Reality of Shadowrun? Options

[Dantic]

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT - News) plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.

Check out the story here. Is this spooky?

Anybody else got Shadowrun as reality examples?

[Karoline]

Cool. The privacy advocates are funny. "Oh noes, I don't want people knowing what I bought." What do you want to bet they throw out receipts just fine. And I'm sure you could dispose of the tags at the store somewhere.

As for scanning your ID card as well... well, there isn't anything stopping any company doing that now anyway, so I don't see what the sudden concern is. "Oh noes, they could pair up our ID and credit card and know who we are!" Wonderful, they already know who you are based on your creditcard. It has, you know, your name on it after all. If they wanted to keep track of what you buy, they'd just keep your name/credit card on file with all purchases that it has made. Seriously, this new tagging on clothing wouldn't change anything in that respect.

"There are two things you really don't want to tag, clothing and identity documents, and ironically that's where we are seeing adoption,"

Okay, I can understand identity documents to some extent, but why is clothing such a big deal? Is it really that big of a problem if someone knows that you wear a size 28 waist?

[Tanegar]

It's a problem when anybody can track anybody else with an RFID scanner. Not just what you buy, but where and with whom. That's the privacy issue.

[Reg06]

It could (potentially) allow people to track you if you are wearing clothes with the rfid tags, and allow unscrupulous market researches to drive by your house and scan for what you purchase (honestly though, that'd just make shopping easier).

[Adam]

As for scanning your ID card as well... well, there isn't anything stopping any company doing that now anyway, so I don't see what the sudden concern is. "Oh noes, they could pair up our ID and credit card and know who we are!" Wonderful, they already know who you are based on your creditcard. It has, you know, your name on it after all.

Cash, however, does not. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Okay, I can understand identity documents to some extent, but why is clothing such a big deal? Is it really that big of a problem if someone knows that you wear a size 28 waist?

The typical fear is that with widespread RFID embedded in clothes, your movement can be tracked.

[KarmaInferno]

Funny thing about RFIDs in this day and age.

They all have long antennas. If you look at a RFID card they have a long looping circuit trace spiraling around whatever they are printed on. That's actually their antenna.

Remove that antenna and the effective range for reading the suckers drops down to a couple of inches.

Are they actually talking about embedding them in the clothing, anyhow? Or would they be in the price tags like they've been in the past?



-np

[MortVent]

Some options were the tags, the washing tags and company labels.

Hide the antenna in the weave

[Karoline]

From the report it sounded like it was going to be something similar to a price tag or ink bomb thing. It's removed after purchase. So no fear about anyone tracking your movements, no fear about people drive-by-scanning your house to know what kind of jeans you like (Oh the horror considering all they'd have to do is look at your jeans).

And as for linking ID to purchases, that can be done regardless of if there is an ID in the clothing. They just scan your ID and then match it to the purchase. So yeah, there really isn't any kind of privacy issue with this at all.

[Doc Chase]

It's not much of a privacy issue as the tags are removable. They can pull the RFIDs off at the register and they know exactly what was bought so they can restock. Initial reports have them able to removed at home which won't do much for shoplifting - pull the tag off there and hey, jeans that Wal-Mart thinks are back in the dressing room. Tech-savvy customers, workers and shoplifters will be able to get past the tag with no real issues.

I also doubt thieves are going to drive by with an RFID scanner and wow at the clothes you bought. They're looking for large boxes with the trash that suggest TV's, game systems, computers, and other high ticket items.

Could you imagine driving by a middle-class neighborhood in 2070 with an RFID scanner? Guy's gonna give up after the 40,000th scan of Nerps by the sixth house.

[Rand]

Do any of you use a store discount card (like Kroger card - Kroger is a supermarket chain here in the SE USA)? Or have an account on Amazon? Both of those track your purchaces so they can tailor their coupons and adverts to you specifically. That kind of tracking is already done.

Tech-savvy customers, workers and shoplifters will be able to get past the tag with no real issues.

As Malcom from Jurassic Park said: Crime will find a way. (Oh, wait, that was "Life will find a way".... life...crime... same thing.)

[eidolon]

The "privacy concerns" are from idiots that don't know anything about RFID. These kooks think that their underwear is broadcasting their bank account and credit card numbers, instead of being passively read by an inventory control system and then never cared about ever again.

Will the use of RFID change over time? Yes. Is there a "privacy issue" with using them in their present form for inventory tracking? No, that's retarded.

