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Have a look at this site they say, much about Mach 3 razorz and RFID,

they claim "Gillette shelf photographs unsuspecting shoppers!" and they have some pdf files here, and here to prove that Auto-ID Center is invading your privacy. There is also a (mirror) Video here which is currently on auto-id website here.

Here is the index of all the research papers on their site. If you click the PDF links, it will ask you to log in first. The trick is to click on the "View Abstract" link and then there you click on the PDF link and voila, there you go!

I think it is evident that Sun Microsystems likes this because they see it as a way to sell servers. They appear to have put their rubber stamp on this. Of course, wasn't it McNealy who said words to the effect of privacy is dead?

Sounds more like privacy stands in the way of profit.

Try the method given yourself (searching for 'confidential') - there's all sorts of stuff there.

This PDF conversion of a PowerPoint presentation to what I presume is the board. Part the way through you'll find a group photograph, as well as things like this:

Vision ... ...
- publication of independent reports e.g. McKinsey, Accenture, PWC

Yeah, I can imagine how 'independent' those reports are going to be.

Also, MIT might be interested by this line: "MIT is not best place for what system needs after adoption".

For those of you who have trouble finding the info at cryptome...

To experience the Auto-ID Center's security holes firsthand, simply visit the web site at http://www.autoidcenter.org and type "confidential" in the site search box.

This actually works!

Color me convinced-- I sure can trust these masters of technology with embedding "green tags" in my clothing! I'm sure the info will never be abused or fall into the wrong hands...

W

For anyone who is interested in looking more at this area and has a Linux box....

For more info and then Download it here

If you want to build an RF-ID lab you need some cash to get tags and readers but this would help with the theory.

For anyone who is interested in looking more at this area and has a Linux box....

For more info and then Download it here

If you want to build an RF-ID lab you need some cash to get tags and readers but this would help with the theory.

Standards consortium's exist.

It is called EPC and is being worked on by these guys. Though I doubt it is quite as fancy as XML with the limited memory capacity on most of the cheap transponders.

In case anyone's interested in the forefront of RFID... I think MIT's Auto-ID Center would be a great place to get answers to about half of the questions I've seen in this discussion so far. Plus, they're nice folks and their server could use some exercise.

For instance:
YES, it could potentially track individual items.
NO, it's not battery powered.
YES, it will reveal all your LOX purchases to the Secret Government.

The UPC will be gone eventually, replaced by the EPC.

They will

Auto ID Center

The flip side mobile Cloak

The AutoID center is doing field trials on using the RFID tags for inventory (but not I think for automagic checkouts) & I understand that the first real big order for tags has been made by one of the major consumer products companies.

This is truly cool: They have a demo of their ePC management system, "Savant" and it runs - exclusively - in Linux. This page has the details.

Good questions.

The Auto-ID system that Alien Technology is implementing supports 96 bits of data, apparently read only. They are attempting to deploy the next generation of UPC Barcodes, something they're calling ePC. Some good information about the tech can be found here:

Introduction to Auto-ID.

The 13.56mhz spec that appears to be used for badge reading supports 2048 bits, with 64 being read-only. It's irrelevant to encrypt this data, not because the space is small (encryption does not necessarily expand the size of your data) but because you don't need to understand what you're replaying in order to replay it.

I walk next to you on a train, spit out power, sniff some bits, and spit out the bits when I'm nearby your badge reader. Poof. I win.

Again, I need to emphasize that while this use of RFID -- inventory control -- does have some creepy personal and corporate privacy issues, it's nothing at all like the situation with badges.

There is the Legitimate Counterfeit issue, though. Large US currency now contains a magnetic strip to authenticate its validity. People were talking about using that strip to detect whether or not a bill was real. Well, there's a problem -- the strip is almost invisible to the naked eye, but can be easily removed without rendering the actual bill in any way, shape, or form visibly molested. So you've got this disturbing corner case where an attacker can strip the value from a twenty, attach it to a counterfeit bill, and still have a completely legitimate looking original on his hands. So, end result has been that as far as I know nobody uses the strip as a final arbiter of whether currency is real or not.

The equivalent problem with ePC is that you can tell when a UPC has been rendered inoperable, because it's just a visual series of stripes on paper. We're good at seeing stripes -- we're *not* good, however, at seeing RF bitstreams. At the end of the day, people are buying goods, not codes -- but the issue of the two being separated can be problematic.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Reading the Auto-ID Centre website, they show a soda can with an RF tag attached. It seems the ultimate plan is to track individual items. Presumably everyday items such a clothes will be carrying RFID tags, which will be so small the consumer may not be aware of their presence? Does this leave the possibility open for tracking individuals without their knowledge? Surely a large antenna array, with high performance receivers, could track an RFID tag from much further away that its designed distance? Perhaps as far away as low earth orbit?

Reading the Auto-ID Centre website, they show a soda can with an RF tag attached. It seems the ultimate plan is to track individual items. Presumably everyday items such a clothes will be carrying RFID tags, which will be so small the consumer may not be aware of their presence? Does this leave the possibility open for tracking individuals without their knowledge? Surely a large antenna array, with high performance receivers, could track an RFID tag from much further away that its designed distance? Perhaps as far away as low earth orbit?

Now, slip a little radio transciever tag onto the thing and we're in busines...

It's already being done Autoidcenter.org