'Pacemaker'-like GPS Device for Humans 348
LunarFox writes "Applied Digital Solutions has announced successful field trials of a prototype GPS device that can be implanted into humans. The device, which is internally rechargable, can wirelessly transmit location, movements and vital signs via the Internet, storing the info in a database. It's said to be the size of a pacemaker, but they intend to miniaturize it to one-tenth that size. You may recall this company as having designed the 'Digital Angel,' and 'Verichip,' a ricegrain-sized RFID chip like injectable pet tracking ID chips. This same company apparently made several denials in 2002 that their product(s) would be anything but externally worn. (like a wristwatch) Many other related links can be found at WorldNetDaily." On one hand the potential cool uses astound me, while the possibilty of abuse frightens me. A lot.
Big Brother is watching!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what all the future applications of this device will be? I wonder if in the future they will require known convicted felons to wear these? Just think about all the scary applications such devices can be put to.
Re:You might call me paranoid... (Score:5, Insightful)
x-rays would tend to show if people had a GPS device with antennea implanted in them
Hello people, wake up (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/19/034
The potential for abuse is more terrifying, really.
get a jump on those who would abuse it (Score:4, Insightful)
Captain Picard: Computer, where is Commander Data?
Computer: Lieutenant Commander Data is no longer aboard the Enterprise.
I remember Dec. 1999.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Will this work on Jan 1st 2000?
After a while, things got so paranoid, and my boss wondered innocently:
Are you sure we'll be alive on Jan 1st? Our hearts and brains are Y2K OK?
Made us all laugh then.. but if these GPS pacemakers were around, we wouldn't have been laughing surely.
READ YOUR OWN ARTICLE! (Score:5, Insightful)
For fellow geeks with P800s, just put it in "flight mode" for the same effect.
"I could super-impose an RF signal on the telephone line that would "jump" or "short" out the hook switch on the phone effectively creating an off-hook condition" has precisely bog-all to do with modern GSM digital handsets.
Also, any site with a cute .gif button mentioning "The Ark of the Covenant: against Satan New World Order" probably isn't exactly a technical journal, dig?
Re:kidnapping of the future: (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
So they're not going to be implanting these while you're not looking, unless they can also talk you into recharging it yourself later.
The overall ickiness of having something inserted, plus of course the overtones of nazi tatoos will stop this being mandatory for a very very long time.
It's the biometric id cards/credit cards/mobile phones that'll be the really useful peasant-tracking devices. They don't need RFID implants.
Besides - there'd only be a market in back-street surgeons/hackers to take them out again. This wouldn't be a terribly effective way of tracking criminal types (it would be fine for ordinary citizens of course, but then they're easy enough to find at the moment anyway).
I want more proof of racism (Score:5, Insightful)
I would like a little more proof that this was intended to be racist. The obvious intent is to identify tracking children and pets as a use.
One of the major problems I have with accusations of racism is that behavior frequently is assumed to be racist without any investigation. To illustrate, a few years ago a news program covered racial sensitivity training that a resturant chain was ungoing as part of a court settlement. Cashiers were told to always place the change in the hand of the customer, never on the counter. Because many blacks interpret putting the money on the counter as meaning "you don't want to touch them." This hit me directly, because I have a habit of putting it on the counter regardless of whether the person is white, black, or other. Mainly because I found it easier. So the question becomes how many people thought I was racist, for doing something that I do to everyone. My futher thought is, I want more proof that things are racist before believing so. Racism exists, but not every innocent act is racist.
Re:Big Brother is watching!! (Score:5, Insightful)
There would be major ethical problems for most surgeons. It would go against their creed to operate on a person without their consent when the operation was not needed for a medical condition.
I think we should take some time to consider the implications of asking doctors and surgeons to perform such operations.
Besides, the first people to receive these implants should be politicians, oh and the entire staff at Digital Angel.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Hmm, DRM for people. (Score:4, Insightful)
Submit to the chip, join The Club - or live on the outside. Very scary.
Re:Big Brother is watching!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Cashless Society / 666 (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems odd that John would come up with the idea that you would have to have a mark (I'm told it means "etching, as with a needle" in the Greek, but I'm sure some Greek-speaking-geek here can probably shoot that down if it isn't correct) to buy and sell. I'm sure he was thinking of it as a tatoo that they would merely look at, before allowing you to use your cash. He probably wasn't thinking of a "cashless society", but I've often heard people talk about the benefits of a cashless society (thwart drug-dealers, kidnappers, extortion rings, etc). Supposedly, we'd all start with a "debit card" arrangement. But they could be stolen or forged. An implanted chip would be harder to fake.
As a starting point to mandatory chipping, I've heard people suggest that you would chip criminals, aliens, and of course, "the scum of the earth".... gun owners! If you want to own a gun, you must get a tracking chip! Small price to pay for a "privilege" that the government lets you have...
I'm not saying that D.A. would be the Mark, just that it sounds hauntingly familiar... that similar technology could be used for that purpose.
So most readers here probably don't read or believe the Bible, but if you see it happen someday..... think about it.
dochood
homeland security (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes a device like that is frightening, especially in the hand of a totalitarian regime like the United States' government.
(Yes, mod me down... I know there are regimes where I couldn't say something like that without risking my life and I'm grateful I can still say that. But the US government do put people in jail without accusing them properly, they torture people outside the country, etc. Just say a person is a suspected terrorist and he automatically loses all human rights. I can still say I disapprove of that. But I'm afraid it's slowly becoming like the USSR in Stalin's times...)
