January 13, 2003 6:26 AM PST
Perspective: RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages
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I'm not talking about having a microchip surgically implanted beneath your skin, which is what Applied Digital Systems of Palm Beach, Fla., would like to do. Nor am I talking about John Poindexter's creepy Total Information Awareness spy-veillance system, which I wrote about last week.
Instead, in the future, we could be tracked because we'll be wearing, eating and carrying objects that are carefully designed to do so.
The generic name for this technology is RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification. RFID tags are miniscule microchips, which already have shrunk to half the size of a grain of sand. They listen for a radio query and respond by transmitting their unique ID code. Most RFID tags have no batteries: They use the power from the initial radio signal to transmit their response.
You should become familiar with RFID technology because you'll be hearing much more about it soon. Retailers adore the concept, and CNET News.com's own Alorie Gilbert wrote last week about how Wal-Mart and the U.K.-based grocery chain Tesco are starting to install "smart shelves" with networked RFID readers. In what will become the largest test of the technology, consumer goods giant Gillette recently said it would purchase 500 million RFID tags from Alien Technology of Morgan Hill, Calif.
Alien Technology won't reveal how it charges for each tag, but industry estimates hover around 25 cents. The company does predict that in quantities of 1 billion, RFID tags will approach 10 cents each, and in lots of 10 billion, the industry's holy grail of 5 cents a tag.
It becomes unnervingly easy to imagine a scenario where everything you buy that's more expensive than a Snickers will sport RFID tags, which typically include a 64-bit unique identifier yielding about 18 thousand trillion possible values. KSW-Microtec, a German company, has invented washable RFID tags designed to be sewn into clothing. And according to EE Times, the European central bank is considering embedding RFID tags into banknotes by 2005.
It becomes unnervingly easy to imagine a scenario where everything you buy that's more expensive than a Snickers will sport RFID tags.
You can imagine nightmare legal scenarios that don't involve the cops. Future divorce cases could involve one party seeking a subpoena for RFID logs--to prove that a spouse was in a certain location at a certain time. Future burglars could canvass alleys with RFID detectors, looking for RFID tags on discarded packaging that indicates expensive electronic gear is nearby. In all of these scenarios, the ability to remain anonymous is eroded.
Don't get me wrong. RFID tags are, on the whole, a useful development and a compelling technology. They permit retailers to slim inventory levels and reduce theft, which one industry group estimates at $50 billion a year. With RFID tags providing economic efficiencies for businesses, consumers likely will end up with more choices and lower prices. Besides, wouldn't it be handy to grab a few items from store shelves and simply walk out, with the purchase automatically debited from your (hopefully secure) RFID'd credit card?
The privacy threat comes when RFID tags remain active once you leave a store. That's the scenario that should raise alarms--and currently the RFID industry seems to be giving mixed signals about whether the tags will be disabled or left enabled by default.
In an interview with News.com's Gilbert last week, Gillette Vice President Dick Cantwell said that its RFID tags would be disabled at the cash register only if the consumer chooses to "opt out" and asks for the tags to be turned off. "The protocol for the tag is that it has built in opt-out function for the retailer, manufacturer, consumer," Cantwell said.
Wal-Mart, on the other hand, says that's not the case. When asked if Wal-Mart will disable the RFID tags at checkout, company spokesman Bill Wertz told Gilbert: "My understanding is that we will."
Cantwell asserts that there's no reason to fret. "At this stage of the game, the tag is no good outside the store," he said. "At this point in time, the tag is useless beyond the store shelf. There is no value and no harm in the tag outside the distribution channel. There is no way it can be read or that (the) data would be at all meaningful to anyone." That's true as far as it goes, but it doesn't address what might happen if RFID tags and readers become widespread.
If the tags stay active after they leave the store, the biggest privacy worries depend on the range of the RFID readers. There's a big difference between tags that can be read from an inch away compared to dozens or hundreds of feet away.
The privacy threat comes when RFID tags remain active once you leave a store.
But what about a more powerful RFID reader, created by criminals or police who don't mind violating FCC regulations? Eric Blossom, a veteran radio engineer, said it would not be difficult to build a beefier transmitter and a more sensitive receiver that would make the range far greater. "I don't see any problem building a sensitive receiver," Blossom said. "It's well-known technology, particularly if it's a specialty item where you're willing to spend five times as much."
