First post here, so bear with me if I ramble on. I tried to search using the terms “PBC,” “Tastic,” and “Theft,” but was unable to find a forum post relevant to my concern.
While viewing some RFID hacking videos, only intended to learn what people could use against my future implants (ordered both the XNT and XEM), I found one that I’ve seen recently in the news:
Can anyone elaborate on this reading the XNT or XEM from 3 feet away? I know that it would be centimeters if I’m using my phone or Samsung NFC door lock, but what about that PBC? Someone pulling my unique ID (if that’s all I have on it at the time) which I use for a bedroom door lock or a car lock does not worry me as much as if I had links and other info on my implants. Unless they are a stalker, they would not know my car or that my door uses NFC/RFID and that I did not re-Write a new unique ID.
My first thought is no one cares about your implants to go through this trouble. lol.
But your questions are valid. Range with a phone on an xNT is 1-1.5cm at best (with proper positioning and orientation). The antenna in the reader and the card both have similar designs which allow them to couple well. Tags have cylindrical antennas which don’t couple great to flat antennas. While there may be an increase in read range of glass tube tags as compared to phones, I wouldn’t imagine it to be very much. But that’s just an semi-educated guess.
Who wants to buy one and try it out? Amazon will let you return it.
The other thing I was thinking about, from watching more videos of white hats playing around with RFID readers on the streets is the legality of them essentially skimming for fun. Coming from the Finance world and using the term Insider Trading, Insider Trading is only punishable if it causes someone to take action from the information you provided.
So if I was to rig up a long-range RFID reader and walk around the city and coffee shops to see what information is being picked up daily by people using these, but I don’t do anything except delete the logs after, is it still an illegal activity?
I’ve used an ultra long range high power reader like this to read my 3mm EM4102 from 2005 at about 12" max… which is pretty impressive… but a 2mm tag will have even less range (http://amal.net/?p=272) … i will dig it out one day and test it.
When dealing with 13.56MHz high frequency tags, it’s even harder to get that kind of range due to skin effects, noise, and other issues.
In short, the best answer to concerns over implant security will be addressed by a line of cryptobionic products being released by VivoKey Technologies.
Thank you for the reply and information Amal, much appreciated. I had ordered both the XNT and XEM implants today, and I’m not worried about what I’ll be storing on those since I’m just going to be using them for some fun use cases, not storing any bitcoin private keys or anything.
I’ll keep my eye on the VivoKey Technologies stuff.
While you’re here, what is MClear doing with their forthcoming payments NFC Ring that NFC implants may eventually be able to do? Are they going to be their own debit card processor or merely a relay (third party) of the Unique ID and payment information when Tap To Pay is used?
McLear and co are good friends We’ve had the technology to talk to payment terminals for some time now… the problem is policy and partnership arrangements. With almost anything you want to do at scale, people are always a bigger hurdle than technology.
