Why One Man Got a Guerrilla RFID Implant 348
Shannon writes "One of my writers just did an interview with Amal Graafstra, who just had an RFID implant put in his hand and has been building appliances for it to simplify and automate his life... "I guess I have my own Big Brother paranoia. Given the choice of Orwellian societies, I'd rather live in one based on RFID tags than fingerprints, DNA, or facial structure; an RFID tag system is easy to manage and opt out of, whereas DNA sampling or facial recognition, well, isn't.""
FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
Q: can't they track you?!
A: no. the read range is only 2 inches max. even with a high powered reader, the chip itself does not have the capability to transmit farther than a couple inches tops. this makes it very difficult to scan my RFID chip without me noticing, and it's definitely not possible to scan it just by me walking by a sensor or something. It has to be pretty deliberate.
Q: what about GPS?!
A: no. there is currently no implantable GPS technology. none. there are very oversized watches you can wear that do support GPS tracking, but they look like a dick tracy watch on steroids.
Q: is all your information on there?!
A: no. as stated above, there is only an 8 character unique code.. like 48e9s18f for example. the chip is read-only (you can't change the data on it) and what it does or what that string of characters means depends on what system is scanning it. the system I'm creating will use that string to ID me and let me in my house, my car, or log me into my computer. if you have your cats or dogs tagged with a chip, they too only carry a unique code, and the animal's information is stored in a central database. hospitals are looking to use this technology in the arms of people to link a person's ID with their medical records in the computer system. The medical data won't, at this time, be stored on the chip itself as many fear.
Q: are you crazy?!
A: sure, why not.
Q: what about the mark of the beast!?
A: well, last time I checked, this chip wasn't required, I won't be killed for not having one, I don't need it to buy/sell things, and with billions of unique ID codes (numbers and letters), I don't see how each unique code could be calculated in some way to 666. bottom line, if this ever becomes an oppressive technology, required by some government, I can simply take it out.
- Revelation 13:16 - And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.
- Revelation 13:17 - And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
- Revelation 13:18 - Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (666)
Q: how big is the implant?
A: it's 12mm long by 2mm in diameter.
Q: why the hand, and your left hand to boot?
A: well, I reach for my car door handle with my left hand, and I can get used to opening my front door with my left as well. plus, being right handed, my left hand is far less likely to get crushed, mutilated, or otherwise damaged... and I'm sure granules of crushed glass, silicon, and other metals could cause health complications, aside from having a crushed hand.
Q: did you do it yourself?
A: hell no. a client of mine is a doctor and we traded services.
Q: is this a hoax?
A: come on, I have better things to do than make things up. Here's a quick video I took with my crappy pentax digital camera, showing basic operation. A friend converted it to a much smaller standard QuickTime file for me. Here's a large, high res picture of the implant site as of 03-24-2005 4:00pm PST.
Q: I have questions, how can I contact you?
A: you have to pass a test first. don't worry, it's easy. take the domain name of this website, remove the top level domain, replace the period with an @ sign, then type the name of the greek god of dreams, followed by the letters "inc", and then place a period and the letters "com". if you can figure that out, you pass the test.
From his site (Score:3, Informative)
_______
Q: what about the mark of the beast!?
A: well, last time I checked, this chip wasn't required, I won't be killed for not having one, I don't need it to buy/sell things, and with billions of unique ID codes (numbers and letters), I don't see how each unique code could be calculated in some way to 666. bottom line, if this ever becomes an oppressive technology, required by some government, I can simply take it out.
- Revelation 13:16 - And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.
- Revelation 13:17 - And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
- Revelation 13:18 - Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. (666)
^^^^^^^
<nit pic>That book of the Bible is called The Revelation of St. John. No plural.</nit pic>
explanation on the 666 (Score:3, Informative)
Some interpretations say that the Latin name "Neron Caesar" also sums 666.
So please, ask a Bible scholar before jumping up to conclusions.
It's funny, you know... how people let tend to believe rumours and conspiracy theories, when they should be working on helping the poor and feeding the hungry (Hellooooo, Matthew 25 anyone?)
Re:From his site (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FAQ (Score:4, Informative)
Since a reasonably sized 125 kHz magnetic antenna could hardly be made directional, for long range scanning you'd need to create a strong and large field with a large high-power coil, but then you couldn't detect the modulation reliably. A small low-power reader coil in direct proximity of the chip has a much better S/N ratio, but it has to be close to the chip to work.
In other words, it would be very difficult to create a long-range reader, for technical reasons.
The RFID sniper rifle (Score:3, Informative)
What is the ID SNIPER rifle?
It is used to implant a GPS-microchip in the body of a human being, using a high powered sniper rifle as the long distance injector. The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second. At the same time a digital camcorder with a zoom-lense fitted within the scope will take a high-resolution picture of the target. This picture will be stored on a memory card for later image-analysis.
Re:Unnecessary surgery (Score:1, Informative)
Stop spreading misinformation moron!
(And if you're that afraid of dying from a little infection, You should really identify yourself as a hypochondriac wuss, not a diabetic).