Non-Lethal Sniper Rifle: You're Tagged For Life 121
gbjbaanb writes "Cool new urban battlefield weaponry for the geeks to fear. The
Id Sniper is a nonlethal sniper rifle that fires tiny GPS microchips into the body of the target. The idea is that a rowdy crowd can be tagged for later 'processing' by law enforcement officials.
Apparently the chip hitting you will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second.
Although it looks, and sounds like a cyberpunk weapon, its for real from a Danish company that has already shown it off at a Chinese Police exhibition.
check out the tracking software." Here's hoping this is cautionary artwork.
Re:It's not 4/1/04 (Score:5, Informative)
I call parody [backfire.dk] (product number 2 from the same site.)
BS (Score:5, Informative)
It's fake. (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, the GPS signal doesn't go very deep through human tissue, it degrades as it goes, and a transmitter strong ernough to be received more than a few hundred yards away would be comparable in size and power consumption to a cell phone.
Interesting concept. It's not impossible, but it's not cost effective now.
-Adam
Big "A-10 Warthog" Mosquito (Score:3, Informative)
Even assuming wire a LOT finer than typical magnet (coil wrapping) wire, that looks like one hell of a big device. Maybe you are required to bend over so they can inject it as a suppository.
Just a little late for April 1st...
Fake can be just as good (Score:3, Informative)
This can't be real.
The image of the rifle in question [backfire.dk] looks like CGI from a video game [backfire.dk] -- if it was real, why not just use a photo rather than a photo-realistic synthetic graphic?
And their other product [backfire.dk], with the silly cartoons [backfire.dk], is even more implausible. But let's not get distracted by the obvious fake -- the gun is more interesting anyway.
As a hypothetical exercise, could this kind of coverty GPS planting work? Let's say that the GPS beacon / transmitter is small enough to be mistaken for an insect's sting, so no bigger than a grain of sand. What then?
I don't believe for a minute that this is real, but I had no problem believing that various Three Letter Agencies would love to treat this as a prototype for devices they would like to build. How close are we to being able to approximate this with current technology?
Where's the crap-science filter? (Score:4, Informative)
Small projectiles are less stable. A projectile the size of a grain of sand could barely cross a room.
The kinetic energy required to overcome air friction would make the impact pretty serious, if you could magically overcome the instability problem, and magically make the tiny projectile carry that much kinetic energy without vaporising it.
As for tracking the thing, where's the transmit antenna? RFID tags have a short range, and they're a lot bigger than a mosquito-sized impact. No antenna means no signal range.
And as other posters have noted, there's no room for a power source, the GPS signals don't penetrate well, etc. etc.
Ardent Pedantry R Us,
Flumph
Sorry kids, it's a fake (Score:5, Informative)
My favourite use would be tagging girls in night clubs and then stalk them. So much easier than asking for phone numbers.
Hoax: Admission by the Creator (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.backfire.dk/JB/indexreal.html [backfire.dk]
"Giant balloon sculptures, voodoo-cursed technology and blueprints for hi-tech weapons smuggled into Chinas first international weapons fair - in the world of Jakob S. Boeskov the amazing meets the political in a unique mix.
Coming from a background in comics, Copenhagen based artist Jakob S. Boeskov seems destined to work with satire and pastiche. Using a palette of different media such as web, paintings, writings, 3D drawings and animations, as well as collaborations with musicians, writers, voodoo priests (!) and industrial designers he "hacks and bends" media, reality and technology to give a startling and shocking view of life in the 21st century.
His recent works has been created within the framework of his self-styled "sci-fi art" (or "fictionist") concept where he takes "an imaginary product from the future" and tests it out today, in a real environment. He did this most notably in his MY DOOMSDAY WEAPON project where he created "the most horrible weapon in the world" (- a piece of "pre-crime technology" designed to mark demonstrators with GPS (Global Positioning System) chips "before the crime is committed"). Jakob S. Boeskov brought drawings of this weapon to China Police 2002, Chinas first international weapons fair, where the international weapons dealer elite and greeted this nightmarish weapon with much enthusiasm."
Happy April Fools Day, 11 days late!
