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Take it away

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Hi, welcome to my talk about designing RFID implants

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So, what do I mean by that some people such as myself have RFID transponders installed underneath our skin

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This talk is going to cover my journey to design my own implants

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To work with an access control system that was not compatible with anything that was on the market at the time

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it's also going to be touching on the basics of RFID biohacking and

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subdermal implant technology in general

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Before we continue I want to assure everyone that this talk will not have blood or gore type photos

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Or even discussions at the end

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I will have some resources linked and one of those is my youtube which does have some videos of like

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Implants being put into me if that's your kind of thing go for it, but they're not going to be in the talk

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The target audience for this talk is pretty much everyone

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There are enough topics rolled into this talk that I hope everyone will be able to come away with some better

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understanding of either biohacking RFID technology and to some extent the journey of taking a product to market

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Even if you've never heard of RFID or biohacking

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You should be able to follow this talk and even if you're an expert on all of those

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I'm hoping you'll still get some enjoyment from listening about my personal experience

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Who am I anyway, why am I talking about this and how am I qualified to discuss any of this?

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My name is Miana as was mentioned before. I'm a software engineer by profession. I also have ADHD. So my hobby is essentially

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collecting more hobbies

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I

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Have no formal qualifications in electrical or biomedical engineering

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But I have spent a lot of time talking to people who work in those fields and reading things written by them

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I'm sure I've annoyed a lot of them by now

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But um, yeah, so as of right now I have

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26 implants installed

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All of those have been over the last few years

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I kind of got involved in this right at the beginning

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of covert a

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Few of those implants I designed myself other ones are just things that you can buy on the market

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one of them is meant for animals not humans, but

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So be it

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So, yeah

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I just want to give this talk because it's something that I'm passionate about and I want to share my interest with many people as possible

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And I also discovered when trying to learn how to do this that there's basically no information on it

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Apparently there's no YouTube videos on shoving things under your skin that you got manufactured in China

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But anyway, I better get started before I waste all my time talking about the talk

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So what is RFID? I want to make sure everyone knows what I mean when I use that term

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It is an umbrella term for a bunch of specific technologies that use radio frequency

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communication

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usually over very short distances

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I'm sure everyone here has used some sort of RFID at some point in their life

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In fact, most of you probably have an RFID card to get into your hotel room right now

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My hotel card is here

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But

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If you've ever scanned an NFC tag with your phone or made a payment with your phone

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or your contactless card if you've ever used a

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Key to badge into your office that was all RFID tech. That's obviously not an exhaustive list

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There's all sorts of RFID tech

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One of my favorites that I come across of day-to-day is just the toll booths in my area

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They use a type of RFID called UHF. So when you drive under it knows that it was your car and they can charge you money

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So before I go any further I want to expand some of the terms that I'll be using just so everyone's on the same page

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RFID as we just discussed it means radio frequency

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identification I

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feel the terms a little bit inaccurate these days because

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Originally, it was just transmitting an ID number that would then be looked up to like let you into a door now

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There's much more complicated

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Transactions that are happening encryption

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Signing all of that sort of stuff. It's not just purely ID, but that's the term for the whole industry. So there we go

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LF and HF are just quick ways to

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Refer to the resonant frequency of the technology

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So low frequency is one to five kilohertz

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Oscillating signals and high frequency is thirteen point five six

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It doesn't really matter beyond that. That's just the selected things by the industry

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And if whoopsie that it's not the scroll button

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There we go. Uh, uh

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NFC is a term that you'll probably be particularly familiar with it's used with phones a lot. It's

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technically the name for a standard for high frequency RF tech

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Thanks to a common misconception

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The term NFC is often used just as a full replacement for HF RFID tech and

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RFID is used to refer to the lower frequency end of the spectrum

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that's not accurate NFC is a subset of

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a

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RFID, but at this point that might have been a losing battle.

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Things like the flipper zero that a lot of you might have seen have a separate menu for

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NFC and RFID.

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NFC contains things that are not NFC technology, and same with the RFID, so I think that's

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a lost battle.

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Tag is the word that I'll try and use as the generic term for cards, fobs, implants, any

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sort of device that's being read, but I'll probably swap between all of those terms because

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I'm bad.

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Reader is a fairly self-explanatory term.

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It's the device that is reading the tag.

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It usually provides the power to the tag, all of that sort of stuff.

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I'll also probably throw out the term field, which is referring to specifically the electromagnetic

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field that the power transfer and the communication is happening in this technology.

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So how does it work?

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Well, you tap your fob to the reader, and it reads the fob, simple.

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Not quite.

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That's more of a thousand foot view.

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To dive a little bit deeper, there is a coil on the reader that acts as an antenna, which

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is basically a long, carefully designed wire, and an alternating electromagnetic field is

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created by pushing an AC signal through that antenna.

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Because of physics, and that's as far as I'm going into that.

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The tag has a similar antenna, and when the tag's coil enters the field of the reader,

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that fluctuating EM field induces a signal in the tag's antenna, and that energy is

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then used to power the chip.

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Once that tag is energized in a reader field, communication will happen by modulating that

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field.

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The exact way that's implemented depends on the frequency and the particular technology,

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but they all work under pretty much the same principle.

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So hopefully that gives people a basic understanding of the underlying tech.

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It's not that important going forwards.

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I just wanted there to be a standard knowledge going forwards.

