My whole family is being chipped
July 25, 2017 1:03 PM   Subscribe

On Aug. 1, employees at Three Square Market, a technology company in Wisconsin, can choose to have a chip the size of a grain of rice injected between their thumb and index finger. (SLNYT) Once that is done, any task involving RFID technology — swiping into the office building, paying for food in the cafeteria — can be accomplished with a wave of the hand.
posted by stillmoving (134 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
i'd rather be unemployed than submit to something like this
(yes i know it's voluntary. for now)
posted by entropicamericana at 1:05 PM on July 25, 2017 [18 favorites]


That company microchipping its employees is owned by a major prison vendor.

That's what it's actually about.
posted by jedicus at 1:06 PM on July 25, 2017 [133 favorites]


Nipple rings are a far less intrusive way to ensure that you never forget your work badge.
posted by Candleman at 1:07 PM on July 25, 2017 [24 favorites]


Our cats have this.

Think about the diameter of the needle you need in order to inject something the size of a grain of rice.
posted by heatherlogan at 1:08 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


When I was last employed as a teacher, I punched in with my fingerprint. This is over the top. Don't they understand that RFID tag is readable by anyone with the technology or the interest? And it is always the bad guys that have the interest, whether they are posing as mainstream, or not.
posted by Oyéah at 1:09 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


This must be that 'Mark of the Beast' that all the evangelicals were talking about when I was a kid. Back then it was barcodes and the UN.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:09 PM on July 25, 2017 [52 favorites]


“It was pretty much 100 percent yes right from the get-go for me,” said Sam Bengtson, a software engineer. “In the next five to 10 years, this is going to be something that isn’t scoffed at so much, or is more normal. So I like to jump on the bandwagon with these kind of things early, just to say that I have it.”

This is the absolute dumbest reason for doing this. "I can tell people I was tagged by employer BEFORE it was cool mandatory!" I've got a fob, I've got a credit card, it's already super easy to do these things.

This must be that 'Mark of the Beast' that all the evangelicals were talking about when I was a kid. Back then it was barcodes and the UN.

Actually I've already seen someone arguing this on Reddit.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:11 PM on July 25, 2017 [21 favorites]


This way if you find any lost employees raiding your trashcan or hiding in your crawlspace you can have them scanned at the vet and returned to their original owner.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:12 PM on July 25, 2017 [94 favorites]


What they want you to forget is that the RFID readers don't have to be tied to anything visible to the user. For now they might have RFID readers to swipe into the building or paying for food, but they might place them by bathroom entrances to track your entrance and exit, for example.

Yeah, I know the read range on the low-frequency passive RFID (the ones they use for animal chipping, for example) is low, like mere inches. But technology gets better, and employers rarely have an interest in technology if it's solely to make employee lives easier. They're always looking for an angle.
posted by explosion at 1:12 PM on July 25, 2017 [13 favorites]


Back then it was barcodes

The ubiquitous barcode! I remember that Orb song!

I hope they are planning to use a non-proprietary data format. Our old cat had to be re-chipped when we moved to Canada and learned that her original chip is not readable up here. She was not pleased. (See: diameter of a grain of rice.)
posted by heatherlogan at 1:14 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


This must be that 'Mark of the Beast' that all the evangelicals were talking about when I was a kid.

"In the next five to 10 years everyone will carry the Mark of the Beast and no one will scoff at His Most Foul Majesty. Me, I'm an early adopter."
posted by octobersurprise at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [14 favorites]


You know, about ten years ago there was this retirement-aged guy who would hang around on the periphery of leftist groups here. He was known to all as Conspiracy Dan, and he'd give you long typewritten documents about how they were going to chip all of us, etc etc. I once had lunch with him (well, really with some other people, but he joined us).

And you know what? Pretty much all of Conspiracy Dan's conspiracies have come true - drones, drone warfare, intensified surveillance and now the start of chipping people.

I mean, he wasn't well, that much was obvious if you talked to him. But I've often thought of him over the years as I've started to realize that being well has nothing to do with being right.
posted by Frowner at 1:20 PM on July 25, 2017 [144 favorites]


Great, now I need a tinfoil glove too??
posted by cnelson at 1:20 PM on July 25, 2017 [34 favorites]


No sir, I don't like it.
posted by defenestration at 1:23 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


You know, about ten years ago there was this retirement-aged guy who would hang around on the periphery of leftist groups here....

did he predict that robots would be mapping your home and selling the data to the highest bidder because if so, did he predict any lottery numbers too?
posted by entropicamericana at 1:23 PM on July 25, 2017 [13 favorites]


But wait, there's more! See this 2004 BBC article about nightclubs in Barcelona and this 2017 bit on a larger tech company in Sweden with the same technology. How did I miss that this has been happening for over a decade?
posted by stillmoving at 1:25 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Is the chip readable when my thumb is up my ass?
posted by Capt. Renault at 1:26 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


There's a lot of "you are doing Satan's bidding" and "666" along with the more general "WTF no" comments over on their Facebook page.

My office has one of these micro-markets, and it is convenient, but I already looked askance at the pay-by-fingerprint scanner. Guess it's back to bringing coffee from home.
posted by Flannery Culp at 1:26 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


666 DCLXVI. FTFY.
posted by heatherlogan at 1:29 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is completely terrible technology. It's a halfway solution, make my phone do all this, dumbasses. And yeah, I realize my phone can already (kinda) do all this, but it can't do it well. Perfect the tech we all carry now, instead of yet another stopgap solution.
posted by Keith Talent at 1:32 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


I can pay for lunch with my work ID, which is nice because it detached from my body. That's the kind of Beast Mark I can get behind.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:35 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


> That company microchipping its employees is owned by a major prison vendor.
- "What's wrong with the rfid chip in the card I carry in my wallet all the time?"
- "Oooh, you won't be Employee Of The Month soonish"

> I remember that Orb song!
That's from Naked, actually.

posted by farlukar at 1:35 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Say that over a period of 30 years you may work for 4 to 10 employers. If each one chipped you with their own grain of rice, things would start to get a little crowded. It would be more convenient if there was an industry standard for these that would last for decades. When you start a new job, just have them recognize your already implanted chip. What could be simpler? What could be more convenient?

