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RFID chip & BigBrother
Holy shit! Do you realize what the implications of this are? 
I've heard rumors of the RFID chip before and have seen it before in some mainstream news channels but now the BBC too! Fuck! Seems like they're pretty intent on selling the idea to the public. It's good for you in:
1) An emergency situation.
2) To keep all your medical records.
3) IDENTIFYING THE DEAD?!?! 
4) If you loose your child, we'll be able to track them down.
The list of reasons given that I've read before all relate to make you being paranoid about security. I forget where it was (some university in England I believe), where some dude heavily involved in the project was all like, "this is just the beggining, imagine what else we could put on this, credit card info, SSN.." blah blah blah. Plus, the goverment will be able to track you ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET and have all your personal information to access throught one chip, the end of privacy.
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Implant chip to identify the dead The carnage inflicted by bomb attacks in Egypt, London and across Iraq has raised the problem of how the authorities identify people in an emergency situation. Whether through natural disaster or man-made, the killing of large numbers of people presents a great challenge to the emergency services, who have to identify the victims as quickly as possible. One aid to identification advocated by an American company is the VeriChip, a small device containing a unique number injected into a person's arm. During 11 September, some rescue workers, aware of the huge dangers they were facing, took to writing their badge number on their skin, in case they became victims themselves. Their attempts to ensure their own identity should the worst happen was spotted by New Jersey surgeon Richard Seelig. Five days later, he injected himself with two rice grain-sized chips, containing a unique number which could be used to identify him. "I wanted to demonstrate its effectiveness as being used as an identifier for people," Dr Seelig told BBC World Service's Analysis programme. "Also, I wanted to show it could be as comfortable for a person as not having one, so that it wouldn't interfere with that person's daily life." Losing anonymity Following the Asian tsunami which struck on Boxing Day 2004, many thousands of bodies could only be identified by DNA testing - a process that, in some cases, took months to complete. Similarly, following the bomb blasts on the London Underground, the process of identifying some bodies - particularly on the deep-lying Piccadilly Line - became very difficult, with some families upset by the amount of time it took to confirm a relative had died. VeriChip advocates argue it could help in these circumstances. Dr Seelig is now vice president for medical applications at VeriChip, which makes the devices - although it is yet to make a profit. He had been developing the device for more than a year before the 11 September attacks. The inspiration to develop it arose during his 20 years as a surgeon and the regular delays caused by patients unable to remember important healthcare information. He saw that the delays could be eliminated by marrying an identifier to link a person with healthcare information and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Dr Seelig see three major uses for the chip, all of which relate to the need for access to a patient's medical records. One is for individuals who have memory impairments, such as Alzheimer's, or those who are unable to speak, such as those who have suffered a stroke. It may also be very useful for those with chronic diseases, such as heart disease or epilepsy, who can suffer an attack almost instantaneously. Being able to access a person's medical records in such an event could be life-saving. And the third category, Dr Seelig said, is those who have sophisticated medical devices such as pacemakers, as the details of these devices are very advanced and difficult for someone who is not technically-minded to recall. Scanned and known Others are also taking note of the technology. The US Federal Drug Administration, which scrutinises all drugs and medical devices in the US, has given the chip its approval; officials in Mexico have already used the chip as a way of heightening security in sensitive areas; and the Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts now has several hospitals testing the device. The emergency room at one hospital has been fitted with readers so that anyone who has the chip can be scanned - but Harvard has not yet decided how much emphasis to put on the chip's use. As part of the trials, Dr John Halamka, the chief information officer at Harvard, has been fitted with the chip in the back of his arm. "In a sense I've lost my anonymity," he told Analysis. "Anywhere I go I can be scanned and known." However, he said he had been convinced by the chip. "The side effects have been none - the readability of the chip has been good," he added. "So for my personal goal of being identified in the case of an accident, it does work for me." Identity theft Others, however, are not as supportive. "It's a very scary technology," said Katherine Albrecht, a consumer rights analyst and founder of Caspian, a pressure group which opposes RFID. Ms Albrecht has been tracking the development of the VeriChip. "It's very de-humanising," she added. "I would no longer be known as a living, breathing, spiritual person but become known as a single number that would be emanating from a chip in my flesh... essentially becoming a form of human inventory, rather than a human being." She also argues that the chip is not secure - every time a reader is passed, the number is tracked, whether the user wishes this or not - and contends that being constantly identifiable is not necessarily a good thing. "A criminal could scan you surreptitiously, then use that information to access other information about you, and potentially do some identity theft," she said. "The other thing they could do is that, by scanning that number, it's actually quite a simple matter to capture the number and create your own chip with the same number in it. "You could simply programme a different chip, put it inside an encapsulated device, and put it in your own arm - and at that point you could pose as the individual whose identity you have chosen to steal." |
This sucks... is there anyone here that sides with this idea??
