Radio Frequency Identification technology, or RFID, is being
used in a number of settings from grocery stores and other retail outlets, to keeping track of
pets and cattle, to license plates and passports. But the RFID systems are a clear threat to
privacy, and recent history has shown that over-reliance on any kind of computer
technology can be a disaster when the computers replace common sense.
More recently, many people have become convinced that it won't be long until everyone
is required to accept RFID tags embedded in their skin. When the chips are implanted, they
will leave a mark, and without that mark, many people believe that it will be impossible to
buy or sell anything.
Before that day arrives, RFID systems will be used in a number of supposedly beneficial applications
so that we can see what a great tool it could be for fighting terrorism and illegal immigration and
all sorts of other problems. But remember, cattle are branded for the benefit of the farmer,
not the cows. And when government officials assure you that RFID tags can't be copied, cloned or
read by unauthorized snoops, don't believe it.
While barcodes have historically been the primary means of tracking products,
RFID systems are rapidly becoming the preferred technology for keeping tabs
on people, pets, products, and even vehicles. One reason for this is because
the read/write capability of an active RFID system enables the use of interactive
applications. Also, the tags can be read from a distance and through a variety of
substances such as snow, fog, ice, or paint, where barcodes have proved
useless.*
You may voluntarily forfeit your privacy by the use of
a supermarket discount card,
but you may not be aware of other technology working to identify who buys what, and
where it all goes. Unlike barcodes, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) chips
make it possible to identify someone or something at a considerable distance from the
reader. That could be really convenient at the grocery store, or it could be a
real problem if you don't like to be followed, probed and audited wherever you go.
Another way to sacrifice your privacy, inadvertently or not, is through the use
of OnStar,
which is like asking -- no, paying -- a benevolent Big Brother to follow you around
in case you have a wreck or get lost in a strange city. That's all perfectly okay,
but the integrity of the system depends on people doing the right thing all the time,
which (obviously) isn't always the case. If Uncle Sam (the IRS, FBI, or CIA)
wanted to follow you around, the OnStar system would be the handiest tool to use.
If you are interested in RFID issues, you may
consider Toll Road RFID Tags and license
plate scanners to be a threat to privacy, anonymity and individual liberty. Unfortunately,
the courts have ruled that there can be no expectation of privacy or anonymity on the highway.
Implanting RFID tags in U.S. passports makes
stealing personal data easier than ever. In January 2006, the Dutch security firm Riscure …
using a personal computer and a commercially available radio receiver … was able to read the digital
information of a prototype Dutch e-passport (which uses the same RFID chip and encryption scheme as the new U.S.
passports) from a distance of about 30 centimeters. With that information, Riscure cracked the
e-passport's password in roughly two hours and thus gained full access to the RFID chip's contents, including
a digital picture, fingerprint, and other personal information.
RFID passport card privacy
threat debated. A passport card set to be issued by the State Department for travel to Canada, Mexico and the
Caribbean doesn't require privacy protection, even though it uses a radio frequency identification chip which can be read
from 20 feet away, because the chip itself doesn't contain personal information, according to the director of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Selective Blocking
of RFID Tags for Consumer Privacy. The impending ubiquity of RFID tags … poses a potentially
widespread threat to consumer privacy. The simplest RFID tag will broadcast its ID serial
number — that is, its electronic product code (EPC) — to any nearby reader. The
ID number, as envisioned by the AutoID Center, is unique to a given tag. It contains
not only the traditional information contained in a printed barcode (indicating manufacturer and product
type), but also a unique serial number for that tag. Each consumer product or item of clothing will
be uniquely identified.
Did corporate
lawyers put kibosh on 'Mythbusters' RFID episode? At a recent conference — it's not
clear which one — Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage was asked why the show hasn't tackled the
technology behind the security limitations of RFID. His eyes lighting up at the chance to talk about
something that clearly was a memorable experience for him, Savage said the show had actually set out to do
an episode on the vulnerabilities of RFID but encountered some very powerful resistance.
Feds Release Pass Card details. The
government has dragged its feet in releasing the final details about its Pass Card technology, and now they
dump it into the Federal Register on the last day of the year. The government has decided to go with a
technology that is more suited to tracking inventory and can be read from up to 20 feet away.
RFID
passport card privacy threat debated. A passport card set to be issued by the State Department
for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean doesn't require privacy protection, even though it uses a radio
frequency identification chip which can be read from 20 feet away, because the chip itself doesn't contain
personal information, according to the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
NIST director William Jeffrey said that because the RFID chips will only contain a unique reference number
which points to a database entry, the passport cards don't need to be encrypted or to have other safeguards
for protecting personal information.
Report Tempers RFID Fears. Those
who understand the benefits of RFID are aware of its potential for abuse … Most seek to require retailers
to deactivate tags at the time of purchase. They are also urging manufacturers to embed tags in the
packaging instead of in the products themselves. The RFID industry and users have endorsed both
approaches.
RFID Guardian. Apparently someone
in the Netherlands has developed a prototype device which can
- Detect all RFID chips and scanners in its neighborhood;
- Block the reading of any RFID you carry;
- Spoof a given RFID.
