Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s … a drone, and it’s watching you. That’s what privacy advocates fear from a bill Congress passed this week to make it easier for the government to fly unmanned spy planes in U.S. airspace.

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The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

The FAA Reauthorization Act, which President Obama is expected to sign, also orders the Federal Aviation Administration to develop regulations for the testing and licensing of commercial drones by 2015.

Privacy advocates say the measure will lead to widespread use of drones for electronic surveillance by police agencies across the country and eventually by private companies as well.

“There are serious policy questions on the horizon about privacy and surveillance, by both government agencies and commercial entities,” said Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also is “concerned about the implications for surveillance by government agencies,” said attorney Jennifer Lynch.

The provision in the legislation is the fruit of “a huge push by lawmakers and the defense sector to expand the use of drones” in American airspace, she added.

According to some estimates, the commercial drone market in the United States could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars once the FAA clears their use.

The agency projects that 30,000 drones could be in the nation’s skies by 2020.

The highest-profile use of drones by the United States has been in the CIA’s armed Predator-drone program, which targets al Qaeda terrorist leaders. But the vast majority of U.S. drone missions, even in war zones, are flown for surveillance. Some drones are as small as model aircraft, while others have the wingspan of a full-size jet.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. use of drone surveillance has grown so rapidly that it has created a glut of video material to be analyzed.

The legislation would order the FAA, before the end of the year, to expedite the process through which it authorizes the use of drones by federal, state and local police and other agencies. The FAA currently issues certificates, which can cover multiple flights by more than one aircraft in a particular area, on a case-by-case basis.

The Department of Homeland Security is the only federal agency to discuss openly its use of drones in domestic airspace.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, an agency within the department, operates nine drones, variants of the CIA’s feared Predator. The aircraft, which are flown remotely by a team of 80 fully qualified pilots, are used principally for border and counternarcotics surveillance under four long-term FAA certificates.

Officials say they can be used on a short-term basis for a variety of other public-safety and emergency-management missions if a separate certificate is issued for that mission.

“It’s not all about surveillance,” Mr. Aftergood said.

India has launched an ambitious program to fit each of its 1.2 billion residents with an Unique identification number (UID). Each number will be tied into three pieces of biometric data: fingerprints (all ten digits), iris scans (both eyes), and a picture of the face.

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The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

Starting this month, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will begin processing people in various locations around the country. UIDAI aims to slowly roll out the program through February of 2011 and to ID 600 million people in the next four years! This is a mammoth program. While residents are not mandated to get a UID, a growing list of services including social welfare and even some bank accounts will soon require the identification number. If successful, this will be the first biometrically verified universal ID implemented on a national scale. India is forging new ground, drawing both fears and hopes of what a national ID number may bring with it.
Ostensibly the UIDAI was formed, and the idea of UID green-lighted, to help those 440 million Indian people who were found to be below the poverty level in 2002. The nation has an extensive series of social welfare programs – everything from medical support to home heating fuel subsidies – but many of these services are ripe with corruption and bureaucratic stagnation. Many of India’s poorest citizens do not have ID cards, bank accounts, or even addresses that they can use to register for social services. Often the money for these programs ends up in the hands of middle class families tricking the system by using false identification schemes. With the UID, India hopes to give every resident a means of accessing welfare services as well as cut down on fraud. To the UIDAI, the purpose of a national ID is to enable the government to get help to those who need it.
Yet the UID is going to be used for much more than social welfare programs. The UIDAI is in discussions with many institutions (banks, local/state governments, etc) to allow them to use the UID as a means of identity verification. These institutions will pay the UIDAI some fee to cover costs and generate revenue. There seems to be little doubt that once it is established, the UID will become a preferred method (if not the preferred method) of identification in India.

