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Author Topic: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?  (Read 10256 times)

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Geek-9pm

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What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« on: April 09, 2017, 01:26:01 AM »
Hey, it is off topic.
 But it does have a lot to do with computer related technologies.
This stuff is new to me. Maybe not to you. Plaes add to this thread and share what  you know.

The RF ID night be that little plastic button taht sounds an alarm as a shoplifter goes out of Wlamart witout paying for apair o Levi's jeaans. But it can also be a little thing taht tracks a box from Amazon to you front door.

The RF ID isa often a pasive device taht is almost invisible. Well, it is visible, but you hardly notice. Nop wires. Seldom does it  have a battery. Yet it can signal its presense over a short distance. It has a pasive abilty to send telemetry over the Internt to a workstation thousands of miles away. I do not undersand fully how it does what it does. Sounds like magic.

The Internet of Things is when lots of things can comunicate with the globlal Internat using wireless techology that lets almost anything send telemetry data to a central server.

A posible  senario someday soon:
You go out to your car and get in and the gate for your house automatically opens without you doing anything. OK. Then you get a voice message from the car to tell you that you  forgaot your umbrella and it is going to rain where your are going.  So you go back into your house to get the umbrella and the house tells you taht your dog got out of the house and is donw the street playhing with some children who are feeding him cholocate ice cream. He is alergic to chocolate.  You tell the hose to order the dog to come home right now. Andthe dog comes home.

Howis that posilbe for rmere machines? Due to RFID, the Iheinternet and amazing software work together to present you with important data for things that matter in your life.

For a more dry, technical explanation, reaad this:
A Primer On The Internet of Things & RFID
January 15, 2014 By James Thrasher

Quote
Since Kevin Ashton first coined the phrase in 1999, the definition of IoT has evolved over the years. Initially, it was used to describe the limitations in the relationship between the internet, computers, and the physical world. Ashton was describing how nearly all the data available on the internet originated from a human. With available and emerging technologies, Ashton believed information about things need not be dependent on a manual interaction; it could be an automated process.

Somethingto think about. :)
« Last Edit: April 09, 2017, 01:43:38 AM by Geek-9pm »

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2017, 02:17:38 AM »
"Internet of Things" would be better termed "Internet of Security Holes".

A dishwasher with a vulnerable web server; a Toaster susceptible to a DNS attack; a Coffee Maker that has a Heap manager vulnerable to remote execution. This is the sort of thing that "Internet of Things" gives us. It is throwing caution to the wind and attaching all sorts of devices to the Internet because it's the whizbang way, Not for any real convenience afforded by doing so.

There are Coffee Makers that you use via Wifi. You can only really control them via the App. The app is skeumorphic without a hint of irony. It's basically just moved the coffee maker controls from the coffee maker to an App. It's completely pointless especially because you have to be at the coffee maker to put ground coffee and water into it so it can brew, so you are basically using the Coffee Maker exactly like a normal one- but with this App you use on your phone for some reason.

And that doesn't even address that having these devices connected to the internet, in addition to making them a possible vulnerability both in terms of security as well as privacy, you've got a load of more points of failure.

Take a Toaster. It's a simple device. it has heating elements which heat bread. Easy enough.

You look on Amazon and there are $200 Toasters with motorized crumb trays and descent mechanisms. How is that better than having them attached to a lever? Congratulations you've added a Motor that sits in a super hot environment. Gee I wonder how long that will last.

meanwhile there are 100 year old toasters which literally go from bread to charcoal in 20 seconds.

