Unclean, unclean....
Microchips mulled for HIV carriers in Indonesia's Papua
I've already seen where this would lead. Norman Spinrad wrote a novella in the eighties called "Journals of the Plague Years". The spread of the plague (AIDS and mutations thereof, though it is not called by name in the story) is so prevalent that, included in the information on the national ID, there is a field with information about the person's infection status. Uninfected people's cards, when scanned, returned a blue indicator; the infected, or anyone who had missed their last scheduled medical test, came up black. Most black-carders were rounded up and shipped off to the quarantine city, San Francisco, which was surrounded by walls and guards in boats and all.
When people would meet and consider dating, there were readers in public places for the purpose of confirming one's status to the other. (I think there may have been home blood test kits, too; it's been twenty years, and the book is out of print now.)
And when a person's card registered black, they would often dive into the underground immediately, as it meant the authorities would be looking for them.
I won't go into the plot details. But that's where this is heading. Black cards, not just for diseases, but for any undesirable behavior.
Consider the usefulness of underground networks in such a case, or that of card counterfeiters and identity brokers. Should a similar future come to pass, TheyTM will want to use chips because they're harder to counterfeit, but I have faith in human inventiveness.
Ground Zero articles of interest:
"Among one of the means being considered is the monitoring of those infected people who can pose a danger to others," Manangsang said.
"The use of chip implants is one of the ways to do so, but only for those few who turn aggressive and clearly continue to disregard what they know about the disease and spread the virus to others."
I've already seen where this would lead. Norman Spinrad wrote a novella in the eighties called "Journals of the Plague Years". The spread of the plague (AIDS and mutations thereof, though it is not called by name in the story) is so prevalent that, included in the information on the national ID, there is a field with information about the person's infection status. Uninfected people's cards, when scanned, returned a blue indicator; the infected, or anyone who had missed their last scheduled medical test, came up black. Most black-carders were rounded up and shipped off to the quarantine city, San Francisco, which was surrounded by walls and guards in boats and all.
When people would meet and consider dating, there were readers in public places for the purpose of confirming one's status to the other. (I think there may have been home blood test kits, too; it's been twenty years, and the book is out of print now.)
And when a person's card registered black, they would often dive into the underground immediately, as it meant the authorities would be looking for them.
I won't go into the plot details. But that's where this is heading. Black cards, not just for diseases, but for any undesirable behavior.
Consider the usefulness of underground networks in such a case, or that of card counterfeiters and identity brokers. Should a similar future come to pass, TheyTM will want to use chips because they're harder to counterfeit, but I have faith in human inventiveness.
Ground Zero articles of interest:
Labels: biometrics, information control, plague, police state, population control, surveillance society
posted by Delirium at
4:48 PM
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