Hopefully this will get nipped in the bud, but this is how it starts....

Monitoring Employees In A Secure Area
www.chiefengineer.org/content...2849.htm

The Chief Engineer,
February 2, 2007

Cincinnati video surveillance company CityWatcher.com now requires employees
to use VeriChip human implantable microchips to enter a secure data center,
Network Administrator Khary Williams told Liz McIntyre. McIntyre, co-author
of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every
Move with RFID," contacted CityWatcher after it announced it had integrated
the VeriChip VeriGuard product into its access control system.

The VeriChip is a glass encapsulated RFID tag that is injected into the
flesh of the triceps area of the arm to uniquely number and identify
individuals. The tag can be read through a person's clothing, silently and
invisibly, by radio waves from a few inches away. The highly controversial
device is being marketed as a way to access secure areas, link to medical
records, and serve as a payment instrument when associated with a credit
card.

According to Williams, a local doctor has already implanted two of
CityWatcher's employees with the VeriChip devices. "I will eventually"
receive an implant, too, he added. In the meantime, Williams accesses the
data center with a VeriChip implant housed in a heart-shaped plastic casing
that hangs from his keychain. He told McIntyre he had no qualms about
undergoing the implantation procedure himself, and said he would receive an
implant as soon as time permits.

" It worries us that a government contractor that specializes in
surveillance projects would be the first to publicly incorporate this
technology in the workplace," said McIntyre. CityWatcher provides video
surveillance, monitoring, and video storage for government and businesses,
with cameras set up on public streets throughout Cincinnati.

The company hopes the VeriChip will beef up its proximity or "prox" card
security system that controls access to the room where the video footage is
stored, said Gary Retherford of Six Sigma Security, Inc., the company that
provided the VeriChip technology. "The prox card is a system that can be
compromised," said Retherford, referring to the card's well-known
vulnerability to hackers. He explained that chipping employees "was a move
to increase the layer of security ... It was attractive because it could be
integrated with the existing system."

Ironically, implantable tags may not provide CityWatcher with that
additional safety, after all. Security researcher Jonathan Westhues
demonstrated how the VeriChip can be skimmed and cloned by a hacker, who
could theoretically duplicate an individual's VeriChip implant to access a
secure area. Westhues, author of a chapter titled "Hacking the Prox Card"
for Simson Garfinkel's recent "RFID: Applications, Security, and Privacy,"
said the VeriChip "is not good for anything" and has absolutely no security.

" No one I spoke with at Six Sigma Security or at CityWatcher knew that the
VeriChip had been hacked," McIntyre observed. "They were also surprised to
hear of VeriChip's downsides as a medical device. It was clear they weren't
aware of some of the controversy surrounding the implant."

Although CityWatcher reportedly does not require its employees to take an
implant to keep their jobs, Katherine Albrecht, "Spychips" co-author and
outspoken critic of the VeriChip, says the chipping sets an unsettling
precedent. "It's wrong to link a person's paycheck with getting an implant,"
she said. "Once people begin 'voluntarily' getting chipped to perform their
job duties, it won't be long before pressure gets applied to those who
refuse."

Albrecht predicts that news of the security flaws will combine with public
squeamishness to make the VeriChip a hard product to sell, however.
"Obviously, nobody wants their employer coming at them with a giant
hypodermic needle. But when people realize it takes a scalpel and surgery to
remove the device if it gets hacked, they'll really think twice," she said.
"An implant is disgusting enough going in, but getting it out again is a
bloody mess."


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