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Social Consequences and Effects of RFID Implants?

Posted by Cliff on Wed May 03, 2006 10:45 PM
from the chips-in-my-head dept.
Privacy Biotech Wireless Networking
kramdam asks: "Even with all the talk about privacy and security, there seems to be a growing community of people who are implanting themselves with RFID chips. Being a developer myself, I am intrigued about building applications and solutions that will open my doors, unlock my car, log me on to my computer and control home automation. I'm seriously considering jumping into this head first, being on the bleeding edge, and going with an implant. I have looked at resources like Mikey Sklar's site, and Amal Graafstra's site, since they are two pioneers on this subject. For research, I have started TaggedLife to document my own journey. I was wondering what the Slashdot community think about this. What do you think are the social, security, privacy, and health risks associated with this? What are the pluses? Would you do it?"
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[+] Your Rights Online: Proposal to Implant RFID Chips in Immigrants 559 comments
John3 writes "Some people are OK with voluntarily implanting themselves with RFID chips, but how about making RFID implantation mandatory for immigrant and guest workers? VeriChip Corporation chairman Scott Silverman has proposed implanting RFID chips to register workers as they cross the border. According to Silverman, 'We have talked to many people in Washington about using it...' Privacy advocates see this move by VeriChip as a way to introduce their product to Latin America after a lukewarm reception in North America. Would immigrant workers trade their privacy for the opportunity to work in the U.S.? If this type of tracking is enacted, how long before the government decides to start tracking others for various purposes (for example, pedophiles who are released from prison)?"
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  • Well... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by borisborf (906678) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:48PM (#15259753) Homepage
    Inplantable RFID tags are just not for me. Sounds a little to, well, end-times-ish. I would rather have an RFID watch or something. Sure, it could be stolen, but what about a central control website where if it was stolen, I just deactivate the code from it and put in the code for my new watch. Problem solved.

    • Exactly - why implant an RFID device? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by maillemaker (924053) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:55PM (#15259791)
      Since it seems security devices are always being compromised, I'd hate to have to cut myself open every time one of these things had been likewise compromised.

      I agree - an RFID watch would be much better - perhaps an RFID watch that can identify the person wearing it biometrically, even.

      Steve

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dgatwood (11270) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:10PM (#15259871) Journal

      There are no real advantages to such a scheme and plenty of disadvantages. For example:

      • As soon as the technology improves, you have to get surgery to replace it with one that isn't spoofable.
      • There's the possibility of infection or other negative reaction to the device.
      • We have no idea what the long-term impact of these devices inside the human body could be.
      • And of course, there's the big one: instead of stealing someone's wallet to steal money from them, thieves will now start cutting off someone's hand---sort of a reverse medieval thing.

      Indeed, for me---and apologies in advance for my language---I believe the answer is not so much "no", but rather, "hell fucking no."

      • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sconeu (64226) on Thursday May 04 2006, @12:20AM (#15260169) Homepage Journal
        \i{We have no idea what the long-term impact of these devices inside the human body could be.}

        Actually, we kind of do. This technology has been used on animals for years.

        • Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by KillerCow (213458) on Thursday May 04 2006, @02:58AM (#15260563)
          \i{We have no idea what the long-term impact of these devices inside the human body could be.}

          Actually, we kind of do. This technology has been used on animals for years.

          Only on animals that have a typical lifespan of 10 years though.

          • Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04 2006, @03:34AM (#15260651)
            five, with the implant.
            • Humans have had implants of various kinds for longer -- pacemakers, boob jobs, etc.

              That's what this world needs! RFID boob jobs! The ultimate fusion of silicon and silicone.

              "My, Miss Moneypenny, what lovely... antennas you have."

      • First off, they'd need to cut off an ARM; they're usually placed in your bicep.

        Finally, no one in their right minds would ever take this approach. It's just not efficient enough. Identity theft works best in VOLUME.

        So at that point, you need to start seeing things in a "scarier" light.

        Remember how in movies it only takes an expert thief bumpin into you at the shoulder to take your wallet? Now they can grab a whole lot more with a wireless scanner.

        RFID devices outright GIVE OUT their information. That's all

      • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by slashdot.org (321932) on Thursday May 04 2006, @03:39AM (#15260662) Homepage Journal
        There are no real advantages to such a scheme and plenty of disadvantages

        Exactly. For some reason most people here seem to forget the most important thing:

        RFID has nothing to do with encryption/security. It's a serial number. What fucking good is that going to do you? So your car will start when your serial number is near? It should be pretty clear that faking a serial number is trivial. With RFIDs you don't even need physical contact to achieve that.

