A path to a mark of the beast!

"He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
Revelation 13:16,17

Implantable Device?

For a long time, I thought the "mark of the beast" would be an implantable all-in-one device. In recent months, however, developments in technology have changed the possibilities. The transaction transmission system is already mostly in place, as cell phones and systems become more and more ubiquitous (means "present, appearing, or found everywhere" for those of you like me that usually have to look up that word). Perhaps only a few more technologies need to come to maturity. Perhaps they are further along than we know. Here are some...

A Need For a Better Way For You to Buy and Sell

Anyone ever get a call from your credit card company concerning fraudulent charges? I did several months ago and realized how easily someone could gain information and used it to make purchases on my card. Fortunately, the credit card companies implement means of detecting some of those charges. It takes a lot of effort to create software to assist in this matter.

But ensuring that you are the one making a purchase online or even in a store is complicated. What would it take to make this happen?

Unique You!

Quite simply stated, a system needs to identify you... not your credit card, not your phone, not just your PC, not your check... but you, using some means to pay. Can it do so with your fingerprint? Can it do so with your eyes? Weight? Height? Hair color? Voice? Heart rhythms? Or a combination of some or all of these? Many systems do very well with some of these parameters about you but not well enough to bring absolute certainty.

But your DNA coding is pretty high on the certainty level. It is pretty unique. It's weakness might be discerning identical twins and the like. Perhaps there are other metrics that could assist in those cases.

So when I saw this article,

3D-printed attachment turns any smartphone into a DNA-scanning microscope

I felt compelled to write this post. While the article touts the potential medical benefits, the obvious extension would be to use the DNA scanning capability for identification purposes.

Miniaturization and refinement of the technology to just be another component within a smartphone or reader device would not be far off... Consider this one from last fall (Not DNA scanning but...)

Smartphone microscope can be made for under a dollar

WOW!

Now I don't want to trivialize this, there might be significant effort to determine what parts of your DNA to use for uniqueness without sending the whole sequence. Certainly, we would not want to scan you whole DNA strand and submit that every time you do a transaction.

Are you alive?

One good question is whether you are alive when you make a purchase! Even with just a DNA system, someone could kill you and steal your DNA to make a transaction.

So such a system must verify that you are alive and preferably not under coercion at gunpoint or the likes.

There have been several articles over the past few years pointing to such nano-scale technologies that could operate on the cellular level.

One area of interest is the material Graphene, which has tremendous potential for all kinds of uses. It is very strong with very thin layers. It even possesses some electrical qualities that may be of assistance. There are hurdles, but...

Here are just a few articles about graphene:

Graphene could speed up DNA sequencing

Graphene tooth tattoo monitors oral health

Graphene and human brain research to get around one billion 

You might find other relevant articles with a google search.

Transmitting and handling the information

Last but not least... no system that can be spoofed or cracked by a hacker will be suitable. This requires some special information systems. The information from its point of transmission from you to the database in the bank or central system must be:

Uncrackable! No one should be able to break the information apart and use it to make purchases on your behalf. It should take into account your identification information, but at the same time not expose it to be used by anyone else. This involves the technology of "Data Encryption and Decryption". The means of hiding the real information during a transaction and of discovering it to be useful at the bank... from body to bank!

Here is an interesting article:

Super-secure quantum-based data encryption for everyone

...and another about security using Quantum Physics (Title is somewhat misleading):
The Big Bang Theory of Security

In fact, the whole Quantum Computing arena has the potential to revolutionize computers and information systems.

A Mark of Allegiance

The Greek text of the word for "mark" is  "caragma". The Strongs concordance word lookup notes say "a scratch or etching". While it is possible that it could be as simple as a mark denoting allegiance. It could involve also some of the technologies mentioned above. The harmful and painful sores mentioned in Revelation 16:2 for those who bore the mark, could be a result of science gone bad and interacting with changes in the world in a negative way.

Most important for us who are watching for Jesus' coming is remembering that Jesus Christ is our Savior and God's Holy Spirit is the only "mark" that we need. Never compromise your allegiance to God by receiving a mark on your body to surrender your allegiance to another.

Just a glimpse

Well I bit off more than I could chew... so this still seems a bit sketchy to me. I hope to add future links as I see them and start a little "notebook" here.