The AM Forum

This is a broad topic. The link below concentrates on cancerous tumors in canines which tend to grow around the implanted chips:

http://www.antichips.com/press-releases/chipped-pets.html

Jim
WD5JKO

We should be very careful about any talk from "big brother" about putting chips into people.

Red herring for the Orwellian paranoia group.  Those tags are encapsulated in glass.  Think what a pacemaker would do.....


Rich

Ho hum.   Mildly interesting.

Anecdotal information with no scientific backing written by an unqualified person with a huge ax to grind.

b.

p.s.  Humans should be strictly leashed so they won't need microchips!

WTF, why would you microchip a person?  Is this real or a joke?

Hey, 7461434945056, what are you trying to say?

Rich

I have some friends that had that done. They put the chips in the back of the neck.  No thanks!!!!

For dogs, This is a great thing to have.  If the pet is lost it can be returned.  I saw a dog get hit by a car once, I ran out and helped it. It was alive but later died in my arms.  I took it to the nearest vet and they scanned the dog.



C

Ok I "ALMOST" understand why you would do that to an animal. But, other than for 'nefarious government plots', why would a person do it?

Maybe it's like the current body piercing fad, but for Geeks?

The girl was a stripper,  Never ate meat.  Gave me hell if I ate meat.  Lots of odd behavior. She had a tractor beam of hottness. She could do all of this and somehow, It did not matter  ::)

 Once that ended, She ran off.  She did lots of crazy things...

C

I work as an EE, my last job was building RFID scanners and active tags.  (Industrial automation use)

I have leftover hardware and think it would be cool to unlock my front door, car, computer etc with a wave of the hand.  The flap of skin next to your thumb is the best spot.

I would not hesitate to do this if I had the time (I don't ) and could find a Dr. to implant the tiny tag, takes about a minute.

Of course the real reason I won't do it is because it is a government plot and the mark of the devil.  ;-)

Rich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgjVWaLxoL4

I think she had a tractor beam around a different part of your body. :)

Yea it will have 666 somewhere imbedded with your main serial number haaah aaaa
FRED

I think it's a joke. I wouldn't worry about the gubmint trying THAT hard to control us. Now finish up your soylent green crackers so we can go catch the work train. I don't want to get beat again tonight.

When I worked for a major manufacturer of broadcast video equipment, we were "depot 6" in "region 6" and my number was "6". Therefore I had to login with 666 for the user name. I told them it was not acceptable, the boss avoided responsibility, IT person laughed about it, and HR failed. So, I just started signing all of my e-mails "666@(name of the company)", eventually including those to customers and everyone else. The numerical assignment was changed shortly thereafter, perhaps a customer called in and asked about it. Apparently changing it had required a tedious manual edit of a database for the very expensive customized services management software they had contracted out from a company in England. The software was what I would call "intelligent, robust, and automatic" but like anyone that is -too- smart, it had no "common sense" built into it. I have never liked English software. Every time I have bought any, it has been clunky, inconvenient, and obtuse. Paperport scanner software is an example. It's just bad. Serif brand of software does a decent job and is inexpensive, but it is also clunky and inconvenient, as if it were made up of disjointed modules where one does not know what the other one is doing. Like written in a third world country by people who are paid $2 per hour. Maybe those people have been chipped..

Let's make that $2 per day!!!!!!!
That is reality in the Philippines

Fred

With advanced apologies to the Brits on frequency, that reminds me of the old biker/gearhead joke about why the Brits never built computers: they couldn't figure out how to make them leak oil.

Since most RFID are passive, it's not clear to me why they would cause cancer. Tons of people have electronics implanted in their bodies, like pacemakers and hearing aids.

The technology is almost perfected. So many good things could be done with an implanted chip - and so many bad things, too.

Sometime within the next XXX years, I believe there will come a time in this country when the majority welcomes micro-chipping the whole population. It will be a time when people are desperately afraid of crime, violence and see it as a way to help identify potential threats.  Babies would be microchipped for their own safety, just like dogs are now. That may be the way it starts, proceeding to sex offenders, etc.

From this point of view, a person using more advanced technology than today, could secretly scan anyone they encounter (and access a Droid) and know immediately if this person has a background that is volatile and is someone to fear. These chipped "felons" would be tracked constantly by a computer and be able to alert the population, if someone wanted to know. It would be a sick and paranoid world for sure that present laws do not support - and the practice would most likely implode and be thrown out when times got good and peaceful again.

It's akin to when the Twin Towers came down. Bush was on there telling us things were about to change big-time. And was he right. Laws got passed that never would have before that event.  It usually takes a big event like that to usher in the fear required to have a population swing this way. The economic shock in 1930's Germany is a good example of what can happen to a good people when things get desperate.


But all that said, I sure wouldn't mind knowing who I was dealing with in everyday life, but certainly wouldn't want some computer tracking ME if I decided to go into Hotford to pick up some ho's or buy some drugs... ;D (not!)

