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Human ID Chip Implant Prototype Unveiling
techfreak writes: "Applied Digital Solutions is set to unveil a working prototype of "Digital Angel", a dime-sized implantable 'microchip' which is powered by muscle movement, this October at an invitation-only event in New York City, two months ahead of the original plan. ADS Chairman Richard Sullivan said the development of the technology has progressed well ahead of schedule. It is said to be the first-ever operational combination of bio-sensor technology and Web-enabled wireless telecommunications linked to global positioning satellite location-tracking systems. Concerns have been raised over personal privacy, but ADS claims that privacy concerns are misplaced, since the device can be turned off by the owner."
Maybe anyone will be able to truely turn off this device. OK. It's nice then.... But what if I go to my employee and at main gate, they REQUIRE me to have it turned on in order to enter the building? Simply think about it... No more ID tags... so it's tempting for my superiors to install this, no?
Then, I have the few other concerns. Since not everyone is tracked all the time (or else, I'd be REALLY mad), then it's a probability that someone could impersonate me. Now why someone would do that except for doing heavy criminal activities?
Also, I guess everyone will start to get the hype of that thing... so gov'ts will want to make this the official ID card (let's say 128 bytes inside the chip), medical insurance is very useful (32 bytes), driver license (32 bytes), employer infos (256 bytes let's be rude), a set of personal IDs (32 places * 32 bytes), and so on and so on and so on. My point being: What about upgrades when this thingie will be a "thing of the past"? I don't want any visible plug "à la" Dune after all... But I don't want to go for my annual upgrade either.
Blah!
Ok, this is getting quite anoying now. When did "News For Nerds" turn into "Paranoid Ramblings"? Has it always been this way, and I've just been to stupid to realise this? Yes, there are downsides to this technology, and there are some positive sides to this technology. Hey, if I got abducted, or if I fell off a bridge and broke both my legs (a friend of mine managed to do that to his arms while he was drunk, and I'm drunk often enough to probably do the same thing to my legs) I'd sure like for someone to be able to find me. I'm not saying this is the best way to do that, but it is a step in the right direction. Now if you used this technology, had it implanted in every human being, but instead of having it on constantly, you had it off. When switched on, it would transmit an emergency signal, and help would be on its way. Hell, you could even add health information in that signal, so in alot of cases, the right rescue team would be sent out for you. Instant 911. We can't do this just yet, since it would be hard to hook it up to some internal command system that would activate it, but I don't think we're that far off. So instead of everyone going to hide under their aluminium foil blanket, try to see the bright side of this technology. I would assume that I'm not the only one who's been in a situation where a device like this would have been of great help, and if I am, lucky sods.
Dingbat is right. Our government is well known for breaking the trust. This is supposed to be a land where the people rule through representatives, but lying and cheating are so commonplace, that the people we elect do not actually present the wants/needs/views of the people.
If you want to be a mountaineer, then get a portable tracking device. Those products are within consumer price range. I don't want to lose my freedom just because YOU want to be tracked.
As far as a baseball bat, it can be used in a bad way toward one person, but this technology is all encompassing. With this, a government could set up a control room and keep tabs on everyone.
Control sucks, especially when you're the white mice.
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
Not anymore: "I don't want to be free," says Information
Five tons of flax.
1. Social Security/Insurance numbers. I don't know about the US but in Canada when it was introduced it was stated that you would never have to give it to anyone except voluntarily. That included income tax and TD-1 (employment taxation form). Now it's mandatory on tax from and it is against the law to take a job and not give your SIN on your TD-1. Certainly it means you can't cheat on your taxes (I'm opposed to cheating on your taxes, btw) and that's good, but it does show that this idea was expanded to be more intrusive than originally devised.
2. Finger printing. I was finger printed as a child to "protect me from being abducted" (how that works I'm not sure, but that's the line they give...) 23 years later, I popped over to my friend's house with a 2 litre bottle of pop to watch movies. I left the empty bottle there. 2 days later he used the bottle to transport gasoline to a building which he burned to the ground. Smart guy he is, he wore gloves. Dumb ass he is, he left the cap there. Did he go to prison? Yes. Did I get arrested, lose my job and $4000 to lawyers first? Yes. Oh yes indeed.
The finger printing thing must work though. I never got abducted as a child....
2 1337 4 u!
I hope they don't go for a patent. The technology was concieved of and documented by John the Revalator (via divine inspiration) nearly 2000 years ago. Check it out:
He required everyone - great and small, rich and poor, slave and free - to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.
-Revelation 13:16-17
Screw Micro$oft.
Aside from positional tracking they're aiming for, the chip also tracks you medically. With a wireless transmission system you know that more than just you and your designated data recipient can easily listen in on your data. An idea comes to mind about doing wireless bank transactions sort of like a credit card without all the verification and signature hastle. Chip readers could just scan you and automatically deduct the necessary amount. sounds like a good idea... in theory. Also sounds like the next logical step for this hardware if it became prevalant. You thought you were easy to track now, imagine all your medical, financial, and positional data at the fingertips of the wrong person, or insurance agency, or government beauro, or angry 16 yr old, etc....
-ParadoX-
Know only what I am, not what I may be.
never underestimate the verbal power of a bored English major while immersed in an emotionally charged rant :)
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
My Cat is more wired than Kevin Warwick.
At least he can automatically open catflaps.
This exhaustive scientific study is brought to you by Motorola :)
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
...just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!
I think it's healthy, actually, that any mention of a device like this hurls up great visceral chunks of dislike from all and sundry. I don't generally like the amount of pure FUD that flies off of Slashdot these days, but it is heartening to see at least a few people willing to say that they'd fight something like this (Saying and doing are two different things- but it's a good start.)
Implanted trackers are a disturbing concept, no matter how they're presented.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Oh yes. Kevin Warwick. He's usually just a nutter, but in this case he did raise some concerns about privacy and civil liberties issues.
However, check out Kevin Warwick Watch as a guide to just how seriously you want to take what he says.
-- "This is the Space Age, and we are Here To Go" - W.S.Burroughs
Clarification: that was smallest, as in SIZE, as opposed to smallest, as in VALUE.
For those not in the USA: There are 100 cents in a dollar; a dime is worth 10 cents, a nickle is worth 5 cents, and a penny is worth 1 cent. But, a nickle or a penny is physically larger than a dime. Has to do with the fact that at one time, a dime was made of pure silver - to make these other coins out of silver would make a coin too small to be practical, so they were made of less-valuable metals (copper, zinc, and nickle).
Sorry for the confusion!
"They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, 1759
Those concerned about privacy should read this excellent book:
It's None of Your Business by Larry Sontag
There is NO law that requires a person to be numbered, and it IS possible to live, work, drive, without being another numbered serf.
Bit of a reach - what if they implant it in your left butt-cheek, and make sure that no barcode is involved, nor anything else liable to pertain to the number "666".
"It's not the apocalypse, it's just a pain in the arse!"
As for privacy issues raised elsewhere in this thread... the suggestion seems to be that the criminal version will not have an off-switch, the civilian version will have. For criminals, this is not much harder to circumvent than the current wristbands and such, but might provide more useful information.
For civilians, there are a few more questions: how can you tell the off-switch *really* works? Is someone keeping track of when and where you turn your implant off? What's being done with the other data gathered?
Never underestimate the value of lots of seemingly unimportant information - pattern analysis can give answers a single item will never tell you. Phone monitoring for instance - what do you think the resulting web would look like if you linked together all the callers who, during phone calls to each others, used phrases such as "not over the phone"?
Haven't gotten any sleep, unstructured babbling ahead.
:P Most of human civilization and progress seems to be getting ourselves as far out from under the thumb of nature as possible. 'Cause while people may be good or evil, nature is just 100% callous and indifferent, and no one likes being ignored. :P
Not too thrilled about the whole implanted GPS tracking thingy, but having an implanted chip powered by human muscle motion intrigues me a bit. Though it seems a bit low-tech to me; I mean we've already developed machines that can derive power from sugars, meats, and other foods; why not have implants use the same fuel we use?
How about going in the opposite direction, people that can live off electricity? Actually, that's somewhat descriptive of people with pacemakers...
Mankind has already been engineering, customizing, and "building" ourselves for years, it's just that so far it's been largely through biochemical (ie: vaccines, food additives) or mental (ie: schooling, mass media) methods. We may be more comfortable with those means, and they do have positive benefits, but they've proved throughout history that they can be just as harmful as whatever we can dream of for technological augmentation. Plagues, biochemical warfare, brainwashing, hate propaganda, etc. Nothing new, nothing new under the sun.
Nanotech blurs, and may even one day completely erase, any distinctions between technological and biochemical human augmentation. Many chemical processes are essentially just interactions between shell electrons; what of a nanobot that can simulate different configurations of electron shells? A multitude of them would be something like a multi-purpose chemical. And what is the difference between a virus and a nanobot other that whether it was designed by the whims of nature or man? After all, neither is considered to be alive.
In an effort to be natural, people act unnaturally. In acting unnaturally, people are natural.
Och, I still can't sleep. -_-
I work in the Biotechnology industry. There's no question that man and machine will fuse at some point, relatively soon in fact. I agree with the privacy issues - privacy is paramount and we should not allow new technologies, no matter how stunning, to interfere with it.
However, I have a big issue with your fear of integrating technology into human/other organisms. This has been happening for quite a while now, with Pacemakers, artificial limbs/plates for bone correction and assistance, hearing aids, etc. The fact is that with new technologies, such as electronic hearts, eyes, livers, etc, we will be able to boost the human lifespan by several decades. Lipespans of 160 will be common. As technology improves, 200 won't be unheard of.This isn't a new phenomenon though, it's been on the cards since the 1800s when machines started to assist humans with menial functions. In the 1950s Computers started taking over some of the "thinking" functions such as Intelligence/encryption/military and later business and of course number crunching, and now machines are going to be making their way into our bodies. This isn't an unusual leap and people in the Biotech industry have been predicting it for ages. Fact is, when people get to 130 and still have a good 40 years to live - with perfect vision, hearing, a perfect heart, etc - they probably won't be complaining. Well, maybe some of them will.
In conclusion, I don't think that people should be forced to implement technologies on themselves - and I don't think that any technologies that will be integrated so closely into our lives should we choose to implement them should invade our privacy in any way. But to bash such technologies for "de-humanizing" us is as stupid as bashing railroads and punchcard looms"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
Sorry to burst your bubble, but misuse in the land of the free (as long as they pay) and home of the brave IS an issue. Some lobbygroup will get this signed into law, make it mandatory to chip your kids when they go to kindergarten ('they might get kidnapped, so now we can track them'), you insurance will mandate that you get one ('so the emergency service will be able to find you'), etc. Of course, the insurance company (part of a big megacorp) now knows where you are, and when, and starts selling 'anonimized' profiles to marketing firms ('we are concerned with your privacy, if you do not want this then please fill out this 10-page form in Assirian glyphs'). Your kids will get used to the idea that they have this chip inside them, they might even get some small benefits from it ('people with ID-chip through the fast lane, those without show your passports please'), so they probably will think it 'natural' that they can be tracked everywhere.