There, of course, will be some advantages to this. Drivers from one state will not need, nor be able to, acquire licenses from another state as their information will be universally accessible in the national database. Migrant workers, displaced poor, and refugees can all be confident that their UID identifies them no matter where they go in their country.
Ultimately I wouldn’t be surprised if the UID, with its biometric data, could be used as a means of payment (when linked to a bank account), or as an access key to homes and cars. Purchase a meal with your fingerprint and unlock your door with the twinkle in your eye. Similar results could be expected in other nations that adopted biometric identification systems.
To privacy advocates, however, the very concept of a national ID number is anathema. Putting all the personal information in one system opens the possibilities that it can be used for nefarious purposes – everything from identification fraud to genocide. The inclusion of biometric data such as fingerprints and iris scans increase the accuracy of such a system but also lends it an air of oppressive technologically-enabled surveillance.

In order to alleviate some concerns, the UIDAI has highlighted ways that the UID is less binding than it may appear on the surface. First, they emphasize that acquiring the UID is not mandated. Though, as we’ve said, the number of benefits that will be exclusively offered through the UID will make it so desirable as to be effectively mandated. The UIDAI also points out that the UID is just a number, not an ID card. Each Indian state will still be responsible for issuing licenses and identification cards. While these cards are going to reference the UID, they may or may not contain the biometric data and other personal information gathered during UID registration. The actual UID number will not contain any intelligence; that is, it will not code for anything. It’s only a random string of digits, making it harder for hackers to exploit the system. UID’s will be given to every resident of India, no matter their citizen status.
The registration process has also been made transparent. When a resident is interviewed for the UID, they can see everything that the processor does via an outwardly facing computer screen attached to their laptop. Residents provide their name, date of birth, gender, father’s UID (if applicable), mother’s UID (if applicable), and address (if applicable). Fingerprints, picture, and iris scans are collected at the same time.
I understand the creepiness factor associated with a government agency registering everyone, giving them a number, and scanning their fingers and eyes. There’s some chilling Big Brother-like aspects to this whole affair. Yet the problem of insuring that resources make it to India’s poor is very real, and there’s the strong possibility that the UID will be empowering and democratizing to the 440 million Indians below the poverty level. It will take years before we know if the benefits of the UID program will outweigh the abuses it could create. The debate on privacy and national ID continues, but in India it looks like the UIDAI is already moving towards victory.

Navigation-and-emergency-services company OnStar is notifying its six million account holders that it will keep a complete accounting of the speed and location of OnStar-equipped vehicles, even for drivers who discontinue monthly service.

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The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

OnStar began e-mailing customers Monday about its update to the privacy policy, which grants OnStar the right to sell that GPS-derived data in an anonymized format.

Adam Denison, a spokesman for the General Motors subsidiary, said OnStar does not currently sell customer data, but it reserves that right. He said both the new and old privacy policies allow OnStar to chronicle a vehicle’s every movement and its speed, though it’s not clear where that’s stated in the old policy.

“What’s changed [is that if] you want to cancel your OnStar service, we are going to maintain a two-way connection to your vehicle unless the customer says otherwise,” Denison said in a telephone interview.

The connection will continue, he said, to make it “easier to re-enroll” in the program, which charges plans from $19 to $29 monthly for help with navigation and emergencies. Canceling customers must opt out of the continued surveillance monitoring program, according to the privacy policy.

The privacy changes take effect in December, Denison said, adding that the policy reinforces the company’s right to sell anonymized data.

“We hear from organizations periodically requesting our information,” he said.

He said an example of how the data might be used would be for the Michigan Department of Transportation “to get a feel for traffic usage on a specific section of freeway.” The policy also allows the data to be used for marketing purposes by OnStar and vehicle manufacturers.

Collecting location and speed data via GPS might also create a treasure trove of data that could be used in criminal and civil cases. One could also imagine an eager police chief acquiring the data to issue speeding tickets en masse.

Jonathan Zdziarski, an Ohio forensics scientist, blogged about the new terms Tuesday. In a telephone interview, he said he was canceling his service and making sure he was being disconnected from OnStar’s network.

He said the new privacy policy goes too far.

“They added a bullet point allowing them to collect any data for any purpose,” he said.

A hair-thin electronic patch that adheres to the skin like a temporary tattoo could transform medical sensing, computer gaming and even spy operations, according to a US study published Thursday.

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The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

The micro-electronics technology, called an epidermal electronic system (EES), was developed by an international team of researchers from the United States, China and Singapore, and is described in the journal Science.

