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Barcode Tatoo as Permanent ID - Arrgh!
Anonymous Coward writes "It seems someone has received a patent on tattooing barcodes on people to verify your identity. Check it out
at the US government's Patent Site." Yes, it's a real patent. Yes, it's loony. Yes, it's scary. So scary that we might as well laugh at it, because laughter is healthier than tears. (Sigh)
So, the mark of the beast has been patented? Does that mean the second coming has been delayed pending legal action?
"137!! Why 137!"
Just ask any holocaust survivor how dehumanized it made them feel to have an ID number tatooed on their arms. This is scary stuff, if you think about it that way...
What manner of rough beast is this,
It's time come around at last
That slouches toward Redmond to be born again?
(with apologies to Yeats...)
The more insane the US patent office gets, the sooner its insanity will be recognised. I don't think the people of the world are going to be very happy when they work out that a US company owns all the patents from the Human Genome Project, and therefore has intellectual property rights over the DNA of every person on earth.
Should stop people having tatoos in their private places... Imagine the scenario - walk into a shop, buy some groceries and in a line of 5 people are asked to reveal your tatoo for scanning... "yes they're sharing a drink they call loniless but it's better than drinking alone..." - Billy Joel.
If I wanted to, I could print barcodes out of say, WordPerfect, and hold them up to the scanner.
All it does is freak people out, those of us who desire privacy and those who have some sort of religious objection to it.
But maybe that's the point. It might be just to distract from something else...
If this person is, say, a Holocaust survivor, then maybe patenting this device is a way of preventing its use for 17 years. Or perhaps, the person is researching it as a way for people to voluntarily go through grocery lanes faster, move through toll booths immediate, etc. Not all the possibilities have to exist purely in the realm of forced control of human beings. The idea, obviously enough, has been out there far longer than this patent. All the patent does is say that this process now has a 'owner'.
I am always losing my debit card and I.D.
:-)
Or, in this case, the cow or the horse or the pig or the goat...
There are people *now* who have their infants or children tattooed for identification - just in case they get kidnapped or killed or whatnot. Heck, my mom used to threaten to have my lip tattooed if I forgot to take some ID with me in case something bad happened. She never did, but the sentiment is out there - keep our kids safe by marking them perminantly with something that identifies them as *ours*.
I'm not advocating this, and I'd never do it to my kids, but I can understand the sentiment - especially when there are hundreds of kids stolen or lost every year, and at least twice as many parents who can't stand the not knowing. People have even gone so far as to implant digital tracking devices in dogs and cats - and extrapolate use of them on children!
It's scary, but it's only symptomatic of the world we live in. That's pretty darn scary, too.
The Onion, that nefarious and now-popular news magazine, has prior work on this topic. Back in the late eighties when I was in school at UW-Madison, The Onion sponsored a contest for the most original tatoo, and would pay to have the winner's tatoo emblazoned on their body.
The contest winner came up with the idea of tatooing the UPC barcode for Spaghettios on his arm, to save time in the checkout line (he could just wave his arm over the scanner instead of those heavy cans).
www.spinster.org
With biometrics using fingerprint, palm, retina, etc. scanning, what need is there for a barcoded tattoo?
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
He's not the only one. Check out BME for an example. If you do a search for "barcode tattoo" on google you get 76 hits.
It's a stupid idea anyway. A subdermal microship (like those used for pets or small children (no kidding!)) is much more effective, since it's less obtrusive and can hold way more data.
Dose this mean the US gov. wil have to pay this guy royalties to use it? Can we patent up most of the other ways of identifing people?
Seriously, the patent should not have been awarded since it is a trivial (and has even been used in movies).
Unfortunatly, the U.S. gov. dosn't need any such primitive methods of keeping track of people. All the law abiding people have social security numbers and they take DNA sample from a LARGE number of criminals.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
From the patent:
Filed: Sept. 5, 1996
I'm sure this will be in every right wing christian mag in existance. Im sure that someone will start a Holy War because of these people. Woohoo I just love that R.E.M. song.........
http://www.confuzn.com
Funny, I mentioned this in a comment a month or two ago. I just wish I could search out the comment and also the quote from the movie Naked which someone was so courteous to post for me... Something along the lines of how it is written in the bible that the mark will be required to buy, sell or trade and the mark will appear on all goods and on all people. Scary stuff.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
http://www.greaterthings.com/essays/666mark.htm
Check out what they have to say about Bar Codes!
Why choose white shoes?
Sounds like the book of Revelations to me...
Even when not mentioning the severe ethical dilemas this creates (branding human-beings, creating goverment DBs and monitoring each and every purchuse, etc...) this is not a really good idea - Bio Identification is much more reliable and accurate, and is tougher to fake (rip an eye out or laser off a tattoo...)
and a Barcode tattoo is the best tattoo one can get...
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
How the hell can you patent something like this?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
So wait, does that mean the Barcode I have tatooed on my leg is in breach of a Patent now? And does the fact that it woud "ring me up" as a box of coco pebbles (No I'm not kidding) mean my identity would be that of a box of cereal?
