RFID - Radio Frequency Identification - location based technology - applications for marketing in the information age

last updated 2009 April 07
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This web page has audio clips - just click on the icon (like the one to the left) and you can hear Prof. Richardson's voice adding additional information to topics on the page.

turn on your speakers to hear audio clips

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.	This page used in the following courses taught by Prof. Richardson . MGT D06 BCS 555 MGD415

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Much of the content on this page was originally developed, and written by students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan.
Jason and Gilbert were students in MGTD06 at University of Toronto in the Sept-Dec 2005 session.
Alan P., a student in BCS 555 December 2005, sent some information in January 2006 about a Yahoo story on RFID.
Some material on RFID viruses was added in March 2006 based upon some lengthy email contributions from UTM students Beenish B. and Amandeep G. from University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM) class MGD415.
Student Peter T. in BCS 555 in November 2006 added some information about RFID for diabetics.
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After completing reading this unit, and listening to the lecture in class, student will have information about: This page deals with    o Introduction to RFID and its history    o The Technology of RFID and how it Works   o How RFID Benefits Business Customers   o Implementation of RFID technology in business.    o The Challenges & Problems   o Examples of how RFID is used today – some applications   o RFID of Tomorrow   o RFID viruses   o How RFID benefits you and me

HISTORY and ORIGINS

RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and was first used 60 years ago today during WWII. At that time, the German air force Luftwaffe frequently sent bombers with fighter escorts to raid British mainland. The Royal Air Force would scramble its own fighters to intercept. During the heat of war, it can be very hard to identify friend from foe, especially during high speed maneuvers or in bad weather. Planes at that time could only be visually identified by its colors, shape or insignia. It was also at this time when the very first RFID was used. Called the IFF or Identify: Friend or Foe system, it was similar circumstances that also led the British to develop RADAR. British planes were then equipped with transponders that emited a pre-determined frequency which could be picked up by other IFF equipped plane. This two way communications allowed other airman to identify each other, as only friendly planes' frequency can be picked up by the IFF receiver, and appear as a blip on the RADAR screen. This system is relatively simple and was not fully refined, but nevertheless, it solved a major identification problem.

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HISTORY and ORIGINS

After the war, RFID applications and uses slowly trickled down to civilian and commercial uses. It wasn't long after the application in warplanes that the Railroad industry  became a main adopter of RFID.  Before RFID, railroad companies had been using bar codes printed on the side of the railcars for identification. This approach was not very feasible as readings from scanners became difficult, if not impossible due to dirt or bright sunlight. RFID solved this problem and provided a more accurate tracking for railroad companies about their fleet of rail cars and equipment.

HISTORY and ORIGINS

In the 1970s, RFID technology was used in cattle tracking and highway toll booths. Cattle tracking with RFID replaced the traditional method of branding via hot irons or plastic tags clipped onto ears. This allowed farmers to track the whereabouts of the cattle and identify their cattle from animals belonging to other ranchers. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey pioneered the idea of using RFID in highway toll booth collection. However, this idea did not come into widespread practice until 1990. (Adapted from: http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=2348)

