While everyone is debating the merits of microwaving twenty dollar bills, this article in the RFID Journal is much more substantive and a lot scarier.
The system uses “nanometric” materials – tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism – that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader. Each chemical emits its own distinct radio frequency, or “note,” that is picked up by the reader, and all the notes emitted by a specific mix of different chemicals are then interpreted as a binary number. Since the system uses up to 70 different chemicals, each chemical is assigned its own position in a 70-digit binary number.
For example, if the chemicals A, B, C and D were assigned to the first, second, third and fourth positions in the 70-digit number, then a mixture consisting of A and C would represent the binary number 1010 followed by 66 zeros. CrossID is testing readers that operate at three to 10 GHz, which is higher than the frequencies commonly used by wireless LANs and handheld computers, although the company has not made a final determination on what frequency the readers will use.
The tiny chemical particles can be embedded in or printed on paper. Readers can be placed inside copy machines to prevent unauthorized copying. One application would be to require that any document printed on CrossID’s special paper be photocopied onto the same type of paper. That way, an intelligence agency, financial institution or even a company wanting to protect its intellectual property could install readers at building exits to prevent unauthorized people from copying documents and leaving the building with them.
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