Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

The Spychips people—some privacy advocates who are not fond of RFID efforts—have unearthed another several-year-old RFID demo video, this one apparently designed for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). These videos are amusing for two reasons. First, they show how quickly technology evolves and how state-of-the-art from just a few years ago can look positively ho-hum today. And secondly, it shows how far the political climate—in terms of how much security controls Americans will tolerate—has changed.

My favorite part of this video, however, are the many Cold War era Soviet-sounding typos, just to add to the Natasha-Boris theme of the demo itself. “Now we know where he want to fly,” “The ID number is now readed,” “passagers profil” and “would you like to print you boarding pass?”