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Technology

Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes? 168

Posted by timothy 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? More

Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes?

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  • On the other hand we won't need to worry about the police asking people to describe the suspect. Instead of "He was a caucasian, about 6 foot 2 200 lbs, wearing a tan sportscoat and running shoes." We will get: "He was a white caucasian, about 6 foot 2 200 lbs, wearing a tan JCPenny Sportscoat model 007958 item number 1119949396882. This same sportscoat was later scanned at 1610 Maple Street at Walt's Bar, and is currently believed to be in that area.

    Theoretically, if you paid for your clothes with your credit card, the store would know that you bought the clothing. Those records could almost certainly be subpoenaed.

    Of course it would be much more straightforward, and quite a bit more fun, to simply tatoo a bar code of your social security number on your forehead. Somehow I don't see that happening either. If you can't be paranoid on /., where can you be paranoid?

  • So when does Digital:Convergence sue because now people can't use the Cuecat to scan the barcodes in!

    Geoff

  • See "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling (Score:3)

    by Paul Johnson ( 33553 ) on Saturday November 04, 2000 @04:53AM (#650519) Homepage
    For a potential future in which these tags are ubiquitous, see "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling. Sterling stuff.

    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.

  • Sounds like a new way to steal items from the supermarket, as soon as they come out with their cart at a time checkout, you just carry around a device to kill the signal on some of your more expensive, harder to notice items (say razorblades)... Or, if you are against the devices, in an act of civil disobedience kill the signal on everything in the store...

  • In a related note, Digital Convergence has issued cease-and-desist letters to all users of their intellectual property, "pencils" and "paper". The New York Times crosswords have been cancelled.

    Digital Convergence's new RF-Paper scanners (the ":Cue:Dog:") have been reverse-engineered by sneaky Open Source hacktivists and used to fill out multiple-choice exams, do math problems, and even do artistic graphite rubbings. None of these uses were authorized by Digital Convergence and represent a violation of the EULA which is printed in invisible undetectable ink on every single page of paper.

  • I don't think someone who has the ability to scan through the walls of your house for these things will be interested in stealing TVs.

    And if you're worried about your privacy, I don't see how they are able to collect any information with this that they aren't already collecting with bar codes.

    And of course one of the selling points is that it makes it easier for stores to track stolen items. Do you consider that a bad thing?

    Jon Sullivan
  • Bullsh*t! They just let out DueDog...
  • The technology sounds promising. And it doesn't seem to make the world any prettier, so why not at least make some money while it unfolds? I just don't know what potential competition International Paper and Motorolla face . .

    A quick look on the web, seems to suggest that the RFID concept is quite old (e.g. see Transponder News [rapidttp.co.za]), so there's probably other people working on the problem . .

    Any suggestions?

  • this type of id would be harder to tear off compared to the various tags they have now

    Actually, it would be much easier to carry around an RF-jammer. You wouldn't have to "tear" anything.
  • Why should we not complain about it?

    I think that privacy is very important. I don't want my information and habits collected without my knowledge and then shared amongst goverment agencies, corporate salespeople, or malicious information vandals. I want "opt-in" mailing, emailing, and calling lists to be the law in this country (USA), not the exception. I want encryption to be legal without restriction.

    However, Chicken Littles who scream "privacy" every time some new technology surfaces make all of us concerned about privacy look like a bunch of extremist knee-jerk wackos. Extremist knee-jerk wackos tend to be ignored, and are excluded from the decision-making process because mainstream voters don't understand the issues involved and don't trust people who are always beating the same drum while yelling in a shrill voice.

    Complaining about all of the possible threats is a waste of focus and a poor battle plan if you ever expect the general public to support the goals you're trying to accomplish. Instead of focusing on all of the possible privacy problems on the horizon, focus on the real ones that are here right in front of us. Be reasonable and work within the system wherever possible.

    Unless you just like to complain and accomplish nothing, in which case... nevermind.

  • I believe that your closing statement, "criminals are always the first to adopt new technologies", has no factual basis. I think your entire post is based around this erroneous assumption. With that in mind, your post seems quite absurd.

    Maru
  • BTW - Read the article again. They are talking about "Supply Chain Management". This is tracking packages and palletes of goods through a factory from start of manufacture to shipping. Go to a factory, learn how a bar code is used (at a previous employer we tracked all stages of steel production using bar code technology ... do you think we were worried about someone walking out of the plant with a 20 Ton coil of steel under their arm?).

    Have you ever had a UPS/FedEx/Airborne delivery? Bet that scared the $hit out of you knowing that not only did someone have a package with a barcode with your name on it (that could be tracked over the internet by those malicious /. 31337 h4x0rs), but they also knew where you lived.

    Privacy is important, but pick the right fight to fight.
  • P&G also has a problem with Companies outside the U.S. copying and selling products in fake P&G packaging. This will also help the consumer to authenticate "real" P&G products from the fake products that possibly make them ill.
  • =====
    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.
    =====

    How do you draw this conclusion? Current antitheft systems, such as those offered by sensormatic or checkpoint, utilize small adhesive rectangles that are stuck somewhere on a piece of merchandise its package. They are plastic and are highly adhesive and can be difficult to remove. The IPC/Motorola offering sounds identical in that it will also be a small, adhesive package. I do not see the difference between current technology and and IPC/Motorola system when applied to loss prevention.

