Our next two speakers consist of the founder of DangerousMind.io, a biohacking, grinding,
implantable tech and network security podcast established back in late September of 2016, as
well as another member of the Dangerous Minds podcast with a master's in software engineering
focusing on studying RFID vulnerabilities. As well, a PR director slash member of the board of
directors of the ProPhase BioStudios in Austin, Texas. They clearly didn't really need
introductions, but I like hearing the sound of my own voice. Here to present on their talks,
Implant Show and Tell, Cooper and Cursor. Thank you all for coming. I'm
here, as you can tell, I'm the one that's actually from Austin. He's from England. You'll be
able to know that very distinctively later. If you didn't know that, I'm sorry. But anyway, we're
here to give you a little bit of intro and talk about implantable technology because we have a
party tonight that all of you are invited to. Implantable party. So you'll come and you can be
augmented. Minimum donation is 50 bucks. If you want to give more, feel free to. We're going to
get started. Like you said, who are we? I'm Cooper. I'm founder of Dangerous Minds. I'm also
PR director for ProPhase BioStudios in Austin, Texas. And this is my cohost here, Cursor. He's
one of the two cohosts that are based out of London, England. Now, we're going to start off
with some basic terms because, well, when you're getting a nice intro to things, it's always
good to get a basis of things that are going on. NFC is near field communication. It's a
communication. Then RFID is radio frequency identification. So what is RFID? Well, hey, I'm
the England one. RFID is a short range, low frequency, passive powered device used often as a
security key in industry. NFC is sort of like a subsection of RFID. They're both considered
radio frequency identifiers. But they are also used as a security key in the industry. So they're
pretty similar. I mean, the NFC is slightly different in the terms that it can also be a sender
and receiver. It's kind of a loose definition that the industry's gone with. So often enough, if
you listen to the podcast, we highly suggest not to implant this at home. If you do, then you'll run
into the same mistakes that we've made ourselves. We'd like you to learn from those mistakes and
not repeat them. It's always best to, you know, seek out a trained professional that has done this
before. Otherwise you'll end up learning just like us that there will be some blood, some pain.
It's kind of like any piercing that you get. As you can tell by my ears, I've gauged them up a
little bit. But, you know, so you might wonder what an implantation might consist of. So as it
says, if you have a weak stomach, just close your eyes. I'll let you know when it's safe.
Or maybe I won't. It is DEFCON, so I might troll you. But here's a nice little video that gives
you an idea of what a basic implantation looks like. But, you know, it's just a simple insertion
of the needle, then deploying of the chip. Once it's in there, then it'll take a little bit of
time for the tissue to encapsulate and make it more stable.
So you might be asking, where can I get some? Well, there's a few makers out there that offered
augmentation, not just in the glass capsule, which is often called an X series. Danger Sings was one
of the first to come out. Cyberize Me is based out of Australia. And they offer some versions of the
chips. And there's DigiWill over in the EU. And as well, Grindhouse Wetware has a line of very
interesting chips. And there's DigiWill over in the EU. And as well, Grindhouse Wetware has a line of very
interesting products that we can't wait to see come out, like the North Star and Cicadia. So now
you're probably wondering, what can I do with this? And I believe Cursor is going to help us.
Yeah, so if you decide to go down this crazy path that we have, there's a few things you can do.
Just to let you know, the top, the XEM is the RFID one, and the XNT is NFC. Ask any questions you
need after that. But it's a quick key. So the first one, most popular, is NDEF records. So the
things that can work with your phone, your Android device, you can scan your phone, your chip.
And it will do things like Bluetooth settings, contact details. It can even set up Wi-Fi
configuration. Then you have phone entry and key chain access. So if you're on an Android, then
that's great, because it has a built-in feature for NFC unlocking. There are third-party apps as
well. And if you're on iPhone, all is not lost, because iOS 11 was announced to have a core NFC
library. So we'll see what happens with that. Bitcoin wallets. This is something that's been done.
Someone made a Bitcoin transaction using an implant. The implementation was kind of trivial and
not very secure, but it opens up the discussion to what we can do in the future. You've got travel
cards. So I know recently across the news there's been different things talking about implants and
travel cards. Unfortunately, we're kind of strongly confined by the technology that they choose to
use, as opposed to what we can get a hold of. Door access and computer access is probably the most
used one for RFID.
And this is things like, if you've seen like a prox card or, you know, like typical work cards you
have on your key chain, this can be used for RFID. The access is done by a unique identifier, which
every RFID device has. So it's not too secure, and there's no cryptographic functioning within the
tags. But you can configure an NFC device to sort of hide data in whatever custom way you want to do
it. So you're probably wondering what's coming next. With the basis of this technology, one of the
things that's still under beta right now is called a VivoKey. It's a Java platform that is a PCB that's
biosafed with a plastic-ish coating. Not to give away any trade secrets put out by dangerous things.
It's still going through beta, but there's going to be a lot of interesting apps that are going to be
coming out in applications from that.
