Texas Students Revolt Against Mandatory RFID Tracking Chips

It's just a standard card with RFID embedded, right? Unless I'm wrong here, the cards can be read by the standard scanners mounted on the doors. So rather than some creepy "tracking device", they'd have to be used for registering entry/exit from a classroom explicitly - pretty much the same as any big office... Which doesn't seem to make much sense to me, since they can move around without scanning the card (enter behind another person) - this happens even in many workplaces where everyone is supposed to scan their tag on entry.<p>Another strange part is that when looking at attendance, this seems even easier to hack - just give your tag to someone else so they can scan it.<p>Am I missing something here? Are there RFID tags that work on longer distances?<p>Edit: Found some long-range RFID solutions out there. Other points remain though... seems easy to game and many offices already use it.

I've always found the selective paranoia of technophobes to be strange. I would bet that the kids who object to the RFIDs are probably carrying smartphones that can be tracked just as easily: <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/255802/this_smartphone_tracking_tech_will_give_you_the_creeps.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pcworld.com/article/255802/this_smartphone_tracki...</a> These RFIDs are even easier to disable than cell phones since they can just be kept in a metallic pouch when not needed, but it's much more difficult to keep a smartphone in airplane mode all the time.<p>These people remind of other technophobes who are afraid of radiation from WiFi and cell phones for "health reasons" but don't have a problem with sunbathing. The school should just invest in some science and technology classes rather than trying to argue with these people.

Oh to be in school again when this type of technology is being introduced to day to day life. Am I the only one who, rather than being outraged, is thrilled at the potential hacking opportunities and other shenanigans this introduces? The fun that could be had...

Just put the chip in the microwave for a few seconds. It won't do any noticeable damage, and it will destroy the RFID.

These are HID cards we use them all the time to get into secure areas at work. When I was in college we used cards with mag strips to get in and out of our dorm rooms. How is this any different?

Most schools already have an ID scanner at the entrance to every building, some even use their IDs as a stored-value system for purchases on (or even off) campus. They already know every time you enter a building, log on to a campus PC, do your laundry. With that combined with CCTV all over campus, how does this actually make things worse for the student?

So if this is being used to track attendance what is to stop someone from just carrying their friends id for the day through the EZ-pass at the entrance?<p>If a student lobs their id over the fence, then walks out of the campus is the system going to think they were at school all night?<p>Seems very problematic to implement an EZ-pass style system.

RFIDs have a range of, what... 2 feet? So unless this is some new super-high-tech kind of RFID, it's a key, not a tracker. It's used to access the school, you swipe it when you go to class. There is nothing that makes this technology capable of tracking you out in the street. This is stupid.

Nearly all offices of any significant size do this already, using badges† to unlock various doors on the premises. By tracing your badge as it is swiped at various doors, they can pretty much determine everywhere you've been on any given day.<p>† or codes, or biometrics, etc.

Faraday shields in 3, 2, 1 . . .

“It makes me uncomfortable. It’s an invasion of my privacy”<p>That's bullshit. Its not by any means a invasion of privacy since you're in a school, which may already have cameras to track you. This is for the good of the students.<p>Here in Brazil we have these and they are great for the school and the students, no invasion of privacy, and helps the school to know if you're in or out.