Wondering which chip I should purchase?

So the bank card isn’t going to work, but the upcoming Apex chip will be able to be used for payment.

The bus pass uses totally different technology, and isn’t going to work unless there is some wireless function to it that just isn’t obvious

The hotel card is most likely LF if it is wireless, and one that could be emulated by the NeXT most likely.

Unfortunately not so simple to tell on iOS - TagInfo and other apps can only scan tags with an NDEF data record on them, it won’t give data on any other HF tag or let you format them.

If I had to take guesses based off your photos - hotel card might be cloneable, there are good odds on Mifare Classic (in luck if you get an xM1) and Mifare Ultralight (not as much luck). It could be LF or could be something else HF, its really hard to tell, but its less likely than the two above options.

As for bus pass, probably HF, probably secure and uncloneable, and honestly at this stage it’s not worth it even if you can technically make it work. Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow set the precedent in Australia - short version is that he got fined and dragged into court because Sydney’s public transport didn’t agree that his ‘tampered’ opal card was still a valid ticket so charged him with fare evasion. He’s paid at least $1k in court costs, but they eventually dropped the fine and charges because fare evasion wasn’t his intent and he still paid for his ticket. To this day, I think they have still disabled his implanted card because of their terms of service. This is a long way to say that Australia isn’t biohacker friendly on Public Transport, nor are most places in the world, so I’d hold off till they are.

Finally, payment! Apex will do the job once a bank jumps on board. Australian banks are very slow on adopting new things (Apple Pay was incredible if you remember the stories in the news) so probably a few years for me on this side of the world, less so in other places.

That said, don’t be discouraged, NExT chips are still a lot of fun, just may not be able to do all you want to at this point in time.

Greetings from Melbourne,
Compgeek

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Ok no problem take your time
And no the hotel is actually the Wyndham in south Florida but I am Canadian, I can try and look into which technology that card is
And I probably will get the diagnostic card it seems pretty handy

What do you mean by wireless function on the bus pass?

I can look into the technology on the hotel key card for you, if it will help as it is one of the tap to unlock ones.
And in that case I’ll skip the bus pass lol, does seem not worth the trouble
And in that case the NExT seems the way to go over the xM1, unless the xM1 does something else I’m not aware of?

Well it has a chip that would need to be inserted into a reader. There are no RFID signals in that transaction, it’s a physical read. But you would know if you can use it the same way you would use Android Pay, because then that would be RFID and potentially clone-able. It doesn’t look like it though from the way the card looks.

Every Wyndham I’ve been to still uses magstripe (like you’re credit card) and not RFID. Are you sure this card has RFID capability?

If you are sure then I give it a 90% chance it’s LF and a NeXT will work.

The NExT is more ‘broadly’ useful, it can do more things. Being LF and HF works with most home use situations, LF side can clone a lot of work badges, and can have things programmed to work with phones for showing it off!

xM1 is more ‘specifically useful’ - the Mifare Classic was used in a lot of older ‘secure’ systems for higher end access control and some hotels. The reason we can clone them is because it isn’t as secure as the companies promised. Unless you need to clone a Mifare Classic, it’s not worth having this implant.

For reference, I have a NExT that I use for my car and home, an xM1 for my work badge (work used Mifare Classic) and an xEM for my gym fob (LF, same as the LF side of a NExT)

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I SHOULD have emphasized the SHOULD in that statement, but yes, and thanks for the clarification around iOS ( which I know & care very little about, unless it is Jailbroken, which makes it far more usable, if you are not bothered by the lack of Expandable memory and proprietary peripherals :apple: :poop: )

Great description

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Sorry, but NXP TagInfo on iOS will not work due to Apple’s iOS compatibility only being able to read NDEF data and UID.

The bank card is a common question. It has a lot of security to prevent cloning and theft, so it’s near impossible to hack and clone. Making payments with an implant

The hotel key card likely uses Mifare Ultralight, which the system likely reads the UID. Unfortunately, there isn’t any Dangerous Things products that can change UID. While a magic UID chip does exist in the world, it is expensive and difficult to find. But there is a possibility it uses LF, and can be cloned to a xEM or xNEXT which has LF interchangeable UID.

The bus pass also can’t be cloned. I looked online for some information about Opus, which is a transit card used in Quebec. I did some research and Opus uses Calypso system, which uses RFID cards that run applets. And again, this cannot be cloned due to it’s complexity with security.

