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posted by cmn32480 on Monday September 07 2015, @10:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the cut-off-a-hand-to-get-the-keys dept.

Punching in security codes to deactivate the alarm at his store became a thing of the past for Jowan Oesterlund when he implanted a chip into his hand about 18 months ago.

"When I walk into my studio, I just wave my hand at the alarm, and the alarm turns off," the tattoo artist said.

"Whenever someone shows up with security clearance, he will wave and the alarm is deactivated, the lights are turned on... it will start up the computer, the cash machine and so on," he added.

Oesterlund is one of the small but growing number of people around the world who has a grain-sized NFC (Near Field Communications) chip embedded in him.

In fact, so convinced is he that "this is the future" that he has two of them, one in his hand and the other in his arm.

"One year ago it was 'that's just stupid', or 'wow that's just awesome'. But now multinational companies are looking into it," he said, pointing to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky as an example.

The renowned cybersecurity company had brought in Oesterlund to carry out a live demonstration of chip implantation at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin which opens to the public Friday.

The nervous volunteer is Rainer Bock, who works at Kaspersky. After Oesterlund used a needle to put a chip under Bock's skin, the new member of the "cyborg" club said: "It didn't hurt."

With a memory of just 880 bytes, the chips are far from the science fiction equivalent of data powerhouses carrying billions of encrypted secret documents.

Rather, they tend to have specific functions, such as unlocking a door or hooking up to an app on a smartphone.

Despite the limited uses, human chip implant manufacturer Dangerous Things told AFP that there are now around 10,000 "cyborgs"—or humans with digital chips in them—across the globe.

Is this the future? No more car keys. No more remembering passwords or pin numbers. Just have a chip or two implanted into your hand and hope that nobody ever finds a way to read them with a small handheld device from a few feet away.

Now where did I put my tinfoil gloves?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday September 07 2015, @02:08PM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Monday September 07 2015, @02:08PM (#233271)

    Put a near field reader in your shirt pocket, walk up to the mark, introduce yourself, shake their hand. Bingo, you can now replicate the embedded chip.

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    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @03:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @03:14PM (#233294)

    I don't think that's how they work. Doesn't the emitter send a challenge to the nfd chip and the chip sends back a reply based on the challenge and its private key? The security comes from not being able to discover the key from any number of challenges.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @07:05PM (#233379)

    NFC Reader? My cell phone can do this, so it's not even an obvious thing.

    Introduce yourself? just stand next to him in an elevator.

    However, just to mess with him, after taking a copy, re-program the thing with a different code. As long as you get to his man-cave before he realizes he's been compromised, you're home free.