and emit a very powerful high frequency sine wave at the embassy and the coil in the emblem would turn the EM flux into power to drive an embedded microphone and transmitter (using the same coil).
This went on for several years because the US regularly ran bug sweeps but it wasn't generating or storing any energy most of the time, and when it was being powered from the outside, the US figured it was some sort of attempt at jamming telecommunications within the embassy (which it was doing a very poor job of, being at the wrong frequency) so they basically ignored it.
Anyhow, this is all relevant because these RF tags are powered by inductance, which means any range limitation is purely a factor of the EM field powering it. There's no inheirent limitation in the device itself.
As for privacy, I don't care about tags in my cereal box. If I can walk out of a store and automatically debit my account instead of waiting in line, so much the better. If I can tie it to an anonymous cash card instead of my credit card, better still. If there's anything to worry about, it's the RF-powered listening devices, but since you probably don't run bug sweeps inside your own house on a regular basis, this isn't any more dangerous than an ordinary joe-blow X-10 camera bug in your shower.
Kevin Fox
Uh, guys this is rather OLD news... (Score:4)
The name of Intermec's product line using it is Intellitag 500[tm]. Little chip not much bigger than a glass head pin in diameter. Put it on stickers, etc. for inventory control, parking access/billing, etc. What makes Motorola's BiStatix chip special is that it doesn't need a foil antenna- conductive inks will do for most close-range applications.
Jamming them isn't going to be easy. They work off of RF backscatter- they don't transmit anything. They impress a modulation on a reflected carrier. They're basically a very fancy RF mirror and reflect ANY RF in the range that they're tuned for.
Overloading them isn't going to be very easy. The power levels are in the ball park of 500-1000 watts of RF power. Most of these units operate in the 900MHz, 2GHz, or somewhere around 5GHz in Europe. You'll cook yourself with these power levels.
Oh, and the original trade-press releases from Motorola were around the January/February timeframe. I believe that EE Times originally covered this sometime around June, if memory serves.
Gasp! (Score:3)
Oh, my God, people could.. well, um, they could, well, um, what am I missing here?
The "P" word (Score:4)
Do geeks in general tremble at the thought that someone may be invading their own private space, or does Slashdot have an agenda?
Week, by week, by week the great Gods of Slashdot deliver upon us editorialized half-rants about privacy concerns---and it just does not seem like that big a deal to me.
Should be easy to remove (Score:5)
An antenna can always act as a reciever as well as a transmitter.
This is how some anti-shoplifting tags work (although most are magnetic) and applying a strong RF field is precisely how they're disabled.
This also suggests an interesting denial of service, if you can get the RF strength high enough from *outside* the building where they're being used.
Few cents already possible (Score:3)
The name of the company, Flying Null, was due to the technique used. By setting up a region where competing EM forces were exactly balanced (a null), when tiny objects (the tags) with particular properties were brought into the null they'd disrupt the balance, and would be detectable. How do you scan a broader region of space? Simple - set up the balance differently, and get the null to fly around the place...
And the cost of the tags? In bulk, pennies, and that was 5 years ago.
(SG was 150 employees, about 50 engineers at the time, and only 5-10 were involved in Flying Null.)
FatPhil
Practical applications and limitations (Score:4)
On the other hand, it can bring about two major application uses: shoplifting is one, as this type of id would be harder to tear off compared to the various tags they have now. The other is from an AT&T commercial (I think), where you push your grocery cart into a stall, wait a moment, and your total rings up, speeding checkout lines. Possibly even 'smart' cupboards and refridgerators could come from this.
Sure, there's privacy issues in some of these cases, but they're the same privacy issues that we deal with now with those frequent shopper cards. The technology really doesn't introduce anything new.