(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

CASPIAN warns that Verichip, the ones who have brought the human-implant RFID to the market had to publish a report of risks associated with the technology to satisfy the Securities and Exchanges Commission before they could IPO. In almost 20 pages of risks (holly clap!) they still neglected to mention that their RFID chips can be cloned… easily. So much for their claim to "tighten security in facilities like nuclear power plants".

"Potential investors should be told how a hacker can simply walk by a chipped person and clone his or her VeriChip signal, a threatdemonstrated by security researcher Jonathan Westhues months ago," says McIntyre, who is a former federal bank examiner.

And most creepily:

The VeriChip implant is a glass encapsulated RFID tag that is injected into the flesh to uniquely number and identify individuals. The tag can be read by radio waves from a few inches away. The highly controversial device is being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to medical records, and serve as a payment instrument when associated with a credit card or pre-paid account.

So you get to be tagged like an animal with something you can't get rid of without surgury, and because your credit card information is in it, all someone has to do to steal your identity is stand near you for a few seconds. Wonderful.

Let's be clear about this: Human implantation of RFID is the most dangerous development in technology ever created. I really need to write an article about this sometime…

RFID can actually be read secretly from great distances.

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Of the proponents of RFID, one of their strongest defenses was, "but RFID can only be read from a few inches away, so it can't every be a problem…."

CASPAIN's newsletter points to this article showing that one company is using RFID to let drivers change the messages on billboards over 500 feet away! For perspective, an American football field is 300 feet long.

Tracked and tagged. At an amusement park.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

If you thought it was hype and paranoia, you were wrong. Not only CAN they create a sensor network to track people with RFID, but they're doing it right now. Denmark's Lego Land puts bracelets on kids that lets them be monitored by the park's many sensors.

Says Katherine Albrecht of spychips.com:

On the safety side, we can't help wondering why parents would let children wander off by themselves armed only with only a tracking device, rather than watching them with their own eyes. If a child is so young or irresponsible that his parents want to fit him with an electronic nanny, what he probably really needs is for those parents to hold his hand and pay attention to him instead. Alienating, authoritarian technologies only contribute to an alienated, cowering populace, whether the setting is an amusement park, a school, a hospital, a birthing center, or a home.

Security theater is the term Bruce Schneier uses to describe a security measure that doesn’t actually improve security as much as it makes us feel more secure. While he disagrees with most uses, he allows that sometimes, feeling better is a good thing. For example, hospitals that put RFID bracelets on newborns that will trigger an alarm if they go through the wrong doors helps reassure new mothers when the babies are out of their sight.

Granted, this is only harmless because there’s no real security problem that is being covered up.