The tin-foil hat wearers have long warned about what could happen in a world full of RFID chips. Being tracked via your shoes, clothes or other accessories by someone with a $300 and a little time to kill might seem far fetched, but a few doctoral students at the University of Washington have managed to do exactly that.

The Nike+iPod kit released earlier this year is at the heart of a $300 hack that could allow your every move to be tracked, if someone is willing to go to the effort.

LiveScience reports, "a stalker could hide receivers near a home, a gym or other locations to closely monitor the target's movements. Hiding multiple devices on a college campus could result in a network that would report the data to a computer in a dorm room via a common campus-wide wireless network"

It's a weird wired (wireless?) world these days but, fear not. The researchers offer you an easy way to protect yourself, "Protection is fairly simple: Just switch the device off. It is sold with the power on, and most users never bother."

[via LiveScience]