Alarm over shopping radio
tags. Supermarkets have already brought everything under the sun under one roof, and
along the way been accused of denuding the High Street of butcher, baker and candlestick-maker. Now
they are introducing a new technology that some say threatens a fundamental invasion of our privacy.
Bill
aims to slow RFID in its tracks. Prompted by worries that developing technologies that use
radio waves to identify both physical objects and human beings are gaining popularity in big businesses
such as Wal-Mart, [New Hampshire] House and Senate members have collaborated on the language for what
could be the model for legislation of its kind in the nation.
Excellent!
EPIC's web page about RFID Systems. RFID tags come
in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Some tags are easy to spot, such as the hard plastic anti-theft
tags attached to merchandise in stores. Animal tracking tags which are implanted beneath the skin of
family pets or endangered species are no bigger than a small section of pencil lead. Even smaller tags
have been developed to be embedded within the fibers of a national currency. While barcodes have
historically been the primary means of tracking products, RFID systems are rapidly becoming the preferred
technology for keeping tabs on people, pets, products, and even vehicles.
What is RFID? RFID stands for Radio
Frequency IDentification, a technology that uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track
items at a distance. RFID "spy chips" have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and
in other products you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco and they are already being used to spy
on people.
Tracking
device on bins ensures residents chip in. Bin Brother is watching you. When Randwick City
Council began replacing its 78,000 residential garbage and recycling bins last month, a resident, Dan
Himbrechts, scratched his head. Why get rid of old ones that seemed to work perfectly well? His
suspicions grew further when he noticed a small, flat, circular object hidden under the rim of his new
bin. About the size of a 10-cent coin, it had the letters "TI-RFid" embossed on it. … [Local
officials] say they are using the data to help identify areas where people are not recycling enough.
[What happens to those people?]
China raises the red tag. RFID
tags aren't just for tracking consumer goods any more. The Chinese Communist Party is experimenting with tagging and
tracking people. Delegates to the recent Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID badge equipped with
the tiny tag, which permitted their movements around the conference to be constantly tracked and recorded.
Hacker RFID Demo Killed by Corporate Lawsuit
Threat. It's a new take on an old story. Security researcher wants to demonstrate longstanding
vulnerablities in a product. Product's owner gets mad and threatens to sue before the presentation.
Presentation gets cancelled. This go around security researchers at IO Active wanted to show security
professionals at the Black Hat conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday how easy it was to create a way to
clone building entrance cards sold by HID Corporation.
RFID and Privacy. If "live" unique RFID devices pass beyond
the point of sale and are carried out into the consumer's world, they pose a strong threat to privacy. The unique ID
in a garment or a car could be read silently by any organization and associated with an individual, allowing subsequent
re-identification by that organization (or indeed by any other organization to which the data was sold). The
organization doing the surveillance need not be the manufacturer or retailer. As readers cost as little as $20, a
hobbyist snoop or private investigator could even set one up near a doorway to record people who revisit an area.
RFID: the next serious
threat to privacy. RFID's usage is currently undergoing a revolution, being incorporated into everything from
automobile keys to product packaging to passports. With this deployment, though, have come great concerns about the
technology's effect on the privacy.
RFID Viruses and Worms. Up until now, everyone working on RFID
technology has tacitly assumed that the mere act of scanning an RFID tag cannot modify back-end software, and certainly not
in a malicious way. Unfortunately, they are wrong. In our research, we have discovered that if certain
vulnerabilities exist in the RFID software, an RFID tag can be (intentionally) infected with a virus and this virus
can infect the backend database used by the RFID software.
This article was published in January 2003, hence the reference to John Poindexter.
RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages.
The privacy threat comes when RFID tags remain active once you leave a store. That's the scenario that should
raise alarms — and currently the RFID industry seems to be giving mixed signals about whether the tags will be
disabled or left enabled by default. In an interview with News.com's Gilbert … Gillette Vice
President Dick Cantwell said that its RFID tags would be disabled at the cash register only if the consumer
chooses to "opt out" and asks for the tags to be turned off. "The protocol for the tag is that it has
built in opt-out function for the retailer, manufacturer, consumer," Cantwell said. Wal-Mart, on the
other hand, says that's not the case.
VeriChip Launches IPO.
Although the provider of human-implantable RFID chips scaled back the size of its IPO, demand for the company's
stock seemed fairly strong, with more than 2 million shares trading hands.
Update:
Human Chipping
Company Omits Salient Risks from IPO Disclosure. VeriChip Corporation, the much-hated
purveyor of the VeriChip human ID implant, is airing its dirty laundry this week. This is not
by choice, mind you, but because the Securities and Exchange Commission required the company to
disclose its "risk factors" prior to launching its initial public offering of stock (IPO)
Friday [2/9/2007].
VeriChip: The
VeriChip Personal Identification System is a small radio frequency identification
device (RFID) that is implanted into the human body. VeriChip raises the same privacy
issues as RFID tags. For an initial "chipping" fee, as well as a monthly subscription
fee, customers' arms are implanted with a glass chip about the size of a grain of rice,
containing a unique verification number.