Of course it is a lot better than having the removal of your chip constituting a part of your off-boarding process.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 1:37 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


What could possibly go wrong?
posted by Mitheral at 1:37 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


That company microchipping its employees is owned by a major prison vendor.

Ugh that is chilling. And it makes total sense - for employees, there's no logical point to an implant vs. a less-invasive, safer, user-controlled method of carrying an RFID chip (phone, badge, bracelet, etc.) but for inmates...:/
posted by R a c h e l at 1:38 PM on July 25, 2017 [16 favorites]


Growing up, my parents had several books by Hal Lindsey and other mark-of-the-beast shills, and I saw (then terrifying) "A Thief in the Night" film series, and I became certain that the Antichrist was going to be a literally black-clad warlock with burning orange eyes, and that I was going to end up being forced to have a barcode stamped on my hand and forehead in a dark cement jail cell. Now that the age of the dreaded mark seems to be upon us, it all seems terribly stupid. I almost miss that adolescent rush of apprehension and dread and fear that I would lose my soul. But no, the most I'll lose is the opportunity to use the vending machine in the employee break room.
posted by vverse23 at 1:39 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Hmm, I guess if you started to have chip clash with multiple rice grains embedded in your hand from multiple employers, you'd need to extract the technology to something superficial. Maybe a card with the chip embedded, that you could take on and off and use separately for separate employers?
posted by stillmoving at 1:39 PM on July 25, 2017 [17 favorites]


I would totally let them chip me, but only so I could then dig the chip back out, clone it, and make my own RFID army.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:40 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


That company microchipping its employees is owned by a major prison vendor.

That's what it's actually about.


Having forgotten my badge more than once, I would be down for this if it meant I could ditch my keychain also.
posted by Samizdata at 1:41 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Hmm, I guess if you started to have chip clash with multiple rice grains embedded in your hand from multiple employers, you'd need to extract the technology to something superficial. Maybe a card with the chip embedded, that you could take on and off and use separately for separate employers?

Oddly enough, my employer's RFID badge already conflicts with the RFID on my subway pass. I usually have to flip open my wallet to make sure the readers at work only get my badge info.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:42 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


These chips are removable. I suppose the upside is not having to remember stuff, never losing a card.
I wouldn't like to cooperate with that. that.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 1:43 PM on July 25, 2017


removable???

ugh I don't even wanna know
posted by R a c h e l at 1:46 PM on July 25, 2017


I already saw this episode of Futurama.
posted by runcibleshaw at 1:47 PM on July 25, 2017 [16 favorites]


I hope these stupid, awful things are rewritable, or people are going to learn that while flesh is impermanent, auth tokens are like super impermanent.
posted by The Gaffer at 1:47 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


And - so - it - begins.... an epoch for certain. I am astounded how few people realise the enormity, speed and significance of the changes that are soon to be wrought upon this little planet of ours. It is going to make the industrial revolution look like a trailer for the forthcoming movie.
posted by numberstation at 1:48 PM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


The silver lining is that in our future dystopia, the fashion of blocking your mandatory RFID chip by wearing a metallic glove on one hand will be kinda badass.
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:54 PM on July 25, 2017 [18 favorites]


Silver Lining™
posted by DynamiteToast at 1:54 PM on July 25, 2017 [19 favorites]


I had a nightmare like this once. I was in some dystopian city where people were chipped with something resembling a UFO machine claw at the gates (that hurt like hell), and to move in and out of sections and buildings you had to place the hand in turnstiles. That part of the city looked suspiciously like my middle school, only with a very long stairs at an end because just because one part of it might be prescient, the other doesn't have to make any sense.
posted by lmfsilva at 1:55 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Surprised they haven't done this as schools yet. Usually kids are the first to be victimized. Them and prisoners.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:56 PM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


But all the characters will know your name and birthday!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:56 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Also can we talk about the fact that guy is apparently implanting his sons? And his wife? And they're all ok with it? What is this foreign culture?

Compared to most people I don't care at all about privacy, and yet I hate this. TBH some part of that is just my general fear of needles though. Probably at least 50%.
posted by R a c h e l at 1:59 PM on July 25, 2017


Surprised they haven't done this as schools yet. Usually kids are the first to be victimized. Them and prisoners.

This comes up in special needs parenting groups sometimes, particularly for kids who are nonverbal and prone to wander.

I understand the impulse. And I'm sure it will happen eventually, first with older kids who are perceived as "at risk" and who cannot really consent, and probably eventually with all kids.

Hopefully by that time the oceans will have risen and people won't do it because there are bigger problems.
posted by anastasiav at 2:02 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


"A Thief in the Night" film series, and I became certain that the Antichrist was going to be a literally black-clad warlock

Yes! None of my contemporary friends remember this movie at all.

But my two biggest fears, as a tiny fundie kid in the early 80s, were nuclear annihilation and the End Times™.

That scene of someone paying for groceries with their barcode wired itself so far into my little kid brain, translating as, "Ok little fundie, if you see humans getting barcoded, microchipped, or otherwise scannable in the future, the Rapture is definitely coming."