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So what do I mean by implant?

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In this context, it's any device.

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It's any device that is intentionally put inside the body for some purpose.

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But more specifically, RFID implants are what I'll be focusing on.

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They're usually, at least the more common ones, are small glass capsules that contain

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a cylindrical antenna and whatever circuitry is needed for the chip.

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These are the most common for humans to get, and they're also the only type that animals

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get usually.

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Usually, in the back between the two shoulder blades, if you're ever trying to find your

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cat or your dog's RFID chip.

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Slightly less common are what we often call flex implants.

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These are encased in a flexible polymer rather than glass.

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This is to allow them to be bigger, because the glass capsules, once they get past a certain

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size, they become more fragile.

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Also you kind of want some flexibility when it's going in your body.

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They also happen to couple much better with the large, flatter antennas that are in readers,

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because most of this technology is designed to work with cards.

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So the little cylindrical antennas, completely different topology, completely different coupling

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factor in the physics.

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So once installed, any, other than any marks from the procedures, like little scars left

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over from the needle or anything like that, they're basically invisible.

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In this x-ray, you can see two of them.

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There's a glass one on the left in between the thumb and the pointer finger.

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And right next to it, there is a flex implant.

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Specifically, that's one of the ones I designed.

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It's really weird that other people have circuitry that I built inside their bodies.

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That's never going to be normal to me.

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But...

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This is specifically those implants, if you couldn't see them before.

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The glass one on the left and the flex one, at least the chip of the flex one on the right.

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But there are not just RFID implants.

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There are magnets.

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There are other inductive power technologies like Qi chargers.

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There's tritium, all sorts of things.

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I'm mainly going to be focusing on RFID implants.

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But I'm going to go over some of the other options while we're here, just in case people

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are interested in them.

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So magnets are my favorite.

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I have eight of them installed right now.

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The ones in my hand are sensing magnets.

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What that means is they're small.

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And although they're strong for their size, they're relatively weak.

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The only reason I can pick up that much stuff is because those have magnets in them themselves.

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The main goal for the sensing magnets is for electromagnetic fields to make them vibrate.

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Right next to the nerves in my fingertips, and my brain learns, ah, this means something

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different.

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So now I can tell when my microwave's on without looking at the light.

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Very useful skill.

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This is a tritium implant called the X-Glow.

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Only about 30 of them were ever made.

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And it is by far the dumbest thing I've ever made.

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It's the only thing that I have ever put inside my body.

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For those who do not know what tritium is, it is a radioactive material that emits beta

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radiation.

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It's very safe outside of the body.

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The encapsulation of the vial does block the radiation.

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It's completely background.

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But if it breaks, I'm probably going to have a bad time.

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I've had a few debates with people more experienced in this area than me.

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Most of them seem to think I will die.

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So I really hope it doesn't break.

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I hope it doesn't break.

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On the safer end of the more aesthetic things, this is a silicon subdermal infused with glow

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powder.

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Things like breast implants are pretty much the exact same technology, just without the

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glow powder.

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I have looked.

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There are not breast implants with glow powder, sadly.

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I have seen this used to make 3D shapes in skin, like I've seen people with skulls on

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the back of their hands where the skin sort of molds to it.

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That's not really my thing.

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I just like that if I point a flashlight in my hand, there's a glowing power button.

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But yeah, there's also medical implants such as pacemakers, birth control.

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Those things tend to be more accepted day to day.

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I remember a friend of mine, when I was telling them about my implants for the first time,

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said, oh, I'd never get one of those.

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I was like, don't you have a birth control?

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Do you have a birth control implant in your arm that's like three times bigger than my

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biggest implant?

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That kind of changed her mind on the subject.

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But also, I myself have some medical implants, some of them that do extended release medication

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for me because, again, I have ADHD.

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Taking drugs twice a day is hard.

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But yeah, how do these things get inside the body safely?

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These implants are called subdermal implants because they sit.

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They sit just below the dermis.

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Essentially they're sandwiched between the muscle and the skin.

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Before we move on to the next photo, I just want to warn people.

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There is a photo of a needle coming next.

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It's not got blood or anything like that.

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But if you've got a problem with needles, please look away.

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I'll tell you when it's gone.

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Most implants are installed with an ejector assembly like these.

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The white one is 2.1 millimeter implants and the yellow one is 3 millimeters.

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Really common glass implant sizes for some reason.

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And to use them, the needle is inserted very similar to a blood draw, but it's at a much

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more parallel angle to the skin because you're not trying to dive down into a blood vessel

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or anything.

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You're just trying to sort of slide under the skin.

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Often we pinch the skin up and push into the side of it so that all the blood vessels

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and everything are guaranteed to be out of the way.

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In the end, it's a very safe procedure compared to some other body mod stuff.

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The needle is then slowly withdrawn as the plunger is depressed and that leaves the implant

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inside the pocket left behind the needle essentially.

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There's also larger needles than what are displayed here where you put the needle in,

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take it out, and then put the implant in, but I didn't have any non-gory photos of that

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needle.

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Alternatively, a scalpel can be used.

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This is that silicon power button from before.

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Oh, by the way, you can look.

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The needles are gone now.

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The line on the left-hand side of that is where an incision would have been or was made

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with a scalpel, and then a thing called a dermal elevator gets put in.

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Sounds fancy.

