7 ms·
Ask HN: What do you actually use your biohack implants for?
I have an NFC implant from dangerous things in my left hand. When I got it I was imagining unlocking doors with a wave but since most scanners are incompatible I've been unable to use it at my last two office buildings.
I plan on getting a door lock for my apartment but maybe next month when I move into a new one.
Nowadays the only practical use I have for it is a party trick where I convince people that their phones have had DNA recognition for years. When I hold it up to my hand, up pops the vcard in my chip leaving them amazed about the technology they never knew their phone had.
Sometimes they find the truth incredilous and refuse to accept that I have a chip implant when I make the reveal. I guess DNA scanning is more believable.
- lordnacho 9y agoCould you possibly use it as a train ticket? A number of modern commuter systems now have swipe system that are NFC chips. Is it programmable?
- wfriesen 9y agoSomebody has done it in Australia, although it seems it was frowned upon by the body that issues the cards. http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/sydney-bio-hacker-has-opal-travel-card-implanted-into-hand/8656174 http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-27/sydney-bio-hacker-h...
- larssg 9y agoIt's allowed in Sweden: http://nordic.businessinsider.com/swedish-rail-company-scans-microchip-tickets-17-6?r=US&IR=T http://nordic.businessinsider.com/swedish-rail-company-scans...
- amingilani 9y agoIt's a passive tag, so I can edit it all I want but then again I live in Pakistan, our tickets are paper :)
- michjedi 9y agoYou could easily cut an Oyster Card chip out of the card, stick it in your hand and use it to travel in London.
- BjoernKW 9y agoSomething like this has been done before, albeit in the form of objects like rings: http://www.ds72.com/projects/oyster-ring http://www.ds72.com/projects/oyster-ring So while possible unfortunately tampering with Oyster cards is frowned upon by TfL. It might not technically be illegal but it'll certainly run you into problems when checked by traffic inspectors. The answer to this StackExchange question gives an in-depth explanation of the Oyster card's cryptographic architecture, which shows that the card being as tamper-proof as possible is very much by design: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/78013/can-i-use-a-nfc-ring-as-an-oyster-card https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/78013/can-i-...
- mseebach 9y agoI would suspect that your troubles go beyond "frowns". A ticket inspector wants to see a valid oyster card, not a party trick, and whether it scans or not, I don't think it's a high bar to argue that a tampered with card isn't valid, period. (Officially, at least. I've seen them happily scan the outsides of people's wallets.)
- jackhwds 9y agoCan you not use it to pay for things? thats the whole reason I want to get one like an upgrade from apple pay
- amingilani 9y agoUnfortunately no, this is a passive tag that can only let you read data that's on the chip. The chip also had a unique ID. Android or Apple Pay use your phone's NFC antenna to communicate. But they don't give out the same information every time.
- edejong 9y agoThat makes it pretty useless. You can't sign or decrypt an AES key, no display. I'm even more convinced that the bio-hacking is nothing but a badly thought out fad.
- falcolas 9y agoA slightly more advanced implant like those in passively powered RFID smartcard could do exactly this: provide a mechanism by which to cryptographically authenticate a transaction via a stored private key. There are yubikeys which do this exactly already, just via a usb-key shaped device. It would suffer from some of the same problems as biometrics - in that once set, it couldn't practically be revoked. And any failures would involve minor surgery to correct. But at least you wouldn't be leaving the secret key on every surface you touched.
- cup 9y agoThere are plenty of uses. Braces for teeth straightening. Cochlea implant for assisted hearing. Bionic eye to improve sight. Insulin pump to regulate blood glucose levels. Pace maker to supplement failing pacemaker cells. Never understood why people associated "biohack implants" with sticking a magnet or NFC chip in your finger.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rjbwork 9y ago>Never understood why people associated "biohack implants" with sticking a magnet or NFC chip in your finger. Gobs and gobs of stories poured out about that in the early 2010's. Seems pretty much out of fashion now.
