Jeffrey Harrow discusses technology trends, and where they're taking us:
"Larger than a dust mote (but not by much); inexpensive to manufacture and distribute and deploy; millions, and later billions and trillions of them -- virtually everywhere. They will be sowed as if by the four winds, lodging into clothing, tennis balls, tools, passports, car keys, car VIN plates, books, banknotes, pamphlets, and letters. They will become pervasive. And wherever one is, someone will know. (Or at least will have the potential to know.)
This is not a futuristic discussion of nanobots or other bleeding-edge technologies; this is instead the likely results for the lineage of already commercially deployed "Radio Frequency Identification Tags" (RFID Tags) which seem poised to replace today's retail "UPC Bar Codes."
You might also want to peruse this reader comment, which follows my favourite rule and asks "how could this technology be used by criminals and others outside the law?"
Future Brief is a new site that offers brief summaries and other resources to help people, especially those on The Hill who form national policy, to keep up on technological innovations -- but with an added twist. The site "takes one step back and looks at the greater convergence of the accelerating changes in science and technology, with the equally rapidly accelerating changes in society and politics." Expect more links to their work here at Winds of Change.NET.
UPDATE: Tim Oren of Pacifica VC comments: "I'm here to tell you that the situation is actually both worse and better than that."
Virtually everything in life is subject to and is used in criminal activity or is attacked in some way. The internet comes to mind as something that - regardless - we'd rather not be without.
Heck with it, let's trudge on with the evil ones in tow as always.
I'd also like to see thoughts on "How could this technology be used in the GWOT, both
(a) in specific counter-terrorism techniques and
(b) in de Soto processing, ref http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465016154
(a) Consider trading in every Iraqi ration card for an RFID card (make it attractive, maybe, by offering a wristwatch or even text-messager.) For each person there are also RFIDs for every vehicle, every weapon, and every corner on a property boundary -- each RFID tag is registered in our database with at least a camera-phone-quality photograph, and property-corners are registered with photo and GPS location. Anybody can go anywhere, but it's hard to go anywhere undetected. Any vehicle or weapon or person found moving around untagged is subject to unpleasantries. I could go further, but you get the idea; we are trying to assist security by constraining privacy rather than liberty.
(b) The RFID card is also an ATM/credit card; credit is of course based on what is registered in your name (which will often be wrong, but conflicts are detectable) and on the FOAF ( http://www.foaf-project.org/ ) data which people accumulate for each other. Again, I could go on, this isn't getting into the specifics of de Soto at all, but it could be a start -- and I think that getting capitalism to triumph outside the West is very central to the GWOT.
(As to criminal applications: note that there need be no data available to the criminal who simply wanders around looking at RFID tags except that "there's a tag on this object." To get more, you gotta hack the database, which is a problem but is at least not an RFID-specific problem.)
Could these things be inserted into people? That would make for some interesting permutations.
Short answer: yes, they could be inserted into people.
Children and RFID Systems
RFID's positive identification
Needless to say RFID has many applications and is used in everything from PC peripherals such as keyboards and mouse to your TV remote control and garage door opener. These applications although beneficial do not in any way shape or form compromise an individuals privacy.
RFID could be used to track and monitor any or all segments of the population. Personally I'm not keen on it for a host of reasons but suffice it to say the major reason is freedom and individual liberty.
I do agree we need to monitor and protect our borders better than we do today. RFID does have some merit and will play a role but extending it to the point of insertion into humans is where I draw the line. If we are on that track the next generation will be born with GPS chips implanted at birth. Would this technology be used to eliminate you as a suspect in a crime or would it be used to monitor your daily trips to the head? Sounds inane but you let that genie out of the bottle and you give up all of your privacy. I would also add that a form of this type of control was implemented when the Jews were tattooed.