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Will Your ID Soon Be a Microchip Under Your Skin?
Singularity Hub ^ | 02 July 2009 | Drew Halley

Posted on 07/06/2009 6:49:21 AM PDT by BGHater

Yet another sci-fi milestone is upon us: microchips implanted under your skin and used to identify you.

The VeriChip is the first radio-frequency identification (RFID) microchip that’s been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in humans. The chip is the size of a long grain of rice, and can be implanted pretty much anywhere in the body (most commonly along the tricep). Depending on how it’s used, the chip could do anything from telling doctors your medical background to buying you a round at the club.

Outside of human bodies, RFID is already used for a wide range of purposes. If you pay highway tolls electronically, that little box in your car has an RFID tag in it. Lots of folks implant their pets with RFID chips in case they get lost, as animal shelters increasingly scan pets for them. Wal-Mart tracks their shipments with RFID, which has apparently revolutionized supply chain management. Hell, there’s even one in your passport.

But why put one inside your body? As interesting as it might be to have your ID show up on an x-ray, most people would rather suffer a line at the DMV than a rice-injection. Sure, it might make for good conversation at a party. But is that worth the needle? What would it take to get one under your skin?

Emergency Situations

VeriChip Corp. markets their product to address what they call “a serious need for personal identification and information in emergency situations.” Over the past two years, the company has piloted their product with 200 Alzheimer’s patients in a Florida facility. Because of their condition, many patients are unable to effectively communicate if they are admitted to the hospital without caregivers present. The VeriChip contains a 16-digit ID number which links the recipient to a secure computer database where their medical information is stored. The chips are used to replace MedicAlert wristbands, which can be removed or damaged.

Most other proposed applications for in-body RFID are medical in nature: providing doctors immediately with a patient’s medical records, or identification if they are unconscious or unable to communicate. Still, these applications require that each hospital contain a computer database to connect an individual’s tag with their information. That’s probably a long way off.

Chip n Club

Chip n Club

Luckily, the hospital isn’t the only testing ground for RFID chips under the skin. A nightclub in Barcelona called Baja Beach has started offering chip implants to its customers, giving them access to VIP lounges and letting clubbers buy drinks by acting as a debit account. Who wants to carry a wallet or purse when the dress-code is board shorts and bikinis? Baja Beach contracted none other than VeriChip Corp. to fashion their subcutaneous membership cards. I guess last call counts as an “emergency situation.”

In the past, VeriChip Corp claimed their chips could not be counterfeited: if your ID is under the skin, it can’t be so easily stolen. Wrong. At a hacker conference in 2006, Annalee Newitz and Jonathan Westhues showed that they had successfully cloned an RFID chip implanted in Newitz. A home-built antenna let the hackers steal the unique ID contained on the chip, which apparently lacks any sort of security device.

If RFID chips aren’t exactly secure, most people won’t want their social security number contained on one. After all, if a doctor’s office can pull your medical records from the chip (and a hacker can, too) what’s stopping your insurance agency? Or identity theives? That limits the chips to using random numbers, corresponding to useful information on a separate  and secure database. And until those databases are standardized and prevalent, having a chip in your body won’t speed up your doctor’s visit very much.

Counter-ID

As you might already imagine, in-body RFID chips have spawned a considerable backlash of protest. The group AntiChips calls the VeriChip “human branding,” especially in the case of the “volunteers” for the program with Alzheimer’s disease. They also claim the chips cause cancer (citing a number of animal studies), and that the FDA approval should be revoked (more info here).  There are also a number of additional risks which the FDA already recognizes: tissue reactions, migration of the chip, even the chance that the chip could carry a current from MRI magnets and burn the patient.

000-verichip-protest-may-1-560w

AntiChippers

And that’s just the beginning. The chips have been called the precursor to a perfect authoritarian state, letting Uncle Sam (or Illuminati, or whoever) track your each and every move. On the other end of the spectrum, some religious groups (well, okay, this one) have implicated the VeriChip in a plot involving the mark of the beast (666), part of a conspiracy theory to rival the most imaginative of left-wingers. Wait, this one too.

But if I can interject my own opinion, I’d say the whole business is a bit overhyped. Honestly, there aren’t really any good applications for in-body RFID. Sure, it could hypothetically improve health-care (if and when the patient is unconscious), but for that system to be effective, every hospital would need to have integrated the chips into their standard procedures. It won’t replace a photo ID in your wallet anytime soon. And unless you’re grinding some PYT* in Barcelona, you’ll probably pay for that Pabst with good old fashioned cash. Take (a) the lack of practical applications, plus (b) legitimate concerns over ID hacking and health risks, and poof!  There goes the revolution.

If any readers have ideas for scenarios in which an in-body RFID would be practical & useful, please do share (comments below).