Meanwhile, in another part of town, J.Edgar Hoover's great-grandson has risen to the top of the F.B.I, and takes up where his predecessor left off. When later questioned by the Senate, he states that 'it was imperative for national security that these people were tracked down'. Although there was no conclusive evidence that those people ever did something wrong, they were put away anyhow, since national security is a serious matter, especially when your own position is at stake.
But no, this will never happen in the US of A. Right?
--frank[at]unternet.org
Rings fake to me...
These are the specifications of a half dollar a dime's diameter, from the same page, is: O.705 in. 17.91 mm
Oh my God! Space aliens! Don't eat me, I have a wife and kids! Eat them. -homer j. simpson
Your not going to get my ID chip unless you cut it out of my cold dead hand!
Oh, I see you've got a knife and I can only guess why you brought along your brain trust.
Got any anaesthesia?
Wack!
[fade to black, then our hero wakes up]
Officer, someone mugged me and cut out my chip!
No officer I didn't steal that mp3-- someone is framing me -- please don't put me in jail.
i think it might hurt a LITTLE more to remove an implant
Bruce Willis did it in 12 Monkeys (a very good Terry Gilliam film) by pulling out his wisdom teeth where it was located.
The only time I'd see it used is on paroled criminals. Or, as a better way to enforce Megan's Law*, have alarms and sirens go off if a pædophile made his way into a community.
*-for our Non-US readers, Megan's Law requires paroled sex offenders to announce to their new neighbors of their past crimes. Or something like that.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
I heard an insightful comment at Rootfest last June. We were talking about biometric authentication methods. One of the attendees mentioned that it would be very very nasty if someone could steal the authentication token your biometric data generated. Unlike passwords, you cannot change your fingerprint every 3 months. I'd hate to see someone with a scanner steal your implant's code and then use it to authenticate him/herself.
-B
If one were to check in Theologins 4:16-17, the 'Rapture' comes first. Not the mark of the Beast,which comes later.
In actuality, I see a lot of uses for this product, but I rarely trust major corporations to be looking out for my interests when my interests are not in the best interest of that corporation's bottom line. This reminds me of an article a friend of mine wrote on the Technocracy.
The most amazing thing about this kind of technology is it is actually being pursued. While the benefits are reasonably obvious, the potential for misuse is extreme and a strong majority of dystopic novels begin with this kind of advance. I want to affirm that I am not saying this shouldn't be pursued. I like the idea of never being 'lost'.
I just can't wait for the first 'signal masks' to come out, which relay your signal to a different location. That way when someone goes out to rob a bank, they have an airtight alibi (my Angel location log clearly shows I was at home that night.)
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
That definitely depends on where you live...
case 1: 35yo swm in Middle-of-nowhere, Kansas
case 2: 19yo swf in the Bronx, NY
which is why some people might actually want it... kinda like a home security system for yourself. Although I don't like the idea, it may be seen as beneficial to a large group of people.
_____
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
http://leftorium.net
why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries?
GPS handheld units are cell phone size because most people like to have a screen of certain size to look at. GPS-on-a-chip systems are commercially available now and somebody (Casio?) already sells a consumer GPS watch. Power requirements -- I don't know. If you take away all the extras and leave just the basics -- signal receiving circuitry and minimal calculating capabilities -- the drain might be very small.
Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale?
"Simple" and "implantable" is a contradiction in terms. Implanting stuff is complicated, expensive and scary. Often not necessary, as well.
Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking?
It is already being done on a wide scale for animal and property tracking. Not implant, though, because it's much simpler and cheaper to put a collar onto an animal than to perform a surgical procedure.
Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?
This IS human testing 8-)
In any case, given that it's very easy to block the GPS signal (e.g. go inside a building or under heavy tree cover), I doubt that this technology is useful for arbitraty tracking of people. I think that what they have in mind is more like tracking people inside highly classified buldings.
Although the day a government will insist on implanting a chip in me as a precondition for a job will be the day I move on to friendlier shores...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Hardly seems an issue.. An implanted chip can't tell what I'm buying. A credit card can. I already have a couple of them. Big brother take note..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
-
Only those who need to hide something, are afraid of this technology. Honest law-abiding people do not need to hide anything from the police. Therefore, people who oppose this technology are mostly criminals.
Currently we have the technology to track cars. And what are they planning in UK? To make it mandatory to install tracking device in all new cars, to allow police to track traffic violations.If this people-tracking technology were to come public, there would soon be all kinds of "reasons" to force people to use them. For example:
How soon before people start being killed for their digital IDs? Even for those who don't believe the bible, consider how lucrative a target for muggers this will be, if you can easily gain access to someone's money and possesions just by killing them and extracting a tiny piece of kit from their skull.
This is perhaps the worst idea I have heard in a long, long time.
I've never understood why these types of devices need to be surgically implanted. Can't they simply be worn in some inobtrusive place like around your ankle?
how about the last line of the patent:
"It will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art that various substitutions and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention."
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
read this article for your "evidence" http://wwww.worthynews.com/news-features/digital-a ngel-2.html
It does seem that the CEO/Chairman/Secretary and his brother the COO/President make an inordinate amount of money compared to the revenue of the firm, but is this new to Corporate America?
I wouldn't worry about animals being tested before humans, though - ADS is acquiring Destron Fearing, a company whose business is tracking and identification of pets and livestock.
This stuff is pretty scary, though; new moms - take your little ones home from the hospital as soon as you can! The suits will be tagging everybody they can find once these things are operable.
Anything that CAN be turned off CAN also be set so the "switch" is disabled. First prisoners, then parolees, then sex offenders, then members of militias, then dissidents, then anyone and everyone else.
Go NOW and rent the old James Coburn movie: The President's Analyst. Then get scared.
/(o\ I'm not a medievalist - I just play one on weekends!
I really am shocked at the tremendously poor quality of posts on this thread. It's clear that very few people actually read the information on the site or even tried to think logically about any of this.
1. This will eventually be mandatory and The Man will track us wherever we go!
This seems to be the chief conspiracy theory. Let's think about this for a moment. What percentage of the voting public would desire or permit the government to mandate implanted tracking devices? If somehow the evil government broke away from the people and started trying to force this upon its people, how many would take up arms against it? I WOULD. I may be trying to speak in defense of this project here (only because there's an overwhelmingly uninformed body against it at the moment), but I would certainly fight any attempt at mandating tracking devices in our bodies. This is just stupid to even consider.
2. The devices can communicate with satellites and track us all with GPS!
Another poster mentioned this, but he was quickly rebuffed by another uninformed poster, but do you really think we have the technology to shrink down a fully functional GPS receiver into a device the size of a grain of rice? The smallest GPS receiver I've ever seen was built into a wristwatch, and it was the bulkiest watch I've ever seen in my life. The best we can do is something the size of about 3 AA batteries, and you've still gotta have a good antenna and a clear view of the sky for it to work. What they're saying by linking the devices up to GPS technology is the same sort of "GPS tracking" they're planning on building into your phones: conventional base-station triangulation linked against known GPS information.
3. All of the RF radiation from these things will kill us, like our cell phones are!
Do you really think a rice-sized device is going to put out as much RF energy as your cell phone? This thing is powered off of what little energy it can get from muscle movement. Have you also noticed how HOT your cell phone gets pumping out all that energy? Putting out 750mw of power from a grain of rice will cook your flesh quite effectively. I'll talk more about this topic below.
4. Why do these tracking devices need to be implanted, anyway?
READ THE PAGE! The primary use for these things is for BIOMETRIC SENSING. Location is simply a side-effect and a nifty other purpose. They specifically say on their site that the biometric sensing devices are meant to be implanted or bonded close to the body SO THAT IT CAN COLLECT BIOMETRIC DATA. These things aren't about tracking the human population, they're about things that are legitimately useful. Do you really think a company is going to be very successful marketing an implanted people tracking device?
I seriously doubt there is going to be a significant "global network" capable of receiving transmissions from these devices such as what you're seeing with cell phones. The devices are small and extremely low-power, so they can't transmit far, and they were built for biometrics sensing. I don't have any more information from you, but calling on my meager yet sufficient store of COMMON SENSE, I can figure out that they are planning on using these things inside buildings, hospitals perhaps, or when out of doors, "base stations" would be located on mobile vehicles, which would drive around, listening for signals it's looking for and collecting the data/location.
This makes these devices quite useful for things like hospital patient monitoring, lost children, pets and endangered animals, since the base station is either positioned near the devices, or can be relocated in small area to search.
This does not make these devices useful for these stupid human implant tracking device conspiracy theories.
Can we please use a little more common sense and think through some of this stuff before we go frothing at the mouth about all of the phantom evils this new technology spawns?
religion receives no respect here for a reason.
this is an intelligent grounds for discussing FACTUAL information...and from experience, I'm learned that much of religion (not all) is neither factual nor very intelligent...most of it is ancient nonsensical beliefs that people cling to like a life preserver to keep from sinking in an ocean of reality (I'm mainly decrying christianity here, for I wouldn't be so arrogant as to decry all of religion, many of which I know nothing of)
You're definition of average bloke is presumably bound by the country that you live in. And I'd guess you're from the US or UK (or another Western country).
Try being yourself same average bloke in, for instance, an oppressive state like Burma, and see how much the government enjoy knowing what the "average bloke" is doing, and how much they relish the chance to know exacly what average things you're getting up to - so they can then make you their idea of average.
I say Burma but it could be any number of countries with oppresive regimes.
You're comments are dangerously naive.
walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, odds are, IT'S A DUCK!
l -angel-2.html
http://wwww.worthynews.com/news-features/digita
...That it might be just a pack of lies?
Track by GPS? Sure. Right. And your TV is watching *you*. GPS is just as one-way.
Web-enabled bio-electric-powered? Sure.
Show me a precedent. Show me a big, clunky prototype that does *any* of these things. New technologies do not start out as 'dime-sized' implants. They start out as a pile wires and an ATX case. But these guys go straight to the finished product with *noone* on slashdot having heard whispers?
This guy is trying to bilk law enforcement and govenment agencies of as much as he can.
BTW - This isn't the same guy who was selling the GPS-tracked bracelets a year or two ago, is it? Sure smells like the same vapourware...
Ok, now prove me wrong...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Will this ID Chip be compatible with other types made by other companies? Will there be a monopoly on these chips? What is the failure rate? Will I have to sign a waver of liability if the chip causes me some harm?
I understand this chip is in the very early phases. I also understand there is a need to have a greater sense of security in financial transactions. But I'll tell you what the best security is...getting to know your bank personnel.
I don't need high technology to guarantee my security because I bank at such a small institution that I know all the tellers, the receptionist, the loan manager, and the office manager. If I call and want to do something irregular, I get passed to the receptionist who knows me and we gab for a little while.
Is it fool-proof. Nope. No security mechanism is, and that is another potential problem with this Digital Angel. It makes the wearer believe they are performing secure transactions when nothing is 100% secure.
The benefits don't outweigh the costs. Period. They've got to make it cure cancer before I'd go that route.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Dude, what kind of crack are you smoking? Cheap crack, I'll wager. You need to earn some money so you know what it looks like. Same goes for the US Mint if those numbers came off their web page. A Susan B Anthony coin might be about 2 mm thick, a quarter is about 1.3 mm. I can't think of anything 1.2 inches across.
