

Will Your ID Soon Be a Microchip Under Your Skin? - kkleiner
http://www.singularityhub.com/2009/07/02/will-your-id-soon-be-a-microchip-under-your-skin/

======
buugs
I don't want a chip in me and I'm obviously not the only one

~~~
grinich
What if it could self-regulate drug delivery so you wouldn't have to take a
pill every four hours?

What if it could track and store fine-grain biometrics and thereby better help
your doctor make treatment decisions?

What if it could monitor your health, and contact your doctor if you're
incapacitated?

What if it could save your life in some other way?

~~~
buugs
All good and well but to go at your list in order:

I am in a healthy state at this point in time I don't find taking pills or
medication at specific intervals hard or even bothersome, I can even time it
out with my cellphone reminders.

As it goes with the healthy state I don't think this much matters if it could
do that over say one of those annoying heart monitors a friend has to do every
year I'm sure he would do it but that isn't really what we are discussing.

This is already a lot of what ifs and this is something I most definitely
would not want as it would also require that my exact position be available so
emergency services could get to me.

I'm all for life and everything but if I need a chip to save me I'm probably
in the middle of nowhere away from any contact or emergency services that
could get me in time.

I am really fine with the current U.S. identification system as I had my
identity stolen once by an illegal immigrant but it was easily solved with a
birth certificate, social security cards and a credit lock. These devices
factor in too much extra risk especially since it says its basically the same
technology as the wireless poll paying system how do you know you won't walk
by someone and your identity is just taken like that?

------
sanswork
I have a rfid chip in my wrist. One of my friends owns a chain a piercing
shops and offered it to me for free so I got it done.

I unfortunately haven't had time to build anything to make use of it though so
it's been of little use to me except as a conversation starter but he has his
set to unlock his apartment door.

Range isn't huge a couple inches is pushing it so I'm not really worried about
tracking me(I don't rub my wrist against every rfid receiver I come across).
Besides with facial recognition available today if someone wants to track me
around a city they would do a lot better using security cameras than trying to
install rfid receivers everywhere.

~~~
chaosmachine
_I don't rub my wrist against every rfid receiver I come across_

Really? If I had an rfid chip, that's exactly what I'd be doing, just to see
what happens.

~~~
sanswork
I did that a bit when I first got it but most of the time I forget its there
now a days. It's like my tattoo when I first got it I noticed it every time I
moved my arm. Now unless someone points it out I forget it's even there.

------
sirfrancisbacon
Yeah, There's no way I'd let a microchip under my skin.

"If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically
try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and
turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water
gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like
one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will
unresisting-ly allow itself to be boiled to death."

(Also yes, for those of you pedantic enough I'm aware the story is not
biologically accurate, but the metaphor remains valid)

------
lurkinggrue
Good thing those chips are in no way spoofable from a distance.

Oh wait...

[http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/video-hacker-war-
drives-s...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/video-hacker-war-drives-san-
francisco-cloning-rfid-passports/)

------
jrockway
Unless they can embed a cell-phone in my skin, I'd rather use my phone as an
ID card / cash / credit card. For someone that wants to steal my identity, it
is much easier to slice off my arm than to guess my password.

~~~
sanswork
Would the threat of slicing off your arm not work equally well in getting you
to give up your password? It certainly would for me.

~~~
jrockway
Passwords are better in a number of ways. If the data is really important, you
can always carry around a suicide pill, and know that if you die, your data
dies.

For more normal data, you have the opportunity to give up your data in tiers.
If someone threatens to cut off your arm, give them a password that unlocks
most of your data. You can have another password for the super-secret stuff.
They are happy that they got your data, and you get to keep your arm (and
super-secret data).

Basically, you can have decoy passwords and accounts, but you can't have a
decoy arm-with-RFID-chip.

------
TweedHeads
Why not just a watch?

Or a keychain, or a ring?

Or an ID with rfid in your wallet?

Why the intrusiveness?

~~~
sanswork
I am far more likely to lose all of these things than the lower quarter of my
arm.

~~~
michaelneale
In nearly 35 years, I have not lost a watch, nor a wallet. I have nearly lost
a finger a few times (don't turn on a drill while you are messing with the
chuck).

I have also lost a lot of skin from different parts of my body.

For a chip to stay, would need to be somewhere inconvenient and deep.
Certainly nowhere convenient that a reader could reach, unless its RFID style
in which case I have other concerns...

