I am not religious in any way, shape or form but I have only one thing to say about this...

ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS?!?

Something like this becoming mandatory would be one of my personal SHTF line crossings.

www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61357,00.html?tw=wn_polihead_2

When Cash Is Only Skin Deep

By Julia Scheeres  |   Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1

02:00 AM Nov. 25, 2003 PT

A Florida company has announced plans to develop a service that would allow consumers to pay for merchandise using microchips implanted under their skin.

Applied Digital Solutions CEO Scott Silverman said he believes the company's VeriChip -- a subdermal microchip that uses radio frequency signals to broadcast an identification number to a scanner -- could someday replace credit cards. Under Silverman's plan, rather than swiping a bank card to make purchases, micro-chipped customers would scan themselves using special readers.

Although the biochip payment plan may strike some people as a bit X Files-ish, financial transactions using radio frequency identification, or RFID, are already commonplace in some areas.

ExxonMobil's Speedpass, for example, is a key-chain fob containing an RFID tag that is linked to the holder's credit card; users wave the fob in front of a scanner integrated into a gas pump, and their fuel purchase is charged to their credit card account within seconds. Recently more than 400 McDonald's restaurants in the greater Chicago area started using the Speedpass system to allow customers to more conveniently buy their burgers and fries.

Meanwhile, MasterCard is testing an RFID-enabled credit card called PayPass. Like the Speedpass, the revamped card uses RFID to access the user's financial information and obviates the need for signatures or interactions with store clerks. In an interview with USA Today last week, a senior MasterCard executive said the company is considering integrating its RFID technology into other items, such as pens or earrings.

"Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything -- someday, maybe even under the skin," the executive said.

Which is where the VeriChip folks come in. RFID-enabled pens or jewelry could be easily lost or stolen, but RFID-enabled humans are bit harder to tamper with.

"We are the only ones out there offering implantable ID technology," said Silverman, who announced the "VeriPay" service during a speech Friday at ID World 2003 in Paris. "We believe the market will evolve to use our product."

Although he acknowledged that a final product may be a few years away, Silverman invited banks and credit card companies to collaborate in developing commercial applications using VeriPay. In the near future, Silverman said, the chip could be used as an added antifraud device in financial transactions -- ATM users could enter their PIN and get scanned, for example.

Richard M. Smith, a privacy and security consultant, said one of the biggest hurdles facing the VeriPay system might be the squeamishness of potential users.

"VeriPay will offer some conveniences over RFID credit cards, but I think most people will be creeped out with the idea of putting little radio transmitters in their bodies," Smith said.

Meanwhile, Applied Digital has attracted scorn from some fundamentalist Christians, who believe that VeriChip is the fabled "mark of the beast" of biblical lore. According to the book of Revelation, Satan will someday force people to "receive a mark" on their hands or foreheads in order to buy or sell.

"This is a gigantic step toward the mark of the beast, " said Gary Wohlscheid, whose website, These Last Days Ministries, keeps tabs on what many Christians believe are the signs of a coming religious Armageddon. His site is one of dozens that link VeriChip to the apocalyptic prophecy.

Applied Digital officials say such concern is unfounded because people are chipped voluntarily.

The VeriPay service is one of several the company has launched to promote its product. Applied Digital has positioned its microchip as an anti-kidnapping device (VeriKid), emergency ID system (VeriMed) and as a way to control access to secure buildings (VeriGuard).

never, i mean never, i will starve first

"This is a gigantic step toward the mark of the beast, " said Gary Wohlscheid, whose website, These Last Days Ministries, keeps tabs on what many Christians believe are the signs of a coming religious Armageddon. His site is one of dozens that link VeriChip to the apocalyptic prophecy."


Just wait some crazy christian guy is going to try to destroy the technology or something. Kinda like terminator but with ned flanders.

I partially agree, because I will not starve.

This is the one polarizing event that will tear this country apart along religeous lines. This issue will pit Christians against all others.

Echoing the above sentiment.....Never, me and mine will never take the mark, never.