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It's just a blunt piece of metal that lifts the skin up so you can slide something underneath

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there.

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Unlike the needle installs, these are often bigger and quite frequently need stitches

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or some other help keeping the wound closed.

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This leads me to some of the disadvantages of implants.

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It is a minor form of surgery.

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You're putting a foreign object inside your body usually without a medical purpose in

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mind and there are risks involved in that.

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However, the healing process is significantly safer than that of regular surgery.

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piercings that people get all of the time and that is because unlike a piercing the wound can close

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up just like after a blood draw whereas a piercing it's open for an extended period of time yeah

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everyone worries about implants no one worries about getting your ears pissed well not no one

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um not only that RFID technology is a bit of a walled garden RFID tags often treated as single

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purpose devices and are often considered to be disposable and even owned by the company that

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provided it to you there's that's not inherent to the design of RFID tech itself but it's more

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how the industry is developed for instance none of you would have probably gone to a hotel and

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00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:05,460
being asked hey do you have a key that I can use to let you into your door no they just give you

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a key and even if it's the exact same key as another building

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you have to get into you're probably gonna have to have a different key for that even if the reader

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would be perfectly capable of reading it this leads people such as myself to have multiple

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implants for different purposes and often being limited to using them with systems the either DIY

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00:17:31,340 --> 00:17:38,720
or have vulnerabilities in the tech that allow you to clone implants which very bittersweet is

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00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:39,940
for me being anisz

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infosec person being like, yes, the system's got vulnerabilities I can use. Oh, no, it's got

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00:17:45,660 --> 00:17:55,140
vulnerabilities. And it lets me into my house. And I'm not sure if this is a disadvantage or

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an advantage, to be honest. But it's really hard for someone to steal an implant. Like,

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00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:05,460
no one's going to pickpocket my implant. They would need a machete. And hopefully,

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00:18:05,460 --> 00:18:10,500
that's not what someone's going to do to steal my gym badge. But I guess know your threat model.

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00:18:10,740 --> 00:18:15,760
If you've got people who like machetes after your key cards, maybe implants aren't for you.

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00:18:18,180 --> 00:18:23,500
One of the most common things I do get asked is, what about the TSA? Do I have problems

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00:18:23,500 --> 00:18:27,940
getting through airport security? It's never been a problem for me or anyone else I know.

250
00:18:28,380 --> 00:18:34,840
Uh, with both millimeter wave scanners and the metal detectors, even with some

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00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:42,280
relatively strong magnets inside myself, no problems yet. Uh, but what are the advantages

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00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:49,280
to implantable tech? Unlike the disadvantages, this is a little bit more dependent on the

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00:18:49,280 --> 00:18:55,120
particular person and the particular implant. So I'm just going to focus on some of the more

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common advantages that I see in RFID implants specifically for myself. So as I mentioned before,

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00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:09,760
I have some fairly significant executive functioning problems. So to me, having my keys be part

256
00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:14,680
of my body is not just a convenience, it's a safety feature. I have been locked out

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00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:21,000
in climates that were cold enough to be dangerous. That's not really a problem unless I already

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00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:27,780
have frostbite. Um, and I've lost that. Um, and I know people have considered using this

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00:19:27,780 --> 00:19:32,480
tech for, like, grandparents with Alzheimer's and stuff like that who would lose their keys.

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00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:34,820
I believe the particular friend who wanted to do it was a friend of mine, and he was

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00:19:34,820 --> 00:19:40,300
able to do that, ended up epoxying a RFID tag to their grandma's fingernail because they

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didn't want her to have to go through the healing at her age. But same concept works.

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Um, and for me, knowing that I always have my keys with me is pretty much priceless.

264
00:19:54,400 --> 00:20:00,060
Um, beyond that, each of my implants has things that I do love about them individually, but

265
00:20:00,060 --> 00:20:04,800
overall, it's just really cool. Sometimes people, like, ask me, is it just a gimmick?

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00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:10,680
It's not, as I went over with some of the other things, but in some ways, yes, it is

267
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:17,000
a gimmick, but it's not just a gimmick. It's really cool. It's also a form of self-expression

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00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:22,340
in my eyes. It's not as visible as my tattoos or my piercings or anything like that, but

269
00:20:22,340 --> 00:20:27,520
it makes me feel happy. It makes me feel more in control of my own body, and that is another

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00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:32,500
thing that I find priceless to me. But anyway, I think that's probably enough background

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information.

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Uh, I should run.

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00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:38,620
I don't really get to the headline topic, which is designing the RFID implant.

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00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:46,560
So let's start off with why I did this. Essentially, it all boils down to me being very stubborn.

275
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:53,220
I in this situation considered that a virtue. I had just discovered the world of implants

276
00:20:54,100 --> 00:20:59,740
and was doing my usual hyper focus on the cool new interesting thing I found, and obviously

277
00:20:59,740 --> 00:21:02,400
I needed to make my work badge an implant.

278
00:21:02,780 --> 00:21:04,380
And much to my excitement,

279
00:21:04,380 --> 00:21:10,520
and as I mentioned before, a fair bit of disappointment, discovered that the tags used at work were

280
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:15,600
vulnerable to cloning. Unfortunately, there were no implants compatible with this system,

281
00:21:15,740 --> 00:21:21,600
so I took the only option there was, obviously. There was no other option. I had to make

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00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:21,980
my own.

