Once you buy your RFID-tagged jeans at The Gap with RFID-tagged money, walk out of the store wearing RFID-tagged shoes, and get into your car with its RFID-tagged tires, you could be tracked anywhere you travel.

rfid (radio frequency identification) tags look like they could be the successor to the barcode. an article in the register (lots of links but so far the ones i’ve followed haven’t really been very enlightening) shows up the good and the bad sides of a tag that can potentially track items for ever and points out that the fact that wal mart is backing the technology makes it likely to succeed.

reading the article makes me feel like i’ve lived into john christopher’s world of tripods after all. the spine chilling isn’t abated by thinking that i’ll never have to unload my shopping onto a checkout conveyor belt again either. my head is all a-spin with scenarios that i wouldn’t have minded staying in the realms of fiction.