ReadWriteWeb

The human capacity to find hidden meanings in things has given us poetry, physics and software. It's also given us superstitions, conspiracy theories and hoaxes. Given that this capacity is enduring it shouldn't come as any surprise that each new thing that comes along is inflected by it, and that includes technologies.

RFID is radio frequency identification. It's setting a small transmitter at a certain frequency, setting a reader to recognize that frequency. That's it. The implications as we have outlined, can include tracking wine inventory and sushi freshness. But there are other implications, ones rooted in, say, less demonstrable realities. RFID, to some, is the number of the beast.

"This status is being tracked. The owners of Facebook have confirmed they will send $1 to the rescue fund for Haiti every time this is cut and paste as a status." Sound familiar? This recent status message hoax has been making its way around the popular social network, duping members into posting the status as their own in the hopes that, by doing so, they've somehow contributed to the Haitian earthquake disaster relief fund without having to actually open their own pocketbook to do so. While that would be nice if it was true, this hoax is just one of many found on Facebook today.

A pretty blonde woman nervously stares at the camera and begins speaking. "I'm not a stalker, I'm not crazy," she says. She then earnestly tells a story about meeting a guy in a cafe and chatting him up before he took off - leaving his jacket behind. She then apparently decided to use YouTube to help her track down her modern-day Prince Charming. A heartwarming story? Sure. Except for one problem: it was all a hoax.