So, even though I'm now an atheist who believes in no such thing whatsoever, I gotta say, I still flinch at stories like this. Like my inner scared little fundie child is haunting me. It's so silly, I know!
posted by functionequalsform at 2:03 PM on July 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


Great precedent, thanks in advance, employees at "technology company" in "Wisconsin".
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:06 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


I'd like to think this is just a stepping stone to better facial recognition.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:10 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I used to work at a startup that was looking at RFID for payment systems in 1999.

RFID chips typically work by induction. If you take two coils of wire and put them next to each other, a current flowing in one coil will induce a current in the other. In the ID chip circuitry there are some small components that run on truly tiny currents. Microvolts. They are able to slightly modulate the current in their own coil that can be detected in the (bigger) coil inducing the current.
That modulation ends up going in a pattern that can get decoded into a pattern of 1's and 0's.

Depending on the type of RFID chip, yes, it's pretty straightforward to listen in to this transaction as well as to spoof the reader. Straightforward is not always easy, though. If you want to be able to read this from any kind of distance, you need a reader with quite a large coil.

But, which it is not necessarily easy to build a remote reader, I suspect that it's quite easy to build a device that could remotely burn out one of these chips by overpowering them and that it would be quite easy to build into a door frame. Hope the chips don't heat up too much when they overload. Just saying.

Swatch, I think, had this right. They made an RFID chip built into a watch that was used as a ski lift pass.
posted by plinth at 2:14 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


I guess I'm starting to look forward to the post apocalypse now, as it seems the only route out of a state of constant surveillance and capitalization of every aspect of our existence.
posted by latkes at 2:16 PM on July 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


Damned uppity peasants! Complaining about programs for their own good.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:16 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


If my job offered me this, I'd decline and give them a very specific place to put their fucking chip.
posted by jonmc at 2:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


Think about the diameter of the needle you need in order to inject something the size of a grain of rice.

removable???
ugh I don't even wanna know


There are lots of things that are horrifying about this but a non-insignificant number of women get implantable birth control every year and seem to manage just fine.
posted by phunniemee at 2:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [12 favorites]


Time to get one of these.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:20 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


So I guess in a decade this is going to be required for most of us as a condition of employment...
posted by AFABulous at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Q: How do you get a hot girl and/or boy's number?
A: Use a large induction coil to read their RFID chip.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:26 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


So I guess in a decade this is going to be required for most of us as a condition of employment...

It's probably mostly just going to be required of poor people as a condition of employment, just like drug tests, credit checks...
posted by R a c h e l at 2:27 PM on July 25, 2017 [36 favorites]


If my job offered me this, I'd decline and give them a very specific place to put their fucking chip.

Honestly, I probably wouldn't mind getting chipped if management had to place it in A Very Specific Place. At that point it's kinda like kink play on pay time. Add a micro vibrator motor that goes off every time I enter/exit the building and you got yourself a life-long employee, yessir.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:30 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I get the gut reactions to this, but what's actually wrong with this idea? We have phones, we carry around credit cards and IDs such in our wallets. It just makes what we already do easier. Any concern you have about this chip are the same as with what you already have and do. I don't see any actual concerns articulated beyond vague invocations of dystopia or making fun of ridiculous "Mark of the Beast" nonsense.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:32 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


me: worried
also me: trying to figure out how to clone my office keycard into a ring, so it feels like i have superpowers
posted by raihan_ at 2:35 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Swatch, I think, had this right. They made an RFID chip built into a watch that was used as a ski lift pass.

It'd be pretty trivial to get the same functionality as RFID chips through Bluetooth NFC in a smartwatch. That's where I see all the personally-carry RFID stuff going eventually.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:36 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


When the vets have chipped my various pets over the years, they always take them into a back room to do it, out of my view... so I bet it is painful and they don't want to risk a savage bite in retaliation (my pet might bite them too, I guess)
posted by The otter lady at 2:36 PM on July 25, 2017 [11 favorites]


Maybe this is the mark of the beast. Maybe it is fulfilling the dumb prophecies of many of our traumatised younger years.

The part that will demand popcorn and a comfy seat will be how fundamentalists will manage to actively work against their own self-interest and essentially imprison themselves with this. Growing up it was always some nefarious global cabal looking to subjugate the rights of fundamentalists when instead _PLOT TWIST_ Christians are their own worst enemies in many situations. They will find a way to persecute themselves with this and then point and say TOLD YOU SO.
posted by Keith Talent at 2:42 PM on July 25, 2017 [7 favorites]


what's actually wrong with this idea? We have phones, we carry around credit cards and IDs such in our wallet

You can't take it out. You can leave your phone and wallet at home, but your chip goes where you go. If the chip is being used to register your attendance at a political protest or a certain kind of meeting, you have no choice but to be registered or spend a few bloody minutes with a razor blade.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:43 PM on July 25, 2017 [28 favorites]


It's like in that movie The Circle where...

No, I'm just kidding. I don't want to talk about that ridiculous-assed piece of shit movie.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:44 PM on July 25, 2017


Considering that the chip is between the thumb and forefinger, it is exposed enough that a reader might be hidden in all kinds of places: handrails, doorknobs, computer mice.

Maybe Michael Jackson's glove was really a Faraday cage.
posted by exogenous at 2:46 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


A friend of mine, Dan Hett, just got an RFID chip implanted in his hand as part of an art project he's doing (and at least one other guy in the office has the stuff ready to get it done too). Dan has written a blog post about the process, including photos of the needle, etc. (don't click through it squeamish, but there's nothing too gory)
posted by amcewen at 2:48 PM on July 25, 2017


Sangermaine: "I get the gut reactions to this, but what's actually wrong with this idea? We have phones, we carry around credit cards and IDs such in our wallets."

I can, and often do, leave my wallet/phone/keyring/2FA token/ID on my dresser anytime I want; my hand not so much.
posted by Mitheral at 2:50 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


in theory, be used later in more invasive ways: to track the length of employees’ bathroom or lunch breaks, for instance, without their consent or even their knowledge.

