I have seen an interesting video on
indexvideo (sorry, it is hungarian) a few days ago. An intelligent shopping cart was developed in a research institute of BME (the Hungarian University of Technology). It has the capability of recognizing all the products in it and can write the sum you pay. A lot people likes this amazingly comfortable product and there is no doubt it could speed up the shopping (the payment) process. For me breadline is one of the most boring "activity" I can imagine. However a few people think it could be a new threat to our privacy. Is that possible we slowly get use to living without private life?
In the begining we lived in small villages and we really meet each other when we really needed it. During the times we slowly moved closer to each other. Because of the pressure a few people moved so close (I mean blocks of flats) that they even know everything about happenings in the neighbor, like who went to the toilette and who are hungry. A friend of mine said its the "beehive feeling", one of his observation was threat during the TV ads hundreds of lights are up in the kitchens or on the toilettes.
The next revolutionary development was the telephone, which provided a direct connection between the outside world and the living room. Of course it is not mandatory to answer, but when I was a child there were no caller ID display neither mute function. Then the power of telephony was extended by mobile technology. Wifes, husband family and our boss can reach us at every moment of the day. Even with the cell information there is a possibility to track where were you. If you are lucky enough your activity is recorded by hundreds of public camera.
For those it is not enough, we have many social networking sites we can join. You can "contact" to your relatives, friends and business partners. You can upload pictures and share many intimate parts of your life. In my opinion this is the point we loose the idea of intimacy. A lot people write blogs or micro blogs (like me:-), where they share with whom and where they have lunch together and what they though about their boss on the morning meeting, maybe the count the day until the summer holiday. To do that you do not need to wait until the and of the meeting because your phone app can do the job and the messages is flying to the information superhighway. Of course some bad guys on the net can hardly wait for your blogpost 'cause they would like to visit you flat. Maybe they can find some useful gadgets they could use.
Finally the most paranoids throw up the sponge as soon as the start using the biggest search giant's apps like mail, health, gallery, video share, OS, blog engine;-) and so on. Of course these are comfortable but we hardly think about our privacy. And now comes the shopping cart!
Shops uses RFID stickers against shoplifting, which identifies the the product you buy. The base of the mechanism is there is a chip in the stickers and an antenna. It receives energy from the radio waves and the code is responded by the antenna (that is the passive transponder). We need no galvanic connection just an antenna. That is the wide spread defense against shoplifting but it is used for different purposes. Modern passports (even the Hungarian) contains RFID chips which speeds up the administration. The data stored in the chip can by anything. EU in the future will store biometric informations too (after 9/11 it was not too difficult to make politicians to vote it). I do not know if I have to be happy that terrorist can make a better score, decreasing collateral damage. Everything for the effectiveness!
The indexvideo I mentioned contains the same RFID chip. On the Defcon a few guys showed an antenna the even from 20 meters (around 70 feet) these signals can be received. With this capability well equipped people can exactly tell what we carry home in our bag, which is my car even they do not have to break in to my flat to know which kind of TV I have. (Guys who read me! It is not the last model... does not worth it!)
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2005/07/_defcon_rfid_world_record.html
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/000798.html
Thats is why I am a bit doubtful abut such new technologies. Am I the only who thinks the world is so bizarre? I do not makes me calm that a big part of it are completely voluntary. Believe me I am not paranoid. They are really about me.
