RFID, Radio-Frequency Identification, is on everyone's lips. Yet from all these mouths, the same twofold opinion emerges: the radio chips on the objects of our daily lives are either revered high-tech or they are data-snooping devilry. This book seeks to broaden the narrow horizon of this debate through a concretely researched media science approach. What lies behind these four letters? What is actually transmitting, and where does this transmission come from? Characters, times, places, technologies - for the first time, the results of a media archaeological investigation into RFID are described here. A seemingly cutting-edge information technology reveals itself to be a 60-year-old program of electronic identity identification. On one hand, this study is an excursion into the inherently military origins of RFID, an origin that also resonates through current references.