I don't have a ruler, but here are some measurements comparing to a pin header I have on my desk. Accuracy +/- 5%
Quarter, $0.25, 0.95 inches, 24 mm
Dime, $0.10, 0.70 inches, 18mm
Nickel, $0.05, 0.85 inches, 22mm
Penny, %0.01, 0.75 inches, 19 mm
CDROM hole, 0.60 inches, 15 mm
Ryan
I dont want a implanted chip in my body so that a company, government, or person can find me whenever. Who exactly asked for something insane like this? This is the shit nightmares are made of.
Briefly, in one study of 250000 cell phone subscribers they found no mortality difference between hand held cell phone use and automobile mounted cell phones (hand helds have the transmitter close to your head, car mounted have them further away). They went a bit further and looked for a correlation between duration of cell phone use and mortality and did find one: use of a cell phone while driving did result in more accidents.
Animal studies where they were subjected to radiation of the frequency and modulation of cell phone also yielded no correlation between cell phone usage and cancer.
Read the article though, its pretty good (as Spectrum usually is)
Yes indeed, but I fear that's only the tip of the iceberg. We should question new technology, first and foremost. Not accept it blindly, look at what the automobile running fossil fuels has done to our environment, now we are so dependent on it that change is hard to come by.
Just wait till the day you have an implant that tracks your location, monitors your health, keeps your medical, dental, financial and criminal records right on that chip! Pet animals like dogs already get ID implants in them in the area that I live in. Can anyone see it's apparent benefits? You go to a new doctor he scans your medical records right in from the implant or whatever.. He doesn't have to call anybody up and get a faxed copy of it. Or what about financial? Do away with cash and just have a balance on your implant. You walk up to the cash register and bingo you paid for your dinner. Oh and lets not forget you can't lose any money now, can't get robbed and the government doesn't have to worry about counterfeit. But that is scary part, because you and your past will go with you everywhere. Have some bad credit 20 years in the past, should be gone right? Nope it's still sitting on the little implant. But I think it will be so appealing to most people at first they will accept it without question, maybe even embrace it. Big brother will be watching.
I'm not afraid of technology, it has helped humans tremendously but this is one technology I'd rather pass on.
You will be assimilated!
Best Slashdot Co
As long as it doesn't go in my right hand or forehead, I think I'll be OK.
--
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
Heh. I just checked the us mint website. You read the specs off the "half dollar" column. A simple mistake, I guess. But still, how can you confuse a half dollar with a dime? Yeesh.
Ryan
...was eventually right, but by that time, people like you had quit listening...GET IT?
- angel-2.html
IF it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...odds are, IT'S A DUCK!
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/digital
And all that information I suppose would wind up a databse somewhere. Seeing as that information would be continually updated it would have to be permanently connected to the net, making it vulnerable to attack. Somehow I think this site would be a popular target.
Last but not least, the biblical implications are just too freaky. I'm no catholic here, but I due to my interest in paranoia and conspiracy I have read the book of revelations and the parallels here a just a little too creepy for my taste.
I don't know about the rest of you but I LIKE the fact that I can disappear once in a while and live privately and anonymously.
until FEMA takes over...
http://www.worthynews.com/Government/fema.htm
whoever modded this as a troll can lick my nuts...and moderate me for that matter, fuck my karma...take this into consideration as a decent post
I've seen reports on this a few times in ABC news and other main stream media. I don't know how prevalent this really is. Typically the news is more than willing to overemphasize risks to give people reason to read the news. I'm not sure it matters how true or not true it is. The same executives who enroll themselves in survival courses and hire security details would also be more inclined to get one of these embedded in them.
Right. It's too close to the description of "the mark of the Beast" in Revelations for middle America to accept it.
they'll be even LESS likely to remove it once it becomes illegal to do so...and you KNOW it will...just like convicts on the bracelet are in violation of their parole if they remove it...
German readers can get a copy of the c't magazine, 2 or 3 editions ago.
They had a very good summary.
Animal studies where they were subjected to radiation of the frequency and modulation of cell phone also yielded no correlation between cell phone usage and cancer.
Yup that's known and also can be found in the article.
But the very long term effects aren't known so far as the mobile phones are too new.
What we know so far ist that the thermal effects (i.e. that, what's happeneing in a microwave) are nearly neglectable. *But* there are other effects, like a reduced calcium transport (shown on simple cells). And we don't know the long term effects of that one (it might be harmless or it might be harmfull - we don't know).
Maori
"The main worry is not misuse in the US"
ummm...YOU need to read this story:
http://www.worthynews.com/Government/fema.htm
C'mon... I thought information wanted to be free. One's heartbeat and GPS loc is simply information. Does this mantra have exceptions?
--
Well, hey, that's what the Earth was ALREADY created for.
don't reply to people's sigs
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
"an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and e-commerce security"
what the FUCK does that mean? any way i interpret that, it sounds pretty freakin scary. are they talking about tagging employees or customers?
Haha! No, calm down. It means they want the stock to skyrocket, so they throw in some buzzwords- that's what it means!
Gfunk007
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Forgive them lord, for they know not what they do.
a) this device, and a similar one produced by a division of Hughes Aircraft, are already implanted in millions of animals and as many as 45 humans. b) the procedure is simple. The device is actually small enough to be inserted by hypodermic needle. c) "tracking" you is not the *biggest* issue: the ISSUE is, if you MUST have one to buy or sell at any retail site, or hold a job (remember, once upon a time, your social security card was "voluntary", now it's MANDANTORY), you'll turn up eventually.
Funny how no-one seems to have mentioned Demolition Man (ID implants) or Peter F. Hamilton's Night Dawn Trilogy (neural nanonics). X-Files, misc Cyberpunk stuff (Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer) also features implants, certainly there are many more.
While I don't see implants as inherently bad (replacements for nonfunctional sensors, like ears and eyes would obviously be a good thing, as well as devices allowing to control the activity of muscles so as to overcome certain handycaps), I'd hate to see a generalized use of such ID chips. There's just too much potential for abuse, with very little benefits.
The Government...
Now, if you can just turn the bloody thing off, what is the point of it as a tracking and identification device? I mean sure, they designed a switch in it to be able to turn it off, but in practice, will that switch be available? If the government decides to start using these for any purpose, you can expect that it will be implanted in criminals.
WOuldn't it be wonderful if every person who ever broke a law had an implant like this. I mean background checks would be simple, just wave a little wand in front of somebody and if it beeps you don't hire them because they are an ex-con. And of course you make it a heinous crime to remove the implant. Who can argue this logic, I mean criminals are bad and evil, right? And as we all know, all criminals are habitual offenders for life. No matter how much time they serve, are they really ever to be trusted again? Of course not!
*SIGH*
Why don't they just change the name from "Digital Angle" to "The Mark of the Beat" and be honest with us?
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Sorry, couldn't resist.
A self-defence mechanism could be built into the criminal-version of the device. Perhaps when it cam into contact with outside air or sunlight it would send a pulse of electricity to the heart or brain killing or disabling the criminal. I am extremely skeptical about this.
On the other hand, I think this company needs to do some more research. The chip does include a wireless transmitter, does it not? And electromagnetic radiation (such as radio signals) have been shown to contribute to cancer, hasn't it? I think this company is leaving itself open to a lot of lawsuits, as the government would be if it forces these to be implanted in criminals, let alone average citizens.
Never underestimate the power of a greedy lawyer.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Now Jon, I object to that statement, and would like to remind you that some of us unChristian filth don't engage in those activities at all. I, myself, lie, cheat, work, and have sodomy on Sundays. And yes, there is a rosy glow afterwards.
its very easy to prevent criminals removing it. implant it next to the spinal column with a tiny (a few ounces) of explosive or primer (the stuff used to make gunpowder ignite in a bullet). with a small capacitor to store charge and a small simple dead mans switch device (the capacitor discharges in a burst after electroical contact is removed or the devices is moved away from the muscles powering it) could detonate the primer, severing the spinal column of the criminal. now severing the spinal column is a bad thing and most criminals would be rather reluctant to remove the device.... ...around 20 years for device to be refined..another 10 to stamp out opposition from /.ers, liberty/privacy groups...they'll probably start implanting death row inmates first...and then another 20 or so before its widespread....the way i figure it..its got to be at least 50 odd years before we see anything like it in common use...should be after my time..so i dont think i care.
of course, none of this is likely to happen. the way i see it
I am a parent and the idea of loosing my 3 year old in the mall, or even possibly being kidnapped sickens me to no end. My wife and I are very attentive and watch out for her like hawks, but children have a nack to achieve light speed when you least expect it. I would condider installing the chip on her. Simply put it is a huge peace of mind, but before I go ahead I do need to know that it works. Playing on parents fears has been a great marketing angle that too many charlatans have taken advantage off. When would I take it off? When she can fend for herself.
man if there is one horribly superlative viewpoint that i'm sick of its that "the united states is totalitarian"
first off it is tipically held by privilaged US citizens who have no clue how lucky they are. anyone from a REAL totalitarian military state would give their left foot to get into the united states.
sure our (elected) officials don't allways go about things in the most intelligent of matters. sure they sometimes side with big business over regular people and sure taxes can be a little high. but the unites states is pretty damn free.
now of course this doesn't mean we should sit back and just feel lucky. we *can* loose our freedoms quite easily, and we mush jealously guard them. but to say that the US is allready a "totalitarian" state is ridiculous.
the misuse of strong words to make a point ultimately dulls language. if "totalitarian" comes to mean any kinda-bad thing that a government does then what will we use to describe Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Germany, or Mao's China?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
An MRI would be a good way to get rid of any "bugs".
Ever notice all the warnings near them about how electronic devices, etc need to be kept FAR away?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Imagine this scenario: I'm off for a weekend's rock climbing, loaded up with just the essentials, ie. as close to nothing as possible.
Carrying the kitchen sink while inching up a cliff face not only slows you down, it reduces your life expectancy. So, I don't want to lug around a cellphone, GPS, PDA, cash, credit cards, organ donor card, maps, compass, pen, torch, radio, or altimeter (:-).
Instead, I slap a couple of DataPatches on my arms and one on my forehead; they look kinda like bandaids. The one on my forehead provides most of the clever stuff: not only a useful amount of computing power, but also micropower transmissions to the dumb receptors I've had implanted in my retinal and ear nerve stems. Triggered by blink codes, I get all the info I need superimposed on my regular vision. I suppose this is a descendent of those crappy old head-up displays.
The DataPatches on my arms do the brute force work, as there's a large amount of excess energy on the surface of muscles that's easy to tap. Body data is gathered both locally and from the forehead patch transmissions, and external data is gathered from GPS and terrestrial radio transponders. This is all available to me on my A/V channels, but in addition, the arm patches store up power for occasional long-distance data bursts with the help of additional power-pump amplifiers in the heels of my shoes. As a result, I'm not only safer by being better informed, I'm also safer because my progress monitor a thousand miles away at home is keeping tabs on how I'm doing. And should something unfortunate happen, well, it knows what to do.
Now then, where is the "not good" in that scenario? There is none, because I'm in control of the technology, not somebody else. It's working for me, extending my control over the environment, helping me to survive and to have fun.