“It’s a technology that blurs the distinction between electronics and biology,” said co-author John Rogers, a professor in materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Our goal was to develop an electronic technology that could integrate with the skin in a way that is mechanically and physiologically invisible to the user.”

The patch could be used instead of bulky electrodes to monitor brain, heart and muscle tissue activity and when placed on the throat it allowed users to operate a voice-activated video game with better than 90 percent accuracy.

“This type of device might provide utility for those who suffer from certain diseases of the larynx,” said Rogers. “It could also form the basis of a sub-vocal communication capability, suitable for covert or other uses.”

The wireless device is nearly weightless and requires so little power it can fuel itself with miniature solar collectors or by picking up stray or transmitted electromagnetic radiation, the study said.

Less than 50-microns thick — slightly thinner than a human hair — the devices are able to adhere to the skin without glue or sticky material.

“Forces called van der Waals interactions dominate the adhesion at the molecular level, so the electronic tattoos adhere to the skin without any glues and stay in place for hours,” said the study.

Northwestern University engineer Yonggang Huang said the patch was “as soft as the human skin.”

Rogers and Huang have been working together on the technology for the past six years. They have already designed flexible electronics for hemispherical camera sensors and are now focused on adding battery power and other energy options.

The devices might find future uses in patients with sleep apnea, babies who need neonatal care and for making electronic bandages to help skin heal from wounds and burns.

Senior clerics in Greece have told the state in no uncertain terms that vigilance is required to prevent the antichrist from making a manifestation on new ID cards to be issued next year.

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The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

The authorities must ensure that the cards contain no mention of the number 666, which in Greek Orthodox tradition is associated with the antichrist, the Church of Greece said in a statement.

“In no way should the ‘citizen card’ contain the number 666, either in visible or invisible manner,” the Holy Synod, governing council of the Church of Greece, said after a meeting between canon scholars, legal experts, computer specialists and government officials.

“The Church is obliged to protect personal freedom and defend the integrity of the faith,” the Holy Synod added.

State planners have pledged to take the observation on board, it said.

The new cards are to be finalised early next year.

The Church is officially part of the state in Greece.

Frequently criticised as backward and superstitious by liberal circles, Orthodox custodians strongly adhere to tradition surrounding the number 666, which appears in the biblical Book of Revelation, believed to have been written by the Apostle John in the first century AD.

Also known as the figure of the Beast, the number has led ultra orthodox clerics to oppose the use of bar codes on goods, as well as electronic checks carried out under the border-free Schengen Area of which Greece is a member.

A decade ago, the Church of Greece had fought tooth and nail to prevent the removal of religious affiliation from the previous batch of identity cards issued to Greeks, even organising a referendum on the issue.

At the time, religious minorities such as Catholics and Jews had successfully argued that the inclusion of faith on the cards could expose the bearer to discrimination.

The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

The new ID card will contain all personal data on the security chip that can be accessed over a wireless connection.

The new card allows German authorities to identify people with speed and accuracy, the government said. These authorities include the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities.

German companies like Infineon and the Dutch NXP, which operates a large scale development and manufacturing base in Hamburg, Germany are global leaders in making RFID security chips. The new electronic ID card, which will gradually replace the old mandatory German ID cards, is one of the largest scale roll-outs of RFID cards with extended official and identification functionality.

The card will also have extended functionality, including the ability to enable citizens to identify themselves in the internet by using the ID card with a reading device at home. After registering an online account bonded to the ID card, are able to do secure online shopping, downloading music and most importantly interact with government authorities online, for example.

Biometric passports in a number of countries are equipped with RFID chips, containing a digital picture and fingerprints, and have been around for nearly 5 years after the United States required such passports for any person entering the country.

There are some concerns that the use of RFID chips will pose a security or privacy risk, however.

Early versions of the electronic passports, using RFID chips with a protocol called “basic access control” (BAC), where successfully hacked by university researchers and security experts.

The German ID card is using the BAC protocol as well, but only for the basic data which is printed on the front of the card, the picture and the name. Other fields are protected by a stronger proprietary protocol.

