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Signs of the Last Days: Technology
The book of Revelation reveals that
the antichrist will be able to track and control all financial
transactions and that NO MAN will be able to buy or sell anything
unless he has the mark.
He
also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and
slave, to receive a mark of his right hand or on his forehead, so
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. [Revelation 13:16-17]
Not until recent times did people
understand how this prophecy could possibly come to pass. There was
simply no way that anyone could control the buying and selling
activities on such a large scale. Certainly it will be a monumental
task to keep track of all men, and their financial transactions, all
across the globe.
Advances in computer technology have placed the world on the verge
of an identification system capable of monitoring virtually every
human transaction - an ominous development for serious students of
Bible prophecy. Modern technology has created a new electronic world
without borders. With modern computer technology, satellites, and
devices like the Global Positioning System device can track anyone
within 3 feet anywhere in the world. And new developments in
biometric and smart card technology make such a feat seem more
plausible as well.
Since originally writing about these emerging technologies more than
six years ago, the advancements in recent years have been
breathtaking. Indeed, Anticrhist's world government is not only
believeable but seems to have arrived.
No one knows how the mark will be imprinted on the hand or the
forehead and I am not saying everything described here will
necessarily become the mark of the beast. Given rapidly evolving
modern technology, if the Lord tarries a bit longer there may be
some development that would fit the bill even more closely. However,
there are some good candidates and numerous ways this could be
accomplished today.
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Subcutaneous implant
The technology now exists and
has been successfully tested to allow an identification
device of some type, including a tiny microchip, to be
implanted under the skin of the hand.
Programmable subcutaneous visible implants could contain
biosensors to monitor temperature and blood pressure, and
display these readings -- clearly a medical advancement. But
the devices could have a more serious purpose. They could be
used for electronic tagging. Whenever anyone wanted to buy
or sell someting, he could be required to wave his hand over
a scanning device that would read the chip, identify the
buyer or seller, and validate or invalidate the sale.
Interval Research (Palo Alto) has patented a "programmable
tattoo." The biologically inert subcutaneous implant is
constructed of a flexible material so as to conform to the
skin's surface. The small liquid-crystal display can be
inserted just beneath the skin (e.g., in place of a wrist
watch). Because human skin is partially transparent, the
display is clearly visible. The implant also includes a
receiver for receiving programming information from a user,
and a display for displaying the programming information
through the skin. The display is connected to a control chip
and power comes from a small battery. Both of these are
implanted beneath the skin. Implanting is an outpatient
operation and the battery can be recharged inductively, by
holding the wrist near a charger.
We have already demonstrated our willingness to accept
devices to electronically tag or track individuals. It has
become quite commonplace, for example, for law enforcement
agencies to require individuals to wear electronic bracelets
in order to monitor their activities.
Digital
Angel
The Digital Angel™ technology
incorporates a microchip that can be worn close to the body
and includes biosensors that can measure the biological
parameters of the body and send the information with RFID
(radio frequency identification) technology to a ground
station or computer. It will also have an antenna that can
receive signals from GPS satellites, thus pinpointing the
location of the wearer.
According the the
Digital Angel™ web site, "While a number of other
tracking and monitoring technologies have been patented and
marketed in the past, they are all unsuitable for the
widespread tracking, recovery and identification of people
due to a variety of limitations, including unwieldy size,
maintenance requirements, insufficient or inconvenient
power-supply and activation difficulties. For the first time
in the history of location and monitoring technology,
Digital Angel™ overcomes these limitations.
Some of it's potential uses, according the their web site
includes: monitor patients by doctors, commodities supply
chain management, locating people such as small children and
the elderly, tracking parolees, people under house arrest,
and individuals in witness protection programs, trace
valuable items such as art pieces or computer equipment. Of
particular interest is its application as an important
security measure. It can carry personal identification
information and transmit this information via wireless
communication with personal computers.
