Re: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[Julia Thompson]

The Fool wrote:
> 
> Erroneous material removed

Oh, but the erroneous material was such a nice, surreal touch to my day!

Julia
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Re: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 10:44 PM 10/24/03 -0400, you wrote:
> But the Buffalo school is believed to be the first facility to use the
> technology to identify and track children.
>
>   In 1873, as the post-Civil War inflationary boom went bust, a
> devastating panic
> hit the United States, leaving unemployment and poverty in its wake; the
> country
> sank into an industrial depression which lasted for five years.
>
> "Your God is no better than Hitler," he said. "The whole world is a
> concentration
> camp-everybody's going to the ovens but you."
>
>
> Stillman was tipped off to RFID by the vice principal's husband, who
> works at a Buffalo Web design studio that is partnered with Intuitek, the
> company that designed the school's system.
>
Umm...did anyone else feel that the two middle paragraphs among the four
quoted above had nothing whatsoever to do with the first and fourth 
paragraphs
(or, indeed, anything else in the entire rest of the article)?


Me.



-- Ronn!  :)

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RE: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[Jim Sharkey]

The Fool wrote:
>Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which 
>his year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to 
>record the time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next 
>months, he plans to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary 
>records, cafeteria purchases and visits to the nurse's office. 
>Eventually he'd like to expand the system to track students' 
>punctuality (or lack thereof) for every class and to verify the 
>time they get on and off school buses.

And the race between Orwell and Huxley to see who was closer to being right about the 
future continues...

Jim

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Re: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[Kevin Tarr]

At 10:44 PM 10/24/2003 -0400, you wrote:
> But the Buffalo school is believed to be the first facility to use the
> technology to identify and track children.
>
>   In 1873, as the post-Civil War inflationary boom went bust, a
> devastating panic
> hit the United States, leaving unemployment and poverty in its wake; the
> country
> sank into an industrial depression which lasted for five years.
>
> "Your God is no better than Hitler," he said. "The whole world is a
> concentration
> camp-everybody's going to the ovens but you."
>
>
> Stillman was tipped off to RFID by the vice principal's husband, who
> works at a Buffalo Web design studio that is partnered with Intuitek, the
> company that designed the school's system.
>
Umm...did anyone else feel that the two middle paragraphs among the four
quoted above had nothing whatsoever to do with the first and fourth 
paragraphs
(or, indeed, anything else in the entire rest of the article)?

Tom Beck


I thought that was normal Democratic speech and thought. An article can't 
be valid if it doesn't bring up Hitler and economic policy. It failed only 
in not noting that Lincoln was a republican and the bust was his fault, 
even if he was dead for eight years.

Kevin T. - VRWC
mostly joking
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Re: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[The Fool]

