Anyone know what this is? Is it RFID or some other eavesdropping tool?

I found something embedded in an old science book that I ordered from Amazon. Well it was printed in 1982 so maybe it's not that old. It is about assembly language and machine language programming.

It is a thin piece of paper, but if you take it apart it has foil and then little things that look like computer chips, magnets, or maybe antennas.

They were solid but I cracked them in half in case they were eavesdrops. I heard the paper crack when I bent it so that's how I know I cracked them in half. I hope I didn't activate them

My assumption is that they are RFID's and that maybe science literature is embedded with RFID so customs and the .gov can keep tabs on them?

Im working on a picture. Anyone have any other ideas? Maybe it is just part of those security alarms that retail stores use so you can't steal anything. Isn't that RFID? Are they usually as thin as a peice of paper and only a quarter of an inch wide?




[edit on 29-6-2006 by ImplementOfWar]

If you bought that from a store or from someone who bought it at a store, then I'd say it's a security device to prevent it from being stolen. I find those all the time in the books I buy for class from the bookstore at college. It's nothing to worry about.

I have a pile of them - they are supposed to set of the alarms when you pass through the hoops in the doors of certain stores - had a pal whose entry pass to work used to do this all the time in the local book store. FWIW RFID is really very tiny - we have them in Oyster cards used on the London Tube and they are embebded in a card like a credit card

I ordered it from a used books dealer on Amazon.com.

I dont really know anything about those security devices. I know the one's on clothes and CD's are alot bigger.

Never seen one in a book. And I have never seen one that wasn't enclosed in some big ink squirting security contraption.

[edit on 29-6-2006 by ImplementOfWar]

Waterstones in the UK use them - look like bookmarks but have metal in them - as do the local Library - tho theirs are selotaped the inside cover and you can make out loads of small metal discs

It was 6 inches long and about 1/4" wide. There was metal strips in it about every .5". There was a layer of "foil" between the paper layers. It was about .05" thick.

Basically looked like a thin strip of paper that came out of a paper shredder.



[edit on 29-6-2006 by ImplementOfWar]

As everyone has been saying all along. It's a security device. You don't see them from Amazon with new books, because they're only put in when the book goes to a store. You bought this from a used bookstore, and it's an old book, so at some point it was in a store, and they installed a security device. How do you think those sensors at the doors work? They have to have something in the books to set them off.

RFID in 1982?! Paper thin eavsdropping device? Jeebus, they had that way back then?

As everyone's been saying, it's a security tag. Goto the store, steal a book, walk through the door ... beep beep beep. Get ur arse caught. Usually how it works.

Unless you rip the damn annoying thing out.

I wasn't born in 1930.

I just had never seen one so small. They are usually bigger.

And if someone here had any expertise in RFID or surveillance, eavesdropping, they could of said "Hey that sounds like the Z1000 tracking device".

It was worth a shot since I didn't know much about what those security devices looked like, the thing I found could of not fit the criteria of "normal security devices".

Im still going to set in on fire just in case



[edit on 29-6-2006 by ImplementOfWar]