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In addition, some analysts are saying that CIOs, especially those involved in the retail industry, should come up with a strategy to assure consumers that they are not being tracked with the use of these tags. It is recommended they do, or else consumers may end up with a slanted awareness of RFID from what they see, hear, and read from privacy advocates that may or may not be entirely accurate.

Tests like these will occur more frequently over the next several months, and with immigration likely to be a hot topic in the upcoming congressional elections, this is an opportunity for RFID to prove its mettle as a useful technology in security-type applications.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Wal-Mart has been one of the biggest proponents of RFID technology and, let's face it, they are one of the dominant retailers in this country, so if you want to do business with them, you pretty much have to fall in line with their directives.

This is a really good idea and hopefully this will migrate our way in the near future.

At this point, it doesn't seem likely that this bill will pass, only because legislators certainly aren't educated enough about RFID to believe that it will be abused by anyone else. If anyone in the general public has any knowledge about RFID, it's usually in the context of Wal-Mart's use of it to track inventory. Of course, as more details emerge about the potential abuses, then some serious debate will take place. At the same time, it's up to us to set aside the paranoic arguements from those who think that the use of RFID will turn our society into a "1984" scenario and really study what it's pros and cons are.

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In addition, NEC foresees the battery, which does not contain any harmful metals such as mercury, lead, or calcium, being used in applications including electronic paper to tags that trace retail goods in real-time.

Basically, it won't be long before all of us become walking batteries and the phrase "getting my batteries recharged" takes on a whole other meaning.

The threats are classified in two ways:

• Vulnerabilities-defined as a piece of a system or protocol that can be exploited to use the system in manner other than it was designed for. Examples include an unauthorized entity to pose as an authorized entity or information from authorized entities to be intercepted by or disclosed to an unauthorized entity

• Exploits-a technique, such as a program, piece of code, set of steps, or hardware device, which takes advantage of one or more vulnerabilities.

After thinking about what happened with this passenger on this particular flight (he actually advocates that the "miscreant" be dealt with in a "Biblical style"), Cochrane thinks that RFID would be a useful technology to screen all bags, clothing, purchases, and belongings besides documents and passports.

It's actually not a bad thought to leverage RFID technology to supplement airport security. Possibly baggage tickets could have RFID tags implanted in them along with boarding passes. I'm sure there's a myriad of logical ways to use RFID in this instance. But paranoic overreactions like this will certainly drive privacy advocates and other RFID opponents to step up their efforts to keep the technology from ever hitting any kind of mainstream usage. Obviously, the passenger shouldn't have done what he did, but there's no need to go to extremes.

In other words, what you wear may ultimately decide what you watch. Hmmm...does this mean special outfits for particular shows? If I wear a replica football jersey, the TV will immediately tune to a football game? Or if I wear tattered jeans and a t-shirt I'll be switched over to "Lost"?