Crime, Why you should keep your old Microwave, Open Source T-Shirts and Clothing End user licensing! (Predictions Part 2)
Misc, posted: 12-DEC-2006 10:11
Following on from Part One of my near-Future Predictions still on RFID,
[CRIME]
Making the assumption that next to everything will end up with an RFID tag,
A smart potential thief could drive around a targeted area using an RFID scanner / receiver combined with a GPS enabled laptop or PDA,
No one would notice as it would just be a guy / girl driving past in a car, not looking the slightest bit suspicious.
They could take an inventory of large areas using RFID, then go over the data combined with say Google maps, smaps.co.nz or another directory / mapping service, and discover which house will be the most profitable to burglarize.
Or in the case they are stealing to order, they will have their work cut out for them (comparatively anyway)
-However-
All is not wonderful for the would-be techno thieves,
As they will need to work out a way of then disabling the RFID and making sure that they can’t be caught the same way they found their ill-gotten goods.
The general public and the thieves will have a few easy-ish methods of disabling the RFID on certain products.
---------------------------------- Why an old microwave will be a great asset. ----------------------------------\
Realistically, all that it would take to prevent others profiling you based on RFID data whilst you’re out in public, would be to do the following.
Immediately after the purchase of a new item of clothing, or perhaps a new pair of shoes, you pop them in the microwave for 10 seconds or so, idealistically that should damage an RFID beyond recognition,
or perhaps a degaussing loop to magnetically obliterate the RFID.
Obviously credit cards, phones, etc. will not work with this method – well the rfid will be disabled, but then so will your credit card!
--------------------------------------------------Clothing EULA!?!--------------------------------------------------
The next step will be that clothing and pretty much everything you buy will come with a EULA,
vacuum cleaners come with them now, (and the Roomba is awesome!).
But that EULA will be that instead of purchasing an item outright, you will be purchasing the license to use and wear the clothing however you will not be allowed to modify the original material, nor use it for a purpose outside the Manufacturers specification.
But I’m sure it won’t be long until a trade in Open source T-Shirts will be booming!
Im not the only one who thinks these trends will occur Richard Thomas - the UKs' Information Commissioner,
Has written/ been involved in the release of a new report entitled "A surveillance Society" Some of the quotes that are being thrown around the web are
"In 2016 Thomas predicts shoppers will be scanned as they enter stores and their Clothes recognised through unique RFID tags embedded in them. This data will be matched with loyalty card data to affect the way they are treated as they do their shopping, with some given preferential treatment over others."
I don’t know that it will even take another ten years, I think that it could be here much sooner.
If you take a look at good old Moore's law, and the general trend of technology to accelerate,
we are looking at a situation much sooner that could mean we are all tracked.
For now though, keep your eyes open and think about what your privacy is truly worth.
Part 3 will cover more on tracking, Health and other bits and pieces.
Tag(s):
open-source t-shirts
clothing eula
crime
rfid
advertising
privacy
predictions of the future
internet
web 2
web 3
things to come
surveillance society.
More information
Other related posts:
Useful Links and A bit of humour...
TOR: A Cool project from the Internet
NASA, perchlorates and the giant Mars soil composition question mark.
[CRIME]
Making the assumption that next to everything will end up with an RFID tag,
A smart potential thief could drive around a targeted area using an RFID scanner / receiver combined with a GPS enabled laptop or PDA,
No one would notice as it would just be a guy / girl driving past in a car, not looking the slightest bit suspicious.
They could take an inventory of large areas using RFID, then go over the data combined with say Google maps, smaps.co.nz or another directory / mapping service, and discover which house will be the most profitable to burglarize.
Or in the case they are stealing to order, they will have their work cut out for them (comparatively anyway)
-However-
All is not wonderful for the would-be techno thieves,
As they will need to work out a way of then disabling the RFID and making sure that they can’t be caught the same way they found their ill-gotten goods.
The general public and the thieves will have a few easy-ish methods of disabling the RFID on certain products.
---------------------------------- Why an old microwave will be a great asset. ----------------------------------\
Realistically, all that it would take to prevent others profiling you based on RFID data whilst you’re out in public, would be to do the following.
Immediately after the purchase of a new item of clothing, or perhaps a new pair of shoes, you pop them in the microwave for 10 seconds or so, idealistically that should damage an RFID beyond recognition,
or perhaps a degaussing loop to magnetically obliterate the RFID.
Obviously credit cards, phones, etc. will not work with this method – well the rfid will be disabled, but then so will your credit card!
--------------------------------------------------Clothing EULA!?!--------------------------------------------------
The next step will be that clothing and pretty much everything you buy will come with a EULA,
vacuum cleaners come with them now, (and the Roomba is awesome!).
But that EULA will be that instead of purchasing an item outright, you will be purchasing the license to use and wear the clothing however you will not be allowed to modify the original material, nor use it for a purpose outside the Manufacturers specification.
But I’m sure it won’t be long until a trade in Open source T-Shirts will be booming!
Im not the only one who thinks these trends will occur Richard Thomas - the UKs' Information Commissioner,
Has written/ been involved in the release of a new report entitled "A surveillance Society" Some of the quotes that are being thrown around the web are
"In 2016 Thomas predicts shoppers will be scanned as they enter stores and their Clothes recognised through unique RFID tags embedded in them. This data will be matched with loyalty card data to affect the way they are treated as they do their shopping, with some given preferential treatment over others."
I don’t know that it will even take another ten years, I think that it could be here much sooner.
If you take a look at good old Moore's law, and the general trend of technology to accelerate,
we are looking at a situation much sooner that could mean we are all tracked.
For now though, keep your eyes open and think about what your privacy is truly worth.
Part 3 will cover more on tracking, Health and other bits and pieces.
Tag(s):
open-source t-shirts
clothing eula
crime
rfid
advertising
privacy
predictions of the future
internet
web 2
web 3
things to come
surveillance society.
More information
Other related posts:
Useful Links and A bit of humour...
TOR: A Cool project from the Internet
NASA, perchlorates and the giant Mars soil composition question mark.
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Comment by sbiddle, on 13-DEC-2006 11:51
This is no different to now where loyalty cards create a profile of your shopping habits.