Biochipping and Blockchain: dystopian or decentralized future?

Of all the table games in casinos, I've always had a preference for blackjack – especially because if you play a basic strategy that is disciplined and you count cards and the casino does not use a bunch of cards but it comes from a 6 deck shoe (more another group of rules with which I will not go into details), you can get the odds within 48.5% in favor of the player – which means that the house has its odds reduced to 1.5% on a disciplined player.

Mind you, I use the term "disciplined", not "skilled". This is because anyone can be a decent blackjack player with discipline and hard work – that's why so few people do it – over a point, it becomes a job. Unfortunately, tonight in particular I was not playing in Las Vegas, or even Reno for that matter, but instead at the gorgeous (not) "Integrated Resort" (but it's actually a casino) in Singapore – Marina Bay Sands. At the behest of some guests, I was playing at a decent table at the blackjack table, enjoying some casual joke with my guests and some steel ladies with staring eyes, when my phone was buzzing indicating that a small transaction had been placed on my credit card to buy train tickets at Paddington station in London. "Interesting," I thought, "How did I buy those tickets from nearly 7,000 miles away?" In an instant, I knew that my credit card had been compromised, but I was not going to call the credit card company I did not want to leave my seat at the blackjack table. Then came the second buzz, this time for airline tickets and judging by the amount, probably also first class air tickets. What began as an irritation now took a bit more urgently. To my dismay, I had to get away from the table, leave my seat and call the doorman to stop the transactions and cancel my credit card. Needless to say, the evening (which had begun nicely) had taken on a much more different look.

"We can put a man on the moon, but can not we protect our credit card transactions?"

For all the progress made in the security of online credit card transactions (donut dollars my card has been compromised online), the Internet has never been designed or structured for the breadth and depth of transactions to which the 39; we have submitted. We have come a long way without a doubt, but perhaps we can take things even further.

One of the biggest beef with Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, is our private key. The private keys for cryptocurrencies are rather cumbersome. Complex and in bad faith, a private key is just another big password that we have to keep in an already cluttered and password-laden life. But even in Sweden, the pretty interesting country has also been quick in taking digital payments and is also considering issuing its state-issued cryptocurrency, progress in biochipping could change all that.

No, it's not a scene outside Blade Runner and no, the government will not be able to trace you, the injection of chips into the human being is not only becoming more and more possible, but it is also becoming more and more a practical business application. Imagine never forgetting your keys, stealing your identity or forgetting your passwords again – this is the possibility of biochipping. In November, a report by MarketsandMarkets Research estimated that the global biochip market would be worth $ 17.75 billion by 2020. And the biochip is not just limited to passwords, but can be extended to keep us alive – from monitoring the heart rate, or blood sugar, to cholesterol. Virtually everything we are already doing with chips on plastic cards. But before screaming "Orwellian distopia!", There is no other reason that the inevitability of the biochip than that of being terrible in maintaining our personal and private security and private companies are not better.

1. Data breach and mismanagement of data

Not long ago, James Howell, was putting pressure on the Newport City Council in the UK to allow him to dig his private keys Bitcoin lost from a landfill, when it is estimated that the Bitcoin keys were worth more than $ 127 US. millions. Now that Howell had been reconnected with his private keys, that problem would not have arisen.

And since biochips embedded in a person's body can be placed anywhere on the body and emit extremely low power signals, it is not technically possible to "steal" your keys from you, except perhaps for the death penalty or torture.

You can not trust private companies storing petabytes of our most intimate data in huge data centers around the world to keep our data safe. Whether it is a hacking of Bank of America or Facebook, we have delivered our private data to companies for profit without even considering the implications of this surrender. Ironically, biochipping would provide a means by which we could decide which private data we disclose, for which remuneration and which parts – as opposed to delegating such decisions to platform providers to make determinations in their personal interests.

An examination of my portfolio today reminds me of an episode of Seinfeldwhen George Costanza was trying to squeeze that extra object into his painfully bloated wallet. My wallet is full of personal identification, gingival cards, discount cards, credit machines and a large number of other pieces of plastic for which there are no digital alternatives. And even where digital alternatives exist, they are packaged in a telephone, for which there are known security vulnerabilities. Then there are the keys that make me feel like a jailer, threatening to stab my most private parts whenever I wear tight pants. These keys, not much evolved from the Middle Ages, open doors, lockers and crates, as they have done for millennia. For legions of biochippers, these antiquated habits are as weak as they are futile.

But with the blockchain technology and the advent of the biochip, the prospect of regaining control over their data suddenly becomes possible. For starters, a variety of private keys (whose alphanumeric codes we do not need to put into memory) can be used to unlock selective "ports" in the interactions of our social media as well as in our financial transactions. In addition, there are countless blockchain start-ups that seek to promote remuneration models that reward users for data shared on their platforms through the issuance of their cryptocurrency. Biochipping can help to ensure that such data is available physically with users, unlike centralized servers or even blockchain.