Chip Implants
Linked to Animal Tumors. When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips
in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access
patients' medical records almost instantly. … But neither the company nor the regulators publicly
mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated
that chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
RFID is
Watching You. It looks like RFID is about to come of age. In fact, with the
level of backing that MIT's RFID program the Auto-ID Center now has, it could soon be as
ubiquitous as money. Sun Microsystems is the latest to announce its support, joining
other big brand names such as Procter and Gamble, Gillette, International Paper, Wal-Mart and
Tesco. Together this industry co-operative aims to help build wireless digital identification
tags into everything, from razor blades to magazines to pharmaceuticals to milk cartons.
Kodak's RFID Moment: The
company recently filed a patent for a digestible radio frequency identification tag, which would monitor the
ingestion of medicine, but Kodak won't divulge its commercial intentions.
W.Va. Coal Mine Tests to Locate Workers
During Emergencies. The company is using active 2.4 GHz RFID tags to pinpoint miners working
in a 3.5-mile series of tunnels.
In an Academic Study, RFID Fractal Antenna
Wins Out. Researchers at Finland's Tampere University of Technology found that a fractal UHF RFID
handheld reader antenna performed better than four traditional antenna designs.
Electronic Accountability System Uses
RF Technology. An electronic accountability system developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will
result in savings of more than $2 million per year at one federal facility alone and will ensure
100 percent accountability of employees.
RFID tracking: The article [above]
… claims (among other things) safety benefits from knowing the locations of all employees during
an emergency (of some kind that miraculously manages not to knock out any part of the tracking computers or
their sensor network, or to damage anyone's RFID).
RFID Tags: Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID) is the generic term used to describe technologies using radio waves to automatically
identify people or objects. We need to be aware of the privacy implications of this technology as its use
becomes more widespread.
Wisconsin Bans
Forced Human RFID Chipping. Civil libertarians cheered yesterday [5/30/2006] upon
news that Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed a law making it a crime to require an individual
to be implanted with a microchip. Activists and authors Katherine Albrecht and
Liz McIntyre joined the celebration, predicting this move will spell trouble for the VeriChip
Corporation, maker of the VeriChip human microchip implant.
UK considers RFID tags
for prisoners. The UK government is considering implanting prisoners with RFID tags containing
data on identity, address and criminal record. The RFID tags, about the size of two grains of rice,
would be injected under the skin and could be scanned by a reader. There are also proposals to link
the RFID tags to a larger GPS device to monitor the location of high risk prisoners.
Consumer
Watchdogs Demand Recall of Spychipped Credit Cards. Consumer watchdog group CASPIAN
is demanding a recall of millions of RFID-equipped contactless credit cards in light of serious
security flaws reported today [10/23/2006] in the New York Times. The paper reports that a
team of security researchers has found that virtually every one of these cards tested is vulnerable
to unauthorized charges and puts consumers at risk for identity theft.
Wal-Mart commits
billions to RFID. Wal-Mart plans to spend $3 billion over the next few years on
a new inventory tracking technology that uses radio frequency signals to keep tabs on merchandise,
sources familiar with the project said. The system is based on a technology known as radio
frequency identification (RFID), a new breed of computer network designed to track the location of
everyday objects such as razors and shoes by embedding them with special microchips. Wal-Mart
has enlisted its top 100 merchandise suppliers to participate in the high-profile project, which
is one of the first and largest of its kind in the retail industry.
Water vending machine uses RFID to
track bottles. The new Aquaduct system, designed by S2C Global to deliver recyclable,
five-gallon plastic bottles of water directly to the customer, targets a growing number of consumers
who are time poor, but still have concerns over unhealthy products that damage the environment.
According to the manufacturer, consumers purchase bottled water through outdoor vending machines with
a credit, debit or pre-paid aqua card.
Retailers See RFID's
Potential to Fight Shrinkage. A growing number of retailers are beginning to
see RFID as a tool not only for improved product visibility, but also for preventing product
theft — or, at least, for reducing the negative impacts of product shrinkage.
RFID Helps Car Wash
Customers Cruise Through Lines. Car-wash operator Cruz Thru Express is employing
an RFID system it designed itself to automate the way it provides services to its customers. ... After
trying both bar-coded labels and license-plate recognition, Cruz Thru Express adopted a system last
year using passive EPC Gen 2 RFID tags.
'Hardcore' crime teens to be tagged instead of
locked up. Hundreds of Scotland's most serious young offenders will be allowed to stay in their
communities with an electronic tag rather than being locked up.
Privacy Best Practices for Deployment
of RFID Technology. There are many possible applications of RFID that do not pose major privacy
concerns. But to the extent that RFID devices can be linked to personally identifiable information
("PII"), including where such devices facilitate the tracking of an individual's location, RFID raises
important privacy questions.
Old Big Brother Had
a Farm. If only Orwell could get a load of this. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is
promoting a system that would have farm-animal owners and livestock handlers attach microchips or other
ID tags to their furry and feathered charges so they could be monitored throughout their lifetimes by a
centralized computer network.
RFID Meets George
Orwell's Telescreen. British company Ubisense has paired the remote tracking power of Radio
Frequency Identification with a modern-day version of the telescreen from George Orwell's novel 1984.