[Stahlseele]

wonder how long it will take for people to abuse the rfid tag system.
carry out a box with something really expensive in it. kill the rfid tag and replace it with the rfid tag of something cheap.
it works even today. you can print out barcodes and attach them to the boxes of electronics you want to buy.
most cashiers at the register won't even know the difference most of the time, thus you can for example swap out the CD-ROM Drive bar-code with the Blue-Ray-Writer Barcode.
so you get a 200€ Device for 20€. now THAT is saving money!

[Karoline]

wonder how long it will take for people to abuse the rfid tag system.
carry out a box with something really expensive in it. kill the rfid tag and replace it with the rfid tag of something cheap.
it works even today. you can print out barcodes and attach them to the boxes of electronics you want to buy.
most cashiers at the register won't even know the difference most of the time, thus you can for example swap out the CD-ROM Drive bar-code with the Blue-Ray-Writer Barcode.
so you get a 200€ Device for 20€. now THAT is saving money!

That depends alot on the person checking you out, and where you are being checked out. Alot of places have the item name come up on the computer for the employee when it is scanned, and they are likely to notice if the name doesn't match up. They also tend to look harder on bigger items (not necessarily expensive, but big), so not likely to get a TV that way. Also, if they are at all familiar with their products, they're likely to notice something odd if something that should be high priced (Blueray) is ringing up cheap, but that depends alot on the employee.

This does however work great with clothing. Go grab that super expensive brand name pair of jeans and switch it out with the regular pair of jean's price tag. If they catch you, really easy to feign ignorance "Well, I found these in the clearance jeans section." Easy to pretend that someone else moved them by mistake and they got mistakenly retagged. This works even better during a sale because alot of stuff will have just been moved around and such.

[Stahlseele]

I did work in retail once.
You would not believe what can happen if SOMETHING goes wrong with the ticketing stuff.
the white little paper slips with the bar-code on them. the labels.
either they get printed out wrong, or the rolls get switched or the label-guns get mixed up.
and if you are lucky, you realize this before you have done one row of boards.
if you are unlucky, you only have the barcode on the paper slips and nothing else.
there is literally NO WAY to figure something like that out. only of the people on the register know what to look for.
But one optical drive looks like the next after some time. and if the machine says optical drive and it looks like an optical drive, then it's that optical drive . .

[pbangarth]

The "privacy concerns" are from idiots that don't know anything about RFID. These kooks think that their underwear is broadcasting their bank account and credit card numbers, instead of being passively read by an inventory control system and then never cared about ever again.

Will the use of RFID change over time? Yes. Is there a "privacy issue" with using them in their present form for inventory tracking? No, that's retarded.

Quite right. The RFID on the underwear you have on today says something like "Allmart Alvin Bling gotchies Serial #123456". Any reader you walk by would detect no more than that. Now, in the following far-fetched, possibly impossible case one could find an issue:

A) scan the RFID
B) hack into Allmart electronic records
C) Allmart keeps electronic records of sales
D) match Alvin Bling gotchies Serial #123456 with the credit card that bought them
E) copy credit card info and go to town

[eidolon]

Right. In other words, there's no difference between using RFIDs in a store and buying something from Amazon.

I'm looking forward to the day I can walk into Allmart, fill up my reusable shopping bag with the stuff I need, and walk out of Allmart, having the cost of my merch deducted automatically from my bank account.

In fact, I'm pissed that this isn't already how it works.

Everybody remember how the line goes? "We have the technology."

[Stahlseele]

We can make him stronger, faster, better . . .

But THAT would NOT be better . .
I wanna know what i spent because i have to hand it over myself . .
I don't do anything with electronic money if i can do it any other way.
Because if i do, i look at my bank account and wonder where it went.
If i do spend it by handing it over at the register of some shop, then
i can remember what i just handed out and for what.

[Karoline]

We can make him stronger, faster, better . . .

But THAT would NOT be better . .
I wanna know what i spent because i have to hand it over myself . .
I don't do anything with electronic money if i can do it any other way.
Because if i do, i look at my bank account and wonder where it went.
If i do spend it by handing it over at the register of some shop, then
i can remember what i just handed out and for what.

Usually your credit card lists the merchant. Like 'walmart' or 'gas station' or whatever. Don't see why that would make it harder to remember where you are spending your money than if you hand over cash. After all, you still have to hand over a card (And then sign a recite) and then you have a record to remind you of what you got.

Still, some people find different things very helpful as far as remembering things goes.

[Solon]

For the truly paranoid there is always turning a disposable camera into an RFID zapper.

[Solon]

Edit: double post

[phlapjack77]

Nanite-like healing:

Healing Gel