radio frequency identification

A gun’s lifespan is greatly affected by how often it is fired. It is impractical, however, to expect soldiers to document their weapon use in the field, especially in the heat of battle. A new RFID-enabled system being tested by the Army automates the process.

An employee looking to steal confidential information from his employer sneaks into what should be a secure back room after hours. He pulls charts and files from a top-level financial meeting and slides them into his briefcase before heading back out.

Like many schools, Howell High and the Howell campus of Lansing Community College have a room set aside where students can buy pop, chips and candy. But this one is different. There's no checkout clerk. Every item in the store has an electronic device on it called a Radio Frequency Identification tag, or RFID.

I have two children, a boy and a girl. When my son was born 12 years ago, the obstetrician asked within hours of his birth if I wanted to have him circumcised. This is a common practice for boys, so I didn't hesitate to say yes. Of course, it is a medical procedure, and in hindsight, I wish I'd thought about it for more than 35 seconds. Now imagine a world where the doctor had, instead, asked me if I wanted my son "chipped." Here's how that conversation might have gone:

www.citywatcher.com attracted little notice - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.

The current generation of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is vulnerable to eavesdropping, cloning and forging. That's according to an April security trends report (download PDF) from security software vendor McAfee Inc. The Sage report is issued semiannually by McAfee Avert Labs based on its research into high-tech threats.