On a more serious note, I wonder if the patent holder realizes that: 1. You could never get the general populace to agree to tattooed barcodes beacuse a. It's against many religons b. it just plain hurts 2. That they cost an awful lot of money 3. It's just a plain bad idea.
Ya just got to wonder what's next . . .
"When I look down I miss all the good stuff, When I look up I trip over things..."-Ani DiFranco
As scary as this is, this guy might be one smart cookie. If things in North America continue in the same direction they're currently going. Holding a patent like this could be a major financial windfall.
I'm not saying It's not a bad (read: scary, inhumane, degrading) thing, but with governments steadily eroding our freedoms, this could be a step they'd like to take. Think of it, by barcoding people, and making it a manditory requirement for transactions, the spooks could very easily keep track of you wherever you go. I would hope that the politicians, and the general populous would never go along with such a stupid idea, BUT they could always use a new tactic to "protect the children" right?
"The obvious is that which is least understood and most difficult to prove." -- A fortune cookie
Some time ago, a company I worked for was going through a buy-out. The management (of both companies) wanted the programmers to identify patentable technology in our (software) product.
When I pointed out that there was nothing truly unique in our software (is there in anything?) and thus nothing patentable the response I got was : "It doesn't matter if it's enforceable, just applying for a patent will increase our value and the threat of a lawsuit will slow down our rivals."
They didn't get any ideas out of us but it shows how pathetically cynical the whole patent process has become.
The failure to include a sig., is in itself a sig.
It really does make you wonder, what would Brian Boitano do?
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
We're living breathing mobile bags of bio-metric data.
:-)
Who is the idiot who figured that we needed tatoos? Anybody could get any tatoo and get it lased off or altered. That's a really, really stupid proposal. Patent offices are no longer the place to nurture budding Einsteins I guess.
I'm me. Really. Like my wife says sometimes, "Its you allright. I just have to scratch and sniff."
-Charles-A.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I don't think that will be ever of any practical use, since you can have the same effect by having a microchip injected under your skin.
That said:Top 5 reasons to have a barcode tatoo anyway
We already have unique fingerprints, facial structures, DNA, retinal patterns, etc ad nauseum whats the big deal with one more?
I admit barcodes are tacky and associated with holocaust victims, but why not got for a sub-dermal microchip, or even an optional wearable one, like a ring or wristband? I know I would prefer it to a wallet + license +regisitration + insurance card + mac card + credit card yadda yadda yadda.
Well, only the American patent office could grant such a patent. It's sad, it's stupid, it pains, and it shows us, that NOONE over there has learnt from history.
I think they should dump whoever came up with this patent into the deepest depths of the pacific. Someone who has ideas such as those is not only seriously deranged, but a genuine danger to humanity.
It ALSO makes you wonder, with all the recent control trips, Echelon, and so on that the US has put on, how long will it be until some smart representative/senator/whatever comes up with the idea of really using the system? Maybe only on criminals at first - or child molesters - no once could argue with that... And some day it will creep into everyday usage and then they do it automatically with every newborn child. of course by then, us the people here in Europe get to 'benefit' from the same crap, because afterall, we wouldn't want to disagree with our 'friend', the USA.
Maybe it's my sarcastic and pessimistic nature coming out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next Hitler is an American president, let's say, 15 or 20 years down the road.
...The master of shoplifting...
Temporary tatoo man!
(Insert Music)
First, this cannot be proven to be an original idea. Alien3 used barcodes on the back of prisoner's necks, etc. (I haven't read the patent, /.ed, but I assume they patented a specific method/type/algorithm/place or something along those lines.)
Second, I can carry a laser barcode scanner that works well past a few hundred feet, scan someone's visible barcode (when they show it to an officer, at the bank, etc) and use it. It is then a simple matter of painting over my own with makeup, and redoing the barcode in makeup.
-Adam
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.
-Oscar Levant
What makes this worse is that if you look at the referenced patents at the bottom of the page, one patent is for identifying livestock carcasses! What's next?
I may be wrong about this, but I believe that microchip implantation of cows has been common practice in Ireland for a few years now. It enabled every cow to be tracked and was used to keep track of the ones with BSE so they could be removed from the herd and food chain. Ireland kept BSE well under control.
used to be, a lot of products sported the mark "Patent Pending" - which makes it sound "new & improved" to the uninformed, but obviously means, hey we've merely applied for a patent. I'd bet more than a few should have changed the mark to "patent rejected" eventually.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
There was an article a while back about just such a technology. Someone had demonstrated a very thin, active (as in working, not active-matrix) LCD display embedded just below the surface of the skin in the wrist, about a year ago...
Can't find a reference to it right now though. Anyone?
--The more you know, the less you know.
Since, to be patentable, this "process" must be nonobvious to one "skilled in the art", we don't need prior art to render it invalid.
;) livestock, real estate, public lamp posts, and little blue pills. I would list more but I don't want someone to beat me to it. Meanwhile, if anyone tries to patent one of the "processes" listed above, I can still cite this comment as prior art! ;)
If, however, this is deemed "nonobvious" then I'm gonna get patents on barcoding ( or otherwise marking with machine-readable identification
Geeky modern art T-shirts
If this ID tatto ever was forced on me I think I'd get it on my a**. That way I'd at least get the satifaction of mooning anybody that forced me to show it. Just a random thought.
