
Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips - stfu
http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-school-id-hernandez-033/
======
flyt
Super simple: put the ID card in a microwave for a few 5-10 second bursts to
disable the RFID circuitry. Every time you need to use the card just say "it
doesn't work for me", and when they issue you a new card do it over and over.
You "don't know" why it happens, but this makes it as much of a hassle for
them as it is for you.

~~~
rhino42
Or wrap it in tin foil for a poor-man's farady cage. You could do slightly
better with one of those passport RFID shields if that didn't cut it. Whenever
they want you to present it, happily do so and then put it back in its cage

------
ghshephard
It's important to note - the students aren't being "chipped" - instead, they
are required to carry identification cards that have microchips in them.

I guess the ick factor comes down to how you feel about living in a
surveillance society, and what you think forcing students to accept this type
of continuous monitoring will do to them.

Students, in general, have fewer rights in a school, and are subject to search
without due cause, so, from a legal perspective, not much leg to stand on.

I guess I'm kind of nonplussed about all this as I've carried an
identification card/chip in every job I've worked at in Silicon Valley since
1996. The benefit has been 24x7 access to the office and all of it's
equipments, servers, routers, whenever I wanted to go do work at the cost of
the company knowing when I entered the building without tailgating someone
(I've never worked at a company that required chipping out).

The RFID "distance" monitoring would be somewhat more annoying (if that's a
function of this school system) - I'm not sure I'd be too keen on someone
knowing my precise physical location on campus at all times, and being able to
get a report on that - so I can see the resistance to that.

~~~
chris_mahan
The problem is that they are required by law to go to the school, so it's not
optional for them. In a job situation, you have the option of not working
there.

~~~
cracell
On that same note people shouldn't allow their employees to have abusive
practices. Carrying a keycard to get into a building is one thing, having a
RFID scanner that logs every time I enter the kitchen or bathroom is another.

~~~
nmridul
There are companies that do that, specially in tele marketing, call centers
etc where they also track your time. Everytime you enter the kitchen, take a
break, the time stops.. It starts when you are back at your desk.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Is that actually even legal? I think our labor laws might have a huge hole
because they don't actually define what constitutes working time. Is there
caselaw on the issue?

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zarify
Obvious really. Kids aren't coming to school? Chip them and punish them if
they don't carry their card or aren't where they're supposed to be. Much
better than thinking about the long term and figuring out, oh I don't know,
why they're not coming to school and fixing that.

There was an educator from the US speaking at a conference I was at last week,
and it honestly felt like stealing her passport and return tickets so she
couldn't go home would be a kind thing to do.

~~~
nekojima
"stealing her passport and return tickets so she couldn't go home would be a
kind thing to do."

A kind thing to do for her or for the students?

~~~
zarify
A kind thing for her :P Her sessions were excellent.

------
anigbrowl
Russia Today is an unreliable source to start with, and quoting worldNet Daily
- famous mainly for conspiracy theories about Obama not being a Us citizen and
for having a political opinion column by Chuck Norris - renders the story even
less credible. Besides, even if it is all absolutely legit...

 _Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that subjecting herself to
constant monitoring through an RFID chip is like being branded with the “mark
of the beast” – a reference to the Bible's apocalyptic Book of Revelations._

...why should I give a hoot about people with such crackpot religious beliefs?
We pander enough to this sort of nonsense already, and if the student finds it
that objectionable maybe she should go to a private school instead. I am not a
fan of the surveillance society, but given the staggeringly high truancy,
dropout and incidence of gun crime on American high school campuses, trackable
student IDs are low on the list of things to worry about.

~~~
shortformblog
I instantly question hardcore when I see the story is from RT, personally.

~~~
jlujan
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/rfid-chip-
student-m...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/rfid-chip-student-
monitoring/)

As a Texan, I think it is ridiculous to spend millions on a technology
"solution" just to get more funding. Why would you want kids in class that
don't want to be there? Money would be better spent on actually educating the
kids that do attend than tracking kids that don't.

------
jrockway
I guess nobody has told kids about what adults do with their grocery store
loyalty cards: randomly trade them with other people so the data becomes less
useful.