The TECHNOLOGY of RFID and how it  works

Before learning how businesses implement and benefit from RFID, it is useful to understand the technology behind RFID and how it works. This section will present RFID in layman’s term and allow anyone who is new to the technology to understand the basic concept and workings of RFID. Technicalities are kept to a minimum. Details of the technical aspect of RFID are beyond the scope of this chapter.  The hardware of RFID consists of the following three items: Tags (Transponders)  Readers (Electronic Interrogators)  Middleware Tags there are two types of tags, active or passive The word transponder is derived from transmitter/responder and describes how a tag functions - the tag responds to a transmitted signal from the reader. (Tektronix – RFID Overview) Passive tags do not have their own power supply; communication with the reader is caused by minute electrical current or magnetic field induced by the antenna of the reader. The incoming radio frequency carries enough power for the tag to send a response back to the reader for verification and exchange of data. Passive tags can only transmit information over short distances, usually 10 feet or less. Passive tags are relatively inexpensive to manufacture and they are ideal for tracking low cost items. Another advantage of passive tags is their miniscule size – as of 2005, the smallest passive tag measures only 0.4mm X 0.4mm. (www.wikipedia.org – RFID) Many anti-theft systems described in the introduction use passive tags and stationary interrogators.  Active tags have their own power supply and can transmit data over long ranges, typically over 100+ feet. The battery can last up to 10 years. They also possess larger storage capacities and can store information from the readers, effectively making them read and write enabled. The information is stored in a non-volatile memory. Usage and application of active tags are infinite such as container shipping tracking or the railroad tracking mentioned earlier. However, due to the embedded battery pack and larger memory, active tags are physically bigger and more expensive than passive tags.  Both types of tags contain a unique identifier called Electronic Product Code (EPC), which are preprogrammed by the manufacturer to identify a particular item. This identifier can be picked up by the reader and makes simultaneous readings of many tags possible. (http://www.rfidgazette.org/ - RFID 101) The information stored in the RFID tags is based on PML (Physical Markup Language (PML) – a derivative of the XML (Extensible Markup Language). Readers - An electronic device that uses radio frequency to read or interrogate the tags. When an RFID reader and tag communicate, two things happen – they share energy in the form of radio frequency which allows the exchange of information.  (Tektronix; RFID Overview) (Technical information in this section is adapted from: Understanding RFID, Tiko Computers Corporation)

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The TECHNOLOGY of RFID and how it  works

Active tags explained by Shin Passive tags - explained by Amy with a skit showing an application for "personal" purposes  youtube.com/watch?v=0YSHhAhbEDk&feature=related  Victor tells a guy how to "track his girlfriend", with an interesting result DISCLAIMER - this video does NOT promote stalking nor is it intended to promote violence towards "someone hitting on your girl"

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The TECHNOLOGY of RFID and how it  works

Different types of Radio Frequency used for Communication  Four types of radio frequency are used for communicating between the tag and readers: Low-Frequency (125-134 Kilohertz) – most commonly used for short-range access control and asset tracking such as anti-theft High-Frequency (13.5 Megahertz) – used where medium read ranges are required Ultra High-Frequency (868-956 Megahertz) – used for library book tracking, warehouse pallet tracking or airline baggage tracking Microwave-Frequency (2.4 to 2.5 Gigahertz) –Can be used for very long range access and tracking. The higher the Hertz, the longer the range is for communication between the tag and reader. Low frequency communication usually uses tags that are passive while high frequency uses active tags. In terms of physical size, larger tags can store more information such as the temperature which tagged item is exposed to. (RFID at HP whitepaper)  All communications takes place via radio waves, which do not require a line of sight –another key advantage of RFID tags. Middleware Middleware refers to the hardware, software and technology that collect and process the information generated by RFID. Another name for middleware is Savant. Here is a brief description on how the entire process works: A tag is scanned by a RFID reader that is connected to a central server The reader “reads” the info written in PML on tag’s embedded memory The reader passes the information to the server The software then sort and analyze the data, making it relevant and useful for management decisions, which will be discussed in an example in section 3.

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How RFID Benefits Business and Customers

Students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan suggested that you imagine you are the owner of a Specialty Record Shop who has to deal with, let's say, one hundred plus new CDs arrival per month. To keep track of your inventory, you probably have to  1) Count them and write down what the title of each CD is; or  2) Use a bar code scanner and scan each CD's bar code. Now imagine you are a the sales manager of Wall-Mart or a major CD record shop like HWV where on a monthly basis you have to deal with millions of crates of goods or tens and thousands of CDs. How do you keep track of what you have in your warehouse and what’s available for sale? Believe it or not, manual bar code scanning and counting is still used in those environments!  The above scenario creates logistic nightmares for many companies. Before we go further on the benefits of RFID in business, we need to have a basic understanding of what the supply chain is. Supply chain is defined as: all suppliers, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, warehouses, and customers, as well as all raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods, and all related information and resources involved in satisfying an end-customer's requirements. (www.wikipedia.org – Supply Chain Defined) An improvement in one or several areas of the supply chain such as more efficient material handling will reduce the overall cost of the product. The benefit will eventually trickle down to the customer’s end such as lower prices.  RFID can be implemented in any part of the supply chain, from the manufacturers to the retailers. The table below, from IBM Business Consulting Service, outlines how RFID can benefit each stage of the supply chain: (IBM Business Consulting Services - RFID and the On Demand Business Transformation Executive Paper)

