It's been a few years now since Applied Digital Solutions applied to the American government for permission to lodge the "VeriChip" (brand name) into human skin. It's predictable that secular/pluralistic governments will not reject such applications merely on account of Christian communities standing opposed, but, just the same, Applied Digital appeared on the 700 Club to convince the Christian public that its product isn't the Biblical "mark of the beast" (of Revelation 13).

In early October of 2004, the government granted approval for the marketing of Veri-Chip. I quote the Associated Press:

"A tiny computer chip approved Wednesday for implantation in a patient’s arm...about the size of a grain of rice, for medical purposes...Silently and invisibly, the dormant chip stores a code that releases patient-specific information when a scanner passes over it...The VeriChip itself contains no medical records, just codes that can be scanned, and revealed, in a doctor’s office or hospital."

(entire story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/)

Rumor has it that chips will be imbedded with transponders that work in conjunction with satellites to trace a person's whereabouts within meters (although other sources tell us that this technology is currently impossible using a rice-size device). Civil-liberties groups are gearing to turn opinion against the invasiveness of the skin chips, thus providing a controversy that promises to complicate chip marketing. In the meantime, private citizens such as Jeff Jacobs, who request the chips for medical/health reasons, might prove to be the best allies of the chip companies.

"DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (BUSINESS WIRE) March 3, 2005 -- VeriChip Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Applied Digital (NASDAQ: ADSX), announced today that CareGroup Healthcare Systems...will install a VeriChip(TM) System in the Emergency Department of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) for clinical use. The facility will now be able to access VeriChip identification numbers and retrieve previously entered healthcare information entered in the CareGroup's "CareWeb" electronic medical record system...

CareGroup, with 3,000 doctors, 12,000 employees and 2 million patients..." (full story here)

As long ago as November, 2003, we read:

"Applied Digital Solutions of Palm Beach, Fla., is hoping that Americans can be persuaded to implant RFID chips under their skin to identify themselves when going to a cash machine or in place of using a credit card...ADS is running a special promotion, urging Americans to 'get chipped.' The first 100,000 people to sign up will receive a $50 discount."

http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5111637.html

By 2006, a study of 500 students indicated that 8 percent were willing to use skin chips, while only 5 percent of adults were willing. This can be viewed as quite a success since chips for commercial purposes were virtually unkown to the American public just two or three years earlier.

[Update May 2008 -- The following article (not dated) reveals one subtle method of causing society to accept the skincode as something other than the mark of the beast, by locating it first on right arms of the shoulder area. The chips would more likely be placed in right hands if finally it becomes viable/enforced in the marketplace:

"...last month Applied Digital Solutions, Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla., unveiled 'VeriPay,' an RFID chip designed to be implanted under the skin to allow for automatic cash and credit transactions. The size of a rice grain, the device would be embedded in the right arm between elbow and shoulder, the company says."

http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2003/68.html

There we have it, finally, a skin chip with a buy/sell use, and it's already in some consumers. So much for those writers claiming that it would never arrive, who portrayed writers like myself as crazy to suggest it would. I had been waiting since 1995 for it, and the timing of 2008 is roughly what I had then suspected for an introductory voluntary system. Don't even think of using one if you value your life. While it may not end up being the exact format by which the mark of the beast will be applied to consumers, it's just too close for comfort. God is watching. God despises these people who are bringing it on. You will be lumped into the same condemned category if you join yourself to this system. End Update

If skin chips are used for purchasing purposes only -- holding no other information but bank account numbers -- they would then be more palatable to those non-Christians now opposed. Of course -- and don't the chip companies know it -- once a skincode has been accepted by the public for the most-basic of uses, other groups will legislate or otherwise enforce skin-based data systems for scores of other uses.

Nobody flinched when only recently electronic deduction via plastic cards quickly overtook our entire society. The chip companies are happy; the banks are even happier. But as electronic deduction through a mark in the skin is proving to be quite another matter, there will almost certainly be an optional skincode system prior to the enforcement stage. The public needs to be conditioned first, and anti-Christian activists will lead the way. The Democrats, for example, who despise the Christian right will soon, not merely accept, but promote, the system.

One could predict that the skincode will be optional for all or part of the first half of the Week. If this proves to be true, there will arise distinct benefits as regards the preparation of places to live apart from the codes. Not only will the optional period be a clear wake-up call and some invaluable time for making preparations, but some of the goats among the Christian churches will be discovered early when they take a skincode at that time. Will there be pre-tribulationists taking the skincode due to their belief that it could not be the Biblical mark of the beast, since they “know” that the mark cannot arrive until after the rapture? Will these urge other believers to take the code as mindlessly as they now use credit cards?

