Protecting Yourself with RFID: Embracing the benefits of wireless tracking technology

Radio-frequency identification (RFID)-an older technology that was first used for spying by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Nezopasnosti (KGB), the main security agency of the Soviet Union until 1991, and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. internal security agency, during the early days of the Cold War-is now being used worldwide in an attempt to track valuables and personal assets for your safety. Both the KGB and NSA needed a technology that could be used to "listen" to conversations and only repeat them when a specialized field frequency was generated nearby. Both groups, depending on who you ask, came up with a similar idea: to design an antenna that converts the specified field into electrical energy, like a coiled piece of wire generates a charge when moved through a magnetic field, and then connect it to something that would record the information for later playback. Both groups had years of fun trying to out-listen the other group. Eventually, scientists from both sides left their low-paying jobs with the government and took their ideas to a venue where they could make some real money?the consumer marketplace.