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UK Home Office plan: ID Chips in Everything
LauraLolly writes "The BBC ran an article on how booksellers in the UK hope to use Radio Frequency ID chips to report on the entire life cycle of a book, including ownership and second-hand sales. There were throw-away lines about how the Home Office plans to use these chips in all goods, and their current use in U. S. libraries. And you thought that voluntary medical chips were bad..."
Buy a book legitimately
:)
walk out of the shop
take it home
microwave it on high for 15 seconds
enjoy
a grrl & her server
They plan to put them in everything, eh?
So where can I buy ID chips for my ID chips? "This ID chip belongs to NiftyNews, please don't spoof me."
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The UK government already want to put something in your car which tracks your movements (and there is a camera system which more or less does just that on the M25). The police are already entitled to break up a meeting of more than three people on a whim (Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000). They can see what you are looking at on the net, they control who gets to own weapons (apart from criminals, of course). And now they want to control what books you can read. (No, I know that this article didn't mention that, but seriously, of course they're going to try and do it if they think they can). Blunkett is a dangerous man, and I am so afraid of what this government is trying to do that I am going to be voting for The Other Lot next time round.
I am really starting to hate what this country is becoming. Is it any better over your side of the pond? Failing that, maybe it's time to move to the Far East...
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The real logic behind this, ultimately, will be to allow book publishers - and, ultimately, the producers of anything - to collect royalties for each resale. Mark my words, this is exactly what this is about.
They can't make it illegal to take out or destroy the chip without seriously changing the way things are sold.
Right now, if I buy a book I can quite happily rip the cover off and even re-bind it with all the pages in the wrong order if I want, it's my book.
Are we heading for a future where nothing is ever owned ?
This computer game is yours, but you aren't allowed to reverse-engineer it.
This book is yours but you're not allowed to tamper with its chip.
This movie is yours but you're not allowed to watch it in company, or more than once a month.
This CD is yours but if you want to put it on your mp3 player you have to pay again.
This TV programme is being beamed at you, but if you watch it you have to watch all of it, including the adverts.
Do you see how close we are ?
graspee
If technology has progressed far enough to give us the positives of very effective law enforcement and monitoring without the baggage, well more power to it!
Also being against murder, i can see where you're coming from. However, "very effective law enforcement" is bad to the extent that laws are poorly written, oppressive, or otherwise unjust. We need limited means of technological enforcement of crimes until the laws that define them are deserving of "very effective enforcement".
There's a reason the abolition movement was closely tied with the (then illegal) Underground Railroad. If people-chipping tech had been available back then, social forces for change would have been greatly hampered. No Frederick Douglas, for example, whose freedom was a result of breaking an unjust law. Remember forced sterilization in VA? Japanese internment? This was all within the last hundred years - many people now living remember these things. i expect that the War on (Some) Drugs will come to be seen the same way. Technology in law enforcement is a major threat to our civil rights.
Now, your post was pretty reasonably written, as you said, "depends on how much you trust your government". But how much can one trust a government in principle?
Police say the felon heated his books to
200C to disable the rights management chip.
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Police say he provided the illegal heating
service to as many as 10 other criminals
and this is his third strike.
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His previous two convictions were for reading texts that were no longer in print and removing
jingle players from books to block part
of the advertizing.
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His crimes are estimated to have cost 15 Billion dollars in lost revenues according to The Corporation(TM).
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The death penalty has been granted, but the judge has reserved the right to choose the method. His trial is scheduled for Sept of 2008.
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This station is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL-Time-Warner-Microsoft-Disney(TM), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US-UK Government(TM), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Corporation(TM).
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All rights reserved.
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After all, the UK is Oceania, isn't it?
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