    Maru
  • Technology steals jobs. We should get rid of evil things like bulldozers, cranes, machinery, farm equipment and employ people to perform all of those tasks. Let's get rid of computers too. If we are truly successful, we'll generate a lot of employment and maybe the US will become a perfect place to live in where the people are happy and there's plenty of employment. Kinda like Somalia, I guess.
  • You people need to read the article and take a class in simple electronics. The ID tags are not self powered. They must be in the presents of a RF signal, much like the inductive tags used today. Like those tags Walmart puts on the more expensive stuff, so it will set the alarm off as you go out the door. Those upright retangular things on each side of the door are basically produce and EM field that the inductive tag uses to power itself and identify the fact that it is there (at the checkout they run the tag acrossed a very powerful electro-magnet the essentially burns the tag).

    These things work nearly the same way, except they are capacitive. That means that instead of an EM field they use an RF field. But it will not be as if they will be active all the time. In fact, they will only be active in a relatively strong RF field. This will work just like the conductive tags do now. At a warehouse or at the checkout counter there will be a RF source that provides the power at some limited radius (like near a door) so that it will be possible to keep inventory. It will not be as if they will query every tag in the warehouse at one time.

  • (Just imagine embedding these tags in your clothes.)

    Just wear aluminum clothing. Privacy concern solved.

  • hard to compete with free (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This still requires silicon, which, the last time I checked, was more expensive than ink. Unless the product is universal, it's hard to compete. UPC codes cost basicially nothing (the only exception would be a product that wouldn't use printing), and it works because supermarkets can scan EVERYTHING. If there were exceptions, it would slow down the whole process down. Here's a better idea (GPL'ed of course): how about a watermark system printed over the whole outside of the packaging? It would be like the camera-based system wired magazine had for ads. This way, when I carefully put my ice cream bar at 7-11 on the counter (so as not to melt it), they don't have to handle it a whole bunch before they find the bar code and scan it -- just getting any part of the product in range of the camera would do. also- "the key is that the RFID chip, unlike a bar code, is programmable. The BiStatix chip provides 96 bits of data with which a manufacturer can give each product its own serial number." Bar codes *ARE* programmable. Electronic equipment (heck, FedEX and UPS, too) often has a serial number bar code on the outside; this is cheaply printed. The distintion is that their RFID chip allows serialization and reading at a distance -- something that the above-mentioned watermark system would have a problem with (because the packaging area is so big and covers many sides)... unless there is an effective way to print large pattern watermarks on the boxes before they are assembled. (like a laser?) In summary, I think that "1 or 2 cents" is a far cry from free and that bar codes and/or watermarks still have a long life ahead of them.
  • These RF tags are perfect for tagging clothes, as the blurb pointed out. But an even more sinister use than tagging clothes is tagging the people who wear the clothes. And I'm especially referring to a certain kind of person:

    Slavery is alive and well in this country, and I'm not referring merely to rhetorical or political slavery, but actual slavery [examiner.com]. Women from foreign countries, particularly southeast-Asian countries are flown to America and promised low-paying but normal jobs performing menial labor or housecleaning services, but when they arrive, they discover to their horror that the real purpose is to prostitute themselves for the financial benefit of their masters. These women (and even children) are trapped, since they don't speak English, don't have the money to fly home, and don't have the physical or mental stamina to escape their tormentors after so much abuse.

    How is this relevant to RF tags? Think of how much easier it would be to kidnap people from airports if all you needed to do was wander around with a small device, picking up the signals from the tags embedded in clothing given to the erstwhile immigrants back in their home countries. No longer would there have to be complicated networks of international communication -- they'd just have to agree on a certain range of serial numbers (of which there are trillions, as the article points out), hand out "free" clothes to people boarding the plane at departure, and sit back while agents at the US airports haul in the "goods".

    This never would've been possible if we'd stuck to normal barcodes -- it's simply impossible to read barcodes surreptitiously. And since criminals are always the first to adopt new technologies for these devious purposes, it's only a matter of time before it comes to an airport near you, Thirteenth Amendment be damned.
  • Someone needs to quickly patent the idea of using the results of an RF read on such a package to look the product up in a "universally accessible" database.

    -MC
  • I can imagine it now!
    "Send in 5 Paper RF ID tags with a self-addressed stamed envelope to recieve you toy, in specially marked boxes only"

  • Actually pretty kewl, if only... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe you've seen the ads. Walk through the store, out the door, and your done. All billed straight to the payment card of your choice. Pretty kewl, actually.

    BTW, I herby patent the concept of feeding a blank check into the machine and letting it fill it out for your approval. AND, the idea of actually feeding a few bills in, and letting it cough out some change. God, I'll be rich now.

    Anyway, I doubt the tags put out enough RF to send details of your p0rn collection out to the Mothers against p0rn.