The Digital Angel human implant, called
VeriChips,
was recently approved by the FDA for storing medical
information and the company is going forward to market their
implantable chips that would provide easy access to
individual medical records. (WorldNetDaily,
October 21, 2004)
Applied Digital Solutions, based in Delray Beach, Fla.,
expressed hope that such medical uses would accelerate the
acceptance of under-the-skin ID chips as security and
access-control devices. (The New York Times,
October 14, 2004)
All it takes is a syringe-injected microchip implant for
patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain to breeze
past a "reader" that recognizes their identity, credit
balance and even automatically opens doors to exclusive
areas of the club for them. "By simply passing by our
reader, the Baja Beach Club will know who you are and what
your credit balance is," Conrad K. Chase explains.
(WorldNetDaily,
April 14, 2004)
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Iriscans
Iriscan technology is already
being introduced in financial organizations here and abroad
that require nonintrusive, noncontact, and accurate
electronic identification.
Iriscan
technology identifies people by analyzing the unique pattern
in the iris of the human eye. The iris is the colored ring
of tissue that surrounds the pupil of the eye and is a
complex combination of patterns that can be recorded and
stored by the computer. The iris-recognition product
captures a photographic image of the iris, analyzes its
unique visual structure, and then compares it to previously
stored Iriscodes for authentication of identity.
["Security for Your Eyes Only," Byte, May
1998.] Imagine this technology being in place
providing access control to facilities and point-of-sale
control. It's already in place at some bank ATMs.
Thermograms
Thermogram's are a type of
imagery that translates a person's heat-emitting facial
features into an infrared image. Registering the various
heat peaks and valleys in surface, the thermogram looks like
a colorful, face-shaped topographic map. Like a fingerprint,
each person's face creates a unique thermal pattern.
Captured by a special infrared camera, the image can be
digitized and stored in a computer. Later, the person is
rephotographed and the new thermal image is electronically
compared with the old. ["Smile, You're on
Thermogram," ID Systems, August 1995.]
Bar Codes
Bar codes are everywhere: they
are as familiar as a trip to buy groceries. Now part of
almost every package that crosses the supermarket,
drugstore, and retail counter, bar codes stand poised to
move into many other facets of society.
In their quest for better device identification, the U.S.
Department of Defense and NASA are testing coding systems
that pack in much more information than current bar codes.
These new "two-dimensional" bar codes can squeeze in enough
information to fit the Gettysburg Address into a two-inch
square. "It's a technology that will open up a whole range
of applications," says Richard Bravman, vice president of
marketing for Symbol Technologies, Inc., in Bohemia, N.Y.,
one firm with a new bar code system.
This next generation of identification codes needs no
centralized database. Instead, the symbol itself can contain
all the necessary information, says Bravman. Thus these
codes can help companies and the military keep better track
of products that "cross organizational boundaries," he adds.
When the device, substance or person travels to a new
warehouse, store, hospital or location, all its data go
along, in compact form, accessible to anyone with a machine
that can read the symbol.
"It's a portable data file," says Doug Mohr, mechanical
engineer in program development at the Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory in Idaho Falls, who is evaluating
these technologies for use by the federal government. At the
Wilford Hall U.S. Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio,
Tex., hospital administrators expect that within a year
patients there will carry ID cards with medical histories
and personal data encoded on the back. The hospital had
evaluated other types of codes, including current bar codes,
but discovered with the two-dimensional format that "we
didn't need to tie up our database memory," says Lt. Col.
Frank J. Criddle, an emergency room physician at Wilford
Hall.
Miniaturized, some of these new codes can identify
electronic components, jewelry or even medical devices. "It
represents a giant step in component traceability," says
Robert S. Anselmo, president of Veritec, Inc., in
Chatsworth, Calif. He boasts that his company's symbols
could fit on a grain of rice. Others say they can make their
codes invisible to the eye but still readable to a scanner.
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Smart Cards
The smart card - a piece of
plastic with a computer chip on its face - is becoming
entrenched in the United States with uses from defense and
health care to retailing and transportation. It looks and
acts like your average bank card, but it knows a lot more
about you than you may think. The cards have replaced food
stamps for many and meal tickets for students in college.