Will this be a public traded company? Because I can see this getting big. I should start investing I will be rich. As long as it does not become mandatory but rather a choice for people than its fine. Its thier life and I won't tell them how to live.
There are definitely pros and cons.
I'd image the conspiracy theorists and doomsdayers must be having a hay-day with this... 
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r There are definitely pros and cons. I'd image the conspiracy theorists and doomsdayers must be having a hay-day with this... |
In order for RFID chips to be effective the power source would have to come within a few ft of the chip. In other words, the government would have to set up an emitter on every street lamp to effectively monitor your movements. If you have a car, it's more likely than not you have an ezpass which already contains an RFID chip.
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Human implants Implantable RFID chips designed for animal tagging are now being used in humans as well. An early experiment with RFID implants was conducted by British professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick, who implanted a chip in his arm in 1998. Applied Digital Solutions proposes their chip's "unique under-the-skin format" as a solution to identity fraud, secure building access, computer access, storage of medical records, anti-kidnapping initiatives and a variety of law-enforcement applications. Combined with sensors to monitor body functions, the Digital Angel device could provide monitoring for patients. The Baja Beach Club [5] in Barcelona, Spain uses an implantable Verichip to identify their VIP customers, who in turn use it to pay for drinks [6]. The Mexico City police department has implanted approximately 170 of their police officers with the Verichip, to allow access to police databases and possibly track them in case of kidnapping. |
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| Originally posted by shaolin_Z Source: Wikipedia Hmm..... only a a few feet? I think not. |
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| Passive RFID tags have no internal power supply. The minute electrical current induced in the antenna by the incoming radio frequency signal provides just enough power for the tag to transmit a response. Due to limited power and cost, the response of a passive RFID tag is brief � typically just an ID number (GUID). Lack of an onboard power supply means that the device can be quite small: commercially available products exist that can be embedded under the skin. As of 2005, the smallest such devices commercially available measured 0.4 mm � 0.4 mm, which is thinner than a sheet of paper; such devices are practically invisible. Passive tags have practical read distances ranging from about 10 mm up to about 6 metres. |
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| Active RFID tags, on the other hand, have an internal power source, and may have longer range and larger memories than passive tags, as well as the ability to store additional information sent by the transceiver. At present, the smallest active tags are about the size of a coin. Many active tags have practical ranges of tens of metres, and a battery life of up to 10 years. |
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| Originally posted by St_Andrew From the same article: although: |
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Japan: Schoolkids to be tagged with RFID chips By Jo Best, Special to ZDNet Asia 12/7/2004 Japanese authorities decide tracking is best way to protect kids The rights and wrongs of RFID-chipping human beings have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream. Now, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school. The tags will be read by readers installed in school gates and other key locations to track the kids' movements. The chips will be put onto kids' schoolbags, name tags or clothing in one Wakayama prefecture school. Denmark's Legoland introduced a similar scheme last month to stop young children going astray. RFID is more commonly found in supermarket and other retailers' supply chains, however, companies are now seeking more innovative ways to derive value from the tracking technology. US airline Delta recently announced it would be using RFID to track travellers' luggage. |
I still think the idea is that you will track these kids (or whatever you are tracking), when they pass through some kind of check point. So they can't always track you, unless they have "check points" everywhere. In a school, or at legoland, though, that would be possible.
