Listen up, Wal-Mart: "No spychips!"

[Michael Fisher]

These companies are distributing wireless transmitters that can be used by the government, or anyone else, to track us all.

Vehicle black boxes (EDRs - event data recorders) have the same problems and they're installed in 95% of cars made after 1996.? There are companies that have publicly released proposals for wireless transmission of black box data to central government databases "for insurance and safety purposes".

Missouri is now trying to track mobile phone signals "to measure traffic congestion".

Privacy is extremely important, if only to protect us against the government.? I have a confidentiality guarantee with my computer service business where I give my word to protect the confidentiality of my customers' personal information, data, records, payments, etc.? I will die before I break this vow of confidentiality.

I even sold my Honda Insight and bought a '95 VW Jetta so I'd have a vehicle without a black box data recorder.

That is how serious I am about privacy.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I'm not sure what we can do about this, except become and remain informed.  You can try to inform others, but, you run up against the 'sheeple' problem, again.
Do any of you tech guys out there know anything about RFID readers?  Will a reader pick up any RFID or are they tuned to just read some?  How much does a reader cost, and, or, how hard would it be to make them.  How can we cook the RFID's without damaging the item they are installed in?  Eventually we need something that cooks a sniffer device when it is pointed at our property.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Answered my own question:

http://www.rfidsupplychain.com/Search.bok?category=RFID+Readers

Kit?:

http://seattleweb.intel-research.net/projects/HandheldRFIDReader/

[Lloyd Danforth]

I kept finding interesting stuff, so, here is the entire Google page:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=RFID+readers

[KBCraig]

In Spychips we learn the fascinating history of RFID. It had its origins, Albrecht and McIntyre tell us, with a Russian spy named Lev Termen. Termen (aka Theramin) used sold-out concerts in New York?s Metropolitan Opera House to actually relay intelligence information back to the Soviets. Based on that technology an RFID bug was later hidden in a wooden plaque of the Great Seal of the United States and presented to U.S. Ambassador Averell Harriman by Russian school children in 1945. The spychipped plaque hung in the ambassador?s office giving up Cold War secrets until it was discovered in 1952.

RFID in 1942-45????

At the time, American spooks hadn?t a clue what this RFID technology was.

Nor anyone else, since the transistor hadn't even been invented, much less the microchip!

I'm concerned about abuses of RFID through fascist collusion, but... c'mon! This might just be reporter error in action, but if Albrecht's book actually says what this article says, then it's a silly source. If anyone has or has read Albrecht's book can comment on this, please do!

Kevin

[Dreepa]

Heard her speak at the MVP meeting.

Hearing her convinced me to go to the protest afterwards.

About 25-30 people were there.
Pictures to follow!

Kevin I haven't read her book but now I plan to.

[KBCraig]

I read the Wikipedia page on RFID, and I see now that the ambassador's plaque had nothing to do with RFID, but used a similar principle of remote activation.

The Wikipedia source is a good primer.

Kevin

[Michael Fisher]

Today's protest was excellent.  I was significantly late but had the chance to see it half-way through.  I was way too tired to drive at 2pm when I woke up today.   

I got to meet Dreepa and Toomy. 

Then I was lucky enough to hang out with Katherine Albrecht at Wal-Mart for a while. 

We went into the electronics section and found one of the RFID chips.  You could actually see it bulging out of the UPC label if you looked closely.  It was smaller in diameter than the power light on my computer's monitor and about half the thickness of a CD.   

[Pat McCotter]

I did a search for "CASPIAN" on the RFID Journal site:
http://search.rfidjournal.net/search?q=caspian&restrict=&btnG=Search&ie=&site=my_collection&output=xml_no_dtd&client=my_collection&lr=&proxystylesheet=my_collection&oe=

228 results

[toowm]

Ian-

Katherine's presentation at the Merrimack Valley porc meeting was a great intro into the concerns over RFID and convinced many of us to go staight to the Walmart protest. While some of the issues do sound far-fetched (and scary), here are some real world issues to consider:

- Katherine is very much a (your term) voluntarian. Confronted with concerns over privacy with Spychips (title of her book), she and her co-author are seeking volunatry solutions. All other groups are seeking government solutions. CASPIAN asked retailers not to include RFID on individual products (crates for inventory management were OK), as volutary compliance for their costumers. Many retailers agreed, including Walmart.

- Now Walmart has backed out of that promise by requesting individual item chips from their vendors and has received them on some printers.

- Once these were discovered on the shelves in Texas, and protested by CASPIAN, Walmart claimed that consumers knew about and accepted RFID, employeed understood, and that it was just a test market in Texas.

- All of these turned out to be wrong, and the printers were found in NH Walmart stores.

I know that RFID is not going to become my #1 liberty issue, but it was well worth my time at the protest. This gets back to Harry Browne's idea to support liberty-mided groups, even if you don't agree with them.  I will be reading the Spychips book, and I'd suggest you or one of your co-hosts read it as well. On my own credibility-meter, Katherine is higher than Mark Stevens, who you've supported on the show. I think Katherine would make a great guest. She can talk about the current issues, and move on to the scary stuff - a Gillete shelf that took pictures with a hidden camera when you picked up individual razors, actual patents on spying public areas and spying on garbage, etc.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Heard her speak at the MVP meeting.

Hearing her convinced me to go to the protest afterwards.

About 25-30 people were there.
Pictures to follow!

Kevin I haven't read her book but now I plan to.

Yes, seeing, and, hearing her speak is usually enough to get men to travel aroun following her.

[Michael Fisher]

Heard her speak at the MVP meeting.

Hearing her convinced me to go to the protest afterwards.

About 25-30 people were there.
Pictures to follow!

Kevin I haven't read her book but now I plan to.

Yes, seeing, and, hearing her speak is usually enough to get men to travel aroun following her.

LOL

[Dave Ridley]

How did the protest go, can we get a report?

any media present, how many people, etc.

I called the union leader , wgir and wmur an hour before it to remind them, and talked about it on the air at WKBK keene that morning so even if no one showed, that doesn't mean no one heard about it.

[Dreepa]

There were about 25-30 people there.
One reporter showed up from Bedford ( It will probably make the Bedford local paper).  He interviewed Joel, Katherine and took some pictures.  He also said he was going to go to the front of the Walmart and interview some random shoppers to see if they were concerned about RFID.  ( Ask the sheep as the go to the slaughter?).

Video and still pictures were taken.  Amy handed out some flyers to cars that stopped ( They had to stop it there was a stop sign there.)

I am now officially avoiding Walmart ( I was never a big shopper there anyways.)

[Kat Kanning]

Can you help but be a big shopper whereever you shop?