BIG BROTHER DEBATE HEATS UP!

Should concerns about privacy be allowed to impede RFID's progress?

RFID’s privacy versus convenience debate heats up both in our online Holding Court debate (see holdingcourt) and out there in the real world:

• Cryptography legends such as MIT’s Professor Ronald Rivest and Whitfiled Diffie (the Diffie of the Diffie-Hellman Algorithm) are less than cryptic about their views (see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/24164.html!
  
  
• Privacy activists representing groups such as the NCC Privacy Group offer interesting perspectives on plans to embed RFID into Euro notes (see http://www.nccprivacy.org/handv/020110villain.htm and http://www.igreens.org/uk/privacy_and_the_euro.htm)
  
  
• And a WDN reader puts forward an argument and a pretty good blueprint for a government run RFID registration authority to protect privacy (See www.wirelessdevnet.com/holdingcourt/court1_reply1.html ). But how could such a registry be implemented? Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is just too expensive and complicated. So, if not PKI, what?

Come on; don’t be shy, if you have the technology, or even just an opinion, let us know by March 4, 2002, when our part-time judge, part-time jester Nicki Hayes summarizes the debate and puts the issue to the vote. Send comments to HoldingCourt@wirelessdevnet.com

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