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11/21/2003 Archived Entry: "VeriPay implanted chip for buying and selling"

WELL, IT'S HERE. AND IT'S FREAKIN' SCARY, MY FRIENDS. Applied Digital, those wonderful folks who brought you the Digital Angel and the VeriChip implantable ID device, have just announced a subdermal-implantable payment system, the VeriPay chip. Here's the word from Katherine Albrecht, who founded CASPIAN out of a conviction that this development would happen:

The implantable RFID payment chip I predicted 4 years ago was unveiled to the world today in Paris, France.... The "VeriPay" chip contains a unique ID number associated with the individual in whom it is embedded. This unique ID number can be linked to credit card or other payment method and communicated to merchants by merely holding the chipped body part up to an RFID reader/sales device.

Though it is not clear which part of the body the company targets for payment chip implantation, my guess is that the upper arm (where the company's "Verichip" product is currently embedded) would be too cumbersome to wave at a reader device. More likely, the chip will be embedded in an individual's hand or wrist to facilitate the "wave and go" payment system currently possible with the Mobil Speedpass-Timex Wristwatch system.

I swear, in this day of ultra creepy news it's astonishing what a huge percentage of the creepiness comes out of this one company, Applied Digital.

It's also astonishing how little people care about what's going to be done to them ... so terribly and so soon. If Katherine is right about the placement of the chip, however, perhaps this news will at least wake up some of the more literal-minded Christians -- folks who occasionally write to tell me that our current "unique identifying number" shouldn't be feared as the Mark of the Beast because it's not physically branded or imbedded in our wrists or foreheads.

Well, oblivious folks, I hope you'll start fearing that damned beast now. I don't care what rationale you use for fearing it -- biblical, political, science-fictional, or just plain commonsensical. But fear that effing thing. And slay it before it slays all your freedom to move through the world in privacy and under your own free will.

Posted by Claire @ 11:32 PM CST
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