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Re: The First Genuine Cyborg?

From: Mark Willis <>
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 10:27:10 -0700

Pete Hardie wrote:
> 
> <snipped down a bit>
> > Just keep one of those nasal extractors that Arnold used in Total
> > Recall. ;-)
> 
> ouch.
> 
> My opinion - only allow the 'tracking' option to use a user-modifiable
> code - and allow this to be duplicated.  So if you want to be
> untrackable,
> change you code to the same code as, say, one of the Spice Girls, and
> you
> will be invisible.
> 
> --
> Pete Hardie                   |   Goalie, DVSG Dart Team
> Scientific Atlanta            |
> Digital Video Services Group  |

  Just have a standard "anonymous" code built into the design (like
Radar, if they -really- wanted to track you, a continuous watch on your
position would probably still be possible, so perhaps just turning the
transponder OFF would be a better idea!)

  In my time in a Search & Rescue group, they'd always go look over the
old radar videotapes to try to track the transponder of a downed
aircraft;  Aircraft have a transponder, with a few standard 4-digit
codes for "I'm a Visual Flight Rules Pilot", "I'm being hijacked", "I'm
declaring an emergency", etc.  Some of these transponders - not all -
report the aircraft's altitude.  When under an air traffic controllers'
care, you're told what code to set your transponder to, to make it
unique.  (And you can press an "Ident" button, I think that makes it
transmit a slightly different signal or something?  Been 10 years.)  A
few crashes were only located with this help of radar tracking (to
localize the area to look in.)  Crashes are hard to find here among all
the evergreens (dense springy trees.)  Once in a while, a "crash" turns
out to be a situation where someone just decided to fly to Mexico & make
a new life there, without telling anyone.  (Weird, IMHO!  Hurtful to
their SO's...)

  One good thought, though;  Imagine having implanted transponder codes
for:
  "I am being assaulted",
  "I am suicidal",
  "I think someone is trying to attack me, please send a policeman"
  and so on?  Who'd need a cell phone, then?  (These'd have an ID with
them, probably, so these wouldn't be anonymous.)  That'd sure make
people bent on doing harm, more paranoid, especially if it was difficult
for them to tell the state of the transponder.  (I prefer the
unimplanted, wearcam approach, myself - and support free choice;  We're
all so similar & so different, it's not my choice to make!)

  (And of course there'd be have to be codes for "I'm Horny", etc. which
could revolutionize the local bar scene...  Or destroy bars as we know
them.)

  Mark, 

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