Implants

There's an article at the bottom of this e-mail from the New Scientist from 
November.  I admit I picked up on this from News Quirks in the Seven Days 
newspaper.  

Applied Digital Solutions makes chips to inject into pets and livestock, and 
scanners to activate the chips.  Schering-Plough distributes the chips and 
scanners in the U.S. Here's an article from a few weeks ago that talks about a 
subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions about the possibility of implementing 
a national livestock id program using the injectable VeriChip.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37347

ADS's intent, if you follow the article below, is to retool the chip to inject 
into humans.  They are not waiting to get FDA permission to do human 
experimentation.  According to an article from South Florida CEO magazine by 
Rochelle Broder-Singer (Aug. 2003),

'In the meantime, [CEO Scott] Silverman has not been idle, pushing the 
VeriChip into applications--and places--where the FDA has no jurisdiction. He 
has negotiated deals for VeriChip distributors in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, 
Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Russia, among others. In the US, he's 
targeting government agencies, which could use the chip for everything from 
security to a replacement for military dog tags. "If and when one of those 
relationships yields a contract for VeriChip, it will be a big day for 
Applied," he says.
..
Next on the list: developing a GPS tracking system so the chip can be used to 
locate kidnap victims in the Americas.'

 
Finding kidnap victims?  How altruistic.  It's more likely the technology will 
be abused, used to keep tabs on the 'enemies' of governments, organizations, 
and even corporations.

There have been problems in the past with cattle implants; they stop 
transmitting after a couple of years.  The implant is a foreign object, and 
the body, when presented with an object it cannot expel, encysts it in 
tissue.  This excess tissue can cause a bulge in the skin.  (Having said this, 
cattle have thicker skins than humans, and tags are often read in less-than-
ideal conditions.)  Fine, sounds stupid, big deal, but someone will be able to 
tell you're carrying a credit card by the low-tech option of looking at you.

'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.'

It might be 'impossible to lose', but what prevents its violent removal?  I'd 
rather someone took my wallet.  Furthermore, even if I stopped using my credit 
card, information can be stored and retrieved about me, and I would not know 
the full content unless I had a personal scanner. (Although this article 
simply talks about simple information, such as a credit card number, medical 
information and biometric data can be stored on them as well.)

ADS also assumes its products (and there are other companies developing these 
technologies, including Global Data Solutions Inc., founded by a former CEO of 
ADS) are uncrackable.  Dangerous assumption.  Every system can be defeated, 
given enough determined and talented people.

Color me troubled.


-x





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."
 
  
Celeste Biever
 


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