Another prediction to be made is that spiritual enemies in high places, those bringing on the skincode, will not want to give us time to make tribulation preparations, wherefore they might shorten the optional period as much as possible. Christian evangelism and faith-fervor is predicted to boom as soon as the optional period begins, and don’t they know it?

Microchip companies must realize that the big money is in purchasing/banking because virtually everyone does it. But how will it profit the banks to have us wave a hand over scanners as opposed to running a card through them? Banks desire a cashless society because it saves much labor to turn our deposits and withdrawals into rapid electron impulses, but doesn't the plastic card facilitate just such a system already? How will a skin code move electron waves any cleaner or faster?

However, I do not see banks opposing the skin system, but rather welcoming it, for damaged-card replacement is a nuisance, while one chip per person could serve bank purposes for a much longer period than one card. Yet, I do not think that the skincode can be made mandatory based merely on the preferences of banks to reduce/eradicate card replacement.

These considerations lead me to believe that other forces besides banks will predominate in skincode promotion, and the filthy-lucre finger points first to the chip companies having patents on skin chips. But even so, I do not see that the chip companies alone -- apart from banks -- can create a situation where the skincode is anything more than optional. The question of what will be responsible for a non-optional system could be answered more specifically if the Bible had revealed the form of the skincode's enforcement, whether by force of law, or by force of no other purchasing option made available by the banks. In short, the banks don't need the skin system very badly, but can be coaxed into eliminating both cash and cards in favor of skin chips, especially if skin chip companies pay them royalties and/or other rewards.

Much of the retail industry is inclined to support banks toward a cashless marketplace because stores also save time and frustration when not handling cash and checks...explaining why many retailers are contentedly using electronic deduction i.e. debit cards. Retailers who don't prefer the cashless system, due to high fees charged by credit-card companies, are virtually forced to use it simply because many consumers want to use credit cards for air miles, convenience, etc. It is the goal of the credit-card companies to make the cards sufficiently attractive to the consumers that the retailers will bend the knee more assuredly in accepting credit cards...even though it's the retailer that pays (to the card companies) the fee for every card use: a whopping 3 percent (roughly) of each transaction amount.

Of course, the retailer passes this cost on to the consumer by increasing product price, meaning that the consumer (you) is ultimately the loser even while thinking that he/she is bagging a bargain with "free" air miles, etc. These are worth but a fraction of one percent per item purchased, and yet the same consumer is ultimately paying the 3 percent credit-card fee. You easily realize exactly why the credit card companies don't inform you of this scam (i.e. because they hope to deceive you for as long as they can). So long as retailers are satisifed that the consumer is ultimately paying their credit-card fees, retailers are content paying it on their behalf, because retailers eliminate bounced checks when using cards. Seeing that consumers are turning more to debit cards than credit cards, even though the debit cards do not "reward" the spender with air miles, etc., the Imperial Bank of Canada is now offering a full one-percent cashback for credit-card use (it's still a rip-off and a scam!).

The retailer is far happier with debit cards because, at least to this point in time, the credit-card fee is not in effect. Yet all debit-card users are still paying a little more for everything they buy simply because the retailer has increased product prices to make up for those who use credit cards. As long as there are people who wish to borrow money, there will be credit cards, and I don't see why the skincode could not act as a credit purchase as well as a debit purchase (the latter does not borrow money). How many consumers would start using the skinchip if they are offered a higher "reward"? The companies can easily afford to give a 2-percent rebate because they can easily increase the card fee from 3 percent to 4 percent...without informing the consumer, of course.

The fact that the pro-chip organizations have been slow in advertising the skin system is not necessarily an indication that marketing hopes are dismal; the reason may be technical. Great efforts worldwide are being made to de-bug transaction capabilities of online-shopping, so that buyers and sellers alike might come to trust in wire transactions.

So-called RFID ink (radio frequency identification) has been around since WW2, and is now being used to monitor commercial items. The data imbedded in the no-chip ink can be read by scanners, even hidden ones (e.g. in door jambs or store shelving). I don't see why this method of invisible ID can't become the Biblical mark. A leading company in this technology is Somark. I would suggest that, whenever you purchase a retail product, do not give your name and address to the retailer, for manufacturures of all sorts of products are already imbedding these "bugs." Also, throw out your retail cards, for these are being imbedded with tracking devices, wherefore you are being watched as you walk around the store. Your car may have one, or your computer. The only way to avoid this wave of spyware is to not give out your personal information at the purchase point. No one has a right to know your address when you buy a pair of shoes, nor even your name. No rule that forces you to give your name for making a purchase is a rule that needs to be obeyed. If the product is legal, you need not tell anyone who you are.

