Screw privacy. Put RFID tags in everything

[jmowreader]

I met a nice Christian lady yesterday.

She had a large crucifix on a chain around her neck.

She was wearing two pair of crucifix earrings.

Her keys were on an "I Love Jesus" keychain.

She was dressed in a t-shirt with "Put the Ten Commandments in School" on the front and a list of the Ten Commandments on the back.

She even had her favorite Scriptural passage tattooed on her arm.

Unfortunately, she should have bought the shirt with the commandments on the front, because she seems to have forgotten about a certain one of them. I met this woman because I caught her cutting open the wrapper on an electric dog collar and stuffing the collar in her purse.

My department sells thousands of dollars in merchandise each day, so in the greater scheme of things a fifty-dollar electric dog collar shouldn't matter, but screw that, man! My family depends on me SELLING those collars, not giving them away.

I lose so many of those collars to theft that I've got approval from management (I haven't decided if I'm really going to do it) to clearance the entire set and replace it with a sign that says "discontinued due to excessive theft losses." The product isn't popular enough to justify the space on the bay it requires anyway.

If there was an RFID tag in each of those collars, we'd catch all of these people.

I know the privacy argument, but when you cut open a package and stuff the contents in your purse you FORFEIT the right to privacy. I'd like to print the name and photo of every convicted shoplifter on the front page of the paper.

And you know what? We can deactivate RFID at the register if you pay for the product. I don't care about tracking your every movement once you buy something. I care about stopping theft.

[Why Syzygy]

1. what is an electric dog collar?

and why does it cost $50?

p.s. The crucifixes were the first clue, no?

[jmowreader]

10. It's part of an "invisible fence" system

This is the thing Bush was wearing in the first debate.

In the invisible fence system, you first run an antenna wire all the way around your yard. It is then connected to a transmitter box. (There is also a wireless system, but it sells worse than the wired kind, if that's possible, because it costs $300 to keep one dog in.)

Your dog wears a collar (the thing this woman was attempting to steal) with a receiver on it. There are two little prongs that touch the dog's skin. When your dog crosses the antenna wire in the ground, the collar gives him a shock that convinces him not to go any farther.

An example of the high quality of customers I have: someone came in and bought one of these things. He very neatly installed it in his yard and trained his dog to obey the signals. Then he came in about three weeks later to complain that it doesn't work. His dog went into heat while she was protected by one of these systems and the neighbor's un-neutered male came over and mated with her. "I thought this thing was supposed to keep other dogs out!"

[WildClarySage]

2. She had her favorite scripture tattooed on her arm?

classy lady...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I hope you prosecuted her

to the fullest extent of the law.

[gandalf]

4. "We can deactivate RFID at the register"

Or you can let it be active. How can the customer know? Tags can be so small he won't find them to destruct them.

Maybe you only care about theft. The Ridges and Ashfords would like to know a little bit more.

[MadHound]

5. LOL friend,

Give it up, RFID chips won't protect you from shoplifting. It might temporarily slow down the rate, while people figure out how to deactivate the chip quickly and quietly, but figure that out they will, and will soon be back in business boosting electric dog collars, rings etc.

Shoplifted merchandise is the risk that any business takes. You would probably do better by hiring a plain clothes store dick, or investing in a better camera system.

And yes, the chip can be deactivated at the counter, the trouble is that it probably won't be, and that is where the infringment of my rights begin. NO RFID, not now, not ever. I am not willing to sacrifice my rights so that the store can have the illusion of more security, and quite frankly I think no business has that right to make that sort of decision for me.

Quite frankly I'm going to find out how to deactivate those damn things myself, not to be able to boost stuff, but so that I can retain my privacy. And I think that it is an insult that I'm going to have to spend time and money doing so. Are you willing to compensate me for this time and money spent having to insure my own privacy simply to prop up a company's bottom line temporarily? If not, then stop bitching and advocating that everything gets chipped. Tell you what, why don't you go get chipped? See if having your privacy invaded will change your mind.

[Fescue4u]

9. to deactive an RFID

10 to 20 seconds in the microwave will suffice.

Zaps them quite efficiently.

[jmowreader]

12. How to deactivate RFID at the counter

You've been to stores that have this weird gray box behind the bag holder, right? Not everyone has these, but it's part of the current Sensormatic system. This thing deactivates Sensormatic tags.