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How RFID Benefits Business and Customers

For our [Students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan] purpose, we are interested in how RFID affects the distribution, warehousing and retailers. The supply chain has a similar characteristic of a dragon boat team. The slowest rower dictates the overall speed of the entire boat, irregardless how fast the other rowers can go.  In the supply chain, if it takes a manufacturer only 3 days to manufacture a crate of good and is ready for sale, but distributors takes 1 week to merchandise and inventory, then it will take 10 days before the customer can purchase the good. RFID is set to change this and make the supply chain more responsive to customer demand and reduce slow-downs.  Go back to the example of the Specialty Record Shop where you have to manually scan to keep track of all the new CDs that comes in for sale. It is a slow, error-prone and tedious process. This problem gets worse in large retail business like Wall-Mart, where manually scanning each crate of good is almost impossible. Hiring a few hundred or a few thousand people whose only job is to scan and keep track of inventory is economically unfeasible. It is an additional added cost and burden to the supply chain with no guarantee of speed, accuracy or reliability. RFID requires no human intervention and can spread out over large areas – covering the entire warehouse where new shipment arrivals are instantly scanned and processed. (UPS Supply Chain Solution; Six Sigma and RFID)   Here is an example of how RFID can dramatically improve a process:  The picture shows a typical crate of goods in a warehouse, and you have to record how many individual units there are in each crate: Image Courtesy of www.barcode.com One study done has shown that using the traditional bar-code scanning method, it took 2 minutes 25 seconds per crate. Using RFID it took a mere 25 second! ( Bushnell, R. (2000, January). RFID's wide range of possibilities. Modern Materials Handling, 55 (1), 37. ) Although 2 minutes on an individual basis may not seem a lot, but what if you have 3000 crates of goods to be scanned and recorded? That is 6000 minutes saved = 100 hours = 4 days! The traditional method stalls the inventory in the warehouse for FOUR full days before they are made available for sale!  With RFID, the speed and accuracy is unprecedented. 3000 is only an example, large business like HP, Wall-Mart or online business like www.newegg.com deal with exponentially larger quantities of goods.  With RFID cost associated with inventorying and merchandising is reduced, businesses are able to deliver goods faster and cheaper to customers. CRM Buyer has listed a few example on how RFID benefited both consumers and business: Wal-Mart customers this year have been able to find goods on the shelf up to 16 percent more often than before Wal-Mart introduced its RFID electronic product code (EPC) tagging into its supply chain, according to an independent study conducted by the University of Arkansas;  Out-of-stock items with RFID technology at Wal-Mart were replenished three times faster than comparable items using standard bar code technology. This helped result in a 10 percent reduction in manual orders;  Gillette (NYSE: G) has seen operational cost savings in excess of 20 percent per distribution center;  Factoring in those productivity savings, in addition to improved product availability on retailer shelves, Gillette estimates a return on its RFID investments of over 25 percent. (http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/47112.html)

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How RFID Benefits Business and Customers