Ubisense claims that it has developed a way to use RFID tags to track human beings and objects to within
12 inches of their locations and beam a real-time 3-dimensional map of it all to computer screens for
live monitoring of offices, manufacturing facilities, and even retail stores.
Orwell Today compares the world George Orwell described
in "1984" with the world we are living in today.
Britons
'could be microchipped like dogs in a decade'. Human beings may be forced to be 'microchipped'
like pet dogs, a shocking official report into the rise of the Big Brother state has warned. The
microchips — which are implanted under the skin — allow the wearer's movements to
be tracked and store personal information about them.
The hands-free way to steal a
credit card: Adam Laurie, an RFID security expert, used the Black Hat DC 2008 conference here,
to demonstrate a new Python script he's working on to read the contents of smart-chip-enabled credit cards.
As part of his presentation Wednesday [2/20/2008], Laurie asked for someone from the audience to volunteer a
smart card. Without taking the card out of the volunteer's wallet, Laurie both read and displayed its
contents on the presentation screen — the person's name, account number, and expiration clearly visible.
Demonstrations like that show the potential misuse of RFID technology in the near future.
RFID hack could crack open 2 billion smart cards. A
student at the University of Virginia has discovered a way to break through the encryption code of RFID chips used in up to
2 billion smart cards used to open doors and board public transportation systems.
RFIDIOt is an open source Python library for exploring RFID
devices, written by Adam Laurie, a freelance security consultant.
Cracked it! Three
million Britons have been issued with the new hi-tech passport, designed to frustrate terrorists and fraudsters.
So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security codes?
Doubts raised over passport security.
If you have an Australian passport issued in the last year, you may know that it contains a computer chip to
enhance security. The Government says it's the most secure Australian passport ever. But a London
computer expert has raised doubts about its operation and its vulnerability to identity fraud. Using a
new Australian passport, he's easily cracked the security protection of the new computer chip and accessed
information within it.
UK
Biometric Passports not Secure. A security expert has cracked one of the UK's RFID-equipped
passports, stealing personal data from a distance.
Medical Microchips — Risk and
Uncertainty. It is a sad reality that many federal laws result in unintended consequences for the
public which must abide by them. Such has been the fate of the much touted Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPPA), a law so cumbersome it took the Department of Health and Human Services almost
seven years to figure out how to implement it.
You
need not be paranoid to fear RFID. If this sounds paranoid, take it up
with IBM. The company filed a patent application in 2001 which contemplates using
this wireless snooping technology to track people as they roam through "shopping malls,
airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, rest rooms,
sports arenas, libraries, theaters, museums, etc."
Chips Could Track Car
Plates. A controversial plan to embed RFID chips in license plates in the United Kingdom also
may be coming to the United States, experts told UPI's Wireless World.
Malaysia to embed
car license plates with microchips to combat theft. Malaysia's government, hoping to thwart car
thieves, will embed license plates with microchips containing information about the vehicle and its owner, a
news report said Saturday [12/2/2006]. With the chips in use, officials can scan cars at roadblocks and
identify stolen vehicles, the New Straits Times reported. The "e-plate" chip system is the latest
strategy to prevent car thieves from getting away with their crimes by merely changing the plates, the
report said.
[Why would they need roadblocks? Why not scan every car at every major intersection?]
Brit License Plates Get Chipped.
The British government is preparing to test new high-tech license plates containing microchips capable of
transmitting unique vehicle identification numbers and other data to readers more than 300 feet away.
RFID-enabled
license plates to identify UK vehicles. The UK-based vehicle licence plate manufacturer, Hills
Numberplates Ltd, has chosen long-range RFID tags and readers from Identec Solutions to be embedded in licence
plates that will automatically and reliably identify vehicles in the UK.
RFID ... Powder!? Word has
it Hitachi's latest batch of RFID chips are so small, "you won't even know they're there."
Does
Implantable RFID Need More Volunteers? There hasn't been a whole lot of positive response for
the RFID chip implant business, despite the industry's clamoring for volunteers. For a while there,
VeriChip's controversial implantable RFID (developed to improve the accuracy of surgery and other applications)
dominated headlines. But according to Mobile magazine and other media, VeriChip has sunk a lot of its
own money into making these things -- but people aren't buying.
Homeland
Security May Drop RFID Plans Entirely. US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a
House committee hearing today [2/9/2007] that his department is dropping plans for RFID tags. Chertoff
said the technology isn't the solution the Department of Homeland Security needs to keep would-be terrorists
out of the United States, according to reports.
E-Passports Less Reliable Than Traditional
Passports. A document obtained by EPIC from the State Department reveals that 2004 government
tests found passports with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips that are read 27% to 43% less
successfully than the previous Machine Readable Zone technology (two lines of text printed at the bottom of
the first page of a passport).
UK RFID Passport Cracked.
Three million Britons have been issued with the new hi-tech passport, designed to frustrate terrorists and
fraudsters. So why did Steve Boggan and a friendly computer expert find it so easy to break the security
codes?
The RFID Hacking Underground:
They can steal your smartcard, lift your passport, jack your car, even clone the chip in your arm. And
you won't feel a thing.