283
00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:30,240
Um, and decided how hard can it be and started working on making my own. As it turns out,

284
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:34,360
quite difficult when you have no knowledge of electronics or PCBs.

285
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:37,520
But I got there in the end.

286
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:45,060
So the first thing I had to learn about was the key elements of RFID transponders. At

287
00:21:45,060 --> 00:21:51,900
a high level, they're really simple. Especially now that we can just buy ICs or chips that

288
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:57,480
do most of the functionality. A talk on how the ICs work themselves would be great if

289
00:21:57,480 --> 00:21:59,660
someone wants to do one. That's not this talk.

290
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,340
The IC or chip usually has a number of different functions. For example, if you want to make

291
00:22:04,340 --> 00:22:10,020
your own, it has two connections. One for each end of the antenna. The image on this

292
00:22:10,020 --> 00:22:15,220
slide is what's called a mob package. It's really common for contactless systems. If

293
00:22:15,220 --> 00:22:19,980
anyone's got a transparent credit card or they've ever torn apart a credit card, you

294
00:22:19,980 --> 00:22:21,880
may have found something like this inside it.

295
00:22:22,780 --> 00:22:32,780
But there's also all sorts of other ICs that have different connectivity options and fit

296
00:22:32,780 --> 00:22:34,020
their specific needs.

297
00:22:34,340 --> 00:22:39,880
These chips also have an inherent capacitance, which is very important for what we'll be

298
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:40,700
discussing shortly.

299
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:47,360
The only other part of a tag is the antenna, which is, as I mentioned before, just a long,

300
00:22:47,460 --> 00:22:53,740
carefully bended wire. From an electronics point of view, calling it an inductor is probably

301
00:22:53,740 --> 00:23:02,400
more accurate. Together, this capacitor and inductor make what's called an LC tank circuit.

302
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:04,320
By changing the circuit, you can change the circuit. You can change the circuit. You can

303
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:09,860
change the ratio of capacitance to inductance. You can control the natural resonant frequency

304
00:23:09,860 --> 00:23:11,040
of this circuit.

305
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:15,180
It's a little bit like when you rub your finger around the edge of a glass and it makes a

306
00:23:15,180 --> 00:23:21,920
humming noise. This electrical circuit also has a similar sort of resonance when current

307
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:22,920
is passed through it.

308
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:30,260
And all you need to know is how to change the inductance or capacitance. You don't really

309
00:23:30,260 --> 00:23:33,320
need to understand the physics behind this to make.

310
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,720
I've been doing some research on the RFID implants, which is great for me.

311
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:46,480
Now that I knew I needed to find a chip that could do what I wanted, and then correctly

312
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:51,080
tune an antenna for that chip, I had a starting point. I could go researching.

313
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:58,920
Unfortunately, it turns out the system that I was trying to make this for was an HID

314
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,700
I-class system, which used chips that you cannot order online.

315
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:05,900
Which is what I've done for other projects.

316
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:12,860
However, it turns out I could buy the tags that they sell, the cards, and the tags have

317
00:24:12,860 --> 00:24:13,660
the chips in them.

318
00:24:14,460 --> 00:24:16,960
Well, not for long once I got hold of them, I guess.

319
00:24:18,820 --> 00:24:22,720
Acetone is very good at dissolving PVC, which is what the cards are made of.

320
00:24:22,940 --> 00:24:30,280
So leave that in a bowl for a while, and oh, whoopsie, did I move past it?

321
00:24:30,500 --> 00:24:31,020
Oh, yeah.

322
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:33,520
After I had extracted that.

323
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:34,700
I get this coil.

324
00:24:36,260 --> 00:24:42,300
And at this point, I needed to work out that inductance and capacitance, because I didn't

325
00:24:42,300 --> 00:24:43,340
have any of that information.

326
00:24:43,820 --> 00:24:47,040
To do this, I bought a cheap LCR meter.

327
00:24:47,220 --> 00:24:51,620
L stands for inductance in this case, and C stands for capacitance.

328
00:24:52,460 --> 00:24:56,360
So it was capable of measuring both the factors that I needed.

329
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,140
Unfortunately, it's such a precise device.

330
00:25:01,500 --> 00:25:02,100
Um.

331
00:25:02,700 --> 00:25:08,840
Needed to measure the capacitances and the inductances involved in this type of tag that

332
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:10,320
it wasn't that helpful.

333
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:15,820
So I tried to sanity check it by measuring the height, the width, the number of turns

334
00:25:15,820 --> 00:25:19,760
of the coil and stuff like that, and trying to back solve it from that math.

335
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:23,320
After all that, I found the data sheet.

336
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,400
Well, someone messaged it to me on Discord.

337
00:25:26,460 --> 00:25:29,260
I really wish they had done that like two weeks beforehand.

338
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:31,660
But, uh.

339
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:32,080
Um.

340
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:36,260
It was good to go through all that solving, because it did turn out that I was very close

341
00:25:36,260 --> 00:25:41,260
to the real value that was listed in the data sheet, and this just confirmed it and made

342
00:25:41,260 --> 00:25:43,020
everything much easier going forwards.

343
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:48,660
But if I don't find a data sheet in future, I know that this technique would work to find

344
00:25:49,260 --> 00:25:50,140
those values.