The two-D barcode is being used by Panasonic as part of their document imaging system. Once this technology is matured, I predict it will be tied into a world wide database to ID everybody. Some states have plans to put it on their drivers licenses. And we all know where digital data in state databases actualy goes, don't we? It won't happen soon, but in the name of 'protecting the children from perverts' or 'protecting the world from terrorists' I can see it happening. I don't like it but what can we do?
zenray
Arrgh. This brings back too many bad memories.
Remember the story I posted last week about a neighbor who was in the Polish resistance, and helped some of the Polish Intelligence agents smuggle the Enigma plans to England. His wife has a tatoo on her arm, and she had no problems re-telling what life was like in a concentration camp.
I have a feeling this guy will soon be the target of a lot of people with some very bad memories of tatoos. I wouldn't want to be the guy who sold him life insurance.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
gee, does this mean that i could copyright water, and then charge a $30 dollar lisencing fee to drink it in Arazona?
--bsDaemon
dfree@inna.net
This should rile up all the Southern Baptists in the readership! They've been preaching this crap for decades. Also, it's funny how our profession draws some of the looniest freaks on earth. Anything to do with conspiracies, big brother, lord knows...these insecurities must stem from not being loved as a child or something.
Just apply some logic, people: unique indentifiers are only useful if they are UNIQUE. A barcode is one of the most forgeable things on earth, whether on a box of cereals or the head of your penis. No selfrespecting government--let alone the US one--would give it a second thought. Still, this is great stuff for paranoia.
Paul Radu
Be wary of the whole 'positive' and 'voluntary' aspect often attributed to this sort of thing. It usually poorly conceals a system in which the alternatives to the 'voluntary ideal' are made so distasteful and inconvenient as to actually 'punish' those who choose not to 'volunteer'.
Forced control is harder to get away with and easier to rally support to fight.
**>>BELCH
It's just a thought but you don't have to have a visible tattoo and tus suffer from the negative effects of having a number etched onto you.
I saw a prog on telly once about rave culture, and there was a young woman on who worked for some big firm in a customer facing role. She obviously couldn't go around with a load of facial tattoos in case she freaked out the custo's so she got a really cool Spider web tattoo done on her face in a flourescent dye so you could only see it under UV lighting in clubs or whatever.
This doesn't mean I'm in favour of this whole idea, but it does mean you don't have to be "disfigured" by a mandatory tattoo...
-- "Sponges grow in the ocean. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."
Yes, but CARCASSES? I mean, if they're already dead, you'd want to take em out of the heard anyway, right?
If they are going to put the barcode on, say the inside of "your" wrist, I wonder have they thought about what could happen to a checkout person who's barcode just happens to be say "Milk" !!
Could you then take them to court for damages ? ie you can no longer work at your chosen trade.
http://www.munich-irish-rovers.de
Why was that anonymous - i wrote that.... AND IM PROUD OF IT
-=>>=-
I have to wonder if this is a person who is scared to death of this happening, and applied for the patent to attempt to prevent it in the future.
It reminds me of a stupid rumor going around a couple of years ago about someone going into a Wal-Mart, telling the cashier to scan their hand, and then telling them that they are part of a test of this method of payment. Of course it was a bunch of crap. I wonder if this person thinks that they are going to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
If you think everyone should be identifiable, why are you posting anonymously?
-- Slef
You are a fucking idiot.
"the only 'victims' are victims of their own stupidity"??
Please. That's ridiculous. How bout I torture you to death over the next few months? Would YOU be a victim then?
"The only people who could possibly object to this are people with something to hide: Drug dealers and other criminals."
And almost everyone else. How many people wouldn't object to this is the real question. I don't know a single person who would go along with this kind of shit.
Funny this is coming from an AC. Fucking moron!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
* OK, so it really is the least of it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm referring, of course, to the character in Neuromancer.
In Liberty, Rene
You know, there's one other scenario that I haven't seen anyone else bring up here - did they possibly patent this so that it would NOT be used? Think of it, what better way to prevent something from being used then if you own it, and the government agrees? Albeit, I have yet to read the patent, due to the /. effect, so I don't know exactly what it reads, but this is a possibility.
> All the law abiding people have social security numbers
t ml#sov
Before you go making generalizations please do some basic law research. There is NO law that REQUIRES a person to have a SSN/SIN.
There ARE law abiding citizens WITHOUT Slave Identification Numbers. They are the Sui Juris (Free Men), and Sovereigns.
http://www.nyx.net/~imschira/frogfarm/fffaq16.h
Didn't they use this idea in Alien3? I seem to recall one opening scene looking at a barcode on the back of the head of the foreman (or whatever title the prison leader had..)
The patent will not old up in court.
The movie "Forteress" with Christofe Lambert pictured people with bar code as ids. I think also that in Alien 3 there is some bare code ids on the prisonners.
The patent was filled in 1996 and these movies date before that.
Look's like the patent office clerk do not watch movies!
...even if they're pets?
Thus, theft or killing such a tagged animal, renders the perp subject to prosecution for a felony.