Here's the scoop: (Score:3, Informative)
For this daredevil project Jakob S. Boeskov infiltrated an armsfair in Beijing with "the ID Sniper - the worlds most horrible hi-tech weapon" Too fantastic to be true? No its not! Read parts of the story here:
In June 2002 Jakob S. Boeskov travelled to the belly of the dragon to meet the enemy eye to eye - infiltrating China Police 2002 the first international weapons fair in China. He brings with him four hundred fake business cards, a promotional poster of a horrible hitech weapon, and the worst stomach cramps ever. Tag along to the Kingdom in the Middle and meet robot salesmen, enthusiastic Chinese entrepreneurs and singing teenage policemen.
Basically, the idea was to come up with the most terrible weapon imaginable, and to test it in a real environment. We had three days to finish up the weapon. Our fake company, Empire North, already had a logo and a slogan ("The Logical Solution" aping the Nazi classic "The Final Solution") but we had no weapon yet. Genius designer Von B and I worked overtime, and in two days we had the ID Sniper ready.
The day before I was leaving, BLACK BOX editor Mads Brügger called designer Von B and asked him to change the design, because "it was too far out and he couldn't be responsible for what happened, if I was found out."
Changing was not possible at this late stage. I guess he knew that. Maybe he was just, more or less elegantly, trying to shake off his share of the burden. I can understand it, because we were all becoming afraid. Afraid of what would happen if I was found out, and afraid of what might happen if the weapon was taken seriously. Would it be copied? Would we be responsible for the production of one of the most inhumane weapons in the history of man? We justified our project by telling ourselves that right now, a few people were walking around with socalled VeriChips implanted in their bodies, chips manufactured by the company Applied Digital Solutions. We kept reminding ourselves that right, now prisoners in Sweden are doing time at home wearing GPS chip wristbands. It would merely be a question of time before the technology would be used preemptively on suspicious persons, and as we repeatedly told ourselves, all new technology has been used for military purposes, and this technology would too, we concluded. Why not bring it out prematurely, so at least we could have a small part in getting a thorough discussion about this kind of technology? With this question, we basically came up with a brand new art concept. Let's for now just call it scifi conceptual art, defined like this: take the essence of an imagined future, turn it into a concept and present this concept in present day reality. Report the reactions.
Would this new concept lead to a brave journey, searching for truth or would it just be a highly irresponsible prank? There was only one way to find out, and that was to do it.
This is how it was done.
FACTS
THE ID SNIPER RIFLE AS PRESENTED ON THE EMPIRE NORTH POSTER
GPS microchip based identification rifle
Empire North is proud to present the preliminary showcase of the ID Sniper Rifle a brand new tool in longterm riot control, and antiterror management. Please notice that some aspects of this cuttingedge technology are still in its outmost infancy, and more research is needed before the ID Sniper Rifle is a reality. Hence we are welcoming investors and business partners to join us in the important quest of developing the ID Sniper Rifle.
What is the ID Sniper Rifle?
To put it short, the idea is to implant a GPS microchip in the body of a human being, using a highpowered sniper rifle as the long distance injector. The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito bite, lasting a fraction of a second.
At the same time, a digital camcorder with a zo
"less lethal" not "non lethal" (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed. So-called "non-lethal" projectile and chemical weapons are not really non-lethal. That's propaganda: it's what the police call them to make them sound safe. Aw, a fluffy little bean bag. Aw, a plastic bullet. How much can a little thing like that hurt.
The reality is organ damage, serious wounds, broken bones, spinal injury, miscarriage, blindness, and death. And that's when the police don't deliberately aim for maximum injury, or fire at point blank range - the sadistic bastards.
Some weapons manufacturers more accurately label those same weapons "less lethal", meaning they still kill people, but they're not specifically designed for killing.
Such weapons are meant to be used by professional, trained officers in the correct way: such as aiming at people's legs, or the ground, and from a minimum distance. They come with specific instructions to this effect, and warnings of what will happen when these instructions are ignored. Police officers routinely ignore them.
When a police officer aims the same projectile weapons at someone's head, or at their neck, they are intending to kill that person or break their spine, and sometimes they succeed. Disturbingly, police actually do that in crowd control situations.
Even when they hit your back or legs, they can cause severe organ damage and/or broken bones.
And we haven't discussed the chemical weapons, yet. Exercise for the reader.
Here's a fairly good and accurate article [totse.com].
-- Jamie
Re:Good aim... (Score:1, Informative)