Some even predict the cards will eventually be scrapped and information chips will be implanted directly within the bodies of consumers.

Smartcard technology is slated for majorglobal expansion following the decision by eight key microchip firms to develop a platform for multi-application cards likely to become the industry standard, analysts said Friday. Thursday, Dai Nippon Printing and Hitachi of Japan, Gemplus of France, Siemens of Germany as well as U.S. companies Keycorp, MasterCard International, Mondex International and Motorola announced that they were forming MAOSCO, a consortium to cooperate on the new multiple-application operating system (MULTOS) platfor
Source: The Nando Times m. The consortium hopes to promote MULTOS af an industry standard for use in the finance, retail, travel, media and telecommunication sectors.

In a related development, American Express announced Friday that it was joining the rival Global Chipcard Alliance (GCA), set up late last year. GCA is made up mainly of telecommunications companies such as PTT Netherlands/Unisource, U.S. West Communications, GTE, Bell Canada, Deutsche Telekom, Oracle and Telekom Malaysia.

Smartcards, which store information electronically through embedded silicon and reduce document processing costs, have been in use for nearly two decades. They can be used anywhere and everywhere a reader terminal is installed.

By the year 2001, over 100 billion transactions will be made through a smartcard in a variety of applications, including mobile communications, banking, transportation, health care and parking, experts say.

Several countries are currently implementing nationwide electronic purse schemes as the next leap forward in smartcard banking transactions. The so-called E-purse is a rechargeable or disposable card containing electronic cash used instead of coins and small bills to pay for groceries, transport tickets, parking, laundromats, bookshops, libraries and taxis. In the health sector, smartcards will be used to store users' medical records and other vital information.

Experts said the cards would eventually be used in conjunction with fingerprints and DNA genetic material to ensure foolproof security against fraud. Some even predict the cards will eventually be scrapped and information chips will be implanted directly within the bodies of consumers.

[British] Home Secretary Jack Straw said that he was prepared to discuss police proposals for a national DNA database for the entire population. The call to examine such a database was made by the president of the Police Superintendents' Association, Peter Gammon.

He said it could make the investigation of serious crime, such as serial murder and rape, speedier and more efficient. Mr. Gammon said safeguards would have to be provided and the process could take years. "You wouldn't see the population queuing up to give DNA. It would happen in the normal course of events, for example when people give blood."

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing," Edmund Burke said. What he didn't say was just what a persistent, consistent, stubborn cuss evil can be.

There have been numerous attempts to introduce and mandate a national identification card system. Freedom lovers have fought time and time again to impede the progress of the controllers. However, it seems no sooner do we win a skirmish than our would-be masters attack again … and again, and again, and again.

Like the proverbial bad penny, the national ID beast is back again … with a vengeance. The U.S. Department of Transportation has published the proposed "Driver's License/SSN/National Identification Document" guidelines. This draconian disaster will compel all states to comply within the next two years. The "Notice of Proposed Rule Making" establishes the "standard feature" requirements for driver's license cards and other "identification" documents.

Under the provisions of the last assault on privacy, no later than Oct. 1, 2000 all state driver's licenses must be linked to the social security number of the individual. State ID cards must also be linked to social security numbers.

Each individual must submit biometric identification which will be compiled in a national database. The biometric component of choice currently is fingerprints, which is already in effect in many states like California, but retinal scans and DNA prints are also being considered.

Every driver's license or ID card will be required to include a magnetic strip, imbedded computer chip which will contain the social security number information.

All Americans will be required to present this new federally approved ID whenever you apply for a job. Before being hired you will have to be checked against the national database. Why? Supposedly to determine if you are a potential terrorist (which could include membership in a patriot organization, militia, or publisher or writer of any "anti-government" newsletter, etc.) You will also need your government approved ID to travel.

Without the new and improved government ID you will not be able to seek medical care. Medicare and other state services are already linked to the social security number. This would be extended to all medical care, even if you pay for it yourself. You will not be able to enroll your children in school. Eventually all children will have their very own ID card, and national databases will maintain their vaccination records, behavioral problems, and history of drug use, etc.

If you decide to flee your new draconian control beasts, you'll have a problem. Passports will only be issued to those who already have the federal approved ID card.

You will not be allowed to work without this new federally mandated mark. State licensing will be extended to virtually everything, thereby making it illegal to work without a license--and guess what? You can't get a license to work without first presenting your federally approved national ID. Banking? No federal ID, no banking, no check cashing, no loans.

This is NOT radical right-wing paranoia. Most of the elements of the new proposed national ID system are already in place NOW. The next step is for all information to be coordinated and completely accessible to any and all bureaucrats for their arbitrary and capricious abuse.

The national ID card itself (which you will be required to carry) will have a magnetic strip (or chip) which is imbedded in it. That means YOU (when you have your mandated national ID card on your person) could be tracked wherever you go. Privacy will be an anachronism.

