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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the betcha-can't-implant-just-one dept.

The syringe slides in between the thumb and index finger. Then, with a click, a microchip is injected in the employee's hand. [...]

What could pass for a dystopian vision of the workplace is almost routine at the Swedish startup hub Epicenter. The company offers to implant its workers and startup members with microchips the size of grains of rice that function as swipe cards: to open doors, operate printers, or buy smoothies with a wave of the hand.

[...] "People ask me; 'Are you chipped?' and I say; 'Yes, why not,'" said Fredric Kaijser, the 47-year-old chief experience officer at Epicenter. "And they all get excited about privacy issues and what that means and so forth. And for me it's just a matter of I like to try new things and just see it as more of an enabler and what that would bring into the future."

The implants have become so popular that Epicenter workers stage monthly events where attendees have the option of being "chipped" for free.

Full article here:
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/03/start-up-epicenter-implants-employees-with-microchips.html

AC: There are so many things wrong with both the article and with those people I wouldn't know where to start.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Appalbarry on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:34AM (14 children)

    by Appalbarry (66) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:34AM (#488474) Journal

    Because of socialized medicine, this company gets to externalize part of the cost of tracking its employees.

    OH MY GODZ! SOCIALIST MEDICINE!

    Read TFA. Barring an infection the Swedish health care system has nothing whatsoever to do with this scheme.

    That means visits from self-described "body hacker" Jowan Osterlund from Biohax Sweden who performs the "operation."

    There are no shortage of reasons to dislike this idea, but proper health care is not one of them.

    Now, a question: back in the day if you sat near a bulk tape eraser it would demagnetise your credit cards. What's the functional equivalent for an RFID chip? And can you install it in, say, an escalator handrail?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:55AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:55AM (#488488)

    > ... demagnetise your credit cards. What's the functional equivalent for an RFID chip?

    Haven't tried it yet, but read that a microwave oven will kill the RFID chip in a new US Passport. Anyone test this? Anyone know what the Customs & Immigration agent will do when the passport doesn't scan (besides typing the numbers into a terminal)?

    Nuking your hand is not recommended, although a couple of seconds probably wouldn't leave permanent damage. Perhaps standing in front of a big microwave radar, the kind where people hear the pulses as clicking in their head.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by archfeld on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:19AM (4 children)

      by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:19AM (#488497) Journal

      First thing I did when I got a new passport in January, was put it in the microwave for 5 seconds, to kill the chip. Now when I cross the border into Mexico they try and scan it once or twice then just open the thing pass it over the bar code reader before checking the picture against my actual face. The result is a second or two delay but no one has ever said anything to me.

      --
      For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:59AM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:59AM (#488555) Journal

        The result is a second or two delay but no one has ever said anything to me.

        That's because the chip is merely a convenience device at the moment. And enough of them get accidentally damaged that State Department regulations specifically still honor the passport.

        However, a passport is only good for 10 years. They started the RFID program in 2007, so after this year there should be no valid passports without the RFID chip. So given the current propensity for security theater, you might find they will stop honoring destroyed chips.

        State Department says:

        What will happen if my electronic passport chip stops working?
        The chip in the passport is just one of the many security features of the passport. If the chip fails, the passport remains a valid travel document until its expiration date. You will continue to be processed by the port-of-entry officer as if you had a passport without a chip.

        https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/FAQs.html#ePassport [state.gov]

        You have to open the passport to read the RFID chip. There is metal in the cover of the passport specifically to ensure this. So they would already have it open when scanning for the chip. Saves them fumbling for the photo id page.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:31PM

          by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:31PM (#488803) Journal

          Just because I am paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't after me.

          --
          For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
      • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday April 04 2017, @10:22AM (1 child)

        by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @10:22AM (#488588)

        How does this benefit you over just putting your passport in a foil-lined folder?

        Government databases might be something to worry about. Electronic components in your passport are not.

    • (Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:16AM

      by Soylentbob (6519) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:16AM (#488523)

      More healthy for the hand, and still effective, should be the Zapper [events.ccc.de] proposed on a CCC congress in 2006. Basically you use a small coil and the capacity / battery of e.g. a one-time-camera. Instead of the flash you connect the coil and place the RFID close to it. The device creates an EMP which should overload the electronic in the RFID.