345
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:56,060
So at this point, I have the chip I need, and I know the capacitance of those chips,

346
00:25:56,300 --> 00:26:01,180
and now I just need to work out how to make an antenna with the right inductance.

347
00:26:02,260 --> 00:26:04,840
There's a lot of math involved in that, I found out.

348
00:26:04,980 --> 00:26:06,600
I'm not particularly fond of math.

349
00:26:06,740 --> 00:26:07,640
I'm a software person.

350
00:26:07,740 --> 00:26:09,060
I get the computer to do the math.

351
00:26:09,900 --> 00:26:15,280
So there was a website that I put in the two values that I had, and it would solve

352
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:15,820
for the third.

353
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,880
So I knew the capacitance of the chip, and I knew the target frequency I wanted, which

354
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,500
was 13.56 megahertz, because high frequency RFID.

355
00:26:25,180 --> 00:26:31,480
And then this cool website, which is linked in the resources later, spat out, uh, the

356
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:32,620
inductance I needed.

357
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:38,820
Then I needed to make a coil of wire that would have that inductance, which turns out

358
00:26:38,820 --> 00:26:39,740
is more math.

359
00:26:40,460 --> 00:26:47,240
In fact, in the real world, they would use simulation software that costs a lot of money,

360
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,000
it turns out, to try and design these.

361
00:26:50,400 --> 00:27:00,660
But there are also papers that were written on how to ballpark, uh, estimate it for certain

362
00:27:00,660 --> 00:27:01,440
constraints.

363
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,460
And I found some that matched what I was doing.

364
00:27:04,820 --> 00:27:10,060
And luckily, an electrical engineering friend of mine happened to turn one of those into

365
00:27:10,060 --> 00:27:13,000
a calculator as well, so I didn't need to do the math myself.

366
00:27:13,820 --> 00:27:16,040
Which is also linked in those resources.

367
00:27:16,540 --> 00:27:24,840
With this tool, basically I could put in various parameters, uh, to describe the shape of the

368
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:32,000
coil, how thick the wires were, how many turns, all the factors that change the inductance

369
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:32,860
of a coil of wire.

370
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,440
One of the problems with this software is that tiny changes have a big difference.

371
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,500
And it did not have any auto-solve functionality.

372
00:27:43,060 --> 00:27:48,280
It was type in the, like, ten parameters you need every step of the way.

373
00:27:49,660 --> 00:27:53,020
And if it was off by a bit, re-type them all in again.

374
00:27:53,460 --> 00:27:58,500
One of my long-term goals is to change that software so it is capable of solving within

375
00:27:58,500 --> 00:27:59,380
certain constraints.

376
00:27:59,740 --> 00:28:01,780
But I'm very good at coming up with ideas.

377
00:28:01,780 --> 00:28:03,240
Less good at completing them.

378
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:04,800
So we'll see.

379
00:28:06,940 --> 00:28:11,800
So at this point, I know pretty much everything for my theoretical implant.

380
00:28:12,180 --> 00:28:15,240
I know the size and the shape of the coil, and I have all the parts.

381
00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:18,880
And this is when I had to work out how PCB design worked.

382
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:25,400
Luckily, as I was saying before, RFID tags are really simple if you have an IC that's

383
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:26,220
doing it for you.

384
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:31,240
So I could just connect one wire from one side of the chip to the other.

385
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:32,320
That's my schematic.

386
00:28:32,660 --> 00:28:33,140
Cool.

387
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,180
Since then, my designs have got a bit more complex.

388
00:28:37,420 --> 00:28:42,400
I'm not talking about this one right now, but it's a work in progress implant for, like,

389
00:28:42,420 --> 00:28:47,260
an RGB animatable, like, four-pixel display under my skin.

390
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,540
I will one day finish that, I hope.

391
00:28:51,700 --> 00:28:56,820
Once you have this schematic that shows you how you're connecting the chip, you then need

392
00:28:56,820 --> 00:28:58,640
to get footprints for the chip.

393
00:28:58,780 --> 00:28:59,900
As I mentioned before.

394
00:28:59,900 --> 00:29:03,100
The chip I was using is a really common one.

395
00:29:03,300 --> 00:29:05,760
I could definitely download a footprint for it.

396
00:29:05,820 --> 00:29:11,280
But because I'm so space-constrained, I had to draw my own, the only used part of the

397
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,520
pin, the, like, wings on each side of the chip to connect, because I just did not have

398
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:16,860
enough space for the full thing.

399
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:23,080
Then it's pretty much just a matter of designing the board.

400
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:27,200
The way I learned how to do that was just watching an electrical engineering friend

401
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:28,600
of mine design a board.

402
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,660
And most of it seemed to click into place.

403
00:29:31,140 --> 00:29:33,820
Everything else was just Googling specific questions.

404
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,600
I'm not going to go too far into that, because it really depends on what software you're

405
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:38,920
using.

406
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:42,580
And it's also quite easy to learn.

407
00:29:42,700 --> 00:29:44,540
There's a lot of resources on the Internet.

408
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:51,360
Just to zoom in on the PCB design from that, you can see what I was talking about.

409
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:56,400
I have the footprint in the center, and you can see why it had to be small, because otherwise,

410
00:29:56,540 --> 00:29:58,020
it would crash into the...

411
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:07,640
And the only real complexity about this, once I had done all the math, was working out how

412
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:12,180
to join the top layer, which is the red, and the bottom layer, which is blue.

