Discernment required – what does Microsoft’s Patent 666 mean?
The Human Credit Card?
It is true! Microsoft has a patent with the number WO/2020/060606. If you take out the zeros (which stand for nothing) then you are left with the portentous number 666. When I first heard this I was inclined to disbelieve it. It sounds like fake news, conspiracy theory and sheer sensationalism. Yet there it is! What does Patent 2020-666 actually encompass and should we be concerned?
I am no patent attorney, no expert on patents and how they are written and how they are to be construed. However I did gamely download and read the actual document to understand with some precision what it is all about. You can do the same – this information is in the public sphere. My first impression is that the patent is remarkably widely drawn. Essentially Microsoft is claiming that any computerized device and/or systems linked directly to body functions is covered by their patent. Whether this would resist patent challenge in court is another matter – but it’s a nice try! And Microsoft is rich enough to fight tooth and nail.
My personal interpretation of patent 666 is this: that the human body can become a credit card for cryptocurrency, where internet -enabled technologies can monitor what you do, and use what you do as a mechanism to ‘mine’ data and reward (or presumably penalize) those connected. Debits and credits can be associated with your physical body, and what it does.
Financial strong-arm
There is an international ‘arms race’ to develop and control cryptocurrencies. Until recently cryptcurrencies have been entirely in the private sphere as an unregulated alternative to fiat currency. It is the haunt of geeks and speculators. It has the potential for vast Ponzi scheming. Governments control fiat currency. Essentially no one controls cryptocurrency. Governments do not like unregulated financial markets for a host of good, and sometimes not so good, reasons. So close cryptocurrency regulation is only a matter of time.
Presently China is keen to develop its own crypto technologies and associated cryptocurrency as it sees these as a mechanism to bypass or control the international monetary system and to create its own alternative international currency system. And especially to undermine the mighty dollar as the international reserve currency. So far, so technical, but it gets more complex yet! In the “abstract” of the Microsoft patent it says:
Abstract
“Human body activity associated with a task provided to a user may be used in mining process of cryptocurrency system. A server may provide a task to a device of a user which is communicatively coupled to the server. A sensor communicatively coupled to or comprised in the device of the user may sense body activity of the user. Both activity data may be generated based on the sensed body activity of the user. The cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify if the body activity data satisfies one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified”.
Interpretation
The immediate forgoing leaves us little the wiser! But the Patent goes on to tell us – and I shall quote where possible – that the validation system “includes computationally solving a difficult problem that is also easy to verify and is sometimes called a “proof of work””. The entire meaning of this is not simply that it monitors that people have done something, but there is that element to it. Ironically, perhaps, users wearing a device at work might have evidence that they had performed at work and so have literally “proof of work” – and thus get paid in cryptocurrency. But I repeat this is not the entire intention of the foregoing.
The patent goes on that it “may use human body activity associated with a task provided to a user as a solution to “mining” challenges in cryptocurrency systems”. It repeats that “data generated based on the body activity of the user can be a proof of work”. We get closer to the intention of the patent in this, from section 15 (page 2): “A cryptocurrency system communicatively coupled to the device of the user may verify whether or not the body activity data satisfied one or more conditions set by the cryptocurrency system, and award cryptocurrency to the user whose body activity data is verified.”
This seems at least philosophically, if not technologically, to mimic in some way the Chinese “social credit system”, but being an American system, 666 focuses on financial rewards. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, however, that in the future reward might be withheld and/or sanctions applied, also, on the basis of body data. (Where have you been? Who have you been with?)
History
Patent 666 has not emerged from nowhere! In 2004 Microsoft was awarded a patent for using human skin as a power conduit and data bus, a method for transmitting power and data to devices worn on the body and for communication of data between those devices. Microsoft cited the proliferation of wearable electronic devices, such as wristwatches, pagers, PDAs and small displays that can be mounted on headgear. Microsoft noted that the physical resistance offered by the human body could be used to create a virtual keyboard on a patch of skin. And just to make sure it had covered all its bases, the filing concludes “It will be apparent that the body may be that of a wide variety of living animals and need not be limited to being a body of a human being.”
