Spychips RFID Blog

Time to buy a flyswatter

The Pentagon wants to insert RF equipment into insects at the larval stage, so they'll pupate into hard-shelled surveillance drones, maneuverable by remote control.
http://www.spychips.com/blog/index.html

"Darpa seeks innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect-cyborgs, possibly enabled by intimately integrating microsystems within insects, during their early stages of metamorphoses," its advertisement says.

Embedding the control equipment deep in their bodies will overcome those annoying "instinctive behaviours for feeding and mating" that kept bugs with RFID tags glued onto them from performing "reliably" in past studies. (How pesky of living creatures to believe they own their own bodies! How annoying of them to want to live their own lives!) Among other things, Darpa wants the power to force the insects to "remain stationary indefinitely or until otherwise instructed." Sounds like a real barrel of laughs for the bugs.

The goal is for insects to covertly transmit video and "bug" conversations by lurking unseen in enemy hideouts with micro-transmitters strapped to their bodies.

Of course.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1731037,00.html
Even more details: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Military_Plans_To_Make_Insect_Cyborgs.html

- Katherine Albrecht
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Nice Recap of Coast to Coast - with audio!

Here is the summary of the interview Pat, Celeste, and I did on Coast to Coast:

Govt. Tracking: RFID & NAIS

Consumer privacy expert Katherine Albrecht, joined by activists Pat Showalter and Celeste Bishop in hour two, spoke out against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a USDA plan to track farm animals using RFID chips. Showalter and Bishop, who both own animals in a small scale, non-commercial capacity, said the new regulations are very burdensome for small farmers. For instance, the "Premises Identification" part of the plan requires owners to report any movements or visitors of the animals, even in the case of a few chickens and goats. The cost and time for such monitoring is prohibitive and also an invasion of their privacy, they argued.

Technology is being used to clamp down and control food in general, said Albrecht, who compared the NAIS plan to the tracking done with grocery loyalty cards, and the efforts to restrict farmers' rights to seeds. In regards to the NAIS, she hoped that small farmers will refuse to comply with the plan, as she believes it does nothing to make the food supply safer (the stated goal of the program), and it discourages self-sufficiency.

Further, the RFID chips, used to track the animals, and recently introduced in passports, are susceptible to hackers who can infect large databases with malicious viruses, she pointed out. The bigger picture is that the government is seeking a top down control of the populace on a global level, and there is "a move afoot to number everything and everyone," said Albrecht. However, she finds that US citizens are more prone to resisting these efforts than Europeans, and that the NAIS may be the issue that wakes people up.

Missed the show? APFN has posted audio files here:
Govt. Tracking: RFID & NAIS
POSTED AT: APFN POGO HTTP://WWW.APFN.NET/POGO.HTM
Consumer privacy expert Katherine Albrecht, joined by activists Pat Showalter and Celeste Bishop in hour two, spoke out against the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), a USDA plan to track farm animals using RFID chips. Showalter and Bishop, who both own animals in a small scale, non-commercial capacity, said the new regulations are very burdensome for small farmers.

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A002I06031523555700550-rfid3.MP3 (4.56MB) 6Min 37 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A003I06031601051000550-rfid4.MP3 (4.42MB) 6Min 25 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A002I06031523555700550-rfid5.MP3 (4.55MB) 6Min 37 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A003I06031601051000550-rfid6.MP3 (4.60MB) 6Min 41 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A003I06031601051000550-rfid7.MP3 (5.81MB) 8Min 26 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A003I06031601051000550-rfid8.MP3 (3.10MB) 4Min 29 Sec

http://www.apfn.net/audio/A004I06031602453700550-rfid9.MP3 (4.34MB) 18Min 58 Sec

-Katherine Albrecht