    What we really need is a law banning the distribution/sale of purchase history by any vendor providing a service serogate for the common currency (credit/debit cards, checks, etc.), or *requiring* a customer membership/registration to purchase goods. Revocation of your merchantile permit should be the penalty for violation, first offense.

    If you want to sign up for a stupid "store discount/please track and sell my soul discount card", that's your problem.

  • Oh no! (Score:3)

    by 2nd Post! ( 213333 ) <gundbear@pacbe l l .net> on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:35PM (#650539) Homepage
    My boss could find me anywhere he wanted?

    "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!
  • Okay, tracking items thru the supply chain is a nice use for this stuff, yes, and so long as it is desables when it leaves the store, it sounds like a good thing.

    But this is far from new stuff.

    How Stuff Works [howstuffworks.com] had an article [howstuffworks.com] on anti-shoplifting measures that include paper tags like these.

    If memory serves, I first saw this article from a url posted here at slashdot several months back. Interesting how this place recycles stories.

    Tim

  • It seems that these things have limited range now, but imagine if you could make them so that they would work within 20 feet or so. You could put three transmitters/receivers in your house (for triangulation you need three reference points) and whenever you've misplaced some item and can't find it, just fire up your transmitters to look for the particular object (this is of course assuming that you've put the little RF transmitter on a lot of your belongings - If they're small enough, why not??). Then hook it up to your linux box, rewrite find so you can do queries like: find /kitchen -name "my shot glass". That would kick ass!

    Cheers

    Costyn.
  • Right now the unemployment is the lowest in years, and are economy is doing great. Why?

    Mainly because the US has not been squeamish about automating things that could previously only be done by humans. Try to artificially protect jobs from becoming redundant due to technology, and you will have precisely the opposite effect to that you desire: you will destroy employment and diminish prosperity.

    Start cutting jobs and things can change. Is there anything wrong with making profits while still keeping job positions?

    Learn some basic economic facts. Start paying a bit more attention to the world around you. Hint: if we had not automated agriculture, then automated much of industry, nobody would have had the time to do such cerebral things as build computers and network them together.

  • Are you replying to my post specifically or just the idea of circumventing RFID chips in general? It seems the latter.

    You'll nead to carry a portable radar amplifier with you to zap these chips - ther're pretty tough.

    Presumably a "portable EMP generator" might incorporate this (and not be just a 9V battery and a piece of wire)? Since I'm just talking hot air on this one, I'm going to say my imaginary EMP generator would. ;) How about this: since the tag is right there, why not deliver a high-power pulse directly to the chip or its ink antenna? Here's something simpler. Locate the little piece of paper with the chip on it. Unbend a paper clip, poke it into the tag and pop the chip off its paper antenna. There are a thousand other ways to accomplish the same thing. The idea was to disable the tag in some way (and it is impossible to prove that it can not be disabled, so don't pick nits) and to take advantage of the automated checkout to look to the cameras like you're buying stuff but to cause selected high-ticket items not to be rung up.

    Two - they can be used in conjuction with proven anti-theft technologies.

    There is no "proven anti-theft technology" that cannot be disabled by a skilled and knowledgable person. Moreover, the problem is in using these with an automated cart-at-once checkout as seen in that (AT&T I think) commercial (this being the idea behind my original hastily-written post). That is, where you just roll your cart through the exit and it bills your credit card and prints out a receipt. No holding items up one by one to a camera or receiver or tag remover or deactivator.

    Take a look at Sensormatics smartEAS - based on Intermecs chip.

    I have. Those things are as big and bulky as current anti-theft clothing tags, meaning they would have to be removed at checkout. (The smaller versions look to be attached with adhesive, but that just makes them easy to remove.) I'm not sure how they can claim (as they do) that this will enable "automated inventory returns, active merchandising, self-checkout." I certainly wouldn't want one of those things in my undies poking me you-know where. Therefore, at some point (probably POS), it must be removed. (Sensormatic explicitly says this.) If they are going to sell "readers (fixed and hand-held), detachers and deactivators," what is to stop a disgruntled Wal-Mart employee from lifting a detacher/deactivator and turning it over for reverse-engineering and duplication? (I have, ahem, heard that this has already been done.) Anyway, this still prohibits the automated cart-at-once checkout idea, which was the topic of my original post, so these devices, others like them, and this entire paragraph are not really relevant.

    Lastly - jamming won't work easily. The chips work woth frequency hopping interrogatorators.

    Who said anything about jamming? Presumably Jamming would just be silly--it's a good way to get busted for shoplifting and get in trouble with the FCC. It's about as smart to disable the interrogators by kicking them over and ripping them out of the floor.

    Anyway, the point of my original post was that attempts to use RFID tech to allow self-checkout leaves one open to abuse. Retailers know this, and that's why these RFID tags are probably just going to end up doing three things in the short term:
    1) reducing the amount of time the clerk spends looking for the barcode and repeatedly trying to scan the same barcode-less side of an item,
    2) providing better inventory control for retailers, though that is debateable (Why do they need to know which box of cereal sold? Because management says so.), and
    3) creating more jobs for programmers to re-write inventory systems to handle the new data.