Privacy worries also depend on the size of the tags. Matrics of Columbia, Md., said it has claimed the record for the smallest RFID tag, a flat square measuring 550 microns a side with an antenna that varies between half an inch long to four inches by four inches, depending on the application. Without an antenna, the RFID tag is about the size of a flake of pepper.
Matrics CEO Piyush Sodha said the RFID industry is still in a state of experimentation. "All of the customers are participating in a phase of extensive field trials," Sodha said. "Then adoption and use in true business practices will happen...Those pilots are only going to start early this year."
To the credit of the people in the nascent RFID industry, these trials are allowing them to think through the privacy concerns. An MIT-affiliated standards group called the Auto-ID Center said in an e-mailed statement to News.com that they have "designed a kill feature to be built into every (RFID) tag. If consumers are concerned, the tags can be easily destroyed with an inexpensive reader. How this will be executed i.e. in the home or at point of sale is still being defined, and will be tested in the third phase of the field test."
If you care about privacy, now's your chance to let the industry know how you feel. (And, no, I'm not calling for new laws or regulations.) Tell them that RFID tags are perfectly acceptable inside stores to track pallets and crates, but that if retailers wish to use them on consumer goods, they should follow four voluntary guidelines.
First, consumers should be notified--a notice on a checkout receipt would work--when RFID tags are present in what they're buying. Second, RFID tags should be disabled by default at the checkout counter. Third, RFID tags should be placed on the product's packaging instead of on the product when possible. Fourth, RFID tags should be readily visible and easily removable.
Given RFID's potential for tracking your every move, is that too much to ask?
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
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The Bible tells us about the "Mark of the Beast", describing RFID 2000 years ago.
There is NO WAY I will buy anything that will track me, they can keep it on their shelves until it rots. And forget about any notion of under the skin, PERIOD!!
for the rest of your life...or fight, or submit to firing squad. Lest
you think that too drastic and dramatic a statement, no one ever
thought Germany could participate in the atrocities that it did, all
in the name of the common good.
They should have said more about the tool.
John
I read about "motes" or "smart dust" in New Science. Well, i have been trained at how to receive and carry these tiny sensors using static charges.
I have been poisoned and drugged so many times that I swear that i am no longer human. My body is like a remote controlled vessel with x-ray eyes, fiber optic cameras (little beans in my retinas, microwave hearing, cell phone fillings, radio tagged licence plates, metallic staining throughout my body to make me the magnetic man, a VDI display of digital satellite imaging from behind my eyeballs, i have pictures of 2 chips in my right hand, i am glazed, my hair are antennas, my body is a magnet for DNA samples, actors control me using sublime staging and they sprinkle me with smart dust, i know all members of the services, my Ph is remote controlled, my cells respire by remote control, the sun and wind around me are manipulated by atmospheric control, my eyes are capable of identifying peoples aura, i am able to identify light above the visible spectrum. I have not the time to continue but believe me, i havent even started.
Hey, can somebody please dignify me? I lead a pretty kept life. I dont have any problems, no smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, ect. I am bound by religious spectacles. These people murdered my grandmother, gave my father a heart attack, torturing my brother, and well, i am the WORLDS MOST TERRORIZED MAN. I have no past record and my sins have been remotely viewed back as far as technology goes, i have no grave sins to condemn me to a life of torture and PRESSURE....