In Liberty, Rene
Now, if that prior art isn't as clear as day. Man, that patent examiner needs to be.....re-educated. :)
I shouldn't even respond to this ugly troll, but I can't resist:
1) "By advocating protecting people from their own stupidity, you are advocating a welfare state."
2) "Drug dealers and other criminals"
What is the primary nature of many drug laws? To protect people from their own stupidity! Same with seat belt laws, helmet laws, and all the other pointless, freedom-restricting cruft we have in the legal system.
Try to think a little more before you spew next time -- if you consider drug dealers criminals, you are advocating a welfare state.
How many numbers are currently associated with your body?
Physical street address, land line telephone, wireless telephone, IP address for your box(es), email address(es), social security number, driver's license number, passport number, school ID numbers, etc, etc..
Consider eventually having an IPv6 address as an identification number. Emails route to it, snail mail routes to it, you have a small tattoo on the inside of your wrist to scan the large number, and a retinal scan to verify yourself. Local routing tables keep track of a physical locale to leave shipments - updating them when you drop into a hotel for a week, for instance, means packages, bills, whatever could possibly always get to you. The routing table has a permanent address in it as well, and when you sign up for a bill you indicate the floating address or the permanent - and the floating address can change from day to day, updated across the routing system like DNS propogates right now.
Of course, we'll get mugged - our wrists severed and one eye gouged out. No more 'give me your wallet'.
try67 writes:
:-)
"Bio Identification is much more reliable and accurate, and is tougher to fake (rip an eye out or laser off a tattoo...)"
Just so nobody comes up with a Patented Method For Fooling Retina Scanners, Wesley Snipes did that already, in _Demolition Man_. (Prior Art, Prior Art!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
When I was a kid I was raised as a Christian. I was forced to attend church, and sunday school. I learned about the mark of the beast in sunday school.
I was told that nobody would be allowed to buy or sell anything without the mark. Well, if you read the application for patent protection it is a system to very human identity during sales transactions.
It sounds to me like either
1. This is the attempt of some well meaning Christian to legally stall or possibly even prevent the apocalypse that he believes is coming, or perhaps even scare some non-practicing Christians into coming back to the church.
or
2. I made a mistake when I changed my religion.
If I were a betting man, I'd bet on 1.
This system would be highly vulnerable to color copies being used instead of real flesh and blood to authorize transactions.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Bruce Willis sported a barcode tatoo in "12 Monkeys"...
I once ran into a guy at a waterpark (which is why I saw him without a shirt on) who was from an eastern European country. Under his left arm on his chest he had tattooed:
His Name
His Religion
His Blood Type
A number
And one or two other things I forgot. Apparently they use it for a more simple reason... war. Its easier to 1. know what kind of blood to put in the soldiers quicker, and 2. what kind of headstone to give them if they are killed.
Scairy...
Good Fast Cheap. Pick any two.
QuMa writes:
;^)
"Yes, but CARCASSES? I mean, if they're already dead, you'd want to take em out of the heard anyway, right?"
Yup.
And if you go out in a distant field, where you keep a few hundred of your thousands-of-heads herd and find a carcass, it would perhaps be nice to know which of your [cows / horses / ostriches / whatever] it was. For instance, if since you were last in that field you had found out that Critter #5432 had possibly contracted hoof-and-mouth disease, because your logs show that it had previously been in the same field as Critter #6543 -- does this bloated, rotting, half-eaten carcass where you can't see any ear markings or tattoos any more mean you better kill off the dogs you had running in that field? Stuff like that.
(Then of course, if the chip itself is missing, you still have a chance of finding it by scanning the dogs -- in case it got lodged in the stomach of one!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
Or maybe mothers will get it done on their kids. You know, scan them to get their address in case they are lost.
'If lost, send to ***TAMPON 24PK***'...
The future scares me.
Here's a site that proves it's already here: BBC's Best
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Dead cows become cow food in short order. That's how BCE spread. reading a carcass' barcode may give an idea that it needs to go to the incinerator, rather than the make-cow-food-from-cows plant.
(*sigh*) Who wants the first soylent green joke?
...doesn't mean anybody will actually do it. The patent office doesn't rule on practicality or marketability.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
the sentiment is out there - keep our kids safe by marking them perminantly with something that identifies them as *ours*.
It's scary in a way, but most of the public discourse about child-rearing in the USA these days starts with the unquestioned assumption that people have a right to do as they please with their property -- be it their children or whatever. Yes, of course, limits are observed when the "property" is a child (e.g. sexual abuse is not acceptable), but one really does hear a hell of a lot of talk about everybody's right, for example, to impose arbitrary limits on their kids' education. Never a word is said about whether it's in the child's best interests; until the kid is 18, the only relevant rights are those of the child's owners . . . (and according to most conservatives, if the child is a she, her body at least should be the joint property of her husband and the government for the rest of her life -- but that's another rant). Ugh. No, I'm not suggesting that the government is likely to do a better job than the kid's parents. I'm not making any suggestions at all about social policy, law, or anything else.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
In addition to all the ethical, religious, and aesthetic(sp?) reasons not to do it, here's another. Human skin isn't exactly static. It's organic and constantly changing. Soooo, lets assume that you tattoo a child. By the time they're an adult, the tattoo may have changed enough to be unusable. Same goes for older folks who got them in young adulthood. Have you ever seen a tattoo that someone's had for 50+ years? They are often unrecognizable and that's for pictorial data, not something like a barcode which relys on relative positioning to work.
