# RID's - An Aid To Business, A Detriment To Personal Freedon
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 16, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982 "2004-11-16T02:17:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/1 "2004-11-16T02:17:47Z")
Tonight’s NBC news carried a story about the use of Radio Identification Devices, **RID’s** from expediting tracking of shipped products, and grocery store check out, to tracking Rx drugs both prior to but also after sale.
An improved business tactic? Good application?
An invasion of personal privacy? Bad idea from the git=go?
About the size of a large postage stamp.
How long would they be viable?
Self powered?
Range of signal?
Could the signal be negated in some way?
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/2 "2004-11-16T02:37:01Z")
Any radio frequency device can be disabled. Just takes the right tools and a lot of know-how.
Ignoring most of the other aspects of RIDs (most stores claim they will be turned “off” once the product is scanned), I will add something to your title:
**Aid to business, detriment to personal freedom, dream for convenient living**
Companies first speculating on RID tags are similar to how they talk about cell-phone tracking systems; to deliver content to an individual who would be interested at the right time and at the right place. Walk into a store and have a tag be read about your preferences, for instance. We saw something like this in Minority Report when Tom Cruise walks into the store and it suggests a suit for him. Other applications of convenience include tracking products within the home, dating how old things are, etc etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to throw away my privacy rights, but there is a beast out there in the American consumer who has demonstrated that they are happy to sell their rights for convenience.
Hell, consumers are so stupid that they buy shirts and products advertising the shirt or product company, or e-mail addresses. Don’t think it isn’t beyond them to think RID tracking is a brilliant idea.
There is a great balance between convenience and security. We deal with it daily working with computers.
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/3 "2004-11-16T02:39:31Z")
Let me get this straight here…
You think it’s a bad idea for a store or a manufacturer to protect themselves from being ripped off?
And you are looking for a way around it?
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### Author:  [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/4 "2004-11-16T02:40:34Z")
Here is some factual information on RID’s.
[A Report on RID’s](http://crypto.csail.mit.edu/~sweis/masters.pdf)
RID’s are not so much new afterall. The news is just slow in learning about what is going on in the world or they had time on their hands to hunt for something to fill in the allotted time.
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/5 "2004-11-16T02:40:51Z")
We’ve got to stop posting in the same thread so often.
People are going to talk.
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/6 "2004-11-16T02:48:54Z")
> [@Reeder](#):
>
> Let me get this straight here…
>
> You think it’s a bad idea for a store or a manufacturer to protect themselves from being ripped off?
>
> And you are looking for a way around it?
The issue isn’t the store or manufacturer from getting ripped off - you obviously don’t understand the structure of the system or how it works. Originally conceived, RID tags would stay active, tracking the purchase after it leaves the store. It would be used by companies to monitor the use of their product.
Basically, everyone is perfectly fine with RIDs on the sales floor. It is the second it is scanned and bought that concerns privacy advocates. If the RID continues functioning, it can do a lot with personal information. The industry has been fighting to get past these concerns for years (and to lower cost per RID), and they’re finally at a point where they are starting to be deployed, but consumer watchdogs and cynics aren’t convinced that RIDs are totally deactivated and defunct after the purchase is made.
Part of this, as I explained, is becasue RIDs have other uses - tracking how old a carton of milk is, for example. Or on a cell phone. Or on a number of things that can trigger a response from something else.
> **[Radio-frequency identification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID)**
>
> Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromagnetic interrogation pulse from a nearby RFID reader device, the tag transmits digital data, usually an identifying inventory number, back to the reader. This number can be used to track inventory goods.
> Passive tags are powered by energy from the RFID re...
> [@](#):
>
> The use of RFID technology has engendered considerable controversy and even product boycotts. The four main privacy concerns regarding RFID are:
>
> ```
> * The purchaser of an item will not necessarily be aware of the presence of the tag or be able to remove it;
> * The tag can be read at a distance without the knowledge of the individual;
> * If a tagged item is paid for by credit card or in conjunction with use of a loyalty card, then it would be possible to tie the unique ID of that item to the identity of the purchaser; and
> * Tags create, or are proposed to create, globally unique serial numbers for all products, even though this creates privacy problems and is completely unnecessary for most applications.