      Since the RFID doesn't have a built-in power source, it requires an antenna to power the device via an electromagnetic field. A strong enough EMP should overload the device and fry it, quite similar to the microwave. Proved to work on several passports.

      I heard it can be illegal to do that in Germany, because the passport is officially a property of the state which is destroyed. However, I never heard of anyone getting in trouble for doing it either with the Zapper or with the Microwave.

    • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:12AM (1 child)

      by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @05:12AM (#488539)

      "Perhaps standing in front of a big microwave radar..."
      You would certainly start to feel very warm inside.

      --
      When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:18AM

        by Geezer (511) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:18AM (#488578)

        Was reminded of the old AN/SPG-49 missile guidance radars on the Talos-equipped cruisers I rode. Sea gulls flying into the beam would simply "pop" and drop.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:58AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @01:58AM (#488490)

    I read the article, did you? They're implanting things into people's hands. There's no mention of what happens when it's time to remove the implant. Reasons to remove it include infections, irritation, employee separation, making room for other implants, replacement of the implant when it's cloned, or restoring the appearance and function of the hand.

    self-described "body hacker"

    Meaning, not a surgeon. Is this guy going to rip it out when an employee leaves the company, or will that fall to a real doctor? If it's a doctor, the public may end up getting the bill for the surgery. The company makes a little more profit because employees aren't sharing time-cards, and everyone else pays for it.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:27AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @02:27AM (#488501)

      Keep on believing that this is caused by socialized medicine.

      I've recently decided to be a misanthrope. I don't think this species can or should survive.

      Capitalist medicine is the best way to make a country or people sick and weak, so I applaud your efforts to help advance the cause.

      • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday April 04 2017, @06:32AM (1 child)

        by anubi (2828) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @06:32AM (#488563) Journal

        If there is one thing positive I can say about capitalist medicine... the leaders are strong and healthy.

        The workers are weak and sickly.

        The whole nation can be seen like a Ferrari with beautiful upholstery and a really soddish engine.

        Its leaders soon become quite vulnerable, just as a glutton whose muscles have long since gone. The head may bark orders, the pen may sign papers, but there isn't nothing much left backing up those orders.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 04 2017, @03:46PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @03:46PM (#488665) Journal

          Kind of like one European leader that issued orders for troops that no longer existed inside a concrete room beneath the surface. Haven't heard of him for a long time so he probably went of to a new career in silence ;-)

  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:46PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:46PM (#488686)

    I don't think he meant he is blaming socialized medicine.

    I think he meant that a common good was able to be used to provide cover for chipping the populace.

    It could be welfare payments, disability, alimony, or tax refunds. Whenever a tracking mechanism is introduced unnecessarily under the cover of some other good, it is not out-of-hand to be wary as to why it was introduced when it was not a requirement.

    Just because it is free and convenient doesn't make it good; couple that with peer pressure events and soon all of the uncool people aren't chipped and they don't deserve welfare because they are freeloaders that need to take drug tests to get food stamps and demonstrate they can work or what have you.

    Maybe he was blaming socialized medicine as a cause of ills and that this is just another aspect to it, but my take on it is that a large benefit enjoyed by the masses (whether he agrees with the entitlement or not) was used as cover and leverage to install individual beacons into people that can be used with the existing trackers that already persist throughout much of the civilized world.

    RFID readers are common, and their range is pretty good and can be extended throughout the public infrastructure and shopping malls and highway streetlights and toll road passes and so on without any inconvenience to those being tracked--in fact, with less inconveniences, since some sort of benefit is usually thrown in to entice people to be willingly tracked.

    I don't think changing the argument about how the issue isn't socialized medicine helps address the reason as to why chipping is OK since it lets people wave their hands to get soft serve ice cream despite the stuff they can't see going on--but I also agree that it isn't socialized medicine that is causing the harms I see happening. It's just a conduit leveraged in a society that is accepting of it.

    And, maybe he does blame it. I would have chosen a different method of introduction, but the point is valid that this common good, that can cause split opinions, is being used to fuel my own paranoias about what is done with that chip after its implanted.

    More paranoid people might not go for checkups. I can't microwave my hand after its implantation, and I didn't read the article to learn how people are removing the RFID after they have left the company, and what reasonable precautions are taken with their location data, and if they are allowed access to all of the recorded sightings of their beacon/RFID chip etc. I expect there is little in regards to that overall, since waving hands for ice cream is pretty cool and personal responsibility for data security is not.