http://www.hacer.org/current/Mex064.php Law enforcement in Mexico goes a bit bionic By Monica Campbell MEXICO CITY . Crime has become such a problem in Mexico that the government has created a fleet of cyborgs to fight it. Call them Mexico's "Robocops." Sure, the transformation of the 170 or so law-enforcement officials isn't as dramatic as the 1987 movie, where the protagonist was part man, mostly machine. The Mexican officials have been injected with a microchip the size of a grain of rice. Implanted beneath the skin of their arms, it allows them to access a high-level crime database and, they hope, track them if they're kidnapped... The chip comes from VeriChip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital Solutions of Palm Beach, Fla. The device is nonremovable (though it can be deactivated) and is slipped under the skin in seconds via a syringe-like device. The chip costs $200, plus $50 a year, in addition to the scanner and software. The technology has existed for years and was originally developed to let pet owners identify stray animals. The chip sits dormant under the skin and is only "awakened" by a scanner using radio- frequency identification, or RFID. The scanner emits a signal that powers the chip, allowing it to send its identification number. Then, depending on the configuration of the database that is hooked up to the scanner, a door is opened or a database unlocked, the way an ID card allows employees into the office. [...] _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Mon Aug 16 2004 - 14:48:13 PDT