Pete writes “For good or ill, it seems RFID tags can now be incorporated into virtually anything as reported by Technovelgy technovelgy.com has the scoop.
“The world’s smallest and thinnest RFID tags were introduced yesterday by Hitachi. Tiny miracles of miniaturization, these RFID chips (Radio Frequency IDentification chips) measure just 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters.
Science fiction fans will have a field day with this new technology. In his 1998 novel Distraction, Bruce Sterling referred to bugged money.””
Good for security
When I was getting my MS Chem I was working on tracerlabelling and radiolabelling (radio-isotope not radio-frequency) of certain chemicals used in bomb making. Not just bomb making, but that was one of the categories.
For example NH3 can be tagged so as to identify source or batch without affecting its chemical avilability for industrial (non-pharma) uses. NH3 makes really good bombs it was a component of the one used by that whackjob that blew up the Murrah building if I recall.
This sort of thing would be remarkably useful for that purpose. If you are going to use 1/2 ton of anhydrous ammonia and some diesel fuel to make a bomb, you are not going to open each bag and sift through it to find a 50 micron RFID tag.
I did my work long before the bombing, but I know that many materials that are convertable to weapons components are already tagged in one of several different ways so that they are lot traceable to the source & purchaser. Big brother is watching you fertalize your lawn.
Good for Tracking Nasty Stuff of All Kinds
Oh, the infinite and myriad uses of this – e.g., they can put it into your toilet paper, so Big Brother can trace your poop; or into your kleenex, to follow your snot. And so much else! But this will be good for jobs – think of all the people they will need to hire for exciting jobs tracking the micro RFIDs’ travels in connection to you! Reminds me of the years-ago comments made by Robert Anton Wilson, the writer who recently died: he said something to the effect that 50% of the population will needed to be hired to watch the other 50% of the population. But who will watch the watchers?