Radio Frequency ID

On 9/11, terrorists turned off the transponders on three aircraft to make them harder to find. That action effectively reduced brilliant engineering achievements into Kamikaze-style guided missiles. The key words are, “harder to find.” If the presence of a transponder makes an aircraft “easy” to find, could an adaptation of that same technology be implanted in Humans?

Allied airborne and ground objects transmit an electronic “Friend or Foe” so that weapons do not inadvertently target ‘friendly’ objects. If we define an ‘unfriendly’ citizen as someone who violates the rights of others, would it be in the interest of public safety to locate and separate unfriendly citizens? With the heightened threat of domestic terrorism and the confusion about “what does a terrorist looks like?” – could a subdermally implanted ‘Human transponder’ help alleviate the “Who’s Who among Humans?” Could a “sleeper cell” operate without a single detection event?

Conjoined with wireless sensors, RFID can track any object passing through a warehouse gate and report conditions during shipment: The margin of error that existed before RFID is precisely what terrorists are counting on in order to exploit our shipping system. (Tech News) RFID removes that threat from the terrorist realm altogether.

WHAT DO IMPLANTS LOOK LIKE?

RFID stickers are about the same size as most bar code labels, only they're encrypted with a microchip that's attached to a tiny radio antenna. The chip stores two kilobytes of pertinent product information. RFID implants used to cause minor skin irritation, however, modern pH-neutral materials prevent physiological discomfort. The celluloid materials used are AMA approved and the electro-magnetic transmitters contain less ambient EMF than transmitters used by radio stations. Animals in Europe are already tagged so that governments can count them via satellite and verify that each owner accurately reports livestock numbers for tax purposes. Chipped terrorists could be located in precisely the same way while unchipped terrorists would be considered outlaws. (Tech News)

HOW ARE RISKS MITIGATED?

Theft, fraud, embezzlement and forgery head a long list of crimes that could be easily interdicted if precision controls are established. By turning indebtedness into an American way of life, banks and credit bureaus know where everybody lives along with drivers license bureaus, schools, work places, the IRS and any piece of paper that contains vital information. These sources can accurately correlate who lives where and identify dependents as well. Every terrorist has at least some form of pre-RFID trail.

One Minnesota correctional facility uses RFID to watch 1,300 inmates which lowers the burden on prison staff. Prisoners get RFID embedded wrist straps and guards are handed pagers that are connected to strategically placed terminals. If a fight breaks out or an inmate attempts to remove the wrist strap, guards are notified immediately. (RFID) Could an illegal transaction be possible in a closed commercial system? Could an act for “the greater good” prevail over a myriad of supernatural fears? Could RFID become a global security solution?

PUBLICALLY ACCESSIBLE NEGATIVE INFORMATION

Two predominant chip implant manufacturers patiently await a global call for greater demand and the chip business is thriving even though California, Wisconsin and North Dakota have passed legislation to ban forced Human chipping. (Tech) In 2006, a Cincinnati-based video surveillance company began requiring employees who work in its secure data center to be implanted with a chip. (Tech) VeriChip has chipped more than 2,500 constituents worldwide with an FDA-approved subdermal implant that enables access to medical data. Parents can legally chip minors for tracking purposes. (Manufacturing) Mexico’s Attorney General had 18 of his staff members get chipped in order to access high-security areas. (Tech)

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Instead of taking a defensive posture against every conspiracy theory, the Department of Homeland Security might consider an embedded approach of a different kind. Generally speaking, the public does accept the need for greater domestic security, however, a heavy-handed stigma sensationalized by the media’s predatory thirst for ratings has done more harm to DHS than good.

It is recommended that a non-reactive public relations campaign establish a need for RFID.

Reacting to fiction serves to bolster a fiction so that mere ‘belief’ imparts conditions that do not exist. To simplify iconic embedding: Imagine if TSA provided promotional items at airport checkpoints that catered to kids. An upcoming generation would perceive TSA as a legitimate career choice. To unify society against terrorism, an embedded approach, that discerns good from evil, is necessary.

VULNERABILITIES

The US Patriot Act enables the federal government to access privately held data and then track citizens’ movements. For this reason, some believe that their constitutional rights are threatened. One anti-RFID lobby infiltrated an MIT-based pro-RFID lobby and downloaded sensitive documents to demonstrate how vulnerable RFID is. Although specific documents were not targeted, it was ironic to discover that the stolen documents contained plans to ‘pacify’ the public regarding RFID. The embarrassment to MIT was horrendous. (Thought) Although the concept will be a tremendous anti-terrorism tool, the public still has to be persuaded to that effect. An embedded approach will work.