Erroneous material removed

--
> From: The Fool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> <>
> 
> Three R's: Reading, Writing, RFID  
> 
> 
> By Julia Scheeres
> 02:00 AM Oct. 24, 2003 PT
> 
> Gary Stillman, the director of a small K-8 charter school in Buffalo,
New
> York, is an RFID believer. 
> 
> While privacy advocates fret that the embedded microchips will be used
to
> track people surreptitiously, Stillman said he believes that RFID tags
> will make his inner city school safer and more efficient. 
> 
> Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which his
> year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to record
the
> time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next months, he
plans
> to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records, cafeteria
> purchases and visits to the nurse's office. Eventually he'd like to
> expand the system to track students' punctuality (or lack thereof) for
> every class and to verify the time they get on and off school buses. 
> 
> "That way, we could confirm that Johnny Jones got off at Oak and Hurtle
> at 3:22," Stillman said. "All this relates to safety and keeping track
of
> kids Eventually it will become a monitoring tool for us." 
> 
> Radio-frequency identification tags -- which have been hailed as the
> next-generation bar code -- consist of a microchip outfitted with a
tiny
> antenna that broadcasts an ID number to a reader unit. The reader
> searches a database for the number and finds the related file, which
> contains the tagged item's description, or in the case of Enterprise
> Charter, the student's information. 
> 
> Unlike bar codes, which must be manually scanned, RFID-tagged items can
> be read when they are in proximity to a reader unit, essentially
scanning
> themselves. The school uses passive RFID tags that are activated when
> radio waves from the reader reach the chip's antenna. (Active RFID tags
> incorporate a battery that constantly broadcasts the chip's ID number
and
> are much more expensive.) 
> 
> The technology has raised a ruckus in recent months, as companies such
as
> Wal-Mart move from bar codes to RFID to track merchandise and libraries
> place the chips in books to streamline loans. Privacy advocates worry
> that the technology will be used to track people without their
knowledge.
> 
> 
> But for Stillman, whose public school is located in a gritty Buffalo
> neighborhood, RFID is about accounting for the whereabouts of his
charges
> and streamlining functions. 
> 
> "Before, everything was done manually -- each teacher would take
> attendance and send it down to the office," he said. "Now it's
automatic,
> and it saves us a lot of time." 
> 
> The charter school's 422 students wear small plastic cards around their
> necks that have their photograph, name and grade printed on them, and
> include an embedded RFID chip. As the children enter the school, they
> approach a kiosk where a reader activates the chip's signal and
displays
> their photograph. The students touch their picture, and the time of
their
> entry into the building is recorded in a database. A school staffer
> oversees the check-in process. 
> 
> The school spent $25,000 on the ID system. The $3 ID tags students wear
> around their necks at all times incorporate the same Texas Instruments
> smart labels used in the wristbands worn by inmates at the Pima County
> jail in Texas. Similar wristbands are used to track wounded U.S.
soldiers
> and POWs in Iraq and by the Magic Waters theme park in Illinois for
> cashless purchases. 
> 
> But the Buffalo school is believed to be the first facility to use the
> technology to identify and track children.
 
> Stillman was tipped off to RFID by the vice principal's husband, who
> works at a Buffalo Web design studio that is partnered with Intuitek,
the
> company that designed the school's system. 
> 
> Stillman originally wanted the RFID tags sewn directly into the
students'
> uniforms, but teachers feared that the kids might simply swap uniforms
to
> dupe the system, so he decided to have students wear the picture tags
> around their necks instead. 
> 
> Privacy experts expressed dismay at the idea of using RFID tags on
> children. 
> 
> "I think the Buffalo experiment is getting children ready for the brave
> new world, where people are watched 24/7 in the name of security," said
> Richard Smith, an Internet privacy and security consultant. "My main
> concern is that once we start carrying around RFID-tagged items on our
> person such as access cards, cell phones, loyalty cards, clothing,
etc.,
> we can be tracked without our knowledge or permission by a network of
> RFID readers attached to the Internet." 
> 
> Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- who has
> vehemently opposed a San Francisco Public Library Commission plan to
use
> the chips to track its inventory -- was also critical of the program. 
> 
> "In

Re: Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[TomFODW]

> But the Buffalo school is believed to be the first facility to use the
> technology to identify and track children.
> 
>   In 1873, as the post-Civil War inflationary boom went bust, a
> devastating panic
> hit the United States, leaving unemployment and poverty in its wake; the
> country
> sank into an industrial depression which lasted for five years.
> 
> "Your God is no better than Hitler," he said. "The whole world is a
> concentration
> camp-everybody's going to the ovens but you."
> 
> 
> Stillman was tipped off to RFID by the vice principal's husband, who
> works at a Buffalo Web design studio that is partnered with Intuitek, the
> company that designed the school's system.
> 


Umm...did anyone else feel that the two middle paragraphs among the four 
quoted above had nothing whatsoever to do with the first and fourth paragraphs 
(or, indeed, anything else in the entire rest of the article)?


Tom Beck

www.prydonians.org
www.mercerjewishsingles.org

"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the 
last." - Dr Jerry Pournelle
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Brave new Schools: Adopting RFID

[The Fool]

<>

Three R's: Reading, Writing, RFID  


By Julia Scheeres
02:00 AM Oct. 24, 2003 PT

Gary Stillman, the director of a small K-8 charter school in Buffalo, New
York, is an RFID believer. 

