Of Gmail, Lies, and RFID

Posted by Thomas J. Brown at 1014 hrs

Out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if you tried to use a Gmail invite twice. It doesn't work (of course) and Google spits out the following error (actual message altered to protect the "innocent"):

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Something I've been meaning to post since Monday afternoon is that President Bush is a liar (surprise, surprise). During the second debate, here's what was said:

Factcheck.org says Bush lied:

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Speaking of debates, I watched the third debate with the Democrats last night. This time Morah was able to come with me. We had fun, but it wasn't as good as the one last Friday. Last Friday people were a little looser, this time there were people who kept shooshing other people to be quiet (we did still get a few good laughs out of Bush's facial expressions, however). Also, last week the hotdogs were individually wrapped and it was "serve yourself". This week they were being handed out one at a time. I wanted to ask for more than one, but there was a queue and the lady handing them out was old and looked like she could go on the offensive at any minute. I still managed two hot dogs (I got back in the queue later on) and a soda for free, so it wasn't a complete loss.

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This morning on the news they ran a story about how your body may soon provide doctors with its complete medical history. Amazing, useful, and extremely time-saving, right? So how will this medical miracle be possible? Applied Digital just got its new VeriChip RFID tag approved by the FDA for use in the medical field. The RFID tag is about the size of a grain of rice and is implanted under the skin via syringe.

That's already more information than the news report gave (mostly it was just a blurb about how easy it would be to get the chip (which they failed to mention is RFID) and how useful it would be). What the didn't tell you but really should have is that the RFID tag doesn't store your medical information internally. Rather, it has a unique number that equates to a username and password to an online database that contains your medical records. The chip is readable from (in some cases) distances of thirty feet or more (honestly, can't we change this to be, oh I don't know, an inch or two?). That means that anyone walking past you on the street, sitting a few seats away from you on the bus, driving in the car next to you, sitting in the bathroom stall adjacent to yours, et cetera, would be able to read your RFID tag, copy your number, and access your complete medical records.

Applied Digital also has something called VeriPay. The idea works the same way. At the point of sale, instead of swiping your credit card (or worse, handing it to an employee who may have a eidetic memory), you simply wave your hand over an RFID tag reader and your credit information accessed.

Wonderfully time saving and ever so dangerous. Religious zealots are especially afraid RFID tags because of the following passage from Revelations chapter 13, verses 16 & 17:

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There was something else that I wanted to blog about, but I can't remember what it was.

Oh well.

Be sure to stop in tomorrow for another Friday Funday!

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LATE BREAKING ADDITION:
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!

Remember those silver dollars made of silver retrieved from a safe at ground zero? They're not silver and they're not dollars.