
A Swedish rail line now scans microchip implants in addition to tickets - Erwin
http://nordic.businessinsider.com/swedish-rail-company-scans-microchip-tickets-17-6?r=US&IR=T
======
petters
> For those brave enough to get an implant inserted into their hand, however,
> the time they save not standing in ticketing lines may be worth it.

There aren't really any ticketing line problems in Sweden. Anyone can buy
their tickets online and have them delivered to their phones.

------
asjo
> SJ, a state-owned rail line launched in 2000

According to SJ's website the company was founded in 1856.

It would have been strange if Sweden only had railways since 2000.

· [https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-sj.html](https://www.sj.se/en/about/about-
sj.html)

~~~
stapled_socks
Sort of. It was founded in 1856 as a government agency. In 2001 it was turned
into a company with 100% of the shares owned by the government.

Additionally, it's not a "rail line". It's the largest train operator in
Sweden.

~~~
tzakrajs
Rail line is like airline but for trains, perhaps?

------
bobwaycott
Microchip implants are one of those things that invokes a visceral and
immediate rejection and fear from the conservative, apocalypse-believing
American Christians I’ve known in my life. It’s considered to be the fabled
mark of the beast that biblical literalists will avoid at all costs. Some I
know also staunchly avoid RFID chips in cards and other objects they carry on
themselves (though, notably, not smartphones).

As a non-believer, I’ve always felt torn between wanting to poke fun at such a
funny (to me) belief, and encouraging the drive to resist such implants
because they offer far too much ability to be creatively abused by entities
with—or seeking—power. When our political leaders cannot avoid helping
themselves to all sorts of data and dubious practices to gerrymander
districts, subvert democratic participation, target misleading messaging for
power gains, and actively perpetuate starving the republic of a well-informed
and reasonable polity, the ability to more efficiently and specifically target
individuals for any purpose seems worth resisting, whatever the underlying
reasoning may be.

~~~
an_account
I can always put down my phone or stop using credit cards. It's a lot more
difficult to take out a microchip. But as long as it's not de facto required I
guess it's fine.

It my belief that you should be allowed to walk around within America (or your
country) without any form of identification.

------
kpil
Implanted rfid chips must be the most stupid idea so far.

It does not really solve any actual important problems, unless you are a cat,
and introduce health risks and security risks instead.

~~~
lrvick
In the past I would lose my keys on a painfully frequent basis, lock them in
my vehicle, etc.

Similarly master offline backups of mine have been lost, stolen, or simply not
available to me when I needed them most.

A few years ago I had two NFC tags implanted. I use them to open/start all my
vehicles, unlock my front door and office doors, as well as store encrypted
backup seeds for my cryptocurrency wallets and other private keys. They even
allow me to use a vending machine at my favorite hackerspace.

I can lose my keyring and my wallet and have my home burn down and I still
maintain access to all of my remaining physical and digital property.

Over the past few years I have not had to keep up with metal keys, and it has
been a pretty great life upgrade.

I still use HSMs day to day for transaction signing, binary signing, password
management, ssh, etc. to keep from exposing secret keys. I will be replacing
these cases soon with a Vivokey which offers an implantable NFC powered secure
element.

Implantable RFID tech is solving a lot of problems for me.

~~~
tribby
passwords are bad, but I like that someone needs to beat a password out of me
and can't just scan or rip out my implant.

neither scenario is part of my threat model, so I get that my objection isn't
practical/rational. but I'd prefer my important passwords stay in my head, and
not my body.

I'd also be concerned about what I could be compelled to do with such a chip
at a border crossing.

privacy as a moral imperative doesn't make my life any easier (I still lose my
keys all the time), but I'm not quite ready to get chipped, either.

~~~
fpoling
According various articles about methods Soviet and Russian special forces has
been using to extract information from the heads of their victims only people
with no feeling of pain can withstand it. The claim is that using a metal file
against teeth works in 99% of cases.

~~~
imtringued
If you value your unharmed body more than the password you still have the
option to reveal it. With an implant your body will always be harmed against
your will.

~~~
lrvick
Why would the body need to be harmed? Any NFC scanner can read the encrypted
content, and trying to remove it forcefully is likely to damage it.

~~~
kpil
Need to get through door. Rfid tag gets cut out. The owner is likely to notice
that.

Picking a wallet will probably not harm anyone.

~~~
lrvick
At that point why would an attacker not use a crowbar?

I think we have very differnt threat profiles...

------
throwanem
Sounds creepy at first blush, but actually pretty neat. They aren't offering
implants themselves, but just adding support for the implants that a couple
thousand people in Sweden already have.

~~~
jaclaz
And this after having determined that out of the 2000 people only 200 will
actually use the thingy.

I see it as just a way (intelligent) to get talked about on newspapers.

I know that everything must start somewhere/somehow, but to implement a (I
hope) complex and secure system over a national (though of course Sweden is a
relatively small country by population) railline with an expected number of
customers of 200 sounds hardly as something making any economical sense, the
current "electronic tickets" on smartphone as similar work AFAIK just fine,
besides traditional paper ones.

------
joejerryronnie
This is what will usher in the age of transhumanism and the singularity - not
the quest for knowledge or the relentless march of technological progress but
the convenience of not waiting in line.

------
ankushnarula
While this might provide short term convenience, we lack the human ethics and
the engineering discipline for this not to be abused. And even if we addressed
these challenges, a regressive authoritarian government or an emergent
superintelligence would instantly have a fast and efficient mechanism to
dominate society.

------
samkone
Hell no.

