So they're going to make people into cyborgs ?
By the Kevin Warwick (aka "Captain Cyborg" ®) definition ?
US vending machine firm plans employee chip implant scheme
An American company is offering its hapless employees microchip implants as a substitute employee ID card. Three Square Market of Wisconsin, USA, which makes vending machines (for some reason the firm impenetrably describes the crisps ‘n’ drinks dispensers as “micro markets”), says it will offer implantable RFID tags to its …
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Monday 24th July 2017 15:21 GMT The Man Who Fell To Earth
So are they going to pay for the operation to have the chip removed?
So are they going to pay for the operation to have the chip removed, say, when you leave the firm? Having these things removed after you leave the firm involves surgery. They have to numb your arm, make an incision, and grab the thing. If it has migrated (they are known to sometimes move quite a bit in chipped pets.), that can involve a large incision to fish it out. Might also involve x-rays if it has migrated.
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Monday 24th July 2017 17:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So are they going to pay for the operation to have the chip removed?
It wouldn't HAVE to be removed, they could just invalidate it in the company's systems, and presumably it wouldn't be hurting anything left in your hand. Or wherever it migrates to.
If one was going to get an RFID implant (I'm not) you wouldn't want it to be 'installed' by a particular company. If they become popular for banking, starting your car, entering your house, unlocking your phone, identifying yourself at customs etc. are you supposed to stick a dozen of them in there? If a company has a problem and their DB of RFIDs is compromised they need you to add a 13th??
There would need to be some sort of standard so you could have one that can be programmed to install multiple certificates and remove compromised ones - there'd need to be an app for that, I guess!
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Monday 24th July 2017 15:03 GMT whoseyourdaddy
We've been doing this to our pets for close to two decades.
You do remember that these are encapsulated in high-grade plastic?
There was an article on ElReg about doing this for hospital patients many years back to reduce hospital mistakes. The comments section: "They'll be monitoring us from dark vans driving past our houses!"
That would be every pet owner's wet dream except the size of the device antenna makes it physically impossible. No more lost pet flyers just hasn't happened.
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Monday 24th July 2017 21:23 GMT handleoclast
Re: We've been doing this to our pets for close to two decades.
@whoseyourdaddy
You do remember that these are encapsulated in high-grade plastic?
Presumably plastic of a high enough grade not to cause problems in the typical 20-year-lifetime of an indoor cat (indoor dogs and outdoor cats can have shorter lives. Call it 25 years, since some cats manage to live that long.
So, good enough for 80 years in a human? Implant at 20, live until 100. No carcinogens, no toxic breakdown products, no allergic reactions, or anything like that. Right? Because we've proved it's safe in animals that typically live no longer than 20 years. Oh, and we tend not to do detailed autopsies on them to find out if their implant caused their demise.
Safe enough. Right?
Or maybe not. We need some test subjects. You can volunteer. By the time the experiment has concluded in 80 years, I'll be dead. And probably so will you. But your children will know if it was safe or not.
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Tuesday 25th July 2017 14:35 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: We've been doing this to our pets for close to two decades.
Call it 25 years, since some cats manage to live that long
Two of ours when I was young lived to 22 and 24. Our longest (so far) is 18..
Oh, and we tend not to do detailed autopsies on them to find out if their implant caused their demise.
Even in pets, there are cases of cysts or tumours that form around the implanted RFID tag.
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Tuesday 25th July 2017 14:32 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
That would be every pet owner's wet dream except the size of the device antenna makes it physically impossible.
Indeed. All the pets[1] at chez COCM are chipped. We ask the vets to check them when they have their regular MOT and it's quite often difficult for the vets to locate them with the hand scanners that they use. I suppose you could have bigger scanners with a significantly higher signal but I suspect you'd then run a higher risk of the EMF heating causing the pet problems.
[1] Apart from the fish (and me, obviously).I'd like to see a vet trying to get an RFID tag through the armoured skin of a pleco..
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Tuesday 25th July 2017 01:42 GMT Infernoz
Re: Just like Futurama career chips?
They could stick your hand in an EMP cavity, possibly a Microwave, to zap the chip, and won't care if your hand or more is cooked too, because extraction surgery could be a lot more expensive for them, especially with or without a 360 Degree X-Ray of the hand... Another approach could be to put magnet attractive metal in the chip and use a powerful electromagnet to find it, and hope they never get sued for damages after a medical EMR (super-conducting electromagnet) scan over the hand! Who knows, an medical EMR scan may even zap the chip.
