Big Brother in your pocket, your shoes, your car's tires, your shirt's designer label...

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, technology, surveillance, smart tags

In the keywords, I almost wrote "nonfiction...sadly". There is no fiction in the book. There is a bit of extrapolation, very close-in, sure-thing extrapolation: car going 100, already missed a turn, ten feet from impact with a fire hydrant...conclusion, we're going to get wet and somebody's headed for a major ER visit.

Catherine Albrecht, founder of CASPIAN, and Liz McIntyre, CASPIAN's communications director, sound alarmist in their new book SPYCHIPS. Full title of the book: SPYCHIPS: How major corporations and government plan to track your every move with RFID, and CASPIAN stands for "Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering". Only, it ain't just supermarkets, folks.

They only sound alarmist. Compared with the magnitude—and current reality—of the threat, they are mild-mannered, harmless kittens. Fortunately, they aren't that harmless, and have forced major corporations to back down from plans to implement spy-chipping endeavors...for the present.

What is the threat? Let's take it a step at a time.

What is a spychip? There are two kinds. The cheap variety are little passive transponders: when a radio signal of the right frequency, and strong enough, is present, they take power from it and broadcast on a very close frequency their ID code, and perhaps other information...perhaps lots of other information. The more expensive variety are active transponders. They contain a battery. The most familiar are highway toll transponders, such as EZ-Pass in the Northeast US. They can respond to a weaker signal; they broadcast a stronger signal with their ID code, and probably other information as well.

Passive chips, depending on frequency and efficiency, can be "read" at distances from a few inches to two or three feet. Active chips can be read much farther, from ten feet or so to a mile or more.

Such chips can be little. The chips themselves are the size of a sand grain or smaller. Their antenna makes them larger. The low-frequency ones, like my company badge that opens the door to my office building, are the size of a credit card. The ones that work in the UHF band (off the end of the TV channels) can me half an inch long, and no wider than the wire to your IPod earphone.

Scenario one: Are you a Texan? Got a TranStar toll transponder? Like those discounts? Houston gets a lot for the discount it offers you. Ever notice, on the highways around Houston, there is a sign bridge every four or five miles...even where you'd think none is needed? Every car passing under those signs is recorded, using its TranStar. That explains why the TranStar needs replacement every year or two; the battery is getting a lot more use than you bargained for! This isn't fiction; it is happening now.

Scenario two: Since mid-2005, did you buy any Levi's in Mexico? So far, it is just one store, but you just might find a chip inside one of the labels...drop this search string into Google for more details: +frontline +levi +mexico +rfid .
Chips that can hide behind the alligator label on your designer shirt can be read from a foot away or so, just far enough that every store in the mall _could_ have a reader in the doorway, and thus be alerted to the presence of that shirt. Point-of-sale information, which the stores can all buy cheaply, will attach your name (or the name of whoever gave you the shirt for your birthday!).

I have "loyalty" cards for several local grocery stores. At the moment, they are all bar-coded, and contain no chips (I've checked). But whenever I use one during a purchase, the receipt is very diligent to print how much I've saved in the current year by using the card. It's dollars and cents, folks! My stores know everything my family has eaten, for years already. All they have to do is collate their datebases. As an expert in that field, I know how easy this is.

Within a couple years I expect these grocers to issue replacement cards, that offer "added benefits." They won't mention that the benefits are all on their own side! They'll have chips. At that point, my family and I will be faced with a decision: How badly do we value the privacy of our eating habits? Are we ready to return to paying cash for everything? Are we willing to go to the trouble to create a false identity with which to set up the "loyalty" account? (child's play, by the way)

How long will it be before we come under pressure to have chips implanted in our bodies? The story will be about public safety, but the real reason will be surveillance. Big Brother in your armpit, or up your butt, or somewhere...

Most of us are descended from patriots who threw a few thousand dollars' worth of tea into Boston harbor over a tax raise. How many of us are willing to revolt over a technology that will with total certainty lead to 24/7, minute-by-minute recording of our lives? Oh, it will be gradual, but it will be relentless.

You know, I've only touched on a few points from the book, and I'm already boiling again. I have a story from history we would all do well to heed.

John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, wrote of a dream in which he conversed with the Devil. Satan said, "I'll get you, you know." John stalwartly replied, "You can't. I'll fight you at every turn." The Devil said, "Oh, I don't need to fight. I'll be very gentle, and gain you very gradually, like a mother lulling her infant to sleep."

Let us remember that governments and corporations live longer than we do. They can afford enormous patience. Freedom can't be retained on autopilot. The battles must be fought again and again.

See these web sites for more information, and some ideas you can put into practice: http://www.nocards.org/ (CASPIAN) and http://www.spychips.com/ .