So the tags that you'll be seeing today are the glass capture ones. There is a different form factor
one, which is like a flat, just like the VivoKey will be. And another version of that is a DES
FHIR. If you know RFID, you'll know DES FHIR is a type of RFID that NXP put out. It supports
triple DES encryption and AES. And the VivoKey itself, as Cooper said, is a J-COP and global
platform compatible card.
So what does this mean? This means a lot more can happen. So again, door access control, but this
time you can have fully cryptographic algorithms, especially for high frequency. You can also
emulate cards, so like the MyFair Classic from NXP can also be emulated with the VivoKey. And
low frequency, of course, say the same, because most businesses won't think that they need to pay
any money to get more security, as we know.
Wallets, so using the J-COP and global platform, you can have lots of different wallets. At the
moment, it runs on Fidismo platform, which you guys can, it's out of Sweden, I think it is. You
can grab one of the cards from them and start playing around if you want to develop some
solutions before this is released. They already have things like ledger unplugged, Sunfleet car
and the VivoKey OTP app. Payments, sorry, travel and identity cards. Again, because we're not
confined so much, there's a lot of adoption with DES FHIR EV1 cards. And J-COP, you know, we're
used pretty much everywhere. Even mobile SIMs and contactless payments use that. Unfortunately,
we're still confined by organizations and public thinking. It's a hard thing to get people adopted
to. Obviously, a lot of people are interested, if you see the lines we have for our talks. But
it's getting over that professional step of, ah, you know, it's something crazy, so. And then
payments, at the moment, it's not used. And it doesn't really seem, I haven't seen many people
touch in over this side of the pond, but we use it all the time. It's something that can happen.
Because the J-COP card is similar to what we have in our payment cards now. So, this hopefully is
along the horizon. And then the last thing is, sort of, whatever you guys can think of. So, we're
kind of doing a call for developers, engineers, noobs and hobbyists to build some stuff. You
know, you guys have the crazy ideas, the awesome ideas. So, put something together and then put it
on our Dangerous Minds Podcast University page, which you can find at DangerousMinds.io. We just
want to get as many people to submit as many cool things that everyone wants to hear. So, we're
working like a community building project thing. Now, with this basis of information, you might
be asking how I can know more. Easy book to pick up, which is out of print, but you can still
easily find on Amazon, is RFID Toys by Amel, as well as, of course, Dangerous Minds Podcast,
where we will seek out the experts and find out what got them into it and also what projects
they're working on and if they are actively seeking any help. As well as, you just mentioned,
you know, the Dangerous Minds University, which is our attempt at putting it out there to where
people, if they have projects, they want to share to be able to post it and get it out there to
the community. But we just want to say thank you for listening. And, of course, our tag line often
enough is Seek The Spark. But if you have any questions, we're happy to answer them. So, we'll be
If you find it, please share it.
And if you want to be augmented, feel free to come back here at 7 p.m. tonight.
And we do have other devices as well available,
like a diagnostic card that's put out by Danger Sinks,
as well as USB RFID readers to help you with your own exploring of the technology.
So anyway, thanks for being here.
Biohack the planet.
And if you have any questions, feel free to do so.
We've got the mic up here if you have a question.
We just kind of blew through that real quick.
Thank you so much for speaking to us.
So, of course, when you find a technology that you like,
then you start to worry about things that could possibly go wrong.
And so one of the things I think about is what happens if I ever need to get an MRI done?
Have you had any experience with undue heating of implants?
Thank you.
We've actually talked to, if you listened to our episode with Melanie Segato,
she mentioned that some of the higher-end MRIs have a chance of damaging the chip,
but some lower-end ones, not so much.
I haven't had any MRIs.
I haven't had any MRIs myself since being implanted.
I don't know if Cursor has.
No, but what I would suggest is you go on to Dangerous Things Forum,
and you can see the tests that Emil has done, things like shocking the thing,
and also cooking it in a chicken.
I don't know what that was supposed to prove, but it's just the extent that he's done.
Also, you know the YouTube videos you've seen lately with the crushing thing?
A lot of people are worried it's made of glass.
Is it going to break?
He's put it inside one of these things.
One of these compressor things.
Hydraulic press.
Yeah, hydraulic press.
You'll see the amount of testing that goes through it.
It's not something we've just decided, yeah, yeah, let's just do this,
and hopefully that'll make you feel a little bit better about that.
One point to make on the worst thing that can happen.
I do martial arts.
I used to be a firefighter.
After my own investigation of it, I was very hesitant at first about having glass shrapnel in my hand.
And I've found after, you know, hearing about the chicken butter,
which is basically implant a chip into a chicken, put it in hydraulic press,
the chicken did not survive, but it's quite spreadable now.
The chip itself has survived.
So it led me to believe that my hand wouldn't survive, but the chip would.
So I could always pull it out, clean it off, put it back in the stump.
Any other questions?
Good afternoon, sir.
I was wondering, like, what makes this better than wearable tech?