This was a shitty idea to start with, but what makes it worse is that the totally evil person who came up with the idea didn't even think it through.
Skippy
"False modesty is the refuge of the incompetent." - The Stainless Steel Rat
Just let them try to find the right one!
*beep!* "Oscar Meyer Weiner...try again."
*beep!* "Liqd Plumbr...try again."
*beep!* "Sheryl Crow...try again."
That'll teach 'em! :)
Like the hot author of the (day,week,year), Neal Stephenson. Who can forget "Snow Crash" where in a future US everyone is tattooed with a bar code to allow easier IDing from the Mafia's helicoptors?
How prior art is it? Try June 1992...
If I could only live my life with my threshold at 4...
I don't think barcoding, in your case, is what's required. I think you need to be tatooed, on the head, with a large hammer. You A.C. are a gutless idiot.
> There ARE law abiding citizens WITHOUT Slave
> Identification Numbers. They are the Sui Juris
> (Free Men), and Sovereigns.
Ok, I withdraw generalization.. but how do they earn money, go to collage, etc.? or is the number only so you can withdraw it later and they don't really care if you have the number so long as you pay the taxes? I'm pretty shure both of the Universities I have been to required a social security number. If you need the number to pay the tax, it sounds like a good cause, but not exactly realistic for most people and if collages require the number then there is a large number of people who need it regardless.
Jeff
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Scarry thing !
Did you remember an old AdBusters campaign on the TV ?
A man watching TV with a barcode tatoo on his head.
The message were : "YOU are the product"
If you are curious, go to AdBusters to see some of their ads.
It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.
Not only Philadelphia Experiment II used tattooed barcodes on people, but also an episode of the Swamp Thing TV series did the same. Both were definitely before 1996...
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
My brother has 4 tattoos, one of which is a barcode tattoo on his upper forearm, its not an ID number or anything, if scanned (it was done with IR sensitive ink, cost a fortune) it reads "hello there". its kinda neat, and he uses it to hit on the check-out girls at the supermarket (yes I am fully aware of how lame that its...)but the point is, that is perfectly acceptable, because it was voluntary.
Gnothe se Auton
That one's scary. I have no problems with a company patenting the devices they used to determine the genome information - obviously that's their competitive advantage. But I don't see how anyone can patent a naturally-occurring gene anymore than you can patent other natural processes, such as surface tension or erosion. The Human Genome Project is involved in discovery of existing information, not creation of new technology. And (theoretically, at least) you can't patent information, you can only patent a device.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Technically I don't think anyone other than the Social Security Administration can require the use of your SSN. Other groups have to generate you a different number for identification purposes if you request it. I remember seeing this on financial aid forms, etc. I'm sure there are a bunch of hoops to go through to do this, however.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
The reason this is in the US patent office is that just about everything else is patented. There is even one in there for an male masterbation machine.
One problem that appears to have been overlooked is the elastic nature of skin. If you barcode a human when thay are an infant, they grow, and the surface area of the hand, forehead, whatever increases. If anyone has ever seen an older person who got a tatoo when thay were young, they know that the ink starts to run after a while. Lines get blurry and wide, and less recognizable. This is something that would cause issues with scanners and identity.
Also, as the fellow who is a box of cocopuffs will testify, anyone with a tattoo pen (wich can be made easily out of a guitar string and a poorly balanced motor) can forge a tattoo. easy enough to masquerade as someone else.
No The Mark of the beast will be much more elusive, creative and foolproof. A microchip under the skin is what seems to be the latest (well since the 70's but I think that's classified), and in 5 years it may be something else.
Guess we won't know till it happens huh?
--"Cynical?? Who's cynical???" -k-
Well, there's one upside to all of this....
:-)
Anyone who believes in the Antichrist, etc can now breath easier. Who'd have thought! All it takes to learn who the spawn of the devil is, is to look at a patent application!
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
It's quite obvious that you don't understand Christianity. Likewise, the first two replies don't understand the nature of heaven and hell.
CT
Constitutionally Correct
Historically speaking, in England, "livestock" was anything with four legs and a tail, and was therefore taxed. You may have noticed that English sheepdogs have been bred not to have tails. It seems the economy interprets taxes as damage and reroutes around them (to do some paraphrasing).
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
See Cummings v. Missouri (striking down anti-conferderate loyalty oaths) and US v. Brown (excluding communists as officers of unions). The sexual offender was convicted of a crime and served his penalty for that crime. Any additional punishment inflicted retroactively is unconstitutional: Article I, Section 9, "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
The problem is, no one likes sex offenders, and so no one has any qualms about violating their rights.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Parental consent laws (concerning abortion) are founded on the idea that parenting is a fundamental right protected by the constitution (Stanley v. Illinois, etc.). So, the parent can inflict his right to parent upon the child, prevent her from having an abortion, have her give birth, and therefore implicate her fundamental right to parent? What morons!
