Implantable Chips
Smart Dust
Biometrics
Cryptography
Stray stuff

The one thing that preserves privacy for most of us is that we're just not worth the expense and trouble of keeping track of. Technology is changing that.

Implantable chips.

If this doesn't bother you, nothing will.

Let me make a prediction: The first place these'll get used (maybe already are) is 3rd world sweatshops and prisons. Here in the U.S they'll get used in prisons first -- it's a natural. Every door, toilet seat and light fixture will have a reader networked to the System, every prisoner's location will be known at all times. Then the military -- better than dog tags. If no one complains then in a little while they'll make people getting food stamps and other gov't poverty benefits get them. Then maybe on to the rest of us.

Implantable Microchip FAQ. The technology exists, right now, tested and ready (in fact, in commercial use right now in animals), to implant you with a biologically inert capsule the size of a grain of rice (i.e.. unnoticeable) with a life span of decades, coded with a unique identifier (9 digits, ever so coincidentally the length of your SSN) and readable from short distances.

Kevin Warwick, a British researcher who really likes the implantable id chips (he volunteered for a human test). Note that he wants gun owners to have them. The Intelligent Building Revolution -- from Kevin Warwick's page.

Digital Angels so called -- don't ya just love marketing? "On May 13, 1997, United States Patent Number 5,629,678 was granted for a 'personal tracking and recovery system,' consisting of a miniature digital transceiver -- implantable in humans -- ("tranciever" what's it receiving? --cb) with a built-in, electromechanical power supply and actuation system. These features enable the device to remain implanted and functional for years without maintenance. This transceiver sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology. " It's pitched as a way to keep track of kids. Sounds like a good way to keep track of dissidents and "undesirable" of all sorts.

The new record for the World's Smallest Web Server (keep trying, it's there). A chip that fits on a fingertip. Slashdot on August 12, 1999 says "This web server is the latest contender for 'World's Smallest'. Two chips and a diode - so they had to leave out Linux :-). It's based on the world's smallest implementation of a TCP/IP stack -- which is implemented on a small 8-pin low-power microcontroller using 512 words of program ROM. Where would you put a $1 web server?" The site says "In a final production version, the chips can be directly bonded to a circuit board, and the entire web-server can fit in an area the size of a match-head."

They talk about putting them in appliances and letting your toaster and your garage light talk to you PC over the house wiring, a prospect I'm really (<yawn>) not very interested in. This technology reminds me of locators (dust mote sized wireless network nodes) in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. Locators in the novel are one possible enabling technology for what the author calls "ubiquitous law enforcement":

"Now every embedded computing system, down to a child's rattle, was a governance utility. It was the most extreme form of social control ever invented. 'So now they'll have to run everything.' The notion was terribly seductive to the authoritarian mind. . .The only trouble was, no despot had the resources to plan every detail in his society's behavior. Not even planet-wrecker bombs had as dire a reputation for eliminating civilizations." p.388

See also this story in New Scientist.

"Packed full of sensors, lasers and communications transceivers, particles of "smart dust" are being designed to communicate with one another. They could be used for a range of applications from weather monitoring to spying.

" The tiny 'motes' are being developed at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of a programme to produce the smallest possible devices that have a viable way of communicating with each other.

"Each mote is made up of a number of microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, wired up to form a very simple computer. At present each mote is 5 millimetres long, but Kris Pister, one of the developers, says that in future they could be small enough to remain suspended in air, buoyed by the currents, sensing and communicating for hours. "

Autonomous Sensing and Communication in a Cubic Millimeter aka "Smart Dust", supported by DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office

"Who are you?" Bio1.com THE online resource for information about biometric vendors, biometric products and biometric applications." When they're done, you won't even need papers.

Facial recognition technology, from Slashdot: "The December issue of Scientific American has a scary story on the use of facial recognition software to identify "subversives" among the general population. I did a PhD in image recognition and have serious doubts about the reliability of this software. Automatic face recognition is hard, even when the subject cooperates. What are they going to do about false positive identifications? If you're suddenly bundled into a car the next time you're walking past the post office you'll know the answer. " Nowhere to emigrate to, nowhere to hide.