While privacy advocates fret that the embedded microchips will be used to
track people surreptitiously, Stillman said he believes that RFID tags
will make his inner city school safer and more efficient. 

Stillman has gone whole-hog for radio-frequency technology, which his
year-old Enterprise Charter School started using last month to record the
time of day students arrive in the morning. In the next months, he plans
to use RFID to track library loans, disciplinary records, cafeteria
purchases and visits to the nurse's office. Eventually he'd like to
expand the system to track students' punctuality (or lack thereof) for
every class and to verify the time they get on and off school buses. 

"That way, we could confirm that Johnny Jones got off at Oak and Hurtle
at 3:22," Stillman said. "All this relates to safety and keeping track of
kids Eventually it will become a monitoring tool for us." 

Radio-frequency identification tags -- which have been hailed as the
next-generation bar code -- consist of a microchip outfitted with a tiny
antenna that broadcasts an ID number to a reader unit. The reader
searches a database for the number and finds the related file, which
contains the tagged item's description, or in the case of Enterprise
Charter, the student's information. 

Unlike bar codes, which must be manually scanned, RFID-tagged items can
be read when they are in proximity to a reader unit, essentially scanning
themselves. The school uses passive RFID tags that are activated when
radio waves from the reader reach the chip's antenna. (Active RFID tags
incorporate a battery that constantly broadcasts the chip's ID number and
are much more expensive.) 

The technology has raised a ruckus in recent months, as companies such as
Wal-Mart move from bar codes to RFID to track merchandise and libraries
place the chips in books to streamline loans. Privacy advocates worry
that the technology will be used to track people without their knowledge.


But for Stillman, whose public school is located in a gritty Buffalo
neighborhood, RFID is about accounting for the whereabouts of his charges
and streamlining functions. 

"Before, everything was done manually -- each teacher would take
attendance and send it down to the office," he said. "Now it's automatic,
and it saves us a lot of time." 

The charter school's 422 students wear small plastic cards around their
necks that have their photograph, name and grade printed on them, and
include an embedded RFID chip. As the children enter the school, they
approach a kiosk where a reader activates the chip's signal and displays
their photograph. The students touch their picture, and the time of their
entry into the building is recorded in a database. A school staffer
oversees the check-in process. 

The school spent $25,000 on the ID system. The $3 ID tags students wear
around their necks at all times incorporate the same Texas Instruments
smart labels used in the wristbands worn by inmates at the Pima County
jail in Texas. Similar wristbands are used to track wounded U.S. soldiers
and POWs in Iraq and by the Magic Waters theme park in Illinois for
cashless purchases. 

But the Buffalo school is believed to be the first facility to use the
technology to identify and track children.

  In 1873, as the post-Civil War inflationary boom went bust, a
devastating panic 
hit the United States, leaving unemployment and poverty in its wake; the
country 
sank into an industrial depression which lasted for five years.

"Your God is no better than Hitler," he said. "The whole world is a
concentration 
camp-everybody's going to the ovens but you." 


Stillman was tipped off to RFID by the vice principal's husband, who
works at a Buffalo Web design studio that is partnered with Intuitek, the
company that designed the school's system. 

Stillman originally wanted the RFID tags sewn directly into the students'
uniforms, but teachers feared that the kids might simply swap uniforms to
dupe the system, so he decided to have students wear the picture tags
around their necks instead. 

Privacy experts expressed dismay at the idea of using RFID tags on
children. 

"I think the Buffalo experiment is getting children ready for the brave
new world, where people are watched 24/7 in the name of security," said
Richard Smith, an Internet privacy and security consultant. "My main
concern is that once we start carrying around RFID-tagged items on our
person such as access cards, cell phones, loyalty cards, clothing, etc.,
we can be tracked without our knowledge or permission by a network of
RFID readers attached to the Internet." 

Lee Tien, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation -- who has
vehemently opposed a San Francisco Public Library Commissi