David Wagner's co-authored analysis of RFID and library privacy [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

This will be the last Politech post for a while. I'm at SFO about to 
leave for Tunisia...

Original RFID protester post:
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/11/09/jim-harper-on/
Jim Harper's reply:
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/11/09/rfid-protesters-target/

-Declan

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Politech] Jim Harper on how anti-RFID'ers harm immigrants, the 
poor (and public libraries) [priv]
Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 09:42:26 -0800 (PST)
From: David Wagner <daw () cs berkeley edu>
To: declan () well com


In article <43723425.90404 () well com> you write:
> I also received a message from a library director at a public library 
> that I've been asked not to post verbatim. To summarize it, they're 
> planning to replace bar code and security tags with RFID tags within the 
> next three years. That will let librarians check out a pile of books 
> without opening each one -- and also put a scanner in the book return 
> slot too.
>
> One huge benefit is to staff ergonomics (that's a lot of book handling 
> eliminated). The RFID tag does not contain any information about the 
> book or patron, just a unique ID like a barcode -- only numbers.

Libraries have been doing this for some time now.  For instance, my
local library has largely migrated to RFID-tagged books.  Here is an
analysis of the privacy issues with library RFID, written by David
Molnar and I over a year ago:
  http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/librfid-ccs04.pdf
There are some real benefits from RFID tagging library books -- but
also some possible risks to patron privacy, given current RFID technology.

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