Taking SpyWare to a whole new level....

[Dr Mordrid]

This is going just a bit too far....

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/09/beamed.barcodes.ap/index.html

Dr. Mordrid

[Tjalfe]

I have seen such articles before, like when benneton supposetly were going to put RFID tags in their clothing.
I happen to have worked a bit with RFID, and I can tell you that the reading range on passive tags, especially the ones that are as small as coins is in the order of a few inches at best, for active tags, which includes a battery, it would be much longer, but the tag would be much much larger. really I doubt it ever paying off to tag anything like orange juice with a tag which requires a battery, and using a passive tag, reading the contents of an entire fridge would be very tricky. As for people spying on you in stores.. well if you come close enough to the till with your tagged item, then technically yes, you can be "read", but you really have to try hard to get close enough.

Kasper

[Marshmallowman]

I used to work for a company that use to make/research Bag tags for airlines. They were "kind of passive" and a meter or so range, they uses the trasmitted power from the scanning device to power the tag...so kind of pasive until triggered but had no battery.

They could make larger ranges, but there main problem was the speed the tag went through the scanner area..

[Wombat]

The ones Wal-Mart was looking into reportedly worked at 15ft.

[The PIT]

Sounds like another annoyance coming to an area near you.

[az]

The bennetton tags were supposed to be readable at up to one meter, and would not be disabled or removed upon purchase, from what I heard (though this was a few months ago, I don't know what became of it).

I just can't imagine this to be economical (yet?), and certainly not ecological.

AZ

[Tjalfe]

The media pretty much made up the benneton thing. they had said that theoy would look into such technology for the future, and the media translated it to them being about to put tags in everything now. Read range is directly related to the size of the tag, so for a one meter read range it would not be coin sized anymore, more like credit card sized. take a look at the Esso speedpass in use now. very limited range. As for a 15' read distance.. only using active tags, which would defenitely not be economical.

[Byock]

Crazy. Companies seem to go to any lengths to get personal information, and say it is in your best interest.

[Tjalfe]

The tag only contains a unique ID #.. nothing more. Last tags I worked with it was 154bits

[az]

The tags Bennetton wanted to use for their Sisley clothes were "i.Code" 512 bit chips by philips, which would contain color, size, model, destination.

They were going to be used as theft protection, to ease shipping (Lab ID system, they say they can scan a whole carton full of clothes at once), to ease mis-placed clothes in the store (when customers tried them on and hung them back in the wrong place, the system would notice it, and a clerk then could place the clothes correctly).

Range was supposed to be slightly over one meter.

I was wrong on one point though, the chips should be deactivated on purchase.

The chips were to be printed into the clothes' labels, including an induction antenna, as I understand it as a power source.

Source: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/resul...words=Benetton (german, from 14th march 2003)

Heise are usually accurate in their reports, but they are quite concerned with privacy, just so you know where they're coming from Note though that the article is not written in subjunction.

As I said, I haven't heard more about this (just a benetton marketing stunt?), so I don't know what has become of it.

AZ

[Tjalfe]

http://www.planetanalog.com/news/OEG20030405S0001

From the sounds of it, it was phillips who did the marketing stunt.

Those read distances quoted there would be best case scenario,lots of transmitter power, tag in perfect position, and in a zero noise environment..
There are two ways to read the tags, one is for the tag to power up from the transmitted signal, then send a datastream back. Manchester encoded. the other is to basically load the transmitter, so the datastream shows on the transmitter.. very faint, so you need some clever electronics there to pick it out.

I worked mostly with 125KHz tags, and a bit with 13.56MHz when they were just appearing.
I still highly doubt the practicallity of having the clothes report that it is in the wrong shelf. would require readers throughout the store. one per shelf, if they were to destinguish each. the readers would then have to be connected to a computer with a database of each tag ID, which would have to be programmed every time a new shipment made it to the store, or when they change the layout of the store. Technically possible.. yes, impractical, defininately. As for tracking peoples spending and shopping habbits, why would they not just use Creditcard / bank card transactions instead?.. they are tied to the till, much easier way to spy