MIS in ACTION Assignment

Q1) Describe some RFID applications that might pose a threat to privacy. What information does RFID enable them to track?

Ans) tracking apparel: The implanted devices would enable a clothes retailer to track individuals and inventory their belongings by linking a consumer's name and credit card information with the serial number in an item of clothing. Privacy advocates noted the potential abuses of such a system.

*tracking consumer packaged goods: The "smart shelves" will be able to read radio frequency waves emitted by microchips embedded in millions of shavers and other products

*tracking tires: The RFID transponder is manufactured into the tire and stores tire identification information, which can be associated with the vehicle identification number (VIN). Critics argue the tags could ultimately become tracking devices that can tell where and when a vehicle is traveling.

*tracking currency: The tags would allow currency to record information about each transaction in which it is passed.However, consumers fear that the technology will eliminate the anonymity that cash affords.

*tracking patients and personnel: Under this system, all patients, visitors, and staff entering the hospital are issued a card embedded with an RFID chip. The card is read by sensors installed in the ceiling, which record exactly when a person enters and leaves the department. It enables health care workers to keep tabs on everyone but it does erode privacy.

*payment systems: The companies envision that consumers will log on to their personal online portal by swiping their smart cart—embedded with a Sony or Philips RFID—which will be read by a RFID reader plugged into the USB port on the computer. Next, consumers would shop online, say, for tickets to a local event. The consumer would pay for the tickets online, download them to their PC and then transmit them with NFC technology to an RFID tag in their mobile phone. Then, at the event, consumers would wave their cell phone near a reader in the turnstile, and be automatically admitted.

Q2) How do these applications threaten personal privacy? How serious is this threat?

Ans) civil liberties advocates point out that the ability to track people, products, vehicles, and even currency would create an Orwellian world where law enforcement officials and nosy retailers could read the contents of a handbag—perhaps without a person's knowledge—simply by installing RFID readers nearby. This means that if a person enters a store carrying several RFID tags—for example, in articles of clothing or cards carried in a wallet—one RFID reader can read the data emitted by all of the tags, and not simply the signal relayed by in-store products. This capacity enables retailers with RFID readers to compile a more complete profile of shoppers than would be possible by simply scanning the bar codes of products a consumer purchases.

The proposed uses of RFID tags pose exponentially greater risks to personal privacy. Many technology experts predict the development of a seamless network of millions of RFID receivers strategically placed around the globe in airports, seaports, highways, distribution centers, warehouses, retail stores, and consumers' homes, all of which are constantly reading, processing, and evaluating consumers behaviors and purchases. In addition to undermining a consumer's ability to enjoy a lifestyle in relative anonymity, critics of the technology counter that the information gathered by RFID readers could be obtained by the government for surveillance or monitoring the activities of citizens, or even misused by hackers and criminals. Even more, the ever-expanding use of RFID chips would leave no aspect of life safe from the prying eyes of retail and corporate giants. Chips integrated into commonplace products such as floor tiles, shelf paper, cabinets, appliance, exercise equipment, and grocery and packaged products would allow even our most intimate activities to be monitored.

Q3) Should these RFIP applications be deployed? Why or why not? Justify your answer.

Ans) RFID applications should be used but the following guidelines should be kept in mind as they are proposed to guide the use of RFID technology in order to protect both
private enterprise interests and consumer privacy interests.

What RFID Users Must Do:

• Give notice to a Tag presence, whether through labels, logos, or equivalent means, or through display, either at the place where a tagged item is stored, such as a shelf or counter, orat point of sale, such as a cash register.
• Givenotice to a Reader presence, whether through labels, logos, or equivalent means, or throughdisplay, whenever tag readers are present.
• Give notice to Reading activity. RFID Users must use a tone, light, or other readily observable andrecognized signal whenever a tag reader is in the act of drawing information from an RFID tag anywhere on the sales floor.
• Attach tags to items in such a way as to allow for the easiest possible
  removal of tags.
• Any RFID user -- before linking RFID tags to personalinformation -- should first consider alternatives which achieve the same goal withoutcollecting personal information or profiling customers. If personal information must be
  collected and associated with tag data, the RFID user must satisfy the following five
  requirements: consent, purpose, use limitation, no 3rd party disclosure, data quality.
• Take reasonable measures to ensure that any data processed via an
  RFID system is transmitted and stored in a secure manner.

