I Spy with my Little Eye

Peter de Jager is a provocative Speaker, Writer and Consultant. His primary focus in on how we manage change, technology and the future.

In addition to speaking at conferences worldwide, he also writes monthly columns for CIO Magazine and Computerworld Canada.

His goal is always to question what we think is so, and in so doing perhaps open up new opportunities.

If you'd like permission to reprint any of Peter's articles, please contact him directly.

You can contact him at
pdejager@technobility.com

Hitachi has developed an electronic tag device, called a µ-Chip (Mu-Chip), capable of announcing its presence from a distance of about 30 cm via a radio packet of 128 bits. This by itself isn’t a significant achievement. Other RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) devices can transmit much larger amounts of information a greater distance.

What is significant - is the size of the µ-Chip. It’s small enough to attach to, or be imbedded in, practically anything. It’s as large as the period at the end of this sentence. (.4mm square) and thin enough to imbed into paper. The cost per chip, is around $0.20. Like any new technology, costs will plummet once the technology matures, and demand levels increase.

The proposed uses of such devices are extremely beneficial. Tagging everything with a unique identity and reading this at a distance, increases the efficiency of logistics. Counting and cataloging any collection of items requires nothing more than the waving of a ‘magic’ wand.

It also allows for things like smart medicine cabinets. Imagine a future where your medicine cabinet tells you when a prescription has expired? Or when it contains two medicines which if taken together will cause adverse side effects? All this is possible if medicine is tagged (on the container) and entered by the pharmacy into a global network connected to the electronics in your cabinet.

Other applications include the tagging of books and money, passports and visas, envelopes and milk cartons, credit cards and driver licenses, cell phones and pets, children and thumbs. Some are already tagged, for the rest it’s merely a matter of time and the arrival of the right motivation.

With any technology there are always unintended consequences.

People collect everything… I recently visited the UK and used British Rail as my means of transportation. At each station I noticed a motley crew of mostly scruffy individuals with notebooks and cameras. After a week or so I finally selected one of the more harmless looking specimens and started up a conversation. My first guess was they were lost and confused bird watchers. It turns out they’re a curious English breed known as Trainspotters. Their hobby is to ‘spot’ the various types of engines, carriages and containers used on the British Rail system.

If people collect the spotting of trains, beer mugs, pokemon, pictures of birds and stamps etc. etc. Then there will inevitably be collectors of RFID tags.

Once everything is tagged, imagine what you could learn by passing a wand over a wallet or handbag? Of course, in the beginning all you’d have would be a collection of tags, but as data is compiled connecting tags to items, this would become a very interesting little hobby. How many credit cards does he have? What medications? How much money is in that wallet? No point picking a pocket, if there’s nothing of value for the taking!  

Of course, this is all nothing but a passive form of snooping, taking it an additional step is relatively easy. The reason for tagging items used for some form of identification is obvious. The intent is to increase security in some fashion. The notion is if I can query a tag I will receive back a unique identifier… but if anyone can query the tag, then everyone learns what that unique identifier must be… and creating a device to duplicate it is not, and cannot be made impossible, or even unlikely.

We could assign a unique encryption algorithm to each unique id. You then scan the tag… obtain the unique identifier and submit a random number… the tag would encrypt this number using the algorithm and respond with the magic number… this number is verified against the database of encoding algorithms and validated. While this might all sound very sophisticated, complex and ‘foolproof’… it’s still flawed.

The solution is simply to steal/obtain the process for assigning algorithms to tags and we’re back to square one. Hopefully, being aware of the weakness of this technology will mean we will avoid using it for the really important stuff. Anyone willing to place a bet we’re smart enough to make the right decision?

© 2003, Peter de Jager. Reprinted from - Voyageur Science Fiction Magazine