So could security cameras, badges, fobs and your boss who likes to keep the door ajar so he can look out over the sea of cubes. I'm not seeing how a human pet tag changes the equation much or the stakes on getting caught for long lunches. Either you punch in on a time clock or you're salary.

In the authors attempt to drum up pointless scare scenarios they thought too small. Wait till they find a way to make them monitor your health and your company offers one in exchange for a more affordable employee contribution, now we are really we have something to morally dubious to chew on.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:56 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


On the "why this is bad" front: In addition to not being able to, like, leave your hand at home, I think it's a new frontier of intrusiveness. Not absolutely new, since it has its parallels in forced birth control implants and ankle bracelets, but new in the sense that business/the state are moving toward saying as the cost of being a citizen, you have to let the state/business implant a thing inside your body and you will not easily be able to control that thing or get it out.

It's not just an outward-privacy thing, it's a forced medicalization thing. You could see it being a slippery slope toward everyone being totally comfortable with all kinds of forced medicalization. Of course, it won't be government doctors (except if you're a child or a prisoner) it will be corporations, as a condition of employment, so of course it's a "free choice".
posted by Frowner at 2:58 PM on July 25, 2017 [33 favorites]


When the vets have chipped my various pets over the years, they always take them into a back room

I think I assumed the vet chipped my cat while he was still under anesthesia from being fixed, but I didn't ask. I hope so?

brb going to hug my cat
posted by janepanic at 2:59 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


i assume the device that implants the chip will also surreptitiously take a dna sample so they can sequence it and deny you health coverage based on genetic predispositions

[friendly reminder that the above sentence would have been considered tinfoil-hat paranoid 10-15 years ago]
posted by entropicamericana at 3:02 PM on July 25, 2017 [18 favorites]


Remember: someone who will submit his family to a procedure in order to convince others to do so believes sincerely that other people, including and perhaps especially his own family, are his to do with as he likes.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:07 PM on July 25, 2017 [27 favorites]


There are lots of things that are horrifying about this but a non-insignificant number of women get implantable birth control every year and seem to manage just fine.

I'm on my third birth-control implant. The insertion and removal aren't bad, with numbing medication, but the implant also sits in my upper arm in the groove between my muscles, which is a very non-sensitive area. I don't think I'd like a hand implant nearly as much.
posted by epj at 3:07 PM on July 25, 2017


I'm sure this will come in handy if you've committed a crime.
Or witnessed the police committing one.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 3:19 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


Another thing for hackers to hack. Awesome.
posted by Cookiebastard at 3:27 PM on July 25, 2017 [4 favorites]


What a relief; now I can finally have my retinas surgically removed.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:31 PM on July 25, 2017


plinth: "But, which it is not necessarily easy to build a remote reader, I suspect that it's quite easy to build a device that could remotely burn out one of these chips by overpowering them and that it would be quite easy to build into a door frame. Hope the chips don't heat up too much when they overload. Just saying."
I present to you, the WiFi Yagi Sniper Rifle, which debuted at Defcon back in 2004. This premise could just as easily be applied to RFID, and the tech has only gotten better.
tobascodagama: "Oddly enough, my employer's RFID badge already conflicts with the RFID on my subway pass. I usually have to flip open my wallet to make sure the readers at work only get my badge info."
This is an issue I encounter regularly with the DC Metro and my military ID (which most people don't know has RFID embedded in it). I usually have to remove one or the other entirely from the wallet, as even just opening the wallet with one card on each side is still having them close enough to confuse the reader.

Similarly, at one point in my career, I reached a peak of *fourteen* stupid security badges simultaneously hanging on my lanyard, all of which I needed to keep with me. Over half of them were RFID, and I would have to take the badge out to scan through a door/turnstile because of the interference each time. I still have 5 separate RFID badges now, but out of 7 total and no more than 3 (and often only one or two) ever need to be on the same lanyard any more. Plus, the readers have gotten better, and since they know people wear a pile of badges, many can now detect multiple at once and register only the one that matches their system. When the afore-mentioned DC Metro gets with that program, it will be a positive development.
janepanic: "I think I assumed the vet chipped my cat while he was still under anesthesia from being fixed, but I didn't ask. I hope so?"
Unfortunately, usually no. I watched them put the chip in my cat, and the vet flat-out said it's easier if they're awake and aware, so that's the recommended best-practice among vets. At least they put it in a relatively low-nerve region (the fleshy zone between the shoulder blades is common), but still...
posted by mystyk at 3:40 PM on July 25, 2017


they can implant their rfid chip when they have to inject it into my cold, dead hand

fuck this
posted by pyramid termite at 3:43 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


but what's actually wrong with this idea?

Security via bio-metric is a bad plan as you can not replace a bio-metric when the bio-metric is compromised. Replacing an RFID badge is less intrusive than replacing an RFID implant.

What is gonna happen is someone will argue "only person X has RFID Y and therefore...." by lawyers and people who were being RFID cloned will be run through the legal system.

Ya know, that fair and honest legal system.

(Bonus fun! The patent thicket about the etronx system had coverage for RFID as implant or a ring to fire the gun. Imagine the outrage when "you can carry a gun, and use it, so long as it is an RFID enabled gun" happens.)
posted by rough ashlar at 3:48 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


what's actually wrong with this idea?

It's surgically implanted into your body.

We have phones, we carry around credit cards and IDs such in our wallet

None of which is surgically implanted into your body.

I can't believe I have to say this, but it's 2017, Donald Trump is president, and we're clearly living in a dystopia, so here goes: Undergoing a surgical procedure should not be required for employment.
posted by dirigibleman at 3:51 PM on July 25, 2017 [50 favorites]


Oh look, the new season of Black Mirror is up already.