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Yup, no stripe on the back, it was a tap to unlock the door card

Ok thank you, that was very helpful

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No it is like tap to pay, I don’t insert it anywhere, even to recharge it

So what can be cloned lol
And it seems like the NexT is good regardless?

hi - I am new to the NFC chip for implant topic - but, want to explore using it for a few scenarios. I have read thru the matrix page - but, still have a few outstanding ?s before I make a decision on which one is right for me.

Perhaps someone here is able to provide some input. Thanks in advance

As I am looking at Vivokey vs xDF2 – sounds like one of them might work for my senarios (below) - but, not 100% sure. The big question for me for Vivokey is that it seems to be tightly coupled with needing to have an account on their domain through their app and without it, Vivokey is non-functional and unusable. Am I correct ?

A few use case scenarios, I am looking to implement via NFC

  1. Public, private keys for ssh and similar token based authentication.
  2. Be able to store encrypted small size data chunks for recall and use. Access to read/write to Memory access.
  3. Store vcard or plain text info
  4. MFA support for pc, web sites, and other logins
  5. Be able to interact with rf enabled deadbolt locks
  6. Work area access doors. I realize this rfid. So may be a challenge with this.

Welcome @NixieGeek

First do you mean the Vivokey Spark 2, if so this will not suit all your use cases. The Vivokey Apex that is soon to be released will have much more functionality that should cover most if not all your use cases eventually. I will assume you are asking about the apex for the rest of this post but it is not out yet so the details will be loose as I am not “in the know” beyond teasers DT have released on the forum.

I think you are saying it is RFID not NFC? If so this is a very common misconception, so common in fact that we will usually understand what you mean. Having said that it is in everyone’s best interest to “nip it in the bud” :smiley: so here is a post with more details:

Now I will go through each of your use cases for you hopefully it helps.

If you want to just store them securely the DF2 should work fine. If you want some sort of token exchange then the apex will likely be better suited for this. Having said that the DF2 has some encrypted session features that I am not to clear about that might apply here, sorry cant give you more info.

The DF2 is perfect for this, It has 8kB of storage and can store multiple encrypted files. The apex is also perfect and without going in to details has much more storage capacity.

Both the DF2 and apex should be perfectly capable of storing a vcard or any other NDEF data for you to scan with mobile phones.

I think the apex is your best bet here as I believe this is an out of the box use case, obviously depending on the sites supported MFA methods.

This depends on the lock. Each lock supports different protocols, if you are buying the lock to fit the implant I do not think it matters which implant you get from DT.

This much like the above depends on the type of chips your work access system uses. If it is LF then the NExT or xEM or flexEM (all have a t5577 LF chip but the NExT also has a HF ntag216). We would need more info to help you out with this one. If it is LF it is likely the t5577 based implants will work but not a guarantee.

Hope that helps :smiley:

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@NiamhAstra - thank you for providing this input. A few follow up questions please. But, first, I was actually referring to Vivokey Spark 2 (sorry I was not specific in my earlier post).

it seems that Vivokey’s usability is heavily reliant on their proprietary backend webservices, the phone app and more. For me to leverage, Vivokey APEX or Spark 2, it requires me to leverage their services - Is that a fair understanding. I am not keen on “binding” myself to a proprietary service , but, perhaps there’s some freedom in the vivokey platform that supports non-vivokey apps and services to integrate. This is my biggest concern.

I duly note your comments in line to my other questions - thanks again for that.

With xDF2, and MFA, hoping there are ways people have accomplished this in a DIY manner - any thoughts ?

thanks.

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With the spark yes. It is a fully integrated system. You can still enroll the spark with locks that support it but everything else is through the app and backend services.

The apex is a smart card that will provide access to to those same services, but it also allows the loading of apps including DIY apps :heart: VivoKey is writing some apps but the whole thing leverages a platform Fidesmo that also have apps and a developer SDK etc.

I have many thoughts :sweat_smile: this is actually something I plan on doing but it would be for services I run. A DIY solution is unlikely to work with anything out of the box. Where as the apex can run something that acts like a yubikey or even emulate a Tesla keyfob etc.

Glad my ramblings helped.

@NiamhAstra - thank you. I will have to then explore Apex or xDF2. Thanks

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@anon3825968 had similar “concerns”
if you haven’t already read THIS, where Amal and others “ease” his concerns.
There is an opt out feature, but it is a one way, one time kinda thing

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