Why is it that anybody in society who has money in the bank knows what i am talking about yet i cannot find any other place in the world where these things are identified in a direct manner? Why is it that with all of the knowledge that we have of advanced securtiy and espionage, digital encoding of rna/dna, gene splicing, ect. how is it that anybody who make a case to the authorities about their illegal stalking should be identified as a total nut who is dreaming up some wacky thing. Geez, look under radio head and you will learn how my fillings allow my jaw and orbital bone of the ear to be a two way cellular telephone that can send and receive wireless instant messages and voice,data and image information. Geez, every person in the city knows me and they treat me like i am a convicted pedophile or something. My crime? I used to masturbate at night in my basement apartment because i was holding out on love and relationships (over four years) becuase i had the crazy idea of waiting until i was free of debt so to one day be able to honour a girl. Now i am unable to be with anyone becuase i have a smart bacteria in my ***** that will taint anyone i am with, let alone the invasion of privacy. I am sexually and physically assaulted everyday, everywhere i go. I have no prior record of driving infractions, other than a ticket, before suffering about 18 crashes, all by which were set up using props, manipulation of wind forces, magnets, many control mechanisms over my engines, ect. Wow, i am really blowing the lid. anyhow, if you are interested in my story, please reply to my e-mail address. I dont expect to hear back. It is obvious, you have a job, you know what i am speaking of. Oh yeah, I am a Canadian. Canada is the testing ground for new tech. Look at the canadian music artists, just about every one of them has recently put out an album or many albums that promote this new religious society. Hey, these people even treated me to live concerts where i was wired up to actual band members, crazy horse, the tragically hip, sarah maclachlan, 54-40 and TOOL.
please reply. The federal govt put me in a jail cell and doped me up on a terrible hallucinogen, then staged a mockery court hearing with ridiculous acting in front of my mom and dad and then threatened to give their signals to the inmate actors at the jail to be terrorized if i ever try to write anything down on paper ever again. I know the symbol of this vigilante society, it is a hangman's gallow.
Thank-you...reply:
www.wherewithal_123@yahoo.com
The three best for RFID enws are www.news.com and www.zombiewire.com and www.rfidnews.com
Jozep
I represent "Advanced Airport Systems Technology Research Consortium" (ASTREC) .
Research activities are conducted jointly by the airport operator, airlines, home-delivery companies, RFID technology related companies and system vendors under the direction and cooperation of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) and other respective government agencies.
Our home page has plenty of information about RFID ,airport system and trial report.
If you are interested, why don't you take a look?
Here is the address. (http://www.astrec.jp/en/index.html)
Contact us.(info@astrec.jp)
Sincerely,
I also believe that RFID will be a technology that needs plenty of skilled workers that must be local to where it is used. It is going to be a hard technology to long distance outsource for the next 10 years.
Finally, R&D on RFID low power circuit designs and chip connect technology will benefit many other non RFID fields as well (mobile technology for example).
Should be an interesting next 10 years.
http://www.rfidnexus.com
Having read at some length reports in your papers re Computing about this topic, a number of issues arise.
1. As and when the supermarkets and other stores start using this system how will the effectiveness of the tags be neutralised once outside the store if at all?
2. If the system can scan a whole trolley load of items in one go will we see the disappearance of checkout queues and the reduction of staff with savings passed onto the consumer?
3. As stores of all kinds include a percentage for the loss of goods through pilfering will this system reduce the problem and again pass on the savings to the customer?
4. If they are not neutralised does this mean that anybody with a RFID tag scanner will know what is stored in another person?s house?
5. Will it also save time when a shopping list is required prior to a visit to the store by being able to scan all the items in the cupboards and ?fridge and freezer in a trice?
6. In respect to things like automobiles will the tag have to remain active throughout the life of the vehicle so that replacement parts can be identified quickly?
7. Given that large types of stores have massive databases that are suppose to identify products sold from the shelving areas via the checkout of the store and order replacement stock from the store area; and we know how efficient that system is, will we have the same problem with this new technology?
8. In the future (not too far off) will we order from the comfort of our homes via email to the store of our choice our requirement of provisions, when a automatic machine will travel around the store and ?pick? out our order and then deliver it to our door reducing the need for manual labour from store staff and again reducing the cost of living?
I think not but we will wait with interest to see how mankind will deliver this new technology and make our lives the more richer not only with money but give us more social time. I look forward to the day when women can?t moan about how their feet hurt from the trudging around the shops. (In my dreams)
Thanks for participating.