- amingilani 9y agoAll of these are valid biohacks. I didn't mean to imply that NFC chips are the only things in this category. Have you done something interesting with your cochlear implant?
- pimeys 9y agoDoes a CGM glucose monitoring sensor count? I get the values real time to my android watch and remote InfluxDB for later analysis.
- ollysb 9y agoI've been considering doing something like this, which CGM do you use and how do get the numbers out? Are you able to automate sending them into InfluxDB?
- pimeys 9y agoDexcom G4 with self-soldered chip to translate the transmitter signal to Bluetooth. Xdrip plus in my phone with my own extension for Influx. All real time and automatic. Nightscout's Xdrip repo should have the Influx extension.
- edejong 9y agoWhat time-series graphing tools do you use? Grafana? R with influxdbr?
- pimeys 9y agoGrafana, and wrote an extension for xDrip plus to support InfluxDB.
- edejong 9y agoInteresting project. I am not bio-hacked, except for a Pebble watch with HR / movement sensors which I send to InfluxDB. I use Grafana, but for some graphs (especially when I want to see weekly trends), I use R + influxdbr. Here is a screenshot of my heart-rate of the last three months (1 minute interval + lowess smoothing to remove outliers): http://imgur.com/x3ERdPc http://imgur.com/x3ERdPc
- pimeys 9y agoIt has probably saved me from getting blind or losing a leg in the next 20 years. From 8.5% A1c to 6.5% and below. Together with the pump I see my glucose all the time, it wakes me up at night if needed and I can eat and live however I like with perfect glucose values. Every single type 1 diabetic should have the possibility to have one of these systems. I'll post pictures later when I get home...
- CodeWriter23 9y agoThat's a hilarious parlor trick.
- thinbeige 9y agoMaybe I am clueless but why not just stick a NFC chip on the back of your smartphone or just get one with NFC? I can't imagine any situation where you need an NFC chip and don't carry along your smartphone. Ok, there's one: You are swimming in a swimming pool and need to open the locker afterwards.
- edejong 9y agoUse a four-digit pin that's by the users choosing. Works like a charm, totally water-proof and cannot otherwise inadvertently be retrieved. Also keeps brain-dead people out of the pool.
- amingilani 9y agoI was going to get an NFC ring initially. But then I woke up one night and decided that if I ever own a gun, and need it in the middle of the night because a zombie broke into my house. I'd want a system where I can stick my hand under the bed and pull out a gun. But this system shouldn't work for anyone else. That pushed me over the edge and I got an implant a few weeks later. True story. I still have to get around to buying a gun, let alone create an NFC reading smart holster.
- EpicEng 9y ago>Maybe I am clueless but why not just stick a NFC chip on the back of your smartphone or just get one with NFC? Because then you don't feel as cool when you tell people about it.
- 88e282102ae2e5b 9y agoThis whole concept seems like a combination of a desperate wish to be living in a better world and the need to seem interesting at parties. When there's a compelling reason to get such devices you won't have to ask people what they use them for, in the same way that you don't have to ask people why they have a cell phone.
- falcolas 9y agoI want to do this - to expand my senses and mind (what else is technology good for) - but I really don't want something that will wear out and which can't be easily replaced. I respect the pioneers in this field, and look forward to the tech becoming more advanced and mainstream. To those who believe it will never become mainstream - the same could have been said for tattoos and piercings a mere few decades ago. I remember a time when visible tattoos were a sign of a counter culture, not a normal part of life. Heck, Google Glass was shunned for its camera, but the Snapchat Spectacles are actively embraced only a few years later.
- namlem 9y agoTattoos and piercings have been mainstream on and off for thousands of years in cultures all over he world.
- marklyon 9y agoI use a modified digestive tract to minimize the amount of personal space I require. Thus far, it's working well.
- Roritharr 9y agoI kinda went the opposite way, in an non-invasive mostly organic fashion. Can't recommend.