As George Washington observed, "Government is not reason: It is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

Cash is headed for a whole new dimension. MasterCard has invested millions in the development of an E-cash system called Mondex. Smart Mondex cards have tiny embedded microchips that can store not only electronic dollars but also five other types of currency, an abbreviated medical history and even a personalized electronic "key" that can open everything from your apartment to your office. Says Henry Mundt, MasterCard executive vice president for global access: "The chip that we are putting on the card now will form the platform for the ultimate in remote access for consumers to their funds, anytime, anywhere. What we really see happening in the future is consumers being able to design their cards to meet their individual needs. We refer to that as moving more toward life-style cards." E-cash is already everywhere, from highway tolls to subways.

Technology and finance have become one and the same. As William Niskanen, chairman of the Washington-based CATO Institute, puts it, "The distinction between software and money is disappearing." And nowhere is that truer than in the world of cold, hard cash.

Paper money is, in its way, amazing stuff. It is, for instance, easily transferable and widely accepted. You can pay the baby sitter without even thinking about the complex financial dynamics underlying the transaction. Cash--especially U.S. dollars--is also portable, storable and exchangeable. (Just ask the thousands of Russian Mafiosi who pay for nearly everything with $100 bills.) But paper cash does have some awful drawbacks. Lose it and it's gone; sit on it and it may lose its value overnight: think about what just happened in Asia, or earlier in South America.

Enter electronic cash. The idea of digital money is simple enough: instead of storing value on paper, find a way to wrap it in a string of digits that's more portable and (most important) smarter than its paper counterpart. Smart money? Well, yes. Because digital cash is endlessly mutable, you can control it much more precisely than paper money. Think about the $2,000 check you send to your daughter at college for expenses. How is that money really spent? Books … or beer? Electronic cash takes that relatively simple transaction--passing an allowance--and makes it into a much more intelligent process. And one that hardly requires something as old-fashioned as a bank.

For starters, you can send the money over the Internet encoded in an E-mail instead of sending a check. Your daughter can store the money any way she wants--on her laptop, on a debit card, even (in the not too distant future) on a chip implanted under her skin. And, you can program the money to be spent only in specific ways. You might instruct some of the digits to go for books, some for food and some for movies. Unless you pass along a few digits that can be cashed at the local pub, she'll have to find someone else to buy the drinks.

Smart, digital cash may also address some of the other problems of paper money. If you lose your digital cash, for example, you will be able to replace it instantly by asking your computer to invalidate the disappeared digits and replace them with a fresh set. And unlike paper money--which stops earning interest as it shoots out of the ATM slot--smart money can keep earning interest until the moment you spend it.

This "cash-interest phenomenon" may sound trivial, but it's a link to a whole other revolution in finance: the dissolution of the government monopoly on money. After all, if some small bank in Luxembourg or Belize is willing to pay you more interest on your digital cash, who are you to argue? Government money will still exist, but so will dozens of other currencies, each tailored to a specific need and endlessly convertible and exchangeable. Says Howard Greenspan, president of Toronto-based Heraclitus Corp., a management consulting firm: "In the electronic city, the final step in the evolution of money is being taken. Money is being demonetized. Money is being eliminated."

Maybe. Digital cash, for all its charms, is still climbing a tough road to acceptance. "Between 40% and 50% of transactions today use cash and checks," says Steve Cone, an executive at Fidelity Investments. And there are plenty of folks who still like cold cash just fine. Says economist Bruce Skoorka: "Look, every day there's a guy who shows up at a bank in Bogota with a big box full of cash. You think he wants to travel with a traceable digital-cash card?"

In fact, in the eyes of some digital-cash Pollyannas, one of the great things about traceable, bit-based cash is that it will do away with whole categories of cash-based crime. "Paper money is, I hate to say it, the root of all evil," says DigiCash founder Chaum, who argues that the traceability of electronic cash will mean the end of some types of crime. "What kidnapper would take a ransom payment by check? Once you build the infrastructure for electronic cash, the incremental cost of replacing paper money is small. And the social benefits could be amazing."

But the China Syndrome aspect of all this interconnected finance is among its most worrisome features. What if the whole interconnected computer network crashes? (For that matter, what if just your part does?) What if a hacker breaks in at the wrong place? This new electronic world challenges everything we thought we knew about finance, but maybe not what we know about economics. Will a high-speed global economy put an end to the boom and bust of the business cycle, or will it create dangerous interlinkages across borders, where a bad year for the Mexican economy, say, might accidentally trigger a global depression?

HIMEJI, Japan -- Something spooky's afoot. Lights turn on without warning. The TV flashes channels at random. But there are no poltergeists here. A scientist-entrepreneur decked out in pink goggles is controlling everything--apparently with his brain waves.

Hidenori Onishi is using a device that senses brain wave patterns and converts them into signals used to operate electrical appliances. The device looks like a pair of ski goggles--it holds electrodes to the head, attached to a laptop-sized computer. It is called the Mind Control Tool Operating System, or MCTOS.

"The system requires no training by the user, because the brain waves the machine responds to are emitted simply by exercising the will," Onishi said. Any strong mental affirmation sends out a brain signal that the electrodes apparently intercept and feed to the computer. The computer then activates the appropriate appliance.

An AP reporter who tested the system easily mastered simple tasks like turning on lights. More demanding activities such as channel surfing took a bit of extra thought, however.