Ah, you may say, information about my Karaoke is not very important. Yeah, but it is the biggest event of the day. I’ll make it up to you with some information about RFID (radio frequency ID chips) in a moment. I think the Karaoke problem is that the playback software I have is unique to the program, rather than using the computer’s built-in media player (in this case, PowerDVD). If that is the case, it is beyond my ability to fix. This did not stop me from performing twice over the weekend.Analysis of these performances brought one positive I particularly like. You see, I had to revert to my old format. Compared to the new show, the old show was like an easy game. That is what I meant a while back when I said I was giving myself a few months to get five years experience [playing as a soloist].
I could do my old show in my sleep, which is good because I was able to concentrate on vocals, or more accurately, what is wrong with my vocals. Singing turns out to be difficult for me in terms besides memorizing lyrics and staying on key. For instance, I have pre-conceived notions of word meanings which come out wrong. (In “Secret Agent Man”, I would not normally say “Odds are” because I would say “Chances are”.) Another blooper is I’ll find myself standing still and not smiling on stage.
I would like to point out that I did not receive a single complaint about my weak and second-rate singing. The people present would certainly have said something if I was not putting on a good show. You have no idea how much this has boosted morale. So much for the theory that singing has to be the focal point of a contemporary band.
RFID is not my favorite and I have mean-mouthed the concept. This is where I make myself clear. It is not any particular technology that is bad, rather the way that technology is used. RFID has potential for hellacious evil and that is what I am against. Technology is not self-limiting to good usage. Any privacy guidelines to be used must be in place before a system becomes widespread. Right now, there are zero laws protecting the public from RFID abuse. We already have bar codes, a similar idea, but I would like to point out substantial differences.
Bar codes can only be read one at a time, like at the supermarket checkout. The scanning process would be very difficult to conceal. And the barcode mechanism is based on a central database of dubious accuracy. These ensure bar codes remain primitive. On the other hand, RFID has none of these defects. The theory of RFID dates from the same time period, but because of cost it is not yet implemented. The “antennas” cost almost a dollar each today. By this time next year, Chinese production will bring that down to less than four cents apiece.
Another factor is that bar codes are not standardized. RFID are totally standardized and will have a central authority at work to prevent duplicates. The fancy word for making sure all RFID codes are unique is to say they are “serialized”. As technology improves, there is no limit to how many of these chips can be read at once, but it is certainly in the millions per second. With cellular style coverage, everything in the world could be positioned within minutes.
The major threat of RFID is covert scanning. There are several types of RFID chips but the one to worry about is the passive brand. The chip does nothing until it enters an interrogation zone. This means it becomes within the range of a transmitting signal at the correct frequency. Right now, this means line-of-sight or an uninterrupted direct path of around fifty feet maximum. The emitter beam causes the RFID chip to create backscatter, and this is what the detector reads. Unlike bar codes and their database, RFID chips themselves contain all the information needed and the scanners are very easily hidden.
A good analogy of how this system will be abused is the Department of Motor Vehicles. This government department does nothing to ensure good driving standards, creates nothing beneficial, and if you have ever tried to get anything done down there, you will discover unrestrained bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency. It serves little purpose but to let the wrong people know where and who you are, and where you park your car at night. Now imagine an entire country being run that basis.
Certainly another horrid example is credit reporting agencies. While they should be able to prevent bad risks from getting credit, should they also be allowed to prevent them from getting good jobs and low insurance rates? (I say no, because those usages are not spelled out on the credit application form, and even if they were, it is out of line to use data collected for one specific purpose for another unrelated purpose no matter what correlation may exist. Did you know the newest abuse by credit agencies is to scam the dead? Now that death certificates are published online, the bill collectors can move much faster. They contact the bereaved survivors who do not understand they are under no obligation and feed them a line about clearing the “good name” by paying off any of the corpse’s debts.)
What I’m saying is every piece of information that can be abused will be, so allowing surreptitious collection is not to be viewed as simply the “logical” next phase of doing business. Companies say they need it to counter pilferage, but like all systems before, it will remain in place harming innocent people long after the criminals have moved on to other schemes.
Mind you, RFID works like a radio and can be jammed. The frequency is 915 GHz.