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
If I might add a correction,
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What is the primary nature of many drug laws?
Not as much to protect them from there stupidity as there ignorance. But also to protect the state. Drug use in general produces, Doctors with short memory loss, operators of heavy machinery with impaired judgement, accountants that are addicted to getting high more than a value of not stealing, and bosses with really cranky shifting attitudes. And lazy workers or not workers who need welfare.
Now there are many causes of these symptoms, that isn't an issue. Drug use *is* at least one cause of these symptoms which is preventable. So in this way it tries to prevent a welfare state, since drug users on average require more welfare than people not on drugs.
I think you have spewed too soon yourself, becuase however much I am a Libertarian, refusing to consider drug dealers as criminals creates a worthless state requireing welfare.
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I've had a barcode tatoo on my right forarm for over 3 years now. The reactions it gets are pretty funny, everything from "that is the coolest thing I have ever seen" to people being noticibly freaked out. Im getting a subdermal tracking implant next.
What stunned me about this patent wasn't how outrageous it is, but that it's further proof that our patent examiners are asleep at the switch. There are numerous references to this sort of technology in literature from the 1950's onward. IIRC, THX-1138, George Lucas' first film, has this sort of ID in use to track its citizens. A friend of mine had his SSN converted to one of the more popular types of bar code (Type 37?) and tatooed on his arm.
All I can figure is that the patentabilty rests on intent - commerce. It could be argued that the references from science fiction describe a use like a passport or green card, and my friend could have gotten his tattoo as self-expression or as social protest, not for the sake of commerce.
Remember, just because there is a patent doesn't mean that the patent could withstand a legal challenge. One aspect that I hadn't considered before reading this forum was that someone patented this process for the purpose of keeping someone *else* from using it for 17 years.
I have a friend with his US Social Security Number tattooed on his arm in Code 39 (3 of 9). He's had it since the late 80's which should document prior art of codes designed to be machine-readable.
If all that's required to document prior art is OCR-able text in a tattoo, I have some pictures of my grandparents' friends, who had identifying tattoos placed on them during a certain unsavory time period most Germans would like to forget. One could even argue that the triangle symbology was designed for optimized recognition, and thus was setting the stage for direct machine-readable identification tattoos.
I think not...(*poof*)
It's just some tasteless person taking out a patent. Consider... how many people would allow such a thing to be done to them, even (Gods forbid) if there were a law requiring it? Nobody! So this is just like patenting the use of the corkscrew to inflict pain and suffering on yourself. Sure, it's possible. But is anyone asking you to do it? Would you do it even if they asked you to? So chill :) --Sync
Oh come on, my post wasn't THAT offensive!
;-)
Oh well, I guess I should watch my mouth... err.. fingers
I suppose this will be moderated down too. So much for my Karma...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Intuitively, this doesn't seem to be the mark spoken of. Think on this,
This isn't a very secure individual marking system, any tatoo can be replicated. One can merely have access to your account after taking a picture of your hand. So as a unique identification a mark on your hand is very poor.
However, taking the reference to Revelations "save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name" would denote that one isn't being identified as individual but as part of a society with a mark and two passwords.
These marks and passwords are used to authenticate that someone can make an economic transaction with another member of a particular society, not as an individual access method to their own money (we will always have cash, or gold or other monitary exchange system. And as long as that is around there is no enforcable "mark" system.
It has been said that "causing all" is a reference to the government making a law. However this is a hasty reaction since there are many economic and political motivators that such a society can use to "causeth all...to recieve a mark". And by no means does it say that they will be successful in causing "everybody" to get it. But it will entice people in a way that is offencive to God, hence his utter cursing of the mark (boils and blisters).
In otherwords this isn't a clear reference to government.
Why some people, in fear of such a society might be motivated to mark themselves to entrust that who they are speaking to are "safe" from the other mark. Others might be setting up a secret economic order where you are essentialy creating a silent monopoly or mafia like order, and you need to know who else is involved so you won't try to steal from them (but will try from everyone else.)
Also remember, the 144,000 also recieve a mark in there foreheads....
I'm welcome to further email discussion on the topic. (just remove the SPshieLD)
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Form 1040 does indeed contain a valid OMB number, and this is the only reference anywhere in the IRS form documentation that mentions anything resembling "voluntary".
Is there some other place on the form or supporting documents that you're basing this information on?
With the recent news I can image a scary but realistic sci-reality.
People who except the mark will receive, not only food and shelter (as approved members of the New Society), but rejuventated neurons and benign nano-viruses that will search for errors in their genetic code and fix them all. Others will modify the person's genes to give them precedented health strength and intelligence. Finally, these people will receive fetal stem-cell treatment over the course of their lives to replace parishable cells with immortal ones. As an added bonus these people will be awarded genetically engineered and cloned automaton slaves to service needs of sex, labor, and comfort.
Meanwhile, the rest of the population (like all people who do not excepte the tatoo) will be allowed to starve and die from nanomachines and nano-viruses designed to kill them and decompose their bodies into basic non-polluting carbons and nitrogens that will be used to fertilize the global re-greenification project.
