Welcome to the dystopian future. We've got the soft totalitarianism of “Brave New World” combined with the surveillance state of “1984”. However it’s not government surveillance that ought to worry us the most, rather it’s criminal surveillance that posses a clear and present danger to our finances. Cyber criminals, both at home and abroad, are able to track us to gain personal information that they can use to clean out our bank accounts and/or commit fraud, leaving us to take the blame.
Here’s one more way criminals have learned how to capture your private information.
It’s not all bad though. Being the jingoistic myrmidon that I am I will not be unhappy to see the so-called “peace-sign” consigned to the dust bin of history.
Many conspiratorialists express concern that some day governments will require citizens to be implanted with a computer chip so that their whereabouts may be tracked.
It’s the so-called “Mark of the Beast” from the Book of Revelation in the Bible: “The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.”
– Revelation 13:15-17 (NIV)
It’s my personal belief that identity theft may become such a wide spread nuisance that eventually people will actually WANT to have a computer chip implanted in their bodies so they will be able to defeat all attempts at identity theft and still be able to positively identify themselves when they need to. Muggers won’t be able to rob you of your credit cards and smart phone if they’re implanted in your body either. Our increasingly cashless society is already changing criminals’ targeting options.
The most inexpensive and effective way to protect yourself from identity theft in the here and now is to have a poor credit rating. Then your identity will be useless to thieves since every time they try to apply for credit using your name they’ll be denied. LOL!
Jeremy, I'm ironclad, bro. In fact, my credit rating is so bad we could use it to punish SJWs by making them be financially me for a day.
-Thanks for the uplift, James
>Muggers won’t be able to rob you of your credit cards and smart phone if they’re implanted in your body either.
RFID chips can be removed with simple household implements. As to biometrics:
"Look, buddy. You can walk with me to the ATM and put your eye up to the retinal scanner. Or I can just bring your eye to the scanner. Your choice, bro."
You have a point Mike C. However, despite that risk there still would be many advantages in an embedded "smart phone" system": you couldn't break it, you couldn't drop it in the toilet, you couldn't accidently leave it behind at a bar, your wife or girlfriend couldn't check it to see who you've been calling and you couldn’t lose it to a pickpocket, to name just a few benefits. Furthermore, as a practical legal matter cutting chips or implants out of someone's body and /or removing their eye(s) are much more serious crimes than putting your victim in a head lock and going through their pockets or grabbing their smart phone out of their hand and taking off running would be. Look up the penalties for maiming, mutilation, substantial battery and/or aggravated assault in your state's penal code. It would be harder to portray such a mutilation as a mutual affray or an act of self-defense. It would mean some serious hard time and much less sympathy in court even from Leftie judges. As it is Leftie judges are very forgiving of simple theft of property and don't believe that lethal force is justified for use in stopping mere theft of property. However if the thieves start cutting body parts off of people or threatening to, that will change things in the public perception drastically. People who previously were docile victims of a mugging may be motivated to fight back with greater ferocity and with less concern for the legal consequences for using "excessive force". That is to say there is NO force too excessive under the law to prevent losing an eye. Compelling someone to come with you could add the offenses of false imprisonment or kidnapping to your list of charges. So stealing embedded "smart phones" and "credit cards" would become more serious and fraught with risk than theft of such property is today. Of course society might change to the point muggers may not fear any consequences. Society might go full "Mad Max", which I presume is the sort of situation you are alluding too, eh? On the other hand if stealing "smart phones" becomes more risky and less profitable, when compared to the risk and the mess involved, then it is even more likely muggers will move on to stealing something else that can be disposed of in exchange for money or dope on the street as quickly easily as a smart phone or a credit card can be now. Just as identity theft is much less risky and even more profitable than even bank robbery and counterfeiting the currency once was. Our job is to figure out what the next target might be, to stay one step ahead of the criminals. Which isn't always easy if your mind doesn't work like a criminal's. Anybody out there have any ideas?