Biohacking ... The bio side of "Plugged in"

[XEMON]

Hello MCB,

I am hoping to open a discussion about biohacking.
WHat do you guys and gals think about biohacking?

I've been entertaining the idea of passive implant (RFID/NFC) for a while, anyone got personal experience?

Let's keep is civil and on topic, so let's follow another forum rule:

NO spouting religious dogma, nonsensical ideological arguments, ramblings about government mind control conspiracies, secret alien implants, etc.

[maggot]

In general I think you're much more likely to cause harm than do anything worthwhile. In other words, risk>reward.

[Jellyghost]

Here are some good biohacks:
Don't drink caffeine after 2pm
Don't eat sugar or have nicotine after 4pm
Lay in bed for 8 hours without a screen even if you don't sleep
Try Brags Amino Acids if you need to do intellectual work. It's just un-fermented soy sauce, but it really helps me.
Take some vitamins like magnesium, C, D, and Bs

What is a passive implant?

[XEMON]

A passive implant mean it doesn't have a battery.
When it receive the AC signal from the reader its internal coil/antenna generate enough power to energized a chip.
Think hotel key card you just present in front of the door without touching it.

[BrickHaus]

Ive heard stories about bio hacking your diet to the degree of food logging combined with intense journal keeping. One that comes to mind was (cant recqll his name) a guy drinking pickle juice or eating pickles before attempting to take on a creative challenge. He had noticed on multipule ocassions he logged highly productive days in his journal logs on days he ate fermented foods. So he uses that as a tool to be creative when he needs.



I wouldnt want an rfid chip in my lifetime honestly. Seems both scary, and too easy to steal someones info from walking by with a scanner.

[Spider!]

I thought for a second the term had gone specific, but you are talking about the general term?

What kind of implant are you looking at?

After six years of doctor and nutritionist advice, I finally got a response in blood work and weight loss with intermittent fasting and semi keto. That took a lot of fiddling, so I get wanting to try something for faster information.

[XEMON]

I'm looking at RFID (access control) but there is some insane medical implant done by some grinders out there.
Temp implant have been put for a while, but they make some in-ear heart rate and bp monitoring with Bluetooth com.

[XEMON]

I am more looking at it from the tech side (access control) I don't want a "smart home" but being able to open the garage without typing a code, start the vehicle without keys or not have to dig around the wallet for the hotel key every time I come back would be nice/cool (I travel a lot for work). The geek in me is strong 😅

There are some advance in the medical field, the grider's are ahead of the curve in term of monitoring and interface. Live hormone monitoring is the next step ...

[iamthelazerviking]

My wife works for a "biohacking" MLM here in Utah (doing dev stuff for their site). They have a wide variety of products with some wild claims, but do really well.

[vijil]

The potential of biohacking in the tech sense is huge.

I'd love the idea of an implant that constantly monitors your vitals as well as things like blood O2, liver function, gives early warning of cancer and other diseases, built in cardiogram, can detect dietary issues or cholesterol etc., but the odds of that happening in a way that isn't going to the cloud for someone to mess with or hack seem near zero.

That's passive, then there's the active potential. If it had a built in AED, adrenaline release, and even limited ECMO capability, that would be more than amazing and could keep you alive in some wild scenarios. Eventually you could see them having inbuilt immunotherapy too.

That's just the medical/reactive side. Obviously people would try using them to actually enhance themselves. Nerve signals move in the 300fps range. If you could intercept the signal in the brain stem and bypass it directly to, say, your hand, you could theoretically speed up your reaction times a whole lot.

Again, though, I wouldn't trust any company ever to do any of this, so there's that.

[Nish]

I have someone elses ACL does that count?

This topic is equal parts creepy and interesting for me. I've been told some kind of implant that hasn't been developed yet is likely the only thing that will fix my vision problems, but it's still athought that gives me the chills.

[stelmo]

I know someone with an implant in her hand (either RFID or NFC, I can't remember tbh) and she seems to really like it, mostly uses it to unlock doors, phone, etc.

I was super considering doing the same, but then I moved and don't really use RFID/NFC for anything these days, so I kinda forgot about it.
Still think the idea is awesome, though.

[vijil]

Wouldn't you be better off using like a ring or a wrist strap or something so you don't lose it and can leave it on in the shower? Like, what's the advantage of actually implanting an RFID tag that outweighs the obvious disadvantage of not being able to take it off? That nobody can steal it and use it? A wristband with built in fingerprint reader would solve that.

[XEMON]

You make a very good point about the wearables, they do have some great advantages, at some point it becomes the appeal of body mod (like a tattoo, but you can't see it and it's actually useful...).
The issue with any reader (finger print or otherwise) is that they need dedicated power. The magic of NFC is that the chip gets it's power from the reader. I do believe wearables are going to be our future for all consumer electronics.
Now IC is changing the game. We're starting to see work towards implantable SSD with wifi built in.

[Seajay]

I know someone with an implant in her hand (either RFID or NFC, I can't remember tbh) and she seems to really like it, mostly uses it to unlock doors, phone, etc.

I was super considering doing the same, but then I moved and don't really use RFID/NFC for anything these days, so I kinda forgot about it.
Still think the idea is awesome, though.

I remember this. Came out years ago actually back when NFC readers were all the new tech rage. I don't think the wearables were as common as now, which are everywhere. Still neat but now that you can get the same tech in a ring or on your watch, and all phones seem to have it, it's probably not as popular to do an implant.

The general application to use it on locks and things for convenience is still a neat idea. Not sure how secure it is these days, I don't think pocket scanners were available back then.

[XEMON]

Do you remember what she has?

The security of it depend of the coding of the emitter. LF stuff is easily cloned yet still wisely used in industrial application. Mifare classic is easily cracked and yet most hotels use them (and by most I mean I only have 1 or 2 hotel a year, out of 40-50 that use something else, usually magstripe which is crackable too).
Desfire ev2 have not been cracked (yet) if properly setup, but lots of people only use UID verification which is easily clonable ...
If you want your wallet on there, stick with the desfire, but for door entry you want to match the existing door system.
Are you concerned about someone scanning your chip without your knowledge/consent?

[Seajay]

Me concerned.. no. But I'm not a target. Ultimately the tech is pretty simple, and a lot of the security comes from the fact you need to be less than 10 feet or so from whatever you are using. Most of the entry scanners you need to be less than a foot.

It could be a company called "DangerousThings", they were a kickstarter company (I think) for RFID implants. Most of these kinds of implants are small cylinders either in the hand or in the wrist.

But again the security side... if you were being targeted and you had the implant in your hand, someone with a scanner just has brush past you and they will read the chip. They then take that data and do whatever they need to actually "read" it or just clone.

[Bow]

The only biohack I've ever considered is a magnet in the fingertip.

I watched some vids and articles years ago about getting a magnet implanted into your finger to help sense live lines. Apparently you could feel when subway cars were driving under the road and live wires would make your hand vibrate.

Dunno if it's still a thing but I was just thinking about it.

[XEMON]

Very much a thing, they funded the last batch in 8h ...
Keep in mind you can't go in an MRI machine with one and X-rays can be off ...

[bored383]

biohacking? I have a spinal cord stimulator putting 10khz directly into my spinal cord. controlled by a secure bluetooth remote - the hardware is in my left hip, about the size of a zippo, and it is inductively recharged. Electronic analgesics are awesome, and being a cyborg is kind of fun