Not necessarily without their permission (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure that they would use this with criminals anyway. It would seem more secure to me to add it externally with a lock for criminals. Internally, it seems to me that they would just get another operation and have it removed.
Re:Hello people, wake up (Score:5, Insightful)
I can also get rid of my credit card. I can always phone using public phones, If I am paranoid enough.
So, the age of privacy isn't really over unless we are forced to have these chip implants. Otherwise, even if the phone/cable/car company has some of my data, that does not mean that they know my every move.
Go America! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You've got to wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Paranoid parents wanting to know their children's location at all times?
I hope not.
Of all the possible blunders of parenting that exist, I think that parents, training their children to expect omniscient monitoring, zero privacy, heavy interrogation, and heavy discipline as a substitute for earlier, time-consuming, caring, training to be a responsible person, is one of the scariest ways to construct a future society.
It's the kind of society that I don't want to live in.
Re:Uh... High-Risk Countries??? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Big Brother is watching!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The main application, as ever, is military. If the Army can pin-point each of their soldiers and determine easily whether they're alive, dead or injured, they'll be *very* happy. Triage becomes much easier if you know the guy is alive before you go over to him, and if you're wounded then your guys can check that you're still alive before they come to get you under fire.
Tracking convicted felons sounds a perfect use as well, though. Anyone who thinks this is invasion of privacy, think again - a convicted felon has NO right of privacy, bcos you need to be sure they won't reoffend during their parole period. As a convicted felon, you have a choice - either stay in your cell with Bubba, or get out into the real world but have restrictions on where you can go, what you can do, and and at what time. Take your pick. Personally I reckon anyone allowed out of prison early with a curfew imposed has got pretty damn lucky, compared to the alternative. Of course there is also the point that after the parole period, you'll need to be sure the device is turned off - leaving it on forever *would* be invasion of privacy, unless your crime is such (eg. child molesting) that you are banned for life from entering certain areas such as school zones.
Grab.
Re:Inject it into criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
ex-cons are exactly that. Ex. They have served their debt, and are now able to resume (more or less) regular lives.
Why would you need to track them?
Re:What happens? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of this combination - known GPS signal + hyper-accurate orbital-based laser system. Anyone who has a device like this implanted could be popped the moment they stepped outside, any time anyone cared to do so.
I could see the US government implanting these in known criminals and dissidents. Perhaps as a condition of parole.
Re:Not necessarily without their permission (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps in a \. first I will admit that I really don't know.
There are so many implications raised by the introduction of this sort of pervasive technology. I can easily see any use by governments as a slippery slope. We have overcrowded prisons so implant people with trackers (after all its only a small step from current tags), convicted of shop-lifting? have a tag put in your body which will alert shop security when you enter a mall, a refugee awaiting naturalisation - better have you tagged so you don't go wandering...
I have a great dislike of this sort of technology. but an even greater dislike of the sort of politician and business shysters who will see it as a quick route to earning lots of money or plaudits for being 'tough on crime'.
We (in the UK), already have a government that appears to consider almost any intrusion into people's lives to be legitimate, I can imagine David Blunkett will be salivating when this is read to him.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Big potential use (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously; the health monitoring industry isn't that small. What if you could implant a device in your alzheimers patient grandfather, so he couldn't forget to put it on, and you could always find him if he wandered away, and an instant 911 call went out if he started having an irregular heartbeat, crazy blood pressure, etc.
I think this thing has some SERIOUSLY good potential uses. But as typical on slashdot, every technology is only seen in the most paranoid possible way. Hey, it's a good idea to think of how new technologies can be abused, but get real; the mere existance of this technology does not immediately create a police state in which everyone can be forced to have the chip implanted. It's society that decides whether such a thing can happen to law-abiding citizens (and yes, who is defined as "law-abiding").
Technology is neither good nor bad, nor does it promote good or bad behavior. It may enable a behavior but it does not, on its own, immediately cause a police state or any other societal change, unless and until society is ready to change.
Non-law-abiding citizens already have this, it's called a radio collar.
just a thought (Score:3, Insightful)
And then my head began to hurt. It has always fascinated me how some technologies are vilified BECAUSE of their potential for abuse, whereas others are idolized DESPITE their potential for abuse. Which is right? I don't have the answer, but I do know its fun to watch.
And no, I'm not suggesting that Big Brother watching my every move is in any way equivalent to me downloading the latest Britney Spears via p2p. Although if I'm listening to Ms. Spears, maybe someone SHOULD keep an eye on me
Re:You've got to wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
> Of all the possible blunders of parenting that exist, I think that parents, training their children to expect omniscient monitoring, zero privacy, heavy interrogation, and heavy discipline
Chip 'em at birth, deeply (maybe even against or into the bone) so it can't be removed with a pocketknife, and make the technology as widespread as possible, as quickly as possible. Let the benefits propagate faster than the drawbacks.
Re:Big Brother is watching!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not necessarily without their permission (Score:3, Insightful)
I concur... not just removed, but possibly also used as an alibi.
For every system someone will be there looking to make money from beating it.
Also, what's to prevent people from disabling the device? Could it be made resistant to ultrasonic, microwave, close-range EMP, precise laser, or other creative attacks?
THX-1138 has disappeared.
Re:Hello people, wake up (Score:3, Insightful)
For people with phones that don't have GPS, maybe this triangulation of cell ids can be done on the phone as a "poor man's GPS". I know most phone OSs, like Symbian, have some API to get the id of the current (ie strongest) cell, but I wonder if there is a way to get a list of ids for cells whose signal strength is weaker but still "within reach". Then you could triangulate those cell locations.