According to an issue of "Senior Scholastics" of 1973, there had been plans -- as long ago as that -- amid the financial circles to implant a number in the skin using a quick and painless shot of invisible ultra-violet laser light. And, said the article, "people would receive a numbered tattoo in their wrist or forehead," the very two places that Revelation 13 foretells. The development of the Universal Product Code, or UPC, was finalized in that very year of 1973. What's more, the smart card was also rising at that very time via Roland Moreno of France and his company, Innovatron (founded 1974). Moreno is the inventor of the typical, modern smart card.

Innovatron licensed its smart-card invention to manufacturers (e.g. Gemplus), and they allied themselves with software and hardware companies (e.g. Hewlett Packard) providing the systems to read cards and handle transactions. Manufacturers supplied viable money cards to Mondex, and Mondex in conjunction with governments, large banks and telephone companies carried out operational pilot projects around the world in several countries between 1996-98, including the United States. The projects were said to be successful. By 2000, Mondex in conjunction with the smart-card software giant, ACI Worldwide, had succeeded in putting together a "compliant" system that safely and reliably permitted e-commerce with multiple security systems, in a diversity of currencies. Global e-commerce was learning to walk.

Smart cards are advertised as "money in the card." No wires are needed to make purchases as with debit cards. Smart cards look like standard magnetic-stripe cards, but are technically different, although some cards are now both smart and magnetic-stripe. Smart-card test projects have reportedly shown that fraud is reduced by 90 percent or more when compared with the magnetic stripe card system.

A debit card has "dumb" numeral data allowing "e-money" to be zipped from the purchaser's bank account, through telephone wires, and instantly plunked into the seller's bank account. An "e-purse" smart card, on the other hand, with it's tiny computer chip, is inserted into bank (ATM) machines to load it with "cash." The chip keeps track of totals unloaded at every purchase point. When the "money" runs low, the cards can be reloaded at bank machines...or at a personal computer when one has the required hardware. Smart cards also come in the one-use, disposable variety. The greatest current use for smart cards is merely the prepaid long-distance card. In other words, smart cards have already become secondary to debit cards.

However, I mention smart cards because they could just become the "mark of the beast" exclusively, for they are a benign method of purchasing as compared to the invasive wire-debit system. In other words, smart cards have the potential of appeasing civil-liberties groups. While debit-card systems can trace a person's movements by running a central-computer check on his/her purchases, smart cards don't wire purchase information into computers; the purchase is known only by the buyer and seller.

Yes, the smart card will have a person-identifying number built in, and that number may be recorded by the retailer's scanning device, but if a law were to be made that does not force/permit retailers to submit that information to any other organization, the personal-privacy issue may be solved. Moreover, when a retailer takes money directly from a bank account, the consumer may have a sense that the retailer gets far too close to the bank-account information and all of the money in it, whereas in a smart-card purchase, the consumer has the feeling that the retailer does not go to the threshold of the bank account, but simply to the money stored on the card, which money can be limited to smaller amounts than sits in the account.

Therefore, Mondex is not failing to advertise this public-friendly feature. The company is 51 percent owned by Mastercard; there are several shareholders having a slice of the other 49% -- mainly banks but also AT&T. Yet if Mondex is planning a skincode smart system, it's not spilling any beans about it.

The next question as per what causes the non-optional skincode system has to do with government wishes. As certain government agencies want purchase data built into e-commerce systems, might not the Biblical skincode go wired? The giant alliance of Europay-Mastercard-Visa is currently investing much in smart chips for wired transactions...because of the vastly improved security features of the smart chips. Wikipedia says that "The UK is in the process of converting all debit cards in circulation to Chip and PIN...to increase transaction security." Thus, everything seems to be turning to a combination of smart and invasive (i.e. wired), like it or not. This gives the people the option of shopping with or without wires, and so solves the privacy issues for those who are so concerned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card

Wired e-commerce amounted to less than one percent of the global economy in 2003, and was then projected to be about five percent in 2004, about 5 trillion dollars (smart cards accounted for a tiny fraction of this amount, a few $billion annually). By 2008, the bulk of the world economy will have gone electronic, especially as debit cards are common place now, in early 2007. Debit card use superceded cash payments a few years ago (2001 in Canada).

