With keyless ignition, it's easy to accidentally forget your key fob. It's a scenario that has apparently stymied Amie Dansby, a software engineer from Dallas, in the past. So she came up with a radical solution to never lose her keys again: implanting her Tesla Model 3 valet key right into her arm.
How'd Dansby do it? First, she dissolved the key card in a container filled with acetone to remove the chip inside. It takes about an hour for the black casing to disintegrate because the Tesla valet key is thicker than, say, a hotel room key.
Then she reached out to Amal Graafstra, founder of the Seattle RFID implant company Dangerous Things, to help her encase that chip in a biopolymer that is safe to use in the body and under the skin. RIFD stands for radio frequency identification, which allows data encoded in a tag, smart label, or card to be read via radio waves.
Finally, Dansby went to a body modification shop to have a professional piercer insert the implant into her arm through a hollow needle.
She couldn't immediately start her car after the procedure due to the swelling and fluids building up in her arm, but on Monday, Dansby said the key implant was working, and that she'd film a video shortly. We'll post that clip here when it's live.
Dansby is no stranger to biohacking, the process of implanting DIY cybernetic devices to alter the body's functionality. She has an RFID implant in her hand that lets her tap her hand to another phone, which automatically opens her personal website on a browser or unlocks her front door.
"I talked to a few doctors, they were a little weary about doing this, 'cause it's kind of a, you know, questionable thing," Dansby said in a YouTube video describing the procedure.
Dansby is less concerned about the safety of her implant—she says she's done the research—than she is about the naysayers who told her it couldn't be done.
"They say, 'oh, you can't start your car with that, it's not secure' or 'it won't work,' and it makes me want to do it more," Dansby said. "To be able to reverse engineer it, understand how it works, why it works that way."
Most of the inherent risk lies in biohacking's lack of regulation. Unlike body piercings or tattoos, which have standards in most states, implanting a magnet or an RFID chip into your arm is at-your-own-risk.
In 2004, when a company called Verichip developed its own health care microchip implant, research suggested that 90 percent of Americans were uncomfortable with that kind of tech, despite the company receiving clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
As a result, the company shuttered three years later, mostly due to studies that suggested a link between RFID transponders and cancer in lab animals.
Since then, those risks have been unfounded. One 2016 study even suggests that an RFID implant put inside a cancerous tumor could be a form of treatment.
That hasn't stopped other self-proclaimed "grinders" from experimenting. After all, our own pets are like furry little biohackers: If your cat or dog came from a shelter, there's a good chance that they have a tracking device implanted in their neck, just beneath the skin. It's only about the size of a grain of rice.
Microchipping, as the practice is called, allows shelters to scan animals when they find them. The chips call up information like the owner's name, phone number, and address. And the Humane Society, a nonprofit dedicated to animal safety, says it's safe.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, workers are volunteering to have microchips implanted into their hands to help them operate printers, unlock doors, open storage lockers, and even buy smoothies.
And last year, Josiah Zayner notoriously injected his own arm with DNA encoding from CRISPR that, in theory, could enhance his muscles (though experts say it's unlikely to work).
Source: TechCrunch
Before joining Pop Mech, Courtney was the technology reporter at her hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied English and economics. Her favorite topics include, but are not limited to: the giant squid, punk rock, and robotics. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, her black cat, and towers upon towers of books.
