State Department begins issuing RFID passports

[Quismo]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060313-6367.html Despite ongoing security concerns, the US State Department has issued its first batch of passports with RFID chips. A handful of US diplomats are now carrying the new passports that store identifying personal information along with a digitized picture of the carrier on a small RFID chip. These chips can then be read by a special reader and used to authenticate the fact that the passport is legitimate and the holder is who she says she is. Announced in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US government has touted the RFID passports as necessary to ensure the safety of US borders while potentially making passage through customs and immigration easier for passport holders. The decision to mandate the use of RFID chips in US passports has resulted in heavy criticism from privacy and civil liberties advocates as well as those who have an understanding of how RFID works. The biggest problem is the technology itself. The RFID chips come in three flavors, active, semipassive, and passive. Active chips require a power source and constantly broadcast information, much like a beacon. Semipassive chips use a small power source such as a battery to aid in sending and receiving information. Passive chips, the ones used in the passport, lie dormant until queried by a reader at which time they broadcast the data stored on the chip. The advantage of passive chips is that they can be very small and have a nearly unlimited life.

I wonder what's next... :rolleyes:

[Osborn F Enready]

Quismo said: I wonder what's next.....

I say:
I will bet it will be nothing good.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

From another post http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4792554.stm

It will come and you'll probably never know.

[brien]

Quote by: Quismo I wonder what's next... :rolleyes:

Tiny Micro Chip implants at birth. Welcome to the Brave New World. :eek:

[rmnunez]

What's next is tracking the chip's movement by satellite so the DoS can find its subjects wherever they are around the world.

[Arawn-ap-Hywel]

The chips could be used to upload computer viruses

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4810576.stm

Now that is an intersting twist

[rmnunez]

I hope the new technology will have glitches so that united statians will get misidentified and held up by customs officials when they travel too.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: brien Tiny Micro Chip implants at birth.

It seems you are correct.

[iHu]

The potential for surreptitious applications are many and the US loves, loves its secret programs. To the government or any unscrupulous corporations, RFID is a sleek advance for secret programs/tracking/IDing.

I'm not holding my breath or asking for utopia, but I would appreciate a chance to reject RFID before it is mandated that I use RFID. This would require an unprecedented level of decency on behalf of our legislators, if you believe they possess the balanced senses of future or right/wrong to pull that off in reality at all. The passport thing is difficult to get around. With something like that, or other, unknown embedding technique for RFID, they'll be able to pinpoint you anywhere in the world (eventually, if not already a working prototype).

The Rx for me is to stay exceedingly aware so that my senses can shift as the technology shifts. I plan on becoming highly evasive, but there is evidence that this could also restrict and limit my own movement. To the paranoid, RFID may manifest as a pernicious mechanism designed to choke off their freedom of movement. Anybody that feels like they're "being watched" might really go off the deep end with the imminent arrival of RFID. RFID with a side of chemtrails, anybody?...

With the onslaught of nanotechnology, there's no telling just how small and pervasive RFID could become. Those with the information control the people. By creating a technology that takes away information from one and gives it to another (without a rounded communication or "giving feedback" courtesy to the one whose is being tracked or IDed), I'm compelled to believe RFID is going to cause some major problems and a backlash by anybody informed enough to act upon it.

I imagine a (black) market for RFID detectors/blockers will eventually spring up as the demand for countermeasures rises among the well-informed.

;^)