Fight the Fingerprint home of the "Scan This News" email list. Fingerprints are the original biometric identification. What they used to have to do with talcum powder and scotch tape and tedious eyeball comparisons they can now do quickly, easily and cheaply and with a much larger database with computers.

Automatic ID News (2000-jun-26, now Frontline Magazine) Trade rag for the technology. Kind of a boring magazine -- it's much more about running warehouses than sheeple tagging and tracking.

Digital fingerprint sensor

Cryptography and Liberty 1999 "Most countries in the world today have no controls on the use of cryptography. In the vast majority of countries, cryptography may be freely used, manufactured, and sold without restriction." but. . . "The United States government continues to lead efforts for encryption controls around the world. The U.S. government has exerted economic and diplomatic pressure on other countries in an attempt to force them into adopting restrictive policies. The U.S. position may be explained, in part, by the dominant role that national intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies hold in the development of encryption policy."

Cryptography and Liberty 2000

Pretty Good Privacy: Encryption for the Rest of Us. Certain Parties consider PGP a weapon. Arm yourself.

Fast Track "The Internet's premier source for investigative resources." Includes a Social Security Number allocation table.

Financial Privacy? Ho Ho! Check this out: " The mission of the"(Treasury Department's) "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is to support and strengthen domestic and international anti-money laundering efforts and to foster interagency and global cooperation to that end through information collection, analysis and sharing, technological assistance, and innovative and cost-effective implementation of Treasury authorities." (I know, it doesn't quite make grammatical sense.) Check out their forms page -- this is the information your bank is supposed to tell about you.

Those annoying "Supersaver Cards" at the grocery store. I don't like them either. CASPIAN -- Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering.

Claire Wolfe's book I Am Not a Number on the rise of the ID state, ubiquitous interconnected databases, the Beast's Mark and staying off lists. The subject makes this quite a bit less fun book to read than 101 Things to do 'til the Revolution.

A Barcode Tattoo on your Butt? Check out this patent, and start thinking about a good place for your serf number.

Re your serf number: The National Organization for Nonenumeration " A nationwide movement dedicated to educating American citizens of their rights and responsibilities under the Federal Social Security Act, including the right to privacy and refusing to be enumerated under the Act."

Jya.com's Cryptome. More food for thought.

A privacy analysis of your internet connection. Your mouth is shut. Is your computer spilling the beans?

Breaking, Sept. 1999: A Back Door for the NSA in Micro$oft Windows? Perish the thought!

Echelon Watch "Echelon is perhaps the most powerful intelligence gathering organization in the world. Reports suggest that this network is being used to spy on private citizens everywhere, including on the Internet."

Computers, Freedom and Privacy an upcoming conference.

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Mr. Bill wants to be able to trace Internet users. ScanThis News tracked down the Official Report.

All about airport sniffers

Records Bureau "Discreet Research, Inc. -- When you need to know"

D.I.R.T (Data Interception by Remote Transmission), a product of Codex Data Systems. "Data Interception by Remote Transmission is a powerful remote control monitoring tool that allows stealth monitoring of all activity on one or more target computers simultaneously from a remote command center. No physical access is necessary. Application also allows agents to remotely seize and secure digital evidence prior to physically entering suspect premises." I've been told this is likely a hoax.

Anonymizer.com surf the Net without leaving a trail.

The annual Big Brother Award "to the government and private sector organizations which have done the most to threaten personal privacy in their countries."

The Complete, Unofficial TEMPEST Information Page. " TEMPEST is a code word that relates to specific standards used to reduce electromagnetic emanations. In the civilian world, you'll often hear about TEMPEST devices (a receiver and antenna used to monitor emanations) or TEMPEST attacks (using an emanation monitor to eavesdrop on someone). While not quite to government naming specs, the concept is still the same."