(lalala I can't hear you)
posted by Space Kitty at 3:52 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


It's not just an outward-privacy thing, it's a forced medicalization thing. You could see it being a slippery slope toward everyone being totally comfortable with all kinds of forced medicalization.

Remember: someone who will submit his family to a procedure in order to convince others to do so believes sincerely that other people, including and perhaps especially his own family, are his to do with as he likes.


RFID-chipping = compulsory vaccination? Most people seem quite at ease with the latter. Is it only because it's not so easy to argue that it's being done "for the greater good" that RFID-chipping evokes such distaste? If so, I'm sure TPTB will find some security-related justification for its widespread application.
posted by tenderly at 3:56 PM on July 25, 2017


there is literally no sci fi or dystopian YA fiction in existence where these things don't explode and kill you when you rebel against the system or whatever, so there's also that to consider
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:59 PM on July 25, 2017 [23 favorites]


RFID-chipping = compulsory vaccination? Most people seem quite at ease with the latter. Is it only because it's not so easy to argue that it's being done "for the greater good" that RFID-chipping evokes such distaste? If so, I'm sure TPTB will find some security-related justification for its widespread application.

Uh, no, because vaccination protects you and by extension everyone else from preventable, often lethal diseases like polio, and bonus, doesn't include a means by which your movements and identity can be tracked. Employer-driven RFID chipping offers no benefits beyond maybe a mild convenience in opening locked doors with RFID readers in them. There is utterly no point in agreeing to your employer permanently implanting you with something that could be used against you later. This is another case of capital exploiting labor.

Seriously, I'm having a hard time understanding why anybody would want to grant their boss permanent access to their bodies.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:17 PM on July 25, 2017 [36 favorites]


The program is not mandatory, but as of Monday, more than 50 out of 80 employees at Three Square’s headquarters in River Falls, Wis., had volunteered.

Uh huh. How much you want to bet that the remaining employees are subtly pressured to submit to chipping? How many performance reviews are gonna be subtly or unsubtly impacted by "not a team player" comments for those who aren't chipped? I'd be retaining an employment lawyer if I worked there.
posted by Existential Dread at 4:21 PM on July 25, 2017 [21 favorites]


I want to read this article, but my brain keeps silently screaming that's it's time to exit the immersive William Gibson book now.
posted by corb at 4:36 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


No worries. In a few days, the article will be uploaded directly to your brain.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:37 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]




It strikes me that nobody who seriously entertains the idea that we might actually be living inside of a simulation has the intellectual high ground to scoff at those who believe in End Times prophecies, whether biblically-derived or otherwise. After all, if our reality is just a computer program that was conceived and coded and left to run by some Outside Intelligence, it stands to reason the programmers would have left some easter eggs along the way to give tantalizing little clues about how the Big Game is eventually going to end.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:56 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


RFID-chipping = compulsory vaccination?

The only thing this analogy shows is that either you don't understand analogy, you don't understand vaccines, you don't understand concerns about RFID monitoring and privacy, or you're trolling.
posted by Lexica at 5:06 PM on July 25, 2017 [15 favorites]


Mommy how are RFID chips made?

Well Timmy, when you take two coils of wire and put them next to each other, a current flowing in one coil will induce a current in the other.
posted by littlesq at 5:12 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


B-but I already have 15 pieces of endoflair.
posted by condour75 at 5:14 PM on July 25, 2017 [8 favorites]


Is the chip readable when my thumb is up my ass?

Seems possible that assholes will control the readers.
posted by srboisvert at 5:16 PM on July 25, 2017 [6 favorites]


The space between your thumb and forefinger goes a lot of places that your badge usually wouldn't. A lot more opportunities for being surreptitiously read.

So you install a covert reader at the nearest Starbucks and hang around until you figure out how to clone one, right? And then clone the C-level execs?
posted by uncleozzy at 5:37 PM on July 25, 2017


Swatch, I think, had this right. They made an RFID chip built into a watch that was used as a ski lift pass.

Let's not forget the thousands of daily visitors to Walt Disney World that are using MagicBands.

Turns out the MagicBands have both short-range RFID as well as a longer-range transmission system for tracking the position of guests and whatnot.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:53 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Your employer does not own you. People fought and died for the right to leave your work at work. I don't mean this to say the the workers who are 'voluntarily' getting chipped are somehow betraying the labour movement, rather that this world is looking a lot like the Dickensian nightmare we've suspected for a while...
posted by prismatic7 at 6:02 PM on July 25, 2017 [36 favorites]


I would love to not need the three RFID cards/devices I have to carry around (plus others I use less often, like my passport, and my phone for accessing other things like boarding passes), but I'm not convinced that surgical implants are necessarily the right step, either.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on July 25, 2017


Well, naturally. It started with the cattle. That worked out well, so next step.

With one of those, the waiting line at the airport will get way shorter. Just ... wave your way into Wally World.
posted by Twang at 6:04 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wasn't there a horror movie about this recently?
posted by whimsicalnymph at 6:17 PM on July 25, 2017


Brings new meaning to the future term 'Surgical Layoffs'.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:23 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


You all know about UPCs and the Mark of the Beast, but do you know how to find the "666" embedded into every single UPC?

Because I do. Oh yes, I do.
posted by clawsoon at 6:57 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


When the afore-mentioned DC Metro gets with that program, it will be a positive development.

Hmmm. Have they managed to stop catching on fire yet?
posted by Ender's Friend at 7:10 PM on July 25, 2017


>in theory, be used later in more invasive ways: to track the length of employees’ bathroom or lunch breaks, for instance, without their consent or even their knowledge.

>So could security cameras, badges, fobs and your boss who likes to keep the door ajar so he can look out over the sea of cubes.


