Here's a Pair of Nobel Prize Winners in the Making, Not!

This news came to my attention yesterday courtesy of Eric Anderson, Loftware CEO. It's about a pair of college students in Europe that have invented an RFID tag disabler based on a cleverly retrofitted disposable camera. Get the picture? Well, they're the 'toast,' if you'll pardon the bad pun, of Europe's pro-privacy groups who are convinced that consumer goods tracking by RFID is inextricably linked to the tracking of consumer movements.

Frankly, I'd like to track the movement of these two to their graduate studies at The University of Alcatraz. But that's me talking. Eric himself didn't give me his commentary on this, but I'm thinking its because the escapade leaves him speechless. I mean, really, this is on the way right side of the bell curve for, well, a little touched. Not to mention how anyone plans to actually purchase a product at the check out counter once they've fried the chip. I can hear it now all over Europe: "Price check, aisle nine."

Here's the piece in its entirety:

BERLIN--Two tech-savvy college students here have developed a way to turn a simple disposable camera into a device that emits an electromagnetic pulse to disable RFID tags, the RFID Journal reported recently. A German privacy organization called FoeBuD plans to use their plans to manufacture and distribute the RFID Zapper to the European market. Calling themselves MiniMe and Mahajivana, the students say their motivation was the use of RFID tags to track consumer goods, which they worried could then be used to track consumer movements. Thus, they say they have designed a way to replace the camera's flash with a coil of coated copper wire, connect the capacitor to an on/off switch, and then reconnect the capacitor to the old flash connection. When the shutter is pressed an electromagnetic pulse is emitted and the tag's circuitry is fried.Currently, the pair said they have only tested the device on 13.56 MHz tags. They don't recommend using the zapper on electrical devices containing RFID tags, as the zapper may zap the electrical devices' guts as well.

Einstein would be proud of these two, yes? Do you suppose these geniuses have anticipated that the act of walking around a store zapping tags could result in having their 'consumer movements' tracked in a more meaningful way? And how about this for a Kodak moment: when they are finally rounded up and photographed by the authorities, how cool would it be if a disposable camera were used to capture their mug shots? OK, so I digress... I lose sight of the fact that boys will be boys. Maybe they're the new Jobs and Wozniak...?

...Nah!