5 ms·

There are RFID readers made to read at short ranges and readers made to read hundreds of feet.

philwelch 14y ago
Right, but you don't want a student to show up as "present in class" if they happen to pass within hundreds of feet of the door reader. Do you know of any ID badge system that actually reads at hundreds of feet or are you inventing hypothetical scenarios and arguing as if they are reality?
- mcantelon 14y ago
  If you're tracking attendance, you're obviously not using too long range a reader. But if you're tracking attendance, is RFID worth using at all? Some human verification of attendance is required, otherwise a single child can simply scan two RFID cards. If human verification is required, then a bar code-driven solution is cheaper and not an underlying privacy vulnerability for the student (i.e. a third party can't scan for it outside of the school). The underlying issue with RFID in schools is the technology can be used to track people and some believe it's wrong for the state to condition kids into being forced to carry technology that can be used to track them.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - philwelch 14y ago
    It's not just used for tracking attendance, it's used for a lot of other things, like paying for lunch at the cafeteria. Conceivably it could probably be used to control access into school buildings, so only staff, faculty, and students can get in. For those of us who work for a living and carry an ID badge at work, this is more or less what we use them for. Bar codes are really no better, since they can be scanned at line-of-sight for a remarkable distance. They're less reliable, which is why RFIDs were invented in the first place. Through the wholly unremarkable combination of having a job, living in a city with a functioning public transit system I sometimes use, being a Zipcar member, and having a credit card, I end up carrying about five RFID's at all times. RFID's are part of the world, not magical antichrist technology that the evil schools are conditioning children into accepting. Schools are a few years behind the technology curve, actually, as they almost always are.

Right, but you don't want a student to show up as "present in class" if they happen to pass within hundreds of feet of the door reader. Do you know of any ID badge system that actually reads at hundreds of feet or are you inventing hypothetical scenarios and arguing as if they are reality?

mcantelon 14y ago
If you're tracking attendance, you're obviously not using too long range a reader. But if you're tracking attendance, is RFID worth using at all? Some human verification of attendance is required, otherwise a single child can simply scan two RFID cards. If human verification is required, then a bar code-driven solution is cheaper and not an underlying privacy vulnerability for the student (i.e. a third party can't scan for it outside of the school). The underlying issue with RFID in schools is the technology can be used to track people and some believe it's wrong for the state to condition kids into being forced to carry technology that can be used to track them.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- philwelch 14y ago
  It's not just used for tracking attendance, it's used for a lot of other things, like paying for lunch at the cafeteria. Conceivably it could probably be used to control access into school buildings, so only staff, faculty, and students can get in. For those of us who work for a living and carry an ID badge at work, this is more or less what we use them for. Bar codes are really no better, since they can be scanned at line-of-sight for a remarkable distance. They're less reliable, which is why RFIDs were invented in the first place. Through the wholly unremarkable combination of having a job, living in a city with a functioning public transit system I sometimes use, being a Zipcar member, and having a credit card, I end up carrying about five RFID's at all times. RFID's are part of the world, not magical antichrist technology that the evil schools are conditioning children into accepting. Schools are a few years behind the technology curve, actually, as they almost always are.