[OT] NH protest against HP printers with RFID chips Nov. 5th

[Bill Sconce]

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:18:49 -0400
Travis Roy <travis at scootz.net> wrote:

> 
> > On the other hand, plans for RFID tags go beyond stickers on boxes.
> > Suppose they were, say, sewn into a jacket?  THEN your person becomes
> > trackable well after you leave the store.  A similar argument raged
> > recently over binding RFID tags into passports, for similar reasons.
> 
> See, and these things I do have a problem with. Putting them on the tag 
> that's removed that is attached to the jacked, I'm fine with that.. IN 
> the jacket is not cool.
> 
> I'm less annoyed with passports then with say a drivers license, but 
> it's still an issue.


"Less annoyed" is inappropriate.  For any document carried on your person.
Consider a point raised about passports (in one of Bruce Schneier's discussions,
if I remember correctly):  that the person carrying it would be indentifiable
remotely, and at a considerable distance if a directional antenna were used.
What if someone with a political agenda wanted to identify Americans on
the street, in say Paris or Instanbul?

Or if an administration wanted to know who had come into town for a
demonstration?

(The RFID tags in passports or driver's licenses would be different, of
course, in that their data relate directly to a person's identity, whereas
an RFID tag sewn into a jacket could do so only indirectly.)

I think I do agree with Travis that a tag I can see and remove is relatively
innocuous.  It's the unseen ones, and especially the idea that RFID tags
can be read without your knowledge, and at a distance...

-Bill

Whose EZ-Pass transponder stays in a tin box in the glove compartment except
at the toll booths.