Sound impossible? You don't read /. enough if you think so.
Here's what I will do: Run for the hills; try to disappear; shoot first ask questions later. Oh shit! I hope nothing even close to this ever happens.
JOHHNY: Has nobody not told you, Brian, that you've got this kind of gleeful preoccupation with the future? I wouldn't even mind but you don't even 'ave a f*ckin future. I don't 'ave a future. Nobody as a future. The party's over. Take a look around you, man. It's all breakin' up. Are you not familiar with the Book of Revelation of St. John, the final book of the Bible, prophesying the Apocalypse?
BRIAN: Yes. As it happens, I'm familiar with all of the books of Bible.
JOHNNY: I'm very happy for you. "He forced everyone to receive a mark on his right hand, or on his forehead, so that no one shall be able to buy or sell, unless he has the mark, which is the name of the Beast. Or the number of his name; and the number of the Beast is six-six-six."
BRIAN: Six-six-six. I know about it!
JOHNNY: Great!
BRIAN: I know about Nostradamus. Nostradamus talked about three brothers. Now, did he mean the Kennedy brothers, or was he talking about three bits of the Soviet Union. You see, you just can't tell.
JOHNNY: F*ck Nostradamus! I'm not talkin' about Nostradamus or Mother Shipton or Russell Grant or Mystic f*ckin Meg- I'm talkin' about the Holy Book! What can such a SPECIFIC prophecy mean? What is the mark? Well, the mark, Brian, is the bar code- the ubiquitous bar code that you'll find on every bog-roll, on every packet of johnnies, on every pocy pork pie. And every f*ckin' bar code is divided into two parts by three markers. And those three markers are always represented by the number six. Six. Six. Six! Now what does it say? "No one shall be able to buy, or sell, without that mark". And now, what they're plannin' to do in order to eradicate all credit-card fraud, and in order to precipitate a totally cashless society, what they're plannin' to do, what they've already tested on the American troops, they're gonna subcutaneously laser-tatto that mark on to your right hand or forehead. They're gonna replace plastic with flesh. FACT! In the same book of Revelation, when the seven seals are broken open on the Day of Judgement, and the seven angels blow the trumpets, when the third angel blows 'er bugle, "Wormwood will fall from the sky. Woodwood will poison a third part of the waters, and a third part of the land, and many, many, many, many people will die". Now do you know what the Russian translation for "wordwood" is?!
BRIAN: No.
JOHNNY: CHERNOBYL!
i will never accept a barcode tattoo.
we are not cattle!
Off-Topic. Just for the sake of clarity.... :)
There's no such word in Russian, 'chernobyl'. This plant is called "polyn'" or
'polyng', whatever is you preferred way to transcribe a trailing 'soft n'.
"Chornobyl" is Ukrainian name for that plant. Ukrainian is close to Russian, but in fact, this is
completely different language. Yes, I speak both
And one more thing. Russian translation of 'The Revelation' (Apocalypsis) mentions 'the star called wormwood will fall from the sky....'
I was 16 when this happened, I lived there with my parents. Trust me,
no start were falling on us. But that's completely another story.
KuroiNeko
Of course, the point is moot. We'll have chips implanted just like my poor dumb cats.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
Sorry if you perceive errors here, but what was keyed in was an exact quote from a movie called "Naked", by famed British filmmaker Mike Leigh. Your correctly noted language correction (Russian vs. Ukrainian) is appreciated, though.
As for stars-falling-from-the-sky, most people who believe this was a vision of the future accept that the description is slightly allegorical. The point is well taken, given that a Jew in the first century having a vision of any sort of nuclear catastrophe (or a worldwide, cashless economic entity for that matter) would be at something of a loss for high-resolution descriptions. Visions of a nuclear meltdown, with the glowing core burrowing into the earth, would probably look more like a burning star had hit the earth than anything else imagineable.
For what its worth.
Smirkleton.
Uncanny.
Ob-its-already-happened: Somewhere Henry Rollins is say 'its about they caught up!'
The "claims" of a patent provide the legal definition of the scope of the patent. In order to infringe upon a patent, ALL of the claims must be violated. Needless to say, it's in the inventor's best interest to make the claims as vague as possible. However, the Patent and Trademark office has historically been good about denying overly broad patents.
If even one portion of the claims is not duplicated exactly as described there is no patent infringement.
The claims for this patent:
providing identity information about a purchaser on a storage medium, providing skin marking invisible ink, applying said invisible ink to an appendage of said purchaser to form a tattoo on said purchaser, storing characteristics about said tattoo on said storage medium to form stored characteristics about said tattoo, and linking said identity information about said purchaser to said stored characteristics about said tattoo.
So for example, if one were to use visible ink instead of invisible, it would not be patent infringement. Or, if one were not using financial information, then it would not infringe on this patent.
Of course, I am not a lawyer and cannot provide specific advice on patent issues. So the above may be patently false. (No pun intended. ;->)
I've seen barcodes as I.D. tattoos used by a repressive regime in at least one made-for-TV movie years ago, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Did any such meltdown occur at Chernobyl?
And which third of which land was it that was poisoned? Seems awfully arbitrary to me -- as does the interpretation of most prophecies...