Orwellian eyes. The
EZPass automated highway-toll system used by nine East Coast states, including Virginia, uses an RFID chip
attached to a transponder or Smart Tag on the vehicle's windshield. The chip is read by a small machine
posted at the toll booth and allows drivers to whiz past while the cost is deducted from a debit or credit
card. The RFIDs already are a part of electronic vehicle identification systems used for access to
military bases, airports, gated communities, hospitals, state parks and country clubs.
Boycott Gillette. Hidden cameras in Gillette spy
shelves take mug shots of people who pick up their products! Consumers have asked Gillette to stop
putting RFID "spy chips" in their products, but Gillette has ignored our concerns.
Department of Homeland Security Wants
Beefed up RFID to silently ID people 25 feet away.
Tagging surgical sponges
could prevent medical errors. Putting tiny tracking chips on sponges could help prevent the
objects from being left in patients accidentally after surgery, say U.S. researchers who tested the idea.
Wal-Mart is RFID tagging in
Texas. In addition to violating the call for a moratorium on RFID-tagged items in stores,
Wal-Mart has begun a consumer education campaign that CASPIAN is calling unethical. "Read the FAQs at
the Wal-Mart corporate web site and you'll find plenty of half truths," [Katherine] Albrecht says. "They
call it consumer education, but the omissions and spin make it feel more like a calculated disinformation
campaign."
Spychipped Levi's Brand Jeans
Hit the U.S.. New information confirms that Levi Strauss & Co. is violating a call for a
moratorium on item-level RFID by spychipping its clothing. What's more, the company is refusing to
disclose the location of its U.S. test.
Albertsons' assets sold to CVS, Supervalue and
investor group. The total value of the sale was about $17.4 billion in cash, stock and assumed
debt. … No word on whether the "preferred" card is going to stick around, but with that price we suspect
they are going to use every trick they can to recoup their investment.
Oakland Requires ID Chips for
Dogs. City officials have drafted an ordinance that requires dog owners to have a rice-sized
I.D. chip implanted in their pets. And those who don't comply could be hit with a fine of $100 for a second
offense and $1,000 for subsequent infractions.
Chip and PIN – Whose goods are you
paying for? The "chip and PIN" system is not automatically synchronized with the rest of the
checkout, and customers may be being charged for the wrong amount on an ongoing basis if the cashier is not
aware to check the receipts for consistency.
California Gov Terminates RFID ID
Bill. On Saturday [10/07/2006], California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 768, the
Identity Information Protection Act of 2006, which would have been the first state bill to address how RFID
technology may be used in identification documents issued by state and local governments and agencies.
Pfizer's RFID Pilot Is the Start of
Something Big. Pfizer, which began shipping RFID-tagged bottles of Viagra for U.S. distribution
last December, is looking to the future use of RFID technology throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain.
As the company approaches the one-year mark of its pilot program, McKesson, HD Smith and other wholesalers
have completed 200,000 authentications of both item- and case-level tags. Of those, only 19 tags were
found to be "dead" after leaving the facility, according to Peggy Staver, director of product integrity at
Pfizer.
Storm building over RFID-enabled
passports. As the U.S. government prepares to complete a conversion to the controversial
RFID-based electronic passports, traditional paper-only IDs are still available for a few months to those
listening to the raging debate over security and privacy concerns swirling around the electronic documents.
Here Come the Next-Generation
Passports. The U.S. State Department has begun rolling out "e-passports," new high-tech
documents that bolster border security through identity safeguards. In a dangerous world, upgrading
passports is prudent policy that serves the interests of Americans at home and abroad, but not everyone is
happy with them. E-passports employ the use of radio frequency identification, or RFID.
"Thief-proof" car key cracked. (Already?)
According to an article in The Register, the security on RFID devices used in car keys and petrol pump
payment systems has been broken (the article actually says "Researchers have discovered cryptographic
vulnerabilities in the RFID technology..."
RFID access control tokens widely open to
cloning. Too many systems to itemize here rely on the 'unique ID' of an RFID token to grant access
to a system or building, and, in the case that these tokens are based on 125kHz or 134.2kHz standard tags, many
of them may be vulnerable to relatively simple cloning attacks. … The problem is that many security system
suppliers are integrating industry standard tag readers, and promoting the 'uniqueness' of the tag ID as a
guaranteed certainty when it isn't, and thereby compromising the security of the entire system.
Microchips May Be Added To Passports.
The federal government is planning on embedding microchips in passports this summer. The RFID chips will contain
digital information printed on the passport, including a photograph of the passport user. The State Department
has asked the National Institute of Standards and Technology to test the chips to ensure that hackers cannot read information from
the chip. [REALLY?] In one lab test a powerful chip reader was able to pick up
activity on the chip but not information.
High-tech
passports are not working. The data on these chips will be readable remotely,
without the bearer knowing. And — again at America's insistence — those
data will not be encrypted, so anybody with a suitable reader, be they official, commercial,
criminal or terrorist, will be able to check a passport holder's details. … Passport
chips are deliberately designed for clandestine remote reading. The ICAO specification refers
quite openly to the idea of a "walk-through" inspection with the person concerned "possibly being unaware
of the operation".