Ok, doing some more research, and I see what you and occ are saying, although I still need to do more research.
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How does an RFID system work? An RFID system consists of a tag, which is made up of a microchip with an antenna, and an interrogator or reader with an antenna. The reader sends out electromagnetic waves. The tag antenna is tuned to receive these waves. A passive RFID tag draws power from field created by the reader and uses it to power the microchip�s circuits. The chip then modulates the waves that the tag sends back to the reader and the reader converts the new waves into digital data. |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid Will this be a public traded company? Because I can see this getting big. I should start investing I will be rich. As long as it does not become mandatory but rather a choice for people than its fine. Its thier life and I won't tell them how to live. |
Yeah, as far as I know the range is currently limited. However, one also has to keep in mind that this technology is still rather new and is being further developed every day.
What worries me is that soon our privacy will be completely and absolutley gone forever - because of these tracking devices which are being used in virtually evey merchandise tracking application imaginable.
http://www.rfidjournal.com/
Here's a good summary (from 2003):
http://securityfocus.com/columnists/169
and an intertesting C/net news item (also older):
quote: SACRAMENTO, Calif.--A handful of technology and consumer privacy experts testifying at a California Senate hearing Monday called for regulation of a controversial technology designed to wirelessly monitor everything from clothing to currency.
The hearing, presided over by state Sen. Debra Bowen, focused on an emerging area of technology that's known as radio frequency identification (RFID). Retailers and manufacturers in the United States and Europe, including Wal-Mart Stores, have begun testing RFID systems, which use millions of special sensors to automatically detect the movement of merchandise in stores and monitor inventory in warehouses.
Proponents hail the technology as the next-generation bar code, allowing merchants and manufacturers to operate more efficiently and cut down on theft.
Privacy activists worry, however, that the unchecked use of RFID could end up trampling consumer privacy by allowing retailers to gather unprecedented amounts of information about activity in their stores and link it to customer information databases. They also worry about the possibility that companies, governments and would-be thieves might be able to monitor people's personal belongings, embedded with tiny RFID microchips, after they are purchased.
"How would you like it if, for instance, one day you realized your underwear was reporting on your whereabouts?" said Bowen, posing a hypothetical RFID scenario.
One witness at Monday's hearing said that failing to impose conditions on the use of RFID technology could lead to a world not unlike the fictional society portrayed in Steven Spielberg's science-fiction thriller "Minority Report." In that movie, set in 2054, iris scanning technology allows billboards to recognize people and display personalized ads that called out their names. It also allows law enforcement authorities to track people's whereabouts.
"There has been scant scrutiny by policymakers on RFID and pervasive computing," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in San Diego. "This hearing is an important first step."
Givens urged Bowen to lead a study of RFID and its "profound privacy and civil liberties implications." She suggested that RFID be subjected to a set of fair-use guidelines. For instance, companies should be required to inform consumers about products containing RFID chips by clearly labeling them, Givens said. Consumers should also have the right to permanently disable the chips upon purchasing such goods, she said. And companies ought to provide consumers with the information collected about them via RFID tracking systems upon consumers' request, Givens added.
Other witnesses, including a representative from the consumer privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation and a researcher from University of California at Los Angeles, also called for limits on the use of RFID and a technology assessment by policymakers. "It's possible to set up these systems so that there is no privacy anywhere," said Greg Pottie, an electrical engineering professor at UCLA.
"The time is right for an assessment of this technology," said Pottie, who is involved in the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, a research project based at UCLA that's funded by the National Science Foundation.
Katherine Albrecht, a vehement opponent of RFID technology, went further and suggested a moratorium on the commercial use of RFID technology until legal guidelines are set. Albrecht, who also testified Monday, is the head of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering. "I would personally like to see (RFID) go away," she said.