SIGNS OF THE ILLUMINATI

In the end, the False Prophet will enforce the skincode, although the Bible doesn't reveal whether or not he is the first to do so. I wouldn't look to him or to the anti-Christ to build the skincode commercial system, but to others -- on an optional basis -- so that the evil duo merely need to walk in and enforce it to fulfill prophecy. Note that it's the False Prophet who is portrayed in the Bible as the chief enforcer of the skincode, not the anti-Christ.

This helps us to identify the False Prophet, not as a purely religious figure (e.g. the Pope or New-Age guru), but primarily as a political leader with much influence in world commerce. It has been my guess that an agent of a superior Illuminati cell will be this False Prophet. But does this mean that the global financial institutions such as Mondex are plugged into Illuminati cells? What could be more logical, since Illuminati cells are by nature financial institutions, on a global order, with the purpose of conducting world affairs?

Note that the Bible text speaks of no penalty/punishment for those refusing the mark. The text only underscores their deprived condition: they won't be able to "buy or sell" (Rev.13:17). It doesn't sound like a crime to refuse the mark, in other words. However, only two verses earlier we read that anyone who refuses to worship the "image of the beast" could end up killed. The text seems to be portraying desperation among world rulers, a hastening unto some utopian ideal.

The important question then is: how closely linked will the mark be to the image? I believe that the False Prophet and anti-Christ Beast will initially be enemies on account of their West versus neo-Communist programs, and that the Iraqi stage is becoming what appears to be the middle ground for a necessary (but unwanted) partnership between Western Illuminatii and the Russian anti-Christ. Because I view the activities of the anti-Christ as confined to the Middle East and Russia, I will suggest that the Image of the Beast will be of greatest important in those areas...but perhaps given only mild lip service in America i.e. without severe punishment given by American authorities to those who ignore the Image.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Visa and Mastercard, working in conjunction, have already decided to call it's smart card, Multi-technology Automated Reader Card, or MARC. Rather, it suggests more than mere willingness to make the Biblical "mark of the beast" happen as a derisive event toward Christians. The MARC card was first used in a 1993 military test project, and proved to be a great time-saving success. Also, Visa (COPAC) had introduced a Mark I and Mark II.

It was pointed out to me that "Mondex" seems to be short for "monetary dexterity." While "dexterity" means "easy handling," the dictionary definition of "dexter" is "right hand" or "right side." Therefore, the term "Mondex" could very well have been chosen to depict "money in the right hand"!! Note also the "monde" = "world."

Wouldn't you know it that Mastercard and Visa's "Secure Electronic Transaction" system produced the "SET Mark," the registered logo for a debit-card system used exclusively for internet purchases...where "Set" happens to be the Egyptian version of Satan, so that SET MARK could have the below-table meaning of "SATAN's MARK." Might we wonder if "Master" in "Mastercard" had been a reference to Satan/Lucifer from the card-company's inception?

It has come to light that Mastercard has produced and distributed smart cards covered in triquetra -- an occult symbol -- so that the cardholder's photo/face is covered with them. The triquetra is a petal-like design which appears to be formed by joining together three sixes. Some are suggesting that the triquetra could itself be the Biblical mark of the beast. Perhaps. It would be a way of placing the three sixes on persons without their acknowledging the fact...Christians would be made to appear as "stretching it" when claiming the triquetra to be the Biblical 666. See photo (Compliments of http://www.russpickett.com/del4jc/rapture/rap04.htm).

The Universal Product Code (UPC) is the bar-studded icon on all store-bought items. Evidence of a 666 is built into the Universal Product Code, and yet the creators provided a way for the consumer to view it as something other than that number. The three black bars representing the three 6s are not openly identified as numbers on any UPC, whereas all other bars are clearly identified with digits directly below or beside them. Those who bring us the UPC will say that the three bars having no digits are merely "guard bars." But then why did UPC designers choose a guard-bar type that elsewhere in the UPC represents the digit, 6? Why didn't they choose a gaurd-bar type that elsewhere on the UPC represented a 2, 3, 4, etc?

And why are there three 6s rather than two or four? We have every right to be suspicious, especially as the UPC was developed with a global purchasing system in view. Surely, government officials overseeing the code's engineering must have known that we Christians would oppose the inclusion of three 6s in a commercial system on very strong religious grounds. But maybe that's exactly why they used 6s of all numbers. Perhaps God has created a self-fulfilling number just by making it known to his enemies, and little do they know that it's no joke!

