RFID/Spychips...for real?

[thartley]

Is this really really legitimate? 

http://www.spychips.com/index.html

I've been finding some pretty bizarre sites lately....like this morning, I am looking for a site that gives a basic rundown on where various corporations conduct their manufacturing.  That search lead me to a MadeInUSA site, that had a link to a WalMartWatch site, which had a link and an article about WalMart and Proctor and Gamble being caught using this RFID thing on lipfinity lipstick back in 2003 (I think).

anyway.... just kind of strange.  Not sure I understand how this works.

[ZeroG]

It does seem 1984'ish to think Big Brother is watching you. That is what this website is using to draw people in. The fear.

When it gets down to it, I don't care if they implant a chip in a product. Implanting in ME is a whole 'nother issue. There is a ton of info they can get, which will not only help them, but will help me through products which meet the needs of people LIKE me. I say like, because I draw the line at the chip knowing if I (ZeroG) purchased the product. A good reason to use cash, as it requires a little more to figure out who is walking around with that chip.

All in all, I don't have a problem if anonimity is preserved. This is a good place for a law.

However in the post 911 error (pun intended), laws have been passed which severely limit the freedoms of US citizens. This is a place where freedoms can become null-and-void at the cost of tracking terrorists via Walmart products. Now THAT is scary.

[Nick Lane]

However in the post 911 error (pun intended), laws have been passed which severely limit the freedoms of US citizens. This is a place where freedoms can become null-and-void at the cost of tracking terrorists via Walmart products. Now THAT is scary.

Not to steer this in a political direction (well, I guess, feel free to go back though) I don't care if George Bush personally listens to every phone call I make or watches me everywhere I go when out of the house. I haven't done anything wrong, and if this system may help stop another 9/11 style attack from happening on US soil: go for it!

[Ginafish]

The RFID/Spychips are a tricky thing. 'Big Brother' shouldn't be tracking the purchases or habits of people (through credit cards, or spychips, or with face recognition software used in street cameras or through cellphones gps systems) but they do. The use of all these systems to plan a better marketing scheme is sick and twisted. Yet it happens.
 
But if a child was kidnapped, and the police or a private detective can use these resources to save the child, then my gut says "Do IT!"

Much like ZeroG, I cringe at the thought of ever being implanted with a chip However, witnessing first hand, the dementia of an elder relative that led to wandering away from home, followed by multiple trips to the police station to pick him up, well... if someone doesn't have the capability to keep themselves safe then someone else has to take responsibility for them. So I can see having a chip with medical history on it.

Perhaps Big Brother views chips as a way of protecting the masses, (or at least that is how they skew it to pass the laws) but it shouldn't be used except in the case of protecting the people. Shopping habits? That's disgusting.  As citizens, we should be more mindful of how these privacy laws work and how they can be skewed.

I vote for ZeroG to take the case!

[ZeroG]

Hey Nick. I felt the same way about privacy at first. I don't have anything to hide, so if it helps then why not? Let me give you an example of how things can become pretty messed up (remember this is goverment we are talking about).

There was a bill passed congress to secure the US ports which passed late in 2006. A last minute addition to the bill was the  UIGEA which made it illegal for US Banks to transfer money to illegal internet gambling sites. This impacted me because poker sites were grouped into the illegal area (I can go on and on about why it is not like casino gambling). 

So what does internet gambling have to do with security of US ports? Well, in a zero tolerance world, where if you are not with us, then you are against us, anything illegal must be where the bad people hang out. I am just guessing here. Actually I don't think that part of the bill was even reviewed because it has since been determined that it is uninforceable by the banking industry.

Anyway, my point is that we may have good intentions by reducing privacy, but in a mob mentality (ie. congress) the details are quickly looked over in the quest for the common good.  I'm sure you have run across many repurcussions of this national lockdown we are under. How many times do you have to repeat your security word when you are trying to talk to a bank? To me it is just their way to say: "No worries, you are secure here." And in a post 911 error that is what people want to feel, secure.

[Nick Lane]

Just to be clear, I didn't say I was okay with them using this technology for any reason other than helping humanity. But to respond to ZeroG, I think it has been evident throughout the years that Congress will always throw ridiculous and irrelevent clauses into bills because they know they can't pass it any other way. I don't care about internet gambling, but I do care about national security. And some of you may have noticed that since 9/11, and since we invaded Iraq, there has not been another terrorist attack on US soil. Further, several have been stopped by the Government. I think that is one good thing about the "post 9/11 mentality" is the fear, which leads to hightened security and thus saving lives.

You say we are under a "national lockdown" but I don't see this. We still live in a free country, we can say essentially anything we want (look at what we are doing now in this place, the internet) we can own firearms t protect ourselves, we can have whatever job we want, the list goes on. And frankly, I don't care if I have to repeat my security work 2000 times if it means someone else won't be able to break into my account and steal my money. I just feel that after we have seen what can happen when we are not careful, then we can't afford NOT to be. Better safe than sorry. I leave you with this very quotable sentence:

2974 people died as a result of the immediate attack on 11 September 2001. If having the Government crack down slightly could stop us from losing that many innocent brothers, sisters, husbands and wives again, then I say "By all means, do it."

[ZeroG]

Yes, that wasn't the first bill to have some tag alongs.  And I agree, we have been pretty much terror free here in the US. We'll leave out Bali and London. However, I think that had more to do with all the terrorists going to Iraq and us just being more aware. I'm not convinced the Patriot Act has helped.

And you are right about our freedoms. They really haven't changed that much. Most of the people protesting the Patriot Act were standing on flimsy ground anyway. I am talking more about a culture of fear. I mean, how can asking me to repeat my password on my bank account protect my country from terrorism? It seems all of these little annoyances are done without any thought of the big picture.