        In other words:
        I am intrigued about building applications and solutions that will open my doors, unlock my car, log me on to my computer and control home automation

        will not be solved by RFID. I don't even understand where someone would get that idea. You'd be crazy to rely on that. If you think that doing security through positive identification of a certain physical human being present is a good idea (which is debatable to begin with), then you're probably better off doing fingerprint or iris-scanning.

        Now if RFID tags had RSA or something built in, it would be a different story. But they don't.

        Eh, this whole story makes no sense at all.

        • Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Nurgled (63197) on Thursday May 04 2006, @06:07AM (#15260974)

          The car and computer thing are both daft, but the home automation goal has some merit. If you have a house where more than one person lives, having a home automation system that can track the movements of each person individually would be a major boon. Most current attempts at home automation are based around whether someone is in a room, rather than tailoring to each person.

          Of course, you could ask what it would do when two people with conflicting preferences are in the same room, but that's just a software problem and is thus much easier to refine over time.

    • Why implant when you can wear the tag around your neck, in a watch, or in your hair without the risks of a subdermal implant? Put one in your tooth I suppose if you're into pain.

        • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Feanturi (99866) on Thursday May 04 2006, @01:40AM (#15260409)
          You *already* need to take yourself apart to foil biometric ID.

          Well the last time I had imprints/samples of any body-bits taken without my will or knowledge was, oh, never. Nobody hiding in an alley that I'm passing by is getting a good picture of my retina to forge. I don't believe any strangers I may have shook hands with were surreptitiously taking my fingerprints either. With an embedded RFID tag, you could be being positively identified at any time with a very minimal risk of the snooper being detected by you. With remote access, everything is right there for anyone with the right kind of snooping equipment. That's why they had to shield the covers of those RFID passports they came out with, so I guess one would have to put the thing in their wrist and then wear a shielded glove or wristband all the time to protect their privacy. Kind of defeats the purpose of the convenience, if one is at all privacy-minded.

  • Why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by neostorm (462848) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:49PM (#15259758)
    Why exactly do you need an implant for this? This reads more as an attempt at resistance-numbing the public to the concept of implants themselves, because franky there's no viable reason you can't have all the features you listed in your keychain or wallet instead. I don't see the threat of lost or stolen hardware to be worth it.

  • WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

    by robogun (466062) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:51PM (#15259770)
    How about skipping the implant and using the keys like normal human beings. Oh I get it, CNN doesn't interview normal human beings. No way I'm pulling the chip out of my BMW key and implanting it into my body because I want to get into my car 0.001 second faster. /no tattoos or piercings, either
    • But... my cat already has an RFID microchip! Oh no... don't tell me he's cooler than me. I mean, he's already more popular with women.
    • You are correct that keys (in the case of, say, a door or car) are adequate security in many cases. If you need better security, use a "thieves lock" (it actually unlocks in the reverse direction than normal, with the normal direction causing the lock to disable itself until reset).


      However, let's assume that this person WANTS the most high-tech solution imaginable. RFID tags are dumb devices with no meaningful logic, which means you can't do encryption key negotiation - or, indeed, any form of encryption at all. Anyone with a scanner can lift ALL of your keys with a simple RFID reader and can then impersonate you with impunity with ALL electronic devices.


      If someone wants an implant - genuinely, truthfully, absolutely would die without one - then they should implant an intelligent device, preferably a small embedded general purpose computer. General purpose? Yes, then you only need one implant, which you can then program for ALL of your devices you want to control, rather than having one implant per device.


      Strong, crypto would utterly defeat the RFID attack on cars mentioned in an earlier Slashdot story. It would also make the computer "unscannable" the way an RFID tag is, because it's no longer just a passive device. Further, an intelligent device could do ANYTHING you wanted, whereas an RFID tag could not. An embedded computer could monitor your temperature and control the thermostat accordingly, for example. An embedded tag could do nothing more than get crushed as the blood vessels expanded.


      Personally, I would avoid implants. Implants can be thought of as deliberate splinters or deliberate cysts, depending on size. Both of these, when they occur naturally, can potentially turn nasty. The body really doesn't take kindly to foreign objects, if it detects them. When you've any kind of device that was probably not assembled in a clean-room environment, sterilized and completely clensed, there's a good risk that implants could carry unwanted hitchhikers. Even when it's all done properly, a good bruise near the implant could turn nasty. That's ignoring any chemical reactions between the implant and the body, which may have other unexpected consequences.