The positive side is that the UPC engineers have not been successful in concealing the triplet from us. Indeed, it is quite fortunate that a 666 has been found in the UPC because it warns of the nearness of the fully-developed skincode system. I expect the 666 in the skincode system to be likewise deny-able. I'm not suggesting that the UPC will be used in the skincode. Hardly anyone is suggesting that.

The word-for-word Greek reading of Revelation 13:17-18 can be read in two ways: 1) with a skincode that is the name of the beast OR a 666, or, 2) as is commonly believed, with a skincode that is the name of the beast AND a 666. The first option suggests the distribution of two kinds of skincodes, one with the name of the beast but without a 666, and another with a 666 but without the name of the beast:

...no one could buy or sell except the one having the mark the name of the beast or the number of it's name" (v 17)

According to verse 18 in conjunction with the verse above, it's the number of the beast's name that will have the peculiarity of adding up to 666. Almost everyone figures that this name refers to that of the anti-Christ, the man, except for those who view the "beast" of Revelation 13 strictly as an empire. Personally, I view the beast as both. It is possible, therefore, that the number to look for may be a number pertaining to a title of the European Union (I believe the Russian anti-Christ will come to chair the EU).

Take a look in your kitchen cupboards, and you will see the 666 triplet on all cans and packages. As it stands today, you can't buy or sell your daily needs without the triplet! But the Bible submits that it is the receiving of the 666/mark on the hand or forehead that is damning, and not the use of the UPC. The skin system becomes evil by association with the "beast." To make sure, I am refusing anything that is skin-based.

The Universal Product Code, as well as similar codes used in other parts of the world, is a creation of the Uniform Code Council (UCC). The UCC is governed by huge corporations, and was a creation of certain food manufacturers and retail representatives who met in Washington in 1969 to iron out a viable code system that, supposedly, simplified inventory records. I would submit to you that globalization was primary in their minds. After all, one year after the UPC's debut, a European counterpart to the UCC was developed, called the EAN.

The European Article Numbering system has a base in Brussels, Belgium, where also the headquarters of Europay sits. EAN has grown international in scope, with almost 100 countries under its wings, so that it has eclipsed the UCC, wherefore the two, working together today, are known as the EAN-UCC. At the EAN home page, the EAN-UCC is represented by a pyramid. What does a pyramid have to do with keeping inventory?

The EAN-UCC joined with the Consumer Products Manufacturers' Association in 1999. This latter organization, CPMA, was formed as a union between Kodak, Johnson and Johnson, Gillette, and Proctor and Gamble. The CPMA home page has what appears to be a pyramid within a pyramid within a pyramid as a logo. The purpose of the coming together of these four apparently-Masonic corporations is to implement new scanning technology for the global mandate of EAN-UCC. Will the scanners be built not only to utilize the UPC, but the skincode as well? Keep an all-seeing eye on those corporations.

[Update December 2, 2007 -- The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is a corporation operating in 200-plus countries and could therefore be a world-control organ in disguise...that may come to facilitate/spread the mark-of-the-beast commercial system! At it's website (below), the EIU boasts of being "The world leader in global business intelligence." It's head office is in London, and the current Editorial Director and Chief Economist, Robin Bew, was previously working for the British government in overseeing some of it's economic situations. There is an icon used by the EIU webpage that appears to be a computerized-numeral system in the forehead of a man.

The EIU has what it calls an "e-readiness ranking" that monitors the nations of the world as per their capabilities and progress in e-commerce viability. Let's suppose that the members of the European Union, for its 2007-13 seven-year fiscal period, have ratified an agenda to get all member-nations up to skincode snuff by 2013; the EU could then use the EIU to monitor and assess these nations so that the ones lagging behind the EU agenda can become identified, for the purpose of reprimanding an/or egging them on. In 2007, the US has been ranked second, behind Denmark, and tied with Sweden. Finland, the UK, and the Netherlands are in the top ten...all of which smacks of Aryanism. Iran, however, the ancient bed of Aryanism, came in last (69th).
http://www.eiu.com/
http://globaltechforum.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=rich_story&doc_id=10599

The question is, does the EIU do more than keep score? Yes, much more. Does it have an underlying/insidious agenda to compell the many governments to conform? If so, it's a self-serving organization, looking not out for your interests, nor even the interests of your country. Why would the EIU "White Paper" state that the EIU will "re-evaluate the impact of those [nations] that appear to be waning." It sounds as though the waning nations are in for a slap on the chin for not having enough e-commerce impact on their people. Why this rush to leave the simpler life behind for a computerized inter-connected world? Only the devil and his love of money knows for sure.