413
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,320
When this is manufactured, all of this just turns into copper.

414
00:30:15,780 --> 00:30:19,920
And the little green dots, they are what we call vias, and they show where the connection

415
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:21,740
is going from one layer to the other.

416
00:30:24,100 --> 00:30:27,240
So at this point, it's more art than science.

417
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:28,000
Everything...

418
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:34,220
A little bit of change, such as the bend around the via, modifies it away from the

419
00:30:34,220 --> 00:30:38,880
ideal thing that the calculators I was using were assuming it would be.

420
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:45,040
So I know everything I do here has an impact, but without access to simulation software,

421
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:50,560
it's not really possible to do more than have a go.

422
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:58,580
To get them manufactured, you export the PCB into what, of course, is a computer.

423
00:30:58,600 --> 00:30:59,380
It's called Gerber's.

424
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,620
To me, they're basically just black and white images that represent the different features

425
00:31:04,620 --> 00:31:05,180
of the PCB.

426
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:14,020
So on the left here, we have the Gerber for the top copper, and on the right, we have

427
00:31:14,020 --> 00:31:14,800
the layer for the bottom.

428
00:31:15,020 --> 00:31:20,940
There was also one that showed the shape of the PCB itself, where to cut out lots of files.

429
00:31:21,260 --> 00:31:23,080
All of that's handled for...

430
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:25,880
Handled by the software I was using.

431
00:31:26,580 --> 00:31:27,420
And then...

432
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:32,660
When I went off to a PCB manufacturer, I got a bag of antennas.

433
00:31:33,620 --> 00:31:38,020
These were ordered from a company called PCB Away, and they're made out of a flexible

434
00:31:38,020 --> 00:31:44,180
polymide material, and that apparently is not a basic thing, so the minimum order quantity

435
00:31:44,180 --> 00:31:46,300
was around 800 units.

436
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,400
That did not end up being a cheap hobby, it turns out.

437
00:31:53,660 --> 00:31:56,920
But now I have all the parts, I've got to stick them together.

438
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:58,200
I got this little...

439
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:05,820
Hot plate thing, and used some solder paste to connect the chip, and this is what it ended

440
00:32:05,820 --> 00:32:06,580
up looking like.

441
00:32:07,180 --> 00:32:13,200
That little black tab on the right-hand side is just to help peel off adhesive off the

442
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,400
back, which makes it easier at a later stage of this process.

443
00:32:18,340 --> 00:32:21,360
Even though I had an implant at this point, it wasn't over.

444
00:32:21,500 --> 00:32:24,340
I still needed to do some testing.

445
00:32:25,820 --> 00:32:26,340
And...

446
00:32:26,340 --> 00:32:28,100
Although it did work first time...

447
00:32:28,100 --> 00:32:33,760
Much to my surprise, I could only get it to work if it was in the exact right position.

448
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,120
Like a millimeter to the left?

449
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:37,080
Didn't work.

450
00:32:37,140 --> 00:32:38,020
Millimeter to the right?

451
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:38,760
Didn't work.

452
00:32:39,900 --> 00:32:44,780
So that wasn't really going to work if I implanted it in my skin and was just going to wave my

453
00:32:44,780 --> 00:32:46,580
hand in front of the door willy-nilly.

454
00:32:47,940 --> 00:32:50,060
So I had to work out what was wrong.

455
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:54,780
This is when I spent more money and bought a thing called a vector network analyzer.

456
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:55,760
Uh...

457
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:56,520
With this...

458
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:00,720
I could determine the peak frequency of the antenna.

459
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:07,920
Basically what it seems to do, from my understanding, is it scans the spectrum, and wherever it

460
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:20,100
experiences the most loss on its voltage from the coil, is where the reader was being

461
00:33:20,100 --> 00:33:22,580
able to pass the most voltage over to the chip.

462
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:23,760
It's not really loss.

463
00:33:23,900 --> 00:33:26,500
It's how much power the chip could receive.

464
00:33:28,740 --> 00:33:33,900
From that, I then went back to that calculator I used to calculate the inductance in the

465
00:33:33,900 --> 00:33:39,840
first place, but I put in this new resonant frequency I knew, and the capacitance that

466
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,920
I knew, and worked out...

467
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:48,260
I basically back-solved what the inductance must be.

468
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,440
It's not quite accurate.

469
00:33:52,580 --> 00:33:56,500
Because there's also some stray capacitance in the circuit.

470
00:33:56,500 --> 00:34:00,120
But for me, that's basically impossible to estimate.

471
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:08,960
So I calculated what I thought the inductance would be, compared that to my original calculations,

472
00:34:09,260 --> 00:34:14,740
worked out an error factor, essentially, and then used that to adjust the original

473
00:34:14,740 --> 00:34:15,120
design.

474
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:21,320
In the end, I just made the coil longer, essentially, until it had made up that error

475
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:21,720
margin.

476
00:34:21,900 --> 00:34:23,260
And that worked.

477
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:23,760
.

478
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:30,900
This trial and error method definitely did work, but now I add an extra capacitor called

479
00:34:30,900 --> 00:34:31,620
a tuning capacitor.

480
00:34:32,580 --> 00:34:33,860
It's basically...