Dan Mullen, head of the trade group Association for Automatic Identification and Data Capture Technologies, tried to temper the discussion, testifying that mass adoption of RFID chips for tracking merchandise in stores has yet to take off and may never do so. "There has to be a business case to put an RFID chip on a can of Coke," Mullen said. "When it comes down to it, there may not be a business case for anyone to do that."
Bowen said that the introduction of legislation to control the use of RFID is "possible," but that she's not at the bill stage yet. Even if she were to draft a bill, it would not be her goal to outlaw RFID, she said. Bowen herself uses a special pet-tracking chip that uses RFID to keep tabs on her cats.
"Is the goal of this hearing is to restrict the use of the technology? No," Bowen said. "It's not our goal to create legislation that says this technology could never be used. It's to gain a better understanding."
Bowen, who is the chair of the legislative subcommittee on new technologies, has been on the forefront of the antispam legislation movement. An outspoken advocate of consumer privacy, Bowen also helped draft and introduce bills that would regulate face recognition technology, consumer data collected by cable and satellite television companies, and shopper loyalty cards used in grocery chains.
Policymakers in Britain are also starting to ponder the privacy implications of RFID. A member of Britain's Parliament recently submitted a motion for debate on the regulation of RFID devices when the government returns from its summer recess next month.
Major retailers are just beginning to experiment with RFID. Tesco, a United Kingdom-based supermarket chain, has begun selling Gillette razors with RFID chips embedded in them in a trial run of the technology at its Cambridge store, according to reports. Wal-Mart had undertaken a similar test in a Boston-area store but recently decided to cancel the test. Italian clothier Benetton is studying how it wants to use RFID chips.
Instead of introducing RFID to its store shelves, Wal-Mart is urging its top 100 suppliers to start attaching RFID chips to shipments of merchandize they send to the retailer by 2005. And by the end of 2006, the company wants the rest of its suppliers, about 25,000, to begin doing the same, a Wal-Mart representative said. Wal-Mart says the chips will be used only on paletts and cases, not on the goods themselves. It will confine its use of the chips, for now, to warehouses and distribution centers, keeping them out of its stores and away from consumers.
The retail giant will meet with its suppliers in the fourth quarter to discuss implementation of RFID technology and the issues surrounding the use of the technology.
Though the timetable set by Wal-Mart to install RFID technology may be difficult to keep, it isn't likely a voluntary assignment. Suppliers may have a number of reasons to use RFID other than just to appease the retail giant, according to Peter Coleman, an analyst with securities firm SoundView Technology.
If Wal-Mart, known for its highly efficient business model, is taking RFID seriously, suppliers may want to look into how it can improve their business, according to Coleman.
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5065388.html
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r There are definitely pros and cons. I'd image the conspiracy theorists and doomsdayers must be having a hay-day with this... |
WTF?!?!?!
