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RFID, Sign of the (End) Times?
andy753421 writes "Wired is running an article featuring Katherine Albrecht who, with her new book 'The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance', is warning that RFID tags may in fact be the "mark of the beast". Among her arguments are that in a futuristic world anyone who wishes to buy and sell goods would be compelled "to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads," as is foretold in the book Revelation. Others are skeptical saying that many new technologies, such as the printing press, bar-codes, and several others, have also created fears about the beginning of the end."
Get it? Huh? Huh?
// This is not a sig.
you may defeat the beast by wearing a tinfoil hat (or glove)?
^[:q!
That's just Ashcroft; he forgot to put his make-up on this morning.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
We have six billion people on the planet. Over the next five hundred years, hundreds of billions will live and die. Most of them will spend most of their lives suffering terribly. They will starve, kill each other, rape, drug themselves to death and more.
If the six billion alive today suffered through the apocalypse now, it would prevent the suffering of hundreds of billions. More, really, since you can extend this for as many thousands of years as you like. It's clear that the sooner the world ends, the fewer people will suffer, and the sooner those of us who are righteous will be in heaven.
Just one of the reasons God is clearly a son of a bitch.
Surely you mean 666 years to complete :)
Let's see anyway - printing press invented in 1440. Add 666 years. That's 2106. Plenty of time for RFID to become required, and just about the time this asteroid will hit Earth!
Ha! I win the thread!
Get one implanted in your left hand or in your neck or back of your head or something. Just avoid the right hand or forehead. Disaster averted!
Yeah, that's us in the corner.
I'm not really sure. How long has there been religious conviction?
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
It would have a negative effect on property values.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
When I was young back in the late 70s, there would circulate a story in the church that some old person received their social security checks mistakenly from the future. Usually the future date was the mid 80s and the check said "Not cashable without the mark of the beast" or some stupid thing.
Well, you've delivered a very sane, rational analysis for the true-believin' rapture preachin' hardcore eschatological hysterics. That should settle 'em. Why didn't anyone ever think to just explain it to them?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Marketing would be on Christian TV and radio stations, in the form of infomercials. "Quit your job now! Don't work again! Jesus is coming soon!", along with pictures of happy people with consumer goods. We considered finding some Christian figure to promote the product. Enough people were talking about the Rapture and the "Jubilee" back then that a modest market for the product clearly existed.
(For those of you interested in financial mechanics, the money for the mortgages would be obtained by creating a derivative security that could be resold in the secondary mortgage market. The "rapture" contingency would be taken care of by obtaining an insurance policy against the "rapture" for each mortgage (probably from Lloyds or Swiss Re), using exactly the same definition of "rapture" as in the loan. The combination of the insurance policy and the loan would constitute a resellable security without a "rapture" contingency that could be packaged up and sold in the mortgage-based security market. So we wouldn't have to finance the deal, just broker it.)
We didn't go through with it. It just seemed too evil.
Nevertheless, when there are people running around claiming that Jesus is coming back soon, it's quite feasible to make money taking the other side of that bet.