In August 2012 I hauled implant gear out to ToorCamp, the American hacker camp held August 8–12 at Hobuck Beach Resort in Neah Bay, Washington, about as far into the northwest corner of the continental US as you can drive. I'd won my ticket by answering a GeekWire tech-tune challenge, and paid it off by filing daily camp-journal dispatches for them from the field.
My contribution to the camp program was the RFID Implantation Station. The forums had buzzed about it beforehand, but on the day I sat for about half an hour with nobody showing up. Then a passer-by stopped, asked a few questions, and decided to go for it. That started the ball rolling and bystanders got in line. By the end of the day, 8 people had received EM4102 implants in the webbing between thumb and index finger, with crowds of spectators watching and everyone still smiling about it afterward. Forbes' Andy Greenberg was there too, and filmed the first volunteer of the day, a systems administrator named Andrew, getting his $30 implant.
Hak5's Darren Kitchen also came through and covered the station for the show, alongside a Hackerbot Labs photonic laser built from extracted projector laser modules, powerful enough to be seen for miles and to require FAA clearance. Afterward I published a Q&A post for the newly implanted covering the EM4102 datasheet, placement advice, and removal. The demand I saw that weekend became the direct trigger for a little online storefront I opened before the month was out. It sells, well, dangerous things. But that's the next story.