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FDA Approves Implantable Microchips
phrontist writes: "Wired is running a story about the Federal Drug Administration ruling that an 'implantable microchip used for ID purposes is not a regulated device, paving the way for the chip's immediate sale in the United States.' Spooky."
Wether it would be better to have this thing implanted in my little finger - so making it EASY to steal if anyone ever decides to steal my ID.
OR. To implant it right deep in my guts as a deterent. Or maybe in the roof of my mouth!
Wouldn't fancy losing my little finger - its handy when a little drunk for proclaiming my evilness. But I enjoy my mouth aswell...
But hey - so long as I dont run for president or anything...
I believe that the FDA did not approve the implants, but rather decided that they are not medical and therefore not under the jurisdiction of the FDA. There's a big difference between being unregulated by the FDA and being approved by the FDA.
Maybe a small update could clear things up.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
...all that wasted time, worrying about those three bleeding sixes on my chest.
Cache Rules Everything Around Me
It was stolen anyway.
As near as I can tell, this thing just contains a number which can be read by any scanner you pass. So it's useless as a secure ID because anyone can get your code by scanning you and then using a programmable chip that sends out that code.
They don't say how large the number is. Presumably it's a cryptographically strong random number chosen at manuf. time, but don't bet that the number isn't chosen via rand() % 10000000, either.
It might be useful as a toy to open doors and stuff for you, but a face recognition system will do that without invasive surgery.
Having a Lowjack or something like that might be cool if I thought I could be stolen, but I doubt you can fit a GPS + cell phone unit into a grain of rice. Though if I were going to implant something large it'd be a programmable telephone. Even so I think a StarTrek communicator would be better, and more fashionable. Really, who's gonna get "chipped" because they "think it's cool" to be treated like a herd animal? A tattoo is way cooler.
It's "Food and Drug Administration," not "Federal Drug Administration."
Anyway, I don't think that implantable ID chips are a good idea by any stretch of the imagination, but to those of you who say "it just transmits a number, therefore it would be easy to clone somebody's chip," it would be possible to make a (much more) secure chip that accomplishes the same thing. Think public key crypto; if you want to check if this chip belongs to person X, you send the chip a bit of data, it signs it with a private key and only sends out the signed data, not the key itself. Then you check it against person X's public key. It would work on the same principle as digital signatures.
Of course, it would have to have a large enough key that it would be infeasible to brute force any time in the forseeable future (barring quantum computing), and it would have to be based on a proven and time-tested encryption algorithm.
That said, you won't catch anybody sticking one of these fucking things in me.
Want a confirmed kill? Seems reasonable... assassination devices could be implanted in everyday items or places, merely waiting for the intended target to enter proximity. This could open a whole new world for precision, stand-off assassination!
Of course it must be so. The New Testament was written by authors who were persecuted and imprisoned by the Roman Empire, of course, and is absolutely bursting with pointed criticisms of Rome- many uttered by the, er, 'enlightened teacher' Jesus (crucified by the Romans, as pointedly observed in all four Gospels you claim to be pro-Roman propaganda...). The last book of the Bible, 'Revelation', which predicts among other things the then unthinkable future cashless economic society and the Mark of the Beast (among other things also becoming manifest in our time) must also somehow be pro-Roman propaganda, too. Right? Even though the author was writing the book in exile on the Isle of Patmos by the Romans? Even though the Romans decimated Jerusalem in 70AD and persecuted the Christians for sport?
The Old Testament was written prior to the existence of any dominant Roman empire, but I'll set those facts aside like any
Calling the Bible "Roman propaganda", in the face of so many more facts than you would have the attention span to endure reading, is about as ludicrious as calling 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' a pro-slavery tract, or the Constitution of the United States a pro-Monarchy creed. It is flatly, even laughably ignorant. But if you say it with enough conviction, in a flurry of equally uninformed but impassioned errors, I'll simply but reason aside like any other child of postmodernism here and mod you up to +5 Insightful.
