Man, I love a good paranoiac, which is just what John Dvorak has become. In the early days of personal computers he was a widely read and widely respected columnist. His insights were good, and his cynicism was generally low. But recently he has jumped the shark. (Of course, it may be me who has jumped, since I’m apparently late to the Bash Dvorak party.)
His latest screed rails against RFID and jumps on the ‘mark of the beast’ bandwagon.
In all of our lifetimes, each of us will be tagged at least once or twice, if only temporarily—at first, maybe as a gimmick, and then for security or to prevent identity theft. Then the final rationale will emerge: control. Such use will be irresistible. And it shouldn’t be too hard to convince a dumbed-down public that being tagged is a good thing. “Think of the convenience!” or “For your protection!” Tagging will be especially welcome for children, who could be kidnapped at any moment.
And then for fun he leads the Paranoid Masses in a chorus.
Listen, John, take a deep breath and just think for a second. Technology is neither good nor evil in and of itself. Are personal computers evil because they can be used to steal credit card numbers from banks with impotent security? Of course not. RFID systems are no more evil than bar codes. I’ll grant you that some proposed uses for RFID make more sense than others, but that’s an implementation issue, not a technology or moral question.
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