BEWARE! The Mark of the Beast
Is Here
“He cause all both small and great, rich and
poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their
foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name”
(Rev. 13:16, 17).
The world is being prepared to receive the antichrist and
his seal. Let us be sober and watchful in prayer.
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and
watch unto prayer (1 Pet. 4:7).
A tiny chip implanted inside the human body to send and
receive radio messages have already been produced by US based companies, and
are already systematically in circulation in some parts of the world.
In the past US government administration, just four
companies were approved to produce the microchips on which the global economy
depends.
A US company has microchipped its employees
A company in Wisconsin just made the news for microchipping
its employees.
40 employees at the local firm Three Square Market, which
makes cafeteria kiosks intended to replace traditional vending machines, “got
tiny rice-sized microchips embedded in their hands.
Several technologies already available or under development
will enable electronics firms to make implantable ID locators, and the human
yearning for convenience and security makes them almost irresistible to
marketers.
“This is currently very hot,” said Edward Cornish president
of the World Future Society, based in Bethesda, Md. “The field is developing
because the technology is becoming available to do it.”
Inevitably, implantable radio locators conjure up visions of
Big Brother and unscrupulous scientists abusing such technology to control the
masses. But the researchers laying the foundations for this technology see
their work as helping humankind, not subverting privacy. They seek to aid
people using wireless phones to summon emergency help, to track soldiers who
become lost on maneuvers and to enable people to get along without carrying
cash by automatically crediting an account.
Animal advocates already urge pet owners to have tiny
identification chips implanted in their dogs and cats so if they are lost,
shelters can identify them through a national computerized database.
Authorities have experimented for years with fitting
convicts with electronic monitors to allow them to leave jails for limited
reasons, such as work release. Several systems already are in place with the
potential to locate people using radio signals. The most obvious, called GPS,
for global positioning satellites, was launched by the military years ago and
has become available for civilian applications. It uses satellites to map a
person’s position with great precision. Some automobiles come equipped with GPS
gadgets that can give drivers their location, and boaters use similar
technology. Researchers want to combine such locators with equipment that
monitors a person’s health.
Engineers in Salt Lake City have designed a device intended
to determine, whether someone wearing it is becoming too cold or too hot, a
sign of exposure. “We want to highlight people who need attention early, when
there is still time to get to them with help” said Peter Kind, a senior vice
president at Sarcos Research Corp., which has developed a prototype GPS-based
device that will be ready for field tests this year.
Sarcos’ initial target is the military. The body monitors
and locators could transmit information about soldiers to a central location to
reduce the risks while troops are on maneuvers.
Another means to track people relies upon the existing
network of cellular-phone transmitters. The cellular industry and
emergency-response officials have proposed standards to the Federal
Communications Commission that would enable police, fire and ambulance
dispatchers to find people who dial 911 from wireless phones.
At present, nearly one-quarter of the 911 emergency calls
made in the U.S come from wireless phones, and half the time the callers don’t
know their location, posing a major problem for emergency personnel. Developing
computer systems to track locations of so many calls is a daunting task, but it
is consistent with the phone industry’s goal of one day assigning phone numbers
to human beings, rather than to equipment. Once the phone network becomes
sophisticated enough to do this, it will smooth the way for widespread
monitoring of people’s whereabouts.
Companies already market pagers for children so parents can
keep in touch when youngsters are away from home. Adding the ability to
pinpoint location at any time is natural extension; keeping track of the child
through a chip implanted under the skin may be another. “People accept that
increased communications makes life more convenient at the same time that it
means there’s no hiding place anymore,” said Bernard Beck, a Northwestern
University sociologist. Bernard said, “If I have a universal ID implanted, I
can cash a check anywhere in the world. There’s no worry about credit cards
being stolen. These are attractive matters.”
There is a plan by the authorities to implant tracers in
criminals, promising that this would reduce incarceration because it would
allow them to be tracked at all times. They added, people wearing locators
would be deterred from committing crimes because of the likelihood they would
be caught. But the potential loss of privacy is a huge issue.
“It’s one thing to have my hospital monitoring my heartbeat
for fibrillation, but it’s an entirely different matter to have the government
monitoring my whereabouts” said Dan Polsby, a Northwestern University law
professor.
Although potential problems are huge, locator ID chips may
be inevitable, said Cornish of the World Future Society. Just as many people
now allow supermarket chains to keep computerized records of their individual
purchases in return for price discounts, many will embrace the chips for the
security and convenience they offer, Cornish said.
“We all want to walk down the street feeling safe,” he said.
“This technology offers that promise along with the dilemma of lost privacy.”
Cornish believers, at least initially, that such chips would be voluntary. But
he acknowledges that “things that are voluntary today have a way of becoming
compulsory tomorrow.”
“I was in London recently on a day when everyone on the
street was wearing a red poppy. I felt conspicuous without one. I wanted one.
As these chips are introduced, people will begin to assume you are locatable.
It will become an issue if you aren’t,” he said.
Cornish said he sees a similar attitude already regarding
e-mail addresses and pagers. “If you tell people you don’t have an e-mail
address, they ask, “How can we contact you?” Some employers now require staff
to wear pagers, to be locatable. Someday, they may require chips.”