Encrypt
E-Passports. The State Department proposes to enhance the traditional
passport by embedding in it a computer chip carrying personal information. Data
stored on the chip is likely to include the passport holder's name, date, and place of
birth, and a digitized photo. Machines would read the chip when travelers passed
through checkpoints at ports of entry and exit. … The State Department does not plan
to encrypt the data on E-Passports.
Rollout of Chip-Embedded
Passports Begins: The State Department decided to ignore the overwhelming public opposition
to the use of passports containing radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. The first
e-passports are being distributed and the nationwide rollout will occur at the end of the year. … The
new passports and the chip technology pose a serious threat to privacy and security. There remains
the possibility that personal information could be "skimmed" or stolen from a distance using a chip reader.
… The chips could also act as beacons that broadcast travelers' nationality to terrorists.
New UK biometric passports & identity
theft: It would be fairly straightforward for a courier using a standard RFID reader to scan each
passport, in its envelope, as he or she delivers it and hand the details on to an accomplice at some later
time. We know that the encryption has already been broken. So. No need to steal the passport,
no need even to open the envelope containing the passport. All the details taken and no evidence to
show it.
The
ID Chip You Don't Want in Your Passport: If you have a passport, now is the time to renew
it — even if it's not set to expire anytime soon. If you don't have a passport and think
you might need one, now is the time to get it. In many countries, including the United States, passports
will soon be equipped with RFID chips. And you don't want one of these chips in your passport.
Coalition Urges DHS to Reject
Real ID Chip Mandate. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently drafting
regulations to implement the REAL ID Act. We, the undersigned individuals and organizations,
have a wide variety of concerns about the proposed REAL ID card and system and we have urged DHS to
establish a standard that provides the greatest possible security at the most reasonable cost while
protecting individual privacy. This letter addresses one of those concerns —the use
of radio frequency identification chips (RFID) as the "machine readable" feature in the card.
MasterCard to begin national rollout of swipeless
RFID cards. After months of testing, MasterCard is preparing for a major national rollout of its
PayPass swipeless RFID credit cards, and expects to have up to 4 million of them in circulation by the end
of the year. … MasterCard and its rivals insist that the new cards are as safe as traditional credit
cards, and often point to the success of ExxonMobil's SpeedPass system as proof.
SpeedPass? Isn't that the same RFID system that has
been cracked already? Would you carry a
credit card with known vulnerabilities like that?
There has been other RFID spoofing
work that has proven that the action of reading the card makes it more insecure.
Chip
Implants: Better Care or Privacy Scare? They're here. They have
FDA approval. But are Americans ready to get chipped? Getting chipped means
having a radio frequency identification (RFID) chip implanted in your body. The
chip — about the size of a large grain of rice — lies dormant until
a special scanner is passed within six inches of the implant. Then it emits a radio
signal that beams a 16-digit number to the scanner.
RFID Chips
Are Here. Invented in 1969 and patented in 1973, but only now becoming
commercially and technologically viable, … RFID chips cost up to 50 cents, but prices
are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents each, it will be cost-efficient to put
RFID tags in almost anything that costs more than a dollar.
What IT Departments Need to Look For
When Deploying RFID: Before a company can take full advantage of RFID technology,
an IT department needs to upgrade its infrastructure on a number of levels, including ...
Auto-ID: The
worst thing that ever happened to consumer privacy. RFID employs
a numbering scheme called EPC (for "electronic product code") which can provide a
unique ID for any physical object in the world. The EPC is intended to
replace the UPC bar code used on products today. Unlike the bar code, however,
the EPC goes beyond identifying product categories — it actually assigns
a unique number to every single item that rolls off a manufacturing line. For
example, each pack of cigarettes, individual can of soda, light bulb or package of
razor blades produced would be uniquely identifiable through its own EPC number.
RFID tag privacy concerns: Here are a
few of our concerns and questions about the current media spin about Auto-ID Radio Frequency ID tags.
RFID Surveillance and Privacy: An
investigation of radio-frequency identification, surveillance and privacy issues.
RSA Keeps RFID Private. RSA
Security Inc. will unveil a finished version of its RFID "Blocker Tag" technology that prevents radio-frequency
identification tags from being read.
RFID tag blocker: Because
information stored on RFID tags can be read by anyone, they may pose privacy threats to customers when deployed
in retail environments, and have already triggered a wave of consumer outcry.
RFID zapper: Some hobbyist
has come up with what it takes for a paranoid person to obliterate any RFID tags that might be on
consumer merchandise, or where not expected or wanted.
RFID: Proceed With Caution.
Of course, tracking pallets of goods is one thing. Tracking the consumers who purchase those goods is another.
Big Brother under
the skin. It's 2005 and Big Brother is not watching you; he's under your skin. A
company is implanting Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in corpses in Mississippi to help
identify the dead in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Homeland Security Wants to Track Spychips in
Moving Cars. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is looking for beefed up RFID technology
that can read government-issued documents from up to 25 feet away, pinpoint pedestrians on street
corners, and glean the identity of people whizzing by in cars at 55 miles per hour.
Where's
RFID Going Next? The Jacksonville Suns offer RFID-chip-embedded wristbands for cashless
payments for food and drink at its minor-league ball games. It doesn't only get concession lines
moving faster; a test showed a 10% increase in per-person spending. Another minor-league baseball
team, the Nashville Sounds, deployed the system last month.