Taking your example scenario, what is more likely to occur is:

You try to get out of your car, but you can't, because the doors haven't unlocked. You haven't driven perfectly onto the parking pad that the Magical Door Unlocker needs to see under the car *Warning: Don't drive into ravines or other dangerous situations, Magical Door Unlocker (tm) will not be held responsible for your inevitable death in these scenarios.* . So you reverse out of your driveway and park again, the door unlocks. So you are now able to open the door. Great. You walk to your front gate- walking right into it, because it had to wake from sleep mode, connect to the internet and validate your regional settings before checking the approaching RFID identity. After a few moment, it authenticates you and pops open. So you walk up to the door. Since the gate detected your presence the door opens, but because of a firmware bug in an update pushed that afternoon it does so at 90 times the power intended, blasting the door off the hinges and shattering the plate glass. The shock wave knocks off your remote doorbell, which falls on the ground, pressing it. This starts playing an unintended song because last night the servers were hacked and all doorbell tunes on the cloud server were replaced with it. You find your dog convulsing on the floor, because when it was scratching itself, it dislodged it's Arfinder (tm) rfid chip, which fell in it's water dish. It's whining because when the rfid was destroyed the Arfinder assumed the dog had left the designated area and started sending it mild shocks, getting more intense over time in order to convince the dog to return to the designated area, Leaving your dog convulsing on the floor, because a recent firmware bug had accidentally removed the upper limit as an attempt to fix an issue with St. Bernards not being coaxed easily. So there you are, trying to wrestle off  the dog's shock collar, while standing in a puddle of the dog's urine and being splashed by his convulsing limbs, all while being forced to listen to The fresh prince theme song. Suddenly, EMTs appear at your door, because your car called 911 when you didn't answer it's 40 frantic texts about your Umbrella and assumed the worst.

Yep you're living in the future alright.

I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2017, 02:45:44 AM »
Philip K *censored* foresaw this future way back.In Ubik (1969), there are plenty of things that look just like today. A guy has to pay his coffee pot to make him a drink, and his apartment door to open. When he grabs a tool to disassemble the doorknob, the door threatens him with a lawsuit for violating his user contract. He even foresaw that 'things' could get spiteful and mean if people tried to thwart them. Remember that garage door opener the other day? Where the company bricked it because the purchaser gave negative reviews? Revealng my politics here, but to me, what *censored* does here is explain in half a page why the Internet of Things will suck under capitalism:

« Last Edit: April 09, 2017, 02:56:08 AM by Salmon Trout »

Salmon Trout

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2017, 04:15:26 AM »
"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you read past warnings about the Internet of Things right now."

BC_Programmer


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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2017, 06:12:00 PM »
Agreed- he motivations of the companies behind the devices are important as well, because they never really lose control of the device. A lot of IOT devices have parts manufactured in China, and regardless of where it is manufactured when you've got smart devices there tends to be some silly cloud storage and TOS that no doubt would give the manufacturer free reign to sell your usage information to interested advertisers.

Those are definitely a concern, though  I find my objections to IOT devices are often largely one of utility- do you actually gain anything worth anywhere near the possible disadvantages (including those where the device is still pretty much under the company's control)? I don't think so. The example of a Coffee Maker which has no controls and instead offers a skeumorphic control interface (which mimics a Coffee makers controls) via an App, as an example, is really just "tech injection"- it's unnecessarily adding Microprocessors, network connectivity, cloud storage, etc. to devices which really don't benefit from that in their purpose. Does a Toaster, or a Microwave, or a refrigerator, really, truly benefit from being able to save/store settings or record expiry dates and so forth? I think those gains are dubious, even if we ignore that they come at a rather excessive cost. It's one thing when an Old PC you have set up in another room still running XP is a security risk that allows entry to your network; It's quite another when you have to start worrying about whether somebody could do it via your Microwave or Toaster, and have to start ssh-ing into your Oven or Dishwasher to edit configuration files to harden your network.

Meanwhile, New Malware intentionally bricks IOT devices
I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

Geek-9pm

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2017, 07:33:46 PM »
You are being much too negative.

One could argue that many important technologies are not really needed.
Here is a lit major t tech advances. I place a CON after a few from the list.
http://www.popsci.com/best-whats-new/article/2012-11/top-25-innovations-last-25-years
Each of these has a negative downside, a harmful side effect.

Sun World International Seedless Watermelon, 1988
CON: Loss of income for conventional watermelon growers.

