posted on May 19, 2002 09:38:58 PM new
In the news we now have 8 persons who have been implanted with a new more powerful type of micro chip one that can be hooked to gps systems to tell exactly where a person is at all times! Now then friends we need to fight this, but the problem is how to make the politicians understand? why they will say no more kids being snatched or missing elderly why maybe no more terrorists. I tell you now we must take measures to explain this to politicians in terms they can relate to like this scenerio sir the tracking monitor has locked on the president he appears to be in the ovaloffices approaching sex1998, Confirm tracking control identify sex1998 identity confirmed sir apparently contact has been made with monica, i see well pass the cordinates on the the center for disease control health montitors to see what they have Disease control central here apparently she has no record of any pathogens that could be harmful. thats an affirmitive atlanta quantico what do you have well sir the proximity monitor shows the two signals almost on top of each other can you confirm
atlanta that the president is not feeling any discomfort? atlanta here quantico we do have elevated blood pressure, Ok so Maybe I should not pick on so obvious an example how about Mr condent we have a warrent.....
posted on May 19, 2002 11:53:51 PM new
was in the milwaukee journal sentinel about 4 days ago. out of florida a national story
actually the hype is probably due to the fact that the emu industry died because the usda counts puppies instead of securing our food supply, in fact the idiots at peta and the hsus wanted them to manage rats!! so any how the chip technology sits in a doldrums because they want to much money for it to make major inroads in the pet indsutry
posted on May 19, 2002 11:55:14 PM new
was in the milwaukee journal sentinel about 4 days ago. out of florida a national story
actually the hype is probably due to the fact that the emu industry died because the usda counts puppies instead of securing our food supply, in fact the idiots at peta and the hsus wanted them to manage rats!! so any how the chip technology sits in a doldrums because they want to much money for it to make major inroads in the pet indsutry
The link above is a recent story about a family of four in Florida who are now using the implants.
Another background story that raises a LOT of privacy issues and problems related to the implants. Some day, we may have internal computers. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!!
As "Good Morning America," "Inside Edition," and "The CBS Evening News" televise the much-hyped "chipping" of eight individuals starting today, Lee Tien, the senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is speaking out passionately about what many experts believe are serious threats posed by implanting chips in humans – threats he says are not being adequately portrayed by the major media.
Tien has been in high demand as a commentator on the issue. And the New York City press office of the American Civil Liberties Union, which once called the chip "an outrage" and "unconstitutional," is currently refusing to comment on the chips, referring all inquiries to Tien or David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Despite the numerous requests for comments, Tien told WND that the media have not effectively communicated his stance on the matter: "I've been used as part of their press campaign – as a token privacy person. It's really insulting."
When the 'chips were down' ...
As WorldNetDaily reported previously, "Digital Angel," has been described by company communications as an implantable microchip that, once inserted into a human, can be tracked by GPS and the information then relayed wirelessly to the Internet, where an individual's location, movements and vital signs can be stored in a database for future reference. The chip, along with another non-trackable version (the VeriChip) was developed by the NASDAQ-traded, Palm Beach, Fla., company, Applied Digital Solutions.
ADS tried unsuccessfully to market the implantable tracking chip in 1999 and 2000. The company hit bumpy ground though, with protests coming from civil liberties advocates, libertarians, electronic freedom activists, radical protest organizations, anarchists and religious groups.
Complicating matters was a failed foray into presidential-year politics. WND has reported on an unconsummated partnership between ADS and the Clinton-Gore administration, pushed by then-Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta just days before the presidential election. The company soon entered a dramatic financial freefall, according to the South Florida Business Journal. Whereas in 2000 shares were $18, by November of the following year they traded at 53 cents. In August of 2001, shares hit an all-time low of 16 cents. The company lost millions and was threatened with delisting by NASDAQ.
Following Sept. 11, however, the company found its golden opportunity to reintroduce the chip, first in its non-tracking form (the VeriChip). An announcement of "phase two" of the company’s strategy is likely to ride on the heels of today's much-publicized implantation event.
WND reported that ADS stated in its promotional materials and website that the sophisticated Digital Angel tracking chip was intended to be implanted in human beings, tapping into an estimated $100 billion worldwide market.
ADS chairman and CEO Richard J. Sullivan answered privacy-advocate critics at a private unveiling of the Digital Angel prototype in October 2000,
"And let me be very clear on one important point," he said. "The potential marketplace I'm talking about is for an attachable device … something worn on the outside … close to the skin. ... We're not planning on or even considering any other application at this time. Only external uses! All of our energy … all of our focus … all of our effort is in this direction. Period. Any other approach or suggestion is purely hypothetical speculation at this time."
Sullivan delivered this statement a week after his website had displayed extensive information about development of the chip for human implantation, and after McKinsey & Co. consultants had prepared a marketing projection for a whopping $70 billion market in the U.S.
