Slashdot Mirror
Help a Journalist With An NFC Chip Implant Violate His Own Privacy and Security
An anonymous reader writes: His wife thinks he's crazy, but this guy got an NFC chip implanted in his arm, where it will stay for at least a year. He's inviting everyone to come up with uses for it. Especially ones that violate his privacy and security. There must be something better to do than getting into the office or unlocking your work PC.
He says, "The chip we are using is the xNTi, an NFC type 2 NTAG216, which is about the size of a grain of rice and is manufactured by the Dutch semiconductor company NXP, maker of the NFC chip for the new iPhone. It is a glass transponder with an operating frequency of 13.56MHz, developed for mass-market applications such as retail, gaming and consumer electronics. ... The chip's storage capacity is pretty limited, the UID (unique identifier) is 7 bytes, while the read/write memory is 888 bytes. It can be secured with a 32-bit password and can be overwritten about 100,000 times, by which point the memory will be quite worn. Data transmission takes place at a baud rate of 106 kbit/s and the chip is readable up to 10 centimeters, though it is possible to boost that distance."
He says, "The chip we are using is the xNTi, an NFC type 2 NTAG216, which is about the size of a grain of rice and is manufactured by the Dutch semiconductor company NXP, maker of the NFC chip for the new iPhone. It is a glass transponder with an operating frequency of 13.56MHz, developed for mass-market applications such as retail, gaming and consumer electronics. ... The chip's storage capacity is pretty limited, the UID (unique identifier) is 7 bytes, while the read/write memory is 888 bytes. It can be secured with a 32-bit password and can be overwritten about 100,000 times, by which point the memory will be quite worn. Data transmission takes place at a baud rate of 106 kbit/s and the chip is readable up to 10 centimeters, though it is possible to boost that distance."
I'm sure our local superhero cold fjord can tell us why a Small, Libertarian-Approved State should mandate the installation of these on all citizens and civilians.
Well? We're waiting, my friend.
It seems small, when we think about data these days being in the multi-gigabytes, but 888 bytes is AMPLE to completely destroy the security of your legal identity.
Say, a social security number: 9 bytes.
A telephone number, with area code: 10 bytes
Full name, assuming a null padded, 3 entry struct with 15char max strings and 2 delimiter bytes: 47 bytes
Address, assuming 4 lines with 20 chars each (with null padding as needed)-- 40 bytes.
All that, and we are only about 1/7 to 1/8th of the data memory, or about 106 bytes.
One could squeeze a shortened URL to a facebook page, and quite a bit else in that space, such as DL number, credit card number, cellphone number, email address, and whatnot.
888 bytes can hold a LOT of very dangerous information.
Dude's doing it all wrong, it's meant to go in your right hand or your forehead! ^-^
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Crazy is pretty low on the "reasons to divorce your spouse"big totem pole after a while. We're all a little crazy by spousal standards, and I've not had papers served to me for thirty years and countin!
Why does it matter what his wife thinks? And if she truly did suspect he is crazy, wouldn't he divorced right about now and caring a lot less about the chip in his arm?
You didn't read the part where he put an NFC controlled chastity belt on her.
Maybe he has a very large active antenna?
Even then though, it wouldn't be true NFC-- because the near field is the first 1/4 wavelength of the broadcast frequency.
Which in this case, is 13.5 mhz-- that gives a total wavelength of about 22meters for the full wave, and 5.5 meters for the 1/4-wave Near Field.
A large actively coupling antenna could conceivably communicate over that distance by measuring signal drop in the active antenna due to the active coupling with the near field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
you might not be able to tell what the NFC chip "sent", but you could definitely tell that one was nearby.
Just install a reader for this chip in the wife and you'll get all of your privacy and security and many other things violated...
You can't handle the truth.
The radiation to activate the chip comes from outside. If you get polled 100 times per day by different RFIDs (intended for your phone) it matters very little if the chip inside of you responds 2 of those times. The big source of radiation (which isn't dangerous to begin with) will hit you ragardless if you have a chip implanted or not.
Didn't some guy (a university professor) in the UK do this about ten years ago? He was a bit of a publicity seeking knob too, IIRC.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, and generally considered the second most powerful democrat behind Obama. You can't figure out why conservatives might have a problem with top democrats? You may have noticed Obama wasn't very involved with the drafting of the ACA, that was spearheaded by Pelosi. It would be more accurate to call it Pelosicare rather than Obamacare. The first draft, the last time the Democrats controlled the White House, was called Hillarycare.
For those conservatives of a more libertarian bent, they may be unimpressed with Bush and Cheney and may see some good in some democrats. Pelosi, however, supported the Patriot Act, currently supports the NSA dragnet, No Child Left Behind - she's the figurehead for the Democrats, except when the republicans have an even worse idea, in which case she gets on board with them.
Maybe his wife has a chip on her shoulder.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Just wait 364 days, until he's locked all his authentication to the NFC, then some chloroform and a scalpel will give him all the privacy and security violation he's asking for.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Technically Obamacare IS Rommneycare, a Republican alternative to a single payer system (single payer is a much better system BTW). When the Democrats proposed it the Republicans simply lurched further to the right and declared it terrible.
If we can get the reporter's uid on the no-fly-list it should be pretty entertaining to listen to his rants.
http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com...