T

Since nearly everyone now carries a cell phone, there's no need to iimplant a chip to track someone. And the cell phone radiates, so it's far more likely to cause cancer.

Can you imagine a computer built by Lucas? :o

Is there a footprint of the phone when it is idling in the receive mode or only when transmitting?  ie, Does it ping the cell site periodically for time, strength, etc?

Yep. It registers with the "nearest" tower and updates every so often. Even if no comms to the tower took place after that, you'd be tracked. Once you move, the phone registers with another tower.

I wonder if they can do triangulation in both the USER receive or transmit mode?  If so, how close can they come?   From news reports of lost hikers, I understand they can do it to some extent.


With no triangulation, sounds like they have an error of miles.

T

Most towers these days are sectored, so they can tell with heading off the tower just from that. Other parts of the data sent back and forth from the handset and tower tell alot about the distance from the tower. Finally, other towers will also see the handset and may be registered as a secondary. So even more locational info can be derived.

Finally, many phones now have GPS, so they can/will send this data too.

a lot of phones now have the 911/GPS feature that can transmit the location of the phone on remote command.  You can not turn it off, though you can limit it to just 911 services. Much more accurate than triangulating cell tower sectors.

I am surprised no one has hacked it yet to track folks (the cheating husband senario comes to mind).

maybe they have?

I don't know about hacking, but sw has been out there for quite a few years to track and other monitoring. The app below is one of many.

http://www.mobile-spy.com/

Verizon (CDMA) and the GSM based providers handle the E911 location stuff differently. Verizon does it based on GPS in the handset. The GSM based providers (at least AT&T) do it by triangulating off multiple towers using Time Difference Of Arrival  technology.

The providers have to meet the federal requirements of being able to locate a 911 call within 300 meters for a very high percentage of calls (like 95%) and within 100 meters for a lower percentage. The phones ping the local site about once every 7 minutes on the command channel to register with the system so you calls can be directed to the appropriate site.

The Verizon handsets supposedly only activate the GPS when you make an emergency call, but the docs aren't terribly specific about that, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't a provision for LEO to turn on the GPS info by remote command. Or it might just be on all the time. Doesn't take much extra computer power to log a location with the cell path to a number instead of just the path. Extra battery drain for the GPS running continuously in the handset is an issue though, so I'm told the GPS doesn't normally run continuously.

The AT&T and the other GSM based providers with the TDOA would be getting  location info almost as a matter of course when deciding which cell site to hand off to anyway, and so probably also can or do store the data, or can get it when requested to or during a 911 call.

We've been designing and installing indoor distributed antenna systems for the two major cellular providers at the U and having to deal with how to locate 911 calls made from inside the buildings via the DAS so I've had some discussions with the providers on the technology used and whether we can use the last known location to mark which building the user entered.  

The only limit to the systems keeping a once every 7 minute breadcrumb trail of where you are and have been would seem to be computing/storage capacity on the network, battery capacity for the GPS in the handset,  and their privacy policy. On LEO request, I'd guess all bets are off. They can probably 'ping' the phone to get a response for locating without having the phone make the user aware, any more than you are aware when it pings the site to check in.

If you don't want to be tracked, take the battery out of your phone.


BTW, if you want to maximize your battery life, especially in fringe areas, make sure the phone has a good path to the local cell site. Else it ramps the power to max and keeps trying to ping the site to register till it runs the battery down.
 

Very interesting info, Kevin - thanks. OK on the various abilities to track phones.

Having the GPS in the phone is probably a good idea for security conscious people. If we have an accident and can barely respond, never mind accurately describing our location, it's a good thang.

I have an older cell phone without GPS and plan to update to two separate cell phones for security reasons. I'll probably have GPS on at least one if not both.

I've just spent the last two months installing a $3K monitored security system in my house - quite elaborate with outside perimeter protection, cameras, etc. Did all the work myself. The finishing touches would be a modern Droid-type e-phone with GPS to monitor the web based video when I'm away.   Gee, I could even text message Derb and the Huzman every 2 minutes and be a real PIA...  ;D

T

They can, and they have.

I recall a missing-persons case a few years ago, in Ohio if I recall correctly, where a teenage girl had gone missing. Her phone was active, but she wasn't answering it. The cops could only get her general area from the information the cell carrier had, so they went to the area and pinged their way to her phone.

Unfortunately, she was dead when they found her, but the process does work. I'm sure this has been done other times with happier outcomes, but happy endings don't sell newspapers.

We develop somewhat-similar technologies for the military. You'd be surprised what kind of information you can divine from the weakest of signals carrying almost no actual information if you have the right kind of receiver, the right algorithms, and the right processor to crunch all the numbers. The actual performance numbers are classified, so you'll just have to use your imagination, but whoever said there's no more innovation in RF engineering never worked in my building.

Clever never dies.