Killer Chip (patent application)

A Saudi Arabian inventor tried to patent a very interesting chip designed to track and potentially eliminate undesirable people. You can read more about it here (CLICK) from the German-News (English) website, The Local. A friend of mine who put me onto this suggested that the patent will go through - but not in Germany. German patent law does not allow inventions that "transgress public order or good morals" according to Stephanie Kruger of the German Patent and Trademark Office.

The tiny electronic device, dubbed the "Killer Chip" by Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, would be suitable for tracking fugitives from justice, terrorists, illegal immigrants, criminals, political opponents, defectors, domestic help and Saudi Arabians who don't return home from pilgrimages.  -- "I apply for these reasons and for reasons of state security and the security of citizens," the statement reads.

"After subcutaneous implantation, the chip would send out encrypted radio waves that would be tracked by satellites to confirm the person's identity and location. An alternate model could reportedly release a poison into the carrier if he or she became a security risk."

In troubled times, the fearful and naive are always drawn to charismatic radicals. It was true of Hitler in Germany in the 1930's, true of Lenin and Trotsky in Russia circa 1910-20, true of Castro in Cuba in the 1950's and some would opine that we in the United States are facing the same cult of personality in office today. Technology has changed what the unscrupulous are able to do and this so-called "death chip" is but one example what is possible. I know it sounds like a bad science fiction novel - sometimes life is like that.

Robert Heinlein, noted Science Fiction author wrote, "Everything is theoretically impossible until it's done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never have happened."