Humour

Tracking powder technology

T A Balasubramanian on the innovative ways how high powered RFID readers and scanners can be used to perform tracking

Re-entering the busy portals at the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), the much-visited IT trade fair, you, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, are accompanied by your humanoid CTO, Danny DeVito, whose enthusiasm for deep diving into matters technology remains undiminished.

“Hello, there, folks,” booms a familiar voice, and you recognize the genial face of Gene Hackman, CEO of Virus Busters. He shakes hands all around, sounding very pleased to have found a captive audience.

“Oh, so we cross paths again, Gene,” booms DeVito, delighted at the prospect of listening to the latest pitch from his Hollywood sound-alike buddy. “And what outrageous contraption are you hitting us with now?”

“Hmm, certainly something that would bring a smile to Papyrus here,” says Hackman, prodding you. “You must be aware of a popular form of tracking, called radio frequency identification, or RFID. It’s a technology that lets you use radio waves to send information stored on a silicon chip over tiny antennas. All of this is squeezed into a tag, so a machine can read it without actual contact, and pass that data to a computer.”

“Yes, of course,” you say. “It seems that we are on the verge of being swamped by it.”

“Ah, it is bound to happen, Papyrus. RFID tags are all around us. We think of them mostly as those annoying stickers that beep when they have not been deactivated at the shop cash registers, but, as any business owner will tell you, they are invaluable in cutting losses and managing inventory. RFID is a catchall term for everything from battery-powered ‘active’ tags, such as those used in highway toll booths, to ‘passive’ RFID tags on shop goods that measure a fraction of a millimetre in each dimension, not counting the antenna in the device.”

“You can barely see the little devils, huh?” says DeVito.

“They keep shrinking, yes,” laughs Hackman. “And they may soon become invisible. Some of these RFID tags are the absolute smallest in the world. We have nicknamed it as ‘powder’ or ‘dot’ or ‘grain’ because of their incredible miniature size—just a 5 micron thickness, or measuring only 0.05 by 0.05 millimeters. See that little black dot on my finger tip, no bigger than a pin-head? This incredible RFID grain has a 128-bit ROM that can store a 38-digit number.”

“Wow! I should check my hands—just in case you left a few of these behind after we met,” says DeVito, examining his palms.

“I took care of that,” says Hackman, grinning. “You can embed these little dots into anything from bank notes, paper, or any other object where you would never even notice a tracking chip. Most likely of course, they will be put in there with the purpose of being virtually undetectable. As you can imagine, these tiny particle-like RFID chips could easily be attached to identify anything that moves, and track where it goes.”

“Which includes living things like animals—and people?”

“Anything,” says Hackman gravely. “One of the early RFID applications we have been promoting at Virus Busters is for tracking lost pets. Exotic animals and rare breeds can be worth a lot of money, and anything with legs, scales, or feathers and a mind of its own can decide to go missing. Or it can fall victim to greedy pet snatchers. Worse, your beloved dog can wind up incognito in an animal shelter and, if unidentified, may be put to sleep. What we have done is to get veterinarians and animal shelters to start using RFID readers with our Track-Pet program. A simple wave of a reader wand over the animal brings up a unique registration code, which is either tied directly to you, or can be traced online to the owner, veterinarian, or breeder.”

“Finding cats and dogs. That’s a far cry from the virus hunting business, Gene,” you observe. “Or have you decided to change your IT track?”

“We like to think that our customers have many different needs—some of them very emotional,” chuckles Hackman, unfazed. “The potential for reuniting animals with their happy humans is obvious, don’t you think? You can even order a simple kit from our Track-Pet department to microchip your own pet, if you’re not too nervous about using the injector to place the RFID grain under its skin.”

“You have something good going with these dotty things, Gene,” says DeVito, admiringly. “I wouldn’t like to lose my pet cat—if I had one.”

“We have also thought of a device called Pet-Let, which is a kind of door-flap that keeps unauthorized pets out, and lets in only your cat or dog.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, it’s similar to your old pet-door design which detects a magnet hanging from a cat’s collar. Except that Pet-Let reads an RFID grain buried in your cat’s epidermis. I know that sounds heartless, but surely, you know that many pets carry embedded ID tags already?”

“I used to have a cat, and I do have a dog, but he wears a collar. No embedded grains yet,” you say.

“Let’s say you own a cat. The door-flap is put into learning mode with an RFID reader built on it. First, it will obediently read the tags of any random cat passing through. We program it to recognize only your cat’s signal. From then on, only authorized felines will be granted access. Pet-Let can remember up to 32 pets simultaneously, which is enough for even your most eccentric animal lover.”

“That is amazing, Gene,” you concede. “I can imagine that if you have the kind of cat that refuses to wear a collar, this may be the only way to go. My cat, now in a retirement home, hated collars. In fact, whenever I tried to make her wear one, she would spend the rest of the day walking backwards, trying to reverse out of it.”

“You can do all this with these little grains?” says DeVito.

“Indeed,” beams Hackman. “But we think Track-Pet is only the tip of the iceberg. We think tracking can have an unlimited number of applications. Imagine being a protestor in a group and having microscopic RFID dots or powder sprayed or sprinkled on you by security guards, private corporate interests, you name it. At any time after such an encounter you can be tracked and investigated without knowing it, provided high powered RFID readers and scanners are used to perform the tracking.”

“Oh, that should be interesting for the police.”

“Baffle could use it, too. Let’s say you have this powdery RFID grains sprinkled on areas of high security, like the corridors leading

to your computer center. Any unauthorized fellows that have come in contact with the RFID grains would very likely have several on their body, their clothes, and their shoes and in their hair. You could spot them easily as having breached security.”

“From tracking pets to tracking people, eh?” says DeVito.

“Ah, the possibilities!” sighs Hackman. “Marketing honchos think that RFID tags on goods will help them find out what makes a shopper pick an item off a shelf. Law enforcement agencies want to use the tags to monitor suspects in crimes …”

“And all you need is a little powder,” you say, wryly. “We seem to be turning computer technology into dust.”