I think an RFID-enabled cashier station will have an RFID transponder in that gray box. The cashier will drop the item in the bag and it will be automatically read. When the cashier enters the amount of money you paid, the system will zap all of the tags.

You want to talk violation of privacy? I used to hold a clearance that required maintenance of Close and Continuing Relationship forms. There are two kinds--CCR with Foreign Nationals, and CCR with US Nationals. You get a stack of each when you get read on. Every time you make a new friend, you have to fill out one of these forms so they can be investigated. There are different levels of relationship here--"casual," "business," "intimate." So let's say you are a male GI and you know a nice female GI down in Combat Support Brigade with whom you go to concerts, dancing or drinking once or twice a month. Most of us would have listed this as a "casual" relationship, which is how the manual lists it. Now, let's say the two of you are sitting in the House of 100 Beers attempting to get the rest of the way through the menu when she mentions that she would be amenable to a night in bed together. You have one duty day from the time you had sex with this woman to fill out a new form and to turn it in to your security officer or they will pull your clearance and investigate you with a thoroughness that would make a KGB officer blanch. (However, you only have to report the first time you had sex, because that's a change in status.) And yes, casual sex with too many partners is grounds for suspending access.

(On edit: I'm not worried about the people who can figure out how to deactivate an RFID tag in the store without anyone noticing; those guys are sophisticated enough that they'd get out of shoplifting and into other, more lucrative, forms of theft like breaking into receiving areas. The ones I worry about are the shoplifters who are so dumb they attempt to steal high-end Stanley tape measures that have "this product contains anti-theft devices" written right on the package label. This is no shit. Some things, like the big Stanley tape measures and all DeWalt tools, are made with Sensormatic tags embedded in the product so you can't get them out. And some of that stuff says, right on the package, that the tag is in there. But about three times a week someone will take one of those items out of the wrapper, stick it on his person, stroll through the detectors and get this "who, me?" look when the sensor goes off and we catch them. THOSE are the people RFID will catch.)

[MadHound]

14. You sound like you work in retail, a word of warning then

And this is from a former booster who never, ever got caught(and made a good living doing it).

You should be very worried about those people who can figure out how to deactivate an RFID tag, for they will rob you blind. I guarantee that as soon as those things become prevalent, there will be people who become employed in a retail job for no other reason than to scope out the box that deactivates the RFID tag. I remember when the Sensormatic tags came out initially, everybody in retail thought that they could let their guard down. Wrong, within a month of the rollout, every booster who was in the biz either had a handheld built, or the plans to make one that deactivated the tags. Same with those stupid ink tags.

All that any security device does is keep the honest folks honest, and weed out the amatuers. Those who are serious will always figure out how to beat the system. Meanwhile, that nattily dressed man who looks entirely innocent and sophisticated is walking out the door with half your jewelry inventory down his pants.

[jmowreader]

17. We're worried about them but for a different reason

A store might have twenty doors--and some of them won't have any kind of asset control device on them.

One scam that works for a while: someone will go to work at a store for a few months to learn the lingo of that retailer--and ESPECIALLY what corporate headquarters is called! While they're there, they'll take a handful of unactivated gift cards. This is an easy task--everyone just hangs the things all over the building in hopes someone will buy one, and they're worthless until they've been activated.

The next step is to quit working there.

Step three is to go to the retailer's website and get a list of stores.

Step four is to hook up with someone who steals credit card numbers and get a few of them.

Step five is to call one of the stores on that list and tell them, "This is Mary Alexander at (whatever corporate headquarters is), our store in (name a city where there is a store) is having trouble activating a gift card. We need you to activate the card for them. The card number is (reads it off the back) and the customer is paying with this credit card. They want to activate it for $1800." The victim store will activate the card. Why not? Mary at corporate headquarters asked them to and they had a good credit card.

The last step is to walk into a store and spend all of the money on the card, preferably on expensive items.

This doesn't work anymore because it was so successful that everyone did it, and now that golden goose is dead. But its advantage was that you weren't technically shoplifting--you walked in with a charged gift card and bought your merchandise that way.

[bowens43]

6. You NEVER forfeit your right to privacy.

Sorry, but deterring theft is NOT a valid reason to threaten our freedom.

[Swamp Rat]

7. Screw profits! I'd rather stores get robbed blind than to lose my privacy.

[el_gato]

8. Boo Fucking Hoo! freedom is more important than your profits

If you can't manage your store properly it's not our problem.

