Dawn of the bionic age

[humble3d]

Dawn of the bionic age

Body hackers let chips get under their skin

 

IS  PRIVACY DEAD ??

The DefCon 2017 conference drew hackers and IT people from all over the

world to discuss vulnerabilities and hacking techniques; including

biohacking.

 

One group of individuals who call themselves “grinders” are aiming to expand

the uses of technology by implanting chips into their bodies.

 

If you’re prone to forgetting your card key for the office or your computer

password, here’s a solution: Get a microchip implanted in your hand.

 

That’s what Brian McEvoy has done multiple times.

 

He’s got five implants, mostly for functional reasons but one just for fun.

 

“There’s a glow-in-the-dark implant on the back of my right hand,” said

McEvoy, a 36-year-old electrical engineer from St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

For years, owners have implanted microchips in their pets to recover them if

they go astray.

Farmers use them in cattle.

 

Now, humans are experimenting with subdermal microchips, which are the size

of a large grain of rice, to make modern life easier.

 

Ever so slowly, a trend that began in the hacker community is moving toward

the mainstream.

 

A Wisconsin firm that specializes in designing company break rooms, Three

Square Market, announced last month that it was offering implanted chips to

all its employees.

 

The chips will allow employees to “make purchases in the company’s break

room market, open doors, log in to computers, use copy machines, among other

things,” it said in a statement.

 

It can emulate every card in your wallet, so you can chuck your wallet away.

Many hackers gathered here for a recent global hacker conference, DefCon

2017, view implants as a way to interact seamlessly with a technological

world and to enhance human senses.

 

They await the day when microchips give humans the ability for echolocation,

and to see infrared and ultraviolet light, enhance the capacity to smell,

sense direction, even feel vibrations that reveal movement in the stock

market.

It is a sharp departure from the use of implants, like pacemakers and

insulin pumps, to restore function lost through impairment or ill health.

 

Tim Cannon, a software engineer who co-founded a company that sells

implantable chips, Grindhouse Wetware, said some critics believe tinkering

with the body’s capabilities is improper, even unethical.

 

“It tends to be viewed as something like hubris,” Cannon said.

 

But he doesn’t care.

 

The coming years will be “about breaking through that barrier and saying

it’s okay to want to be more than what biology offered you,” he said.

 

We need to stop pretending that we are perfect and the pinnacle of

evolution.

Dozens of hackers lined up on a recent night at the DefCon conference to

have microchips installed in the fleshy web between thumb and index finger

of their hands.

 

The biohackers call themselves “grinders,” a term taken from a comic book by

Warren Ellis.

 

The technology they implant is not approved by the Food and Drug

Administration. Most opted for a small radio frequency identification (RFID)

or a Near Field Communication (NFC) chip suitable for subdermal use.

 

“This is my train ticket,” said an Australian hacker who goes by the name

Meow-Ludo Meow-Meow, pointing to a spot on his hand where a chip containing

a rechargeable rail token was implanted.

 

He said he just swipes his hand, rather than a ticket, over a rail sensor.

 

Implantable chips will soon carry out the functions of credit cards and

keys, he said.

 

“It can emulate every card in your wallet, so you can chuck your wallet

away,” he said.

 

Some consumers fear that an implanted microchip will allow greater

government surveillance, and only advances that “are spectacular can

overcome that queasiness,” he said.

 

“If Johnny Depp puts one of these in his hand, they’ll be everywhere,” he

added.

The public is certainly not there yet.

 

A 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center found that seven in 10 Americans

were “somewhat” or “very” worried about implanting a computer chip in the

brain to improve concentration and the processing of information.

 

The more religious the respondent, the less likely they were to favor such

an implant, it found.

 

Cannon said the melding of technology and physiology can improve human

experience.

 

“We need to stop pretending that we are perfect and the pinnacle of

evolution,” he said.

 

Implanting a chip can cause discomfort.

 

“There will be some blood, some pain,” said Doug Copeland, who works with

one of the handful of companies that offer implants, Dangerous Things, based

in Seattle, as he implanted a chip in a client’s hand.

 

“A lot of people frown on this kind of thing but it’s really not anything

much different than getting a body piercing or a tattoo,” said a California

man, giving his name only as Keith.

 

Others asked if the implanted chips could allow government surveillance

(they contain no GPS, so no), or cause problems if a patient undergoes an

MRI test in a hospital (maybe not advisable).

 

Copeland said he’d been through airport checkpoints numerous times and never

been flagged: “Unless you show it to them, they don’t know it’s there.

 

And if you show it to them, they say, ‘What the hell?’”

 

Some high-profile proponents of implants include Elon Musk, the founder of

Tesla cars and SpaceX, who said last year that humans must reach greater

symbiosis with computers in order to stay relevant in a world of artificial

intelligence.

 

But the trend toward implants carries risks, warned Walter Glannon, a Yale-

trained bioethicist who teaches at the University of Calgary, Canada.

Studies have not yet determined “whether implants are safe,” he said.

 

Even if safe, a social minefield may lay ahead.

 

“They would raise ethical questions about fairness and unequal access to

devices that could give some people a competitive advantage over others.

Unlike the drugs used for cognitive enhancement, implants would not be so

accessible over the internet and would not be cheap.

 

Many people would not be able to afford them,” Glannon said.

 

“This could be an unfair advantage.”

 

Many people would not be able to afford them.

 

Dr. Walter Glannon, bioethicist

 

The threat that microchips could be hacked, possibly monkeying with people’s

cognition or perception, is also a latent threat, he added.

 

For now, though, experimenters like McEvoy see no harm in what they do.

 

The shielded tiny tube with a phosphorescent layer that he had implanted on

the back of his hand is just for fun. It works like the dial of a watch that

glows in the dark.

 

“There is no battery or switch so it is continuously bright.

 

It's possible to see in a dark room and I have shown it to people while at

bonfire parties,” McEvoy said.

 

Manufacturers say implantable chips with greater memory and more “out of the

box” functionality – such as starting a car, or measuring body functions

such as blood sugar and oxygen levels – may be in the offing soon.

 

Eventually, said Meow-Meow, an implant could save lives.

 

“It can call an ambulance for you before you have a heart attack,” he said.

 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article165308122.html