I briefly worked a call center job where you had to be logged into the computer system at all times from the minute you arrived, and if you wanted to eat or go to the bathroom or whatever, you would have to log that into the system (so calls wouldn't get placed to you) and they gave you strict allowances for how long those breaks could be and they tracked everything you did and I found that super oppressive and stressful and it was one of the (many) reasons why I hated that job. This chip implanting has the potential to be a million times worse on so many different levels.
posted by litera scripta manet at 7:27 PM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


Honestly, my feelings about this can best be expressed by linking to an endless supply of nope gifs.
posted by litera scripta manet at 7:31 PM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


removable???

ugh I don't even wanna know


Nothing to it
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:36 PM on July 25, 2017


"What they want you to forget is that the RFID readers don't have to be tied to anything visible to the user. For now they might have RFID readers to swipe into the building or paying for food, but they might place them by bathroom entrances to track your entrance and exit, for example."

Yeah, I mean, cool story, soothing tech bro claiming it isn't an active technology, but there are already high schools installing RFID readers around doorways so the kids with RFID-enabled ID badges are tracked as they go in and out of the cafeteria or doors to the building. (Universally, none of the vendors understood why I found this horrifying instead of awesome.) The kids don't have a GPS chip constantly transmitting their location, no. But the building always knows where they are. (Or at least where their IDs are. For now.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:53 PM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]


We have always been at war with privacy.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:10 PM on July 25, 2017 [3 favorites]


As a pretty fundie guy myself, I was amazed to end up on a corner of the internet today that told me going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday for "Sabbath" was the mark of the beast.

I gotta say, I'm not convinced that a movie about that would have had my mother yelling out ".... staring Nick Mancuso!" as she sometimes does when she wants to compare something to the end of the world.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 9:01 PM on July 25, 2017


Seconding Keith Talent above - I simply can't understand why this is being received in (part) of the US as acceptable where (at least from outside) biblical knowledge seems so widespread. Maybe it's not so; when I've traveled stateside I've found even many so-proclaimed Christians have only a very fleeting knowledge of their book. Yet the fundies always focus on carefully cherry-picked tidbits such as the mark - so I really don't know what's going on.

Back in '04 a creepy company called Digital Angel - now apparently absorbed by PositiveID (an interesting confluence of technologies there), was AFAIK an early casualty of the 2006 downturn.

"It's just a passive device" well you'd have to take that on trust wouldn't you?
posted by unearthed at 9:08 PM on July 25, 2017


Dip Flash: "I would love to not need the three RFID cards/devices I have to carry around (plus others I use less often, like my passport, and my phone for accessing other things like boarding passes), but I'm not convinced that surgical implants are necessarily the right step, either."

Companies already could work with each other so you wouldn't have to carry more than one ID/card/device. They don't either through laziness or attempts to lock in and neither of those is going to be less likely with implantable identifiers. So instead of getting a new card for every workplace, gym, school, etc you'd have to get injected with Yet Another RFID Tag. Switching gyms just became a lot more interesting.

And think of the possibilities for denying service when an implant is read. Sorry sir, that entrance door won't open because you work for a competing business/the EPA/Health Department/take transit.

MiltonRandKalman: "So could security cameras, badges, fobs and your boss who likes to keep the door ajar so he can look out over the sea of cubes. I'm not seeing how a human pet tag changes the equation much or the stakes on getting caught for long lunches. Either you punch in on a time clock or you're salary."

RFID readers are easier to oppressively automate than Bosses and implantable tags are much harder to subvert than any token people merely carry. Minus facial recognition security cameras aren't really tracking devices (though of course we are getting close to this also being worrysome); which means we should be restricting cameras not giving people lojack a free ride.

And I'm neither salary nor punching a clock. In fact in maybe a dozen hourly positions I've worked over 30 years I've only punched a clock for one brief three month stint.

Eyebrows McGee: "The kids don't have a GPS chip constantly transmitting their location, no. But the building always knows where they are. (Or at least where their IDs are. For now.)"

And the last is a key difference between any carried token vs. any implanted token. Carried tokens are easily subverted in many ways.
posted by Mitheral at 10:26 PM on July 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Unearthed: Seconding Keith Talent above - I simply can't understand why this is being received in (part) of the US as acceptable where (at least from outside) biblical knowledge seems so widespread.

The fundamentalists happily voted for the pussy-grabber-in-chief because he is a true Christian, unlike Hillary. They'll have no trouble rationalizing the Mark of the Beast.

I grew up United Methodist, and the whole "666" thing wasn't a common sermon topic. I would suspect much of mainstream Protestantism was likewise. It was the far more fundamental churches that preached about it.
posted by bryon at 10:52 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


I actually really really want an RFID implant that I can program for cool and kinda dumb projects. And at the same time I really really really do not want my employer to implant me with an RFID chip or have access to same. There are issues of privacy and bodily autonomy here that are really important and just because I want to be a cyborg doesn't mean anyone else should ever be expected to become one for the convenience of a person or company who already has way too much power over them.

(This dude at work has magnets in his fingertips, and I'm not quite willing to embrace that level of future-fetishism.)

(Also, see this amusing tale that's been in the Australian news lately. I love that he did this despite the authorities not wanting him to, and better yet, that they were unable to deactivate it specifically because he refused to register it in their database in the first place. I don't really see how he's going to avoid a fine when the ticket checker people come around asking to see peoples' cards, though, which seems to happen on average about once every six weeks.)
posted by lollusc at 1:55 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


I think the instinctive negative reaction some people have to this (one I share, btw), is that it implies that one's relationship with one's employer is less mutable than it should be. With a phone or a facebook account or various wallet systems, you can toss away the phone, close your accounts, and walk away, severing the relationship. The hidden and semi-permanent nature of an implant (along with the requirement that you trust what the company says about the capabilities of the chip) adds another reason to indulge in sunk-cost fallacies when evaluating your relationship with your employer. "Ugh, I got a device implanted into my body and it's been so convenient for logging into my labor terminal and buying my expensive lunch at the cafeteria and my turbo latte at the coffee dispenser. Do I really want to have another implanted elsewhere? Or go somewhere where all this "convenience" doesn't exist and I have to go back to typing passwords or bringing a sack lunch and a thermos?" I'm only being a little hyperbolic, here. But it really does lay bare the bargains we all make with ourselves for the sake of convenience.