    There is, of course, the possibility that retailers will find the level of shoplifting allowed by self-checkout and imperfect security acceptable in light of the ability to lay off a few clerks and shorten lines. Which, as I said, I think is a great idea! ;)

    Corgha
  • I hope you're not trolling. These are passive RF tags which have no power or activity of their own. They react to magnetic fields, though - kinda like the magnetic door passes most companies have in the employee badges.
  • Am I stupid? Is it that you didn't read my post, or didn't understand it? They noticed when they were being bombarded by the EM signal, but it was a simple sine wave, coming from an identifiable source outside the embassy, and they concluded it was a jamming attempt.

    Read before you criticize.

    Kevin Fox
  • The tags do not have their own power source. They need to be present in a relatively strong RF field. It is likely that the transmit a very weak signal, probably only detectable for a few yards at best.

    I dare you to try and produce a strong RF signal at the any comercial US airport. You will find that the airport will not be very happy with you.

    There is slavery and it happens to people right here. They do not need to be flown in. But these RFID tags will not change the slavery business. The dealers in flesh are greedy and sick, but usually not stupid.

    Troy
  • Phone Flying Null on +44(1223)875200, and they'll answer "Scientific Generics, can I help you"

    Then again Harston Mill was such a lovely office (a converted mill, woo!) it makes no sense to move out until absolutely necessary.

    Phil
  • Yeah, right and the embassy wouldn't notice that they were being bombarded with RF or EM? Not very likely. You must think they are stupid or something.

  • Oh no! (Score:3)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:09PM (#650549)
    Digital:Convergence's business model is ruined!
  • BTW - Read the article again... one of the applications mentioned is protection from shoplifters.
  • and in one giant spasm, our civilization will announce its invententory of consumer goods, which will then be vaporized....

    =googol=
  • Now I understand better where you're coming from, however I don't agree. Comparing the US with Europe, people in Europe complain about invasion of their privacy all the time - as a result they have significantly better privacy protection.

    So empirically - you're strategy has been shown to fail. :(
  • Oh, is that why my keyboard chirps whenever my sleeves get close to it?
  • These RF tags have readable range of like 6 feet with a large transmitter. They're the same kind that gets taken off of clothing when you purchase it. It is borderline impossible to read the tags from thirty yards away through at least one wall. Now, if you let people walk up to you and scan you with a wand that's your business, but you really don't have room to complain there.

    Let me point out that most of your clothes -- not to mention your wallet -- are normally well within 6 feet of the floor, and usually much closer to the frames of the doors you walk through. And the system has to be able to catch things as they go by, or they'd be useless for conveyor belts. A human with a wand will not be needed.

    So, here's the scenario: some clearinghouse -- doubleclick is a likely suspect -- arranges with merchants to put scanners on their doorframes, and on their checkout counters. The clearinghouse can then link together

    • different items of your clothing
    • the (postal) address which received a coupon you once carried, but didn't use
    • the stores you frequent and the items you buy
    • the places you travel
    • the people you hang out with and exchange gifts with
    So, as you walk into a store, the salesdroid will know
    • who you are and where you live
    • when you last visited their competitor
    • whether you're likely to buy something big or browse and leave empty handed
    • the size, brand, and age of your underwear

    • These things are effectively cookies for meatspace. Like cookies, the question is whether or not they're used in a way that allows cross-company correlation.

  • I'm just curious. Would you want a job where, every day you worked you knew there was a machine that could do exactly what you did, but for half the cost and twice as fast? I don't see a lot of job satisfaction there. In this job, you are effectively a useless member of society. You are actually worse than useless, since you're keeping others from doing a better job. Would you want a job like that? On the flip side, would you want to employ someone in a position like that? You're basically giving money away for free.
  • I hearby submit to the public domain the notion of associating products and their manufacturers to to relevant pages on the Internet via any device capable of recognizing relevant information in any sort of RF Identification system, or for that matter, any Identification system operating in the electromagnetic spectrum.

    Mojotoad

  • DC (Score:1)

    by Icebox ( 153775 )
    Digital Convergence has already issued Cease and Desist letters for their impending RF:Cat.

  • I personally like to see companies turn profit and always hiring for all types of jobs.

    That's just stupid. Why should anyone, anywhere, have to do any work so trivial that a machine can be made to do it?

    Getting the same work done with less people is a good thing! It means that eventualy we won't have to work 40 hours / wk for the better half of our lives. We could work less, get more done, and have more free time. It's good!

    Only problem that this creates is that if for 20 hours you get the standard of living that you get working 40 hours now, people are going to want to work 40. So we need to find a fair way of balancing all that.

    But really, why not automate as much as possible? Do you really think anyone would actually enjoy doing the work that a DBMS does? Do you like skimming through millions of pages of boring documents looking for some inane thing? What about a car-production robot? Want to make the same weld in the same place on the same car 5000 times a week? But, specific to this, do you think the person that runs your chocolate bar and pasta past the bar code scanner enjoyed doing that? Was it a valuable use of their unique potential as a human being? NO!