481
00:34:33,860 --> 00:34:38,940
Because the frequency is determined on the ratio between the capacitance and the inductor,

482
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,680
I was trying to get the inductor perfect first time.

483
00:34:42,820 --> 00:34:44,280
Not really a good approach.

484
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:51,120
Having a capacitor there means I can add additional capacitance, and then if I try and deliberately

485
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:52,320
undershoot...

486
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:52,520
.

487
00:34:52,520 --> 00:35:00,700
The target frequency, I can add additional capacitance to bring it up into line without

488
00:35:00,700 --> 00:35:06,000
having to wait several more weeks and spend several hundred more dollars on 800 new boards.

489
00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:11,200
It also gives more flexibility for the inductance that we need to target.

490
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:17,600
I recently worked with a chip that had a really, really low capacitance, so it needed a much

491
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,060
bigger coil, or I could just add a capacitor.

492
00:35:20,540 --> 00:35:22,500
And that made it much easier.

493
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:27,920
At this point, all I have is a PCB.

494
00:35:28,300 --> 00:35:36,380
It's much smaller than a standard RFID tag, but it's still a PCB.

495
00:35:36,740 --> 00:35:38,260
I can't shove it in my body yet.

496
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:44,960
So it needs some sort of coating that keeps the fluids away from the electronics and the

497
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,340
various metals in there away from my body.

498
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:50,540
To be clear...

499
00:35:50,540 --> 00:35:54,020
This step is only necessary if you do want to make implants.

500
00:35:54,300 --> 00:35:59,080
Everything else is still applicable to PCB design, RFID tag design.

501
00:35:59,900 --> 00:36:03,820
I've seen people embed these in resin and all sorts of other things.

502
00:36:05,940 --> 00:36:11,980
Personally I have no interest in solving the BioSafe problem myself.

503
00:36:12,300 --> 00:36:14,700
More than happy to leave that up to professionals.

504
00:36:15,860 --> 00:36:18,580
There's a company aptly called dangerous things.

505
00:36:19,180 --> 00:36:19,780
The...

506
00:36:19,780 --> 00:36:25,880
It mainly makes and sells implants, but they also offer encapsulation services to people like me.

507
00:36:26,180 --> 00:36:32,880
So I send them the implant, and they send it back to me covered in biopolymer.

508
00:36:33,740 --> 00:36:36,420
This is what the implant looked like after it was coated.

509
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:43,220
And at this point, I decided to call it a flex class because it's a flexible implant for eye class.

510
00:36:43,500 --> 00:36:44,340
Very creative.

511
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,600
And at this point, I was pretty much ready to implant it.

512
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:57,680
And although I've done some implant installs on myself, and to be clear, I really do not recommend people doing installs on themselves,

513
00:36:59,780 --> 00:37:05,740
this is something that's going to require a scalpel, especially given I decided to put it in the back of my finger.

514
00:37:06,100 --> 00:37:14,280
So I went to a body mod specialist, essentially a normal piercing shop, but this person had experience with implants.

515
00:37:15,100 --> 00:37:17,320
And yeah, it healed perfectly.

516
00:37:17,540 --> 00:37:19,760
And as you can see, there's a silhouette of it.

517
00:37:19,780 --> 00:37:21,240
And I put it in the middle of my finger.

518
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,600
So it's built bio-safe and in my body.

519
00:37:26,780 --> 00:37:27,660
But does it work?

520
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:29,160
Yes.

521
00:37:29,860 --> 00:37:30,800
This is where.

522
00:37:40,140 --> 00:37:45,000
Now flipping the bird opens doors for me, which is where the title for this talk came from.

523
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,680
I will mention if you intend on doing this.

524
00:37:49,780 --> 00:37:51,340
If you have permission, please get it in writing.

525
00:37:51,660 --> 00:37:58,160
I definitely experience what we'll call office politics problems from this little project of mine.

526
00:38:00,700 --> 00:38:03,040
So what's it like to actually use?

527
00:38:06,180 --> 00:38:14,220
Basically, if I rubbed it in the exact right spot, as you can see me sliding my finger over, it would work.

528
00:38:14,420 --> 00:38:17,020
The performance wasn't as good as I had wanted.

529
00:38:17,260 --> 00:38:19,320
One of the problems with my methodology.

530
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:26,900
Using the VNA to test the frequency is that's not its target use case.

531
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,900
So these readers have slightly different characteristics.

532
00:38:31,420 --> 00:38:37,940
I probably should have also included testing on the actual end product before I put it in my body, but it worked.

533
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:43,980
The only problem this has caused is that.

534
00:38:46,900 --> 00:38:47,280
Sorry.

535
00:38:48,860 --> 00:38:51,900
The readers that we had at work that had keypads in them.

536
00:38:51,980 --> 00:39:01,880
My implant didn't work with those because the keypad was in front of the antenna and that made the distance too far for it to be able to read it unless I sat there for five minutes.

537
00:39:02,340 --> 00:39:07,420
But, um, so yeah, there were definitely lessons learned from that process.

538
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:16,980
As I said, I would test the device on the real world devices I wanted to interact with.

539
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:23,620
But those aren't going to give me the same measurements I need, so that would really be a additional factor.

540
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:30,120
Also, if I could get access to the simulation software and the training to use it, that would really make my life easier.

541
00:39:31,700 --> 00:39:41,980
Um, but yeah, if anyone's thinking about doing a project, if anyone wants something and they can't find an existing product to do it, just do it yourself.

