Can't Spell Big Brother Without a Big Bother

Some of you expressed the same thoughts as I did about my last post regarding RFID tagging patrons - that it just wouldn't go over well - but Maryska brought up one point I wanted to look into further. (By the way guys, Blogger is no longer letting me reply to comments. I don't know why, but if I don't reply for a long time it's not because I haven't read or cared, but because I'm trying to circumvent this issue.) How common is RFID tagging outside of the library? I know that it's used commercially in airports and shipping industries as a way to keep track of stock but other than that, my research has been too narrow to really catch anything on this topic. I did find an article that sums up some of the long history of RFID, such as it's implementation in WW2 as a means of differentiating enemy aircraft from friendlies and it's modern uses such as electronic toll paying, but I found this video that covers all that and more. And it's far more exciting than another text post I feel.

Fun facts for people that have now watched this video: that bank card looks just like mine! Neat.
Fun facts for people who haven't or won't watch this video: I will be summarizing some of the later points on the technology in a future post about the technical specifications of RFID tagging. Coming to laptops near you! And apparently baseball is just a ploy from big brother! Now that's a long con.

I'm concluding with some more of this guys videos. If you check out his Youtube channel, the videos mostly focus on off-topic uses for RFID such as those in the video above, they can be quite amusing.





I suppose I spent all that time making a tinfoil tri-point for nothing.




More fun facts: I think those were similar to the type of tags in our worker IDs when I worked construction.

Reference

Bhargava, H., Campbell, A., Das, A. M., Haines, B., Kleinschmidt, & J.Thornton, F. (2006). RFID security. Rockland, MA: Syngress Publishing.

Dobkin, D. M. (2008). The RF in RFID: Passive UHF RFID in practice. Boston: Newnes.

Spekman, R. E., & Sweeney, P. J. (2006). RFID: From concept to implementation. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 36(10), 736-754.