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Contactless NFC Payments
I've been interesting in biohacking for a while, and while I know human anatomy and physiology pretty well, I don't know anything about technology, so I figured I would come here with this.
We all know Apple Pay, and that sort of technology- wireless payment in stores by holding your phone near the NFC readers, and the NFC chip in your phone relays the payment info (linked debit/credit card, usually) to said NFC reader and pays for whatever you're buying. I've been wondering in what ways it would be possible to somehow make an implant that uses said technology.
There's a couple very upfront issues, though. Mainly, Apple Pay isn't JUST an NFC chip. It's also the secure element chip that generates the access code (if I'm understanding the technology right) that actually grants the payment device access to use your debit/credit card as payment. So you would need the SE chip so the NFC chip has something to send to the NFC reader. And, of course, you need a way of connecting your SE chip to your Apple Pay account wirelessly so it can actually access your card's information. Also, because Apple Pay requires verification (Touch ID, Face ID), you would need a way to verify the purchase in a way that doesn't make an SE/NFC implant more difficult than just using your iPhone or Apple Watch.
So... Anyone looked into this? Anyone have any ideas? I don't intend on pursuing it, I just think it is an interesting idea and I'd love to read some extra info on it, preferably from someone who understands the technology better than I do LOL.
Comments
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This is from a different forum, but it's the best summary I've seen. Tl;dr it can't really be done right now on more than a short-term basis.
https://forum.dangerousthings.com/t/making-payments-with-an-implant/643
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FYI Vivokey will be EMV capable and there are things supposedly in the works to partner up with a major company so hopefully sometime in the next few years we will be able to make payments with an implant.
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@Beano said:
FYI Vivokey will be EMV capable and there are things supposedly in the works to partner up with a major company so hopefully sometime in the next few years we will be able to make payments with an implant.Yes, this is true, I'm actually part of the Vivokey beta. But for the moment, despite the Vivokey having the right hardware, we can't expect to use it for EMV payments.
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> @mercrutio said:
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> Yes, this is true, I'm actually part of the Vivokey beta. But for the moment, despite the Vivokey having the right hardware, we can't expect to use it for EMV payments.Exactly. I am a part of the beta as well. These first ones will not be able to and in fact when they are they will have to be set up before implantation. However, this is a huge step in the right direction. Also, Amal has stated that they are working on making it happen.
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Hey I'm very interested in this topic. I have obviously read the article that makes it quite clear we shouldn't count on any widely available product anytime soon.
That's why I started looking up DIY projects. And found those two:
https://www.google.pl/amp/s/gizmodo.com/australian-biohacker-who-implanted-transit-pass-in-his-1823832689/amp
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/russian-engineer-implants-travel-card-chip-into-his-hand-to-speed-up-commute-10332331.htmlThey both implanted chips from public transport cards. Question is - are the chips in debit/credit cards much different?
Has anyone here tried something similar?
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A bunch of us know the guy in the first article. What he did was get someone to melt away the plastic from the actual transit card, carefully coat the exposed chip like a flexNT, then effectively implant a flexNT. So the original chip wasn't cloned, the original chip was literally extracted then implanted.
This is very doable for other similar cards, but it really depends on the specific card and technologies it contains. Transit cards are probably much simpler than payment cards.
I expect that many debit/credit cards have more going on, and that all that might not fit inside a flexNT. And contactless payments with a smart phone are definitely more complicated- I believe your phone is actually reading a payment request over NFC then deciding how to respond (it's been a while since I read about the tech so might be mistaken, there).
