Reader Scans U Right

If Wal-Mart can trace a package when it's in a warehouse or on its shelves,
what's to prevent it from tracking it once it's in your home or office?

SCANS-U-RIGHT & RFID

Companies have developed RFIDs with help from
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security....
Governments or other agencies will be able to track individuals
with RFIDs in their clothes or other personal items.

Scans-U-Right is the first and biggest personal scanning company in the world. In just six months, millions of people have voluntarily had their personal ID number conveniently tattooed on their forehead. It’s a win-win all around. Here is how it works. Consumers get substantial discounts and priority processing on all kinds of services from speedy airline tickets to sporting events. Scans-U-Right replaces credit cards, cash, and your driver’s license!

As more and more businesses and government agencies participate, it’s harder and harder to resist being scanned because of all the fantastic benefits!

The "Scans" business model is compelling. Participating businesses are paid for information they provide the government. Since Scans-U-Right is completely voluntary, government attorneys have concluded there are no separation of church, state, and business issues. New partners are signing on every day. Police departments give a 20% discount on traffic tickets because they are processed instantly. Once your ID number is scanned, you merely press the guilty button and your discounted ticket is charged to your credit card! What could be simpler? Credit card companies make a small fee on all transactions. Consumers get a great discount as well. Everyone wins!

“Scans-U-Right Plus” has just been introduced. This is the Patriot’s Package. In addition to the forehead ID number, a small American flag is also included. To qualify for this plan all you have to do is recite the “Under God” version of the Pledge of Allegiance and sing a karaoke verse of the Star Spangled Banner. Scans-U-Right Plus tells the world you are a patriot and that you are exempt! Parents who don’t want their child to be the only one in the class still reciting the Pledge of Allegiance should sign up early. You and your children will never have to recite the pledge or sing at a ball game ever again! Congress has just approved the exemption for Scans-U-Right customers!

For a little relaxation and stress reduction, try the new free scanner kiosks in malls and airports everywhere. Sit down in front of your screen, scan your forehead ID, and enjoy your personal favorite web sites and TV shows. Your display includes real-time heart rate, blood pressure, and stress level. If your stress level is getting too high, you might want to switch from the Al Qaeda web site and watch an old Brady Bunch re-run. You’re in control - you decide. Everyone is a winner! You get a little stress reduction, the government gets a little data, and the kiosk provider gets a little money from the government. What could be better?

As you know, young people will have to register for the draft after the elections this fall. Since first to register will be the last to be drafted, you might consider Scans-U-Right instant draft registration at participating super-markets, gas stations, and banks.

Both “Scans-U-Right” and “Scans-U-Right Plus” are available today at participating tattooists and medical offices. Sign up today and get your free “scanner safe sunglasses”! These special sunglasses allow your forehead personal ID number to be safely scanned with existing super market scanners. Do you want to be the last person in the store fiddling with cash and writing checks? We don’t think so!

Thanks for sending in the obviously tongue-in-cheek Scans-U-Right scenario. No doubt this will be implemented in the not-too-distant future and promoted in the same way.

The following RFID story appeared in one of Canada's national newspapers yesterday which is similar to your satire, only it isn't satire. They're introducing the concept of micro-chipping as a way to track "product" but as every thinking person should realize by now, humans are also "product".

Wal-Mart tests alternative to bar code
By Jerry Langton
The Globe and Mail, Jun 3, 2004

The days of dominance of that most universal of identifiers — the bar code — may be coming to an end. And, like the dinosaurs before it, the ubiquitous code may be replaced by something smaller, more efficient and altogether more cunning.

The bar code may be toppled due to plans by Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, which has the financial sway to force its suppliers to do just about anything it wants. Wal-Mart is pilot testing Radio Frequency Identification tags (RFIDs) at its Sanger, Texas, distribution centre and a number of retail outlets across the United States.

RFID tags are tiny chips that, when hit with a specific radio signal, can broadcast information stored on them. That information can be anything from a basic product number, to reams and reams of detail about the product itself, what it contains and how it was made. "There's a little antenna in each case [of products], and a reader — it looks like a big metal detector — at the door of every warehouse and retail loading dock," said Kevin Groh, corporate communications manager of Wal-Mart Canada. "It can tell us exactly where any case of merchandise is at any time."

In the initial implementation, RFID readers installed in loading dock doors will show Wal-Mart the exact time and amount of merchandise of each shipment as it enters and exits the distribution centre. Although the project is largely aimed at the case and pallet level, some items — especially electronics — will have individual tags. Such items will be marked with a special symbol indicating its RFID tag to potential buyers.

RFID makes sense for retailers. Not only does it give an accurate on-demand inventory, it can also help locate items quickly in neighbouring stores. "Suppose somebody wants a product and his Supercentre is sold out," Mr. Groh said. "We can, quickly and accurately, find it and get it to them."

If Wal-Mart can trace a package when it's in a warehouse or on its shelves, what's the prevent it from tracking it once it's in your home or office? Not to sound Orwellian, but the potential for surreptitious data-gathering is there on a scale not seen before in society.

"The surveillance potential for RFIDs is huge," said Scott Blackmer, a lawyer from the International Security, Trust and Privacy Alliance. Published reports that Wal-Mart and other companies, including chemical giant Procter & Gamble, have developed RFIDs with help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have raised concerns that governments or other agencies will be able to track individuals with RFIDs in their clothes or other personal items. RFID evidence from toll booths already using the technology to speed up collection from regular commuters is regularly subpoenaed in the U.S. to determine where an individual's car has been, and when.

Critics of RFID bring up potential privacy-invading scenarios such as a van with a super-sensitive RFID sensor driving through a community and cataloguing the products present in every home. That type of marketing information would be pure gold to many companies. "We can certainly understand and appreciate consumer concerns about privacy," said Linda Dillman, chief information officer for Wal-Mart's head office in Bentonville, Arkansas. "That is why we want our consumers to know that RFID tags will not contain or collect any additional data about consumers."

That promise is repeated for Canada as well. "There'll be no tracking beyond the shelf; the tags will be non-functional once they leave the store," said Mr. Groh. "We will be totally compliant with all privacy laws."

Besides streamlining inventory, RFIDs also help retailers by making counterfeiting and theft much more difficult. While bar codes are easy to forge and there's no efficient way to keep a real-time inventory with them, RFIDs are unique to the pallet, case or even item, rather than the product, making them all but impossible to fake. They can also be tracked as they leave a warehouse or retailer or with a handheld reader. According to Procter & Gamble's chief information officer Steve David, counterfeiting costs the world's retail industry $500-billion (U.S.) and employee theft accounts for another $50-billion annually.

The bad side from the retailer's perspective is that radio frequencies can be easily interfered with if thieves have the right equipment. Wal-Mart is aware of this. "The RFIDs have been undergoing extensive testing," said Mr. Groh. "And they've looked at all kinds of security issues."

So far, the tags are being used on just 21 products from six suppliers in one distribution centre, but RFIDs are clearly part of the near future from Wal-Mart's point of view. And with suppliers being told to support the technology, it means other retailers will likely be paying close attention.

"We asked our 100 biggest suppliers to be RFID-ready by January 2005; and, already, 37 are," said Mr. Groh. "Of course, the cutting-edge stuff is happening south of the border, but we're keeping a close eye on things up here [in Canada]."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040603.gtrwal03/BNStory/Technology/

The Eye Is Watching (IAO uses New World Order symbolism). USA Daily, Nov 21, 2002

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~
email address: orwelltoday@orwelltoday.com

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
HOME PAGE
website: www.orwelltoday.com