Return To
Sender: RFID Reduces Errors For Sears. The retailer is using RFID to improve
shipping accuracy and productivity at a merchandise-returns center in Atlanta.
Pinch My Ride. Ignition keys
equipped with RFID chips were supposed to put car thieves out of business. No such luck. But the
insurance companies are completely convinced that cars with RFID keys can't be stolen and the keys can't be
cloned and the locks can't be spoofed. So when your car is stolen, they assume you're to blame.
Security Flaws Revealed in RFID Enabled
Products. Students at Johns Hopkins University have discovered serious security
flaws in the RFID chips which are used to protect cars from theft and prevent fraudulent use of
Speedpass keys. The research shows that even RFID systems considered to be secure remain
vulnerable, which only highlights the need to prioritize anaylsis of privacy and security prior
to implementation of RFID technology. The potential for exploitation of the security
deficiencies serves as a warning to all industries and governments that would hastily assemble
RFID enabled systems in order to identify and/or track people as they cross borders.
Synopsis provided by EPIC.
Be sure to visit Spy Chips dot com.
Elementary school nixes
electronic IDs. Brittan Elementary School, located about 40 miles north of state capital Sacramento, is
shutting off the high-tech student-tracking system because the company supplying it backed out of the deal, the school said
Tuesday [2/15/2005]. The company, called InCom, put a kibosh on the project after some parents and a representative of
the American Civil Liberties Union aired complaints at a school board meeting last week.
In
Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye. In front of her gated apartment complex, Courtney Payne, a
9-year-old fourth grader … exits a yellow school bus. Moments later, her movement is observed by Alan Bragg, the
local police chief, standing in a windowless control room more than a mile away. Chief Bragg is not using video
surveillance. Rather, he watches an icon on a computer screen. The icon marks the spot on a map where Courtney
got off the bus, and, on a larger level, it represents the latest in the convergence of technology and student security.
How
RFID Will Help Mommy Find Johnny: Wannado City is helping parents keep better track of their kids with
radio-frequency identification chips embedded in wristbands. The $40 million Fort Lauderdale, Fla., theme park,
which opened in August, issues RFID wristbands to visitors as part of general admission. The wristbands have a
microchip from Texas Instruments Inc. that wirelessly transmits a signal to antennas in reader devices from RF Code Inc.
that are positioned throughout the 140,000-square-foot facility. The system combines passive and active RFID tags and
readers.
Mandatory Student
ID Cards Contain RFIDs. Parents in a northern California public school
district and civil liberties groups are urging a school district to terminate the
mandatory use of Radio Frequency Identification tags by students. A letter was
sent today [2/8/2005] expressing alarm at the Brittan School District's use of mandatory
ID badges that include a RFID device that tracks the students' movements. The
device transmits private information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under
one of the scanners. The ID badges also include the student's name, photo, grade, school
name, class year and the four-digit school ID number. Students are required to prominently
display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times.
Are new
passports an identity-theft risk? Privacy advocates warn data chips
can be "seen" by anyone with reader.
"Tagging"
U.S. Schoolchildren. Houston's Spring Independent School District "is equipping
28,000 students with ID badges containing computer chips that are read when the students get
on and off school buses," reported the November 17 New York Times. "The information
is fed automatically by wireless phone to the police and school administrators." Police
can monitor children from the time they leave home to their arrival on campus.
Editor's Note: If
you think those are the limits of such monitoring, that the monitoring begins when
the kid leaves the house, that the monitoring takes place only on school days, then you
are naïve indeed. If the chips can be read at the school bus stop without
the assistance of the kids, then the chips can be read anywhere in town at any time
of day. And apparently every kid in the school gets such an ID badge, whether
he or she rides the bus or not. Nobody dares to speak out against an idea like
this, because ostensibly "we're doing it for the children" (or) "it's for
their safety."
Passports go electronic with new
microchip. The US passport is about to go electronic, with a tiny microchip embedded in its
cover. Along with digitized pictures, holograms, security ink, and "ghost" photos — all
security features added since 2002 — the chip is the latest outpost in the battle to outwit
tamperers. But it's also one that worries privacy advocates. The RFID (radio frequency
identification) chip in each passport will contain the same personal data as now appear on the inside
pages — name, date of birth, place of birth, issuing office — and a digitized version
of the photo. But the 64K chip will be read remotely. And there's the rub.
RFID
Threats to Privacy and Civil Liberties: RFID tags can be embedded into/onto
objects and documents without the knowledge of the individual who obtains those items. As
radio waves travel easily and silently through fabric, plastic, and other materials, it is
possible to read RFID tags sewn into clothing or affixed to objects contained in purses,
shopping bags, suitcases, and more. [Additionally,] hidden RFID readers have already
been experimentally embedded into floor tiles, woven into carpeting and floor mats, hidden in
doorways, and seamlessly incorporated into retail shelving and counters, making it virtually
impossible for a consumer to know when or if he or she was being "scanned."