Personally, I avoided letting my phone (or any application) track my location for years. Until, one day, convenience finally won out, and I just really needed to let google maps tell me how to get from A to B verbally so I could concentrate on driving in terrible weather without having to pull over and memorize directions. Nevermind that a mere decade ago I didn't even have a smart phone or GPS navigation and somehow survived similar situations without a talking computer that lives in my pocket. Right then I "needed" it. Right?

It's kinda messed up.
posted by xyzzy at 2:08 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


So it begins...


"Voluntary" becomes "compulsory" far too quickly for my blood. The day chipping becomes compulsory, is the day I go full Prepper.
posted by Amor Bellator at 4:03 AM on July 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


The difference between the implants and the cards, is that with implants there is a huge incentive to standardise onto one system, and to give each person's implant a single globally unique identifier which is publically associated with that person. This way each individual employer/gym/spy/overlord can use the same already implanted chip and just start referencing their data against the identifier the person already carries.

Apply some sort of big data technology to the results of this and I'm sure Google or someone can identify the pre-criminals in no time.
posted by emilyw at 4:11 AM on July 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


>in theory, be used later in more invasive ways: to track the length of employees’ bathroom or lunch breaks, for instance, without their consent or even their knowledge.

>So could security cameras, badges, fobs and your boss who likes to keep the door ajar so he can look out over the sea of cubes.


Two thoughts in return.

First: the digitization and automation of things absolutely changes things. One reason for this is because we don't know what other information it can be automatically linked to. Consider, for example, criminal risk assessment scores, which are being used as evidence against people even though the companies won't divulge what information goes into them - essentially denying people the opportunity to review evidence against them.

Second: a lot of creepy, oppressive things start out as perks. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the extent of digital advertising right now, and it relies on the fact that we carry smartphones everywhere and use the internet for almost everything - and that's hard to just give up once its utility invades so many corners of one's life.

Which is to say that we don't know how it will be used, but the possibilities are both chilling and real.
posted by entropone at 4:43 AM on July 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


@ vverse23 I watched A Thief in the Night when I was 5 years old and subsequently traumatized. I'm not even gonna read the article, because even this brief post freaks me out, 22 years later...
posted by KTamas at 4:51 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


> Second: a lot of creepy, oppressive things start out as perks.

Last night I went to see Dunkirk (great movie, btw) and beforehand there was an ad for whatever the Google home assistant is called. One of the little scenarios in the commercial was someone coming in their front door with an armful of shopping bags and saying "Google, turn on the lights," which saved them the unbearable burden of having to put their shopping bags on the floor, flip a switch or two and then pick the bags back up again. And I was like "Are you telling me that all I have to do is pay Google a substantial sum of money and surrender what little privacy I have left in this world and I'll save myself a few seconds while performing common household tasks? WHERE THE FUCK DO I PAY????" I don't want to get too "Wake up, sheeple," but JFC, folks.

Add my voice to the "fuck this sideways" choir.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:20 AM on July 26, 2017 [9 favorites]


RFIDs pretty much are all one system, well two systems but the small tags are all pretty much one system. The readers are trivially easy to build. From just the photo of the tag in the article I could build one that would pick up these unique codes.

Yeah, I know the read range on the low-frequency passive RFID (the ones they use for animal chipping, for example) is low, like mere inches. But technology gets better,

The read range can be feet. Many feet if you can get the tag to pass through the coil. Now interference is a real problem with big coils but you can do stuff to improve that, bouncing the field, isolating it from EMF etc. If your employers starts installing weirdly shaped aluminum door jams and relocating wiring, well.......
posted by fshgrl at 7:05 AM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


As an angle that hasn't been discussed yet in this thread, I cope with social anxiety and being watched/monitored/tracked in any form is a direct threat to my ability to do anything but sit in a corner and cry.

I know the common assumption is that everyone has a cell phone and tons of credit cards and buys everything online using those credit cards and RFID-enabled ID cards and and and, but some of us find such a world completely and utterly horrifying, paralyzing, and debilitating and, as such, somehow make do without all of those conveniences. You may be surprised to discover it's not all that inconvenient, after all. (I mean, services do get mad at me when I try to enter "N/A" into the phone number column, but it's not like I wanted their texts, anyway.)

So I guess I'd like to maybe push back on the concept of yes we all have a cell phone and gave up our privacy long ago so what's one more thing, since, you know, some people still care about our privacy and not being capitalized upon. (I'll grant we don't make a lot of noise and probably all live in places like Maine or Wyoming or the Adirondacks or Alaska or something, but still, it boggles my mind that expensive technological trinkets are assumed to be must-haves in daily life these days.)
posted by ragtag at 8:44 AM on July 26, 2017 [6 favorites]


...the unbearable burden of having to put their shopping bags on the floor, flip a switch or two and then pick the bags back up again.

I'm guessing you don't have a bad back?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:29 AM on July 26, 2017


Given the number of female employees who end up getting sexually harassed and/or stalked by men in their organizations, the possibilities for how this will be exploited to coerce or punish women who are insufficiently "compliant" are 100% terrifying.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:15 AM on July 26, 2017 [10 favorites]


Sorry sir, that entrance door won't open because you work for a competing business/the EPA/Health Department/take transit.

