Types of Cards / Card Readers

How can I tell what type of card my work uses? I would like to clone my access card onto my implant. I have an xNTi. Is there a walk-through or tutorial that someone can link me to?

Thanks!

The way I ended up going about it was googling any random card numbers the manufacturer printed on the card and found out it was an HID card. If this is a standard proximity access card, chances are it’s an HID too, but you want to be sure and that it takes a bit of detective work.

You could ask your work what system they use, or you could buy a card reader (to read your xNT tag) and see if it reads your key card. Alternatively, because there are only a few frequencies it could be, if you don’t feel like asking, you could invest in several different readers and see which one works for you, but since that involves money, I wouldn’t recommend that option unless you plan on getting more implants.

Just a side note, if you are using HID then you will need this implant (https://dangerousthings.com/shop/xemi/). However, I would make sure which frequency / type of card you are using before you do anything…

2 Likes

One thing to note, you cannot change the UID of the xNT, that is read only… so cloning a card or badge to the xNT is not possible. It is possible however to have the UID from your xNT added to most security and access control systems.

1 Like

I purchased the xNTi because it was more expensive ($99) than the xEMi ($57). Although it it did not state “Compatible with EM41xx and HID ProxCard II systems” in the list of features, I thought that it would still work for cloning. Should a card reader be able to read my tag? I assume that the reader would try to read it, then give a negative response, like when an expired card is scanned. I can read it using my phone, however, when I place it near a reader, nothing happens. I will purchase the xEMi and put it in my other hand. It’s more convenient in that hand anyway.

Ah, no the xNT is based on the NTAG216 chip which is a 13.56MHz ISO14443A tag that is NFC compliant. The xEM is a 125kHz tag, so a reader designed to read EM or HID cards won’t read the xNT. They are two completely different types of passive RFID systems. Check the FAQ for some more info on each type.

1 Like

I’ve had no luck with googling the card number and variations thereof. The card is labeled “©HID iClass GY”

Also, the xEM Cloner is out of stock and we are advised to not use it, because of a risk of corrupting your tag. Is there an alternative available?

The problem with the cloner is actually a problem with the ATA5577 chip… it does not support tear protection, which is a way of ensuring the data you want to write to a memory block or blocks is not “torn” half way through a write operation. Just like if your computer is busy writing data to the hard drive in your computer and the power goes out mid-way through, you will have a corrupt file… if data is being written to the ATA5577 chip and the magnetic coupling is not good enough, the write operation may require more power than is available and you will get a torn write, corrupting the data. If the data being written is the ID number data, then your tag will not be readable by an HID or EM reader, however you should still be able to attempt a re-write and make it work. If, however, the corruption occurred during the configuration of the ATA5577’s analog operation, then the tag might not be able to properly communicate anymore because it’s analog operation (the way the chip communicates over the magnetic coupling) could now be “out of spec” to the point that even a cloner can’t talk to it anymore.

Because of this, any cloner could cause the same issue at any time. The best way to ensure it won’t happen is to use a device that has a well designed antenna that can couple really well with the cylindrical antenna in the xEM. So far we have not found anything that is guaranteed to work well, so we are not offering a cloner at this time. Others have tried using the Proxmark with some success, so if you have the money, it might be a good idea to use that.

1 Like

I’ve posted an update about this specific problem with the xEM here; https://forum.dangerousthings.com/t/quirks-of-the-t5577-cloning-tags-to-the-xem

1 Like