Marines and peanut farmers are whipping them out for boot
polish and crop reports. The Clinton Administration
announced a nationwide system to use electronic banking
technology to deliver billions of dollars in government
benefits and President Clinton's proposed health-reform plan
would have required every American to carry a health
identification card bearing, at a minimum, his or her Social
Security number.
For businesses, the card is a shortcut to valuable market
research. With your card in its computer, a company could
learn your ZIP code, shoe size, what magazines you subscribe
to, or the date of your sporty sedan's last oil change, and
respond accordingly. Already, the Vision marketing system
for supermarkets is tailoring coupons to U.S. shoppers who
use smart cards. Customers insert their Vision cards into
computers at the checkout line. Then the card tracks
purchases and supplies the customer with product coupons,
allowing the store to collect marketing data and pitch its
products more effectively.
New computerized systems are being implemented for drivers
licenses. Instead of the cumbersome Polaroids, the new
system will use a special camera that will store the
photographic image that is on the card on a computer
instead. Weight, eye color, and signature will be stored on
a magnetic strip on the card as well as to a computer data
base. Copies will be shared with the Kansas Bureau of
Investigation, giving agents quick access to photographs of
suspects and victims. The KBI will share copies with other
law enforcement agencies. [Dave Ranney, "Say
goodbye to Polaroids next time you get your license
renewed," The Wichita Eagle, April 19, 1994]
Smart card acceptance in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent
years. The Smart Card Forum, a consortium of organizations
utilizing smart card technology, forecasts between 1-1.5
billion smart cards will be in use by the year 2000.
At the
Smart Card Alliance 2004 annual fall conference in San
Francisco, a number of sessions indicated strong growth and
continuing interest in applications for contactless payment
devices for fare collection in mass transit systems across
the country. During the conference, Ann Flemer, deputy
director of operations for the Metropolitan Transportation
Commission, the transportation planning, coordinating and
financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay area,
gave an overview of her organization’s
TransLink
program, which is developing a single contactless payment
system for the more than 20 transit agencies, including Bay
Area Rapid Transit (BART), San Francisco Municipal Railway
(Muni) and Golden Gate Ferries, with 1.5 million daily users
combined.
The U.S. State Department is switching over to new passports
that will be fitted with chips using RFID, or radio
frequency identification, technology. Reader devices at
borders and customs checkpoints will be able to read the
information stored on the chip, including the person's name,
address and digital photo.
To increase use, card makers are forming alliances with
companies that are closer to consumers. Micro Card
Technologies Inc. supplies cards to Copicard Inc., which
worked with the University of Calgary to convert student and
staff IDs to smart cards and is doing the same at several
U.S. colleges. Micro Card Vice President John Taskett said a
few U.S. airlines briefly tested the smart cars for frequent
flyers. Meanwhile, AT&T and Lockheed Corp. will jointly seek
contracts for public highways where drivers would pay tolls
with dashboard-mounted smart cards. A transmitter at the
tollbooth would read the card as the car goes by.
The average American who has a dozen pieces of plastic in
their pocket probably doesn't even know what a smart card
is," said Nicolas Samaras, a technology analyst at Dataquest
Inc. in San Jose, Calif. technology analyst at Dataquest
Inc. in San Jose, Calif.
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Unlike today's
financial cards, the smart card doesn't need a
magnetic stripe on the back. |
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Instead, it's
equipped with a wiry silicon chip, often displayed
at left center but sometimes hidden in the plastic.
(Smart cards may also have embossed account numbers,
holograms, graphics and photos on the front or
back.) |
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Like a bank card,
the smart card is slipped into a computer. Then the
owner enters a four - or five-digit ID number and
uses the card to make purchases, convey information,
or both. |
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The card can hold
three pages worth of typewritten data, compared to
one line of type for a magnetic-stripe card. That
means several accounts could be loaded onto one
smart card, said Diane R. Wetherington, president of
smart card systems at American Telephone & Telegraph
Co. For example, the same card that checks out
library books and buys clothes on credit could give
an emergency-room clerk a patient's blood type
insurance data and doctor's name. Each account would
have a separate ID number, so the librarian couldn't
see your blood type. |
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor,
free and slave, to receive a mark of his right hand or on
his forehead, so 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. [Revelation 13:16-17]
Mark of the
Beast?
