The Day of the RFIDs Read online

  I keep remembering that agent's “friendly” advice. CDW had associated me with my second cousin from across town and the college buddy with whom, at the last minute, I had gone to dinner. My query had been enough to trigger a real-time alert at a secadmin workstation.

  Many of you are thinking: HSB has no reason to watch me. I've done nothing wrong.

  I'm relating this story to make you consider one central fact: I did nothing wrong, either.

  * * * *

  What you do now is your choice. My free advice: Join a currency exchange. Trade shopping lists with your friends. Pay with cash, and patronize stores with old registers. Carry your purchases in a foil-lined shopping bag. Remove those RFID tags that are safely removable.

  But if you want to do more....

  I have a new calling, and the spare time to indulge it: very specialized circuit design. I've concentrated on gadgets for all things RFID: detecting, spoofing, jamming, and frying. The frequencies used by RFIDs are unlicensed, making my hobby (except perhaps when zapping others’ chips) entirely legal.

  What these devices have in common is the long-term effect of their deployment. Widely used, they will degrade databases reliant on RFID-based tracking. If you believe that following your every move and viewing your every purchase should be more difficult than typing a simple query into a government database—if you place any value on your privacy—such degradation is a good thing.

  Perhaps you have the skills and equipment to make these devices. Any savvy teen with access to a modern high-school electronics shop can build them. And they offer a productive new use for that old, wireless PDA that hasn't seen the light of day in months ;-)

  Check back often for updated designs.

  I've put on indefinite hold my dream that a robot of my design to roll onto Mars or Titan. My robotic aspirations have been repurposed toward a different world: the RFIDsphere. Imagine armies of tiny RFID spoofers and jammers set loose to roam, to mimic codes they encounter, and to inject RFID gremlins throughout their random travels.

  How polluted must the data sources for repositories like CDW become before we're all freed from incessant surveillance?

  Herewith two parting comments for my friends at the Homeland Security Bureau, and especially to those of you on the hunt for me. First, you have not heard the last of The Rogue. Second....

  Tag. You're it.

  The end

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