Researchers at Amsterdam’s Free University infected an RFID chip with a virus to prove that RFID systems are vulnerable despite the extremely low memory capacity. An infected RFID tag can infest a database with enough misinformation to interrupt an entire mainframe. One infected RFID tag could install a malicious program in back-end software that would, in turn, infect other RFID tags. That threat enables “militants and terrorists to upset airline baggage handling systems with devastating effect.” (Computer)

WHAT IS PROTECTED?

Two inseparable infrastructures within an industrialized society are finance and law enforcement. Both infrastructures depend upon each other to exist: It takes money to purchase law enforcement and law enforcement to protect value – one dies without the other. Both infrastructures establish sane parameters in which free individuals may pursue their self interest without violating the rights of others. Only established citizens within a society would be accounted for. Everyone else would become a suspect. Terrorists wouldn’t stand a chance since secret societies ‘technically’ could not legally exist.

One company developed a badge for law enforcement and government agencies with an embedded RFID chip that validates the badge and verifies the wearer. This development enables departments to track every badge. (Information) Preventative Forensics protects children, vehicles, secret documents and antique artifacts by chipping everything. Preventative Forensics stops a crime before it happens. RFID technology becomes more viable as traditional crime detection methods fail to keep up with the criminal status quo. (Infowars) China uses RFID to track 24,000 manholes that are stolen each year and sold to junk dealers as scrap iron. RFID can track the theft process and enable officials to end the problem. Missing manholes cause serious accidents and vehicle damage. (IT News)

World police organizations estimate that $7 Septillion dollars could be saved if money was comprehensively decommissioned as a legal instrument of commerce worldwide. Except for crimes of passion and rare crimes of conscious, the object of crime is to improve ones financial condition at the expense of another. If monitored electronic commerce was standard for all transactions, could a terrorist roam in total secrecy? Such a system would halt the effectiveness of any terrorist operation.

HOW WILL GLOBAL RFID BE PHASED IN?

Phase I will account for citizens with a common RFID method; anyone refusing to participate would be stigmatized. Phase II will illuminate a disproportionate number of crimes committed by rogue social elements that did not get chipped. Phase III would prompt citizens to standardize a chipping law that turns all RFID abstainers into fugitives. Phase IV would invite fugitives to re-enter the fold without reprisal on the eve of a National (or Earth) ID measure. The measure will be accepted by all citizens who have nothing to hide. Superstition has to be replaced with necessity in order to implement this plan.

Although DNA-scan technology has improved, it currently takes three days to get a positive match and it is not financially feasible to implement DNA as a worldwide biometric standard. DNA is an effective forensic ID format and may one day become standardized. DNA can also prevent certain

devices such as automobiles and firearms from unauthorized operation. However, DNA can not serve as a GPS transmitter or contain vital information like RFID does. This technology could locate terrorists.

COSTS AND TRADE OFFS

Chop shops have been known to operate undisturbed by police in exchange for information on the criminal underground where staged rogue elements act as a criminal flypaper. Newer vehicles have a GPS sandwiched in the firewall that only a chop shop can locate. It is hoped that LE will find those vehicles before they can be chopped. If an RFID system was in place today, chop shops, grey markets and most forms of illicit businesses would not be able to conduct discreet commerce. The $10 Billion in counterfeit money that North Korea circulates annually to devalue the dollar would be meaningless. Twelve briefcases full of decommissioned currency would not buy a pack of gum.

The affluent may be able exchange gold and diamonds for a brief time, but neither commodity will purchase a gallon of milk at the grocery store. Liquid wealth will be hypothecated and monitored at licensed exchange points before converted funds are posted to an account. Forgery would be impossible. How could a terrorist trade at all, if commerce is conducted electronically? What law abiding citizen would be willing to exchange their honor for fugitive status? RFID is a viable anti-terrorism tool.

PROPERTY AND IDENTITY THEFT

A Dallas-based company installed RFID locators in laptops on a sample college campus and the laptop theft epidemic stopped completely. Thieves are not willing to steal property that can be tracked. Stolen laptops are a leading cause of identify theft, although not the main cause. The US Federal Trade Commission reported a 574% increase in identity thefts from 31,117 cases in 2000 to over 210,000 cases in 2003. This avenue for fraud and deception would be removed from the exploits of terrorism if tagging property became standard practice. California law now requires that individuals be notified anytime their personal identity information is questionably or suspiciously accessed. (Unstrung) As society’s grip on uncontrolled commerce tightens, will terrorists be able to operate unnoticed by the very society they have sworn to destroy? The convenience of their current obscurity could end with RFID.

