They begin to appear everywhere. I saw mine first on my passport, then I just got my new credit card and it has one in it. Those things are nice if you consider them naively. But the fact is that they are flawed and insecure. We carry around more and more of those items that can be read at a proximity by specially crafter devices. Gosh, did they not learn already from the ingenuity of our kids?

There have been myths in science fiction about human implanted with chips. Well, our phones for a while have been providing the same features. Call me paranoid, but I just don’t like the feeling. And I also don’t like not having any choice about it. Hopefully we can still disable the credit cards RFID, craft some pockets to put our passport in it, or buy some faraday pockets.

If you pay attention, you can find or hear about phone apps called ‘electronic pickpocket apps’. This choice of a name if so relevant to the situation. Note that NFC, included in more and more phones, is a subcategory of RFID, operates in much smaller range (10 cm). But basic RFID tags can be detected beyond 100 meters with proper antennas.

We talk about the Internet of Things. Sounds sexy. But clearly, we only are one of the Things of that Internet. Without any implant, just by carrying around passport and credit cards. Or by working at a company that uses that technology for staff monitoring. I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s scary as hell.