Major media 'ignorant' and 'remiss'
Tien is speaking out because he believes the media are doing a poor job of reporting the threats that the chip can propose to individual rights, as well as the technical security weaknesses inherent in the Digital Angel technology delivery system.
"The impression I'm getting is that the implantation thing has a 'gee-whiz' factor that the media seems to like," Tien told WND. "But ever since Sept. 11, reporters have been less aggressive about challenging the privacy implications of the technologies or the practices."
"The media give an obligatory nod to civil liberties and privacy issues," Tien explains, "but the reports lack objective, educated analysis, resulting in them being 'one-sided.' There are few reporters interested in drilling into the real problems."
'Frog in the pot' marketing
Tien is especially concerned over involuntary uses of the chip and the company's intentional strategy to "handle" the public and media, so they are gradually accepting of a more dangerous form of the chip – the GPS-tracked "Digital Angel" chip.
CEO Sullivan has suggested that all foreigners entering the U.S. should be injected with the company’s chips, which he said should replace green cards. While ADS has repeatedly stated that they are only pursuing voluntary applications of the chips, their proposed uses clearly indicate otherwise. The stunning array of potential uses ADS is pushing aggressively include the implantation of prisoners, parolees, people under house arrest, children, the elderly, airport workers, nuclear power plant workers, gun owners and computer users (as a form of logon ID).
The company also envisions the implanted chips creating a "cashless society," being used instead of ATM and credit cards. ADS also wants to control all of the databases for all uses of the chips.
"My take on it," Tien explains, "has always been that the whole idea of forcing people to be tracked against their will is absolutely repugnant."
"They're doing the frog in the water trick – getting the memo out that this is voluntary, making it hard for civil liberty advocates to counter it," Tien explains. "But no matter what great uses are promised by the company, it is just part of an overall, larger trend – a movement toward the much bigger location tracking development of the chip."
Tien also stresses that once the chip is "colonized" into the prison system, it will be even harder to prevent involuntary uses from spreading to other areas of society.
"We're very concerned about this habituating of the public. The idea is, 'Oh well, it's here, so get over it. It must not be so bad.' But once they get it in limited form, the jump to tracking form is easier for the company.”
Security or hype?
Regarding the development of the chips, especially the Digital Angel tracking chip, Tien remarks: "These people [Applied Digital Solutions] have no idea whatsoever about what real security means. I spoke to their CTO, Dr. Keith Bolton. His response was 'We have this proprietary technology' – a meaningless comment."
Applied Digital Solutions contends it spent $40 million dollars on proprietary mixed-media encryption technology, and that the system security, which relies on Secure Socket Layers (SSL), won't be "spoofed." Digital Angel location information is accessed by "authorized individuals" by entering a password into an Internet site. But, according to Tien, the chip delivery system is vulnerable to "spoofing" and fraught with security risks.
"The low-end VeriChip is probably quite significantly insecure, but because of its limited capacity, the actual risk is not great."
However, Tien warns, it would be very different with Digital Angel: "People have the impression that only 'authorized' people will see their personal information. But all sorts of people will eventually see it."
Compounding the problem, Tien says, are existing vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. In March of this year, Digital Angel Corporation signed an agreement with Microsoft MapPoint in order to strengthen its worldwide GPS mapping capabilities.
"The threat is not just to the people implanted with it, but also for those people who hang out with them. They will all be part of a large surveillance system," Tien maintained.
Chilling misuses outlined
Raising further technical concerns, Tien asked, "How do you know what information they've put on the chip? They don't suggest that it's externally programmable, but what if it is now or in the future?"
Tien illustrated his point: "Here I am with this chip. I've got a connection. Is it read-only or writable? And if something is wirelessly written to it, what are they saying?" Referring to the fact that wireless networks and radio frequency data transmission packets are notoriously easy to "hijack," Tien asks,"Who are they saying I am? How hard is it for someone to send a transmission with information identical to my chip?"
Tien argues that such hacking and "spoofing" of the system could be used, for example, to frame someone by falsely placing their identification chip information into a computer and linking the ID number with a crime scene location. "It's equivalent to saying, 'Here's your DNA at this crime scene. Now prove you weren't there,'" said Tien.
Nabbing cyberpunks?
Nathan Cochrane of The Age newspaper in Australia has also researched and explored various potential misuses of the chip. In an e-mail sent to Declan McCullagh, Washington bureau chief for Wired magazine, Cochrane summed up a potential result of using the implanted tracking chip as a logon identification system, as advocated by ADS: "Can you imagine a tracking system that could tell when you had swapped songs over Napster, then dobbing you in to the local police, complete with your location accurate to within a few meters?"
The observation parallels similar developments of other electronic identification systems, like electronic toll booth passes, first marketed as a "convenience" item, but later used to issue speeding tickets to drivers who used the technology.
