RFID "bin brother" brouhaha (and cool USB hubs)

There's an international flavor to today's IT Blogwatch, in which English local governments are accused of spying on citizens and their trash. Not to mention the world's coolest USB hubs...

Martin Delgado and Hannah Cleaver cleave together:

Electronic spy 'bugs' have been secretly planted in hundreds of thousands of household wheelie bins [trash cans with wheels] ... [The bugs] transmit information about the contents of the bins to a central database which then keeps records on the waste disposal habits of each individual address. Already some 500,000 bins in council districts across England have been fitted with the bugs - with nearly all areas expected to follow suit within the next couple of years. Until now, the majority of bins have been altered without the knowledge of their owners. In many cases, councils which ordered the installation of the devices did not even debate the proposals publicly ... the electronic chips are carefully hidden under the moulded front 'lip' of wheelie bins used by householders for non-recyclable waste. As the bin is raised by the mechanical hoister at the back of the truck, the chip passes across an antenna fitted to the lifting mechanism. That enables the antenna to 'read' a serial number assigned to each property in the street. A computer inside the truck weighs the bin as it is raised, subtracts the weight of the bin itself and records the weight of the contents

Aunty says it could be common within two years:

A think tank has urged a "pay as you throw" system as the only way to improve the UK's recycling record ... Privacy campaigners, however, are warning against the "chipped bin" scheme.

Nicola Brown's site may not be 100% safe for work:

Our wheelie bins are being bugged! A German firm has planted over 500,000 bugs in our wheelie bins - recording the waste disposal habits of individual households on a central data base ... these have been implanted in your wheelie bin, without your knowledge or permission and in a lot of cases without public debate. Wheelie bin wars - that is not my rubbish its yours! Bonfire anyone? - fly - tipping (unauthorised dumping and littering) anyone?

Barry John Williams is incensed:

A new 'pay as you throw' system would charge residents by having an RFID chip in your bin and a set of scales on the bin lorry. Each resident would then be charged depending on how much household waste they throw out ... Sounds to me more like blackmail - if you don't recycle we'll just charge you... If they were offering a discount in council tax then I might agree, but rates are extortionate enough without an added 'tax' like this. Just to put the United Kingdom into perspective, my holiday home in Spain has it's bins empty every day and I pay for the 'basura' separately to my rates, it's a staggering 62 euros a year [US$80]. Why is it so much more to empty the bins once a week over here?? I can see locking bin lids being the next best seller at B&Q! [A DIY store]

The Englishman's been busy this weekend, with several posts:

I went outside and tipped my bin over to have a look under the lip at the top - and here is what I found... [Pictures of the bug] ... at no time did they say they were going to introduce an electronic bug onto my premises. So now what do I do? Do I meekly accept the right of Kennet District Council to secretly bug me or not?
...
To believe the tags are just to "help" housholders be reunited with their bins is charmingly naive - bins already have a unique serial number and most householder prefer to paint their house number on the bin, which seems slightly easier and cheaper to read than having to wait for a man with a RFID reader to do it.
...
My big complaint is that that Kennet Council secretly introduced an electronic bug onto my premises - it doesn't matter what the bug can do or is for - that is simply unacceptable. We will now hear all sort of "reasonable" reasons why the bugs should be there [which sound] like complete rubbish to me ... as to the RFID tags produced by deister electronic. We are told they are just to identify the address - so why do they need to be so large? Why do they need to have Read/Write capability - TC chipnest transponder specification? And what is the purpose of choosing a system that has an "open architecture (which) allows Software houses and systems integrators to provide bespoke solutions." All this at £2 [US$4] a bin just to provide an address? Pull the other one. If Kennet District Council has a reasonable explanation why did they not declare it and argue for it instead of secretly installing them? When did our Civil Servants become the Stasi? 

Paperghost points out that it's not just England:

Local councils in parts of England and Australia have started to fit RFID tags to wheelie bins. I don't know if this means they can now see what crappy food you eat on a daily basis, but the theory is that you'll shortly be charged for your outgoing rubbish based on its weight. I know what I'll be doing with my wheelie bin if I find this kind of thing going on - think Wicker Man.

WSJ columnist Jeremy Wagstaff pitches in: [You're fired -Ed.]

Britain is quietly introducing RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) tags to rubbish bins (trash cans) in a bid to measure the individual waste of each household and charge them accordingly. Some Britons are up in arms about this, saying that households have not been informed and calling it an abuse of privacy. Is it?
...
As with all such things, the story reflects local fears, obsessions and behaviour ... drinking ... avoiding paying ... the whole castle thing ... Oh, and then there’s the whole WWII hang-up: The headline at The Evening Standard’s This is London website is "Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins".
...
The government, and local councils, haven’t been very smart about installing these tags before explaining their use to the public. But that’s not unusual: A council in Australia did the same thing a few weeks back ... this sort of thing is not new, is widely used elsewhere, and has a name: Pay-by-weight. The same technology is already in use in Ireland ... (There may have been some privacy uproar, but I can’t find any obvious evidence of any.) In Canada the program has been in place since 1994, and as of 1999 more than 1.5 million transponders have been deployed throughout the world, including the U.S. ... just because it’s being used elsewhere doesn’t necessarily make it a good thing. Trash is as much a privacy issue as anything linked to personal property.
...
This is more a story about how RFID ... scares people when they hear about it because instinctively they recognise its power.

Buffer overflow:

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And finally... World's coolest USB hubs

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk.