[LINK] RFID again: Your Garbage Can Could Be Spying On You

[Kim Holburn]

More media articles about RFID in wheely bin paranoia:

http://www.livescience.com/scienceoffiction/060831_technovelgy.html
>  Garbage cans all over England are under surveillance tonight. And  
> not by sleepy, fallible humans. At least 500,000 "wheelie bins" now  
> use technology worthy of James Bond's fabled electronics genius  
> "M" (or at least a competent villain from SPECTRE).
>
> Electronic devices (passive RFID tags) about the size of a one- 
> pence piece are screwed into a hole in the lip of the bin. As the  
> bin is hoisted up for emptying, an RFID reader on the refuse truck  
> interrogates the chip, which divulges a serial number identifying  
> the property owner. The weight of the bin is recorded by the  
> truck's sensors and is registered in a database entry along with  
> the serial number.
>
> The database entries for the day are downloaded at the dump (now,  
> that's a data dump!) and stored in a vast central databank of  
> property owner behavior. I can smell a new "garbage tax" on people  
> with overly-heavy cans—how about you?
>
> Although this is frankly a story that is difficult to take  
> seriously, please note the following. You should remember that many  
> of the articles you buy (and sooner or later throw away) are now  
> also equipped with passive RFID tags that detail the item's brand  
> name and product name. If it's possible to scan the tag on the  
> trash can with an ID, it's possible to use similar equipment to  
> quickly scan your can to uncover your purchasing habits.

I like the previous paragraph, as I said before: "Garbage truck warns  
you you are running out of weetbix."

> Contactless credit cards using tiny RFID chips are now being widely  
> tested for use as credit cards and other applications. You can cut  
> up the number portion of a credit card to discourage thieves when  
> you toss it in the trash. But what if you don't cut the tiny chip  
> in the credit card? All of the old information in the card is  
> available (encrypted, but still available).

Ouch, didn't think of that.  Can we run an old new credit card  
through a degausser to kill it?  Or do we need a taser?

Discussion on Slashdot too:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/02/0638243&from=rss

Kim

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Kim Holburn
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