Posted on 03/27/2008 4:20:24 PM PDT by BGHater
You might not know it, but as of January it became illegal in California for companies to require workers to have devices implanted under their skin that would reveal their whereabouts at all times.
State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) called his legislation a safeguard against "the ultimate invasion of privacy." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill into law in October.
But your privacy may not be completely safe. The same chip-based technology that California won't allow to be forcibly placed under people's skin will soon be ubiquitous in cellphones, which the telecom industry believes will be increasingly used as electronic wallets to make purchases.
Virtually all leading cellphone makers are already introducing this technology to their handsets. Payments by cellphone are expected to explode over the next few years as more stores are equipped to handle such transactions.
Here's how it'll work: You go to the Gap, select a pair of khakis and wave your phone in front a reader at the cash register. The purchase price is instantly deducted from your checking account like a debit card or applied to a credit card account. A record of the purchase is also entered into the Gap's database.
That's very convenient and will undeniably be a boon to shoppers, merchants and cellphone companies.
What the technology also means, though, is that all cellphone owners, which is nearly everyone, will be technologically "tagged." In theory, anyone -- or any company or government agency -- with a desire to do so would be able to identify you from as much as 300 feet away and track you as you go about your business.
Your cellphone would be constantly broadcasting your location, along with, possibly, your name, address and other potentially sensitive information.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I predict cell phone theft will also explode over the next few years......reckon I won’t be upgrading to one of these
***Your cellphone would be constantly broadcasting your location, along with, possibly, your name, address and other potentially sensitive information.***
It does already. All new cell phones have GPS in them. Anybody with the need can access that info. There was a situation up here in Seattle where a woman was missing (she drove off the road into a ravine) and the police used her cell phone to find her.
Before I have a hissy-fit, I will need to know whether this crap will work even if your phone is off; or whether the user can disable it...
I guess this was because Arnold had a bad experience with this?
The Governator must have been thinking of some of his sci-fi movies when he made this proclamation.
Two things come to mind:
- Pre-paid (in cash) cell phones.
- Pagers as incoming important ‘need to call back’ numbers.
It won’t work if you take the battery out of it. I don’t know about if it’s turned off.
“There was a situation up here in Seattle where a woman was missing (she drove off the road into a ravine) and the police used her cell phone to find her.”
I guess you didn’t hear the “rest of the story”
She was virtually found dead because a female sheriff spent 3 days interrogating and suspecting the husband that reported her missing. This incompetent sheriff waited 3 days to get to tracking the cell phone data.
The weakest link will always be govt.
I take my cellphone with me when I go shopping, but wrapped in tinfoil with tight seams.
Definitely won’t work if you remove the battery, probably won’t work well if you can cover the antenna with something like foil. Other than that, there are places on the internet that can tell you how to change some soft/firmware, but it would be really hard to test if the thing is really odisabled.
Is it off when it is off? You might think it is, but the computer in there is more complicated by 100X than the mission computer in the Apollo moon program.
I applaud you for this:
“The weakest link will always be govt.”
It can actually be a nice tagline.
Any scheme the banks can use to get you away from credit cards is in store. The law offers consumers protection with CC purchases, not debit cards. Smart consumers can float their finances for as much as 50 days.
The banking industry loves debit instruments because there is no monetary float and they still make a hefty commission without any risk.
Considering the opinion the average hacker type has of tracking/ID technologies, I’m guessing there will be some sort of patch or update you can use to turn it off (probably questionably legal at best, but is anyone gonna know?) within a reasonably short time of anyone discovering it exists for any specific cell phone model.
The rest, I take out in cash and divide into envelopes for the months expenses:
gas, food, miscellaneous, car maintenance, coffee can, etc.
I spend less money as, when spending cash, one thinks about it harder than just pulling out a credit/debit card or check.
There is no 'trail' of what I buy or where I go or when.
In addition: Just this week, we found out that there was a MAJOR breach of security with the big super market chain here, HANAFORDS. Nearly half a million credit/debit acc't numbers were breached. It happened in Dec., but the public wasn't made aware of it until now.
So far, there have been 1,800 accounts, mostly Debit, used fraudulently.
My friends have had to cancel accounts and wait for new cards = and then they will have to close out and reenter with all the places they use their cards. My cards weren't in their systems so I don't have the hassle.
They are trying to get rid of cash because they cant' track us. We have to make a stand.
They already have us pin-pointed on the grid and anyone can find our house = and if we use GPS, the square foot we stand or sit on is available for tracking in real time, and to track past movements.
I grew up in a different era, indeed, I sometimes think a different world.
I'm a stubborn old bat and I will hang onto the freedoms I can for as long as I can/
the same tracking device is in all newer cars - for at least a decade
I will never use anything other than a pre-paid cell phone and will never purchase minutes for it with my credit card. The phone number I have is not attached to any name, there are no contracts, and I can discard the phone/number at any time without penalty. Only those I choose to give the number have the number. For others, good luck trying to call me or locate me...
I am not sure that taking the battery out of your phone would actually shut it off. I don’t totally understand how it works but typically an RFID chip doesn’t need a battery because it recieves its power from the scanner which it then replies back too. This is why the implanted chips work even though they don’t implant a battery with them.
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