Let me guess, too, while we're at it. You're 'pro-chip implant', right? I should ignore those pro-Roman ravings from that apostle John dude who warned that taking the 'Mark of the Beast' (some tattoo or implant required in the last days in order to buy or sell goods) was consigning oneself to eternal damnation. If his prophecy comes to pass in our lifetimes, I should trust your insights about the non-linear universe? I mean, if I'm wrong to trust you over him, its no biggie. It's just eternal damnation, separation from God for all eternity in a place where the fire isn't quenched and the worm does not die, right? It's not like I'd have anything better to do, forever. And ever. And ever.
At first, the implantable chips will be used, just like now, to contain medical info and some identification. And for paranoid parents, living in the safest communities in the history of the human race, it will be used as an anti-milk carton safety device.
The use for medical info is silly. Such a chip could be put into a watch, or a bracelet, or an earring, or a pendant.
The use for children will endear the tracker to parents, but think: if the chip responds to a radio signal, than a rather cheap device can be built to find the chip on the child's body. A person sick enough to kidnap a child would have no problem cutting the chip out of the body. They might even think it an extra dollop of fun.
So, I ask, why a chip...
Well, first of all, it's going to make its developers rich, as it becomes more widely used, and eventually, mandatory.
The first effect of the the chip's existence is the acclimatization of people to the idea that a device can be implanted into them which will enable others to track their movements. Our generation will balk, but the next will be okay with it, and the one after won't even question it. Think of urine tests for jobs, and endless civil rights violations commonly committed today in the name of fighting drugs, and now, terrorism.
Next, the chip will be implanted involunarily into former felons, and later into 'lawbreakers' at a judge's discretion. All these uses will be applauded in the name of public safety. Of course, the number of people now regarded as "felons" is swelling, now that the drug laws are being enforced in a draconian fashion. There are probably millions of people qualified today to wear a chip by legislative or judicial decree.
Of course, a real criminal will find a way to circumvent the device, or remove it entirely. Only moderately law-abiding people will continue to carry it.
next up, you guessed it, Businesses! In the name of preventing terrorism, monitoring employee theft of materiel or company time, and just plain convenience, lower level employees (NEVER executives, unless there is a security reason to do so) will find that having the chip implanted is a requirement for employment. At first, we'll see defense-related companies requiring trackers, but after that gains acceptance, then other companies will follow... eventually most of them, or at least the ones that pay well, will require some sort of tracker.
Of course, Schools!! Thinking Of The Children, we will of course require our threatened kinder to wear these devices as a condition of even having an education. It'll start out small, somewhere -- a schoolyeard killing with no way of finding the killer, or a child molestation, crimes that will make a privacy proponent think hard when it comes to protesting. but like metal detectors, drug testing, strip searches, and the like, it'll be accepted. As the majority of the current SCOTUS opines, if you are underage, you have no constitutional rights. And if you protest, you are a DRUGGIE parent who should send your kids to a DRUGGIE school. (I'm not making that last part up. It's staggering.)
Let's see: next up, consumer convenience. A chip, in addition to tracking, can give you e-cash abilities. Buy a coke, pay for it by swiping your hand into a detector. That may be a killer app.
The chip can be used for national ID, eliminating all the birth certificates, social security cards, drivers' licenses, company ID's, resumes, credit histories... endless stuff. People will find this liberating.
But it also means: anyone who wants to, will be able to track your movements for the totality of your life, at least the parts where you interact with society.
It means that, increasingly, to get an education, to get student loans, to enter the country, to get a job, to have a career, to get a passport, you will have to surrender your body to an implant gun. And now since the FDA has so conveniently taken medical people out of the loop, anyone can demand to shove one into you, literally.
And since the U.S. is now forcing other countries to change their constitutions (think Norway, I recall, and the Scientologists) to reflect our laws, there will be increasingly no place to go to get away from this. Hell, the U.S. may be one of the more relaxed implementations.
If any of you think that this is acceptable, then there is nothing I can say that will change your mind. And I will attempt to establish a new country on a Pacific island, I swear.