      (You should also be aware of materials used. Materials that have a higher-than-normal level of alpha-particle emitters could seriously screw things up. The skin is thick enough to absorb alpha particles, in typical real-world conditions, which is just as well - soft tissue tends not to react too well to such things.)


      The embedded computer shares ALL of the health problems of an RFID tag, though scaled up because it is more complex and involves more components. It also needs a power source, so you'll occasionally need to rip yourself open to replace the lithium batteries.


      Now, there ARE ways to embed a computer in a person in a way that would minimize hazards on a day-to-day basis. However, there you're talking major surgery for the implant plus for each recharge. Surgery is, itself, extremely dangerous and not something you'd normally do just to add a gadget to your life.


      It's possible to imagine surgical implants that COULD be recharged with less effort - such as enlarging the skull and using some of the space added, with a power outlet the bone can grow around - but we're talking serious sci-fi medical techniques here. Sure, there have been experiments involving wiring EEG devices directly to the human brain. Sure, even Stone Age medics could drill holes large enough to run a power outlet or an ethernet port. Sure, there are societies even today that deliberately reshape the skull. But to combine all of this AND enlarge an adult skull, not just reshape a child's... That is probably too complex for existing technology.


      However, were implants to be a useful thing for society as a whole, a deep implant (such as in the chest cavity - if you can staple a stomach in half safely, you can wedge a matchbox-sized motherboard in there with absolutely zero impact), or a skull implant would seem to be far more resistant to damage, far more powerful, far more useful, far less toxic and far less likely to trigger an immune response.

      • Noo, there's plenty of ways you can charge it, such as magnetically, which is how middle ear implants are charged (if people had to cut inside their middle ear each time they wanted those charged, I doubt anyone would have 'em).

      • I am a surgeon, so I do know what I'm talking about for the following concerns.
        Implanting a RFID is relatively easy - just a large sized needle to place it under the skin - and also fairly easy to take out that way too. The ones that have been used in pets without problems for YEARS! are covered with an inert plastic that also has been used for years in people, without allergic reactions. Yes I guess that if you did develop a large bruise,AND it became infected that the implant could get infected too, but

  • When the Jones have them... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Super Dave Osbourne (688888) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:55PM (#15259789)
    I certainly won't even consider it. Nazi Germany comes to mind, marking folks for reasons of ID'ing them for whatever reason is not a good idea. SS is another thing that creeps me out, a system of identification, now illegally used all the time to limit people's freedoms. Business all the time limit doing business with someone if they don't provide a SS, yet that is illegal. When will it come down to the same with a RFID? I suspect sooner than later, especially if the government gets involved in the process, and it already has... FDA anyone?

  • Carry it? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jbbernar (41291) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:56PM (#15259798)
    You could just carry the tag. Or wear it. Would that be too hard?

    • Re:Carry it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by udoschuermann (158146) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:16PM (#15259902) Homepage
      That's right. Implanting the RFID tag robs you of the option of leaving it home when you really don't care to have it around and be trackable, unless your real intention is to explore the psychological implications of being robbed of that choice and having to learn to live with yet another freedom abridged (by free will, no less... how twisted is that?)

  • I don't see the appeal (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colonel Panic (15235) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:57PM (#15259806)
    It's like saying "Homeland Security, here I am! Track my every move!"

  • Just a little stick... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ndykman (659315) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @10:57PM (#15259811)
    I think hardware upgrades should not involve needles, scapels and sutures. Call me crazy.

  • pluses minuses (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mikesd81 (518581) <mikesd1@@@verizon...net> on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:00PM (#15259824) Homepage


    • Pluses
    * You're in a car accident or you collapse and you have to go to the hospital and they need a medical history.
    * You're child is lost and they need to find his address/phone number (this sounds incredibally pet like, I know. But the kid should be allowd to have it turned off/removed @ age 18 or younger if parents consent)

    • Minuses
    * Let's say someone finds a way to sniff the signal, and can open your car/house what have you
    * You want to take a job in the covert business..
    * Anyone can track you
    * If this takes off and business impliment it and you don't want to do it then you can't buy goods and what not. I personally would never do this. It's just wrong in sooo many ways, religiously and ethically.
    • But the kid should be allowd to have it turned off/removed @ age 18 or younger if parents consent)

      Once there is a generation or two that have grown up with them...they will see it as normal, and quite possibly won't want to have it turned off/taken out. And also...those 'kids' don't stay kids. They grow up to be politicians.

