Note: This post has some icky photos in it.

In mid-February I saw a video posted on YouTube by The Modern Rogue that caught my interest. In this video, the hosts discuss RFID chips and their use in penetration testing by security experts. The video is worth watching. In it, one of the hosts has a small, rice-like microchip implanted in his hand. I had seen this done before, years ago, in a news special about bio-technology. I remember thinking at the time, that having a microchip, no matter how small, implanted in your hand would have to be so painful! And really, what use would it have anyway? Well friends, between the time that I saw that news special and the Modern Rogue video on YouTube, I had changed my perspective a bit. Needles no longer bothered me and I no longer needed a good reason to do something as inane as inject a bit of metal and glass into my hand for anything more than a party trick. I needed one of these in my body because YOLO.

I zipped over to Duck Duck Go to search for resources. They were easy to find. It turns out that there is a whole culture of bio-hackers out there who are injecting, implanting and plugging themselves into all sorts of tech. I quickly found myself at the website of, aptly named, Dangerous Things. There I found a number of different implantables, which was a little nerve wracking. I know what RFID and NFC are. But I didn’t know anything about the different protocols involved or whether or not I would need a high or low frequency chip. Hell, I’m probably using all those terms wrong right now. Fortunately, I came across a newer implant that had both a high frequency and low frequency side with the addition of a blinky LED for maximum effect. This was the one. The LED sold it. I love it when things light up. I bought it.

The implant arrived a week later in a sweet box that screamed future-tech. Inside was a sticker, a warning notice printed on pink paper about something (I wasn’t paying attention), a diagnostics tool to test things with, and the implant. Now the implant itself is a an NFC chip encased in a hardened glass capsule. Inside you’ll see a bit of copper (that’s the antenna) and the LED that blinks when this thing is read. You can see a photo of an implant at the top of this post. This is not the implant that now resides in my hand. That implant came pre-loaded into an injector (think ungodly large syringe) that had been sterilized and sealed before shipping to me.

I watched some videos on YouTube on how to inject the chip. I wouldn’t be able to do it myself because I’m a chicken. I would need to find a body piercer here in town who would be willing to do the procedure for me.

SPOILER ALERT: I didn’t. Nobody was down and I don’t really blame them.

Fortunately, Hannah is pretty into minor surgeries around our house and I knew I could count on her to watch some YouTube videos and impale me with a huge friggin needle. She’s the best.

One night, as the Coronavirus was just beginning to appear in the news, with the kids gathered around the kitchen table to see WTF their dad was up to now, Hannah stabbed my hand and I became a cyborg.

What can you do with an NFC chip in your hand?

I have to admit, I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how I would use my new powers. After watching some videos on the topic, it looked like people were using their own NFC implants for:

Unlocking their front door (smart lock required)
Starting their car (mods required)
Logging into their computer or phone
Launching a shortcut (like a macro) on their phone
Storing their vCard (your contact info)
Sending the scanner to a website

All that’s well and good, but I didn’t feel like hacking up my truck and my phone uses my face to login. So I settled on configuring my chip so that, when it is scanned, it goes to this website. Boring I know. You could do the same thing with a QR code. But a QR code doesn’t light up when scanned and it’s not as edgy, sooooo…

Since getting my implant, my chip has been scanned dozens of times – by me. Honestly, nobody is itching to scan my hand and they don’t unless I prompt them to which either weirds them out or… well, I think that’s it. I had this fantasy in mind where I would be asked for a business card and I would blow them away with my lack of business card (I really do suck at carrying them) and, instead, Uber them into the future on the back of my super-techie bio-hack. I severely overestimated how many times I am asked for a business card. But it’s still cool. I promise.

So why did you do it?

You are going to be so disappointed in me. After living with my new implant for a couple of months, I can honestly tell you that there is no good reason to do something like this unless any of the following applies to you:

You’re looking for a thrill
You like party tricks and the attention they bring
You’re looking for some geeky street cred
You’re into body modification and want to try something new
You’re wondering if you can still feel
YOLO

Other than basically all of those, I’d been playing with NFC for a while but had never really figured out what it’s killer application is (other than payments). Maybe if I had an NFC with me all the time, I would be better positioned to figure out what it is. Turns out, whether an NFC chip is on a sticker, in a card or in your hand, they all do the same thing.

No regrets.