the mark of the beast?

by candidlynuts 5 Replies latest social current

• 

  candidlynuts

  this is a bbc story regarding RFID tags from saturday.. sorry if it is a repost..

  Supermarkets have already brought everything under the sun under one roof, and along the way been accused of denuding the High Street of butcher, baker and candlestick-maker.

  Now they are introducing a new technology that some say threatens a fundamental invasion of our privacy.

  We are all familiar with barcodes, those product fingerprints that save cashiers the bother of keying in the code number of everything we buy.

  Now, meet their replacement: the RFID tag, or radio frequency ID tag.

  These smart labels consist of a tiny chip surrounded by a coiled antenna.

  Good tracking

  While barcodes need to be manually scanned, RFID simply broadcasts its presence and data to electronic readers.

  It means the computer networks of companies can track the position and progress of billions of products on rail, road, sea and shelf.

  
  You start to ask yourself: 'who has the ability to read the chips and what do they do with the information?'

  Vint Cerf, internet pioneer
  Albrecht Von Truchsess, from the German supermarket chain Metro Group, which uses this technology, says: "RFID really brings a revolution to everything that is transported from one point to the other, and in the future you will have it really on everything.

  "That means that we don't have to do anything while the goods are on the way from the production site to our stores. It is just done automatically."

  For all the benefits the technology promises, the roll-out of RFID is in danger of being derailed by the public's perception of it.

  A Christian author in the US, for example, has just published a book claiming RFID will evolve into the mark of the beast featured in Revelation and presage the end of the world. (anyone know who this is?)

  'Big Brother'?

  The technology has also attracted criticism from more moderate voices.

  Among these is Vint Cerf. He is one of the inventors of the internet and is now employed by Google as the company's internet evangelist.

  He told Click: "What everybody worries about is that these identifiers will be used not to keep track of the object, but of the person associated with the object and then there's a Big Brother scenario that everybody worries about.

  "But when the economics get to the point where the readers are inexpensive and the chips are inexpensive, then you start to ask yourself who has the ability to read the chips and what do they do with the information?"

  Metro sees RFID working for it by having food traceable back to the farm, queues cut to nothing, and shelves that shout when they are empty.

  
  Slippery slope: could your discarded items come back to haunt you?
  But with remotely readable tags on everything from boots to beans, is it the customers or what they buy that is being labelled?

  Former Australian privacy commissioner Malcolm Crompton says: "If done wrongly, it really is possible that I can buy things in one shop and be tracked in another shop, that the data, once collected, stays there for someone to come in and collect and use under circumstances that I don't know about or that I don't approve of.

  "I think that is when society is on a slippery slope."

  The fear is that what we buy will be forever linked to us. In the nightmare scenario, an innocently discarded soft drink can could end up in what later becomes a crime scene.

  RFID could open a whole new field of forensics where the tag on the can removes any reasonable doubt.

  Taking steps

  Concerns about RFID have been taken up by Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for information society and media.

  She has recently launched a public consultation process with a view to seeing whether RFID needs to be regulated.

  She says: "A new technology that is bound to be multiplied by 10 to 15 times in the next coming years in numbers of sales will not fly, and will not be of benefit to the community and to the economy if the consumers are afraid that this technology might be a threat to their privacy."

  One solution being floated is the idea of killing the code on the chip as customers leave the shop.

  Whatever comes out of the European Commission's consultation, it looks likely that your Saturday shop will never be the same again.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4886598.stm
• 

  Sad emo

  Here ya go candidllynuts:

  http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70308-0.html

  (this is just the first part of the article)

  CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Katherine Albrecht is on a mission from God.

  The influential consumer advocate has written a new book warning her fellow Christians that radio frequency identification may evolve to become the "mark of the beast" -- meaning the technology is a sign that the end-times are drawing near.

  "My goal as a Christian (is) to sound the alarm," said Albrecht, in a conversation over tea at a high-end grocery store.

