Richard Stallman Accosted For Tinfoil Hat 549
ndansmith writes "Bruce Perens posts in his blog about an amusing encounter between Richard Stallman and United Nations security at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. It seems that RFID technology, which Stallman opposes for privacy reasons, was used in the identification badges for the conference. From the blog: 'You can't give Richard a visible RF ID strip without expecting him to protest. Richard acquired an entire roll of aluminum foil and wore his foil-shielded pass prominently.' During a keynote speech, Stallman also passed around the tinfoil for other to use as well. It seems that UN security was not amused, however, as they would not let him leave the room for some time." What makes this even funnier, of course, is that tin foil hats won't stop them.
Chickenwire the new tinfoil! (Score:5, Informative)
The Slashdot title is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Chickenwire the new tinfoil! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Credit where Credit is due. (Score:3, Informative)
Sarcasm aside... the UN could have been more polite on this issue. RMS could have been more polite on this issue. For instance, why didn't RMS protest the badge when handed it in the first place? Why did he, instead, go out and buy a roll of foil and start covering it up? Did he even attempt to talk to the organizers to obtain a badge with no RFID strip?
There's still no excuse for acting like a jackass, and being a pain to people (the security guards) who have nothing to do with the decision to use RFID badges. (If he was being a pain to, say, the Head of Security, or somebody else who was involved in the decision and had the ability to revoke it, then that would be a different story.) If you want to get something changed, being a jerk to innocent guys just trying to do their job isn't the way.
Re:Tin/Aluminium? (Score:5, Informative)
If you wrap any RF transmitting device in tin OR aluminum foil, you are going to completely shield the device and no RF will get in or out because the foil would act as a farady cage.
This is because aluminum conducts electricity just fine, and as RF is composed of electro-magnetet waves, a solid conducting surface will act as a ground (short) and bounce the signal. If there is no way for the signal to escape, it wont.
Any electrically conductive material would have this property. You could (and it has been done many times) make a faraday cage out of aluminum just as easily as steel or tin. Aluminum of course only has about 60 percent of the electrical conductivity of copper so copper (actually silver but obviously too expensive) would be the ideal material, but for weak signals like RFID it is irrelivant and both would work fine.
tin, pfft (Score:5, Informative)
I used to use a anti-xray film bag for shoplifting, works a treat
Re:For all the "what does it matter" folks (Score:1, Informative)
Al Foil would work fine (Score:5, Informative)
Tag == 100% wrapped.
Head != 100% wrapped (one would hope)
Aluminum foil is conductive. That and complete coverage is all you need for a faraday cage.
There are like 30 posts already that act like it won't work: it will. Want to test it? Wrap your walkman in foil and try to listen to FM. Freqs are different for RFID (probably), but it doesn't matter.
Take care not to touch the ant. of the radio to the foil though, or you may actually improve reception
Re:For all the "what does it matter" folks (Score:5, Informative)
He joked about killing another participant *After* being detained and released and allowed to attend another panel. Not only that, but he joked about it personally to Bruce Perens only after Bruce assured Richard of their diplomat status.
so, RTFAMC
Re:For all the "what does it matter" folks (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA: (Emphasis mine)
Re:Credit where Credit is due. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Great image for the FOSS movement (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Hammer time? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
The UN has a huge positive effect on the world. Examples: [democracyarsenal.org]
It strikes me that, of the people who are wholly negative of the UN, the vasty majority are from the USA. It's not surprising, given that the UN are criticising the USA for blocking their torture investigations [un.org] at the moment.
I don't think you'll find anybody claiming that the UN is a perfect organisation. But only trolls and ignorant people could claim that the UN is not worth supporting.
Re:The Hypocrisy (Score:3, Informative)
[...]
It's just another example of hypocrisy.
No, Alanis, it's not.
Re:Why does he want to amplify the signal? (Score:5, Informative)
As smart as those MIT students may be they failed to explain why it amplified the signal.
Simply put, the 'tin foil' or aluminum hat they constructed was a parabolic antenna with the test subjects brain as its focal point. Go back and look at those pictures in the MIT article and see for yourself.
You can in fact shield an object if you *completly* enclose said object with aluminum foil (it's conductive). However, copper foil and screen is the standard for shielding used by professionals.
The enclosure doesn't have to be air tight. But the gaps or holes in the foil need to be smaller then the wavelength your trying to attenuate. This is why RF "screen rooms" can use copper screen instead of solid copper and still be effective to up around 3 GHz.
The more you know...
You're funny too, We! (Score:2, Informative)
If "We" has been experiencing all the stuff that "We" said, how did "We" get onto Slashdot to complain about it? Why would "We" so passionately offer up "We"'s opinions into a public forum without showing respect to the soldiers' blood that bought the privilege?
Why not clear "We's" head from the cobwebs of all those anal probes and realize that every Free Person's freedom starts somewhere, and Stallman shows a highly idealized and ecclectic way of expressing it? Why is that not something worth celebrating, "We"?
All freedom is born of conflict, and Stallman's nonviolent middle-finger approach should be applauded. By the way, he's part of that "you in the West" group to which you so arrogantly refer. The removal of the smallest personal freedom leaves us all damaged, and free people have the responsibility of clinging to those freedoms. That's why "We in the west" don't have to go through all the vile crap that happened to your mom.
Stop being grumpy about your freedom. Go and enlist in the army. Fight against oppression. Or buy a roll of tin foil and wrap your brain in it. Or write a letter to the newspaper. Or join a democracy and vote. If "We" can post to an internet forum, "We" obviously has a measure of freedom, doesn't "We"?
Anyone can understand the outrage over the evils that "We" mentioned. But if "We" thinks that complaining about others' freedoms somehow rids the world of oppression, then "We" needs to spend some time worshipping on the shores of Normandy.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
The U.N. general from Canada motioned to intervene. The U.S. refused. From your link:
The U.N. itself cannot do anything: It's a place for the member nations to talk. If the biggest member decides that a genocide is not worth the risk of potential military casualties, then the fault for inaction is not with the U.N. for trying, but for the member nation for refusing to act.
Re:Chickenwire the new tinfoil! (Score:4, Informative)
Try wrapping a mobile phone (1800 MHz = 17 cm wavelength) in aluminum foil and just leave a small hole that allows you to look at the signal strength indicator. You will be surprised.
Your argument is only valid (and then only to a certain extent) if both of the following conditions are met:
- The incident radiation is (approximately) a plane wave (i.e. the source is many wavelengths away and there are no antennas and such in the neighborhood).
- The receiver is at least a few times the wavelength away from the aperture.
Close to the aperture you will still have a significant electric field (it's called the near field). In addition, in the near field of a radiation sources you have a magnetic field component that may penetrate thin layers of aluminum. With a fully enclosing piece of aluminum foil, without any holes, you would do a better job.Re:Tin/Aluminium? (Score:3, Informative)
In the RF world if you have a perfect short circuit between the transmitting element and ground, or a perfect open circuit, you will have a perfect 100% reflection. Free space has a certain resistance to RF, and to avoid reflections, antennas match resistances between your system and free space (and back again).
If you have a grounded metal surface, this acts like a (near) perfect short to ground. So in RF it will act like a mirror, reflecting any RF that hits it. This is the reason something like a satellite dish works. It is an antenna with a grounded reflector behind it reflecting all the energy in one direction.
In the case of the faraday cage, the whole thing is grounded. If you transmit RF inside of it, the energy will just keep bouncing off the walls untill free-space loss and other losses reduce the signal to nothing. Outside of the cage you will not see any energy. Basically it creates the worst possible translation from the transmitter to free space and is therefore the worst antenna you could build.
In practice I've seen numerous uses of faraday cages built inside buildings to keep tests involving high powered RF from damaging or interfering with property in other parts of the building. So theory aside, I can attest that they do work to isolate equipment in both directions.
Also, there is a faraday cage inside every microwave oven keeping the 2.4 GHz RF from getting out. And every piece of waveguide transmission line is also the same thing. The signal bounces around untill it reaches the other end.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
there are starving people in the US too.
Re:Oh Please... (Score:3, Informative)
BTW Germany UK France and Italy together pays more then the US so EU totally pays more than than the US.
Re:Oh Please... (Score:4, Informative)
Money owed by U.N. to U.S.: $4.7bn
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa10319
Re:Those poor security people ... (Score:3, Informative)
My point is that it is not aversion to change that causes his site to be a little behind technologically. It is time constraints of everyone involved.
Re:Hmm (Score:1, Informative)
In this case, permanent members USA and France didn't concur and hence no resolution.
So you see, it's not just about the material aid, it's about tying unamir hands behind it's back and not allowing the force to intervene.
Missing the point entirely (Score:3, Informative)
Did you RTFA?
He willingly unwrapped it to go through any of the visible check-points, he simply objected to the potential that people might be reading the RF ID without his knowledge and tracking him around the grounds.
He made an important point, to a bunch of people who probably need to know it. Maybe the VIPs at the UN didn't know that their ID could be compromised by a 'terrist' with a RFID scanner.
As Schneier said in his latest Cryptogram "Security always gets better, it never gets worse".
You will probably be able to read RFID from hundreds of metres away soon. Far enough away to make selective targeting a reality.
Get with the program.
Re:Bad payers daring to complain (Score:3, Informative)
Of the 191 UN member states, 94 contribute 39,329 troops to 13 different missions.
The five permanent members of the security council, who effectively ordered all those blue helmets dispatched, provide 1,030 troops in total.
The US has deployed a quarter of a million troops in Iraq and several thousand in Afghanistan. To serve the UN in 2003, it sent two soldiers. The UK does slightly better: 415 British troops currently wear blue helmets.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India and Ghana are the five main contributors, providing 18,745 troops.
Note: those figures dates back to february 2004.
One more point : since 1990, in missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia alone, more than 1,200 peacekeepers died. One of them was Canadian, the others were all Nigerians.