Human Chips

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

My dog has one already.
So does my car.

EZ Pass is not RFID. EZ Pass contains a battery. If EZ Pass is RFID, then so is a cell phone and On-Star.

Meanwhile we can expand that now liberated defintion to include license plates that simply transmit passively on a different electromagnetic frequency.

RFIDs were discussed here previously in RFID'S on February 2006.

A larger question. Who controls your identification? That is the exact same question asked in Are you Screwed - National ID back in May 2002. If we don't demand an identify protection system that serves us, then we will end up with an identify protection system designed by government extremists to serve their interests. This same point was posted repeatedly elsewhere with further details.

Appalling are number of posts with absolutely no grasp of what RFID is or the problems associated. One so foolishly thinks RFID can locate a lost soldier. That is total ignorance of a technology that was even being used in factories in the late 1980s - even sold by (if I remember) Dallas Semiconductor.

For example, buy clothes. If an RFID tag is not disabled, then you become a target for anyone with access to simple monitoring equipment. Furthermore, you would never even know that you are talking to those you don’t want to communicate with. When do you know if that tag is disabled or not? When do you even know if the tag exists?

Currently tagging you is quite legal – not a violation of your privacy. And with a more conservative Supreme Court, any privacy protection will only diminish. This court is more often saying you have no right to privacy.

George Jr wanted to put an RFID tag inside passports. That simply makes Americans easy targets. But again, he is not interested in anything important to you. His agenda (actually Cheney's) is 'more power' for his own benefit - not yours.

[Happy Monkey]

The range of the RFID is a function of both the chip and the receiver...

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

On a more serious note, I could see the value in having them put into military persons in a war theater. If anyone is kidnapped they would be able to find them. They would be able to monitor specific operations by the individual, vs the current method of real time video, usually IR. They could put them in the people who feared being kidnapped, like high value targets, and then immediately find and capture the kidnappers, hopefully before the individuals were injured or killed. It would pretty much eliminate that form of terrorism. Make it voluntary and have the device removed when they left the area of operation.

Better put them in random and unpredictable places on everyone, or else you'll have a lot of hostages getting their arm cut off right off the bat.

[Cloud]

I agree that they would be intrusive and a violation of privacy. Hell, I was a bit unhappy when my city decreed all dogs and cats had to be chipped.

But I confess, I have often wished we had this for children. Having had a child run away and been told she was most likely dead by the police . . . and with all the bad things that happen to children these days (that have always happened to children, whether we like to admit it or not) . . . yeah.

although a voluntary, employment related scenario -- I don't see anything really wrong with that.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Cloud

I agree that they would be intrusive and a violation of privacy. Hell, I was a bit unhappy when my city decreed all dogs and cats had to be chipped.

But I confess, I have often wished we had this for children. Having had a child run away and been told she was most likely dead by the police . . . and with all the bad things that happen to children these days (that have always happened to children, whether we like to admit it or not) . . . yeah.

although a voluntary, employment related scenario -- I don't see anything really wrong with that.

See, that's how they get you. "Bit unhappy" over chipping animals, but totally thrilled when it's "for the children."

In most cases, the pet-based uses are pushing you over the edge of the slippery slope that will end up in mandatory human use. There will be some side-trips to chipping criminals, probably, maybe even including seeing to it that they are all entered in a DNA database ...

It's not paranoia when it's real, people.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by tw

I was wrong

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I was wong.

If true, then you have the credible source that demonstrates it is RFID? Clodfobble still did not provide it. Current she says an arch can read her ID at 80 MPH. Therefore that proves it is RFID? Obviously not true. Wrong? We still have no reason to believe it is RFID. Where such functions are being used - east coast American and German autobahn, neither uses RFID. Why does Clodfobble *know* it is RFID? Apparently xoxoxoBruce has the answer. Well Bruce, share your wisdom. Provide to us what Clodfobble still has not provided. Make your claim accurate.

The Mexican military has people who work in sensitive locations chipped. You can't get into their high-security locations without one.
Some clubs in Denmark have rooms where you can only go and can only pay with chips that your bank has implanted in you.
As for me, not on your life.