We [Students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan] shall end this segment with one hypothetical example to provide a concrete understanding on how RFID will benefit both parties: Black Friday is the busiest retail shopping day of the year after Thanksgiving. Report shows that after the crowd disappears from the malls in the long Thanksgiving weekend, a new phenomena - cyber Monday occurs. Cyber Monday is the equivalent of Black Friday for online retailers. Many people who return to work after the holiday continue their shopping spree online ; while at work! (Yahoo News – Online Retailers await ‘Cyber Monday’)  With RFID technology, retailers can maximize their sales in both scenarios:  Before the start of the holiday shopping season, RFID allows sales manager to access real-time and accurate inventory status. Any deficiency in inventory is quickly noticed and orders are placed to replenish it. This prevents the “out-of-stock” scenario, which is not only a great annoyance to customers, but also loss of revenue for retailers. With the traditional method of bar code scanning, the sales manager will have to send someone to do a physical inventory count in the warehouse which is slow and inefficient.  During the actual sales, when customers are making purchase in the store, RFID allows managers to monitor the level of inventory on the sales floor in real-time, or even the physical location of the product! Before the advent of RFID, a physical count or observation is required to determine if a particular item is out-of-stock! For example, there are 1000 copies of the latest Harry Potter book in the warehouse and in the store; there are 50 copies on display. As the 50 copies get sold and runs low on stock, the RFID middleware will warn the sales manager in real-time. Again, this allows quick decision making based on useful information. The sales manager can then request more copies to be brought from the warehouse to the store shelves before all copies ran out – effectively preventing an out-of-stock situation. In many larger companies with multi-billion dollars of sales, even one percent improvement in out of stock could make a huge difference! (Cisco Systems RFID Whitepaper; The RFID Ready Network) Concurrently, RFID can also monitor the amount of inventory in the warehouse and notify manager when numbers are running low.  Many brick-and-mortar stores have an online store as well; one example is Indigo.ca or Future Shop. Since the shopping spree does not end when the long holiday weekend ends, businesses want to again maximize online sales for Cyber Monday;. RFID again, can make this possible.  An online sales manager of the same company can also access the RFID middleware and monitor inventory in real-time. He is able to see the number of books available in the warehouse for online sales, and if retail store sales are depleting the warehouse inventory too quickly thus jeopardizing online availability for the following Monday, he can immediately request more shipments from the supplier. Without RFID, real-time inventory information is not possible.  The example above is a simplified model on how RFID can help both business and consumer. RFID generates accurate and reliable information that can be used in strategic decision makings. In more advanced system, human monitoring of inventory status is not required; it can be automated with computer softwares. Instead of a sales manager monitoring the quantity, the middleware can automatically request new shipments from supplier when the amount of inventory falls below certain predefined threshold. In Canada, Bell Canada and Staples Business Depot are running trials to use RFID to track inventory.(source: Toronto Star: Bell to lead trial of product-trackingtechnology Radio-frequency ID tag system)

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Implementation of RFID technology in business

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UTSC students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan explain Implementing RFID in business is a huge financial undertaking and requires a multi-step and multi-facet process. A rushed implementation without careful consideration and evaluation of one’s own business environment will guarantee zero return in investment and a lot of wasted money. Unfortunately, there is no cook-book solution on how a business should implement RFID.  Although there are no rulebooks to follow, IBM has developed some general guidelines for businesses to follow when considering implementing RFID:

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Implementation of RFID technology in business IBM's model

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Source: IBM Global Service - Beyond the bar code: Transforming business with Radio Frequency Identification

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Implementation of RFID technology in business

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UTSC students Jason Niu and Gilbert Chan explain According to IBM's model, the three most important stages in a RFID solution are: Assess Plan & Design Pilot

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Implementation of RFID technology in business

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Assess - Not all businesses require a full scale RFID implementation that may cost millions. The business should carefully assess its own needs and choose the appropriate solution that best suits the requirement. For example, the Record Shop may not need expensive active tags to track the physical location of each CD on the shelves or in the warehouse. Maybe all they need is inexpensive passive tags for anti-theft and inventory count. Feedback at this stage is also important, different managers or employees may have different requirements. A sales manager may be interested in how much inventory that is left in the warehouse, while security personnel may want to use RFID to compare quantities of goods shipped vs actual order quantity to ensure accuracy theft prevention. Feedbacks allow the company to choose the best solution that will meet different needs.

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Implementation of RFID technology in business

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Plan & Design - Implementing RFID requires fundamental changes in how a business uses or process information related to inventory. People affected by this technology need to be trained and informed. The information systems should also be retooled to integrated information generated by RFID. For example, the main advantage of RFID is real-time inventory status, but this advantage is totally lost if the sales manager do not have direct access to it, which could be due to reporting structure in a company. Let’s say the sales manager wants a report on how many CDs there are left in the store or warehouse, and he/she has to request this information from another department which have access to the RFID information system. By the time the report reaches the sales manager, it is old data, not real-time data because the actual amount of CDs could have changed in real time. Careful planning and design will avoid such mistakes.

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Implementation of RFID technology in business

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Pilot - after the completion of planning and design, RFID technology should be incrementally introduced in various areas of the business and carefully evaluate and benchmark its performance and gather feedback from people affected by this technology. At the pilot stage, further changes may occur which requires to go back to the plan and design stage for further fine tuning. Finally, a thorough RFID strategy for any company who are considering implementing this technology is recommended by IBM: The types of businesses in today's economy are as diverse as the colors in the kaleidoscope and each of them has different needs and requirements. There is no one size fit all solution. Only with careful planning and assessment will ensure good return on investment and reap the benefits provided by RFID technology.