  Albrecht has been a leading opponent of RFID, which is fast becoming a part of passports and payment cards, and is widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. RFID chips contain unique identification codes, and can be read at varying distances with special reader devices.

  Albrecht hopes her new book, The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance , will be embraced by the millions of Americans (59 percent of them, according to a 2002 Time/CNN poll) who share her belief that the Book of Revelation in the Bible forecasts events that are yet to come.

  The Spychips Threat is in fact a Christianized version of its secular predecessor, Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID, which came out last fall.

  Both books are published by the Christian publishing powerhouse Thomas Nelson. Both lay out the same totalitarian scenarios, based on documented plans by Philips, Procter and Gamble, Wal-Mart and other companies, along with the federal government, to track consumer goods and people individually.

  Absent from the Christian version is the original foreword by the science fiction author and blogger Bruce Sterling. In its place, Albrecht and co-author Liz McIntyre have written an introduction that says that RFID chips, particularly the VeriChip subcutaneous implant designed for humans, bear an uncanny resemblance to "the mark" described in the Bible's Book of Revelation.

  If the VeriChip becomes a common payment device similar to the "contactless" payment system in the Exxon Mobil Speedpass, all who wish to buy and sell goods will be compelled "to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads," as it says in Revelation, the Spychips Threat authors contend.
• 

  candidlynuts

  ty sad emo! i googled around but didnt find it.

  i wondered who had wrote that it was a sign of the beast. how strange that in this day and age people are still scared of technology and put mystical meanings to stuff.
• 

  tula

  In Strong's Concordance we find that the definition for "mark" in Revelation 13:16-17 applies exclusively to all references of "the mark" in the book of Revelation. This definition does not apply to the term "mark" as it is found in any other book of the Bible.

  5480- charagma, (khar'-ag-mah); from the same as 5482; a scratch or etching, i.e. stamp (as a badge of servitude), or sculptured figure (statue):-graven image, mark.

  5482- charasso-(to sharpen to a point, akin to 1125 through the idea of scratching)...

  1125--grapho( graf-o); a prim. verb; to "grave", espec. to write; fig. to describe:-- describe, write(-ing,-ten) [Eng. Dictionary def.-- "grave" --Archaic. engrave; carve; sculpture. 2.impress deeply; fix firmly]

  Something being scratched or etched, as a stamp, hardly sounds like a computer chip implant, but it could be. Especially when one evaluates the mark in relation to the number. Time will tell. As we consider the application of the Name, Mark and Number of the Beast, we note that Revelation 13:17-18 have also been altered in the new versions.

  A symbol of High Tech Control

  But perhaps the ultimate use of this strange, ancient symbol of foreboding evil is found on - "of all places" - "a high tech smart card". To the right is a photo of a prototype of a new smart card just unveiled by MasterCard, Visa, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan. I was utterly shocked to find the triquetra symbol emblazoned repeatedly on the card. Notice this, "The latest smart card has the NKJV's logo all over the face of the plastic so that when a picture goes under it, you have 666 on your forehead."

  In other words, the image on the prototype smart card is that of a man, the bearer or holder of the card, who has this "dreadful symbol splattered all over his face and head".

  A Symbol of the Beast?

  The "triquetra symbol" on the smart card is alarmingly likened to that of three 6's linked together - "666"! Could it be that this strange symbol is the "prophesied Mark of the Beast", that terrifying "seal" someday to be given each person on Earth, in their forehead or right hand, as a sign of the Beast's "unreserved ownership" of the individual's body and soul
• 

  tula

  bttt
• 

  aniron

  Its nothing new.

  There are already many things capable of doing the same.

  mobile phones, sat-nav, can be followed by the systems they use.

  mobile phone companies keep records of all numbers you have called and from where.

  Some sat-nav makers now record each trip you use it for, and can be passed on to the authorites if requested.

  The computer you are reading this on can be found out which ISP server it is using. Maybe one day they will even be able to find out where you are using it from.

  There isn't much left that cannot be used to track you down.