1
ewpratten.com/content/blog/2019-08-10-Why-I-Carry-NFC.md
Evan Pratten 66528d6284 Revert "The great migration"
This reverts commit f184e610368cedc50f9dd557953c83f70b55f329.
2024-11-14 12:45:30 -05:00

45 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown

---
title: My weird piece of EDC
description: Reasons why I always carry NFC cards with me
date: 2019-08-10
tags:
- random
aliases:
- /blog/2019/08/10/why-i-carry-nfc
- /blog/why-i-carry-nfc
---
Im back with a quick little post about something I cary with me everywhere I go, EDC (Every-Day Carry) if you will.
## How this started
Earlier this year, my friend @hyperliskdev showed me a piece of "fake ID" he was given as a joke. After some experimentation, he noticed that, upon tapping it to his phone, he would get an error message about an un-formatted card.
After hearing of this, I opened up [NFC Tools](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakdev.nfctools.pro) on my phone and started playing. We had quite some fun with [various settings and data](#shenanigans), and I decided that I wanted a card too. I send a message to someone that I knew worked with these, and got myself 4 to play with.
## Shenanigans
Upon figuring out how to write to @hyperliskdev's card, we started out simple. We sent bits of text to eachother, and I eventually sent him a copy of my contact information, and bitcoin address. Then, came the real fun..
By setting the data type to `external link`, and the content to [this totally not suspicious URL](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ), we now had the perfect tool for derailing a lesson. An automatic [Rick Roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling) card. Upon tapping this card to a phone, the youtube app would auto-play *Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up*. After this discovery, people started asking to buy pre-configured cards from me :laughing:.
After this came even more fun ideas:
- Enabling flashlights
- Rebooting phones
- Calling phone numbers
- Sending texts
- Filling phones with fake contacts
## Practical use
I don't actually carry my cards around for messing with people but instead, use them for things like:
- Cloning hotel access cards (being in a room of 4 with only 2 cards)
- Creating login cards for school printers (so I don't have to log in manually)
- Sharing small amounts of data and links between phones
- Giving my contact info to people
Thanks to the NFC Tools app, pretty much everything is 3 taps and a swipe away. I strongly recommend picking up some cards for yourself if wou work with a large number of NFC-compatible systems.
## A/N
Occasionally, I either have nothing in the works, or am working on some very boring and technical projects, so I look to post some fun content like this. Currently the latter of the options is true, and I wanted a quick break from writing networking code.
Let me know what you think of this type of content!