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The Trouble with RFID

Posted by michael on from the preaching-to-the-choir dept.

wintermute42 writes "Simson Garfinkel, author of Practical Unix & Internet Security along with Gene Spafford and Alan Schwartz, has an article in The Nation on RFID tags. They're not just for tracking stuff. They can track you too."

4 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. RFID Zapper? by flinxmeister · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So how feasible is a "zapper" that will render RFID's useless? The idea is you come home and run your new purchases throught some sort of scanner...and poof! Normal merchandise again.

    Any EE types that are familiar with what it would take to do something like this?

  2. question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happens if you collect about 1000 RFID devices
    and carry them around with you. Will the readers
    be able to read that when you pass by a scanner?

  3. I welcome my RFID tag by bunyip · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a triathlete and runner, we've been using RFID to track athletes for years. The main company doing this is Champion Chip. It's a small plastic device that you attach to your shoe or put on an ankle strap.

    The tracking lets them do severl things. First, they get accurate timing and immediate results. They can also track where you've been to make sure that people haven't cut parts off the course. Some people are too creative, a few years back a women hopped on the subway for part of the Boston marathon, but she went "too fast", they got suspicious and reviewed the surveillance cameras in the subway.

    The latest cool thing was in Ironman Hawaii. They had video cameras setup on the course and the chip strapped to your ankle let them know your location all day. Then, you could order a personalized DVD with video of your race. Pretty cool idea, though I didn't personally buy one.

    Some may see this as big brother, or a harbinger of things to come. Some of us, however, have been happily tracked by RFID for years - voluntarily! I wouldn't want this to be 7*24, without my permission.

    Alan.

  4. Re:Only a problem if you never change clothes by fireweaver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has anybody ever thought of making a RFID tag detector? Something that simply emits whatever RF it takes to trigger the tag and listen for a response. (It is not necessary to decode the response, only to note that it is present.)

    With such a device you could scan your things and locate and remove the tags.

    It shouldn't be too hard for the hardware hackers out there to come up with something like this.