>
> ```
>
> Most concerns revolve around the fact that RFID tags affixed to products remain functional even after the products have been purchased and taken home, and thus can be used for surveillance, and other nefarious purposes unrelated to their supply chain inventory functions. Although RFID tags are only officially intended for short-distance use, they can be interrogated from greater distances by anyone with a high-gain antenna, potentially allowing the contents of a house to be scanned at a distance. Even short range scanning is a concern if all the items detected are logged in a database every time a person passes a reader, or if it is done for nefarious reasons (e.g., a mugger using a hand-held scanner to obtain an instant assessment of the wealth of potential victims). With permanent RFID serial numbers, an item leaks unexpected information about a person even after disposal; for example, items that are resold, or given away, enable mapping of a person’s social network.
>
> Another privacy issue is due to RFID’s support for a singulation (anti-collision) protocol. This is the means by which a reader enumerates all the tags responding to it without them mutually interfering. The structure of the most common version of this protocol is such that all but the last bit of each tag’s serial number can be deduced by passively eavesdropping on just the reader’s part of the protocol. Because of this, whenever RFID tags are near to readers, the distance at which a tag’s signal can be eavesdropped is irrelevant; what counts is the distance at which the much more powerful reader can be received. Just how far this can be depends on the type of the reader, but in the extreme case some readers have a maximum power output (4 W) that could be received from tens of kilometres away.
>
> …
>
> In January 2004 a group of privacy advocates was invited to METRO Future Store in Germany, where an RFID pilot project was implemented. It was uncovered by accident that METRO “Payback” customer loyalty cards contained RFID tags with customer IDs, a fact that was disclosed neither to customers receiving the cards, nor to this group of privacy advocates. This happened despite assurances by METRO that no customer identification data was tracked and all RFID usage was clearly disclosed. [5] ([http://www.spychips.com/metro/overview.html](http://www.spychips.com/metro/overview.html))
>
> The controversy was furthered by the accidental exposure of a proposed Auto-ID consortium public relations campaign that was designed to “neutralize opposition” and get consumers to “resign themselves to the inevitability of it” whilst merely pretending to address their concerns. [6]
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/7 "2004-11-16T02:59:44Z")
> [@Reeder](#):
>
> We’ve got to stop posting in the same thread so often.
>
> People are going to talk.
No kidding, especially since I used Wikipedia refs on both of them.
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2004, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/8 "2004-11-16T03:48:23Z")
Last I saw, the tags themselves were still rather expensive, $0.50-$1. Rather pricey to stop shoplifting.
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### Author:  [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rids-an-aid-to-business-a-detriment-to-personal-freedon/274982/9 "2004-12-25T16:57:20Z")
> [@SmackFu](#):
>
> Last I saw, the tags themselves were still rather expensive, $0.50-$1. Rather pricey to stop shoplifting.
The door arrays on any walmart, target, compusa, etc are RFID sensors. They are very common, but mostly on higher priced items that are easily stolen.
It has been opined that theives could use RFID systems to “scan” your house for desirable items. The problem is the tegs will not reply with a strong enough signal to penetrate any significant walls, doors, etc. Bathing a house with enough radio power to generate a strong return from an RFID tag would probably fry unshileded electronics. The thing that would worry me would be the possibility of “active” RFID in things like appliances where accessibility to line power would enable them to broadcast information at range. Even then there could be uses within specific markets, especially grocery items.
A delivery truck carrying various fresh foods could easily query a house with a RFID equipped refrigerator to check the age of items and stop in to see if you would like to make a purchase.
Even without this a refrigerator could easily read when a carton of milk was placed in it, including size if included on RFID info. After a few months the fridge would know your eating habits and suggest shopping lists because it knows you go through approximately .138 gallons of milk per day and it has been 6 days since your last carton was purchased. It could also do things like create a reminder that older product of the same type is still present inside and should be used first or disposed of when you remove a fresh carton of milk forgetting the almost empty on tucked behind the orange juice.
The technology will of course initially be expensive but would probably save you money in the long run by allowing you to make better purchasing decisions and reduce waste.
JIT/Lean Manufacturing meet the home kitchen 😃