If public transit start requiring these, I can imagine employers using them to see if you have "reliable form of transportation", aka one of the ways that companies try and weed out poor people legally. "Oh, it looks like Mrs Jones takes transit on average 6 days of the week. I don't think she's a good fit for the company".
posted by FirstMateKate at 10:40 AM on July 26, 2017 [5 favorites]


From the title of this post, I originally thought this was going to be about a cannibal turning his family into a meat product, a la chipped beef. I'm still not sure which would have been preferable.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:57 AM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm annoyed that everyone has to have a Social Security number to get anything done in the US (and I assume the equivalent in every other country) - I really can't deal with an implanted RFID.

I saw the Facebook posts, and assumed it was fake news.
posted by maggiemaggie at 2:59 PM on July 26, 2017


So now that we've all shown our dismay over chipping, a wearable that knows when its removed being your access control should seem relatively OK, yeah?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 5:38 PM on July 26, 2017


What bothers me most is the mixed metaphors. Are we talking about chips or rice? If it's rice crackers then why not just
posted by No-sword at 8:20 PM on July 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


Given the number of female employees who end up getting sexually harassed and/or stalked by men in their organizations, the possibilities for how this will be exploited to coerce or punish women who are insufficiently "compliant" are 100% terrifying.

Nah. you can't actively track an RFID. It just pings a reader when it passes nearby.

If you want to actively track something you need a much bigger implant..... or a glue on.
posted by fshgrl at 9:05 PM on July 26, 2017


I worked at a university where every door into classrooms, labs, office areas, and some hallways was controlled by a security token to the tune of 1-2 thousand dollars per door. If an organization could put a RFID reader in every doorway for a few hundred dollars (no need to have computer controlled locking mechanisms that drive the cost up) that's as close to actively tracking as makes no difference. And the read distance is less than a foot for a tag implanted in your hand.
posted by Mitheral at 9:46 PM on July 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


The read distance can be many feet for implanted tags if the tagged animal passes through the coil as I be stated above. I've built a ton of these personally with my own two hands. But it's definitely not "as close to actively tracking as makes no difference" except under very controlled circumstances. No ones going to hack your RFID tag and follow you from a helicopter. They can't follow you home. They can I guess track your movements through a building if it was constructed like a maze but not, for example in an open floor plan office. And cameras already monitor most public buildings.

This is not the conspiracy theory people are looking for.
posted by fshgrl at 7:52 AM on July 27, 2017


Plus they're very easy to defeat. Building large readers indoors would be a nightmare. Everything interferes with them. It would be hugely costly to shield them anyplace there was power cables or metal building components. It can be done obviously but not super easily. Not for $200/door.
posted by fshgrl at 7:56 AM on July 27, 2017


Ah, I see what you are getting at re: active tracking. Yes the tracking would only work where the tracker had access to reader information.

What does the shielding consist of and does it generally have to be customized on a per location basis? Because I was figuring a loop of wire (maybe many loops) set in a channel in a steel door jamb would make a pretty decent reader and could use the steel of the door jamb for the shielding. The cost would be fairly low (cost of the wire and the extra manufacturing step for the jambs) plus the controller and some network cable or maybe a wireless link.

There are even a few non creepy reasons for ramping up this sort of tracking once you have implemented implanted tag building access. Like you could adjust the HVAC setting depending on how many people were in a room. Or you could automatically send a janitor to a washroom after a set number of visits.
posted by Mitheral at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2017


Nah. you can't actively track an RFID. It just pings a reader when it passes nearby. . . . This is not the conspiracy theory people are looking for.

*ping*
“Hey, Sheila’s in the server room. I should go down and talk to her. Find out why she hasn't answered my email about going on another date.”

*ping*
“Becca, I couldn’t help but notice that you entered the garage in Mike’s car this morning. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? Maybe I should mention it to your supervisor?”

*ping*
“Hey guys, Alexis just logged in to the employee gym. Who wants to go work out, if you know what I mean?”

*ping*
[Dude who has a thing for Sara notices that she just got on the elevator, and goes to loiter around her desk so he can bother her as soon as she gets there]

*ping*
“Cassie, I notice that you’ve been using the 3rd floor break room instead of the one on our floor. I miss the talks we used to have at lunch. Have you been avoiding me?”

I wasn’t implying that it had to happen outside the building, or using anything other than normal office checkpoints. A lot of women in a lot of workplaces already use multiple strategies to stay away from men who make them uncomfortable. Knowing where they are and when— especially in spaces where no one else will be around— sounds like a recipe for a workplace nightmare, whether or not there are black-ops helicopters involved.

I have had a man at work publicly berate me because I faxed something incorrectly (due to him posting incorrect instructions after a procedural change). It is not a hypothetical that people would misuse this method of surveillance-- people already abuse our current methods of surveillance. I was simply pointing out that this, too, would be a system rife with possibilities for abuse.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:28 AM on July 27, 2017 [14 favorites]


It pings the bus reader when you get on it, whether you pay with your chip or not. The camera records you the chip confirms your location, even if location is turned off in your phone, even if you wear a hat and glasses.
posted by Oyéah at 1:50 PM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


How much PR money do chip makers have to work with? Will they put comment on every popular blog that alerts their algorithm? Yeah they will. Facebook elected Donald Trump. Ping.
posted by Oyéah at 1:51 PM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


Well a steel doorjam would interfere with the readers horribly itself. Overhead power cables, rebar, electronics, other readers operating out of sync... anything with an emf.

It's not active tracking. That's a specific term, words have meanings! It's just records the chip passing a reader. It's not even directional unless you have two readers side by side.
posted by fshgrl at 10:26 PM on July 28, 2017


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