According to this report on C|Net's news.com, Authorities in India's biggest tiger reserve plan to put satellite-linked radio collars on big cats as part of new conservation methods to save the endangered animal, a forest official said on Tuesday. This is a huge step in monitoring the whereabouts of these endangered species.
Other recent uses of technology by biologists include an effort to track dolphins using cell phone SIM cards in South Africa and the installation of a high-speed broadband network in China's largest panda reserve. Efforts to track tigers in the Russian Far East using specially equipped collars have been under way for years. In fact, on March 31, the first Siberian tiger ever fitted with such a collar was reportedly killed by poachers.
In India, experts will study satellite data for the movement pattern of tigers, habitat preferences and behavior.
I found this very interesting as I has quite recently read a report on wired.com about the plans that the United States Governments had on embedding RFID chips on all US passports. I think this move by the US government was a ridiculous one. Edward Hasbrouck had blogged about this pretty recently. He posed Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for passport services at the Department of State with the following question :Suppose I'm a terrorist or ID thief who wants to assume someone else's identity, and get credentials in their name. I send an accomplice who knows what my face looks like, with an RFID reader in a large piece of wheeled luggage or a big backpack, to hang out in an airport or hotel lobby until they spot someone who looks similar enough to me. When they see a suitable victim, they follow them up to the check-in counter, and stand right behind or next to the victim when they open their passport with a 40kg (100 lb) RFID reader within 50-70 cm (18"-24") of the victim's passport . Then I use that data and photo (a thief might be able to get the data from a non-RFID passport with a hidden camera, but they wouldn't get a sharp, perfectly posed and framed ID photo, and it would likely be obscured by the overprinting and holograms) to forge or acquire either a "cloned" duplicate passport (with a bitwise copy of the RFID chip, including the valid digital signature) or some other easier-to-get identity credential.
Only to to get a response from Moss : [QUOTE]"That's risk I never considered, Send me that scenario in an e-mail, and I'll think about it."
Well, thats a very strong reason not to use RFID technology for tracking humans. For a detailed list on technical issues related to RFID, Read the thread of comments in the Freedom to Tinker blog of Ed Felten, who was honored with an EFF Pioneer Award during CFP.
This report on BBC boasts of India's success using this technology on Tigers. Well, RFID or any technology for that matter needs to be used right. Used Appropriately and for just the right reasons. And when that's done any technological adaptation would be a success.
Here are a few good examples :- Orthopedic Hospital of Oklahoma Use RFID Technology
- Capgemini launches RFID Solution for Retail and Consumer Package Goods Companies
- RFID in Supply Chain
- National Retail Federation : RFID For Retail
- RFID solution for manufacturing