Illegal access to the stored data would be useful to create perfectly forged passports and for criminals to use hijacked identities for supposedly secure transactions online.

The responsible German ministry, however, cites the many advantages of employing a RFID chip, such as a longer card lifetime, the option to connect them to other future devices like RFID-reading mobile phones, and saving cost by being compatible with the existing infrastructure for the RFID passports.

Researchers have found that implanted identity chips can pick up computer viruses.

(See video by clicking Continue reading below.)

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

Reading University’s Mark Gasson conducted an experiment to show how radio frequency identity (RFID) chips could become electronically infected.

He explained to Rory Cellan-Jones the risks involved with the new technology including its effects on medical implants such as pacemakers.

Scientists currently tag animals to study their behavior and protect the endangered, but some futurists wonder whether all humans should be tagged too.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

Scientists tag animals to monitor their behavior and keep track of endangered species. Now some futurists are asking whether all of mankind should be tagged too. Looking for a loved one? Just Google his microchip.

The chips, called radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, emit a simple radio signal akin to a bar code, anywhere, anytime. Futurists say they can be easily implanted under the skin on a person’s arm.

Already, the government of Mexico has surgically implanted the chips, the size of a grain of rice, in the upper arms of staff at the attorney general’s office in Mexico City. The chips contain codes that, when read by scanners, allow access to a secure building, and prevent trespassing by drug lords.

In research published in the International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, Taiwanese researchers postulate that the tags could help save lives in the aftermath of a major earthquake. “Office workers would have their identity badges embedded in their RFID tags, while visitors would be given temporary RFID tags when they enter the lobby,” they suggest. Similarly, identity tags for hospital staff and patients could embed RFID technology.

“Our world is becoming instrumented,” IBM’s chairman and CEO, Samuel J. Palmisano said at an industry conference last week. “Today, there are nearly a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent. There are 30 billion radio RFID tags produced globally.”

Having one in every person could relieve anxiety for parents and help save lives, or work on a more mundane level by unlocking doors with the wave of a hand or starting a parked car — that’s how tech enthusiast Amal Graafstra (his hands are pictured above) uses his. But this secure, “instrumented” future is frightening for many civil liberties advocates. Even adding an RFID chip to a driver’s license or state ID card raises objections from concerned voices.

Tracking boxes and containers on a ship en route from Hong Kong is OK, civil libertarians say. So is monitoring cats and dogs with a chip surgically inserted under their skin. But they say tracking people is over-the-top — even though the FDA has approved the devices as safe in humans and animals.

“We are concerned about the implantation of identity chips,” said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the speech, privacy and technology program at the American Civil Liberties Union. He puts the problem plainly: “Many people find the idea creepy.”

“RFID tags make the perfect tracking device,” Stanley said. “The prospect of RFID chips carried by all in identity papers means that any individual’s presence at a given location can be detected or recorded simply through the installation of an invisible RFID reader.”

There are a number of entrepreneurial companies marketing radio tracking technologies, including Positive ID, Datakey and MicroChips. Companies started marketing the idea behind these innovative technologies a few years ago, as excellent devices for tracking everyone, all the time.

Following its first use in an emergency room in 2006, VeriChip touted the success of the subdermal chip. “We are very proud of how the VeriMed Patient Identification performed during this emergency situation. This event illustrates the important role that the VeriChip can play in medical care,” Kevin McLaughlin, President and CEO of VeriChip, said at the time.

“Because of their increasing sophistication and low cost, these sensors and devices give us, for the first time ever, real-time instrumentation of a wide range of the world’s systems — natural and man-made,” said IBM’s Palmisano.

But are human’s “systems” to be measured?

Grassroots groups are fretting loudly over civil liberties implications of the devices, threatening to thwart their development for mass-market, human tracking applications.

“If such readers proliferate, and there would be many incentives to install them, we would find ourselves in a surveillance society of 24/7 mass tracking,” said the ACLU’s Stanley.

The controversy extends overseas, too. David Cameron, Britain’s new prime minister, has promised to scrap a proposed national ID card system and biometrics for passports and the socialized health service, options that were touted by the Labour Party.

