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Friday, March 3, 2006

Dorkbot, ho!

Posted by on March 3 at 12:04 PM

Wednesday night I trotted down to the Center on Contemporary Art to catch the monthly meeting of Dorkbot—a group “…involved in the creation of electronic art (in the broadest sense of the term).”
This month’s discussion was on RFIDs (Radio Frequency Identification), small chips which can transmit programmed information (passive RFIDs) and/or read information (active RFIDs). I slogged about RFIDs on Wed. and decided to check Dorkbot out, as it featured several prominent nerds discussing the social and political implications of RFID use.

Joe McCarthy, the first speaker, highlighted the medical advantages of having RFID implants (in an emergency, doctors could scan your hand for your complete medical history), and demonstrated how RFIDs could be used create personal profiles (similar to internet profiles, only embedded in a badge for you to wear or carry) used to meet new Friends and Lovers.

Question from the Audience: “Online profiles serve a specific purpose—they allow two or more people who aren’t physically present to form a connection. What is the benefit of walking around with a profile of yourself when people can simply approach you and strike up a conversation?”

Good fucking point. Everyone in the room was stumped.

McCarthy’s eventual answer: “Shyness?”

Doug Klunder, our next speaker and the privacy policy director for the ACLU, addressed the tricky privacy issues associated with RFID chips. The US government is currently testing RFID implants in passports and national identification cards (due out in 2008). The issue as Klunder presented it was, with standardized technology transmitting private info, what’s to stop people from picking up sensitive info and exploiting it?

Klunder pointed out that aside from implants, RFID chips can just as easily be connected to benign objects and infringe on privacy rights. Clothing label Benetton, for example, implanted RFID chips in its clothing line to track retail sales and returns. As CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) pointed out, the chips can continue to transmit signals after sales, which is rather ominous. CASPIAN called for a worldwide boycott of Benetton, and the label retracted plans to bug its clothing.

RFID chips, because of their miniscule size and relative cheapness (25 cents on up), can and are being inserted just about everywhere. Libraries are making the switch to RFIDs in order to easily track books. However, if RFIDs embedded in books could be used to track their borrowers (Klunder used the example of an organization or government tracking everyone who checked out a copy of Mein Kampf), profiles of borrowers could be created without readers’ knowledge.

Klunder repeatedly stressed the dangers of standardization; the more standardized technology is, the easier it is to manipulate.

With regards to human RFID implants, I kept wondering if RFIDs are implanted in your hands but serve no practical purpose—the chips can open doors and unlock your car, shit most hands can easily handle—what’s the point? Do RFID-enhanced people regard themselves as walking art or pioneers of new technology? And with the rapid pace of technological advancement, would a person need regular implant updates just to stay current? Yeah, those suckers are small, but over the years will they add up to millions of little scraps floating around in your body, making it all lumpy and shit? Not Fun.

The topic was fascinating, the speakers were engaging, but the best part was how well informed the audience was (there were roughly 70 people in attendance). The event ran more like a conversation than a lecture, with people politely interrupting speakers with questions, clarifications, or comments. Even better, if a question was posed to McCarthy or Klunder that they couldn’t answer, inevitably someone else in the audience could.

Amal Graafstra, the man featured in Wednesday’s Seattle Times article for having RFID implants in his hands, was up as Dorkbot’s final speaker. I was really curious to see what he had to say/unlock, but I had a date with Project Runway. Did anyone else see him speak?

For more info on Dorkbot, Wednesday night’s speakers, and pre- and post- RFID surgery photos, click here!


CommentsRSS icon

A fair amount of paranoia with this folks.

However, if RFIDs embedded in books could be used to track their borrowers (Klunder used the example of an organization or government tracking everyone who checked out a copy of Mein Kampf), profiles of borrowers could be created without readers’ knowledge.

This is already done with that nefarious "bar-code" and "database" technology. The difference with RFID is that instead of having to scan each individual book, they can just scan from a distance.

Seriously, if a library or the government or corporation wants to track your purchases or what you're reading, they're doing it already and they don't need RFID to do it.

What is the benefit of walking around with a profile of yourself when people can simply approach you and strike up a conversation?

It's an icebreaker? Seriously, who in Seattle approaches total strangers to strike up a conversation? I know it's different in other cities but Seattle is almost notoriously insular. You need only visit a bar to notice it.

As CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) pointed out, the chips can continue to transmit signals after sales, which is rather ominous.

Ominous because... someone might find out you're wearing Bennetton clothing? It's not like your credit card history or personal information would be contained in the chip. It'd more useless information like "Bennetton shirt model 39392 manufactured 3-3-2006 in factory 24248"... info that would only be useful to Bennetton.

I'm guessing implanted RFIDs would only broadcast some sort of unique key. So you wouldn't get a special chip to open your car door, you'd calibrate your car to respond to your existing RFID chip.

RFID is more about tracking physical inventory efficiently not personal information. The horse left the barn on the latter a long time ago.

Seriously, I can't write anything at length without typing "seriously" every other sentence. Seriously.

I also have the same problem where I use also all the time also and start most sentences with "also," even though I think that might be grammatically incorrect.

Almost all Gap and Lands End clothing has RFIDs sewn in. As Aexia points out, these track nothing remotely ominous; they merely identify a bit of store stock in their computer.

As with almost all technological solutions to security problems, fun can ensue when the tech turns out to be dumber than hoped for. I've had my Lands End pants (hey, when you want yellow your options are limited) set off the door security buzzer at a completely different store.

The drawback to the passport RFID is that, contrary to assurances by the Feds, the tag can easily be read from significant distances with homemade electronics. The Feds say it's only eight inches, but actual field tests by geeks have picked them up at much greater range, 25 feet or more. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with scenarios where being electronically identified as a US citizen from a distance is a bad idea; think "Baghdad".

The problem with databases isn't the security of RFID, it's the security, and not just, or even primarily, the technological security, of the database. We know from experience that no one ever leaves a laptop full of personal data at the airport, or gives out passwords over the phone to bogus "field techs", or leaves their screens logged in when they leave internet cafes.....

my friend mikey spoke at the NYC dorkbot meeting in january about his own RFID implant

http://www.electric-clothing.com/chipped.html

he definitely seems to be into it for the technical aspects & not art, and even went to the trouble of modifying some clothing in recognition of the security issues with this technology. given the small scan range and storage capacity, using it for rss downloading almost makes sense.

It doesn't take much imagination to come up with scenarios where being electronically identified as a US citizen from a distance is a bad idea; think "Baghdad".

I do agree that personal information on an RFID chip is a fairly bad idea... you end up with scenarios where a terrorist sets up a bomb to detonate when it detects more than X US passports in its immediate vicinity.

And of course, Minority Report had a fairly creepy vision of what could be done with a similar technology.

I suppose there are still interesting applications for the clothing RFIDs that could be data mined. Maybe McDonald's customers tend to shop at Old Navy so we'll see Performance Fleece Happy Meals in the future?

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