The problem isn't technology, but the people that might use it to gain power over you. That has always been the case and I guess it'll always be so, but that's not a reason for labelling technology as "bad". In that direction lies Luddism. Take it further and it's the end of Man's progress towards the stars.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Ooops! I was reading the third column from the right instead of the third column from the left! Maybe I had the U.K. on the brain and was translating for the opposite side of the road? :)
Anyway, here's the corrected info:
Please accept my apologies for the confusion.
--MessiahXI
That's actually a lame excuse.. If they start building stuff like this, I think there are more important questions than "does it have an off switch?".
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
While I'm not sure about the total truth of the bible anymore, I know that this passage at least warns us of similar things to the "mark of the beast" (I grew up in church.. I have a pretty good handle on the dogma.)
If you look at the bible, there are a lot of prophesy, and some of it seems to have come to pass.
More importantly, the warnings that are issued are done so, usually, for an "undocumented" reason. Think of it. The ppl who wrote these passages had no concept of our technology. Tracking somebody across the known world was pretty tough. Privacy? Not a problem. No real way to monitor a person. So, they wrote this the only way they understood
I don't really know if I've made my point here, but to summarize, this could easily be construed to be the "Mark of the Beast" (something I consider a strong possibility) so I know I will be refusing.
Besides, the personal privacy violations alone.....
some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.
Status Quo: It is possible for a person to redeem themselves for past crimes. A necessary condition of this is that the person must be able to dissociate themselves from the link to the past crime. Past crimes are recorded with a reference to a criminal's identity. If it is possible to live without revealing that information, then and only then is it in a person's interest to pay a debt they owe to society.
World of implanted ID chips: Nobody can ever redeem themselves, because *somebody* will always be around to steal official records before they are erased, store them, and resell the data on the black market. Your "credit report" will contain inane crap like your school kindergarten disciplinary record and how much beer you bought in college. You will not be able to control this because the black market will shadow any official records. Anyone you deal with will use this data to discriminate against you. Since civil law has the "preponderance of evidence" burden of proof, you will be at a legal disadvantage if you do not use others' data as leverage against them. If you ever make a mistake, no matter how small, you can look forward to paying for it repeatedly the rest of your life. The concept of "benefit of the doubt" will no longer exist, and all trust decisions will effectively be arbitrated by the authorities who sell the data.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
If I went to DoubleClick and said "your webbugs are interfering with my privacy" and they said "so shut your computer off", I would not be satisfied.
To generalize: The privacy policy of any product or service cannot be "don't use the product/service"--because what happens when the product/service becomes ubiquitous?
10 years ago it might have been feasible to say "don't get on the Internet if you want to be private". Today that answer is becoming hard to defend. In another 10 years, it will be totally unacceptable. In 10 years, not being on the Internet will be like not having a phone (or a local library, or a television, or a radio).
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
So, the consumer can turn OFF the privacy-invading auto-identifying feature, can they? Hmmm...I seem to recall Intel claiming something similar about their ID numbers on the PIII. And then somebody wrote a cute little program that turned it back on again. This is truly frightening....
Marvel as your vital signs are transmitted during the battle field along with your location so commanders will know when and where you die!
Although it would be cool if commanders were given a RTS-type interface to the battles. With these implants all of your men could have accurate health meters displayed next to them on screen...
My other
Actually, the main point is whether people will actually consent to having it implanted. This is the kind of stuff that spawns mass hysteria, but in reality no company in the US can force employees to do it. There are also protective measures like lawsuits which can bankrupt companies that abuse technology or cause negligent harm (eg, GM had to pay millions for faulty tanks).
The main worry is not misuse in the US, since there is enormous media/public scrutiny. Technology like this in the hands of China/Burma/N.Korea or any of America's puppet dictatorships is the dream-come-true of totalitarian regimes, who can do whatever they want. Today, dictators are having a difficult time controlling people yearning for greater freedom and able to evade their rulers. It will be more difficult to avoid being tracked if you are a human cursor wandering around a screen on a govt. computer.
Not sure what kind of business plan this company has. Will American companies - wary of lawsuits - really implant thousands of their employees with a chip? Who will buy this thing?
OTOH, think of how much trouble China or Saudi Arabia is having tracking dissidents or people released from prison. Pop one in, and you can say 'Come to pappa' anytime you like.
w/m
an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and
e-commerce security
Remember the Intel PIII ID number? Same thing, just now it identifies the person, not the computer. If they can identify both the orderer and his location via his implant, then they can't get many fake orders, can they?
> To live in the US
You will find ssn's in pretty much most of the English colonies, Canada, Australia, etc., not just the uSA.
> you pretty much MUST have one
Not true. I haven't had one for the past 2
years. I also have friends who haven't had for one for as long as the past 10 years. It IS possible to live without a Slave Identification Number.
If you study into contract law, you will see the ssn is really a contract. Which means it can be revoked.
Read the book if you want more info.
> this is an intelligent grounds for discussing FACTUAL information...
That has got to be the funniest thing I've read all week. Thanks!
It almost sounded like you were replying to something on advogato.org or some other site...
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
The League of Nations is the cure for Big Brother?
yes when the forces of totalitarianism are closing in i want to be protected by...
a limp-wristed innefectual powerless bicker party whos most powerful member is... the french
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Something like this might fly in Europe but not in the U.S. One of our deep seated myths(as has been posted many times in this discussion) is the 666/number of the beast myth. People have been saying for years how the antichrist will take over the government and force everyone to be branded with a number(barcode) - if you refuse the mark you will not be able to buy or sell anything and therefore will perish.
Regardless of any advantages a digital implant might bring, this prevalent myth will destroy its chances in the U.S. It will be interesting to see if it takes off in Europe while the U.S. denies this technology because of its superstition.
Personally, I side with the fundamentalists and zealots on this issue. A digital tracking device is just too much of an invasion of privacy and is subject to too much abuse to make it worthwhile.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Yes good.
This device could be used by astronauts, the military, giving everyone in a unit, squad, etc, constant information as to the location of comrads. With a nice HUD on your helmet or display on a compact computer, every member, plus the commanders, of any military unit could be tracked during operations.
No voice radio transmission necessary. Just fire up your hud and you know where your comrad is, day or night, and his/her state (dead/alive).
Astronauts would welcome this little gizmo, vs the nice crap that gets stuck to their skin, up their butts, etc.
A version that cannot be turned off could be inserted into convicted felons/convicts when they are imprisoned. Any escape attempt will fail. When/if they earn their freedom, they could then be removed as approved by the courts and parole officers.
I do believe that MANY parents would welcome this sort of thing in their non-adult children. They would be easier to locate if kidnapped/snatched.
When the kid reaches the age of majority, then they could elect to have it removed or replaced with a self-controlled version (vs one they cannot control themselves).
People can't complain too much about this. They give up their privacy all the time anyway by bringing those GODDAMNED cell phones, pagers, etc with them EVERYWHERE THEY GO (including vacations, trips to the store, to the frickin' restaurant, movies, etc). They have no problem spilling their guts for everyone to hear (makes them feel "important").
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Not true. Not true at all.
First off, I've read a couple of your other posts, and I do have to indicate that as far as Christians go, I have to commend you for being relatively unobjectionable.
Since you appear to be one of the few people I have ever encountered who identifies both as a Christian, and then actually appears to "live and let live", you are a special individual.
I must assure you, though, having a Baptist family living next door and a Catholic church across the street, Christianity is a family of religions that seems to promote even less tolerance and freedom of opinion than even Islam.
Well you know, back in the Roman Empire, we were rounded up and fed to lions. (Hey if everyone else is so focused on long past persecutions I'll join them)Don't even go there. More wars, violent deaths, and tortures have occurred on the basis of Christianity than all the other religions of the world have caused.
While a few thousand people were turned to Colisseum Cat Chow for the entertainment of the Romans, things did change shortly after that.
The fall of the Roman Empire gave rise to one even more dangerous and more powerful: The Roman Catholic Empire.
Throughout the middle ages, Jews, Wiccans and people of other religious denominations that have predated Christianity by millenia were persecuted, forced to convert, and if they didn't, were killed off by the thousands.
It continued for a long time after that: Ever hear of the Spanish Inquisition? The Salem Witch Trials? Hell, at Salem, you didn't even have to be a Wiccan to be burned as a witch.
And then, Christian vs. Christian bloodshed runs rampant in the world today. My own family is from Northern Ireland, and when I was a child, my own grandfather used to tell me stories about how he used to shoot Catholics for fun. How different are Catholics and Protestants? How different can they be? Don't they share the same god?
To this day, Christians are the most intolerant people in the world. Middle of the road average-Joe Christians are programmed by the church to think homosexuals are going to hell. There's enough evidence now that Helen Keller could see that gay people are a normal part of the population. And yet Christianity drives thousands of gay teenagers to kill themselves every year, because of their "abnormal lifestyle". I think every red-blooded man can agree that there is no lifestyle more abnormal than celibacy, and yet the Catholic Church demands that of their priests. Little hypocrisy, anyone?
Even more hypocrisy: Doesn't the bible tell us that God doesn't like it when we worship other deities? Isn't Christianity, which is basically the worship of a dead carpenter named Jesus Christ, completely ignoring that? Or, because it's His Son, does that make it okay? Add to that the Catholic affinity for the Virgin (ie. didn't get caught in the bushes with Joseph's brother) Mary and all the Saints just add to the mess? And when people bow to the Pope, aren't they worshipping him? Christianity seems to be, in reality, about as polythiestic as the Pagan religion of the Vikings, or as those of the ancient Greco-Roman peoples.
So, forgive me for calling you on your little blurb about how many Christians died during the Roman Empire. Perhaps if we finally threw off the shackles of organized religion and tried just being nice to each other, humanity could enjoy a far greater standard of living.
Come the afterlife, if there is one, I'm sure that I'll be okay. If God is rejecting people from Heaven because they're Jewish instead of Baptist or Hindu because instead of Catholic, the crapshoot is so great that you'd never know what religion to believe in order to be allowed in. In other words, ask to be buried in Bermuda shorts. Or, better still, get cremated to help acclimatize yourself. But, if there is a God, I have faith that He would be more concerned about what kind of life you led, not who/how you worshipped.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
According to that page, its 17.91 mm in diameter, and has a thickness of 1.35 mm. it weighs 2.268 grams.
You gave the stats for a half-dolar, moron.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Is this kind of concept really patentable? They've essentially patented any type of ANYTHING you might wear in or on your person that can track you.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
so who's to regulate the production of this chip. Oh please let it be the USA, because we're so just a fair. Watch out peopl, the end is coming
This obligatory and possibly offensive statement was bestowed upon you by the honorable reverend d.
I agree totally that this could be dangerous in the hands of some governemt. However, there is another danger to consider. This same devise could also be used for the "good" of people pressumed not able to make valid choices, either by well meaning bumblers or corrupt individuals standing to make a proffit. (To get an idea of what I'm talking about, look ar http://www.madnation.org/.) The kind of governmental parenting advocated in recent years makes this use more likely to be approved in (supposedly) more "enlightened" societies. Considering the constant "bracket creep" in mental "health" anyone seen as eccentric or "disturbed" could be in dangered by this sort of tracking.
But, then, this was probably only a mater of time....
Jack: We have just implanted the sensor into the rare and dangerous white male horn rimmed computer geek.
Jim: The tracking of this species was alot harder before we had ADS technology.
Jack: We will now release him into the urban wild.
Jim: Look he is heading towards his place of employment.