    If you were offered to be paid the same amount for your current job with half the hours, wouldn't you appreciate the extra time and get more out of life because of it?

  • Barcodes were a little too obvious, after all.

  • Whatever circuit these things use, I would wager that if you get them close nough to a high power RF source on the same wavelength, youll burn them out. Most of the anti theft devices used by stores like best buy work on the same principle. You send the right signal, it sends one back and the alarm goes off. They deactivate them by passing them by a high power RF sourse which fries the circuit. Since the frequencies of these things will probably be well known, you should be able to burn them out pretty easy. Or you could build a scanner device that will burn out everything within a certain range.

  • kinda scary (Score:4)

    by Mike Bridge ( 8663 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:12PM (#650561) Homepage
    "There are going to be trillions of tags like these on all kinds of consumer products, and they'll tell us exactly where those products are in the supply chain at all times," said Larry Kellam
    "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!"

  • I'll have to use my Palm to inventory my home to give to the insurance people. Then, if there is a fire, I won't be able to claim those armani suits, two PS2's (value $1500 ea, per ebay:), the Big Screen TV, the Picasso, my 5 desktops, my 7 laptops, etc...
  • You don't see a good side. How about shorter checkout lines at stores, or practically no lines at all. Just push your cart near the scanner and swipe your credit card. Less overhead for stores also means cheaper prices. And when the added barcode scanners that allowed quicker checkout and inventory we didn't see a huge drop in retail labor.
  • 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.

    Alright... now they are going to tag you like some animal. Doesn't concern you? Fair enough, but I demand more respect from the places I buy goods from.

  • The great thing I see with these is that they probably will not be removable from the items that they are placed on (like bar codes). this would give you some great oportunities to develope some neat apps for the home.

    Simply set a RF receiver in every room of your house. Loose something and you can querry your box to see where it is. Give your whereis command some real power!

    Also no more expired milk! embed the expiration dates into the tags. Then your box can let you know that not only that the milk in the frig has gone bad but that it has reached a sentience level allowing it to plot and sceme against you. { Message to root: milk is hacking FBI database from your phoneline. disconnect Y/N : }
  • This is pretty impressive from a scientific perspective. As for burning out the circuit, I'm not sure if that is possible. Unlike magnetic stuff, which can be re-polarized, if protections are taken, these circuits may not be able to be fried.

    What I was really interested in, which was not mentioned in the article, was what kindof range are we looking at with something like this? If you had long range, how could you differentiate between the various circuit unless they all operated on different frequencies. If they were different frequencies, it would then be possible to locate a specific object in space via triangulation... that would be pretty nifty. A cheap tracking device.

    However, given the fact that power must be transmitted to the device, my general feeling is that range is pretty small, since trasmitting power is nasty business.

    As for invasion of privacy, I think there are some valid concerns here, but a serious discussion on that matter should probably wait until another day.

    Captain_Frisk
  • You're right. We should also eliminate bulldozers, because they put so many ditchdiggers out of work. Cars put all those horse-and-buggy manufacturers out of work. Those stupid electronic telephone switches put a lot of operators out of work. All those horrible robots in car factories... my goodness.

    How insensitive of us!

    Gee, we could give a hundred million people toe-nail clippers and have them cut grass instead of a few lawnmowers... that would put more people to work than any government program yet conceived!

  • I mean, I'm sure this isn't a New World Order-Satano-One-World-Government mind control Area 51 ploy. I'm sure this is some retailer deciding "jeeze, if I had $1 every time someone couldn't scan a barcode cause it was on a chip bag or some other reflective, weird crinkly surface..." and the engineering mind thought of another solution.

    OF COURSE the government will find nifty uses for it.

    OF COURSE we will find ways around it.

    OF COURSE criminals will find some way to exploit it.

    OF COURSE the last two will be made illegal.

    OF COURSE there will be "Digital Freedom" websites extolling measures for or against the previous three.
  • They'll know it's the same pair of Levi's that you wore in last week at the mall -- so they'll be able to build a profile.

    They may know that the pair of Levi's was purchased (or otherwise associated with) your credit card, though existing privacy laws may prevent that.

    If you carry a piece of junk mail in your pocket -- or if you did last week at the mall -- they'll know what address it was mailed to.

    And why wouldn't they link the scan data with pictures from a the camera you walked in front of?

  • Yeah, CCTV is all over the place here in the states...

  • Hmm, but I want to stand there and have a cute chick put my groceries into a little plastic bag, so I dont' have to take an extra 5 minutes using a nice, reusable basket to carry things around.

  • Heck yeah! I don't know how many times I've turned around from the console to try to find something and wanted to grep the living room...
  • For some years I've been hoping something like this would come along for a quite different purpose: recycling. Recycling is unpopular with consumers because of the trouble in separating classes of recyclables, and I expect that separation is expensive at the receiving end also.

    The uses of recycled plastic are fairly limited - I expect this is largely because the different types of plastic can't easily be separated, so only low quality products that can withstand an unknown mix of types can be manufactured.

