Love, Hackers, and Robots: A Reflection of My First Year in the Biohacking Community

Karen Ng, a physical security pentester and lead for the physical security village, uses this talk to walk through her first year as a biohacker. She starts by defining biohacking for the purposes of the talk as intentional body augmentation and self-experimentation, separate from the supplement-focused meaning that dominates search results. She then explains her decision to get an RFID and NFC implant in a small glass capsule, placed with a large needle by an experienced implanter, and how she uses it to open her apartment door and share contact details.

The middle of the talk moves to the community around these implants. Karen describes the Dangerous Things forums, where members post project ideas, share X-ray images, and help one another with designs such as glow-in-the-dark ink, an under-skin display, and magnet implants that let wearers sense electromagnetic fields. She also covers misinformation that circulates about implants, including claims about mind control and tracking, and explains why RFID tags cannot give location and only read at very short range.

She closes with practical points: the implant is not FDA approved, the capsule costs roughly a hundred dollars plus installation, healing takes about two weeks, and capsule-style implants are relatively easy to remove. Her main takeaway is that the community is welcoming to newcomers, and that anyone curious should research carefully and talk with experienced members before getting implanted.