John Roberts
CNET News.com product development
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An animated explanation is available at www.techtionary.com
An RFID system sends data from a Transmitter with radio frequency using an Antenna via free space (over-the-air) to other devices known as Tags, and to retrieve data with a Receiver, by machine-readable means, at a suitable time and place to satisfy particular application needs. A RFID system requires the means of reading or analyzing the data received with a Programmer/Interrogator and some means of communicating the data to a host computer or data processing system. A Tag (no acronym) is a TRANSPONDER - an electronic TRANSmitter (exciter) - resPONDER (receiver) is attached to the object to be identified, and when appropriate signals are received, transmits information via radio frequency signals to the reader (receiver).
Next Week Part 2 is a RFID Case Study
More Details -
RFID systems are categorized by their frequency ranges which is related to the cost and distance (read) required. Three carrier radio frequencies are commonly used as representative of the low, intermediate and high ranges are 125kHz, 13.56 MHz and 2.45 GHz. However, there are eight frequency bands in use around the world.
Passive Tags are powered from the RF-Radio Frequency transmission signals received from the Transmitter. Passive RFID or read-only tags operate without a separate external power source and obtain operating power generated from the reader. Passive RFID usually contain 32 to 128 bits (though check with manufacturer as this is a rapidly changing technology). Active Tags are turned-on with the RF signals but powered by battery or other sources. Active RFID tags are read/write (can be rewritten and/or modified) powered by an internal battery. An active tag?s memory size and life varies according to application requirements and battery type. Some systems operate with up to 1MB-MegaByte including history and operating other applications and last an estimated ten-years. In general, RFID tags can operate in high/low temperatures and be read through a variety of substances such as snow, fog, ice, paint, crusted grime, and other visually and environmentally challenging conditions such as around corners (not LOS-Line of Sight), where barcodes or other optically read technologies would be useless. RFID tags typically respond in less than 100 milliseconds. Two methods distinguish and categorize RFID systems, one based upon close physical proximity electromagnetic or inductive coupling (e.g. card reader) and one based upon propagating electromagnetic radio frequency waves. Coupling (connection) is via ?antenna? structures forming an integral feature in both tags and readers. While the term antenna is generally considered more appropriate for propagating systems it is also loosely applied to inductive systems.
RFID and DNA are combined in a personal security invention called the Identifying Security Product (ISP). The ISP makes DNA evidence against attackers that the police can locate by RFID.
Attackers do not want to be identified and punished. An invention called the ISP intimidates them by making DNA evident that the police can find easily.
THE CONCEPT IS SIMPLE
For animation see
http://www.adaisi.com/CONTENT/animation/animation.gif
Imagine personal security device about the size of a button. It contains a hundred miniature skin samplers in a breakable container. The victim could rupture the ISP deliberately upon an attack or the attacker could break it open unknowingly. The sheer numbers of tissues samples assures that some of these skin samplers will take and store a tiny sample of skin from the attacker and then fall to the ground.
POLICE SEARCH
Each of the skin samplers has a RFID tag. RFID is a miniature wireless tracking device the size of a grain of rice. All of the RFID tags share the same code. This code is made known to the police if foul play is suspected. The police search likely crime scenes quickly with wireless RFID search devices set to the victim?s unique code. Recovered skin samplers are taken to a lab for DNA identification. DNA analysis of the tissue in the skin sampler identifies the attacker and he is arrested.
LIVE RESCUE
A RFID detection network could quickly locate the victim?s tissue samplers with their unique RFID code. Such a system opens the possibility for the live rescue of kidnap victims.
For now the ISP is only text on screen. Unfortunately, the attackers in society are real and present dangers. In the USA alone there are over +5 million violent attack, +80,000 rapes, and +30,000 stranger abductions every year. There are about 100 child abduction murders more than one every four days.
SPREADING AWARENESS
I have learned that business will not risk manufacturing the ISP without demand for it. This makes spreading awareness of the ISP critical. Once business sees a demand for the ISP they will risk the costs of making and selling it. Then the promise of the ISP will be realized and we will have a safer less fearful society for those we love.
hole in the top of their skull. As a human infant grows, the opening eventually closes.
'The Powers That Be' should make good use of this
fact. Every child should be forced to submit to have a radiolinked chip placed inside of their skull during infancy. Once the hole in the shull grows-over, no one can remove the Chip without damaging the skull.
Child Abductors would be forever thwarted. The child would be trackable everywhere. Build the chip correctly, and nothing short of opening the skull would defeat the signal from the Chip.