    • IMHO, being able to track your kid not only gives you a false sense of security (so you know where they are, now what?), it also does not allow them to grow up to be responsible adults by making their own decisions and mistakes without sombody following them every move.

      Therefore I move to transfer that point from (+) to (-)

  • Life imitates art (Score:3, Informative)

    by digitalhermit (113459) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:25PM (#15259946) Homepage
    It seems that this is one of those cases where the crazy science fiction authors have pegged it.

    On the one hand, there's this notion that crime will be a thing of the past because at any moment we can see where everyone is. Want to go hiking and then swimming and don't want to carry around a wallet? No problem since every store can immediately verify your ID and credit as you enter the building. Super conveniet. When you step in your car it will automatically adjust the seats, tune your 6 presets, adjust the volumes, load your phone number list into the car phone, queue your MP3s. Online shopping will be a breeze since your computer will have scanners to verify your ID point-to-point. Identity theft? No longer possible. And crime will be down. Want to figure out who graffitied a wall? Just check the perimeter logs and find the ID. Want to see who should/shouldn't be in a building? Check the entrance and hallway logs. After all, if you've got nothing to hide, why should you worry?

    Then there's that other side... No implant? Then no credit for you. No purchases, no vending machines, no access to the school. Or maybe it will be an onerous process... Fill out a form, wait a day or two. In the clubs the twenty-somethings will politely turn away when you bring out *cash* to pay for a drink. What sort of freak pays with cash anymore?

    But more than likely we'll accept the intrusions into our privacy because it'll be do damned convenient. We pay for our groceries and medications with credit cards, shop online for books (ohmygod!) with credit cards, attend subversive movies such as Jarhead or Fahrenheit 911 or Narnia and pay with credit cards, we book hotels, rent cars to travel to Omaha and Key West and pay with credit cards... RFID is just the next logical step.

    (I just saw Gattaca so I'm in that sort of mood)

  • Have you even thought about what you are saying? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fallen Kell (165468) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:46PM (#15260039)
    ...solutions that will open my doors...
    You mean like to your home? How is this secure? I mean, truely, how? What your RFID only will respond to certain readers? Someone won't be able to have a portable reader connected to say a laptop that reads your RFID and uses that to program the correct response code to other readers?

    ...unlock my car...
    I take it you didn't read the LA Times lately. For reference, go read this article [latimes.com] and when you are done, do you REALLY think they won't be able to do something similar? In fact it will be even easier, they just watch a place that gets a lot of expensive cars, place a few RFID readers around, wait for you to leave and then walk up to your car and drive away. They wouldn't even need to spend several minutes "cracking" your car's code since they got it from you when you drove into the lot.

    ...log me on to my computer...
    Get a fingerprint reader, or a smart card reader. Heck Sun has an entire system based on this for years, it will even move your active session from computer to computer (i.e. the applications you have open and running, your connections to other computers, the mozilla window on slashdot, the code you have compiling, etc...)

    ...control home automation...
    Wow, you need to have a RFID "implanted" to do this? Why not a card or a chip, or widget that fits in your wallet? Why not that for ANY of the above? All you do with the implant is tag yourself for everyone else to see and track. A card/chip/widget can be easily changed. Same reason why you need to change passwords ever few weeks, it make it harder for someone to compromise and continue compromising your security.

  • why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by austad (22163) on Thursday May 04 2006, @12:09AM (#15260129) Homepage
    Last I saw, you could get these the size of a grain of rice. Why not just pierce your ear and stick it in the hole, or superglue it to your fingernail (which you'd have to redo periodically)

    Here's a reason no one thought of for these... If there's any ferrous metal in the device, you cannot go into an MRI machine. Additionally, even though there may not be ferrous metal in it, the MRI can still cause inductive heating on the device which can burn you. This is fine, when you're coherent enough to tell the docs what you have. What happens if you are in a car accident or have a stroke, and they need to stick you in an MRI machine?
    • What happens if you are in a car accident or have a stroke, and they need to stick you in an MRI machine?
      Why couldn't you wear a medic alert bracelet or pendant with a warning that you have an embedded RFID tag?

      (Yes, I know. And now you know, and I know you know... ;-)

  • Obsolescence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SecretAsianMan (45389) on Thursday May 04 2006, @12:13AM (#15260142) Homepage

    Obviously, you have no sense of how quickly technology becomes obsolete.

    Otherwise, you wouldn't want to implant that technology into you.

  • Can I implant my pocket instead? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blair1q (305137) on Thursday May 04 2006, @12:31AM (#15260207) Journal
    I typically wear pants everywhere I go, and the places I don't wear pants, I don't think I need to be uniquely identified...or at least, I think I'm pretty well recognized just by my physiognomy, yuh?