Microsoft has in ‘666’ proposed a system that can mine cryptocurrencies using data collected from humans as they exercise, or even read an advertisement. Sensors detect activity associated with specific tasks – such as time spent viewing ads – and convert it into computer-readable data – we’re back to “proof-of-work” system. It is easy to see how this might be used for medical purposes, but can there be myriad other purposes?
The system described in the 666 patent could use physical exertion to mine cryptocurrencies: sensors could detect when the body is doing a physical task, such as a faster pulse, and use that data to unlock ‘blocks’ within the associated blockchain technology. Scanners connected to a person’s head could even use brainwaves, signals sent out during mental exertion, to mine for cryptocurrencies. Microsoft says the system could be used to incentivize users to perform certain tasks. Scanners can detect activity from certain kinds of task, such as mental concentration when reading an advert, that can verify ‘blocks’ and reward the user with cryptocurrencies.
One example might be if you are obese and under doctor’s orders to lose weight, then “proof” of exercise could be linked to a “reward” system such that the patient gets financial reward for exercise, proven by where they had been, and what they had been doing. From the government’s viewpoint, they are “saving” money on potential treatment costs and so can “afford” to reward the patient who exercises.
Another example might be where you join an online training session demanded by your employer and you use a VR headset to ‘solve’ problems. So brainwaves are measured (the 666 patent does specifically mention brainwaves) to “prove” learning and then you are rewarded. But what sort of courses might your employer compel you to join? Social engineering? Political engineering?
Fully centralized?
Microsoft suggested in its patent application that the system would be fully centralized. This is presumably to assuage data protection fears, but it also raises the question of “big brother”. There is no reference to hardware being directly implanted in the human body, but the possibility of linking said system to, say a heart monitor for supposedly health reasons does arise.
Rather more likely, at least in the short term, such bio-data will be harvested from a series of wearable or carry-able devises. But Governmental success, internationally, in rolling out track and trace as a mechanism to ‘combat’ Covid-19 suggests there is a broad willingness amongst the general populace to be “sold-to” on the uptake and adoption of other intrusive technologies, where it can be suggested that these technologies “save lives”. Furthermore, physical fiat currency is now seen as a “vector” of disease transmission (“dirty old coins”), and by a process of generational shift and rising broad health fear, it is easy to see that the day of physical convertable currency is nearly done.
666 In the Bible
Biblically 6 is the number of man and 666 is understood as the unholy trinity of antichrist, false prophet and satan. In Revelation 13 we have the mysterious truth that when the Beast (antichrist) arises that no one who does not have his “mark” can buy or sell. Christians have long assumed that it will be principally believers (true Christians) who will refuse the mark of the beast and so are completely frozen-out of the economic system at the time.
This comment piece cannot possibly be a definitive statement on 666 but troublingly, in the latest patent (060606) we seem to have a pattern for linkage of financial transactions to a physical body. Once hard currency (cash) is eliminated, a person will need various numbers. Of course in the UK we have a NI (national insurance) number allocated the moment we are born! Once we work we must have a bank account this is controlled by a bank account number. Could it be, soon, that ALL humans (at least in the western world) will be required to be linked to a centrally controlled system wherein we can buy and sell by virtue of a number that is associated uniquely with our physical body. And as in the Chinese model, can we then be “frozen out” of the financial system if we refuse some clear public statement of our allegiance to the world’s system?
I would say it is too soon to be definitive, but the appetite for social control amongst the controllers and the controlled, seems presently to be converging. New technologies that can link a number with a human body that is recognized and can be tracked and traced, does seem to be a clear step in the direction of Revelation chapter 13. Foundations are being laid and patent 666 is one more evidence of the times we live in. A shofar blast?
Peter Sammons is commissioning editor at Christian Publications International. He is author of the books “Rebel Church” (2013), “The Prince of Peace” (2015) and “Three Days and Three Nights – That Changed the World (co-authored with David Serle) in 2019.
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