Anyhow, it's a really risky/dumb idea, because it could cause hand irritation and injury, and be a prevalent security risk, because it may not be feasible to fully RFi screen the chip outside work!
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Monday 24th July 2017 21:07 GMT DNTP
on the Knob
Mine's a bar code on the side of the knobshaft that gives me a discount on reproductive health products. But it never scans correctly at first- always registering as "baguette, small"- until they run it over the scanner a few more times, upon which it's changed to...
(not my joke, retold from one of the funniest things Simon the BOFH ever wrote)
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Monday 24th July 2017 16:13 GMT trsanford
Re: Vending machines?
They aren't vending machines, although many operators of vending machines offer micromarkets to their larger clients. A micromarket works pretty much like the self-checkout line in a supermarket customers pick their items from those shelves and coolers, then scan them and pay at a "kiosk." I'm not sure how many patrons will want to have an NFC chip implanted in order to streamline the payment process, but then, I can't understand why so many people use Twitter, either.
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Tuesday 25th July 2017 12:25 GMT HPCJohn
Re: Vending machines?
Automats are still very popular in the Netherlands. My favourite is the 'bami' - a block of Indonesian noodles, wrapped in breadcrumbs and deep fried. Delicious and costs about 1 euro
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamischijf
Sadly no poodle-skirted girls in most automats though!
Not really for hot food, but in Switzerland if you are stuck on a Sunday with no open shops there are huge robitoc vending machines at stations in big towns.
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Monday 24th July 2017 19:51 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: This makes sense
"If you believe that linking your payment cards and employee info to a $300 non-updatable device sounds like a bright idea."
I'm wonder what's special about the one used by the company in the article that it costs $300. If it's basically a company ID "badge", then why does it cost 15-30 times more than having your dog chipped?
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Monday 24th July 2017 15:22 GMT MysteryGuy
Not a good plan?
At first I thought this must be an April fools joke... After just a moment of thought, many questions come to mind on to why this might be a bad idea:
*) So, what happens if you leave the company? If other companies do this, do they all share a single RFID chip, or do you end up with a bunch of chips?
*) How hard is this to remove?
*) Doesn't this make your location trackable? (Unless you wrap aluminium foil over your arm (or wherever), I guess).
*) Can't someone clone your RFID and pretend to be you? (Maybe getting free snacks :-) )
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Monday 24th July 2017 15:49 GMT Daedalus
Re: Not a good plan?
RFID tech has been pretty much spoof-proofed after years of use in entry cards, subway cards etc. Of course, that's really just a matter of making the expense of spoofing exceed the rewards of spoofing. A typical RFID thingy has an 8-byte hard-wired ID and some programmable memory for local stuff. Between the two you could create something that's more or less spoof-proof as defined above. Note they don't use RFID for access to bank safes (yet).
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Monday 24th July 2017 17:01 GMT Robin Bradshaw
About that Hard wired ID
I had a mooch at the Biohax Sweeden site (aparently they are assisting with the implants) and they seem to use the NTAG216 chip.
Another quick mooch on t'internet and it seems chinese magic writable UID Ntag cards are a thing now.
http://www.rfxsecure.com/product/ntag-magic/
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Tuesday 25th July 2017 00:23 GMT DCFusor
Re: Not a good plan?
@Daedalus
Ask Kevin Mitnick...You're so wrong it's not funny. He's not even a real techie, mainly a social engineer, and RFID ID cards are so trivial he does it on stage for fun to sell his services. And can do it from a distance if necessary with nothing bigger than a backpack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtzZBTjKngw
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Monday 24th July 2017 18:40 GMT Number6
Re: Not a good plan?
For a limited value thing it's probably safe, but what about when it's worth the thieves mugging a person and chopping off the RFID-equipped hand to go get something worth a lot more? I remember El Reg doing an article on a Mercedes owner who lost a finger so the thieves could activate the scanner on his expensive Merc.
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Monday 24th July 2017 19:55 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Not a good plan?
"*) Doesn't this make your location trackable? (Unless you wrap aluminium foil over your arm (or wherever), I guess)."
No more so that your standard swipe card or RFID card many people in many companies already carry.
Rather than worry about tracking around the business, I'd want to know what the cost/benefits are for a $300 implanted RFID chip compared to an ID card costing pennies. As per the article, is this tech for the sake of "cool tech" or does the employer already have some feature creep in mind?
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