Tom Toles editorial cartoon on RFID implants:
Exactly the point of the Sorting Door project: one can make inferences from the tags one sees, either because of a known association (as here), or weaker bonds, e.g., suggesting an identity because of the nature of an item seen.
Edward Hasbrouck posts on developments in introducing unsettlingly vulnerable RFID to US passports, here and here.
In a nutshell, unencrypted data will be readily readable; encryption will be used to sign those data; but the bearer’s signature is independent of that, making creation of a false passport less difficult, etc.
The FDA has approved use of VeriChip RFID implants in patients: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=13&u=/ap/20041013/ap_on_hi_te/fda_implantable_chip
“… Delray Beach, Fla.-based Applied Digital Solutions said it would give away $650 scanners to roughly 200 trauma centers around the nation to help speed its entry into the health care market…”
Bruce Schneier is concerned about U.S. proposals for RFID in passports:
“Unfortunately, there is only one possible reason: The administration wants surreptitious access themselves. It wants to be able to identify people in crowds. It wants to surreptitiously pick out the Americans, and pick out the foreigners. It wants to do the very thing that it insists, despite demonstrations to the contrary, can’t be done.”
I agree with Schneier’s assessment; there’s little that can be done with RFID that couldn’t be done with technologies that don’t lend themselves to at-a-distance interrogation and surveillance.