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Non-Lethal Sniper Rifle: You're Tagged For Life
gbjbaanb writes "Cool new urban battlefield weaponry for the geeks to fear. The
Id Sniper is a nonlethal sniper rifle that fires tiny GPS microchips into the body of the target. The idea is that a rowdy crowd can be tagged for later 'processing' by law enforcement officials.
Apparently the chip hitting you will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second.
Although it looks, and sounds like a cyberpunk weapon, its for real from a Danish company that has already shown it off at a Chinese Police exhibition.
check out the tracking software." Here's hoping this is cautionary artwork.
Besides the fact that this is invasion of privacy (in the weirdest possible way), what happens when the sniper decides to shoot and it hits your eyeball?
It may be a tiny device but you're either dead or blind either way.
Get paid to code OSS
Seconded
I call parody (product number 2 from the same site.)
Now I know it's just a joke. _No_ commercial software runs on OpenBSD.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
"Besides the fact that this is invasion of privacy (in the weirdest possible way), what happens when the sniper decides to shoot and it hits your eyeball?"
It is just the first step. Eventually, you will look like this
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That is not a "GPS Chip" on the website, it is a tiny microchip used to ID dogs and cats. The website is surprising slim on any details and to me appears to be a complete farse.
It's fake. The "GPS Pellet" is nothing more than a picture of a common transponder (RFID). Even if they could get the GPS electronics that small, and fit a tansmitter in there, the battery needed for more than a few minutes of GPS calculations would be significantly larger than the capsule.
Furthermore, the GPS signal doesn't go very deep through human tissue, it degrades as it goes, and a transmitter strong ernough to be received more than a few hundred yards away would be comparable in size and power consumption to a cell phone.
Interesting concept. It's not impossible, but it's not cost effective now.
-Adam
GPS antennas must be pretty big, because the signals from orbit are pretty weak.
Small projectiles are less stable. A projectile the size of a grain of sand could barely cross a room.
The kinetic energy required to overcome air friction would make the impact pretty serious, if you could magically overcome the instability problem, and magically make the tiny projectile carry that much kinetic energy without vaporising it.
As for tracking the thing, where's the transmit antenna? RFID tags have a short range, and they're a lot bigger than a mosquito-sized impact. No antenna means no signal range.
And as other posters have noted, there's no room for a power source, the GPS signals don't penetrate well, etc. etc.
Ardent Pedantry R Us,
Flumph
Its based on an essay in Abuse your illusions called "How I crashed a Chinese Arms Biazaar With A Rifle That Doesn't Exist"
My favourite use would be tagging girls in night clubs and then stalk them. So much easier than asking for phone numbers.
Kunstneren Jacob S. Boeskov, redaktør på 'Answering Machine', rejste i sommer til en våbenmesse i Kina under dække af at være våbenhandler. Med sig havde han billeder af det fiktive våben, ID Sniper. Artiklen om Kina-turen i Black Box beskriver, hvordan Jacob S. Boeskovs fiktive våben tiltrak sig så stor interesse på våbenmessen, at Boeskov til sidst var mere eller mindre ødelagt af frygt for at blive opdaget.
The artist Jacob S. Boeskov, editor at "Answering Machine", this summer travelled to a weapon-con (?) in China, pretending to be armsdealer. He brought pictures of a fake weapon, ID Sniper. The artikle about the trip to China in "Black Box" (Magazine, Xel.) tells who Jacob S. Boeskovs fictious weapon attracted great interest at the weapon-con, untill Boeskov was terrified if he was revealed.
Xel'Naga
Jakob Boeskov, the purported "CEO" of "Empire North", is a satirist. Here is a link to his personal homepage, along with an explanation of the FAKE GPS Sniper Rifle (emphasis is mine):
:)
http://www.backfire.dk/JB/indexreal.html
"Giant balloon sculptures, voodoo-cursed technology and blueprints for hi-tech weapons smuggled into Chinas first international weapons fair - in the world of Jakob S. Boeskov the amazing meets the political in a unique mix.
Coming from a background in comics, Copenhagen based artist Jakob S. Boeskov seems destined to work with satire and pastiche. Using a palette of different media such as web, paintings, writings, 3D drawings and animations, as well as collaborations with musicians, writers, voodoo priests (!) and industrial designers he "hacks and bends" media, reality and technology to give a startling and shocking view of life in the 21st century.
His recent works has been created within the framework of his self-styled "sci-fi art" (or "fictionist") concept where he takes "an imaginary product from the future" and tests it out today, in a real environment. He did this most notably in his MY DOOMSDAY WEAPON project where he created "the most horrible weapon in the world" (- a piece of "pre-crime technology" designed to mark demonstrators with GPS (Global Positioning System) chips "before the crime is committed"). Jakob S. Boeskov brought drawings of this weapon to China Police 2002, Chinas first international weapons fair, where the international weapons dealer elite and greeted this nightmarish weapon with much enthusiasm."
Happy April Fools Day, 11 days late!