Jack: Hold it! He has changed directions. He is heading towards the bar that has the FREE BEER sign outside.
Jim: Interesting behavior!
ETC....
Technology is only a vehicle. People are the ones that drive it.
y'all just don't *get* it...Americans will not have the ABILITY to resist it...one stroke of a presidential pen, and we have martial law, at which point FEMA takes over, the consitution is suspended, and Congress is powerless to do anything for 6 months: MORE than enough time to implement the new tagging system...read the laws, this is ALL TRUE. check out worthynews.com, lower right sidebar, articles on FEMA and these devices... the end IS near
Those soviets sure wern't totalitarian at all! Espesialy stalin!
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
http://www.worthynews.com/Government/fema.htmn gel.html
n gel-2.html
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/digital-a
http://www.worthynews.com/news-features/digital-a
http://www.worthynews.com/Government/chip.htm
whit a credit card you have the choice to use it, with the implant not. the kan even prevent you of removing, disabling it by linking it with the nervs of your heart. shut is down and your heart shuts down. progress at all cost.
Well, that's one more pacemaker for the rest of us.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
That's not the greatest example, but my point is that a technology isn't immune from evil just because the manufacturer says "Oh, no, we'll play nice."
--Kai
--slashsuckATvegaDOTfurDOTcom
The entire religiously tainted paragraph has just pretty much invalidated any legitimacy this paster might have had.
> This a travesty to mankind, a travesty to
> nature, and to me personally: a travesty to
> the work of Our Lord
What really ticks me off is, every time, Christians having the audacity to claim they speak for God - how does this idiot know what the 'work of Our Lord' is? Heck, why did his God give man a brain, if not to use it. Maybe God wants us to device these kind of devices
> Man was simply not meant to be
> intermingled with machines.
'not meant' - on what grounds? based on what evidence? Since he's a CHristian, I assume the only grounds necessary are the divine word. As best as I recall, there is no part in the Bible that prevents the intermingling of human and machine - unless he's gonna quote some missing book, or re-reinterpret some completely unrelated part.
> in exchange for a piece of his human soul?
Wow, where'd this come from - I had no idea that souls were quantifiable, and that these ID tracking chips actually suck up the soul, ortake up the place of the soul. Man, those Christians - what awesome scientists...
> I don't often use threats of hellfire and wrath upon my fellow man
ROTFLOL! ROTFLOL!
> but I'm afraid that's what ADS is looking
> forward to.
And they, and every other man, are quaking in their boots knowing they have just been cursed - NOT!
Harry
Intel said that you could turn the Pentium III serial number off. That didn't matter, though, because a cracker could read it anyway. I'm sure that when they say off, they really mean the same sort of thing.
excellent news, low-jacking is here at last! only they want us to think it's going to help us. hmmmmm, i believe them, i do
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich.
but in reality no company in the US can force employees to do it.
1) Similarly, no company can force employees to take a drug test. It's purely optional, but if you won't follow this simple request, you're obviously a troublemaker and (insert multimegacorp's name here) would just as soon not have you around
2) No website can force you to accept cookies, but if you turn cookies off, you lock yourself out of a good number of websites.
3) No check-cashing storefront, health club, or other membership-based enterprise can force you to surrender your state or federal government-issued identification, but is fully authorized to decline your business if you refuse to comply.
I would NOT want one of these implanted into my body. Now, if they simply put the chip into a latex glove, wristband, armband, ankleband, etc... so I could put it on and take it off whenever I wanted, then I might consider getting one. But then again, this wouldn't be completely secure then. You could take someone else's glove by accident/on purpose and everyone (e-businesses and the tracking company(ies) would think that you are a different person.
Karma: NaN
You sound like one of those people who said "But why would I want to talk to someone 40 miles away?" when the telephone was invented.
You're making an entirely invalid comparison here. There is a drastic difference between long distance communication technology like the telephone and biotech implants. For example, ever wanted to avoid someone? Just get Caller ID and don't pick up the phone. Even though you can turn this particular model of implant off, what happens in the future when all the new babies born get implanted with ones that you can't turn off?
"Oh no!" you say. "That won't happen!" But that's the thing. It will happen. And soon. People will use these devices (probably even using Bluetooth) to pay for things, identify themselves, authenticate to their cars and guns (not that we'll have private gun ownership at that point) and boats and whatever. It could broadcast at 666Mhz and we could even call it the "Six-Six-Six" for fun. It's called the Mark of the Beast, and it's very real. It's also very scary.
I urge you to not let technology take away what's left of your humanity.
Don't be an idiot. Mountaineers / skiers who want to be tracked can already choose to wear any number of tracking / alarm devices. These are useful things that don't infringe anyone's privacy.
This device is entirely different. It's implanted, meaning that it's potentially always on (if you want to turn it off, take it off). There is no good reason whatsoever why anyone who wants a temporary usage of this technology (the mountaineer) should need to have it implanted.
The potential for government abuse of this device is enormous. It's not registering myself that I'm worried about (as an economically active, middle-class member of the voting public the politicians won't mess with me too much), but the more disadvantaged of society; the elderly (Help, I've fallen and can't get up) could find that private health sells their privacy in favour of lower cost housing for them in "battery farms for grannies". Petty criminals "tagged" with one of these will find honest work hard to find when the scar is visible (and if you can't get an honest job, what else do you turn to ?)
The US government is also profoundly unworthy of trust. The history of the last century is full of instances of it behaving in a vile manner towards groups of helpless citizens; whether they be the mentally ill, racial groups, Hollywood Communists or just plain poor.
The problem with a "Nanny State" is when "Nanny" turns out to be J Edgar Hoover, wearing a cocktail dress.
Lets also remember the last government that favoured wearing easily readable identification markings....
Like another poster mentioned, it would find heavy use on suspected drug offenders, but more importantly, anyone who posts bail, goes on parole, or heck, any computer user "suspicious" enough to be compares to John Wayne Gacy or Kevin Mitnick.
Hrm... Wouldn't having a computer chip implanted violate his parole?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
And now, our valiant servicemembers (like myself), after the wonders of the forced injection of the Anthrax vaccine...
Quick question: Why complain about the Anthrax vaccine when you also receive flu, yellow fever, smallpox, and on and on and on. You get shots (just like my military self) up the ying yang, yet you complain about one of THE most well-known vaccines? Note: those in the sheep industry, meat packing, etc, have been receiving those scarey anthrax shots for decades. They are not dying, getting arthritis, or any other problem. People get more side effects from flu shots than any get in the DECADES of use of the anthrax vaccine.
Tell ya what. Taking the shot and MAYBE experiencing a little discomfort JUST like from the flu shot you get every year is a LOT better than actually sucking down an anthrax spore and getting sick that way, I assure you. In the field, if you inhale some nice anthrax spores (say from a terrorist or enemy weapon release) and haven't taken the shot, you are dead. That is certain.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Even better, an implant which could induce cardiac arrest electrically (electrically induced ventricular fibrillation). Very easy to do. Very hard to prove that is what killed someone.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Yes, is very important to worry about impants being used to track people, but if you start to thing about it their are thousands of medical uses things that can be done with implant technology. Here are a few in roughly the order of technological difficultly. Blood Sugar checks for diabetics. Energemency dailing for an ambliance in case of an heart attack. Checking Hormone levels for early worning of deseases. Checking blood for antibodies or DNA sequences of bacteria and viruses for early worning of deseases. Replacement nerves, after spine damage. Replacement senses, after damage. Hormone release and T-box gene activation to induce regeneration of lost limbs/organs. Culture style neural lace, for VR and augmented reality (AR). SoulKeeper (impanted computer, continuosly copies brain state and neuron configuration to a backup copy of the persons mind.
Barring legislation that requires schoolchildren to maintain a functional implant, here's something that could help fight Big Brother:
http://www.eiu.org/experiments/i-bomb/
I understand why the "paranoia" annoys you...privacy advocates and Christians have been crying "look out!" for years. But if you remember the story of the boy who cried wolf, eventually, the wolf DID come, and the people like you who were "tired" of it failed to meet the enemy on the field of battle due to their "disbelief", and they lost their valuable possesions.
(Frantic voice)
"I don't know what happened to him Officer! He was trying to get some toast out of the toaster with a fork when his head exploded!"
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
That's really the main serious use
for these devices.
Something like this had to happen sooner or later, you can't suppress technology.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I'm sure that placing a stun-gun directly above the thing and firing it once or twice would probably do bad things to it as well. Hurt like hell, but not as bad as the ex-acto knife mentioned below...
...can be turned off by the owner.
By simply ceasing all electrical activity in the muscles, no doubt. No problem!
EXACTLY. Those who don't want it will be branded as "criminals", and rounded up, then beheaded. Remember when you could "demonstrate" freely? Then came Vietnam and Chicago, Kent State, etc. Now, if you "demonstrate" in front of an abortion clinic, you are a CRIMINAL. And let's not forget that it will be O SO EASY to make disabling the device a felony...WAKE UP, people!!!!
The idea of it drawing it's power from it's host is probably the most interesting part of the article, but I think there would be a lot more beneficial uses for it (medical analysis for example) than creating a worldwide human tracking system.
--
Just for those of us who don't live in the US, how big is a dime? Could make all the difference.
Paul Leader
> Seriously though, you cannot deny that
> religion gets a lot of crap on Slashdot.
Usually, a sign of enlightenment by the posters.... It's not like people get up in the morning and decide "I'm gonna bash a Cjrstian today", but rather that people have some pretty good reasons for their reactions to self-proclaimed Christians...
> Posting the words, "I am Christian" is like
> asking 5 AC's to flame you on the double.
Because, usually, the need to post "I am a Christian" is part of an annoying Christian habit to 'spread the gospel', or communicate to all that they are CHristian - I don't see anyone else on here with the need to add "I am agnostic", or "I am an atheist", or "I am buddhist" in order to support or make their argument.
The argument Christ-Boy made entirely hinged on his Christianity, and hence entirely lost any and all legitimacy it might have other wise had about legitimate privacy and biological concerns.
"Fear of Hellfire..." - My ass!
> Moreover, people here tend to ignore your
> opinions and label you as stupid or a troll
> because of your religious choices.
Absolutely not - such labeling does not happen exclusively because of religious choices. Christ-Boy earlier made an entirely stupid argument, one that is not far, or very different from 90% of the arguments of most other people that need to add "I am a Christian" , and their assumptions of what God wants in their posts.
I think such posters are labeled and made fun of far more frequently because their proselitized postings are annoying, and stupid.
Harry
I'm not trying to be a martyr, I'm just saying that religion recieves no respect here.
I wonder when there will be a law forcing newborns to have such a device implanted. ( One that can't be turned off that is... )
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
Reminds me of my .sig...think about it for a moment.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Clearly it is.
Really.
C'mon now, guys, I'm not kidding!
Really!
Look it up.
It's in the bible.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
...it's not like the transmitter for Tatooine slaves. ("...and it blows you up!") Or in Virtuosity for Denzel Washington's character. Remote kill.
I mean, similar technology has lots of potential. Dime sized implant could be inserted inconspicuously wherever as a emergency call. I remember reading about a bra that signaled the authorities if the wearer was suddenly surprised or whatnot (with a cancel button, of course).