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Examples of how RFID is used today  some applications Electronic Tolls

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Electronic Toll routes systems in several places around the world have been using RFID technology to charge road users.    Traffic slowing for a toll checkpoint in China Without electronic RFID tolls, you have to have cars line up at a checkpoint and pay a booth attendant before allowing to proceed  407 transponder

Examples of how RFID is used today  some applications the Airline industry

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Pallavi M. of UTM in MGD415 in March 2007 sent a long email explaining aspects of applying RFID technology to the travel industry. Pallavi wrote I read a bit in the RFID section that we will be looking at, and I found an article that says using RFID tags could save the airline industry $1 billion dollars per year.  According to SITA ,the airline industry's IT body, that using RFID in airline baggage tracking could save airlines up to $1 billion in lost luggage costs. It would reduce errors in baggage handling from 15% to less than 5%!    KEY POINTS WTGR adds, this is one of the important consequences of using any technology, it either    o  saves time, or    o  saves money lost luggage costs the airline industry millions of $$ each year and also effects repeat business from people who had a bad experience Pallavi adds, Even if the luggage does get lost, the RFID tag would help the bag be found faster, thus inconveniencing the passenger the least and reducing the cost of the airline having to search for it.

Examples of how RFID is used today  some applications Corporate Security

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Corporate Security   During the 4th week of June 2008,  Richardson was interviewed by itWorldCanada.com for a story about how retailers are using new technologies to guard against loss prevention. Retailers in Canada are losing around $3.6 billion yearly to various criminal activities.   http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=48681&PageMem=3     The entire interview given by Richardson is available by clicking on the screen capture to the left it discusses several things such as   o RFID applications in security  o RFID merged with GPS technology  o consideration of a "low tech" approach

Examples of how RFID is used today  some applications Spying

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Espionage and Intelligence   Canadian Press ran a story 2nd week in Jan 2007 that claims "Canadian coins containing transmitters have turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. defence department.". CP says "The U.S. Defense Security Service cites the coin caper as an example of the methods spies have tried to illicitly acquire military technology."   "On at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006, cleared defense contractors' employees traveling through Canada have discovered radio frequency transmitters embedded in Canadian coins placed on their persons."

RFID and personal  implants (January 2006)

Alan P., a student in BCS 555 December 2005, sent some information in January 2006 about a Yahoo story on RFID.  (ya, the course was over but he still contributed, kewl eh) - and I'm glad he sent this is in cause it was one of the coolest stories I have read in the past few months A January 2006 story by Reuters was carried in Yahoo News about how RFID is being used by geeks for kewl purposes. As found by Alan, Yahoo News reported on their site Jan 6th, 2006 an article titled "Computer chips get under skin of enthusiasts" Yahoo News described a Canadian named  Amal Graafstra who is a 29-year-old (2006) entrepreneur based in Vancouver. Graafstra has RFID chips imbedded in his body and uses these for various IT purposes.  Graafstra has chips imbedded that open his front door, with another, he logs onto his computer. Yahoo explains "The computer chips, which cost about $2, interact with a device installed in computers and other electronics. The chips are activated when they come within 3 inches of a so-called reader, which scans the data on the chips. The "reader" devices are available for as little as $50."

RFID and personal  implants   Graafstra (January 2006)

Click on the screen capture to the right and it shows a larger image of the chip that was planted in Graafstra's hand This image comes from the RFID page on wikipedia.org  see  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID Graafstra has his own page about RFID which you can read on Graafstra's site at  http://amal.net/rfid.html, also check  http://www.rfidtoys.net/ emailed Graafstra Jan 12th, 2006; received permission to quote, link.  Copies of his email kept in the permissions binder.