“We share a common commitment to civil liberties, and to getting rid — immediately — of Labour’s ID card scheme,” said Cameron according to ZDNet UK.

These controversies are impacting developers. One firm, Positive ID, has dropped the idea of tracking regular folks with its chip technology. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had filed a patent for a new medical device to monitor blood glucose levels in diabetics. The technology it initially developed to track the masses is now just a “legacy” system for the Del Ray Beach, Fla., firm.

“We are developing an in-vivo, glucose sensing microchip,” Allison Tomek, senior vice president of investor relations and corporate communications, told FoxNews.com. “In theory it will be able to detect glucose levels. We are testing the glucose sensor portion of the product. It will contain a sensor with an implantable RFID chip. Today’s patent filing was really about our technology to create a transformational electronic interface to measure chemical change in blood.”

Gone are the company’s previous ambitions. “Our board of directors wants a new direction,” says Tomek. “Rather than focus on identification only, we think there is much more value in taking this to a diagnostic platform. That’s the future of the technology — not the simple ID.”

The company even sold off some of its individual-style tracking technology to Stanley Black and Decker for $48 million, she said.

These medical applications are not quite as controversial as the tracking technologies. The FDA in 2004 approved another chip developed by Positive ID’s predecessor company, VeriChip, which stores a code — similar to the identifying UPC code on products sold in retail stores — that releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over the chip. Those codes, placed on chips and scanned at the physician’s office or the hospital, would disclose a patient’s medical history.

But like smart cards, these medical chips can still be read from a distance by predators. A receiving device can “speak” to the chip remotely, without any need for physical contact, and get whatever information is on it. And that’s causing concern too.

The bottom line is simple, according to the ACLU: “Security questions have not been addressed,” said Stanley. And until those questions are resolved, this technology may remain in the labs.

Rice, Korean collaboration produces printable tag that could replace bar codes

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

Long lines at store checkouts could be history if a new technology created in part at Rice University comes to pass.

Rice researchers, in collaboration with a team led by Gyou-jin Cho at Sunchon National University in Korea, have come up with an inexpensive, printable transmitter that can be invisibly embedded in packaging. It would allow a customer to walk a cart full of groceries or other goods past a scanner on the way to the car; the scanner would read all items in the cart at once, total them up and charge the customer’s account while adjusting the store’s inventory.

More advanced versions could collect all the information about the contents of a store in an instant, letting a retailer know where every package is at any time.

The technology reported in the March issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices is based on a carbon-nanotube-infused ink for ink-jet printers first developed in the Rice lab of James Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. The ink is used to make thin-film transistors, a key element in radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that can be printed on paper or plastic.

“We are going to a society where RFID is a key player,” said Cho, a professor of printed electronics engineering at Sunchon, who expects the technology to mature in five years. Cho and his team are developing the electronics as well as the roll-to-roll printing process that, he said, will bring the cost of printing the tags down to a penny apiece and make them ubiquitous.

RFID tags are almost everywhere already. The tiny electronic transmitters are used to identify and track products and farm animals. They’re in passports, library books and devices that let drivers pass through tollbooths without digging for change.

The technology behind RFID goes back to the 1940s, when Léon Theremin, inventor of the self-named electronic music instrument heard in so many ’50s science fiction and horror movies, came up with a spy tool for the Soviet Union that drew power from and retransmitted radio waves.

RFID itself came into being in the 1970s and has been widely adopted by the Department of Defense and industry to track shipping containers as they make their way around the world, among many other uses.

But RFID tags to date are largely silicon-based. Paper or plastic tags printed as part of a package would cut costs dramatically. Cho expects his roll-to-roll technique, which uses a gravure process rather than ink-jet printers, to replace the bar codes now festooned on just about everything you can buy.

Cho, Tour and their teams reported in the journal a three-step process to print one-bit tags, including the antenna, electrodes and dielectric layers, on plastic foil. Cho’s lab is working on 16-bit tags that would hold a more practical amount of information and be printable on paper as well.

Cho came across Tour’s inks while spending a sabbatical at Rice in 2005. “Professor Tour first recommended we use single-walled carbon nanotubes for printing thin-film transistors,” Cho said.