ACLU Urges
Virginia Legislators Not To Put Radio Computer Chip in Driver's Licenses. The
ACLU has urged Virginia not to become the first state in the nation to place
radio frequency identification (RFID) chips in its driver's licenses.
Proposed "Enhanced" Licenses Are Costly to
Security and Privacy. A so-called "enhanced" driver's license or identification card contains more data and
different technology than current licenses and ID cards. Citizenship designations and wireless radio frequency
identification (RFID) technology chips will be added to the cards.
More information
about The Proposed National ID Card.
"Homeland Security" may be used as excuse
for RFID. Facing increasing resistance and concerns about privacy, the United States' largest
food companies and retailers will try to win consumer approval for radio identification devices by portraying
the technology as an essential tool for keeping the nation's food supply safe from terrorists. The
companies are banding together and through an industry association are lobbying to have the Department of
Homeland Security designate radio frequency identification, or RFID, as an antiterrorism technology.
RFID Privacy
Dustup: A pro-consumer privacy group opposed to tagging products with radio
frequency identification (RFID) chips says it has made its point after discovering a security
hole in the website of the Auto-ID Center, the MIT-based organization working with companies
on industry standards for RFID and electronic product codes (EPCs).
RFID: Tracking everything,
everywhere. Supermarket cards and retail surveillance devices are merely
the opening volley of the marketers' war against consumers. If consumers fail to
oppose these practices now, our long-term prospects may look like something from
a dystopian science fiction novel.
Jamming
Tags Block RFID Scanners. RFID tags combined with access to commercial
databases could give the government great power to monitor people's interests and
activities. For example… RFID tags in shoes could create a data trail of who wearers
are and where they go.
Mediamatic RFID workshop. "RFID
and The Internet of Things" is a workshop for a maximum of 16 designers and artists who want to learn
more about RFID and its possible (cultural) effects and uses. In this workshop you'll make your own
prototype where the virtual and the real world come together by using RFID tools.
DHS border
chief: Ask me about potato chips, not RFID chips. We already know that some aging
politicians and bureaucrats are prone to less-than-coherent ramblings about the technological topics that fall
within their job descriptions. … You can imagine what goes through their minds: I really need to
show the public that I get it. The only problem is that it doesn't always work.
RFID and
Gillette: RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, a technology that
uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID
"spy chips" have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products
you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco - and they are already being used to
spy on people.
Transportation
Department will use RFID for road nannying. With government
funding [of course] and access to a large swath of radio spectrum, four RFID
developers are starting work on a new generation of products aimed at bringing
greater safety and new wireless applications to U.S. roads. Any system of
this type would require this technology to be built into new vehicles.
Editor's Note: Let me make
a prediction: This system can and will be used to determine the location and the
speed of every car on the highway. And just like air bags, you'll have to pay for
this feature in your new car, whether you want it or not. I further predict it will be
optional at first, and eventually become mandatory — in the interest of "safety",
of course.
U.N.'s Universal Postal Union Gears Up
for Large RFID Pilot. Three Middle Eastern countries — Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates — joined together in a three-month pilot earlier this year to test the
suitability of employing radio frequency identification as a tool for measuring the performance of mail
delivery services. The pilot, led by Qatar's General Postal Corp. (Q-Post) and also including Saudi
Post and Emirates Post, leveraged both passive EPC Gen 2 tags and active tags placed on
approximately 3,120 test letters that circulated among the three nations.
New
York to offer enhanced driver's license. New York drivers can begin applying today for an enhanced
driver's license that will comply with tighter travel controls adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. The state becomes the nation's second, after Washington state, to offer licenses that can be
shown at the U.S. border instead of a more expensive passport.
Farmers See 'Mark of the Beast' in
RFID Livestock Tags. A group of community farmers, some of them Amish, are challenging rules
requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are a "mark of the beast."
Michigan and federal authorities say the radio frequency identification devices (RFID) will help monitor
the travels of bovine and other livestock diseases.
Road Tolls Hacked: Hacking the FasTrak
wireless transponders. A researcher claims that toll transponders can be cloned, allowing
drivers to pass for free.
RFID Compliance Monitoring as a
Condition of Federal Supervised Release. Some states have moved to chemically castrating
certain types of sex offenders, while others have considered implementing lifetime GPS monitoring.
And, for the better part of two years, the chipping of convicted sex offenders has lingered in the minds
of concerned citizens and government officials alike, mutually frustrated with the serious inadequacies
of existing sex offender punishment and registration regimes.
Electronic Vehicle Registration Picks Up
Speed. In South Africa, at least 500,000 RFID tags are now being affixed to metal license
plates to automatically identify vehicles and verify they are properly registered. Within the next
two years, 10 million cars in that country are expected to sport electronic license plates.
RFID
to keep a watch on your reading habits in public waiting rooms. So the next time you visit your
doctor for your appointment and flip through the pages of the magazines kept in the reception room unknowingly
to kill time you might not be aware of the fact that a watch is being kept on your reading habits using RFID.
Reference material:
RFID Primer [PDF]
Physics Can Solve Your RFID Puzzle
RF Site Survey Steps
Frequency ranges for RFID-Systems
Jump to Supermarket Discount Cards
Jump to Toll Road RFID Tags
Jump to Other Privacy Issues
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