Principals at Public Schools would be capable of taking Morning Attendance in an instant. Once the child reaches the Age of Consent, their signal would be radiolink-programmed to no longer transmit their whereabouts. If that individual gets into trouble after the Age of Consent, then the Chip would be irrevocably turned-on again for the rest of their life.
Any child-advocacy group or individual child-advocate who opposes mandatory implantation of ID Chips into the skulls of infants would be placed under investigation. No one is permitted to undermine the absolute safety of children. Technology has now made the wish of every Child Advocate come true. Live with it.
Best of All: Everyone will have such a chip within their skull within the next 20 years. Many ridiculous plans only want to ID criminals. By making children absolutely and unconditionally traceable at all times, all Child Abductors will be unconditionally thwarted forever more. Anyone opposing this measure should be held suspect as a Child Raper and processed summarily.
The best thing parents can do to keep children from abduction is pay attention. We absolutly do not need the government doing our job for us.
Mr Berry you surely must be jesting....
jeeezuz.
But
I am sick of hearing that RFID signals are blocked by Aluminum foil. They are not stop believing it. My father in law is a radio engineer and he has to block radio signals all of the time. The best material is Pure Copper which complies with the US government Tempest regulations.
For more information on RFID (spy chips) go to
Http://WWW.SpyChips.com
for a RFID Blocking wallet
HTTP://WWW.DSBSecurity.com
RFID Tag Zapp
slap and zap the top hat
The map flap cap got tagzapped
- chips in babies skulls
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by Hellcat54
March 4, 2006 2:01 AM PST
- The person who wrote this is dead wrong, especially the ending of his post. This is supposed to be a free society. If parents want their children implanted, they maybe should have that choice. But those who do not want to be watched and spyed on, for any amount of "convenience", so called "safety", should NEVER be required to do so. People who like the Big Brother scenario, should be the ones to move to another country...perhaps Russia? The polls will show what the majority thinks of these neo notions. Elaine
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Reply to this comment
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- RFID CHIP, REAL ID ACT, CASHLESS SYSTEM
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by oldgrapeape
March 17, 2006 11:41 AM PST
- The RFID CHIP is for sure reality, and will play a major part of keep tract, enslaving, and destroying people before long.
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- Chips in babies skulls?
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by jambrell
July 10, 2007 10:12 PM PDT
- I agree, in a sense, that if an AWARE adult wants a chip in their brain, by all means. But we are talking about babies who are not aware of that choice. What happens when they hit 13 and are being tracked everywhere? When they turn 18? 21? Babies would have no choice, as they have no way of comprehending a chip in their brain. This certainly a false sense of security--on any level. Implanting a chip into a new-born baby, parents or not, is simply cruel and inhumane.
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See all 83 Comments >>The REAL ID ACT (National ID Card) was past by dim-wits we voted into Office, it is now Law, and has to be in-place and working by May 2008 in every State.
If you listened real close to President Bush's speech awhile back, the day after his National Address to the Nation (world). ?He spoke of an ID Card for Spanish people coming across our Borders to work. But he said those Cards can be counterfeited, and all a person would have to do is show one of those Cards to an employer, and they would not know the difference.? In other words, the "Real ID Card? as a Drivers License" (even with a RFID Chip), WILL NOT WORK by itself..
Therefore it is clear, some thing else will have to be done. That leaving only TWO other irons in the fire.
(1) A person will either have to have a Electronic Tattoo or CHIP IMPLANT under the skin.
(2) An ID Card in one?s wallet will not work, so there will have to be a visible Tag or Badge worn.
(3) NONE of this will work without going CASH-LESS. Paper and Coin Money will have no value at all. Burn it, makes no difference.
Mark it down: ?Within the next two (2) years, we will wake-up one money to find we are CASH-LESS. We will have to report to some place set-up, and receive a MARK or CHIP IMPLANT. Other wise we can not buy, sell, or trade. Nothing can or will work without going CASH-LESS.