I'll quote your very quotable sentence  :

2974 people died as a result of the immediate attack on 11 September 2001. If having the Government crack down slightly could stop us from losing that many innocent brothers, sisters, husbands and wives again, then I say "By all means, do it."

Since then, I think we have lost more than that in the fight against terrorism. Also, the damage done on 9/11 was more than just lives lost. The war on terror is being waged w/out regard to it's cost in terms of money. I think the money spent to fight terrorism is affecting the US economy and the US dollar. And it has not done one bit of help to keep the price of oil under control. I'm not saying that us being in Iraq is causing the increase, just that it hasn't helped.

To try and bring this back to chips-in-products-we-buy, I am starting to wonder what is so bad about them knowing that ZeroG purchased the product. In the end, it might make it so that a product could come out which really helps people like me. And as Ginafish said, they have been doing it for awhile now anyway. I guess it is the culture of fear which made my eyebrows raise and think, hey my privacy is being threatened. 

[Nick Lane]

I agree that we are drenched in a level of fear since the attack, but in a way it has helped. And it is true that Iraq may not be helping keep the ol prices low, but crude didn't hit $100/barrel until March of this year, yet we have been expiriencing "pain at the pump" for a few years. This is mostly due to the greediness of big oil companies, and evident in their huge profits. And as far as the war, it is useless for anyone to say we shouldn't be there because the truth of the matter is, we are there, and we have to think about the consequences of the different options we have.

Conserning the chips in products, if a company wants to do research to help develop better products, as long as I am able to maintain my privacy (where I live, what I do on a daily bases, whether I used dark or light syrup on my waffles) then I have no problem with it.

[thartley]

I dont know how I really feel about the chips, other than I would want to know the products contain them before I buy them.  When the anti-theft devices were first being used, there were usually prominent signs telling you a product contained an anti-theft device or chip.  I had never heard of the chip I posted about here. If they want to use the device, I guess they can.  Its their product.  But I might make a different choice as an informed consumer of whether to buy their product if I knew about it first.

 

[Nick Lane]

I dont know how I really feel about the chips, other than I would want to know the products contain them before I buy them.  When the anti-theft devices were first being used, there were usually prominent signs telling you a product contained an anti-theft device or chip.  I had never heard of the chip I posted about here. If they want to use the device, I guess they can.  Its their product.  But I might make a different choice as an informed consumer of whether to buy their product if I knew about it first.

 

Agreed.

[Hunter]

K. Lets go over the idea that we have any privacy in a public place. You don't. Hey that was easy.
Now, let's handle your home. Um, you kinda do, but not really.

Here's what I'm talking about. This post is on spy chips, I love that name. So "black helicopter"-ish. So yes mandatory RFIDs are bad. I'll agree that any technology unwillfully implanted or placed upon a person is bad. However, there is a place for everything, and the idea that RFIDs are spy chips is pretty ludicrous. An RFID is really no different that a WiFi enabled SD card. It stores data, it broadcast data when asked. No different. It can't broadcast data that isn't there. The amount of infrastructure needed to track your movements through say the mall by RFID is pretty big. RFIDs don't have a lot of range, being that they aren't really powered, they just use the residual power left from the received command, to broadcast it's information.

Now, if you want to be scared of being tracked by RFIDs then you should also know that you can be tracked by your WiFi enabled phone, your bluetooth enabled phone and/or ear piece, your RFID enabled credit card - which is even MORE scary when you think about it, your REGULAR cards, your checks, and pretty much any other device that has a designation specific to you. The really scary bit is that individually many people think that their activities would actually be interesting enough to spark a curiosity by the government.

Oh, and if you want to wake up screaming, there was a piece of legislation that was on the ballots to implant "undesirables" and the elderly with GPS enabled remote medication devices.  This was running under the flag that Alzheimer's patients could be medicated remotely if they wandered off, until such a time as they could be brought back. The problem comes when you try to use this for the undesirables aspect. Each year our media flaunts another crime as the worst possible thing that's out there. If this were to be used as a way to keep people in line, then there is a thin line drawn right before we use it to kill off those who step over that line. These are the things that I worry about. Active power to control the populace unwillingly, not Passive spy chips.

Hunter.


EDIT: I was recently informed that some parts of this post may have come off as possibly offensive. I hope you all know that that is never my intention. I'll admit that I do tend to get a little hi-strung on subjects pertaining to privacy, security, and people's right. I guess it's because I've generally felt that people don't have a very good understanding of what actually constitutes these. So, if anything I said, or say, offends anyone, please tell me and I'll rectify that immediately. Thank you all.

[Stasven]

It's just stupid. If you have the time you should watch the movie Zeitgeist, completely, it's 2 hours, but I'd say it's worth the time. There are a few inaccuracies and it might seem a bit out there but its mostly very true.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

[Hunter]

Just saw that movie, not bad.
Kinda enjoyed it. you're right, it is kinda out there in parts, but aren't most things we don't understand?

[Nick Lane]

I watched it a few weeks ago at the request of a very left wing friend of mine. Knowing how Conservative I am he wanted me to take a look and see what I thought. The first section was extremely interesting to me, in fact I found it quite fascinating and plausible. During the second part I nearly powered down because of the disgust I was feeling that someone could think 9/11 was an inside job, but I watched it, found some points to be quite valid and interesting and moved on. The third part was interesting, it was almost hard to keep up with, and it kind of made me angry.

Overall, what I took from it was this: never trust ONE source on something (including Zeitgeist) because no matter where you go these days, you are almost guaranteed to find a bias.