General Motors’ popular On-Star service that, among other things, allows an operator to unlock your car remotely in response to a phone call. The service uses a combination of sophisticated cell phone and satellite technology, along with human operators, to work its magic. An On-Star operator can unlock your car from miles away because the On-Star system allows him or her to locate the car and access its internal computer. Because of its sophistication, the system is relatively pricey, with the equipment being installed mostly on higher-end GM vehicles and the service requiring an annual subscription fee.

Pentagon Studies Human Microchip Implants

The Defense Department’s plans to study implanting microchips in soldiers is already sparking concerns about privacy issues.

The chip would relay vital statistics about the patient such as lactate, glucose and oxygen levels in the blood. Researchers believe the technology would also be useful in other government programs such as measuring astronaut data, as well as civilian first-responder uses, according to a news release from Clemson University.

Clemson researchers believe the program is five years away from human testing. The program will include testing on a new gel developed by Clemson scientists that aids in preventing the chip from being rejected by the human body.

This is worth watching the video just so you know what is on the rise.

Predication:  Wi-Max (internet anywhere, anytime) plus RFID plus behavioral targeting technologies in advertising —-PLUS you and me….PLUS ecology.  I see a world of hope…what do you see?  Remember, education is the key. Be prepared.

The RFID Guardian is a mobile battery-powered device that offers personal RFID security and privacy management for people. The RFID Guardian monitors and regulates RFID usage, on the behalf of consumers.

The RFID Guardian is meant for personal use; it manages the RFID tags within physical proximity of a person (as opposed to managing RFID tags owned by the person, that are left at home). The RFID Guardian is portable. It should be PDA-sized, or better yet, could be integrated into a handheld computer or cellphone. The RFID Guardian is also battery powered. The RFID Guardian also performs 2-way RFID communications. It acts like an RFID reader, querying tags and decoding the tag responses, and it can also emulate an RFID tag, allowing it to perform direct in-band communications with other RFID readers.

The heart of the RFID Guardian is that it integrates four previously separate security properties into a single device:

• Key management
• Access control
• Authentication

RFID Guardian Demonstration Video

Need more?  academic papers available.

Ok..RFID….it’s time to start talking about what is really going on here. What do you know? What have you researched?  There is a quiet, yet alive movement around RFID chips being planted in people.  Crazy, not me.  Here’s a link to an Good Morning America from last year — an interview with a couple who has a New “Connection” — the RFID chipping system.

In my next episode we’ll talk to the hosts of “American the Green” and briefly talk about RFID chips.  Curious? Start doing your research.  My prediction: The conversation at burning man this year brings RFID even more into public awareness.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, start getting educated now.

As people start to rely on RFID technology, it will become easy to infer information about their behavior and personal tastes, by observing their use of the technology. To make matters worse, RFID transponders are also too computationally limited to support traditional security and privacy enhancing technologies. This lack of information regulation between RFID tags and RFID readers may lead to undesirable situations. One such situation is unauthorized data collection, where attackers gather illicit information by either actively issuing queries to tags or passively eavesdropping on existing tag-reader communications.

Other attacks include the unwanted location tracking of people and objects (by correlating RFID tag “sightings” from different RFID readers), and RFID tag traffic analysis (e.g. terrorist operatives could build a landmine that explodes upon detecting the presence of any RFID tag).

What is RFID?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the latest phase in the decades-old trend of the miniaturization of computers. RFID transponders are tiny resource-limited computers that do not have a battery that needs periodic replacement. RFID tags are inductively powered by their external reading devices, called RFID readers. Once the RFID tag is activated, the tag then decodes the incoming query and produces an appropriate response by modulating the request signal, using one or more subcarrier frequencies. RFID Tags can do a limited amount of processing, and have a small amount (<1024 bits) of storage.

RFID tags are useful for a huge variety of applications. Some of these applications include: supply chain management, automated payment, physical access control, counterfeit prevention, and smart homes and offices. RFID tags are also implanted in all kinds of personal and consumer goods, for example, passports, partially assembled cars, frozen dinners, ski-lift passes, clothing, and public transportation tickets. Implantable RFID tags for animals allow concerned owners to label their pets and livestock. Verichip Corp. has also created a slightly adapted implantable RFID chip, the size of a grain of rice, for use in humans. Since its introduction, the Verichip was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and this tiny chip is currently deployed in both commercial and medical systems.

Click here for a collection of RFID-related resources.