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Blocker Tags to Protect Privacy From RFID Tags
geekee writes "According to an article at CNET, RSA Security is developing a 'blocker' tag that disrupts RFID tag transmissions, protecting a person's privacy from those who would abuse RFID technology. The blocker tag would be embedded in your watch, for instance. This method has an advantage over destroying the RFID tags after purchase because useful information on the tag could help consumers (e.g. laundry instructions)." According to the RSA scientist quoted in the article, privacy concerns regarding RFID have been overblown, but it's still worth being proactive when finding ways to defeat the tags.
If we let companies use these tag's, we are saying to them "We are ok with this." And of cource in the future (near or far) they will click it up a notch. Sooner or later, they will invade more of our privacy, under the guise of "targeted advertising". Weather there is much privacy lost or not is not an issure, the fact than we are allowing this to happen shows the companies our mindset. We are not going to fight back aganst these kinds of intrustions. Or are we?
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Wear the signal blocker and get stopped EVERY TIME you walk out of a store.
Good tradeoff, eh?
This is not meant to be a hostile tool," Juels said. "It balances consumer privacy and retail use in a profitable way...Tags are too useful to completely disable them."
if these tags cost only 10 cents, why can't we completely disable them? it's not like were going to reuse them or use them at all outside of warehouses and stores, there doesn't seem to be any practical use for them in the home
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RFID tags respond to a radio frequency by emitting their own transmission. Could they not be designed to self-destruct when they detect either a different frequency or a frequency with a different amplitude??
I mean, Jesus, could that be too freaking hard to achieve?
Oh that's right. If people buy RFID tags and blocker tags, that means more people are buying more stuff. And that's the greatest good of all. How silly of me.
...but the price of Freedom is eternal vigilantism.
i believe that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. that's pretty funny, though.
I have no faith in a blocking tag. Retailers will set off alarms every time you leave a store if you block their signals and readers will be made to defeat them in time. All you will get out of this evil technology is more grief, just like the phone system. The root of the problem, customer data retention and sale, is what needs to be addressed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's the 21st century, surely we can produce materials that simply stands up to washing and drying without needing special attention?
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Building an RF-sheilded cage is NOT illegal; transmitting on frequencies you have no license to transmit on is illegal. While "jamming" cell frequencies may be illegal, it would be perfectly legal for a theater to embed well-grounded copper mesh in their walls and ceiling, effectively making cell phone communication impossible. Why don't they do it? Because they would lose customers!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
So a great part of the RFID hype is over preventing theft. When they are implimented, and theft rates drop, will they drop their prices too? They (corporations) claim that theft and other losses have a large effect on prices. Do you think they will prove themselves wrong?
Along the lines of buildign a better mousetrap: How long will it take a theif to discover a way to neutralize these tags? What happens when a person walks out of a store with a cart that has 30% of the tags inactive? How will anyone know that s/he hasn't paid for everything?
1) create rfid tag
2) create blocker tag
3) profit
No, it's not legal. You're intentionally circumventing anti-theft technology. The DMCA says you're a felon if you use it.
You'll be intentionally jamming radio transmissions. The FCC won't like that either. Don't try to say "it's unlicensed spectrum", you're still intentionally blocking legal radio communications traffic. Police radar is also unlicensed spectrum, you can have your own unlicensed transmitter, just by purchasing a radar gun. Many internal security systems use radar for detection of intruders. If you get caught with a jammer for police radar, you are screwed.
RFID jamming will be prosecuted the same way.
If you really wonder about the legality, just ask yourself, who benefits from RFID? Who benefits from blocking RFID? Which one owns more law-writers? (Excuse me, vote-sellers. The laws themselves have been written by lobbyists for a very long time now.)
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
RTFA, it's for keeping people from reading the tags after you buy something, not to let you shoplift!
