Be Afraid: Powder-Sized RFID Chips

[geronimotwo]

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/samiljan/4515/be-afraid-powder-sized-rfid-chips

Be Afraid: Powder-Sized RFID Chips
Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:58AM EST
See Comments (3)
Everyone's so paranoid about the RFID chips that are already in place in so many parts of our lives, so here's an item (via Engadget and Pink Tentacle) about Hitachi's new powder-sized RFID chips to make us even more scared of Big Brother (or little-Brother-ID thief). RFID chips are tiny microchips that use radio waves to do everything from conduct credit card transactions (as on those little key-fob-Paypass MasterCard thingies) and pay for tolls (EZ Pass and its ilk) to keeping track of your devices and travel (U.S. passports).
Hitachi plans to start marketing these new chips—seriously no bigger than a speck of dust at 0.05 x 0.05 mm—in two to three years. The company says this super-tiny chip can be used in paper, currency, gift certificates, and the like, but as some sites have pointed out, today's chips are already small enough for those uses. So, as Engadget cracked, does this mean we should be watching what we eat in case of some James-Bond-style pepper-shaker swap?

Maybe, but is the terror around RFID over-hyped? According to most proponents of the technology, and my own experiences paying with PayPass at my local drug store, you really need to physically tap the RFID chip to something for the transaction to go through. And yet, when I go through a toll booth, my RFID-enabled EZ Pass box is only about ten feet away from the sensor. So maybe it is time to watch what you eat, lest Big Brother starts to track you wirelessly (or you spill some RFID powder from which evil ID thieves can extract your vital stats!)

What do you think? Is RFID worth the convenience or is it setting up some dangerous privacy-invasion precedents?

Related links:

Is RFID On Your Radar?
Step Right Up for Your Microchip Implant
Getting Swiped with a No-Swipe Credit Card


in the link they have a picture, this new device is less than 1/4 the size of a pin head. does anyone know if that has an internal power supply as well, or would it still need a battery of some sort?

 

[Zero_DgZ]

The main danger isn't if you manage to ingest the tiny tags, because they're passive and can't do any information gathering of their own. The danger is that areas could be dusted with the things, if the government had enough time and money to piss away, tagging everyone who happened to be at or near, say, a political rally. And then used to follow said people to wherever and arrest/beat them up.

Or be used as de facto evidence of guilt for someone who just happened to be passing by...

 

[Lucky]

When they build the corresponding big transmitter for the purpose of using the tags, then it's time to worry. Or if they find a way to adapt something like cell towers, that would save a lot of transmitting power.

Because aiui the chips get their power from the radio transmitting to them, and that power goes up really fast exponentially with distance, in an inverse-square.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Will the Depleted Uranium in my system from my time in Iraq cancel out any
RFIDs I injest?