    So, please, instead of putting the proprietary and easily-obsolesced technological bolus UNDER MY GOD-DAMNED SKIN can I, yuh, just stick it in my pocket?

    That'd be brilliant. Cheers.

  • Security? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kuukai (865890) on Thursday May 04 2006, @01:45AM (#15260420) Journal
    Being a developer myself, I am intrigued about building applications and solutions that will open my doors, unlock my car, log me on to my computer and control home automation.

    I don't see how this offers any practical security benefits. Let's explore a possible holdup situation involving a standard punk and an "early adopter":
    Punk: Gimme your keys or I'll cut you!
    You: Sorry, no keys, I start my car with a microchip in my hand.
    Punk: What the hell? Don't fuck with me! Gimme your keys!
    You: I told you, I-... Urrghhrgh *Sounds of dying*

    Nope, doesn't look too promising. Nope, not too promising at all... But maybe if you're reeeallly lucky he'll know about RFID tags and just saw off your hand instead!

  • Poor tradeoff (Score:3, Informative)

    by renoX (11677) on Thursday May 04 2006, @02:28AM (#15260492)
    OK so you don't need keys, what happens when their is a power failure?
    You're locked out.
    To prevent this, you have to have keys stored somewhere to avoid the problem, the same thing you do when you use keys to avoid being stuck when you loose your keys, so there is no safety advantage.

    For me this looks like a stupid thing to do, the only "real" advantage is the 15min of fame of having implants, it would be much more intelligent to use watch or mobile phones to do the same thing..

  • RFID = 666? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DinoPirate5000 (972725) on Thursday May 04 2006, @03:05AM (#15260576)
    there are some people who believe RFID chips are the mark of the beast. and it almost fits for the most part: And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a MARK in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the MARK, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. Rev. 13:16-18 although it also mentions that you can also name the beast or know his number, so I don't know how accurate this is, but I've read about a computer system that stores all kinds of information from bar codes and stuff named Bavarian Economic Accounting Statistics Terminal (B.E.A.S.T. for short) There are a few other tie ins such as the bible mentions those wearing the mark will have blisters and sores on the skin where the mark is. This is possibly caused by the body rejecting the RFID chip. I know it may sound alittle crazy, but just think about it before you put these in your skin, don't wanna unleash the wrath of God on yourself because you didn't heed a fellow slashdotter's warning ;-)

  • Open source it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Yvanhoe (564877) on Thursday May 04 2006, @03:15AM (#15260604) Journal
    I'll go for a fully specified and documented chip that comes with OSS software. I'll also hope that the impantable "chip" will be a bit more than a plain passive RFID tag (come on, there's room in there!) and so i'd want it to be able to "shut off" to maybe be flashable, to have some sort of memory, etc...

  • Projections (Score:3, Funny)

    by j.leidner (642936) <`leidner' `at' `acm.org'> on Thursday May 04 2006, @05:24AM (#15260889) Homepage Journal
    there seems to be a growing community of people who are implanting themselves with RFID chips.

    Really? I thought I had read that the number of crazy people has has actually stayed pretty constant for the last 2,000 years.

    In other news, the next DARPA grand challenge is probably going to be "design a robot that hunts RFID-carrying humanoids" ;-)

          • 1984 (Score:4, Insightful)

            by mrraven (129238) on Wednesday May 03 2006, @11:42PM (#15260023)
            I am however worried about ubiquitous tracking. How can that possible be good? Britain for example wants to track EVERY car on the roads and then store the data for 2 years.

            "Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

            Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years."

            http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article 334686.ece [independent.co.uk]

            Don't they make the kiddes read 1984 anymore? How much more blatant do things have to get before there is some sort of real effective reaction?
            Oh I forgot it's for the children, and against the terrorists and pirates, nevermind.

            When I read stuff like this, off the grid survivalist/back to the land hippies don't sound tin foil hat crazy, they sound like smart forerunners of an underground resistance to tyranny.

    • Paranoid hypochondria (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Breast implants [fda.gov]

      The FDA pulled silicone implants to study them in detail. The claims of killing people were thoroughly debunked. Silicone breast implants that leak need to be removed, but about the worst thing that happens after a leak is having little lumps of silicone under the skin that move around.

      This is psychologically disturbing in the extreme. Naturally, women who had this happen and then got sick for other reasons blamed the leak.

      Saline breast implants are a genuine health risk if something grows in

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