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Surveillance is really getting under my skin This unique human chip implant was supposed to protect me - but it just makes me more vulnerable Henry Porter Sunday November 19, 2006 The Observer The most shocking part of Britain's frantic rush towards a fully fledged surveillance society is not so much the threat to personal liberty, although that is important; it is the lack of security in the systems that are confidently held up to be the solution to the problems of 21st-century crime and terrorism. While each of us is required to give more and more information about ourselves to the government's various centralised databases, and submit to increasing surveillance in our daily lives, almost no one seems to consider the risk to us if these systems are breached. For some time now, I have been warning about the menace that these systems may come to represent in the hands of future governments, the nature of which we cannot know. But having spent the last few months making a film, Suspect Nation, with the director Neil Ferguson - about the growth of surveillance since 9/11 - I realise that the threat exists in the present. Both of us were astonished at the gaps in security that we found and the insouciance of government. It is difficult to know whether this comes from ignorance or a failure of imagination, but as the barriers are swept away by science, ministers, few of whom have the slightest technical knowledge, place increasing faith in surveillance technologies. What they do not grasp is that when you pool records on a national database, you are also creating a very attractive target. And sooner or later, someone will find the unmarked back door. We spent some time in America investigating these new technologies with a sentence from Jay Stanley of the American Civil liberties Union ringing in our ears. 'There is a lot of room,' he wrote, 'for the United States to become a meaner, less open and less just place without any radical change in government. All that's required is the continued construction of new surveillance technologies and the simultaneous erosion of privacy protections.' That seems to describe perfectly the process that is underway in Britain. One of these new technologies is RFID (radio frequency identification), which are inexpensive microchips that give out information when activated by a scanner. They are used by shops to track their products and now increasingly in identification of all sorts, from building entry cards to driving licences. The problem is that it is difficult to protect the chip you are carrying from transmitting your personal details. Take the new passport. Pressed by the US, countries around the world are introducing a passport containing an RFID chip which transmits all the particulars of your passport together with your photograph when it is scanned at a national border. But these new, 21st-century passports may be rather less secure than the 20th-century version. In an experiment conducted for Suspect Nation, security expert Adam Laurie took just a couple of weeks to write a programme and add a scanner which would read any new British passport without it being open. The possibility of a passport being read by someone who needs only to brush against you with a version of Laurie's equipment is obviously alarming, yet a Home Office spokesman seemed relaxed about the lack of security. 'It is hard to see why anyone would want to carry out the procedure described. Other than the photograph, which could be obtained easily by other means, they would gain no information that they did not already have, so the whole exercise would be utterly pointless.' If the Home Office hasn't got the point, authorities in the US have, which is why they have included a metal shield in the design for their new passport. What they probably realise is that the covert reading of passport could represent a considerable threat, especially to those whose nationality terrorists want to target or those who may represent rich pickings for criminals. The technology used in the ID card is likely to be very similar to that in the new passport. It is true that all the information you will be forced to submit to the government in the ID card scheme will be stored on a central database called the National Identity Register, but our experiment reading passports must at least open up the possibility of ID theft. Once something has been read, it is that much easier to clone it. Looking through the ID card debates in Hansard, it becomes obvious that most MPs simply didn't understand that the threat comes not just from pooling everyone's information in one database, but from creating a single trusted identifier which is bound to become a irresistible challenge for criminals. Everywhere you turn in America, there are frantic efforts to make Americans more secure. One solution that is gaining currency in the US is the use of an RFID implant which is shot into the body by means of a large hypodermic needle. The chip can be read when a scanner is passed over the area where it lurks in the fatty tissue below the surface of the skin. It is promoted by the sinister sounding VeriChip Corporation of America, which is pioneering the implants (originally developed to tag animals) as a way of identifying immigrants, military personnel, casino workers and patients who suffer various degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. We attended a surgery run by a Dr J Musher in an anonymous Washington suburb and I was duly injected with a chip bearing a unique number. I am probably now the only living creature in Britain, other than prize cattle and show dachshunds, to be tagged in this way. I have a hint of Blade Runner about me: half-man, half-transmitter. But it turns out that this futuristic device is rather unimpressive. It took Adam Laurie no time at all to pass a scanner over my arm, extract the information and clone the RFID. You can see the attraction of such gimmicks. The same instinct is busy consigning us all to centralised databases and promotes the use of number-recognition cameras to track our movements. In the face of the great threats of the modern world, our leaders have become mesmerised by the promise of total and inviolate security. But there is no such thing. Indeed, there is every reason to suppose that this technology and the huge centralised databases, with their multiple points of access, mean that we will become exposed to the very threats they seek to protect us from. The truth is that as soon as a piece of security technology is introduced, its existence inspires an equal ingenuity among those who wish to break it. Caught in the middle of this security arms race are you and me, seen as suspects by one side and as fair game by the other. � Henry Porter and Neil Ferguson's film, Suspect Nation, can be seen on More4 at 9pm tomorrow |
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The most shocking part of Britain's frantic rush towards a fully fledged surveillance society is not so much the threat to personal liberty, although that is important; it is the lack of security in the systems that are confidently held up to be the solution to the problems of 21st-century crime and terrorism. |
I am 110% against this.