You could store private keys for pgp, gnupg, ssh, there. Just remember your passphrase. Or "Where were you last night?" - "Alone, in my house, sleeping..." Exculpatory evidence. All potentially. See the rest of the comments for more of the flip side (I'm already tired of typing)
What a can of worms.
We use these same implanted chips on our pets so when they're found we can identify them and call their owners. In fact, it's mandatory here to chip your pets.
Now, when we start doing that to humans, does that mean we can have humans as pets too?
---
Notice some details.
They are excited about location-specific e-commerce potential.
They are scheduled to have a prototype ready by the end of the year, and planning a big demo in October.
Can you say "burn rate above predictions?"
I don't think we need to worry a lot. I see dot-com crash here.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Where I diverge from the troll is with the hallindseyisms. I think the world system is sufficiently corrupt that, just as has happened with contraceptives, abortion, and euthanasia, there is a slippery continuum between legaization and government mandating the technology for certain groups of people, thus causing the further erosion of human dignity.
Lubricated with the propaganda of "choice" any technology has a high potential for control, and it would have to be tightly regulated or banned by international convention before the Jini gets too far away from its bottle.
To be an effective deterant for crimminals, it must not only be tamper proof, but also require something more substantial than a pocket knife to safely remove it, as in the use of Norplant in school children. Perhaps a skull implant is not so far from reality.
How many people have to suffer a harsh punishment before "cruel and unusual" returns zero?
This is scary tech indeed. but inevetible. .............
supposedly you can turn it off, except for 'certain crimal cases' or political dissidents, or
And how can you be SHURE it's off. If the thing is an implant then it seems likely the on/off switch will be some sort of radio based remote.
All it would take is to replicate the ON signal.
This is post is a little paranoid I know, but
when you consider goverments ALWAYS tend towards increased authority and controll it seems inevitable that abuses by them will happen.
Mcyroft
That's, like, the understatement of the century? Christ, this sounds like something out of 1984! This is the kind of news I would expect to read in the Onion!
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Hurry! Let's start ranting about 666 and the number of the Beast and the end of the world and all kinds of apocryphical things!
from the google cache of the site:
"an array of beneficial potential applications: provide a tamper-proof means of locating and identifying individuals for e-business and e-commerce security"
what the FUCK does that mean? any way i interpret that, it sounds pretty freakin scary. are they talking about tagging employees or customers?
- isaac =)
Revelations 13:17
And that no man might buy or sell, except him that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
I don't want to nuke myself!
Disclaimer: I know that there aren't any proofen side effects of cell phone radiation (exept the minimal temperature increase of 0.1 deg C) - but, hey, there's also no proof that it is harmless!
Maori
Imagine a BeoWulf cluster of these. :-)
Regards, Tommy - it's really scary
Although the implementation may be more advanced (site says they want to use GPS), but this has already been done before, at the University of Reading, England.
See the ZDNet article here or Slashdot article here or the original academic text
here.
These first uses were to do with intelligent buildings though, for just positional and indentification info, rather than any form of biological monitoring.
Arrggghhh. I hate this. "It can be turned off by the user". Yeah, it can, but there is a danger that if it becomes some defacto identification standard, your life won't be functional if you turn it off. IE: Can't buy anything, etc. Eventually it gets so hard to function in the world, you just say, 'to heck with it' and leave it on all of the time.
This scares me.
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
They should beta test this kind of stuff on politicians. Maybe they'll make this sort of thing illegal once enough of them are tracked and caught sleeping around, accepting bribes, selling political influence to foriegn nations, etc...
_______
2B1ASK1
Because the device is muscle-powered, users are assured by the fact that it may always be disabled by simply ceasing all muscular activity.
Can you say book of revelations? I don't wanna sound crazy but this sounds like the mark of the beast
For those of you not from the good 'ol USofA, it'll be an eye-opener!
Quoting from the web site mentioned somewhere below:
"Many Christians believe that, before long, an antichrist system will appear. It will be a New World Order, under which national boundaries dissolve, and ethnic groups, ideologies, religions, and economics from around the world, orchestrate a single and dominant sovereignty. Such a system will supposedly be free of religious and political extremes, and membership will tolerate the philosophical and cultural differences of its constituents."
hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?
To the right-wing lunatic fringe christians, it is.
Remember, the only one-world-order they want established is the one under their lord, jesus christ..
'Course, if ol' GeeDubYa gets elected to the White House, the lunatic fringe christians won't have much to worry about, 'cause they pretty much still own the Republican party...
Just some thoughts from someone who's been watching this stuff for about 45 years...
t_t_b
What'd I tell ya?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I can't believe the utter audacity nor can I begin to describe my sheer disgust at the thought of this technology! Human ID chip implants? Dear God, what has become of us all?
It's not just purely the potentially potent personal privacy problems that have me in a panicked protest, it's the terrible thought that this technology will foreshadow the slow stripping of humanity from man. I can't believe these people are excited about the concept of placing computer chips inside a living human body. This a travesty to mankind, a travesty to nature, and to me personally: a travesty to the work of Our Lord (Yes I'm a Christian, don't flame me for it). Man was simply not meant to be intermingled with machines. Is this what you want, scientists? Insert a controllable chip inside a man in exchange for a piece of his human soul? I don't often use threats of hellfire and wrath upon my fellow man, but I'm afraid that's what ADS is looking forward to. I'm a man, dammit! I don't want a piece of silicon inside my body... no matter how painless, cheap, or convenient it may be.
This technology doesn't just offend me, it SCARES me. What's worse is I don't see any way mentioning how to turn off these chips. That is HORRIBLE! Our Lord in Heaven, what shall happen if these chips are released to the mass market.
You know, I watched Terminator many times, and thought that cyborgs would only exist in Hollywood. But apparently I was wrong. This looks like the first step in the assimilation of man with machine. If this takes off, I won't be surprised to see a future where man and robot are joined as one and walk down the streets none the wiser. And this frightens me greatest of all.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
These last few posts are the kind of pompous ignorance that shows your true selves. The Catholic church claims it's "authority" based on the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches in both Testaments that homosexuality is an abomination. If they fail to decry it, they have contradicted their own "authority", and are thus untrustworthy. SIMPLE LOGIC. The Catholic church has historically persecuted Bible believers around the world, including the Waldenesians, the victims of the Inquisition, and IN FACT, had a "handshake agreement" with Hitler re: the Holocaust. No amount of "revisionist history" can change the FACTS. Your willful ignorance OF these facts proves that you do not, in fact, desire TRUTH, you desire something that makes you feel good. There is *nothing* natural about queers. It is a perveted behaviour, period. Conduct all the studies you like, but I have never seen anyone who truly believed in God, an attempted to serve Him, who had any problems breaking the bondage of the sin. Someone said that the Bible, and it's believers, are unscientific and irrational. Unfortunately, the FACTS again are AGAINST you. The Bible said the world was round, when the "best scientific minds" said it was flat. We know who was right. When the "best medical minds" were leeching the blood out of many of our founding fathers, a simple turn to the Bible would have shown them that it was bad treatment, for "the life of the flesh is in the blood". Despite the claims of Evolutionists and secular humanists, the PREPONDERENCE of proven scientific fact points to a "young earth", no more than 10,000 years old. The only way to circumvent these facts is to "theorize" as to why the FACTS don't match the "theories". The Institute for Creation Research has more PROVEN, SCIENTIFIC FACT on it's side than the millions of wannabe Carl Sagans can ever hope for. The reason you don't know this is because you are "too smart". You *believed* all the crap you learned in school, and were too LAZY to do any *real* research into the FACTS. You can bash fundamental Bible believing Baptists all you want, but where they agree with the Bible, they are right, whether or not you like it. Solomon was aware of evaporation and condensation, prevailing winds, and other meteorological processes centuries before the "leading scientific minds". Read Ecclasiastes 1. Of course! The main reason you hold YOUR "narrow, exclusionary views" is because you have no idea WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS. Now THAT'S intelligent, isn't it? Let us all speak empirically about a book we've never studied! You people are SOOO smart, I doubt you can slap your behind with both hands at the same time. Many people claim to be "Christians", just as many claim to be intelligent. More often than not, these claims prove to be unfounded. I Corinthians 1 clearly states what this world's "wisdom" is worth, and trust me, it isn't much. Protestants do not worship the "same god" as Catholics. Matter of fact, most Protestants don't worship the same god as other Protestants. The Bible believer worships God Almighty, who made heaven, earth, and YOU, and quite frankly cares not whether or not you agree no more than your math teacher cared when you failed to agree with him for marking your incorrect answers as incorrect. Things different are not alike. Where a man disagrees with the Bible, man is wrong. Period. Jesus Christ is not a "dead carpenter". He claimed to be God Almighty, manifest in the flesh. Your ignorance shows. He was also rather "intolerant", for he SAID, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me". Doesn't sound very *tolerant* to me. Bashing Christians a "sign of enlightenment by the posters"??? That guy ought to do stand up. Whether or not people "need" to add "I am a Christian" to lend weight is sorta comical, but the fact is, 99% of them would mock a TRUE Christian, and in fact, Christians are indeed commanded to "go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature". You would mock someone for demonstrating behavior consistent with their stated beliefs? I don't mock a Packer fan for cheering a Brett Favre touchdown: I view it as evidence that they are indeed a Packer fan. Your rationale (or rather, the *lack* thereof) is laughable. One of you twits is "sure they're gonna be ok, if there even IS an afterlife". Based on WHAT? You are perhaps the biggest idiot here! The fella who says Catholics don't worship the Pope is largely correct. This just proves that they are hypocrites, because Catholic doctrine in fact commands them to do just THAT. If their parish is not teaching it, and they do not practice it, what's the point of being Catholic? At least I give the Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses credit for ACTING in accordance with their stated BELIEFS, which can be the *only* true measure. When you do stand before God (and rest assured, you WILL) He is not going to care one bit about "your opinion" of who was good, bad, etc. He is going to care whether or not you obeyed His Word. Your opinion means something to YOU, not God. You folks are so "puffed up" on your own self-perceived *intelligence* that you are just plain STUPID. Nothing said in this thread could be adequately defended as rational or substantial in any debate forum. This is just a bunch of pompous windbags sounding off about what they think, and why we should listen to their "superior intellects". Are you *all* smoking crack? "Let GOD be true, and every man a liar". May He have mercy on your souls.
If these chips are embedded, would it be fair to say that they are ARM chips?
Will people that work out a lot have Strong ARM chips?
Imagine if Microsoft wrote the firmware for these things?
"Hey man it's cool, I run windows! Oh crap, the left side of my body has just gone numb..."
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
You are talking about a country full of people who are afraid that the government will take away their guns. How likely do you think it is that they will let anyone put tracking chips in their children. Not to mention the millions of people who would be scared to death to have any type of electronics in them.
How many religions do you think would have some sort of prohibition on combining "man and machine" ? How well do you think this would go over in the bible belt?
In the US of A? I doubt it.
George II -- Spreading Freedom and American values, one bomb at a time.
Well... thats a promising look to the future. In the mean time perhaps we should stop looking so hard for signs that the world is going to blow up or something silly like that. Anything that does happen in the future is only the fault of our own. We can do something about this 'Mark of the Beast' without pushing the Bible around. Anyways, thats my $20 worth... not much, but I'll work
--- its to bad about the monkey, I kinda liked them
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Revelation 13:15-17 (KJV)
Regardless of your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) it is interesting to consider that this has been thought of before--as a method of totalitarian control. I don't have the link, but the police stopped a searched a woman for drugs, and gave as probable cause that she paid cash!