Also, which RFID technology are they using? The readers look like Octopus card
readers. (Which is FeLiCa-based.) I doubt the claim that the cards are "always
broadcasting" and that designing a practical remote RFID reader is much more
difficult than "parents" imagine. But even the federal government put some
privacy provisions into the RFID passports, so you'd think that the same
courtesy could be extended to high school students too.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Trading loyalty cards with an acquaintance, when combined with credit card
payment information, yields relationship data. That's just giving them _more_
information.

------
kondro
I really dislike how Americans seem to treat children as chattel.

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jhuckestein
What, aren't the teachers able to determine who's present anymore? How large
are the classes in this school?

All the other potential use-cases such as payment for lunch, logging onto
computer systems, identification etc sounds useful. Tracking attendance sounds
very misguided though. I didn't go to class a lot and whenever I did show up I
caused a ruckus (yea yea, I know... but back then I thought it was hilarious).
I don't think anyone's situation would have improved if somebody made me tag
in and out of classrooms or globally punished me...

~~~
malandrew
What's even more misguided is that using it for attendance is going to enable
skipping class not enforce it. There's nothing preventing Student A from
carrying both his ID and Student B's while Student B skips class. Not only
will Student B succeed in skipping class, they get get an alibi as well.

------
thronemonkey
Little Brother anyone? I've always told people that book is hyperbolic but
good anyway; seems like that might not be the case :/

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dpritchett
This seems ripe for a good hack, maybe harvest ID fingerprints via war driving
and stationary scanners and then post the creepiest mapping mashups the law
allows?

Bonus points if the scanning is pulled off with drones flying in public
airspace.

~~~
dpritchett
The school district's FAQ [1] seems a bit glib regarding the anonymity of the
cards:

 _Q.1 Could someone manufacture a copy of a WGA RFID reader and use it to
intercept information transmitted by student RFID tags?

A.1 WGA has approached this as an issue of system architecture. By ensuring
that the “smart” ID contains no information of interest to anyone, WGA has
simultaneously removed any motive for cloning its reader and removed any
problem if someone does clone its reader._

[1] <http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/faq>

~~~
ktizo
_By ensuring that the “smart” ID contains no information of interest to
anyone_

Surely that would involve making it not work.

------
sxp
_Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that subjecting herself to constant
monitoring through an RFID chip is like being branded with the “mark of the
beast” – a reference to the Bible's apocalyptic Book of Revelations._

This sounds like the root cause of the protests. Students and parents aren't
complaining about the idea of just having to carry an ID card like a license.
They are complaining about the RFID aspect of the card. They just have some
superstitious fear of technology. There was a similar panic by crackpots when
barcodes came out because barcodes were also thought to be the "Mark of the
Beast"

 _“Using this information along with an RFID reader means a predator could use
this information to determine if the student is at home and then track them
wherever they go. These chips are always broadcasting so anyone with a reader
can track them anywhere,”_

Anyone want to bet those same students have Google Latitude,
Twitter+geolocation, or some similar app on their smartphones?

------
tomrod
I really hate this concept. If the education so poor that students REALLY
don't want to be there, is the solution to make school become even more like a
prison?

The whole education sphere really needs a large revolution. I'm not sure of
the answer, but I bet there is a startup waiting to happen here.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
No, there is not a startup business waiting to happen and make profits off the
provision of a universal public good to people without much money.

~~~
tomrod
I'm not so sure this is true, although it is the standard thought of public
education as a public good.

I seem to remember homeschooling being a rare thing when I was younger, but
now it's at 2..9%(0). I heard a story the other day about a service that
allows teachers to sell their curriculum (1), so there is definitely a sphere
here that's available. I think that, although RT is horribly biased, the
premise that _coercing_ children to stay in class isn't a net positive for
society in any sense; instead, make education a good that children _want_, and
we'll likely see the entire provision system improve.

Forcing consumption of the same good on people is surely going to be net
negative for society, even if that good is deemed by society to be important.

