August 7, 2009
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He Causeth all..to Receive A Mark in Their Right Hand, Pt.3
Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.How does all this work, anyway? Very well, actually. But more specifically, we are building on very old technology. The problem never has been technology. For 20 years now we've been implanting devices in animals to track them and monitor behavioral trends. For over 10 years now we've been waving badges to clear security access points. For 5 years now we've been implanting smart chips in humans for medical and emergency purposes. Last year, other countries began using RFID technology for electronic tracking and purchasing. Wave-able credit cards came first, then came the deluxe features like credit cards with built-in cell-phones (or vice-versa). So, if ‘necessity is the mother of invention', then implanted credit cards were a shue-in. Implanted credit cards are here to stay.
This small device is about the size and shape of a grain of rice. Inside, believe it, or not, is a fully functional smart-card and a fully functional T/R (transmitter/receiver). The T/R is good for a range of 30 feet, or so. Smart-card technology in the US never found its place in the sun. It's capacity has only found a few remote applications to the point where very few Americans even know what they are, look like or where to find one. Other developed countries, by contrast, have employed this technology with great vigor. The security is a quantum jump over that provided by magnetic strip of debit and credit cards. They make great high-level security devices (even in the US). As far as credit cards go, however, most of the other developed countries have found immediate application over the mag-stripe.
Biometric credit card security, once booned to be the ultimate security has backfired. Even though the security is greatly strengthened, the consequences of breach are even more severe. So much so that the bad has been found to outweigh the good. Once stolen, electronic versions of a person's fingerprint of retinal scan are not as easily replaced as, say, an account number, PIN or CVV2. Something was needed that would be very difficult to steal. Enter, the implanted credit card.