2. A Biochipped biosphere

As the train arrives on the train from Stockholm, Sweden, watchful observers will notice a particular phenomenon. On any train, no less than one passenger will lift part of his body (typically a hand) to allow a train driver to use his NFC scanner to scan train tickets. No, it's not a scene from Blade Runner, but it could very well be. The entire national railway network of Sweden has biochip capabilities. Likewise, the 172 gyms run by Nordic Wellness, where gym members and staff can safely open secure doors and lockers and view their workout profiles on the monitors.

And near field communication devices that could fuel the proliferation of biochips are proliferating. Last June, the Car Connectivity Consortium, a grouping that includes some of the world's largest automakers, as well as Apple and Samsung, has agreed on a standard digital key system, which will allow drivers to open their car doors and start the car. engine from an app on their smartphone – which will do Went in 60 seconds much easier for a car thief to turn into a reality. Because if there ever was a good reason to hack a smartphone, a $ 60,000 machine is as good as any. And while the Consortium did not mention specific data for the car keys, it would take almost no extra effort to do so.

But biochips will not only be good for unlocking your machines, imagine presenting yourself to a doctor's appointment with all your medical records literally about you, rather than in a dusty dossier in a surgery that can be lost, destroyed or stolen – or worse, sitting on the servers of some pharmaceutical companies. From fishing to change to withdrawing cash at an ATM, there are countless applications for biochip, which can reduce the "friction" of everyday life – moments that distract our conscious thinking and the pig's memory space in our brain, which could be better used by writing that next screenplay winning awards or painting after Picasso.

And the biochipping is far from new. Back in 2004, the Food and Drug Administration approved an implantable chip in Delray Beach, Florida, which aimed to allow people to keep medical records on a chip in the upper arm. Unless the arm was fired, the device could allow a patient to be rushed into unconsciousness to the hospital without ID and the doctors would be able to immediately analyze the type of blood, medical history and even the status of organ donor.

But it is the potential to associate biochips with the blockchain that truly unlocks unlimited possibilities and a decentralized future. NFC devices such as keys can be easily hacked. A recent wave of car theft in the UK showed how thieves would scan the car signal for the NFC-enabled key and then scanned the key sign into the key bowl in the hallway near the door. input – with bayonet keys, the chances of this happening are close to zero (unless you sleep near your car).

And blockchain technology offers much more for biochips. Because even if your credit card information is embedded in your body, it does not mean that it is safe from hacking: credit card usage is still monitored by the bank and details are still stored on centralized servers . The same applies to medical records or other personal data. But at least for the blockchain, without private keys, that information is as inaccessible as possible.

3. Biochipping is much more private than you think

Biochips are inert – unlike the keys of your car in your wallet that can be broken by looking for signals when the keys are in your corridor near your car, the biochips do not constantly emit signals. Nor are they like smartphones that constantly transmit information on where they are and on activities.

But this did not stop the media from portraying any kind of biochip as an instrument of Orwellian death – to track you down or destroy you. From the Matrix to Johnny Mnemonic, the installations were depicted as instruments of subjugation and slavery from artificial intelligence or from nefarious masters. However, in reality, biochips only transmit when they are extremely close to a reader.

In some respects, the biochip is already widely accepted – only without much knowledge. Cardiac pacemakers are an example of biochip that keeps us alive and biochips in pets help us find our best friends.

But above all, unlike credit card transactions that leave breadcrumbs wherever we spend money, biochips, which spend cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, will not leave the same track. Since a biochip can be reprogrammed regularly with new public / private keys, without the hassle of storing keys or putting them in a cold wallet, our transactions could become more anonymous overnight, except perhaps when we choose to lose that anonymity .

The bottom line

It remains to be seen whether people will accept biochipping or not, the scores of dystopian landscapes painted by Hollywood do not encourage the adoption of the biochip. However, the biochip has promising applications, especially if combined with blockchain technology and could provide the fuel for a greater adoption of cryptocurrencies, as well as facilitating the privatization of transactions and the decentralization of data, in particular sensitive and personal data.

Sweden is at the forefront of the adoption of the biochip and, not surprisingly, it is also one of the countries that meditates on a push towards a public cryptocurrency. Sweden was also the hometown of Skype and Ericsson (one of the first mobile phone companies in the world) and the Swedes have consistently demonstrated their futuristic approach. If this makes its way with the rest of the world, nobody knows, but what we do know is that video calls and cell phones were not just a passing fantasy.