    If every plastic bottle, cardboard box, whatever, had a very cheap RF id tag like this that identified what it was made of, the separation process could be much cheaper and the output much more homogenious and high quality.

  • The FBI has been trying for years to get libraries to turn over records, Most of them will only keep records for what books you have out *NOW*. So they know to whom to send the "Please bring the book back" note. After you bring it back they delete the record.

    Ask your librarian for your libraries rules. And if you don't want people to know what you buy, go to a store you don't go to often and pay cash.

    The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

  • The RF power that would nose these chips over will cook you and anything you blast with it. That would be something on the order of 1kW or more of RF power somewhere around the 2GHz area.

    As for jamming, it's possible, but really only at close range- this stuff works by way of RF backscatter. Think of it being a sophisticated mirror of RF energy that encodes the carrier with information. The noise level's going to have to be up there to jam these at the ranges they're designed to operate at.
  • But it requires so much RF power that it'd be dangerous to burn them out.
  • Well, RF tags won't invade my privacy, so it won't be an issue for me. You know why? Because I'll be interested enough to find them and disable them.

    Now, it could be a problem for you! I could drive next to your house on my bike with my palm pilot and antenna to see whatchya got in your house.

    I think its a nice ethical gesture for nerds to discuss these issues. If you'd prefer, we could hide the ramifications of technology under the table. It would be a tough, cruel world if we did. Issues of privacy have grave importance.
  • If they are anything like the RF tags used by the major manufacturer, there is little to worry about. A small incision into the tag will break the circuit, rendering it useless. The problem with the current RF tags (as opposed to the magnetic ones) is that they are too failure prone. Even holding two tags close to each other can disable them. I still like bar codes, not much can go wrong there...
  • As for burning out the circuit, I'm not sure if that is possible.

    First, place the tag in the microwave for a few seconds. Guaranteed.

    Now, you can also assemble a transmitter of much lower power that can concentrate the beam to do the same damage in a brief pulse. Just 10 watts of RF power can do considerable damage to the target, including skin tissue. Did I mention smaller things are very portable? A crude small transmitter like this could fit in a purse.

  • "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?!"

    "Well, it seems that Ms. Jones' clothing is scattered about in a similar fashion. Blouse in location F7, skirt in F4... but her shoes, and all of their undergarments, are in location F5."

    "This is outrageous! What does it all mean?"

    "Apparently, sir, she sunk his Battleship."



    (Sorry, I couldn't resist)


    --LordEq
  • There's a shoe maker we're working with (can't say for sure here, but they're really, really big) that is embedding Digimarc [digimarc.com] ids right into the graphics on the clothing. Labels, hang tags, even the back of watches are currently embedded. Kinda cool, in a way. Hold the item up to a camera (or any reader, if it's RF or visual barcode) and boom, you're at the website with info, support, whatever about that item. So, there are some advantages.

    Jason
  • I remember some years ago people tried to sell something like this to the hog industry. The idea is that you'd put a small chip with an transponder and a small amount of storage in the hog's ear; then you would scan every time you did something to the hog (such as feed it). Tracking cost of sales is a big thing in the hog business. It turns out, however, that it wouldn't work because it would spoil the hog's ear (which apparently is a perfectly sellable commodity) and there's no part of the hog from the snout to the tail that isn't sold for some purpose or other.

    Apparently undeterred by this, folks with similar technology started promoting it for use on children as a way to deter abduction. I believe uses of similar devices have been proposed for use in a variety of applications such as military medical care.

    If the cue cat shows anything, it's that bar codes are a cheap legacy technology -- one that hasn't been particularly exploited. For example information densities could get a lot higher than the standard one dimensional bar code is capable of providing. Bar codes aren't going away.

    I think there are lots of places where there would be applications for the new technology; places where bar codes might not be readable (this happened with attempts to bar code railroad cars -- they got so dirty automatic scanners failed) and places where you need field programmable data (shipping and luggage handling).

  • No no... I have a really hard time believing that they can transmit more than a few feet. This seems like a passive technology that can be turned off (just remove the chip) and turned on by passing through an electric field. I can easily see some laws coming that would make manufacturers have such devices be removable by the user. This could prove useful for things like knowing whats in your fridge without having to scan a bar code.

    Yes this could be abused; However even the politicians would hate this. Have no fear... this is a pretty kick-ass way of monitoring inventory.
  • I can imagine it now! "Send in 5 Paper RF ID tags with a self-addressed stamed envelope to recieve you toy, in specially marked boxes only"

    Why would you need to send it in? Just use your anti-Cue:Cat 2000 to read the RFID tags, and send the data to the company. Since the tags are unique, they can be stored in a database so they can't be reused. No Mail necessary. We can put the US Postal service out of business :)

    Well... we can at last save $1.50 on postage [yeah it might be that expensive by then]

    Ender

  • Project Furby 2

    CIA Requisition Order 2000-01275543
    Referencing Department Purchase Order 19781A

    Quantity Description Cost
    1 GMC 1500 panel van $22,900
    1 2x4 18 element Yagi $375
    1 Plastic roof storage unit $225
    1 2200W linear amplifier $2,400
    1 RadioShack rotator $23

    Total: $25,923.00

    Goal:
    To assess the concentration and usefulness of
    RF-excited microtransmitters in gathering
    domestic intelligence.
  • They're a function of the antenna size and RF power they're irradiated with...