Cyberspace vulnerabilities critical
During congressional testimony earlier in the year, United States cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke pointed out that when corporate computer systems are hacked into, it is seldom reported to the government. This is because after such information is reported, it could then be retrieved by researchers and reporters by using the Freedom of Information Act. So corporations typically avoid reporting serious security breaches for fear of the financial consequences that diminished consumer trust could bring.
Clarke testified before Congress that there never has been a "secure" Internet product, and that terrorists could have hacked into government systems leaving "back doors" through which they could enter later. Prior embarrassing security breaches of prominent government websites such as NASA, the Pentagon and the CIA seem to say to privacy advocates, "If the government is struggling to secure its IT systems, just how secure are commercial networks?"
Tien believes that the cyber czar's comments serve to highlight potential areas of concern for those considering allowing companies like ADS to collect and control extremely sensitive information.
Location, location, location
'Legal questions arise concerning the vacuum of legal protection of location-based electronic information. As politicians, corporate interests and privacy advocates are still wrestling over issues of who gets to see cell phone location information, the same issues apply to tracking chips. The question is, who will win access to your movement and location information? Your wife's divorce attorney? Your political rival? News reporters? Corporate lawyers? Advertising firms? Government? And who would desire to steal your location information records? '
Would the monetary and power value of such personal information give rise to a "digital mafia," buying and selling your location and movement information for profit? In a world where there is mass implantation of tracking chips as a form of ID, one can only imagine the value of obtaining where a political rival was on a given night, with whom, at what hotel, and for how long? And in the cashless society advocated by ADS, what did they buy? The bio-sensor information transmitted and stored by the chips would even tell you how hard their hearts were beating and to what degree their skin temperature rose.
posted on May 20, 2002 07:48:49 AM new
And again - you don't need to reprogram or shield the chip.
Just a few minutes in the men's room with a fellow and my sharp pocket knife and I have his identity. If they start depending on the chip for ID and start allowing the other identity data bases to fall out of date it may be days before they discover who the chipless body is if it removed from the last location it transmitted for that person.
Not for the squimish? There are lots of people would have no trouble carving one out.
posted on May 20, 2002 03:22:44 PM new
I have to admit this sounds like it would be pretty good for my mother in law who has alzheimer's and has wandered away a couple times. There have been several such old people lost here and they die of exposure.
One old woman had crawled in a drain pipe and was not found for a year.
posted on May 20, 2002 03:34:39 PM new
Before you say it sounds like a good idea, would you really want to know the location of your mother in law at all times, or better yet would you want the boss to know your location at all times or better yet would you want your movements to be tracked by a hacker and firends after you just cashed your paycheck ? Ok so there I put i a post without bashing the government or corporations or lawyers or samoans
posted on May 20, 2002 06:14:27 PM new
an: If you were courteous enough to punctuate and use caps like the rest of us attempting a serious discourse you might have more people to talk to. Maybe not. But at night I'm tired and bleary-eyed and I'll skip your posts rather than get a headache trying to read them.
Just some friendly advice; like telling somebody they will lose business because they have a slow-loading page.
I don't have time for slow-loading pages but you are limiting your audience. Of course you may not care, which is fine--just an FYI.
posted on May 20, 2002 07:31:56 PM new
Some idiots have perfect punctuation, spelling and grammar. Auroranoth's comments are thought provoking and I enjoy them very much.
posted on May 21, 2002 05:56:31 AM new
Well yes we would like to know where my mother-in-law is at all times because she is so far into dementia that she does not know who her sons and daughter are. She can't remember which room in the house is hers and gets lost in a 2 bedroom condo. So....I doubt that we have to worry about the government or anyone tracking her because she does not engage in the normal business of life much less any commercial or political process that would benefit from privacy. It would be a benefit for her - perhaps to the point of her life - to be able to be found.
I know you will say that gets the "toe in the door" to allow it's use in competant people like us. Perhaps, but I also look at it that once a technology exists it WILL be used. The best window of oppertunity for limiting it's use is now while it is new.
I expect the government to use this on troops. They can make all sorts of arguments about saving people and tracking prisoners of war - the hard part will be to get them removed when the persons service is ended. I can see if they offer to allow people to keep theee chip some will agree. They will probably require it if you are reserves also.
posted on May 23, 2002 08:44:03 PM new
ok so we lose the next war even though most of our weapons were better because the enemy was able to hack the location of our commanders
and just fight th command units while telling other units to destroy each other.
any how your probably right gravid,
then after trops will come cops
no more car 54 where are you. then children so no one can molest them.
actually I could make a business out of this say the local gin mill has given me 5,000 for a new doorway on friday night the babe walks thru the thing lights up bright red for no way jose
letting us know she has a serious social disease and has called the cops on her last 3 mens. and her hooters are fake.
next a guy comes thru with a green light for the ladies he is a single jock studying medicine, on his parents millions. and will only drink carrot juice.
I was zoned out of business hen local voters wanted to put one of my doors on city hall.