Tour’s lab continues to support the project in an advisory role and occasionally hosts Cho’s students. Tour said Rice owns half of the patent, still pending, upon which all of the technology is based. “Gyou-jin has carried the brunt of this, and it’s his sole project,” Tour said. “We are advisers and we still send him the raw materials” — the single-walled carbon nanotubes produced at Rice.

Printable RFIDs are practical because they’re passive. The tags power up when hit by radio waves at the right frequency and return the information they contain. “If there’s no power source, there’s no lifetime limit. When they receive the RF signal, they emit,” Tour said.

There are several hurdles to commercialization. First, the device must be reduced to the size of a bar code, about a third the size of the one reported in the paper, Tour said. Second, its range must increase.

“Right now, the emitter has to be pretty close to the tags, but it’s getting farther all the time,” he said. “The practical distance to have it ring up all the items in your shopping cart is a meter. But the ultimate would be to signal and get immediate response back from every item in your store – what’s on the shelves, their dates, everything.

“At 300 meters, you’re set – you have real-time information on every item in a warehouse. If something falls behind a shelf, you know about it. If a product is about to expire, you know to move it to the front – or to the bargain bin.”

Tour allayed concerns about the fate of nanotubes in packaging. “The amount of nanotubes in an RFID tag is probably less than a picogram. That means you can produce one trillion of them from a gram of nanotubes – a miniscule amount. Our HiPco reactor produces a gram of nanotubes an hour, and that would be enough to handle every item in every Walmart.

“In fact, more nanotubes occur naturally in the environment, so it’s not even fair to say the risk is minimal. It’s infinitesimal.”

Co-authors of the paper include Rice graduate student Ashley Leonard; Minhun Jung, Jinsoo Noh and Gwangyong Lee of Sunchon National University; and Jaeyoung Kim, Namsoo Lim, Chaemin Lim, Junseok Kim, Kyunghwan Jung and Hwiwon Kang of the Printed Electronics Research Center, Paru Corp., Sunchon, Korea.

Read the paper at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=5406115

Forbidding companies from forcing employees to have microchips implanted in their bodies isn’t just about protecting personal freedom; it might ward off the biblical “mark of the beast,” according to a lawmaker who’s pushing for such a ban in Virginia.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

The Mark

“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark•Strongs 5480: charagma, khar´-ag-mah; from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or scupltured figure (statue):—graven, mark. , or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
—Revelation 13:17

The state House overwhelmingly approved Del. Mark Cole’s bill Wednesday. Several other states already have similar laws or are considering them.

Cole said the right to privacy was the main reason he sponsored the bill. “I just think you should have the right to control your own body,” Cole told The Washington Post. Some liberal bloggers were struck by such a pro-choice sentiment coming from a Virginia Republican. But what really got attention around the blogosphere was the other concern he expressed.

“My understanding — I’m not a theologian — but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” Cole explained to the Post. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”

The Book of Revelation describes the rise of an antichrist figure called “the beast” as the end of the world approaches and will require everyone to “receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.”

Cole isn’t alone. In Tennessee, Rep. Susan Lynn, who’s sponsoring a similar bill, acknowledged the religious aspect of the debate.

“In the Christian religion, and I’m a Christian, in the book of Revelation, there was a reference to, you know, the Mark of the Beast. Some people interpret that to be one of these microchips,” the Republican lawmaker told the Nashville Scene blog. “Other people think it could be some type of tattoo.”

Georgia’s Senate approved a ban on forced implants last week. That legislation was sponsored by two aptly named lawmakers: Sens. Chip Rogers and Chip Pearson.

The microchips — which are about the size of a grain of rice and are also known as radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags — have been used for more than a decade, primarily in pets and livestock, but also some humans.They can be used to store personal ID or medical records.

Although California, North Dakota and Wisconsin already have laws on the books, chip implant ban skeptics such as Virginia Del. Bob Brink don’t see the need. The Democrat called Cole’s bill “a solution in search of a problem.”

“If Virginia is starting to use California as our legislative role model, it’s a sign that our legislative apocalypse has arrived,” Brink added.