The ID Sniper rifle is an art project, a fictional, hoax weapon devised by artist Jakob S. Boeskov and industrial designer Kristian von Bengtson. [1] The rifle supposedly shoots GPS chips, and the police force may tag persons with this rifle for later easy retrieval. It was produced by the fictional company Empire North. [2]
According to its specs, "It will feel like a mosquito-bite lasting a fraction of a second. At the same time a digital camcorder with a zoom-lens fitted within the scope will take a high-resolution picture of the target. This picture will be stored on a memory card for later image-analysis." [3]
The design was presented in 2002 in Beijing at the China Police exhibition. [4] Boeskov created an artistic project, "My Doomsday Weapon", a travelling exhibition of the ID Sniper rifle, in which he humorously describes his "infiltration" of China police. [5] [6] Boeskov says that a Chinese company offered venture capital and a location for manufacturing. [1]
The news about the weapon was spread over the internet. When the news was "slashdotted", the Empire North website was hit with about 1.6 million viewers. [1] Even Computerworld was hoaxed although they quickly withdrew the report. [7] In the spring of 2004 the news and work of the company reached Washington, DC, in the Homeland Security newsletter published by the Congressional Quarterly Group. [ citation needed ]
Engadget published a brief comment about the hoax, together with a picture of the "weapon" shortly after the Computerworld article was released. [8] Nevertheless, on March 7, 2007, Engadget posted further images and news of the "weapon" under the title "ID Sniper Rifle fires GPS tracking chip into unwitting humans"[ citation needed ] despite having denounced it as a hoax three years before.
On August 31, 2013, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the ID Sniper Rifle had been referred to in a 2011 police paper titled "Microchipping of human subjects as a productivity enhancement and as a strategic management direction of NSW Police". [9]