Current Events - Will you recognize the Mark of the Beast??
“ . . . And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 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 . . . .”
Bio-chip implant arrives for cashless transactions
Announcement at global security confab
unveils syringe-injectable ID microchip
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35766
Posted: November 21, 2003
7:42 p.m. Eastern
By Sherrie Gossett
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.co
At a global security conference held today in Paris, an American company announced a new syringe-injectable microchip implant for humans, designed to be used as a fraud-proof payment method for cash and credit-card transactions.
The chip implant is being presented as an advance over credit cards and smart cards, which, absent biometrics and appropriate safeguard technologies, are subject to theft, resulting in identity fraud.
Identity
fraud costs the banking and financial industry some $48 billion a year, and
consumers $5 billion, according to 2002 Federal Trade Commission estimates.
Verichip Verichip reader Verichip Pocket
Reader
In his speech today at the ID World 2003 conference in Paris, France, Scott R. Silverman, CEO of Applied Digital Solutions, called the chip a "loss-proof solution" and said that the chip's "unique under-the-skin format" could be used for a variety of identification applications in the security and financial worlds.
The company will have to compete, though, with organizations using just a fingerprint scan for similar applications.
The ID World Conference, held yesterday and today at the Charles de Gaulle Hilton, focused on current and future applications of radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies, biometrics, smart cards and data collection.
The company's various "VeriChips" are RFID chips, which contain a unique identification number and can carry other personal data about the implantee. When radio-frequency energy passes from a scanner, it energizes the chip, which is passive (not independently powered), and which then emits a radio-frequency signal transmitting the chip's information to the reader, which in turn links with a database.
ADS has previously touted its radio frequency identification (RFID) chips for secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications. The company has also developed proprietary hand-held readers and portal readers that can scan data when an implantee enters a building or room.
The "cashless society" application is not new – it has been discussed previously by Applied Digital. Today's speech, however, represented the first formal public announcement by the company of such a program.
In announcing VeriPay to ID World delegates, Silverman stated the implant has "enormous marketplace potential" and invited banking and credit companies to partner with VeriChip Corporation (a subsidiary of ADS) in developing specific commercial applications beginning with pilot programs and market tests.
Applied Digital's announcement in Paris suggested wireless technologies, RFID development, new software solutions, smart-card applications and subdermal implants might one day merge as the ultimate solution for a world fraught with identity theft, threatened by terrorism, buffeted by cash-strapped governments and law-enforcement agencies looking for easy data-collection, and corporations interested in the marketing bonanza that cutting-edge identification, payment, and location-based technologies can afford.
Cashless payment systems are now part of a larger technology development subset: government identification experiments that seek to combine cashless payment applications with national ID information on media (such as a "smart" card), which contain a whole host of government, personal, employment and commercial data and applications on a single, contactless RFID chip.
In some scenarios, government-corporate coalitions are advocating such a chip be used by employees also to access entry to their workplace and the company computer network, reducing the cost outlay of the corporations for individual ID cards.
Malaysia's "MyKad" national ID "smart" card is the foremost example.
Meanwhile, privacy advocates have expressed concern over RFID technology rollouts, citing database concerns and the specter of individuals' RFID chips being read without permission by people who have their own hand-held readers.
Several privacy and civil liberties groups have recently called for a voluntary moratorium on RFID tagging "until a formal technology assessment process involving all stakeholders, including consumers, can take place." Signatories to the petition include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Privacy International and the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a British think tank.
Commenting on today's announcement, Richard Smith, a computer industry consultant, referred to what some "netizens" are already calling "chipectomies": "VeriChips can still be stolen. It's just a bit gruesome when to think how the crooks will do these kinds of robberies."
Citing MasterCard's PayPass, Smith pointed out that most of the major credit-card companies are looking at RFID chips to make credit cards quicker, easier, and safer to use.
"The big problem is money," said Smith. "It will take billions of dollars to upgrade the credit-card networks from magstripe readers to RFID readers. During the transition, a credit card is going to need both a magstripe and an RFID chip so that it is universally accepted."
Some industry professionals advocate having citizens pay for combined national ID/cashless pay chips, which would be embedded in a chosen medium.
Identification technologies using RFID can take a wide variety of physical forms and show no sign yet of coalescing into a single worldwide standard.
Prior to today's announcement, Art Kranzley, senior vice president at MasterCard, commented on the Pay Pass system in a USA Today interview: "We're certainly looking at designs like key fobs. It could be in a pen or a pair of earrings. Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything – someday, maybe even under the skin."
Related stories:
Miami journalist gets 'chipped'
SEC investigating Applied Digital
YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE ...
Paying for drinks with wave of the hand
Club-goers in Spain get implanted chips for
ID, payment purposes
Posted: April 14, 2004
Being recognized has never been easier for VIP patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain.
