Your Tin Foil Hat Will Not Save You Now

[Ralf Maximus]

From Techdo.com comes the alarming news of the world's smallest RFID tags.

Smaller than a grain of sand, sixty-times smaller than those RFID's pictured above, the new RFID "powder" can be dusted on anything, safely ingested by humans, or (one would assume) snorted up the nose.  Each microchip -- finally, that word has meaning again -- contains a 128-bit ROM encoded with a unique ID which, when scanned with standard RFID equipment, gives itself up quicker than Paris Hilton locked in a liquor store.

Suddenly I feel the need for a shower.

You know... to get clean.

Aw, quit it.

Anyway, thanks to Big Brother's magic pixie dust, anyone and anything can be assigned a unique ID and then tracked.  Now, the good news: RFID technology is proximity sensitive, working over very short distance.  Most RFID rigs I've played with have ranges measured in inches, and usually max out at a few feet.  So even if you were coated head to toe with the new RFID powder (sit back a moment and imagine how that might accidently happen) you'd have to walk within a few feet of a pylon calibrated to read your chips.

But that's now.  In a few years when Happy Meals come pre-dusted, things may be different.

Despite the induced willies, it's cool technology.

[Darwin]

There's a Dutch grad student - Melanie Rieback - who has worked on an RFID "Firewall" called the RFID Guardian. Crumb, can't remember if I heard about it first here or elsewhere... Apologies if I am stealing someone else's thunder with this! Anyway, it *might* be more effectve than a tinfoil hat, but not nearly so haute couture!

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Ralf. I'll be spending my sleepless nights showering obsessively (people that know me will be cheering about his...)!

[Darwin]

Just to note, from perusing her CV it appears that Melanie is likely American of Dutch descent...

[f0dder]

Hm.

Almost small enough to make putting RFID tags in coke viable... keeping track of your clients, eh?

[icekin]

Hm.

Almost small enough to make putting RFID tags in coke viable... keeping track of your clients, eh?

-f0dder (November 19, 2007, 11:01 PM)

The digestive system is a nasty place, few things (living or otherwise) would survive in there. The stomach has a pH of battery acid and is likely to dissolve the plastics on this thing.

[f0dder]

I was thinking the white snorting rather than the brown drinking kind, though

(iirc the drinking kind has pH close to stomach acid levels?)

[Lashiec]

There's a Dutch grad student - Melanie Rieback - who has worked on an RFID "Firewall" called the RFID Guardian. Crumb, can't remember if I heard about it first here or elsewhere... Apologies if I am stealing someone else's thunder with this!

-Darwin (November 19, 2007, 08:28 PM)

You heard about it here, of course! DonationCoder is the primary source of information for the tinfoil hat lovers around the world!

I wonder if Cody will start to distribute RFID tags with the food in future DC meetings... ya know, just to take care of the visitors to the site.

[tinjaw]

Ralf,

You have received $1 in DonationCoder RFID Tags from member Tinjaw for your posting "Your Tin Foil Hat Will Not Save You Now".

[Darwin]

Damn! tinjaw - thank you for reminding me 

[Ralf Maximus]

Ralf,

You have received $1 in DonationCoder RFID Tags from member Tinjaw for your posting "Your Tin Foil Hat Will Not Save You Now".

-tinjaw (November 20, 2007, 11:55 AM)

Aieeeeee!  Get'em off me!

[icekin]

I was thinking the white snorting rather than the brown drinking kind, though

(iirc the drinking kind has pH close to stomach acid levels?)

-f0dder (November 20, 2007, 07:57 AM)

Of course, its the other coke. Sometimes the context of the sentence just misses me.

I don't know the pH of coke, I was guessing it would be around that of a weak organic acid like acetic acid. I just avoid soft drinks and caffeine altogether, which makes me different to most other computer folk I know.