Information Tags Along Everywhere You Go

ACM Technews tells of consumers turning to the Internet to try to find ways to disable or remove the radio frequency identification tags affixed to many producst and consumer items, including passports and credit cards.

While this practice is becoming more prevalent, critics warn the the tags and signals could be abused by individuals attempting to steal identity or find targets for a specific attack.

California legislators enacted a law last year prohibiting employers from forcing their employees to implant RFID tags in their bodies. But the real problem, say critics, is that RFID tracking is virtually invisible and undetectable by its subjects.

"You can look at this at two different levels: whether it's worthwhile for you as an individual to fuss with wrapping your cards in some sort of sleeve, or looking at the systemic issue: how we got to a point where these cards do make this information available remotely," said Edward W. Felton, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University, whose graduate students became famous for penetrating the security of electronic voting machines.

See today's article about the problem at baltimoresun.com.