What RFID Users Must NOT Do:

• track
• snoop
• coerce

pakistan in 2020

Pakistan – as everyone can quite obviously see – is in an extremely volatile state and the smallest of actions can make it flourish or perish. Now if we want to speculate and predict where this nation of ours would be by the year 2020 we must look at the stereotypical behavior of Pakistan in the past, in recent days, at the current point in time and the near future. To make a prediction of this sort we require a lot of assumptions and for our final prediction to be accurate, our assumptions simply must be and I cannot emphasize on this enough, MUST be very very realistic…or they can be far-fetched and cool but that’s not gonna help.Now after thinking it through I have figured that the following factors are vital for this argument to proceed.The first factor is called the Zardari factor. See, when your speculating you always have to start of with the most immediate issue and in this case its the current situation.Now im gonna make 2 very basic assumptions within this factor.My first assumption is that zardari is not corruptMy second assumption is that zardari is corruptFor the sake of being diplomatic I am not going to say which of the 2 assumptions is the more realistic one, I leave this as something for you to decide. However, let us see how each assumption works out for Pakistan.When we take assumption one into play the process and the outcomes are pretty easy to visualize. With a non corrupt zardari money will be put to good use, our industrial sectors will boom, people will spend money onto the economy and Pakistan will go out of recession furthermore achieve very high growth rates. By 2020 we will be, and I hate to say this, we will be the new India However when we take assumption two into play, you might think that the exact opposite of my previous analogy would happen…but that’s not the case, lemme tell u why. If u notice, at the moment Pakistan has absolutely no money. Not in their foreign reserve, not in their treasury and since we’re in a period of global recession, the loan aspect doesn’t look too goood. So if we assume zardari to be corrupt…welll theres nothing left in the country for him to pocket :p the only thing that we DO have is the recent loan given to us by the IMF. Now this loan is going to be strictly monitored in the respect of how Pakistan is going to utilize the money and it is going to be accounted for. So following that, zardari cant if he wanted to, do any fishy business…wat he can do is invest the money into Pakistan in such a way that it gives him and extremely killer profit which he can if he wants to…pocket. The latter isn’t the best for the country but the former that is the investments will really help Pakistan and will have more of a positive effect on the country the the current situation.So these to assumptions within the zardari factor show that Pakistan well either do very well, or itl do just fine, so far, we have nothing to worry abt.My second factor is called the democracy vs dictatorship factor.Its quite obvious that my first assumption is that Pakistan will remain a democracy and my second assumption is that it will become a dictatorship martial law .Let us first look at the democracy side of the argument. I believe that democracy in Pakistan has 2 major problems. The first problem has got to do with the meaning of the word democracy. Democracy is a form of government of the people, for the people, by the people. In simple English this means that the general public governs the country. If we take the realistic literacy rate of Pakistan we will see that if u exclude the people who can just sign their names, it leaves us with 25-30% literate people which if u do ure math means that 70% of the people are illiterate and these illiterate people are governing the country. Pretty sad is it not?The second problem with democracy in Pakistan is the political parties. Our country has too many political parties all of which, hate each other with a passion. Now each and everyone one of these parties has some level of corruption within them but for arguments sake lets say there is none. The 4 parties are assumed to be parties A, B, C and D. lets say party A comes into power in 2008 and they make brilliant reforms and policies and put them into play. Given pakistans situation these policies and reforms will take 10-15 years to make Pakistan a fantastic economy. So why doesn’t it work? Lemme explain. Seee in the 4 years from 2008 – 2012 parties B C and D will make life hell for party A. they will create commotion, go on strike, blast bombs and do everything they can to make party A look bad. As a result party A will lose the next election and party B will get elected. Party B will then express that party A had absolutely bullshit reforms and will abolish everything to bring in their own reforms and policies. Now these reforms and policies are also excellent and will make Pakistan a fantastic economy if continued for 10 15 years…but NO…the other 3 parties will continue to play these games and this cycle will go on and on till democracy exists in Pakistan. So if democracy continues…By 2020 you might not have this country visible on the map of earth. With FATA about to annihilate their army. they are losing soldiers on daily basis. baluchs are fighting for independence, sindhis are fighting for independence, pakhtoons are interested in aligning