[ROFL2]

Heh. I'd get one.

Then I'd go to a local veternarian I'm chummy with, have him remove it...and then I'd store it away somewhere.

I'd see if I can lay my hands on 4 or 5 different ones, too.

After all, having 4 or 5 different ID's might come in handy some day [;D]

Just have to make sure I don't wind up with a woman's ID...it'd be hard to pass myself off as Wanda Jones...

Oh great.  Really.  Now instead of just taking your wallet, a mugger will have to cut out your RFID chip.  Clever.  I guess the next step is state-sponsored surgical training for all would-be muggers; just think of the lives it will save!

This is a slow process we are experiencing,  very cunning on their part.

You can't throw a frog in a pot of boiling water as he'll jump right out.  Put him in the pot when the water is luke warm,  than turn the heat up slowly,  he will sit and cook for you, no problem.

That could be fun! Stick them in several stray cats, and then watch them go bonkers. After all, they will probably tell you that it will not be used to track your whereabouts. Na, I will never let them put one in me, even for the fun.

Its first appeal to the sheeple will be because
its so convenient. Then it will become mandatory.
Still others will scoff at the Bible and still not give
it a second thought. It will suck to be you soon.

Gee, I thought I said something about this very thing on the "Monitary system" thread that was posted here a few days ago.  Two to one odds that they'll have GPS tracking capabilities with this chip as well and they'll "sell it" as being good for the children. "You don't want your child to get kiddnapped and not be found , do you?  Then let us install one of these here little chips and we can track him/her if he/she comes up missing, oh don't worry, we'll only use it in an emergency."   If this crap goes down you'll find my happy ass in the deep woods living off the land making a run to town to steal what I need from time to time.  Ain't no way in HELL I'd take a chip.  

Ooo...an even BETTER idea...fish!

Stick it on a fish!

"Hey, where is that guy, anyway?" "Uhh...sir, according to our readout, he's somewhere off the coast of Novia Scotia..about 80 miles off the coast, to be precise..."

Xray device = no RFID chip

There's no way to protect the chip from malfunction or shorting in extreme EMF environments. Therefore, there's no failsafe way to assure a recipient that it will not need to be removed once it's been planted.

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. 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.

Rev 13: 16-17

ON A FISH!  dude, that is hilarious.  

At the rate computer technology is advancing, the chip would have to be replaced every six months.  Also, if stores have radio recievers to pick up the information from your ID chip, you can bet that theives will get the receivers too.  

That exec is full of shit.. this is not a viable plan.....
Put the chip in my phone- thanks anyway on the implant offer--- don't make me implant my foot in your ass.

Since Satan isn't likely to start passing out 'Mark of the Beast' stickers at a local shopping mall anytime soon (gee, that would fool everyone), and the Book of Revelations isn't real specific about what the 'Mark of the Beast', how can you be sure you aren't accepting it? Some fundamentalists believed that a Social Security Number was the MOTB.

I am not being critical of Christians here. I am simply stating that IMHO, technology in and of itself is not inherently good or evil. You are almost required to have a credit rating to function in modern society -- technological advances will likely cause an evolution of economic markets that require at least a minimal participation of all humans in order to function.

Even in the time of the Inqisition, the Roman Catholic Church forced people into declaring their allegiance with the doctrine and theology at swordpoint. I am certain that there were those who accepted the demands while continuing to practice their own faith in secret. Are they 'lost'? I find it quite unpalatable to believe that Yaweh is going to do anything other than look into the heart of each and every man on the planet when the 'day of reckoning' comes.

I won't accept any body-integrated technology for a few, practical reasons: security (of the chip in me and of the system as a whole), advances in the technology or damage to the chip which requires additional invasive procedures, etc...

If people want to believe that having a chip is the MOTB, that's their right. If they want to believe they won't enter heaven because they have accepted some symbolic allegiance to the Anti-Christ, I can understand that -- but, it's a huge leap of logic to equate this technology with anything more than another sign of the times.