542
00:39:42,240 --> 00:39:46,860
Like, most of my philosophy for this stuff is essentially.

543
00:39:47,660 --> 00:40:02,560
The fool did not know it was impossible, so she did it anyway, and like I've had a few failures, but also all of them have taught me stuff and it's been fun, even if I hadn't got an implant out of this, I still think it was a valuable, uh, process.

544
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:08,060
Uh, so what's next for, uh, implants in this space?

545
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,780
Um, I'm going to go through some work in progress, uh, projects.

546
00:40:13,860 --> 00:40:16,360
Uh, this is the.

547
00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:21,780
Uh, what I call the Lit AF, um, flex RGB.

548
00:40:22,100 --> 00:40:33,180
Uh, those ones don't actually have RGB lights in the photo, I haven't got around to making it, that was the schematic that I showed you earlier to show that my schematics are more than just one part these days.

549
00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:43,540
Um, and that's basically just trying to provide power, communication, and a microcontroller, and I'm going to open source all of that.

550
00:40:43,780 --> 00:40:46,760
Mine's going to be used to control RGB LEDs, but.

551
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,380
I've heard people talk about the idea of putting glucose sensors on there and stuff, so.

552
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:53,740
Hopefully that happens.

553
00:40:55,340 --> 00:41:04,720
Uh, this is a project called, uh, Body Bites, we're trying to use Qi charges to power a little Linux computer implant.

554
00:41:05,720 --> 00:41:15,020
That's already been done, this is called a peg leg, it's literally a Raspberry Pi with an induction coil that someone stuck on their arm.

555
00:41:15,420 --> 00:41:16,020
Um.

556
00:41:16,420 --> 00:41:16,920
Um.

557
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,220
I've done quite a few of those, and it works really well.

558
00:41:20,380 --> 00:41:27,640
It's been quite, it's quite an old project, and I find it fascinating, but it's a little bit unwieldy, I wouldn't want one myself.

559
00:41:29,780 --> 00:41:32,800
Um, this is my current latest project.

560
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,460
Uh, this is using a Qi charger to power a light.

561
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,740
I've got a Firefly tattoo on my arm.

562
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:40,920
It's going to go under that.

563
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:45,080
I wanted it before this talk, but, uh, that didn't happen.

564
00:41:45,300 --> 00:41:46,000
But it does work.

565
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,360
And it's got around 250 lumens of light output. I'm probably gonna get burnt

566
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:54,800
There's the tattoo I forgot included that

567
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,960
This is a payment implant a friend of mine's working on

568
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:08,480
This is another project of mine where we're trying to make like accessories like bracelets and stuff that can power the LEDs

569
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:14,380
basically all sorts of things that people want to work on if

570
00:42:14,380 --> 00:42:21,120
You want to get involved? There is a discord community. This QR code doesn't really matter. It's in the resources later

571
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,800
I'm pretty much out of time. So I'm gonna skip this section

572
00:42:31,100 --> 00:42:35,260
Basically, I want to thank the biohacking community

573
00:42:36,220 --> 00:42:39,260
In general for inspiring me to do this sort of stuff

574
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:44,100
Corey Lord who is an electrical engineering friend of mine who?

575
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:47,840
specifically inspired me to work on implants

576
00:42:48,860 --> 00:42:52,060
Daniel is another electrical engineering friend of mine and

577
00:42:52,660 --> 00:42:58,940
Then the RFID hacking community and various other people as well as the DEF CON goons and all the attendees

578
00:42:58,940 --> 00:43:00,740
Just thank you so much to everyone

579
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,020
It makes it really rewarding to do this kind of stuff

580
00:43:05,860 --> 00:43:08,740
But yeah, if you want to contact me

581
00:43:09,340 --> 00:43:14,160
Feel free that's also in the resources link. So I'm gonna leave this one up for a second

582
00:43:14,380 --> 00:43:18,700
this has links to the calculators to the slides to

583
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,040
The discord anything like that

584
00:43:23,180 --> 00:43:23,960
it's

585
00:43:24,970 --> 00:43:33,350
do it for dot science slash dc 31 slash resources that will also get you to the page I

586
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:39,000
Don't know how much time I have left if anyone has any questions

587
00:43:42,060 --> 00:43:44,320
Yes MRIs are complete

588
00:43:44,380 --> 00:43:45,700
Completely safe for the RFID

589
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,120
implants, they've been tested up to

590
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,560
Seven Tesla MRIs, I believe without any problems

591
00:43:55,100 --> 00:43:57,440
the magnets is

592
00:43:58,000 --> 00:43:59,800
debatable there are

593
00:44:01,380 --> 00:44:03,240
The are the techs that

594
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:09,060
Okay, the techs that run the MRIs would probably not want you to go in one

595
00:44:09,060 --> 00:44:13,020
I know people personally who have gone in them and they experienced

596
00:44:14,060 --> 00:44:18,200
Minor discomfort and that was all however, like I have one in my ear

597
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,780
I would have to have that one taken out if I was having a head MRI because you would not be able to see the

598
00:44:22,780 --> 00:44:25,540
Picture anymore because there's a magnet in my head. So

599
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,420
But my time is now up. So

600
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:31,500
Goodbye. Thank you very much, everyone

601
00:44:32,460 --> 00:44:32,860
You