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| Originally posted by occrider In order for RFID chips to be effective the power source would have to come within a few ft of the chip. In other words, the government would have to set up an emitter on every street lamp to effectively monitor your movements. If you have a car, it's more likely than not you have an ezpass which already contains an RFID chip. |
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| Originally posted by St_Andrew |
Ooooo, I feel so much better about RFIDs now. IBM is my friend, they couldn't possibly be disingenuos. I'm sure they're looking after my interests... 
BTW, are you guys aware of the fact that IBM invented the bar code that was used in Nazi concentration camps for purposes of making slave labour and systematic killing easier and more efficient?
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| Originally posted by shaolin_Z Ooooo, I feel so much better about RFIDs now. IBM is my friend, they couldn't possibly be disingenuos. I'm sure they're looking after my interests... BTW, are you guys aware of the fact that IBM invented the bar code that was used in Nazi concentration camps for purposes of making slave labour and systematic killing easier and more efficient? |
Operation Lie and Deceive Verichip Style
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| Originally posted by MrSquirrel Call me totally off base, but a bar code requires some form of electronic device to make the information it tracks usable by people. Seeing as computers were in their infancy at the time of WWII and each took up an entire large room, I seriously doubt your claim of IBM inventing the bar code so nazis could kill people better until you give everyone proof. MrS |
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IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black Mankind barely noticed when the concept of massively organized information quietly emerged to become a means of social control, a weapon of war, and a roadmap for group destruction. The unique igniting event was the most fateful day of the last century, January 30, 1933, the day Adolf Hitler came to power. Hitler and his hatred of the Jews was the ironic driving force behind this intellectual turning point. But his quest was greatly enhanced and energized by the ingenuity and craving for profit of a single American company and its legendary, autocratic chairman. That company was International Business Machines, and its chairman was Thomas J. Watson. Der F�hrer's obsession with Jewish destruction was hardly original. There had been czars and tyrants before him. But for the first time in history, an anti-Semite had automation on his side. Hitler didn't do it alone. He had help. In the upside-down world of the Holocaust, dignified professionals were Hitler's advance troops. Police officials disregarded their duty in favor of protecting villains and persecuting victims. Lawyers perverted concepts of justice to create anti-Jewish laws. Doctors defiled the art of medicine to perpetrate ghastly experiments and even choose who was healthy enough to be worked to death-and who could be cost-effectively sent to the gas chamber. Scientists and engineers debased their higher calling to devise the instruments and rationales of destruction. And statisticians used their little known but powerful discipline to identify the victims, project and rationalize the benefits of their destruction, organize their persecution, and even audit the efficiency of genocide. Enter IBM and its overseas subsidiaries. Solipsistic and dazzled by its own swirling universe of technical possibilities, IBM was self-gripped by a special amoral corporate mantra: if it can be done, it should be done. To the blind technocrat, the means were more important than the ends. The destruction of the Jewish people became even less important because the invigorating nature of IBM's technical achievement was only heightened by the fantastical profits to be made at a time when bread lines stretched across the world. So how did it work? When Hitler came to power, a central Nazi goal was to identify and destroy Germany's 600,000 Jews. To Nazis, Jews were not just those who practiced Judaism, but those of Jewish blood, regardless of their assimilation, intermarriage, religious activity, or even conversion to Christianity. Only after Jews were identified could they be targeted for asset confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and ultimately extermination. To search generations of communal, church, and governmental records all across Germany-and later throughout Europe-was a cross-indexing task so monumental, it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed. When the Reich needed to mount a systematic campaign of Jewish economic disenfranchisement and later began the massive movement of European Jews out of their homes and into ghettos, once again, the task was so prodigious it called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed. When the Final Solution sought to efficiently transport Jews out of European ghettos along railroad lines and into death