Helping Big Brother

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Helping Big Brother

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Regarding bringing prescription drugs into work you'd have to be an idiot to not figure out how to avoid that and the possible mechanisms to defeat this would quickly render the data meaningless. They become undetectable if you bring the medication in another non-RFID container. Plus, if you happen to work for such a nefarious employer and you really want to mess with their detection system, save all of your RFID-labeled containers - and encourage your co-workers to do likewise - and bring them in EVERY day. In time, the database the employer is using to collect this information will become overwhelmed with the volume of transactions. But, realistically, would the ROI on such an application be worth the employee bad-will it would engender? As for web-tracking, if you're afraid your employer will catch you surfing non-business sites...DON'T DO IT! Your employer has every right to prohibit that and monitor for violations if they want and feel is cost-effective to do so. As for tracking children in schools, I do agree that such technology and the financial incentives involved do make it reasonable to think a kidnapper would use RFID detectors to locate a specific victim. Given the financial state of most schools systems now and the cost of deploying the technology and systems to make tracking kids fully useful, I suspect for the short term this is not a solution we'll see expand rapidly in schools.

[blemay@factorycard.com]

Helping Big Brother

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My understanding of RFID tags (I work in retail and get retail technology magazines) is that they contain only a small amount of information--an ID number, basically. Therefore, of the 2 RFID issues, only the first really matters, because to get a kid's location, you would have to hack into the school's computer system, where you would presumably be able to see the tracking database and the ID database. For the prescription drugs, however, having an RFID scanner at the door of a nightclub or a business would only tell you that a certain RFID tag came in--it would not tell you that it was on a prescription drug bottle, or what kind of drug was in the bottle. That information would be in the drug companies' and drug stores' computers. So you would have to hack their computers as well as having scanners at your door. As far as tracking website use--both businesses and parents already have legitimate ways of doing that. No need to pore over ads to figure that out.

[J.Klebanoff]

Helping Big Brother

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Bob LeMay said:

... to get a kid's location, you would have to hack into the school's computer system ... That information would be in the drug companies' and drug stores' computers. So you would have to hack their computers as well as having scanners at your door. ...

Bob, thanks for those reassuring words. I feel much more secure now, because I know that nobody could ever hack into a school's or a drug store's computers.

[J.Klebanoff]

Helping Big Brother

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Kevin Brunk said:

would the ROI on such an application be worth the employee bad-will it would engender?

As for web-tracking, if you're afraid your employer will catch you surfing non-business sites...DON'T DO IT! Your employer has every right to prohibit that and monitor for violations if they want and feel is cost-effective to do so.

I agree with your first point -- the ROI on trying to track employees' pharmaceuticals almost certainly would not be worth the bad-will it would engender. In fact, I would argue that any ROI calculation should include an estimate of that bad-will. But I think that the same point can be made about the Web tracking issue. It comes down to trust - do you trust your employees or not? Spying on your employees' Web surfing habits is likely to engender the same bad-will as it clearly demonstrates a lack of trust on the part of the employer. The incremental technology costs of someone spending a few minutes a day on personal Web browsing is very close to zero. The only question then becomes lost productivity. If that's your concern, why not measure output rather than looking at Web surfing habits. If a star employee produces twice as much value for the company than his or her colleagues, do you really want to upset your star performers by spying on them and castigating them for spending some personal time on the Web. If you upset them and they leave you'll be left with just employees who don't spend any personal time on the Web, but still aren't able to produce half as much as the ex-employees.

[M.Savino]

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Joel, Then is it possible to be completely out of your mind but only half crazy? And what happens when they want to go different places for lunch? But seriously... I know that the large retailers are pushing for RFID for the OTC Drug market. Who's behind the push for doing it with Rx Drugs? Your article didn't say. Mike

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For the hacking of the drug company to be of much use you would need to do it every day, or every hour, to keep up to date. I think it much more likely that the drug companies would want to sell the information to any interested party as a subscription service? But let's think this through - if you get fired because you have an early-stage lymphoma (God forbid) then you lose the medical assistance and can't afford the very expensive drugs to treat it yourself. That costs the drug companies big bucks very quickly. My guess is they will not want (and not be allowed) to sell the information. In fact they will need to guard it very carefully, for their own sakes. Hacking the school databases is MUCH more likely as the data is pretty static, but it still needs to be undetectably hackable "on demand". I guess it will be cheaper and easier for a kidnapper (or paedophile) to follow potential victims. I'd be much less worried about my children being kidnapped by someone too lazy to even go out and watch them, frankly. Rich.

[J.Klebanoff]

Helping Big Brother

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Mike said:

Then is it possible to be completely out of your mind but only half crazy? And what happens when they want to go different places for lunch?

Welcome to my life.

I know that the large retailers are pushing for RFID for the OTC Drug market. Who's behind the push for doing it with Rx Drugs? Your article didn't say.

The article that I read didn't say who was the biggest pusher (no pun intended) behind RFID for Rx. It just said that one of the primary motivators was to reduce the possibility of counterfeit drugs entering the system -- although, from what I read, the evidence that this is a growing problem seems to be more anecdotal than statistical. And, as a general comment, not specific to anything that Mike said: Before I get dumped on too much for the examples I gave, in truth, I don't expect the nightclub example ever to occur. In my sick mind it was mildly humorous to think that a nightclub might consider making available information about the presence of Viagra users in their clubs. Let me make it clear that I have never heard of, nor do I expect to ever hear of any club that is thinking of doing that. My point was not specific examples, but the fact that there might be some privacy issues that we should consider before blindly accepting some of these technologies, even though they might also offer some benefits.

[R.Daugherty]

Helping Big Brother

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Some thoughts on your thoughts, Joel. Concerning the schoolchildren tracking, I would be surprised if a child's data is accessible without a password. If it is, or even if multiple children are available with a general password, then that would be a serious situation. From my reading, Wal-Mart was the driving force for tagging all goods with RFID tags to use in processing inventory, which probably includes their pharmacies. The FDA was in addition particularly concerned about an increase in counterfeit prescription drugs and wanted to control that with RFID tags on the containers. However, when those containers do carry RFID tags, I expect that only women carry around whole containers in their purses. I think men carrying around a container of Viagra in their pocket would be making double duty of the Viagra or something, but let's not go there. rd

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Helping Big Brother

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'Big Brother' exhibits 'selective security' concerns akin to the selective deafness exhibited by the average teenager. Why is it that the powers that be consider it a good thing to track the medicine bottle I might take into my home but unneccessary to track who owns 50-caliber high powered rifles easily purchased by individuals, capable of piercing 1/2-inch thick armor from 2000 yards, touted as a 'toy' by its manufacturer? I guess it's just a matter of whom we wish to track. I agree with you; they should have to work harder at it. I have been a computer professional (read geek) for more than thiry years. Change is inevitable; if we weren't adaptable as individuals we would be in a different business. We also tend to have the curse/blessing of being extremely logical and being able to hone a problem down to its essence while retaining the big picture. Charting that course vis-a-vis privacy issues arising from exponentially developing technology is quite a challenge. Keep up the rants.

[J.Klebanoff]

Helping Big Brother

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Sunbug said:

Why is it that the powers that be consider it a good thing to track the medicine bottle I might take into my home but unnecessary to track who owns 50-caliber high powered rifles easily purchased by individuals, capable of piercing 1/2-inch thick armor from 2000 yards, touted as a 'toy' by its manufacturer?

Don't you know, "guns don't kill; people kill." At least, that's what "they" say. (Who are they, anyway?) Strange "logic," isn't it?

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Re: Drugs Say your pharmacy had to discount their meds to compete with the mail order houses. To make up the lost revenue, they offer their customer database containing the drug type & RFID number + customer ID (maybe including personally identifiable info, maybe not) for sale. Probably for subscription. It doesn't matter if the personally identifiable info is included to the nightclub owner. It may not matter to the employer either; possession over a long period can be tracked to 'confirm suspicions' about what drugs someone is taking. Also, the RFID tag info can be aggregated with the other info being sent to your credit card processor, potentially enabling your bank to know what meds you take and what products you're buying (in even greater detail than they already do). "You want that loan? It appears you suffer from OCD. The bank doesn't offer loans to people with that affliction because they are 12% more likely to default." Re: Schools Now, considering how original most people are when coming up with passwords, how hard will it be for even a sub-par 'social engineer' hacker to figure out a valid ID/password combo to the school site? Re: Website usage For the business, yes, if they want to track your accesses there are easier ways that are already time-tested to do that. The more interesting impact is int he home: Spousal surfing of adult content sites would probably suffer if they knew their significant other would likely get an adult ad when they next surfed to Yahoo.

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Helping Big Brother

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Re: Drugs Say your pharmacy had to discount their meds to compete with the mail order houses. To make up the lost revenue, they offer their customer database containing the drug type & RFID number + customer ID (maybe including personally identifiable info, maybe not) for sale. Probably for subscription. It doesn't matter if the personally identifiable info is included to the nightclub owner. It may not matter to the employer either; possession over a long period can be tracked to 'confirm suspicions' about what drugs someone is taking. Also, the RFID tag info can be aggregated with the other info being sent to your credit card processor, potentially enabling your bank to know what meds you take and what products you're buying (in even greater detail than they already do). "You want that loan? It appears you suffer from OCD. The bank doesn't offer loans to people with that affliction because they are 12% more likely to default." Re: Schools Now, considering how original most people are when coming up with passwords, how hard will it be for even a sub-par 'social engineer' hacker to figure out a valid ID/password combo to the school site? Re: Website usage For the business, yes, if they want to track your accesses there are easier ways that are already time-tested to do that. The more interesting impact is int he home: Spousal surfing of adult content sites would probably suffer if they knew their significant other would likely get an adult ad when they next surfed to Yahoo.

[David Abramowitz]

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Fushigi wrote: Say your pharmacy had to discount their meds to compete with the mail order houses. To make up the lost revenue, they offer their customer database containing the drug type & RFID number + customer ID (maybe including personally identifiable info, maybe not) for sale Say, , , ,that would be illegal. Dave

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I have half a mind to take your concerns seriously. While I don't believe the range of an RFID is much over 20 feet (at least with current technology), I'm not at all excited about being tracked by government or by business. I can only imagine having someone driving down the street gathering market research neighborhood by neighborhood from all these products in our homes that could potentially be fitted with chips. That thought makes me uncomfortable. But the notion of schools having implantable RFID imbedded into the hands or foreheads of my children is a little to close to the Biblical 'mark of the beast' for me.