I do not believe that the
people developing this technology are necessarily
conspirators purposely developing a system they know the
antichrist will use for his own wicked purposes. These are
men and women who are developing what, to the natural eye,
are brilliant ideas for the world's future. Nor, do I
believe that today, as I am writing this piece, that the
technologies I write about are NOW the mark of the Beast.
Rather, I see them as being potential technologies that need
be in place in order for the Antichrist to accomplish his
nefarious scheme.
So, what's so bad about these technologies. They improve our
lives ... right?
David Chaum, a leading cryptographer, believes that an
identification-based system could lay the groundwork for a
future dictatorship. As a Jew, Chaum is sensitive to the
memory of how government records enabled the Nazis to
systematically identify Jews. He is also concerned that
competition and self-interest could be causing many
decision-makers in this new technology to miss the broader
social consequences of their decisions.
One critic calls them "little brother in your wallet." David
Banisar of the Electronic Privacy Information Center
believes that the ability to monitor every transaction an
individual makes will soon be in place. While tracking
single transactions may be harmless, the combined trail left
behind by an identification system that tracks all financial
transactions could one day become a tyrant's dream. What's
wrong with having a single card that contains all of your
personal history from medical files to veteran's status to
tax records to your bank balance and credit available? It's
convenient, portable and you have at your fingertips access
to all the details of your life. It's like carrying around a
little computer that has stored every piece of information
about you.
The Smart Card
- A Way To Control The World?
President Bill Clinton proposed a health plan where there is
a provision for a national health identification card, and
eventually, a state-of-the-art, tamper-proof numbering
system. This probably means an implantaiton device in the
head, arm or somewhere on the body. No one will receive
health coverage without a number. We are also headed for a
cashless society - first by credit card, and later by a
laser implantation beneath the skin. The European Community
has already planned for this.
Technology
is sold to the public for it's beneficial aspects.
The U.S. government plans to
use smart cards to replace food stamps and reduce fraud.
According to Vice President Gore, a national Electronic
Benefits transfer system will reduce "waste, fraud and
abuse," and cut red tape. With EBT there will be an
electronic audit trail for every transaction, making fraud
much easier to detect and prosecute," said Health and Human
Services Secretary Donna Shalala. ["Welfare
Benefits to be Delivered Electronically," The Wichita Eagle,
June 1, 1994]
One concern about the smart card is privacy. Even though
manufacturers are confident that accounts on the same card
would remain separate, some are still unsettled that so much
personal information could be stored on one little computer
chip. What if the librarian could look up someone's doctor
bills? And, asked Richard Civilles, program director at
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, could
using smart cards as national IDs give the government more
control over citizens at employment agencies or highway
checkpoints? What if the government denied a job or benefits
to someone based on personal tidbits gleaned from the card?
But manufacturers are optimistic that consumers will warm up
to smart cards as they become more prevalent, said Amy Wight
Eckel, product manager for AT&T smart cards. "It looks and
feels like a credit card," she said. "People already know
how to use it."
The Coming
New World Order
One of the goals of the
Jeremiah Project is to warn people of the New World Order
and One World Government, which is being set up today. One
of the methods to be used to enslave every man, woman and
child on the face of the earth will be a new money system
that will be introduced taking us into a "The Cashless
Society". Sadly, many people today find it difficult to
believe that those days will ever come or if it does how
they can be hurt by it.
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the
misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and
moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are
corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat
your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last
days. [James 5:1-3]
The transition from the
beneficial uses of technology to that of the Beast spoken of
in Revelation 13 will happen quickly. Prophecy teachers have
been speaking these words for many, many years. It is only
just now, during your lifetime, that the prophecies are
literally being fulfilled. You would be enlightened if you
were to turn to the Word of God particularly the prophecies
in the books of Daniel and Revelation and understand that
these are no idle words of a mere man but these are words of
the living God. |
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