People, this is scary.
If the body-powered generator thing really worked, it would be immediately useful for the pacemaker industry. But they don't mention that application.
No good can come of this. None.
First they start implanting them in criminals. Great. I can't wait to see how fast every journalist in America that isn't working for a mainstream, government censored news source gets arrested and ends up with one of these, so that the police can harass them even more than before.
Or what about all the political prisoners in Pennsylvania right now? The hundreds of people who protested at the RNC (Or were unlucky enough to be arrested for being on the streets with a cell phone.) and got thrown in jail and treated like major criminals with ludicrous bail amounts. If the government can do that, why not just chip them all to track their future attempts to protest the status quo.
This needs to be stopped, by any means necesscary.
Kaa, who normally is not one of the idiots in the larger group, proclaims..
"It is already being done on a wide scale for animal and property tracking. Not implant, though, because it's much simpler and cheaper to put a collar onto an animal than to perform a surgical procedure."
Nope -- in most large cities, ALL dogs that pass thru shelters are now microchipped, because collars and tags are so frequently lost. The ID chip is implanted under the skin of the neck using what is essentially a large syringe and needle, and can be read by anyone with the requisite scanner (itself not very expensive). The public is charged anywhere from $5.00 up for the procedure, which tells you how cheap the ID chips are to make.
Implanting a chip even half an inch across requires only a one-stitch incision. This is hardly major surgery; any halfway competent nurse can do it.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Scenario one:
You post a piece of code on a crypto-enthusiast site. 30 minutes later your implant is turned on (remember the on you got for being busted for pot being in the car) and 30 minutes after that the happy little NSA black van picks you up.
Scenario two:
You're walking downtown, scratching the still stinging itch from your implant. You didn't want it, but it was required before would hire you. After all you are on the helpdesk staff, and you have to be reachable at all times. Yes, you have a pager, and a satellite phone, but this is just the next logical progression. Besides it's for your safety... at least that's what the company literature said...
Scenario Three:
You move into this lovely little gated community, it's like a little slice of heaven. You meet all the neighbors, and ask they how they be soon unconcerned about their children and they breezily reply that they're all 'chipped'. Traceable, watched and safe. You fret a little bit and finally decide to do it, after the HeavenGate (tm) community you live in is offering to help offset the cost, and nothing is more important then little Jimmy's safety. Then one day it happens, Jimmy doesn't come home. Frantic, you call the Gate Police, and they tell you not to worry, he's probably somewhere playing. They'll activate his chip and bring him home. Hours pass. There is a knock at the door. It's the gated police. But no Jimmy. Just a ziplock bag with the chip, and a ransom note. After all what good does the chip do the kidnapper after he's used it to locate your children?
*A)bort, R)etry, I)nfluence with large hammer.*
Don't want them to find you? Simple. Block the signal. This could be done by physical means using metal that would block the signals to and from the chip or by some form of ECM to jam the signals to and from. You might even be able to short it out with a powerful magnet. Unless they have devised a way to break a bunch of physical laws, the signal can be blocked. And that's if they don't have the stomach to cut it out. I doubt you could apply this technology on people that don't want it.
You're assuming a) that any given receiver (including a GPS receiver) uses the same intermediate frequencies to generate the one you're attempting to receive; and b) that the signal generated by such a receiver is sufficiently powerful to affect the reception on other frequencies (even harmonics).
The "harmonics" you're describing are less than a 10th of the wavelength of the GPS frequency you're naming, and the fact that they're only a few MHz apart tells me that they are not any appreciable fraction of the main frequency (+/- the intermediate(s)). Harmonics typically sit at nice friendly fractions of intermediate frequencies +/- the primary frequency. Things like 1/2, 1/4, 5/8, not 6/101.
The power output is another thing. I have never seen a receiver that was capable of broadcasting intermediate frequencies more than a few feet. To encompass a city block, you'd need to be transmitting with a walkie-talkie amount of power -on frequency-. If you're thinking harmonics and intermediate frequencies here, the power output has to go up exponentially. I can't imagine any receiver transmitting that kind of RF energy and passing FCC inspection.
you think it might be a very good fake. read the patent.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
"in doing God's work you assure your place in Heaven." While I agree with EVERYTHING else you said, Jon, the Bible CLEARLY teaches that salvation is "by faith, through Christ", not "by works of righteousness which we have done"... but yes, most "Christians" are in for a RUDE awakening at the Judgement Seat of Christ, assuming they actually stand there, instead of in front of the Great White Throne.
//quote
Concerns have been raised over personal privacy, but ADS claims that privacy concerns are misplaced, since the device can be turned off by the owner."
//end quote
Could someone tell me why someone who would just turn off the tag buy one? Perhaps this is not a product for consumers, but instead for control? (insert ominous music here)
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Exactly. My dog has had an embedded microchip for years.
This simple fact only scares me further. Technology is not the issue, human use of technology is. Like any other tool, this type of device can be used for good or evil, depending on who's claiming to be in charge at the time.
Your reference to your dog's chip reminded me of an incident a couple of months ago when my wife and I went out to adopt a cat. We stopped in at one shelter (private) which not only mandated that each animal have one of these chips implanted, but had a whole set of rules that went along with it.
Because of the dangers to the animal outdoors in a modern town, such as getting run over by a car, et cetera, one of their stipulations was that you were not allowed to let your own pet outdoors. If the animal was found outdoors, the chip would be used to identify him, and possible legal action - up to and including charges of animal abuse - would be levied.
I asked this woman how she could assume that a cat found outdoors was signs of abuse. She argued that it violated their policy and offered no other argument.
"But, what if the cat gets out on his own? Have you ever seen how fast one of these little furballs can run when they want to get through a doorway? I could be coming in with grocheries and not have a chance to block the animal's path. All of the sudden, the cat is outdoors and you're filing charges against me. What kind of system do you have to make sure there are no mistakes?"
"If the cat's outdoors, you've violated the policy. If the chip traces it to you, that's all the evidence we need."
We got our cat at the public shelter instead.
With this kind of draconian thinking being applied to house pets, I can only dread what this same type of "well intentioned" people will come up with "for the sake of the children."
- Xiombarg
Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of social intercourse. -- R. Heinlein
Uhm, I thought GPS was one-way!
So if it's one-way they can't track you by that.
English is not my first language, so cut me some slack -: Om du kan lasa det har sa kan du Svenska
So it's muscle-powered? Great! Just staple it to the heart, so it'll automatically deactivate when it's no longer useful :)
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
Oh yeah and shooting people with a BIG-ASS gun is the solution !?!?!?
Yeah right !
Hence, the criminal disappears.
Now as for other applications, like tracking livestock, lost pets, missing children, medical monitoring, yes, these have some potential societal benefits.
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Guess what?
Anonymity is impunity.The white stones beat the mark of the beast anyways.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
around where i live ADS is the name of the company that distributes the free local newspaper. are they now trying to conquer the earth by low-jacking everyone, in a kind of Dr. Evil stylee?
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich, Malkovich.
It could be, if the GPS satellite is also armed with a laser beam.
I agree with the previous reply to this. The sceme you propose would be totally ineffectual. A more appropriate solution might be wrapping a wire around the body part and running a decent current through it a the same frequency.
Even if my alternative works, you still have to worry about long term cancer :)
-RB
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
"...this sort of thing will *really* bring the fundamentalist, right-wing christian lunatic fringe out of the woodwork."
indeed, it is. Not coincidentally, your attitude has ALSO been accurately prophesied: 1 Corinthians 2:14 "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
"hmm.. that last point, is that a *bad* thing?"
indeed, it is. Jesus said in John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." If ALL religions and philosophies are "embraced", then we are "embracing" a multitude of lies.
btw, Jesus said what He said, and did what He did. "My" Jesus is the Jesus of the Bible. He said He was God Himself, manifest in the flesh. He was not a 'great teacher', 'wise man', or 'really nice guy and effective social activist'. He claimed to be God. He was either a lunatic or a liar if this is NOT true. And He IS coming back.
I wrote an aticle on that found here http://www.thelantern.com/archives/gendisp.asp?id= 927117612076"?
What's interesting about your situation is, you have proof that the fingerprints were actually collected and held by security forces. Hmm....
I agree that given the chance government would like to increase their power by putting chips in everyone and tracking them. Government always tries to increase its power and its generally both stupid and evil. However as has been pointed out before, there are many new and rewarding uses for this technology, and as always technology = power, and power for 'good' or for 'evil'. No one can stop the progress of technology.
Read most of the comments in this article, my friend. The fact that the normally pro-technology crowd of slashdot is expressing at least some level of fear, hesitance, or question towards this technology should be some indication of the gravity of this issue. Perhaps I may be particularly vocal about this, but that is due to my religious beliefs (I'm a moderate Episcopalian, not a zealot like your friend Jon Erikson) and my personal feelings about humanity.
I am not a Luddite, sir, as you accuse. I support technological advancements like computers, radio, automobiles, telephone, etc... These devices improve humanity's condition but do not threaten humanity itself. There is a HUGE difference between ____ New Tech. and these Human Implant chips. In my opinion unnecessary technological additions to the human body are crossing the line! I see nothing fanatical about my feelings on the subject and stand resolute that nothing good can come from ADS and its ilk.
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
The link should be http://www.thelantern.com/archives/gendisp.asp?id= 927117612076
...a different mantra? Why? Run or shoot.
This guy I know, went to Vegas, and met this really hot babe. He takes her back to his room, thinking he's going to get lucky, but she slips a drug in his drink. The next morning he wakes up in a bathrub filled with ice. He feels like shit and his neck hurts. Then he notices a sign on his chest that says, "Don't call 911. You're fine." He doesn't, and just goes home. He didn't know it, but his wife had paid someone to implant a chip in his neck, and now she tracks his every move.
In other words; measuring parameters which tend to change from time to time. Where is the security? I mean; I guess it could tranfer those parameters as well as the position of the owner but I don't think it will be using any encryption or something. So basicly I'd call it a nice tracking device but thats about it. IMHO its 'improving' "e business secutiry" simply because e-business is in the picture.
As for GPS, the antennas themselves are fairly substantial. Even the GPS watch is a pretty big device. It can do 600 readings (10h at 1 reading per minute) with a CR2 lithium battery. And how well that thing works compared to a "real" GPS receiver remains to be seen.
Making a dime-size device capable of bidirectional communications even just with a cell site, incorporating GPS, performing body function monitoring, and in addition being powered by muscular energy still looks to me like it belongs in the realm of science fiction. The fact that the individual bits and pieces seem plausible ("I have heard..." and "people are doing something like that for...") is just the mark of a good tall story.
for once they where other posts indexed
.sig this time :p
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No
You are confusing ID chips with what "Digital Angel" claims to have developed. ID chips (I have tried them) have a range of a few feet, are powered by RF energy from the read-out wand, and can do virtually nothing other than transmit a number back to you. ADSX claims that they have something that can receive GPS, communicate bidirectionally with distant stations, is powered by muscle, and is the size of a dime. That's a completely different thing.
