RFID Chip Implantation to 'Make Life easier'
A company called Three Square Market has launched a new employee benefit: RFID chip implantation-"Make everyone's life easier."
Seeing this news, I have to admit that we are a bit angry,
but not everyone feels this way. About half of the company ’s employees chose
to implant chips. We found this number to be surprisingly high. Unless people
are punished for not using chips, there is no reason to panic, right?
We are not sure what you think about it, but before we think it is a good idea, it will be a cold day in hell.
However, it turns out that this is nothing new. According to
an article by CNN, on August 24, 1998, Professor Kevin Warwick, director of
cybernetics at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, became the
first person to implant a microchip. Ten years later, the first commercial
applications began to surface.
RFID chip implantation in the human body is not
new. In February 2006, a Cincinnati company called city watcher made history.
The company was the first company in the world to implant microchips in
employees.
The purpose was to allow entry into the office and security System. In June last year, the Swedish state-owned railway company SJ began to let passengers use chips instead of tickets. But when some passengers’ LinkedIn profiles started to pop up when the chip was scanned, the railway company had to solve some problems.
A company called New Fusion Of Belgian marketing companies use these chips as ID signs to enter access control and computer systems. A Swedish gym chain allows chips to be used as a membership, while a Swedish incubator called Epicenter allows this technology to enter the office. You may notice the recurring theme here-Sweden.
As one of the world's most technologically advanced countries, only 2% of transactions are conducted in cash (compared to 33% in the US), and about 2,000 people have received surgical RFID implants.
So where
do these RFID chips come from?
Not surprisingly, the answer also includes Sweden. But before we talk about who is selling these chips, let us familiarize ourselves with the terminology behind the underlying technology.
What are RFID and NFC?
RFID, also known as radio frequency
identification, is a wireless communication technology that can identify
specific targets and read and write related data through radio signals. Radio
frequency is used to read information from "tags".
Tags can be either
"passive" or "active". Passive tags have no power, while
active tags are usually powered by small batteries. The method used to
communicate with the tag is called "near field communication" or NFC.
This technology is not new, and adoption has been accelerating due to the lower
cost and miniaturization of RFID tags.
As early as 2009, scientists used RFID
tags to observe small things like ants without "real estate agents."
Scientists attached radio frequency identification tags up to 3 millimeters in
length to the backs of rock ants, which were then monitored by scientists.
Scientists have discovered that when a group of rock ants need to migrate to a new nest, the scout ants will look for the new nest in advance and evaluate it before bringing the partner to the new nest.
More practical examples of RFID include tracking pets, goods,
luggage, retail items in stores, sports memorabilia, and now humans. Let's look
at some companies that are developing RFID chips for humans.
Who developed the
RFID chip implant?
The first company we introduced is actually a Swedish
startup (which is not surprising). This company is turning "Internet of
Things" into "Internet of People" to provide implantable RFID
chips for humans.
The Swedish startup Biohax, founded in 2012, received an undisclosed amount of funds for the development of hardware products. It also held seminars and lectures to teach people about "biohacking". Their RFID tag NTA 216 is actually manufactured by NXP Semiconductors with the following specifications:
888 bytes of storage space is not very large, about enough to
store half of this article without pictures. These tags are designed by NXP for
mass market applications such as retail, gaming and consumer electronics, and
they are sold on the Alibaba website at a price of 45 cents each.
Then, Biohax
used these tags, attached a small antenna on it, and placed them in a capsule
made of bioglass, which was approved for human use as early as 1994.
Then,
inject the capsule into the skin between the thumb and index finger. After
injecting the capsule, you only need to put your hand near the NFC device (such
as a smartphone) to read the data on the tag. The obvious use case here is that
the tag contains various unique identifiers that can be used to grant access
rights, verify membership, and even provide a Bitcoin address.
The company we introduce next may be unlikely to become a model for commercial applications, but it is still a pioneer. Dangerous Things, a Seattle-based biohacking company founded in 2013, provides biohackers with a custom "chip implant" kit that anyone can buy and create their own use cases.
Warning: This kit must contain dangerous goods. Although the XNT transponder device has undergone several quality checks during the manufacturing process and passed a series of tests in various private laboratories, it has not been tested or certified by any government regulatory agency and cannot be implanted or use. The risk of using this device is entirely borne by you.
This kit contains everything you need when using Biohax to
provide NTAG216 device injection. The founder of Dangerous Things is named Amal
Graafstra. He raised more than $ 30,000 through crowdfunding to bring the
product to market. He is somewhat legendary. He installed his first implant as
early as 2005.
Through his implant, he could enter the house's access control
system, log on to the computer, start a motorcycle, and even manipulate a smart
pistol that only he can start.
Just like the bioman in the animation! Human
implanted RFID chip and its safety When it comes to implanting the chip in the
human body, people will immediately start to consider tracking. If you are not
aware, the smartphone you carry 24 hours a day is also a tracking device, which
can be used to discover some vague facts, such as whether you went to the
movies and where you have dinner later.
Functionality of RFID Chip
On the other hand, the implanted RFID chip can only be read when it is close to the reader, which means that at any time, when people's hands touch something, you may try to read their chip.
When a researcher used his RFID chip to secretly load malware on someone else's smartphone, serious problems appeared. As we become more and more inclined to miniaturize, the functionality of this chip may increase, thereby causing more security issues.
As investors, we are very interested in how to make money through all this, but we do not think it is profitable.
Maybe we can imagine a
future where your wallet is completely replaced by implanted RFID chips, but
why not pay directly with your smartphone?
If a company provides this service on a large scale in the future, how can they make money from it? Hardware is as cheap as chips (understand?), Surgical services for implanting chips can be done by robots, and because of privacy issues, any information collected from the chip is unlikely to be used for anything (hopefully). Now, maybe if chip evolution comes to increase the memory storage of our brains, then we may think that this concept is more attractive, but until then, we still prefer to carry RFID cards in old leather wallets.
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