Resources for encoding formats and a few questions about implants

I have a few questions regarding RFID and implants.

My first question is this: Are there any reliable databases or points of reference that contains information about tag formats/encoding schemes or hardware? (i.e. associates pictures of cards and reader hardware with product lines similar to Lockwiki)

I have been a long follower of DeviantOllam, and big portion of my knowledge of RFID has been gained by watching his videos. (and reading Amal’s book, of course). I also don’t feel that I’ve jumped the “final” learning curve yet, so any recommendations for where I could learn about some more advanced RFID topics would be much appreciated.

Finally, I am looking for a bit of advice regarding which tag to implant. Right now, I am leaning more towards the NFC side of things, and I currently own both the xEM and xNT but haven’t implanted either yet. My one concern is overall comparability, especially regarding the xDF2 that I am considering purchasing. Does anyone with (or without) this tag have any knowledge or wisdom about this?

I hope don’t sound too noobish! Thanks!

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This is a good resource on tags: https://tagbase.ksec.co.uk/
Hardware is essentially Proxmark3 + a few others with pros (mainly there much cheaper than a proxmark) and cons.

Plenty of advice to be given on here but it all depends on your use cases. What do you want to do with them?

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Darn! I was gonna recommend the NExT, but you have the two constituent parts separate. You really can’t go wrong with those two. Most people don’t use the full memory capacity or advanced features of the DESFire chips, but if you’re a power user with a mind for security you can’t do better than the xDF2/flexDF2 until the Apex comes down the pipe

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Good news! It sounds like you’ve been watching some great channels and reading great resources, so your background knowlege is great. You’re asking logical questions that we’ve all wondered at one point.

The final step is to jump in! A couple of quick notes to make sure you don’t brick your implants once they go in…

  • xEM - Make sure you read up on the tear protection issues people have had and the troubles with the blue cloner. There’s a reason that @DeviantOllam talks about taking a ProxMark on jobs and not those cheaper/smaller/‘easier’ things - you can do more and have less chance of bricking your tag!

  • xNT - download the Dangerous NFC app for Android, you’ll only need to do this once, it sets some lock bits on your tag to make it basically unbrickable - if you don’t do this you can accidentally set it to read only, and thats no fun!

These two tags and the xDF2 all are great at different things - if you have an xEM and an xNT, I’d install them side-by-side in one hand as a ‘basically NExT’ pair - then you don’t have to decide what one to implant and you keep plenty of space free in your other hand for future use!