[jmowreader]

11. If freedom is so important to you, cut your credit card in half

The credit card is THE biggest threat to your privacy that's ever been invented.

I can, and of course the Justice Department can, pull up a credit card record on an issuer's computer (we don't have this capability in my company, but most other big retailers do--anyone who says they can do a return without a receipt if you have your credit card number or your check number can do this) and tell you everything you purchased on that credit card since you got it--as long as you got it after the introduction of the scanning cash register. Think that's a little more intrusive than having products marked with what is little more than a barcode you can read from 20 feet away?

Throw this together with a good datamining application and we can really invade your privacy. Let me have a program that can use your SSN to access your bank card transaction records, your checkbook records and your credit card records, and analyze the data it finds therein, and I can give you a fairly complete story of your life--without ever meeting you. Guess what? Those programs not only exist but are in wide use. (Home Depot introduced datamining to retail. We use it to manage our product mix--a task that doesn't require individual customer profiles, because we look at a very few things: quantity of a SKU that sells in a particular time frame, and the average quantity sold per ticket. What's the second part matter? Go to Home Depot--you don't have to buy anything, just go and look--and visit the lighting department. You'll find some of our more popular lights in "Pro Packs." Those didn't happen by accident. We found out through datamining that many of the customers who bought those fixtures bought six of them at one time. Who buys six of the same light at one time? Contractors. Would contractors be well-served by being able to purchase one box with six lights in it? Of course--it's easier to buy one box than six. You'll also notice that not all of the lights come this way--we know not only that contractors buy lights six at a time, we know WHICH lights they buy six at a time, and those are the ones that are in Pro Packs. It's all part of meeting people's needs. Other companies aren't that gentle with their data--I have no doubt that part of the reason Wal-Mart issues MasterCards now is so they can figure out what people are purchasing "off-site"--that means not at Wal-Mart--with Wal-Mart MasterCards.)

I don't have much of an imagination, so could someone tell me how a read-only RFID tag, the kind that will be used on products, that carries as much data as a UPC symbol is this huge invasion of privacy? Active RFID tags could be an invasion of privacy, but the odds of someone putting one of these expensive tags on a retail package and leaving it there after the customer checks out are pretty damn low. (OTOH, they could be, and will be, used in the big plastic tags like you see on expensive sweaters, but the current non-RFID tag costs $1.90 each and the RFID version will be even higher. Those tags won't leave the building. I guess I could walk around with an RFID interrogator checking on the products in your cart, but it would be just as easy--and cheaper--just to look in the cart.)

[thinkingwoman]

13. LOL Great response!

I find it funny how some people get so indignant and insulting to anyone who doesn't scream about privacy.

We don't have privacy in this country and we haven't for a long time...not unless we manage to get through life without a soc security number and pay cash for EVERYthing.

Thanks for pointing out what everyone should know!

P.S. I gave a lecture similar to yours to my own mother a couple of years ago when she was screaming that nobody should ever buy anything online even from an encrypted site. (She thought using her credit card at the local bookstore was just fine, however). My hubby and I explained how easy it would be for anyone in his store to steal her credit card number the next time she used it. Now she buys online all the time.

[sbj405]

16. I always laugh at people who are afraid of shopping online, but

don't think twice about handing their credit card over to the waitress at a restaurant where it's out of sight.

Recently, my grandmother freaked out because she was renting an apartment and they wanted her bank statement which had her account # on it. Well anyone that you've ever written a check to has your bank account #.

[sweetheart]

15. smile you're on surveillance video

Let your shoppers know that "you" know who they are, and leave no
angle unturned. Surveillance video is the simple future. DOn't
bother knowing the customer before or after visiting your shop, just
while they're there, film every second.

Frankly, i don't need data mining to secret your details... merely
SQL (structured query language) and your credit card/bank debit card
database. SQL and your phone bill will only tell me the network of
every person you know... rather the finance database tells me
whether you use contraception, and more intimate details. I only
need data mining to determine more complex things like whether you
would be a potential colgate customer.

As well, put a sign on the door of the shop, with the name and
photo of caught shoplifters at the top.... remarking the future
of your company's name-and-shame programme if someone pursues such
ways. I agree you should follow all paths to protect your own
hard work.... and make sure that folks see the light, so they pick
on an easier mark.