In "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland the characters talked about getting barcode tatoos (and rejecting the idea thinking it might become unfashionable later) - and then one of the characters meets on-line a female-geek (who didn't state her gender on-line) who went by 'Barcode'... who just happens to have one... :)
Wouldn't be suprised if this idea was covered in there...
Makes you want to live in a dictatorship, doesn't it.
...as long as we're in charge. Wink Wink
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
I'd get mine on my butt, with an anaconda and jaguar intertwined around it. That way you'd have a legitimate reason to drop trow and moon everytime you wnated to buy something.
It would be really handy to get a picture of Bill Gates tattoo and have that put on the appropriate cheek as well. So much for high-security.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Here's the lowdown from http://www.nolo.com/encyclo pedia/articles/pct/pct4.html
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Sorry.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
So you can't object for any health or comfort reasons, no religeous or cosmetic objections
There are religions that forbid non-traditional body markers of any kind. The numbers to form a legally recognised religion are pretty low. It's amazing how you can abuse the law from within the MattyFaith.
But if you're looking for paranoia, come read my piece (of shite).
-Docvert converts MSWord to OpenDocument, clean HTML
Poor Impulse Control.
-Lx?
1) What has this to do with anything? My point was on outlawing vs. partial restriction. You do not address it.
2) You can use a substance without using it to "hide" from your problems. You fail to take that into effect. The AMA themselves said, had it been known in the 20s what the DuPont family was pushing as "marijuana" was actually "cannabis", they would not have recommended outlawing it. Read The Emporer Wears Green Clothes [iirc, that's the proper title]. As for your oblique implication that I use illicit drugs, you're wrong. I haven't in some time. And applying to the argument that "if I think illegal drugs are good, I may be using them too much" is a personal attack and has nothing to do with logic.
3) Again... so? You cite my inability to "see" whatever "truth" you support, without making any real points. I maintain that keeping drugs illegal causes more harm than good, and keeps citizens less able to act for themselves. Again, you can have use without dependency.
You do not address any of the points I raised, and resort to personal attacks, non sequitors, and misleading arguments. One can only assume from this that you have no further logical footing on which to continue this debate.
I consider any further discussion on the matter frivolous and unworthy of a reply until any valid contention is raised.
whiner^ ~
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check out www.drug-abuse.com/information
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There is even a link to an article that directly refutes your stupid assumption that smoking Marijuana is at all benificial to an employee. I wish I had time to list and refute all of your adolescent attempts at justification of dangerous behaviour, I really do. But the websight does it all well enough for me and in a less inflamatory way.
http://www.drug-abuse.com/information/marijuana
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And they are already paying people $250 to have it implanted in your hand!
http://www.idchip.com
Devout follower of The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.
man, untill you have seen IN REAL LIFE some of the sh*t those holocaust people went thru. SHUT THE FSCK UP. nie wieder
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He has scientific evidence, and you are providing inadequate congecture. Argue with him. But in the mean time I'll take a few quickies...
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1) Duh, but I think you'll find if you look at the study that there is a higher rate of "secondary" crimes among non-users too.
2 & 3) I don't see where you are getting with your comment, It has the taste of simple FUD (as in you offers no evidence, only creates a story of a doctor you should fear, and then point to him as if we should fear him too.) When you can't fight it just complain?
Also this comment directly refutes the posters assumption that smoking marijuana makes a happier more productive employee. Others I'd refute if he only offered any reason to believe him in the first place.
4) You are still assuming that people are only imagioning marijuana to have bad side effects. This is the problem I keep running up against in the two maybe three people who responded to my post. You (and them) have no proof other than vain imagionation, and the author has scientific studies that you can argue with scientificaly. It isn't our imagionation that Marijana is bad, we aren't sugjecting the label of deviant. Illegal drug use is bad, and endorsement of it is deviant.
5.1,2&3) Exactly, but it is higher than the average of non-users showing a correlation. You'll learn about correlations in Statistics class. But at least you want to delve into the research at this point and maybe conduct your own scientific study and argue with him scientificaly. This offers me hope that you are inclined to actually study the truth. Feel free to do so, feel free to email me with what you find. I think you'll just find (as I did) that the evidence against you is insurmountable.
And, by no means did I ever infer the previous posters age. Adolescent ramblings can come out of very juvinile adults.
I may be short, and I may be lazy in supplying evidence to my statements. I hope this helps you understand I don't consider the current laws on drugs should be repealed. (not that I'm not open to another way to restrict there use.) I definately don't see that pointing to the cost of enforcement as adequate reasoning for dismissal of the laws. (This is all I see when someone says "But if it weren't a law then it wouldn't be bad and they wouldn't be breaking a law.")
The evidence against the use of these drugs show that even without the imposed law, there are natural laws and the natural concequences to them you cannot repeal revoke or change. And those are consequences I would rather not face, or see others face without my warning on the matter. The laws in place I think are a strong enough warning. They are based in scientific and socialogical fact.
This isn't just a place where I feel my libertarian ideals are justifiably set aside, this is a place where they start screaming for a fight against these drugs that only rob liberty from its subscibers.
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