Mr. Greenspan said back in 2002 on C-SPAN. ?That the United States needed to go into War with Iraq. That should make the weakening US Dollar strong.? Mr. Greenspan also said. ?All Nations would have to go to ZERO BALANCE DEBT (that being CASH-LESS), and start all over with no debt. That would give the United States many more products to sell than other countries would have, and the US would do well.? It?s a long time worked on plan, but most, if not all, of the sick, weak, poor, and elderly will have to die, as with those who will not buy into their New Order World plan, which will become a One Order World.
If it doesn?t sound like a big deal to you, wait until you go to buy gas, go to a Doctor, buy food or medication. Pay your property tax, buy a car tag, pay your electric and water bills, Try and receive your retirement and social security check etc., you have already been told by the Government that it WILL NOT happen. Then we will fast, within 30 to 45 days, move into the Seek And Destroy mode for all those trouble makers who do not have and will not take the World ID.
Amazing how the Bird Flue has killed around one hundred (100) people around the World, out of it?s population of over six billion (6,000,000,000,000) people. Yet they have just told us that the Bird Flue will hit the United States this coming Fall of 2006.
It was first said around one to one a half (1 to 1 ½ ) million people here in the US would die. Then some place I heard three to five (3 to 5) million people would die. That would really lower the costs of taking care of the Sick and Needy, the Elderly, and build-up money for Social Security and Benefits for the Wealthy?s future.
We have been told that two thirds (2/3) of Africa would either have Aids or be dead from Aids by 2010. We have been told that one half (½) of the World?s population would have some kind of Cancer by 2010. We have been told they are taking oil out of the ground five (5) times fast than ever before with the new ways of drilling and recovery. Therefore there WILL NOT be any more oil we can reach and recover by 2010. Of course the list goes on and on about what we have been told. The truth is, some thing has to be done, there has to be a New Order World. A World with healthy slaves to a system for the unsatisfiable wealthy. It is all a game in their little mines, but in their foolishness of playing chess with human beings. They are not only selling their own souls and well being. But they are fulfilling just what God said they would do in these last days.
Now if you think that because you live in America, and it will never happen here, because America is special and blessed. You had better wake-up to both reality and God?s Word. God is not only no respecter of persons, He is no respecter of Nations. God uses whoever and whatever He wants to fulfill His purpose, not ours. God ?ORDERS,? God ?ORDAINS,? and God ?ALLOWS? and things to happen or take place to fulfill His purpose, He is God of ALL. He creates, and He destroys, He heals, and He kills. Those who Preach and Teach different, are Preaching a new god, not the God of the Bible and a never changing God and His Word. Study the Scriptures yourself, let no man or woman deceive you.
If you are a Saint, Christian FOLLOWER of Christ, and you believe you are going to skip right out of here in the Rapture before these things take place, sorry, your wrong. You have been listening to maybe self-gain money Preachers and Teachers leading you to believe that this generation (you and yours) are more Holier than Jesus, the Disciples in God?s Word, and all the millions who have had to be tried, tested, and die for the witness of Christ and God?s Word. The Tribulation Period HAS STARTED, you are in the beginning of it. Things ARE NOT going to get better, but far worse very fast. Get ready, really ready to withstand what is coming, by the power of God. Don?t get caught sleeping or listening to scriptures taken out of context for making money and earthly family Kingdom Building. Get BUSY yourselves, YOU spread the Word, YOU get people ready, You lead people to Jesus, not to their Checkbook or your Bank Account.
There will be a Rapture, but it may will come around forty five (45) days into the second half of the Tribulation Period. Jesus gave us a KEY VERSE in Matthew 24:15. We don?t know yet who the Anti-Christ is (may be Hitler who comes back-up out of the Pit?). But we have a good idea who the False Prophet is or will be. Revelation 13:11 tell us he will be a Christ-like man, yet he speaks as a dragon (evil). He will be im-powered by the Anti-Christ, and he will be the Chief and Commander over the World?s Military (great fire-power) and Law Enforcement, like Home Land Security is now growing so fast and given almost all power and authority over people and Law Enforcement.
There is a lot more to it all. But the point here is to be ready. It is upon us, we can not back down or up. We can not set by and let other worry and tote our load any longer. We must do our part.
God Bless
Jimmie Lee King
Gassaway, Tn