Wal-mart spending Billions for RFID

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5104493.html


The system is based on a technology known as radio frequency identification (RFID), a new breed of computer network designed to track the location of everyday objects such as razors and shoes by embedding them with special microchips. Wal-Mart has enlisted its top 100 merchandise suppliers to participate in the high-profile project, one of the first and largest of its kind in the retail industry.

A Wal-Mart representative refused to comment on the company's spending plans.

Wal-Mart's multibillion budget is an unofficial estimate that the company has discussed privately with other companies involved in the project, said the sources, who wished to remain anonymous.

more, and more disturbing information can be had by clicking on the link above...



Surely the current system is good enough as razors and shoes can be packaged with the current theft alarm chip enclosed?

This is the same franchise that treats its employees like shit and treats the customers even worse as they have 1 security camera per 8' of ceiling space. (the WM closest to me has over 100 cameras above the sales floor! One day I went in, did not take a basket, picked up a couple of things which were not easy to carry. I went to get the third item. Put down the other two and picked up the third and then I heard over the PA "Code 6 in Aisle 12", which was where I was at. My coat was fully zipped, they thought I was a freakin' shoplifter. Obviously I make a conscious habit of not shopping there and for any number of reasons, but when I go in the store I feel like a crook and I am not. So fuck 'em. If they want to be a bunch of fascists and consider every customer a criminal, they can rot in hell with Satan himself bathing the CEO's testicles in gasoline and lighting them on fire...)

While they're at it, they should make all WM employees wear hats with hidden cameras in them and have them walk around for complete coverage... x(


(my post on zdnet is slightly altered, mark II, and cleaner... thjough I added 'anti-american' along with 'fascist' in the subject title... heh.)

Privacy activists worry, however, that the unchecked use of RFID could end up trampling consumer privacy by allowing retailers to gather unprecedented amounts of information about activity in their stores and link it to customer information databases. They also worry about the possibility that companies, governments and would-be thieves might be able to monitor people's personal belongings, embedded with tiny RFID microchips, after they are purchased.

"How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?" said Bowen, posing a hypothetical RFID scenario.

One witness at Monday's hearing said that failing to impose conditions on the use of RFID technology could lead to a world not unlike the fictional society portrayed in Steven Spielberg's science-fiction thriller "Minority Report." In that movie, set in 2054, iris scanning technology allows billboards to recognize people and display personalized ads that called out their names. It also allows law enforcement authorities to track people's whereabouts.


http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5065388.html

Minus the c, m, and d of course... :D

Yeah, that's scary.

But I suspect that's where society will go anyway. People seem to think that when it comes to Big Brother, only the government can play the role and corporations do nothing but help us. :eyes: x(

for someone to develop an inexpensive gizmo to detect and fry RFID chips . . . some company somewhere will make a bundle . . .

Wonder who's working on it...someone's got to be.

"When you're a thief, you think everybody else is a thief too."

Coincidentally he was referring to Wal-Mart - I had bought a pair of shoes at Wal-Mart. They had to open them up and check way up in the shoe to make sure I hadn't stashed anthing inside.

I try not to get too mad at the cashiers about things like that, because these people in particular are not vindictive, they're just trying to make their 6.00 an hour so they can buy milk for their kids.

But f*** those Waltons. They're destroying America one item at a time.

I posted on this on the old DU, and people patronizingly told me I was being silly for worrying about it.

I like the idea about frying the chips! It's no ones business what I buy except for my own.

I'm working on RFID ideas. I couldn't care less what you do with them after you've done business with me - fry them, saute them, drown them or crush them with a large rock. After you pay for the product you're out of my sphere of interest.

Alien Technologies is the head firm. They're currently under construction with the plant/offices at the NDSU Research Park. Yeah, it's not a savory business to be in. But it's going to bring hundreds of millions of dollars to Fargo, though.