Biohacker's Opal hand implant cancelled, court fight looms

[SydneySideSteveSomewheres]

After returning from Body Hacking Con in Texas a cyborg convention the "molecular biologist, entrepreneur and futurist" found his Opal card implant non-functional. The "Opal Card" is NSW state's transport authorities fare managing service system for using the public transport network in Sydney's "metro" areas.

 

For those who do not recall Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow (that is the scientist's name) reduced the Transport NSW's Opal card's NFC chip and implanted into his hand. This plastic bio-compatible implant was manufactured explicitly by Dangerous Things a US lab, and the refabricating actions can be considered a breach of Opal's terms of service, prohibiting tampering which is, technically what reverse engineering is. He also ran in the 2016 Australian federal election in the seat of New England (against some guy called Barnaby Joyce) as a candidate for the Science Party.

 

Links

Biohacker's Opal hand implant cancelled, court fight looms site: www.smh.com.au

Rise Of The Cyborgs site: www.themusic.com.au

2016 Science Party candidate in the Australian federal election interviews site: www.huffingtonpost.com.au and www.theland.com.au

Science Party

Opal card information site: en.wikipedia.org

Dangerous Things forum

On the Forum (Company to chip employees thread)

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by SydneySideSteveSomewheres
Added the LTT forum thread name

[dizmo]

I still think implanting stuff like that into the human body is a really stupid idea.

Who the hell renames themselves that? Yet another reason I worry about the future..

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, SydneySideSteveSomewheres said:

This plastic bio-compatible implant was manufactured explicitly by Dangerous Things

That's a name that inspires confidence.

[Ryujin2003]

Apparently resistance is not futile.

[SydneySideSteveSomewheres]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's a name that inspires confidence.

The about page on their website says only says "yeah" so I guess if you are squeamish you have probably navigated to the wrong part of the web...lol

[AresKrieger]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That's a name that inspires confidence.

I think his name inspires even more Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow, like who the hell has a name like that I highly doubt his "science party" has anything to do with science he probably thinks he's a robot cat or some other retarded sjw esque "gender"

[SydneySideSteveSomewheres]

18 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I still think implanting stuff like that into the human body is a really stupid idea.

Who the hell renames themselves that? Yet another reason I worry about the future..

An interviewer saying his name with an Australian accent right at the beginning of the piece.

https://www.facebook.com/NDLNews/videos/1555178494573499/

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, SydneySideSteveSomewheres said:

An interviewer saying his name with an Australian accent right at the beginning of the piece.

https://www.facebook.com/NDLNews/videos/1555178494573499/

Oh dear.

I don't know why he thinks anyone would take him seriously as a party candidate with a name like that.

[SydneySideSteveSomewheres]

13 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Oh dear.

I don't know why he thinks anyone would take him seriously as a party candidate with a name like that.

I would donate a dollar to their campaign, if for no other reason than to support a disruption to the mainstream thought propaganda. 

[Bananasplit_00]

Makes me want to implant a magnet into my finger again... 

[dtaflorida]

1 hour ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Makes me want to implant a magnet into my finger again... 

Again?

[Bananasplit_00]

6 minutes ago, dtaflorida said:

Again?

Well I have wanted to do it a long time, never have. This brought back the thought of doing it again

[frost3y]

So I can be a starter kit Magneto.

[dtaflorida]

46 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Well I have wanted to do it a long time, never have. This brought back the thought of doing it again

Oh, I through you'd already done it before... Like why would you need two? LOL

[Bananasplit_00]

1 hour ago, dtaflorida said:

Oh, I through you'd already done it before... Like why would you need two? LOL

i really want to get one though, so damn cool but they might wreck credit cards and harddrives  

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Well I have wanted to do it a long time, never have. This brought back the thought of doing it again

good luck getting an MRI 

[mr moose]

Did he not read the terms and conditions? 

 

Unfortunately people like that give science a bad name.  And the some of the science party policies are just mad.

 

EDIT: oh, and he was never going to beat Barnaby Joyce,  BJ is universally hated as a politician but sits in a currently safe nationals seat

[Serin]

Meow's a great bloke if you bother to chat with him about anything.
And this isn't actually a Science Party issue, its just that the party supports Meow in general and his right to do stuff to himself without having his cards killed. 

Full disclosure: I'm an unpaid shill and member of the Science Party. 

[mr moose]

14 minutes ago, Serin said:

 and somewhat think that Sydney's transport system is dumb enough without them worrying about one guy with a talent for experimentation modifying cards and making things more difficult to fault find. 
 

FTFY.

[jagdtigger]

46 minutes ago, mr moose said:

FTFY.

There was no need for that until they banned the modded chip in his hand AFAIK.......

[mr moose]

24 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

There was no need for that until they banned the modded chip in his hand AFAIK.......

I'm not sure you appreciate the issues with these systems.

1. the terms of use specifically state the cards remain the property of TfNSW and must be handed back on request.  

As someone who wanted to run for parliament and is associated with a political party, he has no excuse for ignoring that, If he feels he should be able to implant a smaller Opal card then there are proper avenues to go through to make that acceptable. The least of which is deface public property without permission.

and

2. as a public figure his actions are seen as a green light to others to do the same,  when you have people trying to cut their cards down and they stop working,  at best you just have people asking for new cards claiming the old one was lost (which adds to the work TfNSW staff have to do already with a teetering system) and at worst if the altered card stops working after they have touched on,  they face fines for traveling without a valid card because there is no way the PTO can verify a card that no longer exists was active and validated for travel.

 

The fact he wants to stick it in his hand is moot. No one really cares about that.

 

EDIT: all I am saying is there are reasons the terms and conditions exist, one of them is so the system has the best chance of being properly managed and implemented not too mention it reduces the chances of people getting caught out because they "didn't know" something.

 

[jagdtigger]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The fact he wants to stick it in his hand is moot. No one really cares about that.

Have you ever forgotten anything home?

[Serin]

They actually cancelled his non-implanted card after finding his name on the registered cards system, and then months later worked out that they'd killed the wrong one and proceeded to find(the how and the time it took here is interesting) and kill the one he'd stuck in his hand.

Basically, from my perspective its the company spending a huge amount of time, money and effort on a singular issue that really means nothing at all. He was paying his fees and innovating in a space where there hasn't been innovation for well... a long time. Doom to him and his hand!
They're really not going to discourage anyone with this. In fact knowing that community it'll just spur them on more. Wouldn't be shocked to soon hear of people copying the cards onto their own implanted tech. (but surely that's against the T&C'S OH NO)
Its going to happen, and they really aren't going to be able to do anything to stop it.

EDIT: and oh yeah, they cancelled them before the court case started. Well done them.

[Serin]

8 minutes ago, mr moose said:

The least of which is deface public property without permission.

 

 

The transpo system up there isn't publicly owned? I think. Or at least the Opal system isn't.

[Bananasplit_00]

2 hours ago, RorzNZ said:

good luck getting an MRI 

I don't plan on needing one