Sylvania 18-watt Compact Fluorescent, 1991
CON: Generates radio noise  and gives some people headraces.

Channel Tunnel (Chunnel), 1994
CON: Another target for radical elements of society. And put yet another  French  word in the English dictionary.

Fujitsu QFTV Gas Plasma Display TV, 1997
CON:More materiel you can not put in landfill.

Heart Stream Fore Runner Portable Defibrillator, 1997
CON: Much too expensive for general use.

Diamond Rio PMP300, 1998
CON: Kids ruin their eardrums with these.

So you could find fault with almost any new device that comes along. But we have them and they are looking like they will stay.  8)

The Internet of  Things  is both here and still coming.   ;D

patio

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2017, 07:50:41 PM »
I have no words for what i just read.....
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

BC_Programmer


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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2017, 09:10:52 PM »
One could argue that many important technologies are not really needed.
Many breakthroughs aren't needed- Digital MP3 over CD, CD over Audio Cassette, Audio Cassette over 8-track, 8-track over Vinyl records, etc. But they also offered many real, tangible benefits. We do not see much- if anything- in the way of real, tangible benefits when it comes to "Internet of Things" devices, and those we do see are so ridiculously small it's almost a joke that anybody could regard them as such. There were a number of other formats- like the Play Tape- which did not have these real, tangible benefits in excess over their conventional alternatives and that is perhaps the more accurate analogy for what 'Internet of Things' enabled devices are in comparison to their more mundane equivalents.

Quote
Sun World International Seedless Watermelon, 1988
CON: Loss of income for conventional watermelon growers.
Seedless watermelon is rather uncommon. If the market was to shift so radically away from watermelons that still contain the seeds, then watermelon growers can start growing the seedless variety. This is how fruits such as seedless grapes have become dominant, because they are more desirable; The Seedless variety offer a clear, distinct advantage over the seeded variety in that they have no seeds.

This hardly presents an Analog to Internet of Things devices, though. You lose nothing of particular value by using a conventional Coffee Maker over something like the cloud-connected, App-driven Coffee Maker that I described, (or even a similar device which at least lets you use it like a conventional coffee maker as well) or having to use a Doorknob or gate latch, but have so much to lose by trying to connect those devices to the Internet to provide some sort of automation.

The rest of your examples are similar. They are devices which as you state have cons, but they also have clear advantages over the previous alternative. CF bulbs use less energy and last longer; The Channel Tunnel improves transportation and provides demonstrable economic benefits, Gas Plasma scintillators provide a much clearer picture, and you couldn't throw out LCD or CRT screens directly to the landfill anyway, a portable defibrillator could save lives over the alternative which is to wait for an ambulance which has one. It is expensive, but it didn't exist before that either. MP3 players made music far more portable. The listed con doesn't even really make sense. I'm pretty sure people playing music far louder than they should was a thing long before MP3 Players.
I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

Salmon Trout

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2017, 01:00:32 AM »
Geek's remarks about the Channel Tunnel are as offensive as they are stupid. For shame.

Geek-9pm

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2017, 11:01:19 AM »
Geek's remarks about the Channel Tunnel are as offensive as they are stupid. For shame.
I'm sorry.   :-[

patio

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #10 on: April 10, 2017, 11:03:34 AM »
More offending is the defibrillator comment...he obviously doesn't know anyone who earned an extended life by one...
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

Geek-9pm

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2017, 12:55:48 PM »
The topic was to be about the future use of RFID and communications.
Panto, my comments were meant to be dry satire. That kind of  things is by its natural offensive.

It was my response to the negative remarks about the future use of RFID.  It has to be offensive to make a point after somebody makes a worthless remark.
BC made a remark about a Mr. Coffee pot connected to the internet and used such to disparage any kind of future witless telemetry that RFID can offer. 

