[e-privacy] [RFID] A Bit of Privacy

[Marco A. Calamari]

On Fri, 2005-05-06 at 14:48 +0200, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
> http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1536/1/128/
> 
>  	
> A Bit of Privacy
> Instead of killing RFID tags to protect consumer privacy, we could add
> a privacy bit.

Questi sono scemi!
Se fanno cosi', ci sara' sicuramente una backdoor obbligatoria
 per legge.

Mi somiglia all'RFC che proponeva l'"evil bit" per l'header
 dei pacchetti TCP.

Si trattava di un bit che chi faceva attacchi informatici
 avrebbe dovuto porre ad 1 per semplificare il lavoro
 dei firewall.

Ovviamente la data era l'1 aprile.

Ma questi, ahime', mi sembra parlino sul serio.....

> 
> 
> May    2,  2005 -  RFID  privacy    inflames   passions as   few other
> technological  issues can. Readers of  this  journal are familiar with
> the  enormous swirl of media  attention  around the topic. A statistic
> compiled by Ravi Pappu  of ThingMagic summarizes the situation nicely:
> Of the Web  pages returned by  a Google  search on the  term "RFID" in
> late 2003, some   42 percent also contained  the   word "privacy."  If
> item-level  RFID  tagging comes to  pass, there  is no  gainsaying the
> privacy concerns    it will bring.  There  is   a real  possibility of
> constellations  of    small  wireless  devices promiscuously  emitting
> personal information. Some of the  backlash against RFID, however, has
> assumed a form  that is purely dramatic.   Terms like "spy-chips," for
> example, neatly  encapsulate the anxieties of a  certain class of RFID
> opponent. But  they distort any meaningful discussion  of the  uses of
> RFID, deny its benefits and cast privacy as a black-and-white issue.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Killing tags would kill many visions of RFID benefit for consumers. If
> consumers possess  only dead RFID tags,  then smart appliances such as
> RFID-enhanced refrigerators, ovens    and washing  machines  will   be
> unrealizable. Likewise,    RFID   systems to  aid the    elderly  with
> medication compliance and  navigation of  their environments will   be
> more  difficult  to deploy. The  killing  of tags  would preclude many
> other possibilities for consumers,  like item returns in  retail shops
> without receipts (not to mention the concomitant benefits to industry,
> like  refined quality-control information),  retrieval  of lost items,
> automated product-part searches and so forth.
> 
> [...]
> 
> To construct a broad RFID infrastructure safely, a balance needs to be
> struck  between  privacy and utility.  The  benefits  of tags must  be
> readily available, but so too  should the means for restricting  their
> emission  of information. The aim  of this article  is to describe the
> privacy bit,  a  simple technological tool  that helps  achieve such a
> balance.  The privacy bit  may be viewed as  a natural extension of an
> existing  technology  known as  electronic  article   surveillance, or
> EAS.  EAS  can serve as  a   conceptual and technical  bridge  for the
> privacy bit.
> 
> +++
> 
> Ciao,
> 
> --
> Andrea Glorioso             sama at miu-ft.org         +39 333 820 5723
>         .:: Media Innovation Unit - Firenze Tecnologia ::.
> 	      Conquering the world for fun and profit
> _______________________________________________
> e-privacy mailing list
> e-privacy at firenze.linux.it
> http://lists.firenze.linux.it/mailman/listinfo/e-privacy
-- 

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