    The originators of this technology, Amtech, formerly a division of Intermec, now a division of TransCore, developed this technology during the Regan years to monitor the body temp, etc. of cattle to pick out sick animals before they went to the slaughterhouse.

    One of the more common applications of this is the tags on each and every rail car in the US and Europe. These have a unique ID that identifies the rail car as it passes a zone antenna at speeds up to 160 MPH. Another one is the TollTags that many of the toll bridges, toll roads, etc. have taken to using worldwide. These are designed to be read at up to 40' away at speeds in excess of 100 MPH- through the window of your car.

    If they want to, this same chip could be designed around a system that does what the seemingly paranoid claims about what could be done with the technology.
  • For what it is worth, the first few harmless moves made by a small, non-descript Austrian corporal were seen as not much of a threat and not much to worry about by any number of people, important and otherwise.

    The end result was a lot of people losing liberty for a time and a (probably avoidable) conflict killing millions.

    The road to Hell isn't paved with good intentions, it is paved with pebbles, each one of which didn't seem terribly significant.

    If you don't have privacy, chances are shortly you won't have freedom.
  • To bring our dog into the USA and ensure that we can take her back to Australia without any problems, she was tagged with a RF chip (about the size of a grain of rice) in the scruff of her neck. She is yet to have her eating habits processed, her urinary accomplishments scruntised, or sent to Washington to perform oral^H^H^H^H (sorry, that becomes law AFTER Bush gets in).

    We are already tagged and traceable - get in your car (licence plate), use your credit card (location/spending habits), use you Ralph's card ("market research"), borrow a book at the library ("hmmm ... 'Anarchists Cookbook'. Is that a load of fertiliser and diesel that you are tracking down Penn Ave?")

    There are too many people who confuse privacy with paranoia.

    The article is about a replacement for barcodes ... get over it.

  • Re: not.......really ..scary. (Score:5)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:32PM (#650611)
    almost all types of RF tags carry no power source of their own.

    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.

  • I happen to use an RF tag to get into work when the alarm is on. It goes on my keyring, and I wave it in front of the RF reciever. It needs to be very close to it to work, like a couple inches or so. And while yes you could put it inside clothes, when you put them in the wash you will ruin the poor thing because it is made of paper :).

    In the past I have been a cashier and I would have to say that the barcodes work just fine for all intents and purposes, in my opinion this technology would be a waste until it got to the point where it could be read from a few feet away. Imagine walking into a supermarket, and on your way out the door you don't need to go through a cash register, but instead it just automatically bills you?

  • Re:The "P" word (Score:3)

    by dattaway ( 3088 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:00PM (#650618) Homepage Journal
    I agree: just how far is a small paper tag going to transmit?

    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)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:01PM (#650619) Homepage
    The Soviets used a system similar to this to spy on the US Embassy in Moscow about 20 years ago. They 'gifted' a wall emblem to the embassy, and of course it was checked for bugs, and no emissions were found, but it actually had embedded a long copper loop that acted as an induction coil.

    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
  • From browsing the web, quickly, it would seem that they can range from a few inches for a stamp sized 'reflector' to several feet for something the size of a sheet of paper.

    I don't know how they plan to scan, though. Saturating a building with EM energy doesn't seem to smart. Perhaps a wand that directs energy towards the package would work, and just read the reflected energy.

    The nick is a joke! Really!

  • Uh, guys this is rather OLD news... (Score:4)

    by Svartalf ( 2997 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:03PM (#650624) Homepage
    My former employer had a similar chip- I was designing enterprise class systems around the use of it.

    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.
  • This article here [howstuffworks.com] does a great job explaining how EAS (Electronic Article Surveillence) works. This article pretty much seems to cover an advanced, optimistic use for the item besides busting shoplifters.

    - Slash
  • Wouldn't it be easier to: 1) go through the trouble of taking that tag out/off of whatever it came on. 2) throw it out?

    Today, it sure is. Just wait until they start embedding these things within the paper pulp in the cardboard binding of packages and books. It could blend in nicely with the fibers. One could still find the element by looking at the changes of fiber density for what would be an obvious flaw in normal paper. Then, simply excise it with a razor.

    But, what if... if... if there were more than one? That is the question.

  • Gasp! (Score:3)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:13PM (#650634)
    (Just imagine embedding these tags in your clothes.)

    Oh, my God, people could.. well, um, they could, well, um, what am I missing here?
  • Further information about the RFID tags and related technologies is available at the MIT Auto-ID Center [mit.edu] homepage.

  • The "P" word (Score:4)

    by Future Linux-Guru ( 34181 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:13PM (#650637)

    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)

    by Spooky Possum ( 80044 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:14PM (#650638)
    Just applying a decent strength RF field will burn out the circuit.