An RFID is a small device that will  work without batteries and can be steely attached on implanted in a living thing or an inanimate object.
Such devices have already saved many lives by providing medical researches a new insight into the human body functions.
some links:
http://rfid24-7.com/2012/05/24/rfid-saves-lives-in-india/
http://www.zkaccess.com/how-rfid-technology-saves-lives/
http://www.financialpost.com/executive/smart-shift/technology/that+saves+money+lives/3268948/story.html
https://www.rfidsolutionsonline.com/doc/650-handheld-computer-veriscan-0001
http://medcitynews.com/2013/12/5-ways-hospitals-implementing-rfid-tags-emerging-trend-healthcare/
I was hoping to find a more positive response to what the RFID can do.
Unfortunately, the tern "Internet of Things" has become such a  cli·ché that the mention of it brings negative comments. Maybe I such have used another term, like 'Public Packet Switching Network' or something like that.

To bring the grayest benefit, an RFID  has to connect to a kind of network where the data can be processed. To start out it can be just inside a medical clinic. But eventually researches will want the data to be available everywhere.
Here is a quote:

Quote
Radiology: Some hospitals are taking innovative approaches to RFID. Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center sewed RFID tags into the seams of x-ray protection vests in an effort to reduce the time it takes to locate the vests for government inspections, said Stuart Grogan, the radiology equipment manager who developed its Pulse Finder RFID enhanced system. It combines software from ScanOnline with Motorola handheld readers. There was some trial and error before it got it right — apparently plastic gets very brittle when it is exposed to radiation! It helped the hospital shift from what was essentially a paper-based system to an electronic one. Records are more accurate and equipment is easier to find.
The above is critical of the RFID, but does not suggest they should not be used.
Another:
Quote
Date:
    November 30, 2004
Source:
    U.S. Food And Drug Administration
Summary:
    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today stepped up its efforts to improve the safety and security of the nation's drug supply through the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. FDA launched this effort by publishing a Compliance Policy Guide (CPG) for implementing RFID feasibility studies and pilot programs that are designed to enhance the safety and security of the drug supply.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041124160812.htm?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ScienceDaily_TrendMD_1

Yes, I have seen friend die in  front of me.A number of us at that moment already had first aid training and could not revive him. A  defibrillator machine would have been welcome back then.
The price f such a device has come down recently. Check with the American Red Cross. Or just Google t.
 :)

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2017, 02:22:22 PM »
Internet of Things is when everyday devices are connected and can be accessed through the Internet or the Cloud. RFID being used in the Internet of Things would be with those devices. Such as say a Coffee Pod with an RFID that gives a "Smart" Coffee Pod machine a URL to an XML Document that describes it's characteristics.

The Coffee Maker example was not an outlier- that is the norm for for IOT devices.

The disagreement it would seem is because you are applying a far more general use for the term, to apply to devices and instances that are not everyday; things like Medic alert chips, Store theft protection, and for another example Chip&PIN bank cards.

Those are separate from Internet of Things and they see large benefits because the companies responsible for them have pretty much everything to gain by keeping it secure and reliable. The issue is that "Internet of Things" devices- like so the many devices that would be in your example story, are going to be sold largely as "impulse" purchases, bvased on the sort of imaginings like the story. Their reliability and longevity and even security aren't going to matter as much to the people responsible for it. This is why many IOT devices are being shut down over time as the companies either fold or they shut down older servers/devices, pushing customers to buy the newer model.
I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

Geek-9pm

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2017, 04:24:52 PM »
{sigh} I  give up.  :||x

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2017, 04:41:21 PM »
A better emoticon would show them beating their head against the goalpost they moved.
I was trying to dereference Null Pointers before it was cool.

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #15 on: April 10, 2017, 04:51:57 PM »
A better emoticon would show them beating their head against the goalpost they moved.

+1 indeed...
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

Salmon Trout

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #16 on: April 11, 2017, 11:45:29 AM »
Panto
I kind of like your new name, Patio.

patio

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Re: What is RF ID and he Intenet of Things?
« Reply #17 on: April 11, 2017, 04:05:38 PM »
 ;D    8)
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "