Chipping Humans

[Thundra]

This is scary stuff, at least to me it is. Once they make chipping common, they can load all of your personal info on there and download your history with out you even knowing about it.

CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself — until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms.

The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs — radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick — was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said.

"To protect high-end secure data, you use more sophisticated techniques," Sean Darks, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based company, said. He compared chip implants to retina scans or fingerprinting. "There's a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door."

Innocuous? Maybe.

But the news that Americans had, for the first time, been injected with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up a debate over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking technologies and their ability to erode privacy in the digital age.

To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention — a high-tech helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer's patients, allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a chipped hand.

To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the right to go and do as they pleased, without being tracked, unless they were harming someone else.

Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer's patients or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for convicts, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens — until one day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or another, would find themselves electronically tagged.

The concept of making all things traceable isn't alien to Americans. Thirty years ago, the first electronic tags were fixed to the ears of cattle, to permit ranchers to track a herd's reproductive and eating habits. In the 1990s, millions of chips were implanted in livestock, fish, dogs, cats, even racehorses.

Microchips are now fixed to car windshields as toll-paying devices, on "contactless" payment cards (Chase's "Blink," or MasterCard's "PayPass"). They're embedded in Michelin tires, library books, passports, work uniforms, luggage, and, unbeknownst to many consumers, on a host of individual items, from Hewlett Packard printers to Sanyo TVs, at Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

But CityWatcher.com employees weren't appliances or pets: They were people made scannable.

"It was scary that a government contractor that specialized in putting surveillance cameras on city streets was the first to incorporate this technology in the workplace," says Liz McIntyre, co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID."

Darks, the CityWatcher.com executive, dismissed his critics, noting that he and his employees had volunteered to be chip-injected. Any suggestion that a sinister, Big-Brother-like campaign was afoot, he said, was hogwash.

"You would think that we were going around putting chips in people by force," he told a reporter, "and that's not the case at all."

Yet, within days of the company's announcement, civil libertarians and Christian conservatives joined to excoriate the microchip's implantation in people.

RFID, they warned, would soon enable the government to "frisk" citizens electronically — an invisible, undetectable search performed by readers posted at "hotspots" along roadsides and in pedestrian areas. It might even be used to squeal on employees while they worked; time spent at the water cooler, in the bathroom, in a designated smoking area could one day be broadcast, recorded and compiled in off-limits, company databases.

"Ultimately," says Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate who specializes in consumer education and RFID technology, "the fear is that the government or your employer might someday say, 'Take a chip or starve.'"

Some Christian critics saw the implants as the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy that describes an age of evil in which humans are forced to take the "Mark of the Beast" on their bodies, to buy or sell anything.

Gary Wohlscheid, president of These Last Days Ministries, a Roman Catholic group in Lowell, Mich., put together a Web site that linked the implantable microchips to the apocalyptic prophecy in the book of Revelation.

"The Bible tells us that God's wrath will come to those who take the Mark of the Beast," he says. Those who refuse to accept the Satanic chip "will be saved," Wohlscheid offers in a comforting tone.

Well, isn't that last part just comforting?  LOL.

[Kimberly]

The last part, meh, they are just doing the best they can. But anyway while I am not against cybernetics in any way (I think the concept is rather neat really), but I can't say I would be too eager for this chipping idea. ^*shrug* I am afraid I just do not trust the system enough for the benign uses to prevail.

Still, isn't technology and all that wonderful and all that...

[Pica Pica]

'they' already know where you anyway.

[The Middle Way]

I remember just before the news broke on this technology, the Korean firm that developed the thing went from what was, for all practical purposes in the red on the deal, to being several Billion in the black. Almost overnight, after they went public. If you got in on the ground floor with this opportunity, you might be really getting well now (as they say in the trade).

I did not get in on the deal. Chicken Ethics 101.

[Aeyra]

They don't need to. Look at your SSN and your drivers license and all the other BS paperwork and permits you have to carry around. The SSN is the "Mark".

Nevertheless, no way in hell are they going to chip me.

[RebeccaFog]

That rice sized thing in the arm ain't nuthin'. I would just cut it out if I were a cave dweller. 

     However, you could take advantage and learn it's frequency then implant another one into yourself that replaces the data sent out by the first one and lie your way throughout life.  Hoo Ha!

     Alternately, you could just wear a magnet over your arm or something to hide it's signals or maybe to wreck it's programming.   

     Plus, you could remove it and then shove it up your arch enemy's nose and let them be broadcasting your info. They'd probably get busted for forgery and go into the prison system where they would be controlled by more chipensteins.   

     Don't fear.  Chipping can be fun!   

[Buffy]

I think its a brilliant idea.

All that personal data on a chip in your arm or neck.

Lets also make it so that if you try and remove it it will self destruct and take you with it.... Sci Fi is great!

We are getting one credit card sized identity card from 2008, which will replace drivers licence, health card, residence visa, e-gate (electronic passport access) and can also have your credit, bank card details added. It contains biometric data, it is a photo, chipped card which also has your iris data and finger print data on.

Buffy

[katia]

terrific idea.  they will implant babies at birth & codify them for life.  adults will get it on a regular visit to their doctors.  they won't even know they've implanted.  the implant will self-destruct if you attempt to remove it.  we are doomed! time to move to mars and colonize it.

[The Middle Way]

tough crowd

[Tay]

I'm still very angry that my high school put video cameras in while I was still there.  I got written up for consistently giving the cameras the finger every time I walked by.

The day someone puts a chip in me is the day I rip it out with my own teeth.  And if it's in a locale normally not accessible with teeth?  I'll grow out my fingernails and claw it out.  I will not have such an item implanted in my body.  Full stop.  The idea makes my skin crawl. 

My body belongs to me.  Not the government.  Not the police.  So long as I commit no crime, my body is MINE.  I will not allow it to be tagged in any way by any force that is not sought out by me.

[Elizabeth]

If someone would have told me that people would buy DVR players that they can only record what they are told and that the company actually owns your DVR can and does erase things you don't have permission to record, and that people would pay for this? I would have never believed it. And when AT&T was broke up in 1984 I never dreamed they would just put it back together, except now, unregulated. Now you have to have contracts and pay for everything. I never thought people would put up with it. And when Cable TV came along, I said, "who would be stupid enough to pay for TV, it's free?". Now unregulated cable TV basic service is $49.99 a month and there is not much on it. Oh? you want movies? That is extra. You want sports? That is extra too.

They won't have to force chips on people. People will line up to have their kids implanted. Remember the "register your kid" campaigns in the 80's and 90's? You probably don't because you were a kid. You parents when and had the FBI or local police take your finger prints. So if someone kidnapped and killed you they could identify your body. Millions of kids had their identities and privacy betrayed by their parents. All for what? So they could identify your dead abused corpse? I could not believe people did this.

That is how they will do it. They will scare people. Just like all this terrorism. Do you know what the odds are of dying from a terrorist attack is? I don't, but I know this, if you are American you have a greater chance dying by the order of George Bush than Osama Bin Laden. That is the facts, I don't make this up. More US soldiers have died in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the terrorist attacks. Yet we have already given up what little privacy we already had. Even though we have laws against it, our government is looking at our internet usage, our phone records, our financial records and tapping our phones. Even though there are laws against it. By presidential order in a "State of National Emergency". And worse, the courts won't stop him. You have to prove you were spied on illegally before you can sue. According to the Federal Courts, the people who sued have no standing because they could not prove their phone records were looked at.

No, these are dangerous times, but I would not fear chips. I would fear a government who is calling the opposition leaders "traitors". This is how fascism starts. Fear. Who did the Nazi's go after first? The Gypsies and homosexuals. Everyone could agree on that. We are already seeing the attack on homosexuals. The self rightious ones telling everyone what is acceptable and what is not according to what they happen to be.

Chipping is coming. And people will stand in line to get theirs, so as not to miss out. Those who refuse will marginalized and denied basic services. Try to not have a picture ID. This used to be a fundamental right. Many states did not have picture drivers licenses just to protest this invasion of privacy. But now? It's the law. You don't have ID, you go to jail, while they attempt to find out who you are. Habius Corpus? Sorry, they can keep you for three days without charging you with a crime. And if the President just says you're an "Enemy combatant" you can be sent to Guantanamo and denied all legal rights. So get your chip and make sure you get your kids Chipped. I mean, if you aren't hiding anything, why would you object? That is what the Nazi's said.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[RebeccaFog]

When I join the resistance, Tay will be my leader

[LostInTime]

The military has been interested in this for some time. The opponents fear it would give a potential enemy the means to track positions and equipment. Anyone who has followed the whole RFID passport mess knows that the .gov fails to see security as a real issue.

Here's another thought. They implant children and then use the chips to recover a few kidnap victims. They will play it up and encourage parents to get their children chipped. Kidnappers will then start digging through the flesh or even possibly cutting off body parts in order to render the chip unusable.

[Doc]

We're not so close to some of the stuff people are talking about. I have no doubt that these chips implanted in humans are just about the same as the 'Avid Friendchip' and 'Home Again' chips implanted in dogs and cats. (Which is a brilliant idea, for dogs and cats, and a terrible one for humans.) The chip has no power-supply and is pretty much inert, it's the scanner that gives it the juice to transmit its information. The chip holds no data, really, just a number, all the information is associated with that number and put in a database. You can't use the chip to track the animal wherever it goes, you can only use it to identify the beastie when you scan it, and you have to wave the scanner-wand within a few inches of the site where the chip is implanted. There is no particular reason why one could not juice up the scanner so it could scan chips from further away, though. But probably not from more than a few feet. I remain quite suprised that chip manufacturers haven't created higher-powered scanners to make dog-doors and automatic feeders that only open for a particular pet, or stable-doors that sound an alarm when somebody takes a horse out without entering the right code authorizing their use of that particular horse.

All this could indeed be very useful for human beings but is far far too likely to lead to horror stories. And humans could get all the benefits just by having the chip in a peice of removable jewelry or something. Like electronic ID cards. For a time the geeks at Parc Xerox had put scanners for their ID cards all around the building, creating a Star Trek effect where you could ask the house computer where Bob was and it would know. And of course, some geeks objected and disabled various scanners around the place to create blind spots.

If the privacy and civil liberties questions associated with this kind of endeavour (and the history of fingerprinting) interest you, you might read The Soft Cage: surveillance in America from slavery to the war on terror by Christian Parenti.

[Tay]

When I join the resistance, Tay will be my leader

Awww....

Thanks.

My first act as resistance leader is to form a commune where all children born in the commune will go unchipped.  My second act will be to start luring people in with promises of lots of sex.

<.<

>.>

[The Middle Way]

This thing came out about a year ago. The chip can track you to the bottom of the sea. Did you know that?

The military's interest in it is what put it over the top on the bottom line so quickly, which was virtually overnight. I wouldn't be exactly shocked if that's where the R&D bucks derived from, like I said this company was BROKE.

I found the information, again, from a club that clues peoples in to high-risk/high-yield investments; IE a source that had no skin in the game of obfuscating, it was 'it does these things by these mechanisms, and has been shown to work quite well'; one of the key considerations in its development was 'how well will this work embedded in animals', with the intent of making it foolproof. BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

[RebeccaFog]

I found the information, again, from a club that clues peoples in to high-risk/high-yield investments; IE a source that had no skin in the game of obfuscating, it was 'it does these things by these mechanisms, and has been shown to work quite well'; one of the key considerations in its development was 'how well will this work embedded in animals', with the intent of making it foolproof. BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

Nothing is foolproof.


signed,

A fool

[The Middle Way]

I found the information, again, from a club that clues peoples in to high-risk/high-yield investments; IE a source that had no skin in the game of obfuscating, it was 'it does these things by these mechanisms, and has been shown to work quite well'; one of the key considerations in its development was 'how well will this work embedded in animals', with the intent of making it foolproof. BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

Nothing is foolproof.


signed,

A fool

uhm, good luck with that 

[Pica Pica]

i'd prefer a chip to a card. i've lost 1 bank card and three train tickets these last 2 days

[cindianna_jones]

They didn't make it all that much harder to get into the vault.  They did make it all that much easier to kill the guy with the chip and cut off his arm however.

I can think of a number of ways to provide better security than put a chip in someones arm.  This is just not right.

Cindi