[steambender]

Passive tags are exactly that...they really don't transmit, they "reflect". the best way to describe it is imagine you're holding a signaling mirror, and when someone "interrogates" you with a flashlight, you flutter the mirror and send them a morse code serial number.

The tag operates off the energy it receives from the RFID reader transmitter. It causes the feedpoint impedance of it's antenna to change, causing energy to be reflected back to the reader, so the reader detects a the faint fluctuations in the reflections. There's no power source associated with the tag itself, and it doesn't store any energy.

If the amount of RF radiation you received during this process concerns you, is that cellphone in your pocket on?

& you have it on who's word that is what they are putting in you?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

EZ Pass is not RFID. EZ Pass contains a battery. If EZ Pass is RFID, then so is a cell phone and On-Star.

I don't know about EZPass, but TXTag is definitely RFID.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I don't know about EZPass, but TXTag is definitely RFID.

I don't think so. The ariticle says that TX Tag system will operate at 915 Mhz. Return to what an RFID chip does. First it generates electricity from the externally transmitted signal. Then it used that energy to transmit information inside the chip. It's life expectancy is virtually infinite.

From a Dec 2005 article in IEEE Spectrum:

... August issue of Nature Materials ... they obtained 8-volt dc when the receiver coil of the RFID was placed in a 50-MHz electromagnetic field. The rectifier should work at frequencies up to 800 MHz.

This chip used a relatively new material to obtain higher frequencies: pentacene. If TX is using 915 Mhz, then it is not RFID.

EZ Pass users have a transponder. A transceiver in a thin box also contains a lithium battery. Lithium life expectancy is 5 years. However at least one EZ Pass user had a battery fail after three years. She ignored repeated messages about EZ Pass not accepted. Then they started ticketing her. Only then did she get her EZ Pass replaced. If I remember, EZ Pass operates on 915 Mhz. Other systems such as in VA operate on a different frequency. However EZ Pass can be read in VA (and maybe farther south to SC) because toll booths also contain additional hardware for reading EZ Pass transmitters.

EZ Pass, et al are active devices. They transmit when a message is received requesting that transmission. If its battery goes dead, then no response. RFID uses no battery. RFID is powered by RF fields; not by a battery. In that 2005 article, best frequency was 800 Mhz - and it was probably weak at that frequency. RFIDs typically operate below 100 Mhz.

As for cancer myths - even cell phone operate at higher frequencies and with significantly more power.

[tw]

Another IEEE Spectrum article describes a medical RFID chip from Verichip; a Spanish subsidiary of Raytheon. A technical description of this new product:

The chip consists primarily of a coil of wire that acts as an antenna and a microchip capable of generating a radio signal that encodes 128 bits of information and is readable from, at most, centimeters away. The reading device emits a magnetic field that oscillates at a frequency of 134 kilohertz. The reader and the chip’s antenna basically form a transformer, turning the oscillating magnetic field into current in the implant.

Reception range even at 130 kilohertz (below AM or medium wave radio) is 10 cm. Again making it doubtful that TX Tag at 915 Mhz (well above highest TV channel) is RFID. Notice the same power problems that computer chips have as their frequencies approached 1 Ghz. RFID semiconductors have same power loss problems at those frequencies. But RFIDs must be constructed with far less expensive semicondutor technology. Remember, Intel had to push out the envelope to work at such frequencies.

RFID must do so much with so little power. That means operation at lower frequencies. TX Tag sounds more like a battery powered transponder mislabeled by a technically naive reporter.

Demonstrated again is why numbers - the most critical details - are so important in any report.

[Clodfobble]

Technology has improved since 2005, tw. A google search turns up 142,000 results for "RFID 915 mHz." Do I really need to pick one to link you to?

From my original link:

The eGo Plus [TXTag under a different brand], non-battery sticker tag offers a read range of up to 31.5 feet (9.6 meters) and 2048-bit read/write memory at a fraction of the cost of older, less flexible RFID technology. The tag provides the capability to read, write, rewrite, or permanently lock individual bytes. Custom printing and labeling is also available.

[Clodfobble]

I HAVE ONE IN MY CAR TW. THERE IS NO GODDAMN BATTERY IN IT.


Edit: I apologize. I am worked up about something else in real life. Here, have a link. And another. Do I need to go so far as to buy you one of these 915 mHz passive RFID tags for sale?