What's your star sign, baby? Wait, let me scan you.
36D, hey not bad! Wanna know how big my ***** is? scan _me_!
***
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994429
Credit-card implant provokes criticism
12:05 27 November 03
NewScientist.com news service
An under-the-skin implant that makes credit card payments via radio signals
is attracting widespread criticism from technologists, privacy lobbyists and
security experts.
Advanced Digital Solutions in Palm Beach, Florida, announced a plan to turn
its rice-grain-sized Verichips into a method of payment at ID World 2003 in
Paris, France recently. The company's previous proposal to implant GPS
systems inside people also prompted scepticism.
But ADS claims its Veripay system, which is based on radio frequency
identification (RFID) technology, would end the problems of identity theft
and make it impossible to lose your credit card.
The injectable chip could also one day store PC and cellphone log-ins,
medical information, and wireless car and building entry codes, says ADS's
Matthew Cossolotto, who is already "chipped up" with the device.
However, Veripay's opponents say that it has technological limitations,
would compromise the wearer's privacy and could be less - not more - secure
than a conventional credit card.
Identity number
A RFID tag is a device that emits a unique identity number when queried by a
radio frequency "reader". The signal from the reader both activates and
powers the tag. The tags are becoming increasingly popular, particularly
with big companies managing their stock.
Thirty Mexican patients were implanted with RFID chips in July 2003, to
allow instant access to their medical records and "sub-dermal" tags have
been used to track pets and livestock for over 10 years.
The tags are also already used for making wireless credit card payments. For
example, ExxonMobil has attached tags to key-rings, to speed up gas station
transactions for its customers. But ADS is the first company to propose
sub-dermal chips as a means to secure or make financial payments.
Matt Reynolds of ThingMagic, a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts
specialising in "embedded intelligence", including RFID, is sceptical. "If
the security was one day cracked, who would want to go in and get another
implant?" he says.
Bogus receiver
Richard Smith, an internet security and privacy consultant in Boston,
Massachusetts, says the device poses a security risk. The implanted tag
could potentially be accessed by a bogus reader, unknown to the owner, and
the signal "cloned".
Cossolotto argues that decoding and reproducing the signal would not be
trivial. "Right now people walk around with all kinds if important
information in their pockets," he told New Scientist. "This is a step
forward for security - Veripay is not easily lost or stolen."
Yet this is precisely why Katherine Albrecht, the founder of the consumer
advocacy group CASPIAN, finds Veripay frightening: "It's a lot easier to
cancel and credit card account than it is to gouge a chip out of your arm."
She worries that the chips will provide tracking opportunities for
advertisers wishing to know the intimate shopping habits of particular
consumers.
Farther ahead, she says that the tags will provide a determined person with
the means to track your every move. Beth Given, of the Privacy Rights
Clearinghouse in San Diego, California, agrees: "If we establish a robust
credit card network based on RFID chips implanted under the skin, we are
also creating the infra-structure for potential government surveillance."
--
Adolf Hitler
Der Fuhrer
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