RFID Powder
Confirming my attitude that "The Future is a Nice Place to Visit - but I Wouldn't Want to Live There" - i.e. that inbuilt cynicism that many of us older sci-fi computing geeks have about the wonderful potential applications for modern technology in the 21st Century - now we have the smallest RFID chips in the world ...
.. for now .. until they make them "nano-sized" and dust everything .. and then make "nano-sized anti-nano chips" which then go to war against each other ... (oops - sorry - wrong dystopia)
The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number, like their predecessor. Hitachi used semiconductor miniaturization technology and electron beams to write data on the chip substrates to achieve the new, smaller size.Hitachi's mu-chips are already in production; they were used to prevent ticket forgery at last year's Aichi international technology exposition. RFID 'powder,' on the other hand, is so much smaller that it can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates.
...
These devices could also be used to identify and track people. For example, suppose you participated in some sort of protest or other organized activity. If police agencies sprinkled these tags around, every individual could be tracked and later identified at leisure, with powerful enough tag scanners.
To put it in the context of popular culture, see the picture below, which was taken from the 1996 movie Mission Impossible. One of the IMF operatives places a tracking tag on the shoulder of a computer programmer. Pretty clunky-looking tag...
I know why they don't design a "nano-factory" that is an assembler that uses the basic building blocks of DNA to transmit a unique code ... and then lets inject everyone at birth with these "nano-identiy chips" such that everyone is trackable all the time ... lets start each code with "666" shall we ...
ooops - sorry wrong dystopia - again
I really must try and be more optimistic about the useful uses of technology in the 21st century - carping on about human rights, privacy and surveillance just doesn't hack it anymore - because nobody cares.
Tags: rfid dust, big brother, rfid, nano-chips, nano-warfare, dystopia, surveillance, tracking