with afghanistan, northern areas have their own liberation front. punjabis will not survive an indian attack in this case hence this country is not going to make it for time to come if things remain so.The 2nd assumption in this factor is dictatorship. This word when putinto Pakistani terminology is a simple term called martial law.Pakistan has seen the phenomenon 4 times we have made very seriouseconomic growth. Yayha khan and zia ul haqs regimes weren’t assuccessful as the other 2 but they were still better off than thedemocratic governments. At the current moment the best possible optionfor Pakistan is a strong dictatorship and I emphasize on the wordstrong…as one strong dictator is much better than 100 millionilliterate people.The 3rd factor in this argument is called the Kashmir conflict. Thereare absolutely no assumptions in this factor, just sheer facts andawesome logic. YES the logic is awesome…wait till u hear it. See thereason why the Kashmir issue has not been solved yet is because thepeople governing India and Pakistan right now were present during thewars and conflicts and all the down moments that happened betweenIndia and Pakistan. Our generation however has nothing against Indianpeople whatsoever. As a mater of fact we like them and we honestly getdisappointed when India doesn’t come to Pakistan to play a crickettour because of the prevailing conditions. So the bottom line here isthat our generation likes the Indian people in our age group and theyhave never done anything harmful to us in our lifetime. We have nowars to relate to, no injustice to relate to and no reason to hatethem, within our lifetime as opposed to the people in power. And imsure Indian people in the same generation share this feeling mutually.So by 2020 the Kashmir issue will be solved or very near to beingsolved – for real this time – because we are in power.The 4th factor I would like to talk about is purely on assumption baseand there are chances this may happen. The reason I make thisassumption is because I have examples from pakistans history tosupport them as those events are very similar to the followingspeculation. In 1970 pakistan was on the verge of collapse andthen…the cold war reached its peak. The USSR attacked Afghanistan andas a result the USA retaliated by holding of this attack. And how didthey hold of this attack? Lemme tell you…they did it through Pakistan.Every sort of aid flowed into Pakistan…military aid, financial aid,jobs, oppourtunities….everything. this boost the Pakistan economyimmensely. Call it an act of God if u will.
A 2nd similar incident happened in 2001 when Pakistan was once againon the verge of collapse. The USA was attacked by the Taliban,resulting in collapse of the world trade center and left the pentagondamaged. Because of this the world was on a very high security alertand the flow of money inside and out side most third world economiesstarted getting monitored very strictly. As a result hundreds ofthousands of people in Pakistan in possession of black money could notsend their wealth out of the country. Neither could they declare itand so, they put all of it into the stock exchange and in the propertymarket. This caused both the markets to boom exponentially and theKarachi stock exchange was awarded the best stock exchange of theyear. This was the 2nd miracle that saved the Pakistani economy.Co-incidence or act of God? I myself don’t know which of the 2 it wasbut I know that it saved us. So maybe sometime in the near future wewill probably see something similar once again. The 5th factor of this argument is also a speculation but a veryrealistic one. Its called the US-China factor. As you the US of A isthe current world super power and china is welll…china. Although acommunist country, china is the fastest growing economy in the worldand the most potential future super power. Now for china to become theworld power, USA must step down as the world power…or we can have asituation like we had with the USSR. In both cases Americassovereignty is threatened and they wont take it lightly. Why do uthink they already have so many troops deployed in different parts ofasia? Lemme tell u…its not oil its not terrorism…USA simply wants abase in asia so it can constantly remind china of its presence. If thesituation is turned up a notch and china decides to overthrow usa asthe next world power…well history is going to repeat itself. The usais GOING to use Pakistan AGAIN as a frontier to face china. Everyactivity will happen through us except this time we don’t know if wecan hold of the most populated country in the world or not. This maymark the end of Pakistan or it could save us from perishing. Just likethe miracles I told u abt…the miracles that we need to survive. I believe these are the five major factors which will decide thefuture of Pakistan. I cant say wat exactly will happen and how it willhappen and that’s not all…its not just me…no one can say wat willhappen…wat we can do is make things happen. We can create the futureof Pakistan..a bright future…its never too late to start paying yourtaxes….to do charity work…..to educate people to set up schools. Wehave to stop thinking about ourselves for a change and think for ourcountry. I don’t know about all of you but I see a very bright futurefor our country because Im a true Pakistani at heart…and I know that Icant make a difference by myself but hey…wats wrong with trying?