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January 11, 2006
RFID: a pathway to your soul?
Retail consultant Kevin Coupe of MorningNewsBeat tells us the average American household spends $1,500 a week on necessities -- along with a whole lot of useless junk. (My paraphrase.) When you combine all those households, American Demographics reports that Americans spend more each week than the entire annual gross domestic product of Finland. That's a lot of spending.
Kevin Coupe thinks it's great, since "this level of spending has helped to keep the U.S. economy relatively healthy" (though he acknowledges that much of the spending is done on credit cards, contributing to our crushing debt load). He also praises the skyrocketing growth of the U.S. population as "another healthy sign." (Hey! Yeah! Let's make more consumers! Then Americans can consume every last thing on the planet!) But the real jaw-dropper is this advice he gives to marketers about the bloated spenders. In addition to capturing their money, Coupe suggests going straight for their souls.
These are our customers. Understanding them is the first step in serving them. And that means understanding them in fundamental ways... It means going beyond demographics.... Demographics is the study of what makes people the same. Psychographics is the study of what makes them different, and ultimately, we believe, is a better tool for figuring out a pathway into consumers' souls.
Our souls? We'll charitably assume he didn't really mean that. But RFID coupled with our personal data would be the ultimate marketing tool. Coupe explains:
We've become a culture that is able to generate enormous data on almost every customer we have....It is time for the knowledge-based retailer to serve the knowledge-based society. Some technologies, such as RFID, will make this easier...(Think of the powerful, knowledge-based marketing engine that Wal-Mart will have once its RFID efforts really get traction, and it owns banks and can issue credit cards/smart cards to its customers.)
Yes, indeed. I think of the "powerful, knowledge-based marketing engine" now gaining traction every day. But do we really want Wal-Mart owning banks and tracking people around the store with spychipped credit cards? And more importantly, do we really want them having an RFID pathway into our souls?
I don't.
- Katherine Albrecht
Posted by Katherine Albrecht at January 11, 2006 8:14 PM
Comments
Please tell what the proposed purpose is in chipping the livestock
Chris
Posted by: chris mellen at January 22, 2006 4:09 PM
(02/19/06) Yesterday at the GAP in Eatontown, NJ. a sales clerk warned my wife and I that a pair of slacks she bought might set off the security alarm in other stores at the mall where we were shopping. Concerned, I asked her how this might happen. She showed me the "Remove Before Washing or Wearing" tag and 'recommended' that I cut it off after leaving the GAP. Since we were done shopping for the day, I waited until we got home to remove the tag. However, curiosity got the better of me, and I began the challenge of finding out what was 'inside' the tag.
About an hour later, after numerous failed attempts to get the cloth covering off of whatever was inside the tag, I finally resorted to boiling the tag in a pan of water and a tablespoon of table salt. About ten minutes later, the glue final softened and the cloth fell away, revealing the device inside.
That prompted the search which led me to your posting and the pictures of the device I found in the tag. Being a former spy for the military and an electronics technician, I recognized the key components in the device. The outer ring of metal lines is an antenna. The 'square' in the center is a transponder. And, it appears that the small triangular area at the corner of the device may be a tiny battery or some other form of energy producing device.
Although I have no proof, it's my feeling (based on what I know about passive transponders) that the ID tag receives energy from a proximity transmitted. That, in turn, triggers the transponder to return a signal to the transmitters receiver. If my guess is right, the information (or garment identity) in the store's computer, which was input at the time of sale, matches up with the information received from the transponder, and the garment is 'cleared' to leave the store.
However, what prompted my concern was the clerk's statement that the tag might set off the security alarm in other stores. To me this means that the transponder might get 'excited into operation' in those other stores. And, that once excited, it would send a code to that store's receiver that was not in their database. That improper code would then trigger an alarm, and I, the unsuspecting and honest shopper, would have to face the embarrassment and/or humiliation of publicly dealing with that store's security force.
The only good news is, the device does appear to be "passive". However, giving such a device the ability to be "active" would not be very difficult. Such a device could easily store information in exactly that same manner as a writable CD or DVD stores information. And once the information has been 'written' into the chip, it would be accessible by anyone possessing the equipment to trigger the transponder.
Posted by: John A Tuttle at February 20, 2006 9:01 AM
This is kind of a serious response. If RFID is really the mark of the beast, that means that the end times are soon, right? Isn't that good? That means Jesus is returning and after a serious fight and all that, he wins and there's a 1000 years of peace on the earth. And if you believe that God has already determined who is going to be saved, it's not like we need to stall it, God has already deteremined who is in the Book of Life. They're name has been there forever. So, shouldn't we support RFID? Get the end times here more quickly? Hey, the animals are a more palatable way to get the technology a boost. Do you think if we had put one of these chips in our soldiers or reporters that we'd be worried about all the hostage taking in Iraq? I don't think so. I say push for the technology. It may do some good in the short term and bring about the end times a little further down the road. And I don't see that as a bad thing. We know who wins.
Posted by: Mike Brooks at March 2, 2006 11:35 PM
RFID is only half the methodology. Keep an eye on WI-FI technology. Did you know that cities like, Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco and Toronto, Canada already have city wide WI-FI networks in place? That means high speed access anywhere. Hmmmmmm - RFID everywhere and access anywhere. Sounds like the end of time to me! Oh well - how do we stop the inevitable? Let's just pray.
Posted by: Interfacer at March 6, 2006 4:15 PM
Interfacer's comments are disturbing.... "how do you stop the inevitable?" fight agenst it!.... Im not going to be passivly chipped agenst my will.... if it is the end times.... Im going to be on the side that is going to fight for humanity's freedom....not the evil empire.....
Posted by: Johnny at March 16, 2006 6:03 PM