RFID and personal  implants   medical and health applications (Nov  2006)

Student Peter T. from BCS 555 in November 2006 emailed to say he found an interesting application. Peter emailed to say I have stumbled upon an article about some new implantable RFID technology that can change the lives of over 230 million diabetics.  According to the article, the chip is injectable by syringe, when its in your body the chip transmits your body glucose level to a scanner thus eliminating the need for the old painful finger prick technique.  The chips are passive so there is no battery required. How cool is that?.  Peter says you can read more here  rfidgazette.org/2006/10/verichip_sticks.html

RFID of Tomorrow

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The 2006 FIFA Soccer World Cup in Germany used tickets embedded with RFID chips.  The new tickets will help defend against counterfeits as well as increase ticket booth efficiency.  It's interesting to note that the technology has the ability for organizers to track movements of individual ticket holders, in the interest of riot control for example

RFID of Tomorrow

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A recent study funded by Wal-Mart and a competing retailer indicates that RFID tags can help reduce out of stock scenarios by as much as 11%, or about 3.2% lost.  Based on this, Wal-Mart has decided to mandate its top 100 suppliers to implement RFID tags into their processes. This helps Wal-mart reduce out of stock scenarios by foreseeing with precision how much stock is left at any given moment in their stores. For this to happen, RFID Tags must be embedded in the products before it is shipped to Wal-Mart's stores.

RFID of Tomorrow

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The U.S. Postal Service is responsible for delivering billions of mail items both overseas and in the USA.  The agency has been considering putting RFID capabilities on postal stamps to help track and locate mail faster.  Already, UPS and DHL have invested hard cash in RFID companies to explore using RFID to track everything from trucks to the individual billions of packages it handles each year. http://news.com.com/2061-10790_3-5961267.html

RFID of Tomorrow 2003 very very small

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Very Very small RFID chips   Click the thumbnail to the left to see the screen capture of the 2003 Press Release from the Hitachi website in which this micro RFID is described.  hitachi.com/New/cnews/030902.html Hitachi explains "...This newly developed version, features an internal antenna...the 0.4mm X 0.4mm chip can thus operate entirely on its own, making it possible to use µ-Chip as RFID IC tags without the need to attach external devices. This breakthrough opens the door to using µ-Chips as RFID IC tags in extremely minute and precise applications that had been impractical until now. For example, the new µ-Chip can be easily embedded in bank notes, gift certificates, documents and whole paper media etc."

Problems RFID Hacked

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"U.S. RFID passports, drivers' licenses vulnerable to snooping" was the title of a story in itWorldCanada in late October 2008  "There have been substantial security and privacy concerns ever since RFID-enabled U.S. passport program was launched." "The information in these tags could be copied on to another, off-the-shelf tag, which might be used to impersonate the legitimate holder of the card if a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at the border didn't see the card itself, the researchers said. Another danger is that the tags can be read from as far as 150 feet away in some situations, so criminals could read them without being detected." the full story was here http://www.itworldcanada.com/P...1c005933c&sub=276359

University of Toronto (UTM) students Kiel D, Teh Yu H. and Ting Po H. (+ help from Gordon L)  in MGD 415 in April 2009 created a kewl video in which they describe several components of how Social Engineering tricks can lead to compromising a RFID access control checkpoint. If you watch the video carefully, you can pick up on several tricky technical things done with a bit of "fakery". WTGR says "Thanks , I can see it took a bit of time to create the "script" and plan the shoot, I appreciate your efforts"

Problems RFID vulnerable

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Tiffany W, student in MGD415 at UTM in March 2009 emailed to say "I have attached a very interesting tidbit on RFID privacy  issues that I think everyone should be aware of" Tiffany explains "Nike and Apple have released the 'Nike+iPod Sport Kit'  apple.com/ipod/nike/ where users  can insert a transmitter into their Nike shoes and a receiver to  attach to their iPod. The RFID transmitter will allow users to track  their distance, calories burned, pace, and time. This may seem like an  innovative concept, but it actually addresses many privacy concerns  because the transmitter can be read up to 60 feet away. "Researchers at the University of Washington were able to build a  surveillance device (costing only $250) and integrated the system onto  Google Maps." Since the transmitter broadcasts a unique identifier,  people can be tracked and it can be scanned and linked to a user's  physical identity. In my opinion, it is important for users to become  aware of new RFID innovations because as amazing as they sound, they  do not protect the privacy rights of an individual. In closing her email, Tiffany asks "Do you want somebody tracking your movements on Google Maps while you  exercise?" with information originally from http://news.cnet.com/NikeiPod-raises-RFID-privacy-concerns/2100-1029_3-6143606.html