Table of Contents
Fable One
There’s some kind of security conference going on. They’ve gathered some real nuts, for whom getting a chip implanted under their skin is a childhood dream. And now one company is showcasing a corporate security system based on these chips, trying to convince everyone that it’s so cool—payment for goods, universal identification, medical data, fighting crime—it’s endless happiness if everyone has chips in their forearms.
And right away they start bragging. They say, “We’ve set up this system in the building. Look, here’s what the dispatcher sees on the projector, everything is under control, and no one except us, who have a chip under our skin, can get through.”
At the conference, there was another company involved with these chips, but from a different angle. A guy comes on stage, carrying something the size of a three-liter jar, approaches one of the demonstrators (who are all corporate patriots, all with chips), and, without getting closer than 40 cm, does something with his device. Then he takes it and leaves the room, passing through all the security checkpoints. The alarm doesn’t go off, and everyone in the hall watches him on the projector screen.
When the uncle returned, those guys didn’t know what to do with themselves. But he didn’t stop. He started talking and said the following:
— Do you even realize where you’re pushing society?
— Well, let’s say I’m not bloodthirsty enough to gut an ordinary mortal and take their chip.
— But I have a scanner-ripper. It’s a low-power device. But you can set up a device that works from a distance of 50 meters. It could rip the chips of all the passersby around and keep ripping for years.
— Including ripping the chip from the country’s president, for example.
— And then set up some kind of bomb in some place that will be triggered specifically by that chip.
— Let the chip be protected from copying three times. It will still be identified.
What kind of security can we even talk about under these circumstances?
Fable Two
A couple of Belarusian guys planned the perfect heist in the United Arab Emirates. Everything was in place. Masks, car swaps, entry into the jewelry store, gathering valuables, a getaway from the store, more car swaps, disguising the stolen goods as regular cargo, shipping it through five transfers somewhere in Europe, changing wigs and mustaches, and boarding a flight to Minsk. Everything was meticulously planned. The cars were arranged in advance. Tickets were purchased ahead of time. Transport was prepaid, and the goods used to disguise the jewelry were bought and prepared accordingly.
They did everything as planned. They arrived in Minsk with a sense of duty fulfilled, only to be arrested on the second or third day. There was no point in denying it. They were simply tracked by the security cameras, both backward and forward in time. With changes of cars, even in an empty lot where there happened to be another camera on a palm tree, with plane tickets, with names, with footage of them taking off their masks, and so on.
In such a situation, does it even make sense to think about ways to deceive the system? It’s practically a manual implementation after all. this. concept.
You can’t deceive an identification system based on historical information. It’s just like trying to show your mom another person and claiming that this other person is her child. She knows the difference simply because she has observed you continuously since birth—she knows who you are and who is a stranger. A passport, a birth certificate, or some chip won’t help here. Tomorrow, even credit cards may not be necessary. You walk into a store, take what you want, and leave. The bill will come automatically.