This is not a revolution, it's just an evolution of currently available technology.
If a government wants to track criminals, dissidents, journalists or whatever, the technology to do this has been developed a long time ago. You just need a bracelet with a radio transmitter, secured around the persons wrist or ankle. Hell, I bet half the bears here in Norway has got one of those...
The real obstacles to abusing this kind of technology are not the technological challenges in itself, but the social and political ramifications. We don't see personal radio beacons, even in the most oppressive states on earth. Why would it suddenly become more widespread, because it's implanted?
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I can imagine it now: I'm on the interstate, coming up on a huge TFT-LCD billboard. Suddenly it senses my presence and looks up my info on ads.doubleclick.com and decides to plaster a huge advert for Maxim or something equally insipid. Next thing I know, some militant feminist tries to run me off the road in her Hummer...
[pink beam of light]
Is this what is called the Mark of the Beast? Happy Day! I've been waiting for all this shit to end.. guess we're one step closer. Cool. Now if these fellas(http://www.bilderberg.org/) can help out, I'm sure we'll be right as rain.
Now I know why somethimes I wake up completely naked in strange places that I did not know off.
I knew I was not crazy...
wiZd0m
Wondered if anyone is thinking about what else these chips can do... What if they can do more than monitor? Like what? What about controlling you a little? Stimulating your body to produce one hormone or another... Electrical impulses to control behavior? I don't know about you, but this is what I've always thought would be the 'mark of the beast'. If this isn't a sign of the end times, I don't know what is. I'll be spending a little extra time with God and his book tonight.
This sig intentionally left blank.
can I play MP3s on one of these things?
This comment (c)2000 Donald Burr and may not be reprinted/retransmitted in any form w/o prior written consent
Damn, if only there was a way I could keep from seeing them
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
they say on their site that they have a patant on this. Could some very rich privacy concerned dude please buy this company and make sure this cannot be applied by anybody ?
The first time I heard about a similar project, this was about an alternative to jail for non-dangerous convicts.
Do these guys consider that the mankind is a set of non-dangerous convicts ?
Last week we talked about Napster and about the coders' responsabilities in case their tools would be used for malicious purposes.
This week, we just (subliminally) suggest that according to the chaos theory (a butterfly wing's beat in Australia could cause a tornado in Arkansas three months later) we will just be trackable enough to get sentenced for such abuses (even if this is not obvious, this is gonna happen because these devices will show they full potential only when used alongside a lawyer).
When will the first humans pioneer another world?
I give you my part of this one.
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
The PTA and the School Board has agreed to enact a new policy based on a promising new technology called 'Digital Angel Mark V'. This technology promises to enhance school saftey and the health of your child tremendously. All children will receive this added benefit at no extra cost to you -- it is being funded by President Bush's "Take Our Schools Back from the Bad Guys" program. The devices will be installed with all children on Tuesday, with absentees to be made up the following week.
Note: Cases of excessive absenteeism will be reported to the FBI.
From now on, you will never have to worry if your child falls ill while in class because physical abnormalities will be immediately detected and treated! Never will you have to worry about your child instigating fights or misbehaving, because Digital Angel Mk 5 detects biochemical and/or hormal changes as well! The school infirmiry will insure that all children are monitored closely and that proper psychiatric medication is applied to ensure a relaxing, pleasant, and disciplined learning environment.
Thank you for your continued support of the PTA and remember to invest in $schoolname stock options!
Sincerely,
Principal $principlename
P.S. Don't forget the upcoming Mind@Ease Mental Health Drug Expo in late September!
[pink beam of light]
Any more?
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I remember this cover from wired a few month ago
It showed that they were many issues that weren't solved yet, even getting the medical support to do the thing was still not sure.
Anyway this whole article sounds *vapourous*, like if they were seeking for investor without having the technology behind it ready yet. The powering and switch off issue looks contradictory.
Big Brother doesn't care about you, why should he ?
Mostl likely, a crimial would not have access to an MRI machine, but they probably only need the magnetic feild. Perhaps a giant magnetic coil would do the trick?
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Anyone remember that spoof site someone set up a while back saying they would pay volunteers some money if they would take an implant like this? They had a page buried in there somewhere with some jokes about the whole thing. Then someone claimed it was a psychology experiment. I wish I could remember that URL!
Anyway, maybe this is all hogwash to grab capital from people who listen to too much heavy metal music or are control freaks. Or maybe it is disinformation to desensitize us.
Seastead this.
Why is everyone so anti these things? If it means I'm less likely to be mugged/killed/terrorised then I'm all for it. If the government wanted to track people that badly then I'm sure they wouldn't need things like this.
Perhaps there isn't a big conspiracy. Perhaps it is for our own good.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
They will stay totally voluntary. You won't have to get one, and if you do, you won't have to share your tracking number with anyone outside the issuing agency. Just like social security numbers. :-/
Sound like life immating art again to me The Chairman/The Most Dangerous Man in the world
"Man was simply not meant to be intermingled with machines." uhm.... so what about those glasses youre wearing genius.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
You abandonned all right when you buy products or when you sold yourself to your employer. Katz made me post this
Big fuckin deal. The same technology has been available at your local veterinary clinic for years.
Why the fuck would somebody want to have something imbedded in their flesh that they could otherwise carry in their pockets? "Oh, look at meee!!! I'm a CYBERPUNK! I've got computer chips in my muscles and I dream in binary!! Loook at meeeee!! I'm a NEUROMANCER!"
Gimmie a fuckin break. Jesus.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
How long before these become mandatory? They'll start implanting them at birth.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If all that is possible, why are our GPS receivers still cell phone sized and operate for only 18h on a bunch of standard batteries? Why aren't there lots of simple implantable medical monitors that monitor on a much smaller scale? Why do this in humans first, when there are so many applications in animals and property tracking? Even though devices are less regulated than drugs, what about human testing?
Take a look at the stock chart on Yahoo! and check out the associated news and insider stock activity, salaries of the CEO, etc. The whole thing seems pretty iffy to me.
Hasn't everyone heard the paranoid "all our privacy will be gone" thing one time too many? I really don't care if people read my email: I don't send anything important over the net. Or say anything important on a telephone- you have a perfectly secure system for communication; talking to somebody face to face. This is just the same; if you're really worried about something like this, then don't do anything that would make the government want to track you. If you have a religious/moral/idiotic compunction against limiting your activities so, then move to another country. I'm tired of paranoid /. posts. I'm just sick of people looking at everything as a way that somehow they're going to lose something and it'll all suck. Guess what; privacy, like security, is an illusion. If somebody really wants to know something bad enough, they'll figure out how to do it. So just sit back, relax and enjoy what's going on. We live in exciting times where we can do lots of neat stuff. Anyways, I'd rather relax and have a good party then worry about what might happen one day when the government decides to implant us all with these chips. There's not much you or I can do to stop that, cause I bet most of you don't vote. And if you do, you've probably realized how much political power paranoid psychotics wield- none.
Finally, this is not meant as flame towards anyone in particular, nor an indictment of anyone's beliefs. It's just me saying darnit these paranoid posts are getting on my nerves. Almost as bad as that frickin penis bird. Almost.
The truth was out there, but it got slashdotted, so now we're all screwed.
The technology has already been used for 7 of 9.
Well I won't object being assimilated by her.
And now, our valiant servicemembers (like myself), after the wonders of the forced injection of the Anthrax vaccine, we have the DIGITAL ANGEL. Marvel as your vital signs are transmitted during the battle field along with your location so commanders will know when and where you die! Watch in glee as they collect vital information about the latest drug that they've decided to test on you! And even better, look what happens in garrison! Are you out of your designated liberty boundries? We'll know now. Are you in an off-limits establishment? We'll know now. What time are you going to sleep tonight? We'll know now. And of course, for the military, there's the new REVILLE function. At 0530 sharp, a revitalizing jolt of energy will come coursing through your veins to make sure that you're up and awake, because God knows that we can't trust you a damn bit. --- I'm getting out of the Corps for sure now. No question.
This news pleases the Collective to no end. Your species is rapidly developing the technology to achieve perfection. Soon you will be One with the Collective. Soon, my friends. Soon.....
Resistance is futile.
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Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
#1. I don't wear glasses nor contacts.
/. posters are agreeing with me on this article, though maybe not to the same degree, oddly enough). You think I'm paranoid, yet you're too paranoid to even try to debate my valid opinions because of the chance that you might be replying to a troll. I hate to break it to you buddy, but I'm real. :P
#2. Glasses are more of a clothing item than a integrated machine. They don't actually enter the human body, nor do they perform some mechinally automated function within the body. Glasses are just lenses that you can wear for vision, same for contacts. I would classify them as clothing or articles, not as technology that interacts with human tissue inside the body.
#3. I'm a Christian and a humanist, so I must be a troll, right? *sigh* It really irritates me when someone decides to entirely disregard my expressed opinions because they it contradicts the accepted Slashdot meme (of course most
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
Where are the Knight Sabers when you need 'em?
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Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
Didn't mean to double-post. Sorry.
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Yomigaeru Aiyan Geek!!!
I think this is a bad idea for a host of reasons most of which won't list. The cost/benefit comparison here doesn't match up. What does this implant give me in order to make it worth the hassle? A little more convenient? BAH. We americans are much to fast paced and into conveniences anyways. This is a tracking device, this is a built in Credit card, this is a human ID number. The possibilities for abuse are enormous. I don't want to be tracked. I'm not so lazy that I need a built in Credit card, I don't want to or need to be sped up.
This is a step toward losing my freedom.
Forget it. Nobody can convince me that this is a good idea. If everyone else gets this and the technology becomes "necessary" then the ones who don't accept this will be branded as weird, freaky, "something to hide", different, anti-social. Maybe those people just don't wanna be tagged???
This is a VERY bad idea.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
Fear not: the American people will never allow themselves to be herded like cattle at the hands of these fiends! They will rise up and smite those who try to oppress them!
Unless there was a way to use this to make shopping marginally more convenient, of course.
"Dude, you mean I can call for pizza at the push of a button and it will be delivered to me no matter where I am? Sign me up!"
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Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
What if the owner isn't the person that the device is implanted in?
Mr. Ska
This post is just begging for flamers.
People don't like to hear about eternal damnation and God, and Satan...
It makes them feel uncomfortable.
Personally, I agree with you though, I read through that, and it looks like a lot of similarities.
It all comes down to control. I don't want some jerk who doesn't know me, or care for me to have control over me.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
Yeah I am one of the few, the proud. I am a Christian and I am a geek, all in the same package. Not to preach doom & gloom on y'all, but John the Revalator saw this coming a couple of thousand years ago.
Screw Micro$oft.
You mean like the US?
Anybody see friday's Outer Limits?? Hmm, this does sound familar...
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...what assurances they give about its "proper use"... There is no "proper use" for such an obscenity.
What's scary is that this sort of thing has always had the scent of the unavoidable about it, because it seems like the perfect thing for those with too much fear and too little sense and humanity.
What are the effects of hitting yourself with a directed EMP, I wonder... assuming you haven't had a pacemaker installed, it shouldn't be a problem, yes?
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Let's hope it's easier to switch off than the Pentium III on-chip ID. I mean, I'd hate to have to keep rebooting myself...
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Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off Glaswegian.
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?