I dreamt that I had an authentication chip under my skin in my right palm. It had some sort of RFID proxy reader allowing me so simply wave my hand over a point of sale device in a store and automatically purchase items. I could also get entry into certain facilities with the device. It was an automated authentication device that identified me based on “something I had”, but also included loads of very personal data.

In retrospect, its kind of scary. Reminds me of the “Mark of the Beast” in Revelations or a Philip K. Dick novel.

“Watch where you leave your fingerprints – soon they could be the target of thieves looking to break into your bank account.” — digg

Reminds me of that scene on Space Balls where Lone Star knocks out of the Space Ball guards and places his hand on the biometric palm pad.

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A San Francisco start-up, Pay By Touch Solutions, is expected to announce today $130 million in fresh financing for a novel way of paying for groceries and other goods and services: a machine that reads your fingerprint.

This is very Cyberpunk.  Depending on the implementation, this may even be more difficult for ID Theft criminals to take advantage of.  If everything goes in that direction, house hold phones could actually get the devices and you could make authenticated bill payments from your house and get rid of all your credit cards.     

Then again since the fingerprint is translated into a number, I imagine criminals could still get ahold of the information the traditional way (unless the number can only be accessed with the original persons print):

Here's how it works: Customers sign up once, by registering a checking account or a credit card, and showing government identification such as a driver's license. The Pay by Touch technology records the lines and ridges of their fingerprints, and translates the data into a numerical algorithm that is stored in a secure database. The customers thereafter never have to carry a wallet or purse back to the store, and can use their finger to pay for goods across the Pay By Touch network, which now includes stores in 10 states.

The capital raised — $55 million of it in convertible notes and $75 million in loans — will help the company build out its finger-reading payment systems at several nationwide retailers, including in California in the first quarter of next year.

This may also be a much better way to track people by there fingerprints and accounts.  Could this raise privacy issues?!  After all, fingerprints could link criminal records if you have any.  And wasn't there something in the bible about this…?  Oh, no.. that was 666.

It may be harder to hack but it will eventually be broken.  But that doesn't mean its no good.

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