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http://www.msnbc.com/news/997952.asp

An ATM card under your skin

Company pushes chip implants as ID alternative
Applied Digital Solutions is hoping their 12-by-2.1mm radio frequency identification tag catches on as an under-the-skin alternative to an ATM or credit card.


By Declan McCullagh


Nov. 25 — Radio frequency identification tags aren’t just for pallets of goods in supermarkets anymore. Applied Digital Solutions (ADS) of Palm Beach, Fla., is hoping that Americans can be persuaded to implant RFID chips under their skin to identify themselves when going to a cash machine or in place of using a credit card.

THE SURGICAL PROCEDURE, which is performed with local anesthetic, embeds a 12-by-2.1mm RFID tag in the flesh of a human arm. ADS Chief Executive Scott Silverman, in a speech at the ID World 2003 conference in Paris last Friday, said his company had developed a “VeriPay” RFID technology and was hoping to find partners in financial services firms.
Matthew Cossolotto, a spokesman for ADS who says he’s been “chipped,” argues that competing proposals to embed RFID tags in key fobs or cards were flawed. “If you lose the RFID key fob or if it’s stolen, someone else could use it and have access to your important accounts,” Cossolotto said. “VeriPay solves that problem. It’s subdermal and very difficult to lose. You don’t leave it sitting in the backseat of the taxi.”
RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which some manufacturers have managed to shrink to half the size of a grain of sand. They listen for a radio query and respond by transmitting a unique ID code, typically a 64-bit identifier yielding about 18 thousand trillion possible values. Most RFID tags have no batteries. They use the power from the initial radio signal to transmit their response.
When embedded in human bodies, RFID tags raise unique security concerns. First, because they broadcast their ID number, a thief could rig up his or her own device to intercept and then rebroadcast the signal to an ATM. Second, sufficiently dedicated thieves may try to slice the tags out of their victims.
“We do hear concerns about this from a privacy point of view,” Cossolotto said. “Obviously the company wants to do all it can to protect privacy. If you don’t want it anymore ... you can go to a doctor and have it removed. It’s not something I would recommend people do at home. I call it an opt-out feature.”
Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer at the Electronic Privacy Information Center said implanted RFID tags cause an additional worry. “When your bank card is compromised, all you have to do is make a call to the issuer,” Hoofnagle said. “In this case, you have to make a call to a surgeon.
“It doesn’t make sense to go from a card, which is controlled by an individual, to a chip, which you cannot control.”
ADS shares have slid from a high of around $12 in 2000 to 40 cents, and the company is now fighting to stay listed on the Nasdaq. “Our common stock did not regain the minimum bid price requirement and on Oct. 28, 2003, the Nasdaq Stock Market informed us by letter that our securities would be delisted from the SmallCap,” ADS said in a Nov. 14 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also warned that its implantable microchips are manufactured solely by Raytheon without a “formal written agreement,” and any price increases or supply disruptions would have serious negative consequences.
MasterCard has been testing an RFID technology called PayPass. It looks like any other credit card but is outfitted with an RFID tag that lets it be read by a receiver instead of scanned through a magnetic stripe. “We’re certainly looking at designs like key fobs,” Mastercard Vice President Art Kranzley told USA Today last week. “It could be in a pen or a pair of earrings. Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything—someday, maybe even under the skin.”
ADS is running a special promotion urging Americans to “get chipped.” The first 100,000 people to sign up will receive a $50 discount.

Nope, doesn't apply to me!

Wow... that seems a bit hard to believe to me - the fact that it will catch on that is..

[Marioman143]

FORGET IT! IT AIN'T HAPPENIN IN MY LIFETIME! I'm not becoming any robo-version of myself.

Marioman's EASY Trivia!

MARIOMAN WILL CONTROL YOUR MINDS!!!

[imported_mango]

"You can buy your groceries 30 seconds faster!We'll just need is your arm for a short moment."
Wow, life is becoming more and more like Minority Report. Now all we need are those sideways cars.

[imported_Parrakarry]

I think it's a good idea. What, are you all planning on being criminals? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

And MarioMan, if you were a robo-version of yourself, you'd live much longer, produce less waste, require less energy... wouldn't it be better?

[ December 14, 2003, 09:34 AM: Message edited by: -Parrakarry- ]

But then the whole question of ethics comes into play with this. Should we be tampering with human life like this? I'm not saying the insertion of dermal ID/credit cards necessarily applies, but a “robo-version” of oneself might. I personally think it‘s not necessary to have these tags on us. Instead, why not make the machines that identify us be more accurate. Voice print identification and such. That I’m okay with. But getting back to the “robo-version” thing…

I mean, think about it. We were designed to have specific life spans and traits. Is it right, or even safe to integrate these “upgrades” to the human race? Natural evolution is one thing, but this is far from natural.

Let’s take longer life spans for example. It is said that humans only use 10% of their brain. That’s not true. We use 100% of it all the time. It’s just that all of the processes the brain handles is in redundant functions. It’s so redundant to the point where a ratio can be created, where the amount of different functions only amounts to ten percent of the whole brain. Now look at us as a race. Our life span is increasing, but with that means we have more to remember in our longer lives. There is a point where the brain has to become “full” and can no longer store new memories, or must discard old ones to make room. I‘m serious. So what happens when we reach a point of longevity where this memory shortage occurs? What then?

[ December 14, 2003, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Fenix ]

Fenix took the words right out of my mouth.

^^That's true, but it's an incredibly high amount of data.

I'm all for this, although I doub tthat I would get any chip insertions until it becomes more practical.

Just a note what many analysists have said: Because of chip implants in the eardrums, in 10-15 years we will be able to break the language barrier. In other words, we'll all have little translators in our eardrums. That's astounding, and that's worth an implant. A debit card in your wrist is not.

Anoter thing mention on TechTV once: We can create a real Matrix by the year 2029. (Of course not as elaborate as a certain trilogy envisioned it) Scary or groundbreaking? I say groundbreaking.

That's great and all, but what if they touch magnets? Wouldn't the chips in them be attracted to it, and they'll end up getting stuck?

It'd be hilarious if the memory could be erased by using a magnet...

If we're going to have to do that stuff, then I want a flamethrower implanted into my hand. Or a high-pressured water blaster.

Originally posted by Cham Zord:
That's great and all, but what if they touch magnets? Wouldn't the chips in them be attracted to it, and they'll end up getting stuck?

Oh, so your computer is rushing towards any magnets in your house right now? Mine seems to be quite stable actually. Chips in computers aren't made of metal.

Well, there's some metal in it, but it's not metal enough to be attacted by magnets.

RFIDs are a fascenating and "powerful" technology. Small chips which can send out radio signals. There are two kinds. Active, which usually has a battery inside it and can be updated with new radio signals which can be sent to it, and passive, which gets all its energy from radio messages being sent to it, and cannot update its internal storage.

And yeah, the loss of privacy that could be implemented with this is effing obvious.

I didn't know they had implemented subdermal RFIDs yet, though. That's something new. There are possible good usages of this, but there's also some very interesting bad ones.

Anyone comparing this to the Mark of the Beast, however, will be shot.

[ January 10, 2004, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: UserGoogol ]

Originally posted by Brooser Koopa:
If we're going to have to do that stuff, then I want a flamethrower implanted into my hand. Or a high-pressured water blaster.

LOL

The only good thing about this is I don't have to remeber any pin numbers.

^ That was bad. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

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