Like a scene out of a science-fiction movie, all it takes is a syringe-injected microchip implant for the beautiful men and women of the nightclub scene to breeze past a "reader" that recognizes their identity, credit balance and even automatically opens doors to exclusive areas of the club for them.
They can buy drinks and food with a wave of their hand and don't need to worry about losing a credit card or wallet.
"By simply passing by our reader, the Baja Beach Club will know who you are and what your credit balance is," Conrad K. Chase explains. Chase is director of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona.
"From the moment of their implantation they will also have free entry and access to the VIP area," he said.
In the popular club, which boasts a dance floor that can accommodate 3,000, streamlined services and convenience matter to Chase's VIP customers.
Baja Beach Clubs International is the first firm to employ the "VeriPay System," developed by Applied Digital's VeriChip Corporation and announced at an international conference in Paris last year. The company touts this application of the chip implant as an advance over credit cards and smart cards, which, absent biometrics and appropriate safeguard technologies, are subject to theft resulting in identity fraud.
Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions (NASDAQ:ADSXD) unveiled the original VeriChip immediately after the 9-11 tragedy. Similar to pet identification chips, the VeriChip is a syringe-injectable radio frequency identification microchip that can be read from a few feet away by either a hand-held scanner or by the implantee walking through a "portal" scanner. Information can be wirelessly written to the chip, which contains a unique 10-digit identification number.
Media seized on the novelty factor of the chip implant, driving it to worldwide headlines in 2001.
Last year, Art Kranzley, senior vice president at MasterCard, speculated on possible future electronic payment media: "We're certainly looking at designs like key fobs. It could be in a pen or a pair of earrings. Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything – someday, maybe even under the skin."
Chase calls the chip implant the wave of the future.
The nightclub director has been implanted along with stars from the Spanish version of the TV show "Big Brother."
"I know many people who want to be implanted," he said. "Actually, almost everybody has piercings, tattoos or silicone."
Will the implant only be of use at the Baja?
"The objective of this technology is to bring an ID system to a global level that will destroy the need to carry ID documents and credit cards," Chase said.
During a recent American radio interview, Chase said the CEO of VeriChip, Dr. Keith Bolton, had told him that the company's goal was to market the VeriChip as a global implantable identification system.
With only 900 people implanted worldwide, though, the global mandate isn't exactly around the corner, and current applications are extremely limited. [Beamer note: it was only 18 people six months ago].
Chase added, "The VeriChip that we implant at Baja will not only be for the Baja, but is also useful for whatever other enterprise that makes use of this technology."
He also alluded to plans for FN Herstal, which manufactures Browning and Smith and Wesson firearms, to develop an implant-firearm system that would make a firearm functional only to the individual implanted with its corresponding microchip. A scanner in the gun would be designed to recognize the owner.
Chase's mention of the FN Herstal-Verichip partnership came a full week before it's formal announcement by Applied Digital yesterday.
Chase believes all gun owners should be required to have a microchip implanted in their hand to be able to own a gun. While yesterday's Associated Press story on the prototype is primarily from the angle of police usage, WND reported two years ago that from the he outset of the company's acquisition of its "Digital Angel" implant patent – said to be GPS trackable – Applied touted the implant as a potential universal method of gun control.
Chase also claimed that the VeriChip company had told him that the Italian government was preparing to implant government workers.
"We are the only company today offering human implantable ID technology," said Scott R. Silverman, chairman and chief executive officer of Applied Digital Solutions. "We believe the market opportunity for this technology is substantial, and high-profile successes such as in Spain will serve as catalysts for broader adoption."
Since 1999, the Applied Digital Solutions has boasted that it also has a GPS-trackable chip in the works, but four years later the device has yet to come to market. Some mechanical engineers contend such a device requires substantial antenna length and that creating a self-contained unit in the space of a tiny chip is virtually impossible. In addition, questions of accuracy of new GPS consumer items have been raised by the press. A previous Wall Street Journal "road test" of different manufacturers' GPS watches and devices for children had some kids tracked to the Sahara Desert, rather than New York City where they were.
Despite the kinks that may need to be worked out, security of loved ones and personal property remains one of the chief marketing focuses of personal GPS devices and RFID chip firms.
Meanwhile, in Barcelona the VeriChip is gaining a following of enthusiastic "early adopters."
"Everyone embraced the electronic payment application," Chase said. "My customers like the fact that they do not have to carry a credit card or ID card with them. With the VeriPay system, they no longer have to worry about their credit cards getting lost or stolen."
Related stories:
'Spy chips' for nation's livestock?
Bio-chip implant arrives for cashless transactions
Miami journalist gets 'chipped'
SEC investigating Applied Digital
