Category: Electronic Rights

RFID Commercial Research at the UW

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Ryan J. Foley writes from Madison, WI:

What makes UW-Madison’s lab unique is its collaboration with industry and its focus on the physics and engineering behind the technology, said Sweeney, who has visited other RFID labs elsewhere.
Critics worry, however, that UW-Madison is contributing to technology that could ultimately track humans.
One such fear involves the use of tags in clothing and shoes. If the chips aren’t deactivated at the time of sale, unsuspecting consumers might essentially be carrying around information about their buying habits, allowing stores to target them with intrusive marketing pitches the next time they visit.
“When I see the move of RFID into universities, it concerns me,” said Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specializes in RFID technology and shoppers. “It is sending a message that not only do we not have to worry about privacy but you can profit from it by a career perspective.”

RIAA vs the People

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Lawyers representing people who have been sued by the RIAA started a blog:

We are lawyers in New York City. We practice law at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.

Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation we and our firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.

We find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.

We have set up this blog in order to collect evidence and input about these oppressive lawsuit.

One of World’s Most Prolific Spammers Arrested

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Chris Williams:

A Minnesota man considered one of the world’s most prolific e-mail spammers was indicted on more than a dozen federal charges related to the operation of his business, Xpress Pharmacy Direct.

The indictment against Christopher William Smith, 25, was unsealed Wednesday after he was arrested at his home in Prior Lake. Dr. Philip Mach, 47, of Franklin Park, N.J., and Bruce Jordan Lieberman, 45, from Farmingdale, N.Y., were also charged in the indictment, federal prosecutors said.

Slashdot discussion.

NYC: $212M on Surveillance Cameras

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Bruce Schneier:

New York City is spending $212 million on surveillance technology: 1,000 video cameras and 3,000 motion sensors for the city’s subways, bridges, and tunnels.
Why? Why, given that cameras didn’t stop the London train bombings? Why, when there is no evidence that cameras are effectice at reducing either terrorism and crime, and every reason to believe that they are ineffective?

Request Your Right to Travel Records from the TSA

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Ann Harrison:

In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?

You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.

Be Your Own Security

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Mark Hoekstra:

The world is an increasingly dangerouse place. Research has shown that people need to get inspected to feel secure, even if the actual inspection is a complete farce. Yet as a society we cannot hire half the population to perform bogus inspections on the other half in order to keep up with market demand for perceived security

Classic – read it all.

Tommy Thompson: “Stick a RFID Chip in Your Body”

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RedNova News:

President Bush’s former health secretary Tommy Thompson is putting the final touches to a plan that could result in US citizens having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip inserted under their skin, The Business has learned.
The RFID capsules would be linked to a computerised database being created by the US Department of Health to store and manage the nation’s health records. It could be the precursor to a similar scheme in the UK.
The president’s budget for 2006 continues to support the use of health information technology by increasing funding to $125m for pilot schemes.
Thompson, now a director of Applied Digital Solutions, the company that makes the chips, intends to publish the proposal in the next 50 days, by which time he plans to have had a VeriChip inserted in his arm. Thompson believes the capsules could help save thousands of lives every year.

I’m glad Tommy is sticking it to himself first on this one. I can see some benefits to this approach, BUT there’s a huge privacy downside.