Edited by author 03-11-2002 08:38 PM
The anti-car-theft application seems fairly straight-forward, but the article also talks about some other applications:

The dot technology provides a pretty foolproof foil for thieves, said L. Burke Files, a security specialist who edits the Business Security e-Journal for security firm The Lubrinco Group. The technology could also have applications in other industries, such as document authentication.

"I can't tell you the number of times I've seen fraudulent documents bearing my letterhead," Files said. "Having dots placed somewhere on a page could prove whether the documents are really mine or not."

So how long until someone markets a dot-maker (I'm envisioning a teeny, tiny, laser printer), which would make authentication via dots no better than any other easily duplicated technology?

Don't forget, when you ride in a microdotted BMW or handle a treated book, the dots are getting on you. Soon they'll spread dots in gov't offices and offical places, just to keep track of people who have been inside. Just swab your clothes for a sample of the dots you've encountered lately. Ah, I see you've been reading Cory's subversive library, and you've also been in the capitol building. You're under arrest.

I think I'll go reread "The Unreconstructed M" by Phil Dick.

I'd heard about this several years ago. I think after the Oklahoma Bombing like if everything was tagged (they called the dots, tags) then in the rubble, truck etc they could track down the people involved.

What I don't get is, if everything had these dots in them, wouldn't it be just a matter of time as in a just a couple of years before every place people live had so many zillions of different dots that it would basically become moot. There'd be too much data. So what if there's a dot from O.J.'s shoes in your house. It got there when you walked in Home Depot, and tracked some of his dots left their from his last visit back to your house. Or when you went to some store and tried on the same shirt as him.

Actually the tags they were talking about back then were just simple alterations to the chemical formulas for the ingredients in explosives/fertilizer. That way, they could tell that since this bomb had x amount of y in it, it probably came from z, so they could go ask z about any suspicious behavior.