MARK OF THE BEAST

When cash is only skin deep

A subdermal (under-the-skin) microchip -- that uses radio frequency signals to broadcast an identification number to a scanner -- could someday replace credit and debit cards.
Applied Digital Solutions CEO Scott Silverman said that rather than swiping a bank card to make purchases, micro-chipped customers would scan themselves using special readers.
Radio frequency identification, or RFID, are already commonplace in some areas.
ExxonMobil's Speedpass system already uses a scanner integrated into a fuel bowser: fuel purchases are charged to a credit card account within seconds.
Recently, McDonald's restaurants in Chicago started using the Speedpass system. And in an interview with USA Today, a senior MasterCard executive said the company was considering integrating its RFID technology into items, such as pens or earrings.
"Ultimately, it could be embedded in anything -- someday, maybe even under the skin," the executive said.

[Applied Digital has attracted scorn from some fundamentalist Christians, who believe that its VeriChip is the fabled "mark of the beast" of biblical lore. According to the book of Revelation (Ch 13), Satan will someday force people to "receive a mark" on their hands or foreheads in order to buy or sell.
Verse 16: "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."]