\--- (0)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_in_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_in_the_United_States)
(1) [http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/11/3862033/teachers-
make-m...](http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/11/3862033/teachers-make-money-
selling-materials.html)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm actually 100% against compulsory schooling, but we do need to acknowledge
that homeschooling is a phenomenon of those either so wealthy they can hire
specialists or keep a parent out of the workplace.

~~~
tomrod
Unless a neighbor can homeschool ;)

------
JCraig
Since it is so easy to game card-based check-ins, I'm sure the teachers still
have to verify attendance. Also, if a student's card isn't working, they have
to be able to count that student as in attendance. I wonder how much time this
actually saves.

There has been quite a bit of push-back to the use of RFID specifically. My
college used magstripe cards. They're not quite as robust, but they do need
physical contact to read the information. It seems like a fair trade-off
considering that these are a) kids and b) they are legally required to be at
school (and by extension, school policies carry some force of law).

~~~
ktizo
Also, there is a serious issue with the security of radio tags in general as
they are so susceptible to cloning and spoofing - <http://cq.cx/proxmark3.pl>

------
TheGateKeeper
> to stem the rampant truancy devastating the school's funding

So truancy is a part of lack of funding? There's something wrong with that
picture. Texas needs to fix that issue before trying to act all fascist on
their students.

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iscis
All of the Orwellian fear of big data in this thread needs to go away. I can't
wait for the day when I don't have to watch 50 shitty ads for stuff I don't
need whenever I watch a sporting event or something; present me with ads as I
desire the product.

Shitty ads- the ultimate market failure

------
antonID
How is this tracking? It's an rfid tag with the serial number on it so that
they can scan it to bring up the person in their computer system to do things
like pay for lunch, vote in student elections, and scan them when entering a
classroom for attendance. I seriously don't understand how this is an evil
tracking microchip. Most companies already use these for building access, so I
don't see why using it for simple things at school is insane; it isn't a GPS
chip, it just gives a serial number when scanned... this isn't some kind of
dangerous chip.

~~~
jeffool
The article explains that someone (a member of Texans for Accountable
Government) filed a FOIA request and got the addresses of all the students.
From that a little wardriving will give you recognizable RFID tags so you can
at least tell if the child is in the home, or in any given location.

Is that unlikely? Yes, very.

You know what I think is more unlikely? Someone actually sneaking into in a
case where this ID card would keep them out. I can't imagine a single reason
students couldn't just punch a number to do all of those things, and save the
school system money that could be better spent on any number of things.

~~~
antonID
Did her FOIA request involve the serial numbers of the IDs? Or just a request
for all the students in the school? The article doesn't specify. RT is a
hugely biased news source that tries anything to get bad press on the US, so I
don't trust it as a reliable source.

~~~
jeffool
If you have someone's address and an RFID reader, and they have an RFID chip,
then what do you need the RFID serial number for? If you're already reading,
then just go to their house and scan. If you get multiple, then go again
during the day when you expect them to be at school.

That will get the vast majority.

And yes, I totally get that RT has no problem pushing bullshit; I agree.
Doesn't mean we should discount it completely. We could miss a chance to
improve.

------
bloaf
Couldn't they just give the cards to students with truancy problems?

~~~
chris_mahan
I think they need the cards to identify who those students are.

~~~
bloaf
But if refusing to wear them is an option with few consequences (or, more
specifically, few consequences a delinquent student would care about) then do
the ID tags really accomplish that goal? Consider that the alternative is
simply having the teachers do a $0 roll call before each class.

Indeed, ID cards seem like they might make identification more difficult, as
they would allow unscrupulous students to trade tags and make it seem that
their friends were in places that they were not.

~~~
patio11
_$0 roll call before each class._

That's about a $10 roll call, even if you assume the children's time and
education is valueless. (Assumption: you can complete it in only 10% of the
instructional time per day, teachers have a fully loaded cost of approximately
$100 an hour.) The school would, quite literally, spend thousands of dollars
_a day_ on roll calls.

~~~
trhtrsh
You think roll call takes 5 minutes? If students have assigned seating,
checking attendance takes <30 seconds.

When you choose an appropriate data structure, the efficient algorithm
(distributed seat finding + visual glance) is simple to implement :-)

