Moral of the story: to really disappear, you're going to need to go live in a forest somewhere or move to the high plains of Tibet.
Potentially useful information, if there's mobsters after you.
The RFID tags in tires is a perfect illustration of why it's going to be practically impossible to live in the modern world and cover all your tracks. I certainly didn't know there are tags in tires (which, BTW, is a nifty idea), and there are doubtless hundreds of other tracks I leave. Who could possibly cover them all? It would be like trying to make a sieve water-tight, except you don't even know where half the holes are!
Now, if we're talking about the NSA and not mobsters, and you are less concerned with being un-findable than you are with hiding your activities- there are different games you can play, and I'd bet you could be more successful. Behave in an ordinary fashion 99.9% of the time. Just look at the intelligence operations sixty years ago. Spies didn't hide in holes so no-one could find them, they blended in.
That's the first I've heard of it myself, although it seems inevitable since one of the biggest selling points of RFID tags is for inventory management. We are likely to see RFID tags everywhere we currently see barcodes.
But... to get back to the RFID in tires thing there is more to it than just that. Current vehicle safety codes require in-cabin monitoring of tire pressure. One way to do it is for the car to pay attention to changes in wheel rotation speeds (lower pressure means smaller effective radius). Another is to put a pressure guage in each wheel that talks to the car's computer wirelessly and gives more exact numbers so is more common. So even without RFID in the tires, most cars still transmit a unique ID number everywhere they go.
Reading about direct TPMS, it's a shame that the sensors have to be battery powered. I was excited for a minute, thinking maybe they manage to power the device with radio waves, the same way a passive RFID chip replies using power harvested from the query.
Or some other creative solution for supplying power. I mean, it's a shame these devices don't regularly experience some kind of predictable motion that could be used to generate electricity.
I agree, it's not all your activity you want to keep secret (in which case move to the forest), it's the secret activity. It's not secret when you walk to the store, and it's not secret when you post a photo online or check into a location. However, there must always be a method for secret communication, and of course there is now, it's just not as convenient as the non-secure methods.
I don't know. I have a tendency to get noticd merely for being different. I have genuine concerns about ordinary, nonsecret activities of mine taking notice. But that concern is mostly not relevant to the kind of intelligence being discussed here.
When has secret communication ever been as convenient as the non-secure methods? Dead-drops, circling letters in the newspaper, putting a flower pot on your balcony...
Potentially useful information, if there's mobsters after you.
The RFID tags in tires is a perfect illustration of why it's going to be practically impossible to live in the modern world and cover all your tracks. I certainly didn't know there are tags in tires (which, BTW, is a nifty idea), and there are doubtless hundreds of other tracks I leave. Who could possibly cover them all? It would be like trying to make a sieve water-tight, except you don't even know where half the holes are!
Now, if we're talking about the NSA and not mobsters, and you are less concerned with being un-findable than you are with hiding your activities- there are different games you can play, and I'd bet you could be more successful. Behave in an ordinary fashion 99.9% of the time. Just look at the intelligence operations sixty years ago. Spies didn't hide in holes so no-one could find them, they blended in.