So if I go and buy two FRS radios and have them jam each other, do I have to sue myself? It would be another tag that generates interference only when read so people can't read the tags. It's not to prevent others from using the technology for their own uses, or to jam receivers everywhere. It's a privacy issue! Also, what would you say to wrapping RFID tags in aluminum foil? Is that legal? It serves the same purpose. (Disclaimer, don't use this idea to shoplift)
You're not blocking someone else's traffic. To continue your radar gun example... by transmitting radar signals back, you are jamming their receivers, but the signal they are trying to hear is theirs, so you are preventing them from hearing a signal they transmitted. However, jamming RFID tags means transmitting a jamming signal in response to a tag reader to make the responses from other tags in your personal space unreadable. This can't really be compared to jamming radar guns at all, since police and security system owners have a legal right to check the speed your car is moving or see if someone is breaking in, but nobody (except storeowners, this will be illegal when used to shoplift) has the legal right to read an RFID tag--there's nothing to stop them, but there's no law that says you can't return gibberish.
Many people! Not just the stores that get lower prices, but the people to whom those lower prices are (hopefully) passed on, and then can get useful information out of it. Take, for example, the classic RFID scenario: the fridge that keeps your shopping list up-to-date and warns you of ancient food, and the microwave that reads cooking instructions off of food. This is obviously helping the consumer.
Both sides, again! By making it clear that the creators of this technology and others are dealing with the privacy issue, it is less likely to get rejected by consumers. Take, again, for example, another privacy question: Can someone with an RFID tag walk by you and read the ID of medication bottles you carry, or see if a briefcase or such is a cheap imitation or if it is a good thing to steal from you? By dealing with this issue, the people who will be using these tags in stores will get a better response from consumers.
Please feel free to respond; I'm not trying for -1 Flamebait, just respectfully disagreeing.
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But I don't think the store security has any right to search you. So you can always say you are innocent and wait for the police. And it doesn't seem that the device is designed to jam anti-theft device, but to jam the spies on your body.
Of course there are risks.
1) US govt may decide blocking RFID is terrorism
2) Corporations may decide it's infridgment on their IP
Either way, blockers are banned
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Well, if they were breaking the law.
Ohhh, but how did they determine "if"? Maybe the police should be allowed to enter everyones home and listen to everyones phone calls to search for something illegal. If they happen to find something, that's another criminal behind bars.
Remember the infared detectors police thought would be great for to catch people growing drugs in their basements? Luckily, that was shot down by the Supreme Court.
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Actually, the RFID will be installed early in each good citizen's life by well meaning liberals, at which time the person will also receive his National Health Insurance ID number. Machines at all fast food outlets will scan for these numbers to determine if the citizen is allowed to eat more fast food or if he has eaten his limit for the week.
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The only way that I can see it working is if stores keep a record of all RFIDs that they have in stock, and then only charge you if the RFID matches when you walk out.
How are they planning to actually administrate that? Scan all products on the way in? So they shove a pallet full of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs though their stock door and a mondo scanner reads the RFIDs off of every box? Or do they scan a barcode or type in a code that just says what should be on the stack?
What I'm interested in is the possibility of deliveries getting screwed up and RFIDs getting entered into the wrong systems. There's the problem with buying something at store X then store Y thinking that it belongs to them, but there's a problem for the stores as well. If you want to buy something and for some reason the RFID isn't on their system, how do they sell it to you? And should you buy it, knowing that the RFID might appear on their or store Y's system at some point?
And given that the biggest theft problem that many stores (especially supermarkets) face is employee theft, do they need RFID scanners on all their doors? If stock does go missing while it's still on the system, what happens to those RFID numbers? Do they just sit in there indefinitely, or is there a plan for removing them? What happens when Joe Customer walks in wearing or carrying something that he's bought second hand from an employee or shoplifter who obtained a five finger discount?
It won't take many of these incidents to put a hell of a dent in consumer confidence over RFID, quite aside from the privacy issue of stores knowing that you're wearing a rubber g-string and fishnet stockings under your suit pants.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.