I look at wearable tech with the smartwatches and the apps that are created for it
to already kind of do what you guys listed, which was very little.
You said web URLs and contact details.
Like, why would someone want to go from the Garmin to, like, a chip?
So that's a good question, and it's a question you get asked to everyone
as soon as someone figures out that you've got a chip in your hand.
Um...
The one that's probably the best one I've heard, again, is from Emil,
the guy that, like, develops the chip,
and that's the fact that in life we have many burdens,
things like your phone, your keys, and your wallet.
By having a small procedure that is less, you know, less damaged
than, say, an earring can do,
then you're almost getting rid of that one burden.
If you have things like access systems for your house, et cetera,
you don't have to worry about your keys.
People have linked these up to their motorbikes, to their cars.
And I think the...
Maybe some of them can be seen as a bit sort of, like, gimmicky,
maybe like the contact details and stuff,
but if you're looking to do some networking,
they're not going to forget that when they scan your hand
and the details go into their phone.
Past that, I mean, you know, it's established specifications.
We're not developing something new.
We're running on a platform that's used everywhere.
So the confinements of what you can use it for are your own imagination.
You know, you see NFC users,
you can use it every day, everywhere.
So anything you can kind of think of doing,
IoT devices, connectivity, things like that,
you can use it for that.
Any other questions?
Feel free to line up if there's multiple people with questions.
We won't hold it against you.
I was just curious about, like, airport security lines
and other security lines.
You know, has it set those off?
And do you have a plausible explanation for those kinds of people?
I'm sure Cursor has had recent experience.
I actually found out on a trip to Portland myself,
going through full body scan as well as WANs,
unless you show it to them, they don't know it's there.
And when you show it to them, they're like,
what the hell? What is that for?
I was like, well, it's my front door key.
What's yours do? And he's like...
Obviously, to get here, it was a bit of a long flight.
So the thing that I think maybe takes some realization
is actually the amount of metal that's in these chips
is less than, say, the fly on your jeans.
So that doesn't go off when you go through.
It won't go off when you go through.
And again, on the way here, I had to go through one of those, like,
rotating thingamajiggies.
I didn't even get asked what it was,
whether we need some help in London with our security or not.
That's a different question.
But I'm pretty sure it should be fine.
Out of all the people that we know that have them,
there's a massive community.
It's not just us in the room.
I've never heard of any stories where someone's had been stopped
or, apart from the inquisitive, hey, look what this does,
which I wouldn't advise anyway,
especially with you guys and your TSA people.
So I'm just curious,
what does the upgrade process look like as new?
So implanting it is one thing,
but extracting it, putting a new device in,
how does that work?
Well, if you want to get rid of it
and then upgrade to a different device,
it's just a small incision,
and then pressing on the bottom will make it pop up.
Then you can use some forceps to pull it away
with the encapsulated tissue.
It's really quick and easy, less than like five minutes.
As long as it's, you know, normal in the triangle on the hand.
If you put it on the back of the hand,
it's a little bit more interesting at that point.
Got it.
I think all the words that Cooper tried to use
made me feel a bit ill as well.
Things like pulling and pushing.
It's not actually as bad a procedure as you think,
because it's going into like the webbing of the skin.
It's not like an operation.
Don't think of it as that.
It's more like, you know, you could cut your hand,
and it's easier actually to take out than it is to put in.
And to put it in, and you saw the process,
takes seconds.
Thank you.
I was just wondering in terms of,
let's say you have like scar tissue
on the back of your hand.
Is that complicated?
Or is it, you know, just, you know, no problem?
It's like any other piercing.
It might be an interesting feel for whoever is applying it.
And, you know, just like any cyst,
what have you, in the body,
it doesn't complicate it.
It's just going to feel like a speed bump almost,
to be honest,
because I've definitely got a lot of scar tissue on me.
Anyone else?
Cool.
I just want to say,
the last time Cooper went to a con,
we managed to break the provider
that we have for our podcast.
We've since upgraded with that provider,
and I'd like it if we could break it again,
so we can go back to them and hopefully get some free stuff
for the next year.
Yeah, it was kind of interesting then,
and we were just trying to break 20,000 downloads
early this year,
like back in January.
I can definitely tell you that this provider,
according to their own stats,
this weekend we broke 40,000.
It's kind of crazy considering that
it got started after DEF CON last year,
but I'm guessing we put out some decent content.
And those of you that are listeners,
thank you so much for everything you do.
Those of you that aren't,
please like us, subscribe,
and if you don't like what we do,
please tell us why.
If you do like what we do,
please tell us why.
We like feedback.
As you can tell,
both of us will talk to you
if you have questions further.
And feel free to come back and get some holes
and fun little devices in them.
Thanks, guys.
If anyone has any questions regarding the implants,
the implant procedure,
if you're worried about it, et cetera,
don't feel like you have to be a tough guy.
Come and speak to us.
We've done it several times.
And also, if you have any questions
in terms of what it can do,
what you think it can't do,
or any ideas,
just come and approach us.