camps, with timing so precise the victims were able to walk right out of the boxcar and into a waiting gas chamber, the coordination was so complex a task, this too called for a computer. But in 1933, no computer existed. However, another invention did exist: the IBM punch card and card sorting system-a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before-the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe. Card sorting operations were established in every major concentration camp. People were moved from place to place, systematically worked to death, and their remains cataloged with icy automation. IBM Germany, known in those days as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, did not simply sell the Reich machines and then walk away. IBM's subsidiary, with the knowledge of its New York headquarters, enthusiastically custom-designed the complex devices and specialized applications as an official corporate undertaking. Dehomag's top management was comprised of openly rabid Nazis who were arrested after the war for their Party affiliation. IBM NY always understood-from the outset in 1933-that it was courting and doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party. The company leveraged its Nazi Party connections to continuously enhance its business relationship with Hitler's Reich, in Germany and throughout Nazi-dominated Europe. Dehomag and other IBM subsidiaries custom-designed the applications. Its technicians sent mock-ups of punch cards back and forth to Reich offices until the data columns were acceptable, much as any software designer would today. Punch cards could only be designed, printed, and purchased from one source: IBM. The machines were not sold, they were leased, and regularly maintained and upgraded by only one source: IBM. IBM subsidiaries trained the Nazi officers and their surrogates throughout Europe, set up branch offices and local dealerships throughout Nazi Europe staffed by a revolving door of IBM employees, and scoured paper mills to produce as many as 1.5 billion punch cards a year in Germany alone. Moreover, the fragile machines were serviced on site about once per month, even when that site was in or near a concentration camp. IBM Germany's headquarters in Berlin maintained duplicates of many code books, much as any IBM service bureau today would maintain data backups for computers. I was haunted by a question whose answer has long eluded historians. The Germans always had the lists of Jewish names. Suddenly, a squadron of grim-faced SS would burst into a city square and post a notice demanding those listed assemble the next day at the train station for deportation to the East. But how did the Nazis get the lists? For decades, no one has known. Few have asked. The answer: IBM Germany's census operations and similar advanced people counting and registration technologies. IBM was founded in 1898 by German inventor Herman Hollerith as a census tabulating company. Census was its business. But when IBM Germany formed its philosophical and technologic alliance with Nazi Germany, census and registration took on a new mission. IBM Germany invented the racial census-listing not just religious affiliation, but bloodline going back generations. This was the Nazi data lust. Not just to count the Jews � but to identify them. People and asset registration was only one of the many uses Nazi Germany found for high-speed data sorters. Food allocation was organized around databases, allowing Germany to starve the Jews. Slave labor was identified, tracked, and managed largely through punch cards. Punch cards even made the trains run on time and cataloged their human cargo. German Railway, the Reichsbahn, Dehomag's biggest customer, dealt directly with senior management in Berlin. Dehomag maintained punch card installations at train depots across Germany, and eventually across all Europe. How much did IBM know? Some of it IBM knew on a daily basis throughout the 12-year Reich. The worst of it IBM preferred not to know � "don't ask, don't tell" was the order of the day. Yet IBM NY officials, and frequently Watson's personal representatives, Harrison Chauncey and Werner Lier, were almost constantly in Berlin or Geneva, monitoring activities, ensuring that the parent company in New York was not cut out of any of the profits or business opportunities Nazism presented. When U.S. law made such direct contact illegal, IBM's Swiss office became the nexus, providing the New York office continuous information and credible deniability. Certainly, the dynamics and context of IBM's alliance with Nazi Germany changed throughout the twelve-year Reich....Make no mistake. The Holocaust would still have occurred without IBM. To think otherwise is more than wrong. The Holocaust would have proceeded � and often did proceed � with simple bullets, death marches, and massacres based on pen and paper persecution. But there is reason to examine the fantastical numbers Hitler achieved in murdering so many millions so swiftly, and identify the crucial role of automation and technology. Accountability is needed. |
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