SCAN AND PURCHASE

RFID can scan products on a customer up to 10 feet away and debit the customer’s account without the traditional check-out process. If this became standard worldwide, every Human would be accounted for so that terrorist activity could not be conducted undetected. (Security) RFID can identify a customer as s/he walks through a door. It knows exactly where you purchased your underwear and what brand it is. The amount of incidental data that can be accessed on each customer is staggering. (Thought) Biometric detection and identification will one day make terrorist occupations doubly hazardous.

PHARMACOLOGICAL TAMPERING

Counterfeit drugs comprise less than 1% of the US market and up to 50% of foreign markets and pose a significant safety and public health risk. The FDA has approved RFID to help the international community track legally shipped drugs from the manufacturer to the dispensing point. RFID enables

inventory control, theft prevention, quantity errors, false recalls and unauthorized data transmissions. Companies that are not RFID capable will not be able to ship drugs into the US. (Federal) This removes pharmacological shipments from terrorist exploits and increases end-to-end safety.

THE FUTURE

A network of RFID detectors can help deter kidnapping, rape and assault by locating criminals no matter how careful they are. Button-sized collectors can trap and tag an attacker’s skin sample so that a labratory can identify and cross-case the results. Both victims and attackers are identified by their unique RFID code. (CNET) This technology can locate and identify known and unknown terrorists.

DHS Director Michael Chertoff approved an RFID-enhanced Canadian driver's license for entry into the US via land crossings. The new measure compliments the passcard, Nexus and traditional passports as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Special encryption technology protects user privacy when reading sensitive RFID data. (Live) Identification efficiency is approaching optimum.

Stretching into the future, RFID has the potential to become a networked, artificially intelligent babysitter of the Human race where a dossier can be produced on anyone in one second. Who would control that information? “I am the eye in the sky, looking at you – I can read your mind.” (The Alan Parsons Project) Is it possible that perfect objectivity and faultless impartiality could only come from a machine? And if so, will that perfectly unbiased institute of justice result in the death of terrorism?

REFRENCES

CNET News, Hanabusa, J. (June 10, 2005) RFID and DNA used Against Violent Crime

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.news.com/5208-12_3-.html?forumID=1&threadID=842&messageID=49915&start=0

Computer Crime Research Center, (March 20, 2006) RFID Can Carry A Virus

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.rfidvirus.org/media/ComputerCrime.pdf

Federal Trade Commission, Rudolf, P. (February 18, 2004)

Combating Counterfeit Drugs: Use of RFID

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/rfid/rudolf.pdf

Infowars, Kashyap, S (January 9, 2005) Redrawing Crime Graph with RFID

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/redrawing_crime_graph.htm

Information Week, Sullivan, L. (March 3, 2006) RFID Police Badges Debut in August

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181500870

IT News, Jones, K. (February 8, 2006) RFID to Curb Street Crime in China

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.itnews.com.au/Tools/Print.aspx?CIID=35051

Live Leak, (November 19, 2007)

US Confirms New Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) High-tech Drivers License

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa9_1195492974

Manufacturing.net, Van Benschoten, A. (June 21, 2006)

Forced Human RFID-chipping Now a Crime in Wisconsin

Retrieved November 16, 2007 from:

http://www.manufacturing.net/RFID-Chipping-Crime-Wisconsin.aspx?menuid=268

RFID Weblog, (June 21, 2007) Inmates To Be Tamed In Minnesota Using RFID

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http://www.rfid-weblog.com/50226711/inmates_to_be_tamed_in_minnesota_prison_using_rfid.php

Security Solutions, Emigh, J. (March 1, 2006) RFID Fights Retail Crime

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http://securitysolutions.com/mag/security_rfid_fights_retail/

Tech News World, Woolfolk, J. (October 15, 2007)

California Bars Mandatory Human RFID Implants

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http://www.technewsworld.com/story/59825.html

Tech News World, Burger, A. (October 11, 2007) RFID: Thinking Outside the Box

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http://www.technewsworld.com/story/59758.html

Thought Crime News, Aronowitz, S. (July 28, 2003) RFID And The End of Civilization

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http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/rfid.htm

Unstrung, (July 10, 2007) RFID Fights Crime

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http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=128662