Get ready for another onslaught. This time, it's tiny devices known as Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFIDs.) They are already in mass production.

Computer chips the size of grains of sand have become the latest trend among manufacturers seeking to track everything from automobiles to underwear to razor blades. The radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips now in mass production are affixed to postage-stamp-size labels.

The new technology can fix the exact location of virtually any consumer product and the humans who wear and carry the items. The radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips now in mass production are affixed to postage-stamp-size labels. Merchandisers, led by Wal-Mart, will soon use them to track goods inside the store. Shelf antennae will alert staff to restock products, or turn on surveillance cameras if shoplifting is suspected.

The implications of this technology, according to MIT, is "enormous."

The global infrastructure that MIT envisions is an Internet tool "that will make it possible for computers to identify any object anywhere in the world instantly. This network will not just provide the means to feed reliable, accurate, real-time information into existing business applications; it will usher in a whole new era of innovation and opportunity."

And that is what worries some privacy advocates, who fear the Big Brother technology attached to clothing will follow customers out of the store and be used to track people through the items they purchase.

A consumer watchdog group called Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion And Numbering (CASPIAN) is already boycotting Benneton's for putting RFID's on "smart labels" in...are you ready?...underwear.

It gets worse. The technology is capable of "X-ray vision, capable of reading personal items in handbags, brief cases and pockets.

The leading manufacturer so far is Alien Technology Corp. of California, which has a "contract from Gillette Co. to produce 500 million tags, at about 25 cents apiece, to track the firm's shaving products."

The Government is already hot on the trail of these pesky devices.

Some companies are already moving past consumer use and marketing the technology for military and homeland-security applications....ActiveWave says its RFID system can aid homeland security by real-time tracking of airport employees working in secure areas by their identification cards, and passengers by airline tickets. To expedite border crossing, the Homeland Security Department is already using the chips, embedded on identification cards.

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