    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.
  • "Bar codes were a giant leap forward for their time because they made it quick and easy to capture data," said Sanjay Sarma, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.). "But these new chips have the potential to completely eliminate the human element, which even the bar code couldn't do."
    yeah, just let lose the Nanites and they'll go swarm all the house that have tags for any OpenSource book or cd or any other media, reducing it down to raw materials for more M$ CDs/DVDs (since office 2005 will come on 5 DVD ROMs)
  • Hmm, so now when I walk through an airport scanner they are going to know that I'm wearing a pair of Levi's and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt?

    Not to mention a $20 bill in my pocket, since US currency has had these magnetic strips for years now.

    Still not quite sure how this relates to privacy since it doesn't identify you as a person.

  • Indeed, the BiStatix concept is so simple that the Motorola engineer who co-invented it, Noel Eberhardt, often demonstrates it by using a pencil to create an antenna on a piece of paper. By applying graphite to paper, and then attaching the BiStatix chip to the graphite antenna, Eberhardt has been known to create a working model of the concept in less than a minute.

    It's funny that pencils and Eberhardt are mentioned in this same paragraph... isn't Eberhart-Faber one of the leading Pencil/Pen manufacturers?
  • What this is really for is "We just got in a truckload of stuff - inventory it". Or for taking store inventory. Maybe, if it works really well, for automated checkout. One of the dreams of retailers is a setup where the customer just pushes the cart through a detector and a bill is generated.

    The cool thing technologically is that this new tag is powered electrostatically, rather than electromagnetically. The detector system probably involves two big conductive plates that stuff goes between. It's inherently a short-range system.

  • That was the range that Intermec's IntelliTag 500 series tags were getting- and they're almost identical in ability.
  • Why in the world would you want to not use a technology that the perform a task more cheaply and accurately than people?! Are you insinuating that someone who loses a job to technology cannot get another?

    It sounds to me like you are saying we should not use technology because it would put people out of work who, I assume, could not be employed in other ways. Should we keep a certain percentage of shit jobs around just so these unemployable people will have somewhere to work?

    I hate to break the news to you, but business are run to make money, not employ people. Here's a note from the clue train: economics is not a zero-sum game... increased technology opens up far more jobs than it eliminates, as you pointed out. Should we keep some people doing dull grunt work so the rest of us technology-haves can live in our ivory towers or should we work to educate, train and enrich everyone.

    Again, how is this any different from the ridiculous examples in my previous post? If I am so ignorant... please enlighten me.

  • That's how Intermec was doing most of the systems. There's notable exceptions (something VERY much like the TollTag systems in use...)
  • For your father's sake, I should hope they don't cause cancer. Did he keep his wallet in his front or back pocket? Either way, that can't be good.
  • You apparently don't understand a lot about RF...

    Concentrating energy like that only works with light because of it's small wavelength. At these frequencies, your wavelength is measured in centimeters- you're not going to get a smaller spot than the wavelength without a LOT of trouble. Since a couple of milliwats per centimeter isn't enough to overwhelm the chip or burn anything, you're back to square one.

  • Few cents already possible (Score:3)

    by fatphil ( 181876 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @02:56PM (#650657) Homepage
    Flying Null, a breakaway company from Scientific Generics, and engineering consultancy in Cambridge, UK, developed a system like this 5 years ago.
    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
  • Because I'll be interested enough to find them and disable them.

    Is that really necessary? Wouldn't a normal wash/dry cycle contain enough abuse to disable the RF tag?

  • > 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.)"

    What's the effective distance on these things? I didn't see it in a quick scan through the article. It's not like they could scan your ID code from 10 feet away...

    (Just make sure they don't try to print one of these suckers on your forehead or the back of your hand...)

    --

  • I don't see the good side with using this. With these there will no longer be lots of jobs in the food industry for inventory of products at stores. Yes the company may turn profits but it doesn't always have to use the model of costing employees jobs. I personally like to see companies turn profit and always hiring for all types of jobs. This helps the economy plus lowers unemployment. They can hire someone to try and reduce theft if it will save money in the millions. Granted they won't save as much but at least they are keeping employees.
  • Well, you can still use the cuecats as colon-cancer detectors.

    ;)


    ________________________________________
  • No, we don't use technology to save jobs. We use technology to free us from things we don't want to have to do. I'm not suggesting that you simply cut unskilled people loose in a high-tech marketplace... there needs to be a good infrastructure of education and training, and, of course, basic assistance for those most in need. As far as I'm concerned... the education's not there. Given the pathetic level at which most people can communicate... including those in professions and the media, I am forced to conclude that our education system sucks.

    We've been throwing more good money after bad for decades... it's time for some real reform, because the next time a country like Japan eats our economic lunch, we might not be able to catch up.

    ... Hmmm... is that off-topic enough? ;)

    Rick

  • Practical applications and limitations (Score:4)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Friday November 03, 2000 @01:23PM (#650680)
    It would seem to me that given the size and the like, this tag has a very limited range, maybe measured in meters. Not strong enough, even, such that someone standing outside your house could determine the identity of any objects within it, even if on the other side of the wall. Add to that a limited shelf life, and I don't see how this can be used as a 'permanent' identity system.

    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.

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