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Conspiracy; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: 666; chip; implant; lping; microchip; rfid; themarkofthebeast
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Also in the News:

Bill banning forced identity-chip implants clears House

Court to Defendant: Stop Blasting That Man’s Mind!

1 posted on 07/06/2009 6:49:22 AM PDT by BGHater
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To: BGHater

2 posted on 07/06/2009 6:57:07 AM PDT by Bratch
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To: BGHater
Honestly, there aren’t really any good applications for in-body RFID.

The Statists in power would beg to differ.

3 posted on 07/06/2009 7:00:07 AM PDT by COBOL2Java (Big government more or less guarantees rule by creeps and misfits.)
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To: rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; Salo; Bobsat; JosephW; ...

4 posted on 07/06/2009 7:00:55 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: BGHater

Will there be a bullet in the head of the guy who tries to put it there? We report, you decide.


5 posted on 07/06/2009 7:02:15 AM PDT by perfect_rovian_storm (The worst is behind us. Unfortunately it is really well endowed.)
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To: BGHater
Since there is a VERY HGH incidence rate of cancer in chipped animals this is an industrial strength dumb idea.
6 posted on 07/06/2009 7:02:44 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (Nemo me impune lacessit)
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To: mad_as_he$$

excellent point....if they had to stop silicon breast implants because they were causing cancer, why is the silicon in a microchip any different?


7 posted on 07/06/2009 7:06:37 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: bamahead

Queue up the ‘Awe Geez, Not This Shit Again’ graphic.


8 posted on 07/06/2009 7:08:29 AM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: BGHater

A smart government wouldn’t try to force a society to be chipped. However, if you offer great incentives like going through airport security faster, faster unemployment checks processed, passports, etc., just to name a few, you would be amazed how fast people would sign up.

Look at one night club offering it and people lining up to get chipped. Other fun stuff and offers to come.


9 posted on 07/06/2009 7:08:54 AM PDT by VicVega (Join Jihad, get captured by the US and resettled in the best places in the world. I love the USA)
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To: BGHater

No.


10 posted on 07/06/2009 7:11:52 AM PDT by BenLurkin ("A new Dark Ages made all the more terrible and prolonged by the sinister powers of science.")
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To: BGHater
Will Your ID Soon Be a Microchip Under Your Skin?

Only if I run out of ammo before they run out of implanters!!

11 posted on 07/06/2009 7:12:50 AM PDT by DustyMoment (FloriDUH - proud inventors of pregnant/hanging chads and judicide!!)
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To: mad_as_he$$

Revelations talks about those who had the mark suffering from “sores”.


12 posted on 07/06/2009 7:25:50 AM PDT by mdmathis6
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To: mdmathis6

bttt


13 posted on 07/06/2009 7:30:44 AM PDT by ConservativeMan55
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To: KoRn

Why?

Is the truth annoying because it’s true or because one finds it bothersome on the face of it because one doesn’t like to live in the real world we face?


14 posted on 07/06/2009 7:38:11 AM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
excellent point....if they had to stop silicon breast implants because they were causing cancer, why is the silicon in a microchip any different?

There's a pretty significant difference between silicone and silicon.

15 posted on 07/06/2009 7:40:07 AM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I can spell just fine, thanks, it's my typing that sucks.)
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To: DustyMoment; Alamo-Girl; airborne; AngieGal; AnimalLover; annieokie; aragorn; auggy; backhoe; ...

END TIMES PING LIST PING


16 posted on 07/06/2009 7:40:31 AM PDT by Quix (POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 2 presnt: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
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To: VicVega
Look at one night club offering it and people lining up to get chipped. Other fun stuff and offers to come.

I'm guessing that the ones in line to get chipped have tats and body piercings too. Not much of a leap for them.

17 posted on 07/06/2009 7:48:33 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your most dangerous enemy is your own government,)
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To: ShadowAce

Thanks for the ping. Revelation chapter 13 gets closer every day.

16He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.


18 posted on 07/06/2009 7:54:28 AM PDT by Kevmo (So America gets what America deserves - the destruction of its Constitution. ~Leo Donofrio, 6/1/09)
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To: perfect_rovian_storm

Will there be a bullet in the head of the guy who tries to put it there?

A Rapidly Fired Incendiary Device, perhaps?


19 posted on 07/06/2009 7:54:59 AM PDT by Adder (Proudly ignoring Zero since 1-20-09!)
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To: mad_as_he$$
Since there is a VERY HGH incidence rate of cancer in chipped animals this is an industrial strength dumb idea.

Not if the actual goal is population reduction.


A verbis ad verbera

20 posted on 07/06/2009 7:55:49 AM PDT by Costumed Vigilante (Congress: When a handful of evil morons just isn't enough)
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