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RSA Creating RFID Blocker Tag
burgburgburg writes "RSA is introducing a new RFID cloaking system to guard secret data. The RSA Blocker Tag technology uses a jamming system designed to confuse RFID readers and prevent those devices from tracking data on individuals or goods outside certain boundaries. At its security conference, RSA demonstrated the blocking technology in a pharmacy setting. The pharmacist provides your prescription in a special bag with the Blocker tags. When the drugs are in the bag, RFID readers are blocked. Take them out, they're readable. The tags work by emitting radio frequencies that fool RFID readers into thinking they're receiving unwanted data, causing them to shun data from that source. RSA promises that this new technology will not interfere with the normal operation of RFID systems or allow hackers to use security technology to bypass theft-control systems or launch denial-of-service attacks." Maybe it's just me, but this seems to not address any of the important RFID issues at all.
Why not just pull out the RFID?
What I want is to be able to disable the damm tags on anything I've already purchased and taken home!
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
The same thing that keeps them from doing it now (hint: it's not RFID).
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Essentially, the blocker tag system works by tricking readers that all the possible RFID tags are present at a given time. Because RFID readers can communicate with only one tag at a time, when multiple tags reply to a single query, the reader detects a collision.
When that happens, the reader tries to communicate with each tag individually, asking each for its next bit, which identifies the portion of a binary tree the tag resides on. However, when queried in the presence of a blocker tag, the blocker tag also responds, but with a "0" and a "1" bit, confusing the reader and preventing it from getting valid responses.
So couldn't you just always have a blocker tag with you at all times? Say you build one of these into your watch, for instance. Wouldn't that make a store's entire RFID system useless for the items you're carrying?
Also, blocker tags in bags don't do anything to protect your privacy once you take the item out of the bag; so if the RFID tag is on clothing, it would still be active while you're wearing it, but not while you're walking out of the store with it. Something about that definitely doesn't seem right.
The most important things that keeps the vast majority of shoppers from stealing DVDs, or anything else for that matter, are honesty and morals.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"Combine that with RFIDs scanned as they leave the store, returning to the car, and I think we will have an incredible insight into the nature of those people's purchases."
You think that's bad? Imagine a bomb which explodes when it detects the RFID tag in an American passport nearby.
RFIDs arent meant to solely deter shoplifting. Hell, you can rip the security tags off.
They're more about inventory and process control. Store managers want to be able to walk down the aisle with their RFID-scanning laptop and instantly know how many of each item are there. Or, misplaced items can shout "hey, I'm on the wrong shelf!"
Or honest shoppers can take their stuff up to the self-checkout area, and the screen shows you whats in your bag and you sign off on it, rather than having to scan and rebag everything.
And, of course, the paranoid will tell you its so the CIA can scan you from a plain white van and know what kind of deoderant you use.
Shoplifters and thieves will always find a way around the system, so it doesn't matter.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Conceivably, RFID tags could be constantly tracked in store and raise a red flag to security if they disappear.
Not sure if that would do any good. Someone goes into a store and grabs something with an RFID, places it in their foil lined hidden inner pocket in their jacket, and walks out. When the item goes off the RFID master radar image, it maybe sets off an alert, so then someone has to physically walk to the shelf to see what happened. By then, the thief is long gone. Plus, they aren't exactly super high-power devices, I'm sure they occasionally don't hear the query or respond back in time, so you'd get lots of false alarms.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"